With the U.S. election less than two months away, the Secret Service is in the spotlight again after GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to have been targeted in another possible attempted assassination Sunday afternoon while golfing at his resort in West Palm Beach, Fla.
The lone suspect “has a long history of misdemeanor and felony charges, ranging from traffic violations and possession of stolen goods to weapons offenses,” the Wall Street Journal reports. He’s also been an outspoken supporter of Ukraine. He was even filmed in Kyiv by the Associated Press in April 2022 (though he’s not known to have taken part in any fighting). And just last year, at the age of 58, he spoke to the New York Times about his support for Ukraine. The Times reporter, former Marine Thomas Gibbons-Neff, wrote afterward, “it was clear he was in way over his head.” (More on that below.)
What happened: At about 2 p.m. ET, the suspect, who is now in custody, was spotted about 400 to 500 yards from Trump hiding in the brush while pointing a rifle through a fence. With him were two backpacks, a GoPro camera, an AK-style automatic rifle, and a scope. After being spotted, he was promptly shot at by at least one Secret Service official before he fled the scene to his automobile nearby, a black Nissan SUV. (It’s unclear just yet if he fired a shot during the encounter.) He was later apprehended about 40 miles away while driving northbound along I-95.
“U.S. Secret Service personnel opened fire on a gunman located near the property line,” Special Agent-in-charge Rafael Barros of the Miami Field Office said in a short statement Sunday afternoon, shortly after the incident took place. The FBI is leading the investigation into what occurred, which the bureau confirmed in a separate brief statement “appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.”
Local sheriff: The suspect made it so close, hiding in the bushes along the resort’s fences, because “security is limited to the areas the Secret Service deems possible,” Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Sunday. If Trump were still president, his security bubble would be much larger and involve far more Secret Service personnel, Bradshaw said. Newsweek has more.
POTUS: “The Secret Service needs more help,” President Biden told reporters Monday morning. “And I think Congress should respond to their need,” he said, and added, “Thank God the [former] president is OK.”
“There is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country,” Biden said in a statement on Sunday. “I have directed my team to continue to ensure that Secret Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety,” he added.
“It was certainly an interesting day!” Trump wrote on his social media site Sunday evening. “Most importantly, I want to thank the U.S. Secret Service, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and his Office of brave and dedicated Patriots, and, all of Law Enforcement, for the incredible job done today at Trump International in keeping me, as the 45th President of the United States, and the Republican Nominee in the upcoming Presidential Election, SAFE.”
“I am thankful that former President Trump is safe…I condemn political violence,” said Vice President Kamala Harris in her own statement Sunday, and stressed, “We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.”
The Ukrainian military has a bit more on the suspect in custody: He spent the last two-and-a-half years pitching “nonsensical ideas” to Ukrainian officials, Oleksandr Shahuri, a representative officer of the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command, told AP. “His plans and ideas can best be described as delusional,” Shahuri said.
Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2013, a dozen people were killed and eight others injured in a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.
Ongoing: Bomb threats wrack Ohio city amid Trump’s lies. In the week since the former president and his running mate amplified an unfounded rumor about immigrants in Springfield, bomb threats have forced the evacuation of two elementary schools, the cancellation of classes at a middle school, the lockdown of two hospitals, and the closure of City Hall and other municipal and state buildings, including the local Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Ohio License Bureau. Two local colleges received shooting threats and have canceled activities and moved classes online.
Not all Republicans. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called claims like Trump’s and Vance’s “a piece of garbage” and defended the immigrants: “They came to Springfield to work.”
“Mass deportations.” Called upon to rescind his false claims, Trump on Saturday vowed “mass deportations” in Springfield, the vast majority of whose immigrants are there legally. JD Vance has also continued to spread the false claims, admitting on CNN on Sunday that he needed “to create stories” to make his points.
The White House has just two weeks left before $5.8 billion in Congressionally-authorized Ukraine aid expires at the end of the fiscal year. Only $100 million of that can be carried over past the Sept. 30 deadline, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement Friday. “The Department will continue to provide drawdown packages in the near future and is working with Congress to seek an extension of PDA authorities beyond the end of the fiscal year,” he added.
