Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested that the Secret Service does not have trouble with funding resources, arguing instead that proper security for former President Donald Trump can be addressed by President Joe Biden.
The former president survived a second assassination attempt on Sunday, prompting some to call on Congress to fund the Secret Service properly to ensure Trump is safe while campaigning for president. Pompeo argued the two assassination attempts marked “a systemic failure” at this point and that he believes there is “no doubt” that Trump is the most threatened person in the United States’s “senior leadership team.”
“He ought to have the security that is appropriate for that, and clearly that has not been established yet,” Pompeo said on Fox News’s The Story with Martha MacCallum. “And to suggest that somehow this is a resource problem, that Congress hasn’t appropriated enough money, is silly. President Biden could do whatever he needs, put whatever bigger team from whatever department or agency to actually secure the perimeter for the president of the United States and protect him and other American officials from not only these, what appeared to be the lone folks, but also organized threats that are surely to continue to materialize in the weeks ahead.”
Pompeo added that there is no public knowledge regarding the number of other threats that may have been neutralized to date. As such, he explained that Trump’s security needs to match the “real threat” that Trump faces as a presidential candidate and former president.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) stated Monday that “every asset available” needs to be dedicated to Trump’s protection, as the former president is currently facing greater threats than when he was in the Oval Office. He also noted that the problem with Trump’s security stems from “manpower allocation” rather than funding.
On social media, Trump blamed the Biden-Harris administration’s “rhetoric” for indirectly leading to his second assassination attempt. His campaign issued a statement arguing Democrats have used “increasingly incendiary rhetoric” against him, listing multiple examples of Democratic lawmakers calling him a “threat.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The FBI and Secret Service are also investigating the assassination attempt, with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) announcing Sunday night that the state of Florida will do its own investigation. Additionally, the congressional task force investigating Trump’s first assassination attempt in July is now expanding its investigation into Sunday’s attempt.
Sunday’s assassination attempt follows the time in July when Trump narrowly survived shots fired at him while he spoke at a Pennsylvania rally, with a bullet grazing his ear.
