Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered support Monday for beefing up the Secret Service’s annual funding following another assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
“If the Secret Service is in need of more resources, we are prepared in providing it for them, possibly in the upcoming funding agreement,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the response to the would-be assassin should include “the ways that our political process has been injected by reprehensible violence” and assurances from the Secret Service.
“The American people deserve answers,” McConnell said. “They deserve assurances that a former president, who tens of millions of Americans have nominated once again, will receive every appropriate measure of security, and they ought to receive them without delay.”
The second attempt on Trump’s life, which occurred Sunday while the former president was on his southern Florida Mar-a-Lago golf course, has placed the Secret Service under even further scrutiny following the shooting in July at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
If there’s one thing congressional leaders can now agree on, it appears to be bolstering the Secret Service or the Trump campaign with additional resources.
President Joe Biden told reporters the agency “needs more help” and that Congress “should respond to their needs.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on Fox News that Trump “needs the most coverage of anyone.”
“He’s the most attacked. He’s the most threatened,” Johnson said. “We are demanding, in the House, that he have every asset available. And we will make more available if necessary.”
The Secret Service’s current annual budget tops $3 billion, a number that could swell in the coming months as lawmakers negotiate fiscal 2025 spending. Congress must approve a stopgap funding bill by Oct. 1 to avoid a shutdown, which would allow them to work on the full-year budget after the November elections.
But the Secret Service has previously pushed back on the notion that a lack of funding was to blame for security failures protecting Trump at this summer’s rally.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told Senate appropriators earlier this month that the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler was not due to insufficient funding. Still, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told reporters Monday that Rowe expressed an interest when the topic came up at a closed-door briefing with senators last week.
“I got the impression he was open to that ideal,” Durbin said.
An array of senators Monday signaled an openness to the Washington Examiner for buoying protective details by floating more money to the Secret Service. Several members noted Rowe’s assessment that the agency has adequate funding to perform its duties.
“I’m sure that the committee will give ample consideration, whether it’s done as part of [a stopgap measure] or afterwards,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “They can always shift money around.”
“If it’s a funding issue, a resource issue, or maybe it’s just an allocation or resource issue, which is a different subject, they need to be clear-eyed about it and let us know what it is that they need,” Sen. Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) told the Washington Examiner.
Several Republicans voiced the need for the Secret Service to offer Trump the same level of protection extended to Biden, which is more robust given Biden’s status as the current president. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said he intends to introduce legislation that would require equal treatment by law.
Rowe said Monday that alleged would-be shooter Ryan Wesley Routh “did not have a line of sight to the former president” Sunday and did not fire at Secret Service agents, one of whom opened fire on Routh and forced him to flee the area.