Trump assassination threats have radically changed the US Secret Service

Welcome to Trump’s America, The i Paper’s World Insight series presenting the sharpest, deepest thinking on an era-defining shift in history and politics, investigating how Donald Trump and his administration have changed the US and the world – and where we go from here. • Hegseth is running a PR firm disguised as a defence department• The rich are building their own America• This heartbreaking video shows how low Trump’s White House has sunk Joining the Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security or US military is not for the faint of heart. I’d know – I spent 21 years in the CIA and more than 42 years in the US military and national security roles. The work can be dangerous, with little public recognition and relatively low pay. Despite this, all of these federal first-responder organisations had record application and recruitment statistics last year. Between January and May 2025, more than 22,000 people applied to the Secret Service compared with only 7,000 for the same period in 2024. The FBI also saw 5,577 new agent applications submitted in March 2025 (the monthly average in 2024 was 3,383) and every US military arm met or exceeded its recruiting goals in 2025. The figures are a testament to the second Trump administration’s ability to galvanise American patriotism. This is most evident amongst those who affiliate themselves with the Republican Party where pride in America jumped from 85 per cent in 2024 to 92 per cent in 2025-2026. This, combined with policies and benefits that motivate young Americans to join the ranks of the nation’s elite responders, has driven a huge spike in applications. Shorts Moreover, in the Secret Service in particular, there is a correlation between the sharp uptick in applications and the increase in threats against President Donald Trump. Since 2016, there have been three assassination attempts and nearly 20 threat-related incidents against the President. Only this week, it emerged that Trump had hidden in a catering truck instead of boarding Air Force One after last month’s Nato summit in Turkey. AT Smith, a former deputy director of the Secret Service, told The Times last month: “We see this rise in patriotism at times when our country is engaged in a war or [when] there’s a significant event. “Butler, the correspondents’ dinner and the other attempt down in West Palm Beach clearly generated a lot of interest. People have seen how the agents operate and react with professionalism under extreme conditions and want to be part of that… This is about people wanting to protect the office, protect the country.” A painting depicting the Associated Press photograph of the aftermath of the assassination attempt on then-US presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, hangs in the Entrance Hall of the White House (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty) The security failures that enabled the attempted assassination of Trump in 2024 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, were also part of what led the Secret Service to embark on a hiring spree. The Secret Service is responsible for safeguarding the president, vice president, their families, former presidents, major presidential candidates, visiting heads of state, and designated National Special Security Events (conventions, State of the Union, Super Bowl, etc.). Four separate government investigations into the Secret Service’s failures at Butler, Pennsylvania, cited in part: fragmented, siloed communications; a critical breakdown inside the Secret Service’s command post; chronic equipment failures and denied staffing requests. In 2025, it spent more than $2m on a slick recruitment ad that aired during the Super Bowl, which led to a sharp increase in agency applications. During the Biden administration, the Secret Service was scandal-ridden and plagued by severe budgetary and retention problems. The scandals included: deleted texts about the January 6 attack on the Capitol, cocaine found in the White House by agents, severe understaffing and the preventable Butler assassination attempt security failure. More than 1,400 Secret Service employees left the approximately 7,500-person agency in 2022 and 2023, which accounted for its largest staffing loss in at least two decades. According to the DHS Inspector General’s report, the agency was understaffed by 21 per cent, which led to marathon shifts for those remaining with little time for recovery, burnout and a reliance on underqualified personnel for protective events. For example, in October 2024 an anonymous Secret Service agent was quoted by NBC News as saying: “Any morale that may have existed in this agency is just absolutely down the drain; people are really starting to despise this agency.” Despite this, for the majority of their time in the White House, the Biden administration requested only modest funding for the Secret Service and kept its staffing flat. Congress ultimately provided increased funds and before the 2024 election Biden’s administration allocated more money and pushed for emergency recruitment. Trump administration incentive programmes, on the other hand, have very much contributed to the Secret Service’s recruitment upticks. Its uniformed division offers successful recruits $75,000 bonuses. The base salary of a new hire in the Secret Service ranges from $48,000-$65,000. Additionally, the administration has created a more streamlined hiring process, relocation expense reimbursement and targeted hiring campaigns for hard-to-fill specialties such as the Hazardous Agent Mitigation and Medical Emergency Response team. These policies have allowed them to hire 824 trainees in the first seven months of 2026, surpassing the 786 hires in all of 2025. Money, incentives and structural changes alone are not necessarily breathing new life into the Secret Service though. A patriotic spirit among the numerous applicants and new recruits is almost certainly making a difference. Regardless of party, Americans do not like to see their political leaders targeted. It angers them and quite likely drives them to join outfits like the Secret Service. The Biden administration, for the majority of their time in the White House, requested only modest funding for the Secret Service (Photo: Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty) My personal experience in leading men and women in the US Army and CIA is that patriotism and selfless service to their nation is a driving force behind both personnel recruitment and retention. Serving the greater cause of protecting America at home and abroad is an enduring organisational ethos. A revived Secret Service assuredly subscribes to these core beliefs and this is a good news story because it will keep the nation and its democratically elected leaders safe. Nevertheless, as we applaud the Secret Service’s ability to attract talented Americans to fill and expand its ranks, we must devote even greater energy to reducing what appears to be a growing proclivity to resort to violence against political leaders. We must lower the temperature of political discourse and address the deepening polarisation of American society and mainstreaming of fringe ideas. This includes tackling the misinformation and disinformation that is amplified by social media algorithms. We need to find ways to identify and combat growing online self-radicalisation. We need to counter the loneliness and social isolation experienced by many younger Americans. Finally, we need to hold politicians accountable for failing to condemn violence and violent rhetoric from their own side. Without tackling the root causes that are increasingly propelling segments of American society toward political violence, no surge in patriotism or increased number of law enforcement professionals will remedy a problem that could radically alter the political truths that Americans have held dear for the past 250 years.