Undoubtedly, one of the most iconic moments in American political history happened on July 13th when 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump reemerged in front of a shocked Pennsylvania crowd after ducking to the ground as an attempted assassin’s bullet pierced his right ear, only narrowly (but thankfully) missing his intended target full on.
A bloodied Trump raised his fist defiantly to the crowd, with no words uttered beyond “fight, fight, fight” as the meaning of that look on his face – “I’m not going anywhere” – was crystal clear.
Also pictured in that iconic imagery were members of the Secret Service, who protectively hovered around Trump and ushered him off the stage as he rallied onlookers to continue the fight.
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Almost immediately, questions were raised about the Secret Service’s handling of the event, what went wrong, who dropped the ball, who was in charge, etc. because, as popular conservative commentator Dan Bongino – a former agent himself – pointed out, “an uneventful failure is never a success, and the fact that Donald Trump didn’t die yesterday is no reason for anybody to take some kind of victory lap.”
Ten days after the attempted assassination and in the immediate aftermath of a heated Congressional hearing on the security failures, Secret Service director Kim Cheatle – who was previously championed by First Lady Jill Biden – has resigned in disgrace.
Cheatle’s resignation was apparently enough for CNN’s Jim Acosta to consider the whole matter closed, as in a segment done after news of her resignation broke, he proclaimed that it was “wildly irresponsible” for Trump to allegedly say the Secret Service did not protect him.
“When you hear the former president saying something like that… obviously the Secret Service is a professional operation, you know, that the fact – to say something like ‘they did not protect me,’ it just sounds just wildly irresponsible,” he whined.
Watch:
Jim Acosta on Trump saying the Secret Service did not protect him after he was shot:
Acosta: The Secret Service is a professional operation…to say something like ‘they did not protect me’ it just sounds just wildly irresponsible.
Wackrow: …not the reality of the situation… pic.twitter.com/O2pmbs7MTT— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 23, 2024
The problems with that reaction, however, are numerous. First, Trump – who early on after the shooting praised the Secret Service – didn’t actually attack them on Truth Social in the post Acosta read. Here’s what Trump actually wrote:
“The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy. IT WAS MY GREAT HONOR TO DO SO!”
Secondly, considering what happened that fateful Saturday afternoon at the Trump campaign rally, even if he had attacked the Secret Service over the incident, who could blame him?
Acosta says it is “wildly irresponsible for Trump to say the secret service didn’t protect him”
He was saved from a direct headshot by a freak head turn that hit his ear. They objectively (and admittedly) did not protect him. pic.twitter.com/XjvnrtQ6U9
— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) July 23, 2024
Thirdly, the Secret Service being a “professional operation” is no excuse to not criticize them when they failed to do the jobs they were hired to do. What an idiotic comment. That’s similar to saying that because CNN is purportedly a professional news operation that means they shouldn’t have the riot act read to them when the occasion calls for it.
It’s an understatement here to say this was a security failure of epic proportions. That Jim Acosta would make the issue at hand more about Trump’s (understandable) rhetoric rather than the failures themselves – which nearly cost Trump his life – tells us much about Jim Acosta with none of it being good, unsurprisingly.
Flashback: CNN’s Jim Acosta Weighs in on Biden ‘Napgate’ and Gets Exactly the Responses He Deserves
