The U.S. Secret Service director has some explaining to do after a gunman nearly completed an assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally on Saturday. As The Daily Signal’s executive editor Rob Bluey wrote, eyewitnesses of the shooting said that they attempted to warn authorities about the shooter in the minutes before the attack but that the Secret Service failed to stop the gunman for carrying out the attack. There were also some concerning videos of agents as Trump was escorted away from the rally who appeared to not know what they were doing. Watching the ladies at work here. pic.twitter.com/ySuIw78VfR— Sharyl Attkisson ??????? (@SharylAttkisson) July 14, 2024 Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, said on Saturday that what happened was a “catastrophic failure” for the Secret Service. “This is an obviously catastrophic failure and NO excuses should be made, or even attempted,” Bongino posted on X. “The failures are profound and questions must be answered about ground surveillance, air surveillance, post-stander support, and counter-sniper advance work and response. We have ONE job, and we came within inches of a deadly failure today. An uneventful failure is NOT a success.” Bongino called on the director to resign. So, who is the Secret Service director? Here’s a little background on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. Career in Secret Service Cheatle was picked to lead the Secret Service by President Joe Biden in August 2022. According to USA Today she’s been on and off involved in the Secret Service for 25 years. “Cheatle has served more than 25 years with distinction for the United States Secret Service across a number of leadership roles,” USA Today wrote. “She worked on the Vice Presidential Protective Division, and in 2021, Biden awarded Cheatle with a Presidential Rank Award.” The Wall Street Journal reported that she was the first woman to serve as assistant director of protective operations and her appointment as the head of the Secret Service made her the agency’s second female director. “When he appointed her director, Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden got to know Cheatle while she served on his security detail during his vice presidency,” Wall Street Journal reported. “’She has my complete trust,’ the president said in 2022.” Biden praised Cheatle when he selected her to lead the Secret Service. “Jill and I know firsthand Kim’s commitment to her job and to the Secret Service’s people and mission,” the president said. “When Kim served on my security detail when I was Vice President, we came to trust her judgement and counsel.” Before Biden brought her on as the Secret Service director, Cheatle worked for PepsiCo North America where, according to the Secret Service website “she was responsible for directing and implementing security protocols for the company’s facilities in North America.” Diversity Efforts Cheatle has been a forceful advocate of diversity in the Secret Service and in the security industry. She spoke about this in a 2022 interview with the website “Women in Security” while she was still working at PepsiCo. “That achievement in a male-dominated industry was not lost on me,” Cheatle said in the interview. “I kept a photo on my desk of the first five women sworn into the service, and I used that to remind me that these women created opportunities for me and I can help others grow and lead as well.” In a CBS interview in 2023, Cheatle addressed some of the issues in the Secret Service and said that a major priority would be diversity efforts. CBS noted that Cheatle was committed to having the Secret Service be 30% women by 2030. The director of the Secret Service has been working hard on DEI.pic.twitter.com/LSB0BBDMkT— Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) July 14, 2024 As a part of that effort to increase the number of women she wanted to have YouTube influencer Michelle Khare train with agents. What People Are Saying A number of lawmakers and commentators have been critical of Cheatle after the assassination attempt of Trump took place. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Saturday called for an immediate investigation and demanded the director come before Congress and answer questions. “THE HOUSE WILL CONDUCT A FULL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRAGIC EVENTS TODAY,” Johnson wrote on X. “The American people deserve to know the truth. We will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that she should be “suspended immediately.” Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle should be suspended immediately. It will be clear the agents with President Trump have been asking for more support which would have given them the agent to station on that rooftop which would have been standard operating procedure. She…— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) July 14, 2024 New York Post writer Miranda Devine said that Cheatle’s tenure has been an “abject failure.” USSS director Kimberly Cheatle was hand-picked by Biden because she used to be on his VP detail. Her tenure is notable for her abject failure to 1) protect the agents who were repeatedly savaged by the Biden dogs over several months; 2) discover who owned the cocaine in the… https://t.co/bPlzj4jRpU— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) July 14, 2024 Radio host Eric Metaxas said that Cheatle should be “fired” and that this should be the end of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle should be fired. And this assassination attempt should be the death of DEI. Forever. https://t.co/W08vpNFtqs— Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) July 14, 2024 Entrepreneur Elon Musk, responding to a post on X about Cheatle’s time working for PepsiCo. posted that before being put in charge of protecting the president “she was guarding bags of Cheetos.” Musk further wrote that Cheatle should resign. The post Secret Service Director Put Focus on Diversity appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Sunday Smiles

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening reminded some news watchers of what President Joe Biden said to Democratic donors six days ago, as reported by the New York Times: “During a video call with top donors on Monday, Mr. Biden told them: “It’s time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye.” One may scoff at the idea that a metaphorical comment like Biden’s “bulls-eye” could possibly lead to an attempted assassination of Trump – yet, in 2011 the New York Times bizarrely blamed a campaign map issued by former John McCain running mate Sarah Palin’s political action committee for the attempted assassination of Democratic Rep. Giffords of Arizona. After the January 2011 attack on Rep. Giffords and others, the press and the Times in particular pinned the blame on a map put out by Palin’s PAC a year before, in March 2010, that included Giffords’ district marked with a “crosshair” target, a symbol that identified congressional districts whose representative voted for Obamacare. Giffords’ shooter Jared Lee Loughner was schizophrenic, and there was no evidence he was a Republican, a Palin fan, or had ever seen the graphic. That didn’t stop the Times from imposing a “violent rhetoric” template upon a Republican. Then-Times media reporter Brian Stelter and investigative reporter Dan Van Natta Jr. egged the media to go after Palin’s campaign map on their Twitter accounts. Van Natta linked to an old Huffington Post article on the Palin “gun sights” on Gifford’s district. Stelter threw out red meat: “For the record, there has been no mention of Sarah Palin’s target map on any cable news channel.” He didn’t have to wait long. A front-page story by congressional reporter Carl Hulse and Kate Zernike headlined “Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics” quickly focused on Palin’s “cross hairs” map: Ms. Giffords was also among a group of Democratic House candidates featured on the Web site of Sarah Palin’s political action committee with cross hairs over their districts, a fact that disturbed Ms. Giffords at the time. “We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list,” Ms. Giffords said last March. “But the thing is the way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that.” Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg led off their next-day story “After Arizona Shooting, Political Bickering Goes On” this way: Aides to Sarah Palin angrily rejected suggestions that she had some responsibility for the angry political climate that served as a backdrop to the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Some Democrats said Ms. Palin should at a minimum apologize for political tactics like putting out a map that placed cross hairs on Ms. Giffords’ district. They said she should think about what contribution she might have made to fomenting antigovernment sentiment. (Palin unsuccessfully sued the paper for an editorial that ran after the June 2017 shooting of Republicans on a congressional baseball field, an editorial that again falsely blamed her campaign map for inspiring the shooting.) Will the Times ever raise similar concerns about violent political tactics arising from Biden’s “bulls-eye,” not to mention any second thoughts about the “Trump is a fascist” drumbeat the press itself has encouraged for years? Will the Times voice any concerns about President Biden encouraging “stochastic terrorism” and undermining democracy, which the Times constantly accuses Trump of? The Times did bring up the bulls-eye in a front-page story on Sunday, not as a full story supporting the blame-Biden thesis but rather in dismissive fashion, first loading up a “far-right” label to discredit the idea. The 40th out of 43 paragraphs: A couple far-right House members blamed Mr. Biden, citing his recent comment that it was time to stop talking about the debate and “put Trump in a bull’s-eye.” Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, said in a television interview that “Joe Biden is responsible for the shooting.” Representative Mike Collins, Republican of Georgia, wrote on social media that “Joe Biden sent the orders.” As always, only the conservative side was accused of being responsible for violence -- and in Palin’s case at least, the accusation was based on a lie.

