- Donald Trump was seen bleeding from his ear following an assassination attempt on Saturday.
- Former Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy likened the incident to the 1981 shooting of President Reagan.
- McCarthy said the Secret Service had failed to protect Trump, despite its best efforts.
A former Secret Service officer says the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump represents a “failure” of his security team.
Tim McCarthy, who protected then-President Ronald Reagan from a gunman in 1981, offered his assessment of Saturday’s shooting to Chicago-based news outlet WGN-TV.
“This is a failure, plain and simple,” McCarthy said. “It was a failure when President Reagan was shot.”
“Any time a protected person is victimized, something has to change,” he added. “We need to critically examine what happened, why it happened, and how we can prevent it in the future.”
Nonetheless, he said security agencies have done “almost everything humanly possible” to thwart potential attacks, but that “there is no absolutely guaranteed security anywhere in this world.”
Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when the shooting happened and was seen pumping his fist in a defiant stance, his ears bloodied, before being escorted from the scene by Secret Service agents.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the bullet “passed through” the top of his right ear.
The FBI later identified the shooter killed at the rally as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
McCarthy, who reportedly retired from the Secret Service in 1993, said he didn’t have details about Trump’s security detail but said it was likely “pretty similar” to the security detail currently serving President Joe Biden.
He said that in the case of the president, a security team would patrol the area and secure the building using “various obstructions” such as campaign plaques and banners to block views, and that the security team would also move the podium to block views from outside the secured area.
“Today, in some cases, that’s nearly impossible to do, which is why the Secret Service has anti-sniper teams, which search buildings to get an overview of where the protected persons are,” he added.
In this incident, the counter-sniper team “clearly or probably” did not see the shooter, he said.
As a last resort, agents will defend their protected subjects against attack.
“The Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service are working with law enforcement to respond to and investigate the shooting,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
“We are working with President Biden, former President Trump and their campaigns to take every possible step to ensure their safety and security.”
McCarthy said the assassination attempt could “reduce former President Trump’s public profile,” but was unlikely to significantly disrupt former President Trump’s planned outings.
“The Secret Service is probably going to have to restrain him from going out in public anytime soon,” he said.
And Trump has already indicated his intention to appear in public at his next appearance.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump thanked people for their “thoughts and prayers” following the attack and said he looked forward to “speaking to our great country this week from Wisconsin”, where the Republican National Convention is being held.
