Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is under fire in the wake of the nearly successful assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump as apparent security failures and responses from some of Trump’s close detail have highlighted Cheatle’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
The shooting and aftermath brought significant questions, including how it was possible a building that seemed like an obvious vantage point for a shooter to have a clear line to Trump was not adequately covered and why Trump’s detail had agents who were significantly smaller in stature than the former president.
Critics noted in the aftermath of the gunshots that some of the agents responsible for shielding Trump were not only smaller than the president and therefore incapable of covering his body but also appeared confused in response to a scenario they were supposed to be trained for.
“But amid all the chaos weaves the thread of another story, one that reveals a mounting problem in our political life,” Christopher Rufo, an outspoken critic of DEI policies, wrote. “A surprising number of the Secret Service agents protecting the former president were women. And, according to video recordings of the scene, many did not acquit themselves favorably.”
“I am not arguing that DEI caused the lapse in security at the rally in Butler. It is too early to know this one way or another,” Rufo added. “But the near-miss assassination reminds us of the stakes: split-second reactions, physical courage, and calm under pressure are all essential to the work of protecting the president. If any of those slip, even by an inch, the result is death. What we saw on Saturday was luck, not competence.”
Video from the attack shows several female Secret Service agents who were not large enough to cover Trump’s body huddle around the former president to protect him from fire, leaving Trump exposed. The footage showed another agent fumbling with her gun, incapable of finding her holster, and another still who, critics say, appeared uncertain about what to do.
Cheatle and her priorities for the agency have come under fire since the assassination attempt.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) called Cheatle a “DEI hire.”
Since President Joe Biden tapped her to lead the agency in 2022, Cheatle has been hyperfocused on injecting DEI into the Secret Service, her critics say. She had previously pledged to make 30% of the agency’s workforce female by 2030.
“I’m very conscious, as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Cheatle told CBS News last year.
The criticism of the agents on Trump’s detail the day of the assassination attempt was not necessarily about the agents being women, according to X owner Elon Musk, who noted that an agent “could be a man or a woman, to be clear, just needs to be large enough to do the job.”
But the performance of the female agents on duty has underscored the questions critics have for the Secret Service after the shooting.
Recruitment and retention of agents has been difficult for the Secret Service in recent years. In 2022, the agency reportedly saw a 48% departure rate. Under Cheatle, inviting a YouTube influencer to train with agents was part of the agency’s recruitment effort.
In 2021, the Secret Service graduated more female special agents than men from its training class for the first time. Men and women are held to different physical standards by the agency; women are not required to perform the same number of pushups, chin-ups, or situps or achieve the same mile times as men to graduate from training.
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Aside from the physical standards, the 2023-2027 strategic plan from the Secret Service pushed “diversity” to the top of the agency’s priority list.
In the aftermath of the shooting, which left Trump and others injured and one attendee dead, Chairman James Comer (R-KY) invited Cheatle to testify before the House Oversight Committee.
