Secret Service agents shielded Donald Trump with their own bodies after a shooter opened fire on the former president during a Pennsylvania campaign rally Saturday. But if a group of powerful Democrats had their way, those Secret Service agents wouldn't have been there on Saturday.
House Committee on Homeland Security ranking member Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) moved in April to terminate Trump’s Secret Service protection in anticipation of his conviction in his Manhattan hush money case. Thompson and a group of seven other Democrats introduced the DISGRACED Former Protectees Act in April, a law that would terminate Secret Service protection for former presidents convicted and sentenced for a felony.
Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced in the case on July 11—two days before the Secret Service sprung to action as bullets came inches away from ending the former president’s life at Saturday’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Thompson moved to strip Trump of his Secret Service protection as President Joe Biden has led Democrats in deploying increasingly apocalyptic rhetoric on the campaign trail casting Trump as an existential threat to America who must be stopped.
Biden left little room for the imagination during a June 28 campaign rally. "Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation," he said. "He is a threat to our freedom. He is a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat for everything America stands for."
Biden ratcheted up the heat further during a July 8 call with Democratic donors, saying, "It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye." And his campaign has flooded the airwaves with television ads saying doom will befall America if Trump is reelected.
"America itself is at stake," Biden said in a July 5 campaign ad.
The Biden campaign told reporters shortly after the assassination attempt it was working to pull all its television ads from the airwaves "as quickly as possible."
Thompson stood by his efforts to strip Trump of his Secret Service detail after Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R.) issued a now-prophetic June 2 post on X questioning if the Democrat wanted to make an assassination attempt against the former president’s life more likely.
"Tate Reeves says I owe Mississippians an apology for H.R. 8081, to terminate United States Secret Service protection for felons," Thompson responded on June 5. "In reality, you owe all 200,000+ Mississippians an apology for not expanding Medicaid. Your actions are selfish!"
Thompson sang a different tune after the attempt against Trump’s life on Saturday.
"I am grateful for law enforcement’s fast response to this incident," Thompson said. "I am glad the former President is safe, and my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved."
The shooter has not been identified as of publication of this article. The Secret Service said in a statement the suspect fired multiple shots at Trump from an elevated position outside the rally venue.
"US Secret Service personnel neutralized the shooter, who is now deceased," the service said, adding that one spectator was killed and two others were critically injured.
The Secret Service’s response to Saturday’s shooting has also come under scrutiny. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.), who in May said Trump’s first term "was not only dangerous but also deadly" for his constituents, demanded an investigation into the Secret Service’s response to Saturday’s shooting.
"The federal government must constantly learn from security failures in order to avoid repeating them—especially when those failures have implications for the Nation," Torres said.