The Secret Service is under pressure, but it could also get new funding, as politicians consider what has led to two assassination attempts in just over two months against former President Trump.
“One thing I want to make clear is that the service needs more help,” President Biden said Monday morning from the White House. “And I think Congress should respond to that need.”
“Thank God the president is fine,” Biden added.
Asked about what the Secret Service might need, Biden said, “They could decide whether they need more personnel or not.”
Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested Sunday after a man was seen pointing an AK-47-style weapon at Trump as he played a round of golf at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Routh briefly entered a federal courtroom in Florida on Monday morning for his initial appearance, dressed in a dark blue jail uniform and with his arms and legs shackled, the Associated Press reported. He sat quietly for about five minutes with no visible signs of nervousness before deputies led him back out to await his hearing.
On Sunday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that his state would investigate the incident.
“The people deserve the truth about the would-be assassin and how he was able to get within 500 yards of the former president and current Republican Party,” DeSantis wrote in X.
Trump emerged unharmed from the incident and appeared in good spirits hours later.
“It was certainly an interesting day!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday night.
Trump thanked the Secret Service, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and law enforcement for their “incredible work” in keeping him safe. “THE JOB DONE WAS ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING,” he wrote. “I AM SO PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told “Fox & Friends” on Monday that he and his wife, Kelly, were heading to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago, across the Intracoastal Waterway from the golf club, when the shooting occurred.
After a traffic delay, they met. He and Trump were briefed by phone by acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe about 90 minutes later, he said. Johnson praised the agency’s immediate actions, including the officers who detected the gun, on Sunday but said they need to do more for Trump.
“President Trump is the one who needs the most coverage,” Johnson said, attributing his survival to providence. “He is the most attacked, the most threatened.”
The agency needs “all available resources and will make more available if necessary,” he said. But “I don’t think it’s a question of funding, but rather of staffing.”
The House and Senate will investigate the two assassination attempts and issue reports, Johnson said. He praised “some really patriotic and great people who work in the Secret Service” but blamed leaders including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, whom the House impeached in February before the Senate dismissed the charges. The agency oversees the Secret Service.
“I have no faith in Secretary Mayorkas,” he said.
As the FBI and Secret Service investigate the security breach, California Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) called for the Secret Service to speak before Congress on Monday.
“Two assassination attempts in 60 days against a former president and the Republican nominee are unacceptable,” Khanna wrote in X.
“The Secret Service should come to Congress tomorrow, tell us what resources are needed to expand the perimeter of protection, and allocate them in a bipartisan vote on the same day.”
Leaders of a bipartisan congressional task force investigating the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania said Monday they have requested a Secret Service briefing on the Florida incident.
“We are grateful that the former president was not injured, but we remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all its forms,” Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said in a statement. “The task force will share updates as we learn more.”
The latest assassination attempt occurred around 1:30 p.m. EDT Sunday, when a Secret Service agent saw the barrel of an AK-47-style weapon pointed out of the tree line at the edge of the golf course. The Secret Service shot the man holding the rifle and fled, but the suspect was taken into custody during a traffic stop. Trump, who was about 300 to 500 yards away, was not injured.
Rowe, the agency's acting director, plans to remain in Florida “indefinitely” during the investigation, according to CNN.
Meanwhile, tensions on social media arose over the role of public figures in further fomenting violence.
Elon Musk, the owner of X, deleted a post on Sunday that read: “No one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”
Musk, who supported Trump and interviewed him on X, wrote the post in response to a user who asked: “Why do you want to kill Donald Trump?”
After the comment sparked widespread outrage, Musk wrote a follow-up post: “Turns out jokes are WAY less funny if people don't know the context and the delivery is plain text.”
Former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer riled Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) online when Jeffries criticized “extreme MAGA Republicans” as “the party of the national abortion ban and Trump’s Project 2025.”
“Based on the last 24 hours, I'm pretty sure your side is the extreme,” Spicer posted.
On Sunday afternoon, Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver condemned a now-deleted post from the New Hampshire Libertarian Party, published hours before the assassination attempt, that called for political violence against Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Anyone who assassinates Kamala Harris would be an American hero,” the account wrote in a post it later deleted, commenting “we don’t want to break the terms of this website that we agreed to.”
“It is abhorrent and should never have been published,” Oliver wrote in the X of the post. “As libertarians, we condemn the use of force, whether by governments, individuals or other political entities. We are committed to the principle of non-aggression and peaceful solutions to conflict.”
