There have already been two attempts on the life of Donald Trump that we know of, and with the way the political environment currently is, there will likely be more before his term is up.
The U.S. Secret Service has to be at its best every second that it is guarding the president and his family.
Unfortunately, there was another breakdown in coverage, with Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump left completely exposed as Secret Service agents failed to respond to a possible threat.
On July 13, 2024, it was a pure fluke that Trump lived through the day.
Trump was doing a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, and he just happened to turn his head at the same moment an assassin took a shot, grazing the then-candidate's ear.
In the aftermath of the incident, it was shown that had Trump not turned his head at that moment, it would have likely been a successful headshot, taking him out.
The ensuing investigation showed multiple breakdowns regarding opportunities to apprehend the assailant long before that shot was ever taken.
On Sept. 15, 2024, just a month after the previous attempt on Trump’s life, an assassin was spotted along the fence line of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
A Secret Service agent spotted a gun in the fence line and opened fire on the would-be assassin, who then fled the scene and was later captured by authorities, tried, and convicted in the case.
Even though the attempt never came to fruition, there were a lot of questions posed about security coverage for Trump, more specifically, why the area had not been swept by live agents or with drone coverage before he arrived in the area.
This was the second major security failure by Trump’s security team.
The latest failure by Trump’s detail did not involve an attempt on his life, but it very easily could have resulted in a successful attack due to the failures of the agents assigned to the president
While the president and the first lady began their ascent on an escalator to attend the U.N. General Assembly, the machinery abruptly stopped, with Melania, who was wearing heels, lunging forward. But the big problem was that as the president and his wife stood on the motionless escalator, agents failed to move to cover the president, leaving him as a sitting duck.
Reports quickly surfaced that the escalator was purposely stopped by a rogue worker who wanted to send a message to Trump for having cut funding from the U.N. The report stated, “One idea doing the rounds was to turn off the escalators and lifts and simply tell Trump they ran out of money, so he had to walk up the stairs.”
Former Secret Service Agent Rich Staropoli railed against the failed coverage, stating, “Somebody’s got to make a call. We’re going to stand here like a bunch of morons, like we did in Butler. Or are we going to scoop up the first lady and POTUS and either go down or go up?” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also chimed in, stating, “If someone at the U.N. intentionally stopped the escalator as the President and First Lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately.”
I have to question why someone would be given access to those controls with Trump in the building without an agent overseeing them. But Staropoli is also correct in that agents needed to immediately move to cover Trump, and they failed again. It’s yet another blackeye for an agency that can ill afford any bad press, let alone for failing to properly protect the president… again.
