Former President Donald Trump has survived two assassination attempts in about two months, raising a variety of concerns, chief among them what the U.S. Secret Service could and should be doing to keep the Republican presidential nominee safe.
Authorities have captured the would-be assassin, who was fired upon and arrested by Secret Service agents Sunday afternoon after setting up with an assault-style rifle and scope at a golf course where Trump was playing.
“It sounds like you had a secret service agent that was leapfrogging and going, you know, one hole ahead of the President, so he spotted it,” Chris Ragone, owner of Virginia-based Executive Security Concepts, told The Center Square “So that was an, you know, an excellent job on his part.
“But you wonder how this guy was able to get there, and he was there for 12 hours…” Ragone added. “There must have been some shrubbery or something between that fence and the road to where he could hide and no one could see him.”
Trump gets less protection, despite the summer assassination attempt, than President Joe Biden.
Lora Ries, former acting deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, told The Center Square that both assassination attempts were failures by the Secret Service.
“The Secret Service should operate based on threat, not old rules of a protectee’s status as a former president,” Ries, who is now at the Heritage Foundation, told The Center Square. “Trump is perhaps the most threatened person in the world currently, with domestic and foreign threats, including an Iranian assassination plot to avenge the killing of Iranian General Soleimani during Trump’s presidency. His protection should include thorough advance team assets, drones, dogs, significant perimeters and thorough perimeter protection, including counter snipers.”
