I’m sure by now everyone has seen near-endless replays of the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump on a campaign swing through Butler, Pennsylvania, hard on to the Ohio border.  Real MAGA country. 

If you’ve done that, you’ve seen how the Secret Service didn’t perform.  Sadly, they looked like a bunch of Keystone Kops, a slapstick band of inept cops whose silent movie performances were so inept that your only options are to laugh at the insanity, or cry at, well, the insanity.

I’m not a law enforcement official – never been one.  But I have managed state-level media and strategy for three presidential campaigns, which means I’ve been a part of planning presidential election campaign events in South Carolina and Tennessee. 

Each event was heavily screened by the Secret Service.  I’ve also dealt with the Secret Service when, in 1978, they designated the hospital I then worked for as the official “Receiving Hospital” if the then-President Carter had a medical issue on a flight from D.C. to his home in Plains, Georgia.  Should that have happened, we were advised that the Secret Service would big-foot us, taking control of my hospital.  This was not optional.

Finally, in the mid-1990s, I was the unpaid PR advisor to the then Drug Czar, a retired general, Barry McCaffrey, a hard-charging former tank commander who knew less about PR than he did about drugs, or how to fight them.  But that’s a story for another day. 

I was unpaid by Gen. McCaffrey, but I was by my client, the National Drug Prevention Association. 

McCaffrey’s office was “officially” part of the White House, though his physical office was on the eighth floor of an office building across 17th Avenue from the Old Executive Office Building – OEOB.  As such, Gen. McCaffrey rated Secret Service protection.

So I do have at least some experience with the Secret Service.

Here's what I learned.  They are (were) well-trained, reasonably well-paid and highly motivated.  While there were no restrictions on hiring by race or gender, the Secret Service was a meritocracy.  What they wanted – at least for the presidential detail – were large individuals who were amazingly fit, remarkably well-schooled in the use of firearms, and willing to put their bodies between shooters and the president.  When John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Reagan forty-three years ago, he shot Special Agent Tim McCarthy in the abdomen, hitting him as the Special Agent was turning to protect President Reagan with his body – proof that Secret Service Agents would actually become human shields, if necessary.

However, today, while that credo may still be in the playbook, there are other factors now at play.  Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle had long experience with then Vice President Biden, so – as president – he appointed her to head up the agency.  However, someone – presumably President Biden – set her priorities based on DEI: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, instead of the traditional priority of making sure the president doesn’t DIE. 

One of her personal priorities was to ensure that thirty percent of all field agents – including those who protect the president – must be women.  These women might be of the right mindset – putting themselves between the president and a shooter – but the ones we all saw on Saturday didn’t meet one of the basic requirements.  Specifically, they weren’t big enough to protect the president with their bodies. 

So ask yourself this:  How well can a five-foot-six agent protect a six-foot-three president? 

Fast Forward to last Saturday.  When President Trump was shot, here’s what I noted:

As I said, real Keystone Kops.  Which makes me wonder – if President Biden finally allows the Secret Service to provide the additional agents to President Trump’s “detail,” which the Trump campaign clearly needs, will he be moved by DEI or by DIE?

Ned Barnett, a contributor to American Thinker since 2006 and the author of forty published books, is the founder of Barnett Marketing Communications, providing services to political campaigns as well as high-tech and start-up businesses, along with book authors.  For authors he provides ghostwriting (as needed), editing and – most important, book marketing.  He can be reached at nedbarnett51@gmail.com or 702-561-1167.

Image: Screen shot from CSPAN video, via YouTube