It’s not often that a Hollywood heavyweight is willing to step outside the comfortable leftist bubble that insulates the entertainment world from reality, so it’s worth noting when the rare one has the courage to do so. And Michael Bay, director of blockbusters such as “Pearl Harbor” and “Armageddon,” has done just that by stepping forward to create a U.S. Secret Service recruitment ad set to air during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
And he didn’t have much time to do it, according to reports, as the idea only came together over the past two weeks.
Let’s rewind a bit.
If we learned anything in 2024, it’s that many of the country’s federal law enforcement agencies were badly mismanaged under the previous administration, with DEI being prioritized over all else. Nowhere was this more evident than with the Secret Service, whose performance was put under the microscope after its colossal failure to protect President Trump at his July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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Following the assassination attempt, questions were immediately raised about the fitness of the agents in Trump’s personal detail, the turned-down requests by Trump to have more protection, and the delayed reaction by agents on the ground in Butler to sightings of the would-be assassin reported by onlookers—not to mention the skewed recruitment priorities of then-director Kim Cheatle.
It was clear that the Secret Service was an agency allowed to fall into disrepair by weak leadership. Cheatle resigned, Trump won, and now the president has his guy, Sean Curran, in charge.
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But, there’s a still a reputation to repair and recruitment issues to address. That’s where Michael Bay comes in.
Once Curran was installed as director, he set about cleaning up the mess left by Cheatle, with recruiting the best and brightest to join the Secret Service as a priority.
Through a spokesperson, Secret Service Director Sean Curran told CNN that he “empowered the team to identify a novel and expedient approach that leveraged one of the most recognizable Directors to produce a representation of the men and women behind the Secret Service within nine days while ensuring compliance with requisite rules.”
“As Director, my focus will always be to lean forward to meet the needs of our workforce,” Curran said through the spokesperson.
And that approach involved Bay, a $2 million budget, and some coveted screen time at the Super Bowl.
The ad’s debut comes days after Bay — the Hollywood action director behind the “Transformers” movies and “Pearl Harbor” — was seen in White House pool footage shaking hands with Trump as the president boarded Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews last week. Sources familiar with the project say Bay was shooting the recruiting ad on-site.
“I came up with the concept for the PSA that America was founded on the idea of freedom,” Bay told CNN in a statement. “Throughout our short but powerful history as Americans, we have always stepped forward in time of need. This was a spot to honor the true silent heroes who protect the leaders of our democracy.”
And, now, the ad. It’s everything you’d expect from a Michael Bay production, and, interestingly, features both highlights and lowlights from the history of the Secret Service, including the JFK assassination. The ad makes clear that the agency is looking to return to its storied roots and will need a competent crew of patriots to make that happen.
Here is the Super Bowl ad from the Secret Service.pic.twitter.com/ZphYZaoOKy
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) February 9, 2025
President Trump is expected to attend the Super Bowl, the first sitting president to do so.