Barely one week ago, Joe Biden told his donors that “it's time to put Trump in the bull's-eye.” Looks like someone took him seriously. While I'm sure Biden will say this was not his intent, these careless remarks once again demonstrate that his current mental state is downright dangerous to America, to its national security, and now, unfortunately, to those attempting to save our great republic. There is absolutely no excuse.The corporate left-wing media has played a significant role in shaping the public’s perception of Donald Trump, often demonizing him and drawing dangerous comparisons to historical figures like Adolf Hitler. This type of inflammatory reporting only serves to stoke the fires of division and hatred. The time has come for law and order to be unequivocally restored.Donald Trump, a staunch constitutionalist, is campaigning for re-election with the goal of preserving our republic, restoring law and order, stabilizing and restoring a prosperous economy, and ensuring our constitutional rights and freedoms for our children. His dedication to this cause has made him a target for those who oppose this vision for America.We’ll know soon enough if the shooter was in fact tied to Antifa or some other leftist terror group, online speculation notwithstanding. We can say for certain that someone tried to shoot the former president, and his protective detail responded quickly to neutralize the threat. Unfortunately, this terrorist assassin left an innocent bystander dead and another spectator seriously wounded.The time has come for law and order to be unequivocally restored. We must fully fund our police forces and bolster our military strength to ensure that such attacks do not succeed in undermining our republic. In these turbulent times, we must stand united against those who seek to divide us. By supporting our law enforcement and military, we can uphold the values and principles that make our country strong. Let us work together to ensure that the ideals of the Constitution are preserved and that our leaders are protected from harm.The safety of our leaders and the security of our nation depend on our collective resolve to confront and overcome these challenges. We must act decisively to protect our beloved country and uphold the rule of law.

A man who makes a living peddling systemic racism through DEI initiatives has now penned an article expressing concern that black men might be drawn to former President Donald Trump because he survived an attack with a gun.Early Sunday morning, about 14 hours after the deadly shooting that nearly cost Trump his life, Forbes published a column about the shooting written by Shaun Harper, a USC business and education professor and self-described "diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) expert."'Will Trump seize the apparent assassination attempt against him as an opportunity to meaningfully address the epidemic of gun violence in America?'In the column — entitled "Will Surviving Gunfire Be Donald Trump’s Next Appeal To Black Voters?" — Harper seemingly waxes indignant that Trump has attempted to reach out to the black community, black men in particular, because of their shared experiences with the criminal justice system. "The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly contended that the August 2023 release of his criminal mugshot deeply resonated with Black voters because they know firsthand the unfairness of our nation’s criminal justice system," wrote Harper.Even as he admits that "more Black men now than four years ago say they’re voting for Trump" in 2024, Harper still does not believe Trump's outreach to black men has been effective since black men who claim they will vote for Trump in November do not cite "shared kinship with judicial injustice" as the reason for their electoral support.In fact, Harper takes issue with Trump attempting to associate himself at all with the black experience, accusing Trump of inventing a "racially problematic kinship narrative" to force the connection. "Hopefully, being shot doesn’t become a similarly problematic strategy to link Trump with an experience that far too many (not all) Black people have," the tenured USC professor added awkwardly.In the column, Harper also tacitly warned Trump not to co-opt supposedly iconic black images for his political benefit. One such image is the raised fist, a gesture that Trump makes regularly, including in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.After he was shot in the ear on Saturday evening, Trump stood before his crowd of supporters, blood dripping down his face, with his fist raised in the air. "Fight! Fight! Fight!" he urged them.Harper noted the similarity between Trump's impromptu, perhaps habitual, raised fist and the pre-planned "Black Power Salute" from U.S. track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos while on the winners' podium at the 1968 Summer Olympics. "Hopefully Trump doesn’t claim that his raised fist was an homage to Smith and Carlos, two powerful Black Americans," Harper said.Harper also worries that Trump may use his raised-fist moment to stand in solidarity with the 2020 protesters after the death of George Floyd. Any such connection between Trump and the 2020 protesters would be "erroneous" and disingenuous, Harper insisted.Rather than turn this attempted assassination into an opportunity to secure more votes, Harper hinted that Trump should use this moment to advocate for gun control, noting the alarming rates at which black men die from gun violence without also noting that black men are almost always the ones pulling the trigger in such cases."Will Trump seize the apparent assassination attempt against him as an opportunity to meaningfully address the epidemic of gun violence in America? Will he deem unacceptable the dangers to which citizens are exposed as they go to schools, places of religious worship, concerts, movie theaters, supermarkets, shopping malls, sporting events, and now, presidential campaign rallies? It’s possible, but unlikely," Harper said.Harper also recently criticized Trump's reference to "black jobs" at the infamous debate with Joe Biden last month. Harper described the term as "offensive," even as he acknowledged that low-skilled, labor-intensive jobs such as "hotel housekeeping" and "airport baggage handling" are disproportionately filled by black people.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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