By Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the Secret Service told Donald Trump in a private meeting that significant new security arrangements will be needed if he wants to keep playing golf, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Trump asked Ronald Rowe, the Secret Service’s acting director, in a meeting on Monday whether it was safe for him to continue playing, the newspaper said. Rowe said the Secret Service views the golf course at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland as easier to secure because it is a military course.
That meeting occurred a day after the Secret Service thwarted a second apparent assassination attempt on Trump in less than two months. On Sunday, Secret Service agents fired on Ryan Wesley Routh, the apparent would-be assassin, when they saw the barrel of his gun poking through the fenceline at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, and local police officers later arrested him.
The incident has raised questions within Trump’s orbit and among lawmakers about whether Trump’s protection is sufficient.
“Former President Trump is receiving the highest level of protection that the U.S. Secret Service can provide, and we will continue to evaluate and adjust our specific protective measures and methodology based on each location and situation,” Secret Service spokesperson Melissa McKenzie said on Tuesday.
Still, at least one local official suggested otherwise. On Sunday, West Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters that Trump’s security detail was not as tight as that of a sitting president.
Since the incident, both Democrats and Republicans have accused each other of using overheated rhetoric that is inspiring political violence.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a press briefing on Tuesday that Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s comments about Vice President Kamala Harris not having faced an assassination attempt are dangerous.
“The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that … no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months,” Vance said on Monday.
Jean-Pierre said that language could put Harris in danger.
“When you make comments like that, all it does is … opens an opportunity for people to listen to you and potentially take you very seriously, and so it’s dangerous to have that type of rhetoric out there,” she said.
Trump was due to speak at a campaign event in Michigan on Tuesday evening in his first public political event since the apparent assassination attempt over the weekend.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Ross Colvin and Sonali Paul)
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