While the 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, has resulted in a host of changes to bolster the Secret Service’s security practices, the agency has its work cut out for it in an era of unprecedented threats against the president, according to former Secret Service agents.
Trump faces a plethora of threats, ranging from violent extremists backed by proxy groups, to domestic actors inspired to incite violence amid heightened political rhetoric, according to experts.
‘No U.S. president has been under so much threat of violence,’ Bill Gage, who served as a Secret Service special agent during Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s administrations, told Fox News Digital Wednesday. ‘The threat on President Trump is the greatest that any president has ever faced.’
Twenty-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump from a rooftop during the rally — with one of the eight bullets shot grazing Trump’s ear. In addition to injuring two people, the gunman also shot and killed Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, father and husband attending the rally.
Months later, another man was apprehended and charged with attempting to assassinate Trump at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Both incidents are under investigation.
Political rhetoric from the left that paints Trump as a threat to democracy is dangerous and could provide fodder for political radicals to believe assassinating the president is the way to save the country — potentially leading to a similar assassination attempt seen in Pennsylvania, Gage said.
Other factors contributing to the heightened threat levels include policies related to immigration or funding cuts from the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that are unpopular with the left, as well as hostile proxy groups who are backed by actors like Iran who oppose Trump, Gage said.
‘That increases the threat level on Trump,’ Gage said. ‘There’s probably dozens and dozens of threats every day, just sort of insider threats, or threats within our own borders that the Secret Service has to run down.’
Specifically, Gage pointed to comments from leaders like Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who delivered an address to the nation in June where he claimed ‘democracy is under assault,’ following the Trump administration’s decision to dispatch thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to respond to the immigration riots in the Golden State and place them under federal command, rather than state command.
‘Right now there is someone out there reading Newsom’s quotes, someone who wishes President Trump harm,’ Gage said in an email in June to Fox News Digital. ‘It is up to the USSS to stop them. Hopefully those wishing the President harm will not slip through the cracks.’
A spokesperson for Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Trump isn’t the only subject that’s a potential target for politically motivated violence.
Attacks against federal immigration officials are on the rise and a gunman opened fire against Border Patrol agents Monday at an annex in McAllen, Texas. Authorities have yet to identify a motive.
However, lawmakers have not minced their words on Trump’s immigration agenda. In June, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., accused ICE of acting ‘like a terrorist force’ — comments she has since defended.
Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., who oversees the House Homeland Security committee’s subcommittee on border security and enforcement, said in a Wednesday statement to Fox News Digital that ‘radical anti-law enforcement rhetoric’ has prompted the surge in violence against federal immigration officials.
Meanwhile, threats continue to change, creating additional challenges for security forces like the Secret Service as they adapt.
Although the Secret Service is taking action to enhance its security measures, the agency still faces ‘considerable vulnerabilities given the rising complexity and sophistication of the threats it faces,’ Tim Miller, who served as a Secret Service agent during Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s administrations, said in an email Wednesday to Fox News Digital.
‘The FBI has consistently warned about homegrown violent extremists, which remains a major concern,’ Miller said.
While Miller characterized Butler as a ‘wake-up’ call for the Secret Service and said the incident is sharpening the agency’s ability to handle threats, there is still a lot of work that must be done, he said.
‘The Secret Service is also still playing catch-up when it comes to adopting critical technology — especially in the areas of secure communications, drone surveillance, and real-time intelligence tools,’ Miller said. ‘These are not luxuries; they are vital to modern protective operations.’
A bipartisan House task force that investigated the attack found that the attempted assassination was ‘preventable,’ and determined various mistakes were not an isolated incident.
At the top of the list of mistakes, the report identified that the Secret Service did not secure a ‘high-risk area’ next to the rally, the American Glass Research (AGR) grounds and building complex. Failure to secure this area ‘eventually allowed Crooks to evade law enforcement, climb on and traverse the roof of the AGR complex, and open fire.’
Other faults the task force found included handing over advance planning roles to inexperienced Secret Service personnel, along with various technology and communication breakdowns.
‘Moreover, relevant threat information known by members of the intelligence community was not escalated to key personnel working the rally,’ the House task force said in its report.
As a result, the agency has spearheaded a series of reforms.
According to former Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe, immediate changes to the agency following Butler, Pennsylvania, included expanding the use of drones for surveillance purposes, and also incorporating greater counter-drone technology to mitigate kinetic attacks from other drones.
The agency also overhauled its radio communications networks and interoperability of those networks with Secret Service personnel, and state and local law enforcement officers, Rowe told lawmakers on a bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempt in December 2024. Updates to these radio communications are a significant change, according to Gage, who noted that he could carry up to five radios at a time because an integrated system didn’t exist.
Rowe also told lawmakers that the Secret Service was aiming to up its staffing in the next year, and had placed more special agents in Trump’s security detail. Some of the additional $231 million in funding that Congress approved for the Secret Service in a stopgap spending bill in September 2024 to hire 1,000 new agents and officers in 2025 would go toward these increased hiring plans, Rowe said.
A few other changes are in the pipeline, including possibly building a precise replica of the White House. Historically, agents have trained using Tyler Perry’s White House replica at his Atlanta film studio.
Secret Service director Sean Curran said in an interview on Fox News’ ‘My View with Lara Trump’ in April that the agency is working with the White House to install such a building at the James J. Rowley Training Center, a 500-acre center in Laurel, Maryland.
‘In order for our officers and agents to train up properly, they have to see what it’s like to be at the White House,’ Curran said. ‘It’s an important complex to know. There’s a lot of ins and outs, and something as simple as the local fire department showing up to help with a fire, and they need to know where they are going.’
Altogether, Congressional oversight bodies issued nearly 50 recommendations to the Secret Service following the assassination attempt, including ones related to better radio communications and planning for events. The agency reported Thursday that it has executed 21 of those recommendations, and is in the process of implementing 16 others.
‘The reforms made over this last year are just the beginning, and the agency will continue to assess its operations, review recommendations and make additional changes as needed,’ the Secret Service said in a news release Thursday.
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