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It\u2019s the third time in less than two years that a gunman has come uncomfortably close to Trump, renewing the central tension over how to accommodate the public-facing demands of the president\u2019s office while minimizing the risk of an attack.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s episode, in which\u00a0a man armed with guns and knives\u00a0tried to\u00a0storm the Washington hotel ballroom\u00a0where the president was set to address the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association, comes ahead of Trump\u2019s expected participation in a stretch of large, high-profile events indoors and outdoors in the months ahead. Among them, he\u2019s set to mark the nation\u2019s\u00a0250th anniversary, oversee the U.S. co-hosting the\u00a0World Cup\u00a0and lead rallies meant to galvanize\u00a0support for Republicans ahead of November\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles will hold a meeting this week with officials from the White House operations team, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security to discuss security protocol at events with the president, according to a senior White House official. The meeting will examine security steps that were successful on Saturday while \u201cexploring additional options\u201d for future events, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to confirm private discussions.<\/p>\n
Separately, a person familiar with the matter said the U.S. Secret Service was already reevaluating its security footing for the upcoming events. The agency\u2019s posture was already elevated due to the extraordinary number of threats facing Trump \u2014 including two back-to-back assassination attempts in 2024 \u2014 and the realities of recent events such as the U.S.-Iran war.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t imagine that there\u2019s any profession that is more dangerous,\u201d Trump said of the presidency Saturday night from the White House.<\/p>\n
Inside the Secret Service, agents on protective intelligence and threat assessment teams are also reexamining threats made against Trump in recent months. Copycat violence can follow high-profile attacks, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security planning.<\/p>\n
The White House and Buckingham Palace said\u00a0King Charles and Queen Camilla\u2019s state visit\u00a0Monday is going ahead as planned. Still, organizing around large-scale events deeper in the future \u2014 including the\u00a0UFC bout on the White House lawn\u00a0marking Trump\u2019s 80th birthday in June, World Cup matches and the\u00a0IndyCar race\u00a0past the White House \u2014 could get more complicated.<\/p>\n
An inherent tension in presidential protection is exposed<\/p>\n
Lawmakers, event attendees and some allies of the president saw fault in the correspondents\u2019 dinner security planning, questioning why someone like the shooter could reserve a room at the hotel to sneak in weapons around the outermost layer of security.<\/p>\n
Republican Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman emeritus of the House Homeland Security Committee, said security protocols for Trump and Vice President JD Vance may need altering.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Secret Service needs to reconsider having both the president and vice president together at something like that,\u201d McCaul told CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kari Lake, a former unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arizona and Trump\u2019s pick to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, complained about not having to show a photo ID to match her ticket to the event when entering the hotel for the correspondents\u2019 dinner. \u201cI can\u2019t believe how lax the security was,\u201d Lake wrote on X.<\/p>\n
The Secret Service is charged only with the safety of its protectees, not of the event itself, and the agency immediately celebrated its response, drawing a high-profile endorsement from Trump himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur multilayered protection works,\u201d director Sean Curran said Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose guys did a good job last night. They did a really good job,\u201d echoed Trump on Sunday in an interview with CBS News\u2019 \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garrett Graff, author of \u201cRaven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government\u2019s Secret Plan to Save Itself \u2014 While the Rest of Us Die,\u201d wrote in an analysis of the multiple layers of security around Trump during the dinner, \u201cSeems like the system basically working as designed, amid the always necessary trade-offs of security in a free society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Retired Secret Service Agent Thomas D. Quinn, who helped pioneer Secret Service counterassault teams, posted on X that \u201cthe Secret Service security plan for the WHCD worked and the assailant was stopped.\u201d He continued, \u201cAs long as we are a free people in a freedom loving Nation, the Secret Service responsibilities will continue to be immense.\u201d<\/p>\n
More security changes ahead<\/p>\n
Ronald Kessler, author of \u201cIn the President\u2019s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect,\u201d said authorities are likely to consider placing bulletproof glass around where Trump speaks outside and inside \u2014 not unlike after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt during the heat of the 2024 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n
Attendees, Kessler said, will likely be more thoroughly screened going forward \u2014 exacerbating lines at entrances that can already take hours to clear. An example of what might happen came last fall, when Trump\u00a0attended the men\u2019s final of the U.S. Open\u00a0tennis tournament and triggered massive security lines.<\/p>\n
Such events underscore the complicated security questions surrounding presidential protection in a country where citizens expect their leaders to move through public spaces, hold rallies, attend events and appear before crowds.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresidents don\u2019t like to have too much protection,\u201d Kessler said. \u201cI think, by their nature, they\u2019re very outgoing. They want to meet people. They don\u2019t want to be accused of being prisoners of the White House. And so, they\u2019ll try to get around some of these improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Presidents can have love-hate relationships with security details<\/p>\n
The Secret Service took over full-time responsibility for protecting the president during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, who came to office after an assassin killed William McKinley in 1901. Roosevelt found the constant security presence tiresome, however, and would sometimes slip away for unprotected hikes or horseback rides in Washington\u2019s Rock Creek Park, according to the White House Historical Association.<\/p>\n
Security personnel wanted President Ronald Reagan to exit the building where Saturday night\u2019s shooting occurred, the Washington Hilton, through a covered garage in 1981, Kessler said. Reagan\u2019s staff worried the optics would be bad, however, and the president was shot as he left an open-air exit, ultimately surviving.<\/p>\n
After shots were fired Saturday, Secret Service agents surrounded Trump, who appeared to slip slightly as he was whisked away. Another team moved Vance so quickly it seemed as if it might haul him out while still seated in a banquet chair.<\/p>\n
Trump told \u201c60 Minutes\u201d on Sunday that he \u201cwasn\u2019t making it easy\u201d for the Secret Service by being \u201ca little bit me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to see what was happening,\u201d the president said Sunday. \u201cAnd by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem \u2014 different kind of a problem \u2014 bad one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said: \u2018Wait a minute, wait a minute. Lemme see. Wait a minute,\u2019\u201d Trump said. He said he started walking out but: \u201cThey said, \u2018Please go down. Please go down on the floor.\u2032 So I went down, and the first lady went down also.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump repeatedly praised the Secret Service and his detail, and he has pushed the correspondents\u2019 association to reschedule the dinner. He said it would have \u201ceven more security.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they\u2019ll have bigger perimeter security,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Mike Balsamo in New York contributed.<\/p>\n
#White #House #evaluate #event #security #protocols #shooting #attempt #Trump<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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