House Assassination Attempt task force member Rep. Mike Waltz says there are many things the U.S. Secret Service can do to open up more resources to provide details to protectees most at risk.
At the top of the list is cutting back 99-year-old former President Jimmy Carter’s protective detail.
It comes as Congress weighs appropriating more funds to the USSS in the wake of two separate assassination attempts against Donald Trump and an increased scrutiny on the agency.
Rep. Waltz proposed three quick things he thinks can be done to better allocate resources rather than just pumping more money into the agency.
The first two, he said on X, is to ‘fix the broken protocols’ and ‘hold leadership accountable for failures.’
Rep. Mike Waltz says Secret Service detail provided to former President Jimmy Carter can be trimmed back to help provide a larger detail to protecting Donald Trump as he presented a few options for how the agency can reallocate resources
The latter is something Republicans have demanded ever since Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13 – and the pressure led to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigning in the wake of the attack.
USSS Acting Director Ronald Rowe has taken over since then and was in charge when his agents prevented a second attempt in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15.
‘I’m open to more resources for the Secret Service, but let’s see some REAL changes FIRST,’ Waltz wrote on X.
He said that personnel and resources should be shifted to ‘a threat-based security model.’
The example he provided for the third recommendation was insisting: ‘Trump’s security shouldn’t be the same as Jimmy Carter’s!’
Congress is weighing sending more money to the agency after two separate assassination attempts against Trump. Pictured: Secret Service surround the former president after a would-be assassin shot him in the ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13
Just two months after the first assassination attempt, another gunman tried to target Trump during a round of golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida
Carter is turning 100-years-old on October 1. He has remained at his home in Plains, Georgia since February 2023 receiving end-of-life hospice care.
Meanwhile, Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee and is actively on the campaign trail. There are also multiple credible threats to the former president.
Speaking with a CNN reporter about USSS request for more money, Waltz said: ‘You don’t get to have these type of spectacular, once in a generation failures and then say, ‘Well, I need more money.’
Waltz is one of the 13 members on the bipartisan House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump. This week, their scope expanded from investigating the Butler attempt, to also including the West Palm Beach incident.
The House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump surveys the roof where a gunman shot Trump earlier this summer. Waltz is part of the 13-member panel investigating the attacks
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead by Secret Service after he shot Trump, killed a supporter and critically injured two others at the rally in July
Police in Martin County, Florida arrested Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, after he fled from the scene where he was staking out Trump’s golf course with an SKS rifle, bulletproof body armor and a GoPro camera allegedly with the intent of assassinating the former president
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania earlier this summer. Before he was neutralized by Secret Service, Crooks shot Trump in the right ear, killed a supporter and critically injured two rally goers.
Just a bit over two months later, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, staked out near Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida for 12 hours awaiting the former president.
An agent shot at Routh when he spotted the barrel of his SKS rifle poking out from the bushes around the golf course just two holes from where Trump was playing a round on September 15.
Routh fled the scene and was arrested 50 miles from the club.
As a former president, Jimmy Carter, 99, still received Secret Service protection. He was last seen publicly at his wife Rosalynn’s funeral in November 2023 (pictured) – and he has been receiving hospice care since February 2023 at his home in Plains, Georgia