The acting director of the U.S. Secret Service said the agency must fundamentally overhaul the way it protects presidents – a remarkable admission after the suspected second attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life in two months.
“After leaving Butler, I ordered a paradigm shift,” Ronald Rowe said at a press conference on Monday, referring to the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. “The Secret Service’s protection methods work and they are solid, as we saw yesterday.”
However, he added: “We need to move away from a reactive model and towards a preparedness model.”
Rowe did not elaborate on his vision for the nearly 160-year-old agency. His comments come at a crucial time for the Secret Service.
The Secret Service has been under intense scrutiny since a gunman managed to fire multiple shots at Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, hitting him in the ear. It was the Secret Service’s biggest security failure since the shooting of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. One person was killed and two others were injured at the July 13 rally.
Sunday’s incident, which the FBI called an apparent assassination attempt on Trump, occurred at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, after a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle sticking out of the bushes outside the golf course, officials said. The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, had been in the area for nearly 12 hours, according to a criminal complaint.
Routh was taken into custody later Sunday and charged with federal weapons offenses.
The Trump campaign asked the Secret Service for increased security measures on Monday morning, two sources familiar with the request told NBC News. It is not clear how the Secret Service responded to that request.
When asked about it, Rowe evaded the question.
“I have spoken with the former president,” he said. “The president is aware that he has the highest level of protection that the Secret Service offers.”
“We always evaluate based on risk,” he added. “If we need to further improve performance, we will do so.”
The Secret Service has dramatically increased Trump’s security measures since the July 13 shooting, two sources familiar with the agency’s response say. The enhanced security measures include more personnel and more technology.
One source said the Secret Service is doing everything it can to protect Trump while also preparing for the United Nations General Assembly next week and protecting President Joe Biden, Senator JD Vance, Vice President Kamala Harris, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and others. That source said additional resources would require additional funding from Congress.
Rowe admitted this at the press conference.
“The Secret Service operates under the paradox that we don’t make mistakes, but we’ve been doing more with less for decades,” he said. “And that goes back many, many decades. What I can tell you is that we have an urgent need now.”
Protecting the former president on an outdoor venue like a golf course is particularly challenging, especially when Trump spontaneously decides to play a few holes. However, several former FBI agents questioned how a man could take up a position so close to the former president and hide there for so long.
“This is really disturbing to me,” said Evy Poumpouras, a former Secret Service agent who protected several presidents, including Barack Obama and George W. Bush, during her 12 years with the agency.
“How could he get there, hold that position for 12 hours and nobody saw it? Nobody searched the area?” she added in an interview with MSNBC.
The Secret Service is chronically understaffed: The branch of the agency that protects presidents, vice presidents and their families is nearly 10 percent smaller than it was a decade ago. But while requests from Trump’s agents for additional personnel and equipment have been repeatedly denied over the past two years, no requests for resources were denied for the Pennsylvania rally where Trump was shot, a Secret Service official told NBC News in July.
The problem does not appear to be financial: Government records show that the Secret Service’s budget has nearly doubled over the past decade, while staffing levels across the agency have increased by nearly 25 percent.
Anthony Cangelosi, a former Secret Service agent who has worked as a bodyguard for presidential candidates, including Senator John Kerry in 2004, said it is “pretty clear at this point that we need additional personnel for President Trump.”
“If this had been President Biden and he had been playing golf on the golf course, there would be a security buffer of several blocks around that golf course,” he said Monday. “Yes, former presidents do not receive the same level of protection, but that level of protection is adjusted depending on the known threat level.”
“Why does a major presidential candidate not have additional security personnel to secure the perimeter of his golf course now, seven weeks before the election?” Cangelosi added. “That is the question that should be asked at this point.”
