Citing Concerns About Drone and Missile Attacks, Trump Campaign Asks Biden Admin for Presidential Level of Protection in Final Weeks of Campaign, Including Military Aircraft: Reports
Citing concerns about possible drone and missile attacks, the Trump campaign has asked the Biden administration for presidential level of protection in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, including military aircraft, according to a report by the New York Times and confirmed by the Washington Post published Friday.
It was also reported Friday that President Trump has stopped playing golf after being told by the Biden administration it cannot protect him on golf courses.
While security has been enhanced at Trump events, the Trump campaign has been forced to cancel, downsize and relocate several events due to reported lack of resources by the Secret Service and other federal government agencies to protect President Trump.
Joe Biden told France 24 reporter Fraser Jackson on Friday that Trump should receive presidential level protection, the first time he has said that, “For the first time, @POTUS tells me that @realDonaldTrump should be afforded the same @SecretService protections as if ‘he were sitting president’. He continued ‘give him all that he needs. If it fits within that category, that’s fine. But if it doesn’t, he shouldn’t.'”
For the first time, @POTUS tells me that @realDonaldTrump should be afforded the same @SecretService protections as if 'he were sitting president'. He continued 'give him all that he needs. If it fits within that category, that's fine. But if it doesn't, he shouldn't.'
— Fraser Jackson (@FrazJ) October 11, 2024
Trump has been the target of two gunmen and the government of Iran in assassination plots. One gunman wounded Trump in the ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. Two supporters were wounded and one killed in the attack. The gunman, Thomas Crooks, was killed by a Secret Service sniper. A second accused gunman, Ryan Routh, was spotted and fired upon by a Secret Service agent before he could get off a shot at Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15.
A Pakistani national, Asif Merchant, was charged in August for trying to recruit assassins in an Iranian scheme to kill Trump.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign has requested a series of additional security measures, including military assets, in conversations with the White House and the Secret Service because of continuing threats to his safety, according to four people briefed on the matter.
The conversations came amid suggestions from some Trump aides that they felt hamstrung from having Mr. Trump campaign the way they would like to because of the security threats, including his ability to travel where he wants and appear outside at rallies.
In exchanges with the White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, and the acting Secret Service director, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., in the past two weeks, Susie Wiles, Mr. Trump’s top campaign adviser, said that Mr. Trump had been forced to move, reschedule or cancel key events because of limits on the service’s available resources, according to the people.
The campaign’s requests for more security, one of the people said, included sophisticated, classified military assets that are used only for sitting presidents; the pre-placement of ballistic, or bullet-resistant, glass in the main battleground states where he would be campaigning most frequently; and an expansion of temporary flight restrictions over Mr. Trump’s residences and campaign sites.
The Trump team in effect is looking for him to be protected at the same level that President Biden is. Mr. Trump’s team has been told that he is being given the highest level of protection available, though no candidate or former president receives what a sitting president does.
Donald Trump’s campaign requested military aircraft for Trump to fly in during the final weeks of the campaign, expanded flight restrictions over his residences and rallies, ballistic glass pre-positioned in seven battleground states for the campaign’s use and an array of military vehicles to transport Trump, according to emails reviewed by The Washington Post and people familiar with the matter.
The requests are extraordinary and unprecedented — no nominee in recent history has been ferried around in military planes ahead of an election. But the requests came after Trump’s campaign advisers received briefings in which the government said Iran is still actively plotting to kill him, according to the emails reviewed by The Post and the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. Trump advisers have grown concerned about drones and missiles, according to the people.
In the emails over the past two weeks from campaign manager Susie Wiles to Ronald L. Rowe Jr., the head of the Secret Service, she expressed displeasure with the Secret Service and said the campaign recently had to cancel a public event at the last minute because of a “lack of personnel” from the Secret Service — instead only putting Trump in a small room with reporters. Wiles said Trump’s campaign is being hampered in its planning because of threats, and expects to hold far more events in the final weeks of the campaign.
Secret Service officials did not answer specific questions about the discussions with the Trump campaign, but spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that Trump is receiving “the highest levels of protection.” In a letter to the campaign, Rowe said the government is assessing what can be provided.
“Assistance from the Department of Defense is regularly provided for the former president’s protection, to include explosive ordnance disposal, canine units, and airlift transportation,” Guglielmi said. The Secret Service is also imposing temporary flight restrictions “over the former president’s residence and when he travels,” he added. “Additionally, the former president is receiving the highest level of technical security assets which include unmanned aerial vehicles, counter unmanned aerial surveillance systems, ballistics and other advanced technology systems.”
…The Republican nominee has already started traveling with additional planes, and officials are also taking the precaution of dividing his motorcade at times and putting Trump in nondescript planes that do not have his name on the side instead of his longtime 757 jet.
This writer has witnessed varying levels of security enhancements while covering Trump events in Pennsylvania and Michigan since the assassination attempt in July. Without getting into details, the events have more security than the first Butler rally, but not commensurate with that of a sitting president. Attendees to the rallies have spoken with TGP about their very real fears for their safety but also expressed their belief they need to demonstrate they will not be intimidated from showing their support for President Trump by attending his rallies.
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