New: Russia is seeking “a decisive victory in Ukraine by 2026,” Kyiv’s military intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, said Sunday at the 20th Yalta European Strategy meeting hosted in Ukraine’s capital city.
What’s driving that goal: “Russia anticipates a worsening economic and socio-political situation by mid-2025, alongside increasing difficulties with military recruitment,” analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War write in their latest assessment. “Budanov assessed that mounting issues will force Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a critical decision: either launch another risky and controversial mobilization or reduce the intensity of combat operations in Ukraine.”
Worth noting: “Budanov’s assessment implicitly assumes that Western states will maintain support for Ukraine at current levels over the next one to two years,” ISW writes. But that’s far from a certainty; and with the U.S. election coming up, things could change substantially depending on what happens in November.
Budanov also credited North Korean weapons with most directly and rapidly disrupting the war in Ukraine, including its reported delivery of 4.8 million artillery shells to Russia this past June.
One big Q: How long can Russia sustain this invasion? According to ISW, “The Russian government will likely have to further mobilize the Russian economy and defense industry and invest in capacity building if the Russian military intends to sustain its current tempo of operations in the medium- to long-term as Russia depletes its finite Soviet stockpiles, but it is unclear if the Russian defense industry will be able to produce enough to sustain the high level of equipment losses that Russian forces suffer in Ukraine even with further economic mobilization.”
Parallel consideration: “Ignore the Defeatists. America’s Strategy Is Working in Ukraine,” argues Michael Kimmage, professor of history at Catholic University and the Richard C. Holbrooke Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, writing in an essay this weekend for the Wall Street Journal (gift link).
For Europe, the next few months come down to a “painful” choice: “War vs. Welfare,” the Wall Street Journal reported separately over the weekend, with a special emphasis on Germany’s tightening economic spot.
Related: Romania wants to buy 32 F-35s from the U.S. for more than $7 billion. The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency has details in their Friday announcement.
By the way, the future of European security was the topic of our latest Defense One Radio podcast, which posted Friday and features a conversation with Defense One’s Patrick Tucker, who recently returned from a trip to Prague.
Additional reading:
- “Observations on the War in Ukraine: Impressions from Our Visit,” by Daniel Byman and Elizabeth Hoffman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, writing Friday;
- “Vance Describes Plan to End Ukraine War That Sounds a Lot Like Putin’s,” the New York Times reported Friday (gift link);
- And “US hits Russian state media with sanctions for raising money for Moscow’s troops in Ukraine,” AP reported Friday off the State Department’s alert; Politico, CNN, the BBC and others have similar coverage.
Houthi missile sparks evacuation of Israel’s main airport. Fired from Yemen early on Sunday, the missile triggered air-raid sirens at Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv before landing in an open area in central Israel. “The Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel since the start of the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, but nearly all of them have been intercepted over the Red Sea,” AP reported.
ICYMI: U.S. forces killed ISIS leaders on Aug. 29, CENTCOM says. In a Sept. 13 press release, U.S. Central Command said U.S. and Iraqi security forces conducted a raid in western Iraq that killed 14 ISIS operatives, including four leaders: Ahmad Hamid Husayn Abd-al-Jalil al-Ithawi, who oversaw ISIS operations in Iraq; Abu Hammam, leader of the group’s ops in western Iraq; Shakir Abud Ahmad al-Issawi, who led the group’s military operations in western Iraq; and technical development chief Abu-’Ali al-Tunisi.
And lastly: For just the second time, Iran launched a satellite into orbit on Saturday. “The solid-fuel, three-stage rocket put the Chamran-1 satellite, weighing 60 kilograms (132 pounds), into a 550-kilometer (340-mile) orbit,” AP reported, citing state media.
Why it matters: The State Department reminded AP that the U.S. has “long made clear our concern that Iran’s space launch vehicle programs provide a pathway to expand its longer-range missile systems.” More, here.