My Monday morning Wall Street Journal chapped my hide. Specifically, an article by Sadie Gurman, C. Ryan Barber, and Isabella Simonetti headlined “The Simple Security Flaws That Exposed Trump to Another Gunman.” It rehashed the same mindless criticisms of the Secret Service‘s performance at the aborted White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that have been floating around the internet since Saturday night.
As anyone who read my columns on the Butler and Mar-a-Lago assassination attempts knows, I can be very tough on the Secret Service. But criticism in this case is unwarranted. There was no security flaw or failure that exposed President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump to an assassin Saturday night.
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Cole Tomas Allen never made it inside the ballroom where the president, first lady, and Cabinet members were present. He was stopped outside the secure perimeter by numerous fast-acting Secret Service agents. Trump was right to praise the Secret Service in his Saturday press appearance. I say this authoritatively because I worked alongside the Secret Service designing events and rallies for President Ronald Reagan. Because of my television background, I’ve also attended multiple White House Correspondents’ Association dinners. I know a Secret Service failure when I see it, and there was no failure Saturday night.
Shortly after President Reagan, my friend James Brady, Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy, and policeman Thomas Delahanty were shot by John Hinckley in 1981, I sat through Secret Service training seminars on what went wrong. The lack of a Secret Service agent alongside the White House press pool allowed Hinckley to get close to Reagan and open fire.
An often-heard criticism the Wall Street Journal article repeats is that security at the Washington Hilton was lax and the secure perimeter should have been larger.
Here’s the problem with enlarging the secure perimeter. Generally, the bigger the perimeter, the more potential points of breach there are that need to be protected and the larger the area that needs to be secured and swept for bombs. This strains Secret Service manpower. The optimum perimeter size is based on the level of threat assessment and the number of agents available to secure the site.
As can be seen from the video clip of the numerous agents who jumped into the fight with Allen, the Secret Service had staffed that checkpoint adequately for an overwhelming response to a threat or multiple threats. The heavily-armed Counter Assault Team that rapidly assembled onstage provided both a human shield for Trump and a formidable force for fighting multiple, well-armed attackers.
Cole Allen’s sophomoric critique of Secret Service security is echoed in the Wall Street Journal article and other press coverage, including his speculation about what an Iranian assassin might have done. I’ll bet the CAT team against a few dozen Iranian assassins any day of the week. America’s elite forces are formidable. If you doubt my assessment, ask the Venezuelans.
Allen also criticized the Hilton’s security, implying that it should mimic the Transportation Security Administration and screen for dangerous weapons. But it makes no sense to screen every person and staffer entering the hotel when a secure perimeter can be created.
The fact is the Secret Service stopped Allen cold. When adequately deployed under good leadership, the Secret Service is astounding. On one foreign trip a colleague and I reported an intruder in the presidential motorcade. The Secret Service tail car, an armored Dodge convertible, pulled up Uzis at the ready and forced the vehicle off the road right in front of us as we roared down the highway at 80 miles an hour.
Until Trump’s ballroom is built, events outside the White House will always have to be tailored for the threat level and available security resources. That’s what the White House Office of Presidential Advance and Secret Service do.
The media’s coverage of Saturday’s assassination attempt is a classic case of subconscious deflection. By quarterbacking Secret Service security preparations, the White House press is deflecting from the real story. Namely, the role they’ve played in creating the dangerous environment around Trump.
From their collective dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop to their ready embrace of the Russian collusion hoax and uncritical repetition of Democratic propaganda labeling Trump as a racist and fascist threat to democracy, the nation’s leading broadcasters and journalists have aided and abetted a climate of political violence targeting Trump and Republicans. Instead of whipping up on the Secret Service, they should give themselves a hard look in the mirror.
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Is it too much to ask that they stop giving airtime and print space to progressive extremists who urge or applaud Trump’s assassination, or who liken him to Hitler and caricature him as an existential threat to democracy? Is it too much to ask that they help lower the temperature of American politics by bringing back moderation and balance in coverage?
Our nation’s elites seem to believe that they can be insulated from the social pathologies they help incubate, like crime by illegal immigrants. Let’s hope Saturday night was a wake-up call for the media elite.
John B. Roberts II served in the Reagan White House and was an international political strategist and executive producer of The McLaughlin Group. He is an author and artist.
