WASHINGTON — President Biden said Monday that the Secret Service “needs more help” after former President Donald Trump was targeted Sunday in another assassination attempt.
“One thing I want to make clear is: The Service needs more help. And I think Congress should respond to their need,” Biden, 81, said as he departed the White House for a day trip to Philadelphia.
“Thank God the president is OK,” Biden added of his former adversary.
The retiring incumbent went on to say that the Secret Service “may decide whether they need more personnel or not.”
Alleged gunman Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested Sunday after he was discovered hiding with a tactical rifle in the bushes near Trump’s West Palm Beach, Fla., golf course as the Republican presidential nominee was playing a round.
After a Secret Service advance officer fired at Routh, officials say, he fled, but was later taken into custody.
Routh used some of the same political messaging as Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on social media, writing on X in April that “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.”
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw indicated at a press conference Sunday that Trump’s security was lighter because he’s not the sitting commander-in-chief.
“At this level that he is at right now, he’s not the sitting president. If he was, we would have had this entire golf course surrounded. But because he’s not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible,” Bradshaw said.
“I would imagine that the next time he comes to a golf course, there’ll probably be a little bit more people around the perimeter. But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done.”
That comment sparked shocked reactions in Washington, where Trump’s allies in Congress promptly demanded a bigger force to protect him ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet on July 13 when another gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, climbed onto an unguarded roof less than 150 yards from Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., drawing bipartisan outrage over glaring security lapses.
