Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is receiving a level of Secret Service protection that is "quite approximate" to that of President Joe Biden, according to Politico.
During a panel at the Politico AI and Tech Summit, Mayorkas also said the Secret Service did "phenomenal work and they deserve to be commended for it" in its response to an apparent assassination attempt against Trump at his Florida golf course Sunday.
Mayorkas, who as DHS secretary, oversees the Secret Service, noted that the U.S. is seeing "a heightened threat environment" against federal, state, and local public officials, as well as increased threats against places of worship and schools.
"We're now speaking of individuals radicalized to violence because of ideologies of hate, anti-government sentiment, personal narratives, and other motivations propagated on online platforms," he said.
The FBI is investigating the Sunday incident as an assassination attempt, the second against Trump in two months. The suspected gunman was identified as 58-year-old Ryan Routh. Authorities say he waited outside Trump's West Palm Beach golf course with an assault rifle for nearly 12 hours. Routh has been charged with federal gun crimes.
The House launched an investigation into the first attempted assassination against Trump, which occurred during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. That incident and the myriad security failures that led up to it prompted the resignation of Secret Service Chief Kimberly Cheatle.
The House has launched an investigation into that incident and will likely expand its probe to include what happened on Sunday.
Kate McManus ✉
Kate McManus is a New Jersey-based Newsmax writer who's spent more than two decades as a journalist.
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