Lawmakers across the aisle seem to be in agreement: Both presidential candidates need more security. They just aren’t all on the same page about what that should look like.
Speaker Mike Johnson plans to bring a bipartisan bill from Reps. Mike Lawler and Ritchie Torres to the floor of the House Friday, which calls for increasing Kamala Harris’ and Donald Trump’s security levels to the same as President Joe Biden’s.
In July, Biden already ordered the Secret Service to assign Harris and Trump the “highest levels of protection,” after the first assassination attempt against the Republican nominee, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said this week; Trump had a full detail around him at his golf course in Florida when the Secret Service found a gun pointing at him in the bushes.
“At the end of the day, the objective here is to ensure the safety and well-being of the candidates,” Lawler told NOTUS of their bill. “If Congress needs to act further, then we should do so.”
Despite the consensus that Harris and Trump need more security, Republicans and Democrats are proposing very different kinds of resources. In interviews with NOTUS, several Republicans deviated from traditional Secret Service details, calling for military reinforcements, escalating their demands beyond a presidential detail.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville suggested Navy SEALs should be considered because of their expertise.
“If it’s our only thing that we can go to because we don’t have enough Secret Service,” he said. “I mean, you got to do it. We also had two assassination attempts at 65 days. I mean, so enough’s enough.”
He’s not the only Republican to think that’s a good option.
“I think it should actually be former [special operations forces] guys who have done protective details,” Rep. Cory Mills said. Mills suggested special operations forces could “push out further to get a bigger perimeter.”
Mills pointed to former Marine Special Forces, Army Special Operations Command and the joint Special Operations Command troops that now circulate the private contracting world as an option. “I would look at private contracting, former special mission unit guys, former MARSOC, USASOC, SOCOM, guys who have the necessary skill sets to be able to provide the inner bubble.”
The Department of Defense did authorize the National Guard to augment the Secret Service when needed after the first assassination attempt on Trump, though it stopped short of offering any of the units Mills and Tuberville mentioned. The authorities involved for those units to operate on American soil would take an act of Congress — one that might not be as palatable to many lawmakers.
Democrats, meanwhile, don’t disagree on the need for increased security, but don’t see the need for special sectors of the military to start operating on U.S. soil.
“I think that security needs to be enhanced,” Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Forces Committee, said. “You’re obviously in a much more dangerous time. Perimeters are going to have to be better guarded.”
“I would prefer if the U.S. military was a last resort,” he added.
Where everyone appears to be on the same page: Money should not be a question at this time.
“Frankly, no expense should be spared to ensure the safety and well-being of these candidates,” Lawler said.
Sen. Ted Cruz agreed. “We can debate about whether the Secret Service, over time, needs additional resources,” Cruz told NOTUS. “But that doesn’t solve the immediate problem right now today.”
“God forbid an assassination attempt succeeds; that would be a grotesque subversion of democracy,” he said.
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John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.