Protect Trump Now: No More Lame Excuses And Stupid Protocol

Memo to the United States Secret Service, the FBI, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department and all in charge of deciding who deserves what in presidential candidate security: Saying Donald Trump “is not the sitting president” is not a justification for failing to protect him. 

In fact, after the second apparent attempt on the GOP presidential nominee’s life in a little more than two months, any law enforcement official invoking this excuse should be fired. 

Case in point, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. The Democrat who has served as the southeast Florida county’s sheriff for 20 years — and is seeking a sixth term in November — uttered the same tired reasons for Sunday afternoon’s security lapse while the 45th president was playing a round at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

‘Horrendous and Unacceptable’

At a press conference Sunday, after a man was spotted in the club’s shrubbery and “in a position to shoot the former president,” Bradshaw was asked how this could happen again. How could a gunman get so close once more? 

“At this level that he is at right now, [Trump] is not the sitting president,” Bradshaw told reporters. “If he was, we would have this entire golf course surrounded. But because he’s not, security is limited to the areas the Secret Service deems possible.” 

The same lame excuses were offered following the assassination attempt against Trump at his July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump suffered a gun shot wound to the ear, while two rally-goers were seriously injured and Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter and Trump supporter, was murdered. The 20-year-old would-be assassin was fatally shot by a Secret Service sharp shooter, but not until he fired eight rounds. Apparently Trump getting shot in the head and coming within centimeters of being a dead former president wasn’t enough of a wake-up call for the people sworn to protect the GOP presidential candidate’s life.

The Secret Service’s epic failure remains under investigation on multiple fronts. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., ranking member of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations looking into the July assassination attempt, said the “he’s a former president” excuse doesn’t cut it. 

“No, he’s a former President who was struck by an assassin’s bullet two months ago, and who Iran and others continue to plot against,” Johnson wrote Sunday on his X account. “Two attempts in a little over 60 days. Horrendous and unacceptable.”

In a phone interview Sunday evening, Johnson told The Federalist that “disappointing doesn’t quite cover it.” 

Secret Service, Up Your Game

Bradshaw is just repeating the old policy line. It’s a bad policy, and it needs to stop. 

Trump isn’t just any candidate. He is the former president, just one president removed. He’s the Republican Party’s candidate for president. He’s also intensely hated by a lot of Democrats, including extremely angry liberals with Trump Derangement Syndrome. 

The suspected would-be assassin, identified as Ryan Routh, has reportedly been a “frequent Trump critic on social media.” The suspect has echoed the overheated rhetoric of President Joe Biden and his Democrat presidential nominee successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting that Trump is a threat to democracy. 

“DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose,” he wrote on X, according to the New York Post. 

“He advised Biden, 81, in an April 22 X post when he was still running for reelection, to run a campaign around keeping ‘America democratic and free,’ the publication reported. “He claimed Trump wants to “make Americans slaves against master.” 

According to the New York Post, Routh has a fairly lengthy criminal record, “including a three-hour standoff with police in 2022 in which he was convicted of carrying a ‘weapon of mass destruction.’” 

According to law enforcement sources, Routh was taken into custody shortly after the incident. Secret Service agents fired at the suspect after seeing an “AK-47-style gun” extending from the shrubs along the course. It was not clear early this morning whether Routh had fired the weapon.  

Critics of Secret Service security protocols on candidate protection assert Sunday’s second apparent assassination attempt should be a wake-up call. 

“There have been TWO attempts on Trump’s life. Secret Service must up their level of protection of him to their FULL capabilities — including expanding the perimeter,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., wrote on his X account. Scalise was critically injured in 2017 when a crazed leftist fired on Republicans practicing for Congress’ annual baseball game. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.