The U.S. Secret Service is “encouraging” former President Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP nominee, to stop holding massive rallies like he and his supporters have grown accustomed to out of concern for his safety following last week’s assassination attempt.
In particular, the agency would like Trump to stop holding large outdoor rallies and instead choose smaller indoor venues, The Federalist reported. But columnist M.D. Kittle added: “The request from the grossly incompetent (at best) federal agency stinks of election interference and sounds a lot like a threat.”
He cited The Washington Post, which was the first to report on the Secret Service’s request to the former president. “In the aftermath of the shooting, agents from the Secret Service communicated their concerns about large outdoor rallies going forward to Trump campaign advisers, three people familiar with the matter said,” the Post reported, without naming those sources.
The campaign “is not currently planning any large outdoor events, a person close to Trump said,” the outlet continued, adding that at president, Trump campaign officials are looking at large indoor venues.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News that he believes it “would be a shame” if the federal protective agency convinced Trump’s campaign to end the outdoor rallies.
“I think people enjoy going to them and I think, you know, you can get more people outdoors than indoors,” Comer said. “He attracts a big crowd, obviously. I think the president will do what the president wants to do.”
Others had a more direct opinion on the matter.
“If I saw this in The Babylon Bee it’d make far more sense,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, noted on his personal X account. “The idea that they’d tell Trump to stop holding rallies is embarrassing — for the Secret Service.”
“This is unreal,” Trump supporter “End Wokeness” wrote on X. “Secret Service is now asking the Trump campaign to stop doing outdoor rallies. How about you do your f*ing jobs?”
“This is a direct threat from the regime to Trump: if he doesn’t stop trying to win, they’ll make sure the next attacker doesn’t miss. We all know what they’re doing,” tweeted Federalist CEO Sean Davis.
Kittle added:
The Post devoted several column inches to what a burden Trump’s outdoor rallies have been for an agency that glaringly failed its mission to protect him. The Post’s narrative is anything but subtle: Trump — and his penchant for massive campaign rallies — is to blame for his near-assassination.
“The rallies have long been viewed as onerous by the Secret Service because they include complicated outdoor venues with thousands — if not tens of thousands — of people,” the Post’s Josh Dawsey writes. “Most other former presidents rarely appear in public, and when they do, they usually appear in settings such as conferences and restaurants with fewer people. Trump requires a much larger security footprint than other past presidents because he holds so many large events.”
But Trump isn’t merely a former president showing up to a haughty cocktail party with D.C. elites. He’s the GOP’s candidate for president, whether the Post and their Democrat pals like it or not.
“We’ve seen from the early days of his presidency even, and before that during his first campaign in 2016, how important crowd size is to him. It gives him a lot of joy and energy being with large crowds. He feeds off their energy. It’s almost like a source of comfort for him,” Sarah Matthews, who served as deputy press secretary in the Trump White House, told the Post.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned her position following a raucous House hearing on Tuesday during which she was grilled by members of both parties over the monumental failure of her agency after personnel on the ground appeared to have detected and identified shooter Thomas Crooks, 20, at least an hour before he crawled atop an unguarded rooftop some 130 yards from the former president and opened fire.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
