Following two assassination attempts on Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign, there are growing concerns about the incoming president's safety. Since those two attempts, for example, Iran has vowed to take the president out – and police and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms recently arrested an Arizona man for allegedly making expletive-laden death threats against Trump and his family.
Ken Valentine served 24 years with the Secret Service, including 10 years with the Presidential Protection detail. As the president-elect, Trump warrants "everything" the Secret Service has available to protect him, Valentine says.
"My expectation is that President-elect Trump receives the highest degree of protection that a human being can receive by the Secret Service," he tells AFN, "and that those efforts take into account all of the threats – both foreign and domestic – against him; and that he receives the full protection, all the countermeasures, everything that we've got to stop that, to prevent that, to thwart that and that that will be enough to do that."
Valentine argues this is all about preserving what he describes as "the American way."
"The American way is to say, 'Okay, Iran, we're going to march the President, after the inauguration, down Pennsylvania Avenue at about 1:30 in the afternoon. We'll meet you there if you want to fight' – and that's what we do," he explains. "That is America, and we're going to walk him down Pennsylvania Avenue the third weekend in January like we always do."
Valentine is author of the book "Cheating Death: Three-time Presidential Secret Service Agent Lives to Tell You How."
