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The 2024 assassination attempt against Butler, Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump has resulted in many changes to strengthen the Secret Service security practices, but agents have cut the work into an era of unprecedented threats to the president.
Trump faces many threats, ranging from violent extremists supported by proxy groups to domestic actors who were urged to incite violence amid rising political rhetoric, experts say.
“The US president is not under threat of violence,” Bill Gage, who served as a special agent for the Secret Service between President George W. Bush and the Barack Obama administration, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “The threat from President Trump is the greatest president ever faced.”
A year after Trump’s assassination attempt, Butler’s widow demands accountability from the Secret Service
The Secret Service has a trend of President Donald Trump on stage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. (Anna Money Maker/Getty Images)
Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old gunman, fired a shot at Trump from the rooftop during a rally. In addition to injuring the two, the gunman shot and killed Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, father and husband, who attended the rally.
A few months later, another man was arrested and accused of attempting to assassinate Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Both incidents are under investigation.
Political rhetoric from the left portraying Trump as a threat to democracy is dangerous, and it could feed political extremists who believe that assassinating the president is a way to save the country, leading to similar assassination attempts seen in Pennsylvania.
Other factors that contribute to raising threat levels include policies related to migrants or funding cuts from newly created government efficiency (DOGE) that are not popular on the left, and hostile proxy groups supported by actors like Iran who oppose Trump, Gage said.
Republican presidential candidate and former US president Donald Trump is supported by security guards after he rang out a shootout at a campaign rally at Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024.
“It raises Trump’s threat levels,” Gage said. “There are probably dozens of threats every day. They are just insider threats, or within our own boundaries where the Secret Service has to run.”
Specifically, Gage pointed to comments from leaders like the governor of California. Gavin Newsom in June argued that “democracy is under attack,” and addressed the public following the decision to respond to the Golden State immigration and place it under federal orders rather than state orders.
“There are people who are currently reading Newsom’s quotes and wanting to see President Trump harm,” Gage told Fox News Digital in a June email. “It’s up to the USS to stop them. I hope that anyone who wants the president’s harm will not slip through the rift.”
A Newsom spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Trump is not the only subject that is a potential target for politically motivated violence.
As attacks on federal immigration authorities have been on the rise, gunmen fired fire on Border Patrol agents on Monday at an annex in McAllen, Texas. Authorities have not yet identified any motives.
But lawmakers have not written words about Trump’s immigration agenda. June, D-Wash. Pramila Jayapal of acting “like a terrorist.”
Rep. Michael Guest, who oversees the House Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, said in a statement Wednesday to Fox News Digital that “radical anti-law enforcement rhetoric” prompted a surge in violence against federal immigration officials.
Trump Chief Susie Wills recounted his attempt to assassinate Butler, and thought the president had died at first.
Republican presidential candidate President Donald Trump is rushing behind the scenes during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. (Anna Money Maker/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, threats continue to change and create additional challenges for security forces like Secret Services in adapting.
While Secret Service is taking action to strengthen its security measures, the agency faces considerable vulnerability given the complexity and sophistication of the threat it faces,” Tim Miller, who served as Secret Service agent between President George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s administration, said in an email to Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
“The FBI has consistently warned of homemade violent extremists, and this is a major concern,” Miller said.
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Miller characterized Butler as a “morning” call for the Secret Service, saying the incident sharpens the agency’s ability to deal with the threat, but he said there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
“Secret Services is still catching up when it comes to adopting critical technologies, especially in the areas of secure communications, drone surveillance and real-time intelligence tools,” Miller said. “These are not luxury. They are essential for modern conservation work.”
The bipartisan house task force that investigated the attack found that the assassination attempt was “preventable” and that various mistakes were not isolated incidents.
At the top of the list of mistakes, the report identified that the Secret Service did not secure a “high-risk area” next to the Larry, the American Glass Research (AGR) complex. Failing to secure the area was “ultimately allowed fraudsters to avoid law enforcement and climb, pass, and fire the roof of the AGR complex.”
Other negligence discovered by the task force included handing over the role of advance planning to inexperienced Secret Service personnel, along with a breakdown of various technologies and communications.
Furthermore, the relevant threat information known to members of the Intelligence Reporting Agency had not escalated to key staff working at the assembly,” the House Task Force said in the report.
As a result, the institution led a series of reforms.
Journalists who rejected the duck during an attempt to assassinate Trump reflect Butler Rally in a new book
Republican presidential candidate President Donald Trump is rushing behind the scenes during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. (Anna Money Maker/Getty Images)
The agency was immediately changed to Butler, Pennsylvania, following the agency, which included expanding drone use for surveillance purposes and incorporating larger counter-drone technology to reduce movement attacks from other drones, according to former Secret Service representative director Ronald Lowe.
The agency also overhauled the interoperability of the radio communications network and the networks between Secret Service officials and state and local law enforcement officials, Lowe told lawmakers about the bipartisan house task force investigating the December 2024 assassination attempt.
Aftermath of Trump’s attempt to assassinate, the reaction from the inside revealed in a new book
Rowe also told lawmakers that the Secret Service is aiming to staff next year, and that it had more special agents in the details of Trump’s security. A portion of the additional $231 million funds that Congress approved Secret Service in a suspension spending bill to hire 1,000 new agents and executives in September 2025 will be directed towards an increase in these employment plans.
The pipeline could potentially build an accurate replica of the White House. Historically, agents have trained at his Atlanta film studio using Tyler Perry’s White House replicas.
Secret Service Director Sean Curran said in an interview with Fox News that “in April ‘My Views with Lara Trump’,” the agency is working with the White House to install such a building at the James J. Raleigh Training Center, a 500-acre center in Laurel, Maryland.
Republican candidate Donald Trump was stolen from the stage on July 13, 2024 at a campaign event at Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, and blood appears on his face surrounded by Secret Service staff.
“For our officers and agents to train properly, they have to see what it’s like to be in the White House,” Curran said. “It’s an important complex that you need to know. There are a lot of ins and outs, and it’s as easy as a local fire department to show up to help out with a fire, and they need to know where they’re headed.”
Overall, Congressional Watchdog has issued nearly 50 recommendations to the Secret Service following the assassination attempt. The agency reported Thursday that it was in the process of implementing 21 of these recommendations and implementing 16 other 16.
“Last year’s reforms were just the beginning, and agents will continue to evaluate their operations and make additional changes as needed,” the Secret Service said in a news release Thursday.
Diana Stancy is a political reporter for Fox News Digital, covering the White House.
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