MILWAUKEE — On the floor of the Republican National Convention Tuesday night, vice presidential candidate JD Vance greeted and shook hands with the excited delegates as he walked to his seat.
It was a striking contrast to the former president Donald Trumpwho entered the hall a few minutes later and was separated from his supporters by a column of Secret Service agents. His ear, still bandaged from an attempted assassination, Trump held tightly to the wall. Instead of shaking hands or saying hello to the crowd, he gave the cameras a fist pump.
The contrast underscores the new reality Trump is facing after a gunman opened fire at his Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, raising serious questions about the agency charged with protecting the president, former presidents and major-party candidates. Trump’s campaign is also adjusting to a new reality after coming inches from death or serious injury — and as law enforcement warns of the potential for more political violence.
Trump campaign officials declined to comment on the heightened security and what implications it might have for his future interactions.
“We do not comment on President Trump’s security. All questions should be directed to the United States Secret Service,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose agency oversees the Secret Service, said Monday he could not comment on “the specifics of the protections or the enhancements that have been made because they involve sensitive tactics and procedures. However, I can say that personnel and other protective equipment, technology and capabilities have been added.”
The Secret Service had already stepped up Trump’s protection in the days before the attack, following an unrelated threat from Irantwo U.S. officials said Tuesday. But that extra security didn’t stop the gunman, who fired from an adjacent rooftop, from killing a spectator and wounding two others, along with Trump.
FBI and Homeland Security officials remain “concerned about the potential for continued or retaliatory violence following this attack,” according to a joint intelligence bulletin from Homeland Security and the FBI obtained by The Associated Press. The bulletin warned that lone actors and small groups “will continue to view rallies and campaign events as attractive targets.”
In a sign of the security risks, a man armed with an AK-47 pistol, wearing a balaclava and carrying a tactical backpack was arrested on Monday near the Fiserv Forum, where the congress is being held.
The attack has prompted heightened security, and not just for Trump. Security has also been beefed up for President Joe Biden, with more agents surrounding him as he boarded Air Force One for Las Vegas on Monday night. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also received Secret Service protection following the shooting.
Trump’s campaign has responded in other ways as well, including posting armed security at all hours outside their offices in Florida and Washington, D.C.
Trump has already scheduled his next rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday, where he will appear with Vance for their first event as the presidential ticket.
But the new stance is complicating, at least for now, the interactions Trump regularly has with his supporters, such as signing autographs, shaking hands and posing for selfies at events and on airplane tarmacs.
In many of the cities he visits, the campaign rallies enthusiastic supporters in public spaces like restaurants and fast-food joints. Sometimes Trump drops by unannounced. The images and videos of his reception and interactions — disseminated online by his campaign staff and conservative media — have been fundamental to his 2024 campaign.
Especially during the Republican Party primaries, his easygoing interactions stood in contrast to his awkward main rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
But those events can get noisy and chaotic. While he was in New York during his hush-money trial, Trump aides helped a series of visits organized to a local bodega, a local fire station and a construction site.
Before his arrival at the bodega in harlemThousands of supporters and spectators gathered behind metal barricades for blocks to watch his procession arrive and cheer. But others in the neighborhood were frustrated by the visit, including people who were dropped off at a bus stop right outside the store and others who were trying to get into their apartments after work.
At one point, a resident of the building began shouting from a window just above the entrance, where Trump would eventually stand to give speeches to the cameras and answer questions from reporters.
Long before the shooting, convention organizers were in conflict with the Secret Service over the location of protest zones at the convention. RNC leaders repeatedly asked officials to move protesters farther away than originally planned, arguing that an existing plan “creates a heightened and untenable security risk to the attending public.”
According to an insider, the original plan would have placed the protesters just feet away from the delegates, and close enough to throw projectiles over the fence.
The protest site was eventually moved, but the event still raises frustrations and suspicions among some of Trump’s allies.
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Colleen Long, an Associated Press editor in Washington, contributed to this report.
