The Secret Service is under pressure, but could also reap new funding, as politicians consider what has led to two assassination attempts in just over two months against former President Trump.
“One thing I want to make clear is: The service needs more help,” President Biden said Monday morning from the White House. “And I think Congress should respond to their need.”
“Thank God the president is OK,” Biden added.
Pressed on what the Secret Service may need, Biden said: “They may decide whether they need more personnel or not.”
Ryan Wesley Routh was taken into custody Sunday after a man was spotted pointing an AK-47-style weapon as Trump played a round of golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Routh briefly entered a federal courtroom in Florida on Monday morning for his initial appearance, wearing a dark blue jail jumpsuit with his arms and legs shackled, the Associated Press reported. He sat quietly for about five minutes with no visible signs of nervousness before marshals led him back out to await his hearing.
On Sunday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his state would investigate the incident.
“The people deserve the truth about the would be assassin and how he was able to get within 500 yards of the former president and current GOP,” DeSantis wrote on X.
Trump was unharmed in the incident and hours later appeared in good spirits.
“It was certainly an interesting day!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday night.
Trump thanked the Secret Service, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and law enforcement officers for their “incredible job” in keeping him safe. “THE JOB DONE WAS ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING,” he wrote. “I AM VERY PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN! “
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told “Fox & Friends” on Monday that he and his wife, Kelly, had been en route to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago, across the Intracoastal Waterway from the golf club, when the shooting occurred.
After a traffic delay, they met. He and Trump were briefed by acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe about 90 minutes later by phone, he said. Johnson praised the immediate actions of the agency — including officers who spotted the gun — on Sunday but said they need to do more for Trump.
“President Trump needs the most coverage of anyone,” Johnson said, attributing his survival to providence. “He’s the most attacked, he’s the most threatened.”
The agency needs “every asset available, and it will make more available if necessary,” he said. But “I don’t think it’s a funding issue. I think it’s a manpower allocation.”
The House and Senate will be investigating the two assassination attempts and issuing reports, Johnson said. He praised “some really patriotic, great people working in the Secret Service” but blamed leadership, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, whom the House impeached in February before the charges were dismissed by the Senate. The agency oversees the Secret Service.
“I have no faith in Secretary Mayorkas,” he said.
As the FBI and the Secret Service investigate the lapse in security, California Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) called for the Secret Service to speak before Congress on Monday.
“Two assassination attempts in 60 days on a former President & the Republican nominee is unacceptable,” Khanna wrote on X.
“The Secret Service must come to Congress tomorrow, tell us what resources are needed to expand the protective perimeter, & lets allocate it in a bipartisan vote the same day.”
The leaders of a bipartisan task force in Congress that is investigating the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania said Monday it has requested a briefing by the Secret Service on the Florida incident.
“We are thankful that the former President was not harmed, but remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all of its forms,” Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said in a statement. “The Task Force will share updates as we learn more.”
The latest attempted assassination happened around 1:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday when a Secret Service agent spotted the muzzle of an AK-47 style weapon pointing out of the treeline on the edge of the course. The Secret Service shot at the man holding the rifle and he fled, but the suspect was taken into custody during a traffic stop. Trump, who was about 300 to 500 yards away, was not injured.
Rowe, the agency’s acting director, plans to remain in Florida “indefinitely” during the investigation, according to CNN.
Meanwhile, there was tension on social media over the role of public figures in stoking further violence.
Elon Musk, the owner of X, deleted a post Sunday that said: “No one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”
Musk, who has endorsed Trump and interviewed him on X, wrote the post in response to a user who asked, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”
After the comment drew widespread outrage, Musk wrote a follow-up post: “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”
Trump’s former press secretary, Sean Spicer, needled Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) online when Jeffries criticized “extreme MAGA Republicans” as “the party of a national abortion ban and Trump’s Project 2025.”
“Based on the past 24 hours pretty sure it’s your side that’s the extreme one,” Spicer posted.
On Sunday afternoon, Libertarian presidential nominee Chase Oliver condemned a now-deleted post from the New Hampshire Libertarian Party, posted hours before the attempted assassination, that called for political violence against Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero,” the account wrote in a post it later deleted, commenting “we don’t want to break the terms of this website we agreed to.”
“It is abhorrent and should never have been posted,” Oliver wrote on X of the post. ”As Libertarians, we condemn the use of force, whether committed by governments, individuals, or other political entities. We are dedicated to the principle of non-aggression and to peaceful solutions to conflict.”