WASHINGTON: In the hours after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, a sexist theory explaining how the Secret Service could have allowed such a grave security failure emerged in right-wing circles: It was the fault of incompetent women in his security detail.
“Look, I’m not sure about who the individuals are on the individual detail, Secret Service, but I can tell you under this Biden administration, the one thing I’ve seen is massive DEI hires,” Rep.Cory Mills, R-Fla., said on Fox News, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
“And I can tell you when you primarily, when you primarily go after D-E-I,” Mills continued, “you end up with D-I-E.”
Benny Johnson, a right-wing commentator, was more blunt in a social media post viewed nearly 9 million times: “Absolute humiliation for this gaggle of female Secret Service Agents,” he wrote in a post that showed the chaotic aftermath of the shooting, adding: “DEI Secret Service make Presidents LESS Safe.”
From an overwhelmingly male phalanx of agents guarding Trump that day, these critics pointed out a trio — visibly shorter than their peers and with their hair pulled back in a bun, a ponytail and with hairpins, respectively, as they put themselves in harm’s way to protect the former president — for criticism. Video of their movements, including a moment in which one visibly struggled to holster a weapon, has fueled an outcry among conservatives who have pinned the agency’s failings on its women, suggesting they were only hired to diversify the predominantly male organization.
The agency is led by Kimberly Cheatle, the second woman to serve as its director.
The Secret Service is under scrutiny for how agents secured the site of the campaign rally and ultimately responded to the shooting, which left Trump injured, a rally attendee killed, and two others severely wounded. It is the latest and most significant episode in a long saga of errors for the agency, which has been plagued in recent years by debauchery, reckless behavior and security failures.
No evidence has surfaced that the response of any female agent in Trump’s detail — whose members shielded his body with their own after shots were fired — caused or contributed to the security breakdown.
But the fixation on the few who surrounded Trump at Saturday’s rally reflects a larger grievance among some conservatives, who have argued that policies that promote diversity in hiring are inherently unfair and destructive — and, particularly when it comes to organizations such as the military and law enforcement — even dangerous.
Among the suggestions made by those who blamed female Secret Service agents for Saturday’s attack: that they were too short; that the agency lowered its testing standards for them; and that women should not be able to serve in the agency at all.
“I can’t imagine that a DEI hire from @pepsi would be a bad choice as the head of the Secret Service,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., wrote in an apparently sarcastic post on social media. Cheatle served in the Secret Service for 27 years before becoming the senior director of global security at PepsiCo.
Conservatives have long argued that codified diversity efforts promote left-wing ideas about gender and race and distract from organizations’ core missions. The GOP-led House has repeatedly passed legislation that would eliminate such initiatives at the Pentagon and other government agencies.
“A woke military is a weak military,” is a common refrain among right-wing lawmakers.
Cheatle has spoken openly about her efforts to recruit more women into the service, in part to help combat recruitment and retention issues.
“I’m very conscious, as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Cheatle said in her first interview after being tapped to lead the agency, with CBS News.
The news report said the agency’s goal was to have women make up 30% of recruits by 2030. They currently make up just under one-fourth of the Secret Service’s workforce, according to its website.
The video of that interview, published on YouTube, became overrun in the days after the shooting with comments suggesting that neither Cheatle nor the women the agency has hired since are qualified for their jobs.
Kym Craven, executive director of the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, said discussions around whether women should serve on a protective detail were a diversion from the important security issues raised by the assassination attempt.
“We’ve had critical incidents for centuries with men leading, and there’s never been a question that because of their gender they shouldn’t lead,” Craven said in an interview.
“The incident itself will be under review, and the incident will stand for itself,” she continued. “Whether changes needed to be made, mistakes happened — that’s not for me to judge in any way. But the discussion around gender and that because someone is a woman, they should not lead an agency — that conversation just should not be happening at all.”
Craven said women who serve in law enforcement agencies are held to the same physical agility and fitness standards men must meet.
“There’s not a woman leader that I know of in this profession that’s asking for standards to be lowered or exceptions to be made for women in the field,” she said.
Melanie Burkholder worked for six years as a Secret Service special agent, and in 2012 protected political candidates — including Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney — on the campaign trail.
Burkholder said in an interview she found the debate over whether women could serve in the agency “ridiculous,” noting that the first female protective agents were sworn in to the Secret Service in 1971.
“For us to be having a conversation about whether women add value, or whether women perform or whatever the question is — it’s ridiculous in my opinion to be having it at this point in time,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment.
But when Trump strode onto the floor of the Republican National Convention on Monday night in Milwaukee — his first public appearance since the shooting at his rally — he was flanked by what appeared to be an all-male phalanx of Secret Service agents.
