Newly coronated as the 2024 Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump has made his first public appearance since the Saturday assassination attempt .
Two days can change everything. As Trump walked to his chair at the Republican National Convention hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it was clear that Saturday's incident was anything but a distant memory. While Trump seemed relaxed, smiling and bearing only a small bandage on his right ear, he was surrounded by a clearly reinforced Secret Service detail.
A large number of Secret Service agents walked behind, in front of, and alongside Trump in very close proximity. The number of agents assigned to the rope line separating Trump from convention attendees was also unusually large. Befitting the political pageantry of convention events, the Secret Service will normally maintain at least a pretense of distance from a protectee as said person walks to his or her seat or the stage. The agency does not usually want presidential candidates to feel claustrophobic or to risk being perceived as vulnerable or elitist.
Not so here. In an obvious Secret Service effort to ensure maximal protection for Trump's person and to deter copycat attackers from aspiring to replicate would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks's antics on Saturday, Trump walked within a de facto human fortress on Monday.
This reflects a broader concern.
Namely, the Secret Service knows it is under immense public and political scrutiny . Further underlining this point, as Andrew Leyden observed , the Secret Service has assigned Trump a HAMMER team. The HAMMER unit serves as the Secret Service's tactical response team for critical medical, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events. But HAMMER teams are highly limited in number, even more so than the Secret Service's elite counterassault and counter-sniper teams. HAMMER teams are traditionally reserved only for the president and vice president as a capability of last resort to maintain military command and control and as a response to weapons of mass destruction incidents.
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One final point. It is possible that the erstwhile head of President Joe Biden's presidential protective division (the most prized Secret Service job, responsible for leading the protection of the first family) may have been, albeit based only on a cursory photo comparison , reassigned to lead Trump's detail. If this change has occurred — it may simply be that two different agents look very similar — it suggests a significant Secret Service shake-up.
Regardless, it's clear the Secret Service isn't taking any chances in Saturday's aftermath. The agency wants everyone to know that Trump is now very heavily defended. And he is.
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