Imagine you’re the President of the United States, just two months removed from an assassination attempt that left your ear bleeding and your suit soaked in blood. You’re trying to keep the country together, run the world’s most powerful military, and avoid World War III — and meanwhile, the guy assigned to guard your life is drooling on himself while asleep at his post. Oh, and he left his gun behind during a bathroom break. At the United Nations General Assembly. You can’t make this up.
That’s exactly what happened last week, according to RealClearPolitics’ Susan Crabtree. A Secret Service Uniformed Division officer reportedly nodded off on duty and left his gun unattended in a secure zone. He was, thankfully, relieved of duty and placed under investigation. But let’s not pretend this is some shocking one-off. This is just the latest episode in what’s becoming a pattern — and not the good kind, like your grandma’s quilt. More like a horror movie sequel that won’t end.
This follows a string of security lapses that would be funny if the stakes weren’t so deadly serious. In late August, a Trump golf club member got through Secret Service screening with a loaded weapon. Fortunately, he didn’t get close to the president — and even more fortunately, he had the decency to report himself. That’s right, the civilian was more responsible than the agency tasked with protecting the Commander-in-Chief.
Then in July, a Secret Service agent tried to sneak his wife onto a government plane bound for Scotland with President Trump on board. The agent’s wife even got a Secret Service briefing. Sounds like the plot of a bad sitcom, except the punchline could have been a national security breach.
And let’s not forget the Code Pink protesters who managed to tailgate President Trump at a Washington, D.C. restaurant in September. There he was, trying to eat shrimp cocktail with his Cabinet, when a group of radical left activists stormed in and started shouting. Secret Service eventually removed them — but not before they got well within shouting, and potentially shooting, distance.
This isn’t just about sleepy officers and confused agents. It’s about a culture of mediocrity that’s crept into an agency once defined by excellence. Retired agent Scott Bryan nailed it when he said these failures aren’t isolated — they’re the result of a system that’s been allowed to rot from the inside. Weak hiring. Lazy training. Bureaucratic leadership. And let’s be honest — a whole lot of political loyalty tests during the Biden years, when protecting Trump was treated more like a burden than a mission.
The consequences have already been deadly. President Trump survived an assassination attempt in July by pure luck — the bullet missed his brain by centimeters. Two months later, another man with a rifle got close enough to possibly pull it off, camping out in the hedge line while Trump was golfing in Florida. Thank God an agent saw him before he could fire. But how did he get that close in the first place?
After the Butler shooting, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned — one day after being grilled by Congress. Trump replaced her with Sean Curran, the agent who personally shielded him during the attack. Curran is a 24-year veteran with ice in his veins. But rebuilding a culture of excellence won’t happen overnight.
Bryan makes a critical point: you can’t just throw more bodies at the problem. You need the right people — people with courage, grit, and brains — and you need to train and pay them like their job actually matters. Because it does.
We’re entering a new era — one where political violence isn’t hypothetical. It’s real. Just ask the family of Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last month.
So the question isn’t whether the Secret Service can return to greatness. The question is whether we can afford what happens if it doesn’t.