“Look, I’m not sure about who the individuals are on the individual detail, Secret Service, but I can tell you under this Biden administration, the one thing I’ve seen is massive DEI hires,” Rep.Cory Mills, R-Fla., said on Fox News, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
“And I can tell you when you primarily, when you primarily go after D-E-I,” Mills continued, “you end up with D-I-E.”
Benny Johnson, a right-wing commentator, was more blunt in a social media post viewed nearly 9 million times: “Absolute humiliation for this gaggle of female Secret Service Agents,” he wrote in a post that showed the chaotic aftermath of the shooting, adding: “DEI Secret Service make Presidents LESS Safe.”
From an overwhelmingly male phalanx of agents guarding Trump that day, these critics pointed out a trio — visibly shorter than their peers and with their hair pulled back in a bun, a ponytail and with hairpins, respectively, as they put themselves in harm’s way to protect the former president — for criticism. Video of their movements, including a moment in which one visibly struggled to holster a weapon, has fueled an outcry among conservatives who have pinned the agency’s failings on its women, suggesting they were only hired to diversify the predominantly male organization.
The agency is led by Kimberly Cheatle, the second woman to serve as its director.
The Secret Service is under scrutiny for how agents secured the site of the campaign rally and ultimately responded to the shooting, which left Trump injured, a rally attendee killed, and two others severely wounded. It is the latest and most significant episode in a long saga of errors for the agency, which has been plagued in recent years by debauchery, reckless behavior and security failures.
No evidence has surfaced that the response of any female agent in Trump’s detail — whose members shielded his body with their own after shots were fired — caused or contributed to the security breakdown.
But the fixation on the few who surrounded Trump at Saturday’s rally reflects a larger grievance among some conservatives, who have argued that policies that promote diversity in hiring are inherently unfair and destructive — and, particularly when it comes to organizations such as the military and law enforcement — even dangerous.
Among the suggestions made by those who blamed female Secret Service agents for Saturday’s attack: that they were too short; that the agency lowered its testing standards for them; and that women should not be able to serve in the agency at all.
“I can’t imagine that a DEI hire from @pepsi would be a bad choice as the head of the Secret Service,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., wrote in an apparently sarcastic post on social media. Cheatle served in the Secret Service for 27 years before becoming the senior director of global security at PepsiCo.
Conservatives have long argued that codified diversity efforts promote left-wing ideas about gender and race and distract from organizations’ core missions. The GOP-led House has repeatedly passed legislation that would eliminate such initiatives at the Pentagon and other government agencies.
“A woke military is a weak military,” is a common refrain among right-wing lawmakers.
Cheatle has spoken openly about her efforts to recruit more women into the service, in part to help combat recruitment and retention issues.
“I’m very conscious, as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Cheatle said in her first interview after being tapped to lead the agency, with CBS News.
The news report said the agency’s goal was to have women make up 30% of recruits by 2030. They currently make up just under one-fourth of the Secret Service’s workforce, according to its website.
The video of that interview, published on YouTube, became overrun in the days after the shooting with comments suggesting that neither Cheatle nor the women the agency has hired since are qualified for their jobs.
Kym Craven, executive director of the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, said discussions around whether women should serve on a protective detail were a diversion from the important security issues raised by the assassination attempt.
“We’ve had critical incidents for centuries with men leading, and there’s never been a question that because of their gender they shouldn’t lead,” Craven said in an interview.
“The incident itself will be under review, and the incident will stand for itself,” she continued. “Whether changes needed to be made, mistakes happened — that’s not for me to judge in any way. But the discussion around gender and that because someone is a woman, they should not lead an agency — that conversation just should not be happening at all.”
Craven said women who serve in law enforcement agencies are held to the same physical agility and fitness standards men must meet.
“There’s not a woman leader that I know of in this profession that’s asking for standards to be lowered or exceptions to be made for women in the field,” she said.
Melanie Burkholder worked for six years as a Secret Service special agent, and in 2012 protected political candidates — including Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney — on the campaign trail.
Burkholder said in an interview she found the debate over whether women could serve in the agency “ridiculous,” noting that the first female protective agents were sworn in to the Secret Service in 1971.
“For us to be having a conversation about whether women add value, or whether women perform or whatever the question is — it’s ridiculous in my opinion to be having it at this point in time,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment.
But when Trump strode onto the floor of the Republican National Convention on Monday night in Milwaukee — his first public appearance since the shooting at his rally — he was flanked by what appeared to be an all-male phalanx of Secret Service agents.