Former President Trump said his security detail has “long requested” more manpower leading up to the assassination attempt on his life in Butler, Pa., in July, and said if there’s a “weakness” in efforts to keep him safe, it’s the need for more personnel.
Trump spoke with Fox News host Sean Hannity two days after a second apparent assassination attempt on his life while he was playing golf in West Palm Beach.
“We have long requested more people, more men and women, but more people. And because, you know, we have rallies [of] 50-60,000 [people]. In New Jersey, we had 107,000 people show up. There’s never been anything like it. And we have long requested more people. That’s true. That’s the weakness. If there’s a weakness, I really think that’s the weakness,” he said on “Hannity.”
“We have tremendous rallies and crowds, and that’s a good thing, but you need more protection. And we’ve long requested more people. We have, I will say in Butler, we wanted more people. I heard them say it, you know, we need more people here for security. And we never seem to get that. And I think we are getting it now. Somebody told me that they will be providing more people now.”
Ronald Rowe, Jr., the acting director of the U.S. Secret Service (USSS), told reporters Monday that since the assassination attempt on Trump two months ago, the USSS has moved to increase assets to an “already enhanced security posture” for the 2024 GOP nominee.
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Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., introduced bipartisan legislation that would seek to grant both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris the same USSS resources as President Biden.
“After this latest attempt, it is imperative this gets done,” Lawler wrote in a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Suspected would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was charged Monday with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and having a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
A Secret Service advance agent spotted what appeared to be a rifle poking out of the tree line near Trump’s golf course and opened fire, causing Routh to run away.
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He was stopped and detained by local law enforcement about 45 minutes after fleeing the scene, according to a criminal complaint released by the Department of Justice. Cell phone records also allege that Routh was in the vicinity of the golf course tree line for about 12 hours, from roughly 2 a.m. to 1:31 p.m.
The acting USSS director said Routh did not have a line of sight to Trump, and he did not get any shots off.
Trump praised the actions of the Secret Service agents on his detail who got him off the golf course quickly after shots rang out.
“Frankly, I think the Secret Service did a great job, and they got me out of there quickly. And they then went after him [Routh], and they were lucky enough to have somebody that took the license plate, which was genius. And they nabbed him on the highway. But it was …it was another day,” he told Hannity. “It was very interesting. I want to get…we want to get to business. We want to get to the business of running the country.”
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