Former secret service agents weigh on political threats in 2025

While the attempted assassination of 2024 against President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, led to a multitude of changes to strengthen the security practices of the secret service, the agency had a bread cut in a time of unprecedented threats against the president, according to former secret service agents.

Trump faces a plethora of threats, ranging from violent extremists supported by proxy groups, to domestic actors inspired to encourage violence in the midst of increased political rhetoric, according to experts.

“No President was also threatened with violence,” said Bill Gage on Wednesday, who was a special secret service agent during the presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “The threat to President Trump is the biggest that any president has ever faced.”

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The secret services tend to see President Donald Trump on stage during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

The twenty -year -old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump on a roof during the gathering – with one of the eight bullets pulled by scrapping Trump’s ear. In addition to injuring two people, the shooter also fired and killed Corey Comperatore, a 50 -year -old firefighter, father and husband who attends the rally.

Months later, another man was apprehended and accused of having tried to assassinate Trump in his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The two incidents are under investigation.

The political rhetoric of the left that paints Trump as a threat to democracy is dangerous and could provide political radicals to stuff political radicals to believe that the president’s assaper is the means of saving the country – potentially leading to an attempted assassination observed in Pennsylvania, said Gage.

Other factors contributing to increased threat levels include policies related to immigration or funding reductions in the new government’s efficiency ministry (DOGE) which are unpopular with the left, as well as hostile proximity groups that are supported by actors like Iran that oppose Trump, said Gage.

Republican presidential candidate and former American president Donald Trump is assisted by security staff after shots were resounded during a campaign rally at Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, United States, on July 13, 2024. (Reuters / Brendan McDermid)

“It increases the threat level on Trump,” said pledge. “There are probably dozens and dozens of threats every day, just a kind of threats of initiates or threats within our own borders that the secret services must endeavor.”

More specifically, Gage underlined the comments of leaders like the Democratic Governor of California Gavin Newsom, who pronounced an address to the nation in June where “democracy was in fact in fact”, following the Trump administration’s decision to dispatch thousands of troops from the National Guard and to place them under federal command, rather than the command of the state.

“Right now, there is someone there by reading the quotes from Newsom, someone who wishes President Trump Harm,” Gage in an email in June in Fox News Digital. “It is up to the USSS to arrest them. Hopefully those who wish the president’s damage will not slip through the tricks of the net.”

A Newsom spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comments from Fox News Digital.

Trump is not the only subject that is a potential target for violence with political motivation.

The attacks on federal immigration officials are increasing and a shooter opened fire against agents of the border patrol on Monday during an annex to McAllen, Texas. The authorities have not yet identified a reason.

However, the legislators did not chop their words on Trump’s immigration program. In June, representative Pramila Jayapal, D -Wash., Accused the ice of having acted “as a terrorist force” – commented since she defended.

Representative Michael Guest, R-Miss., Which oversees the subcommittee of the House’s internal security committee on security and border application, said in a statement on Wednesday at Fox News Digital that “the radical rhetoric of the application of the law” caused an increase in violence against federal immigration officials.

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The Republican presidential candidate, former president Donald Trump, was rushed out of stage during a rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

Meanwhile, threats continue to change, creating additional challenges for security forces such as secret services when they adapt.

Although the secret services take action to improve its security measures, the agency still faces “considerable vulnerabilities given the growing complexity and the sophistication of threats it is confronted,” Tim Miller said on Wednesday, who was a secret service agent during the presidents George Hw Bush and Bill Clinton.

“The FBI has always warned of the local violent extremists, which remains a major concern,” said Miller.

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While Miller described Butler to make a “awakening” call to the secret services and said that the Affin incident refined the agency’s ability to manage threats, there is still a lot of work to do, he said.

“Secret services also play with catch -up when it comes to adopting critical technology – especially in the fields of secure communications, surveillance of drones and real -time intelligence tools,” said Miller. “These are not luxuries; they are vital for modern protection operations.”

A working group on the bipartite house that investigated the attack revealed that the assassination attempt was “preventable” and determined that various errors were not an isolated incident.

At the top of the list of errors, the report identified that the secret services had not secured a “high risk zone” alongside the rally, the American Glass Research (AGR) and the construction complex. The fact of not securing this area “finally allowed the crooks to escape the police, to climb and cross the roof of the AGR complex and to open fire”.

Other faults that the working group found included the delivery of the roles of planning prior to the staff of the inexperienced secret services, as well as various technological and communication breakdowns.

“In addition, information on the relevant threats known by the members of the intelligence community was not degenerated to the key staff working on the rally,” said the room working group in his report.

As a result, the agency has led a series of reforms.

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The Republican presidential candidate, former president Donald Trump, was rushed out of stage during a rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

According to the former acting director of the secret services, Ronald Rowe, immediate changes to the next agency Butler, Pennsylvania, included the expansion of the use of drones for surveillance purposes, and also incorporating greater counter-drone technology to mitigate the kinetic attacks of other drones.

The agency also revised its radio communications networks and its interoperability of these networks with the staff of the secret service, and agents of the law enforcement and local, said legislators to Rowe on a Bipartisan House working group investigating the attempted assassination in December 2024. Updates of these radio communications are an important change, according to Gage, which did not exist.

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Rowe also told legislators that the secret services were aimed at improving their staff in the next year and had placed more special agents in Trump’s security details. Some of the additional 231 million dollars of funding approved that the Congress approved for the secret services in a Stopgap expenditure bill in September 2024 to hire 1,000 new agents and officers in 2025 would go to these increased hiring plans, said Rowe.

Some other changes are underway, in particular by perhaps building a precise replica of the White House. Historically, the agents trained using the replica of the White House of Tyler Perry in his Atlanta cinema studio.

The director of secret services, Sean Curran, said in an interview on “My View With Lara Trump” in Fox News in April that the agency worked with the White House to install such a building at the James J. Rowley Training Center, a 500 acres center in Laurel, Maryland.

Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by secret service staff while he was withdrawn from the scene during a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024. (Rebecca Droke / AFP via Getty Images)

“For our officers and agents to form properly, they must see what it is to be in the White House,” said Curran. “It is an important complex to know. There is a lot of access to the ins and outs, and something as simple as the local fire service that presents itself to help a fire, and they must know where they are going.”

In total, congress supervision organizations issued nearly 50 recommendations to the secret services following the assassination attempt, including those related to better radio communications and event planning. The agency reported on Thursday that it had executed 21 of these recommendations and was implementing 16 others.

“The reforms made in last year are only the start, and the agency will continue to assess its operations, examine the recommendations and make additional changes if necessary,” the secret services said in a press release on Thursday.