(This article was written by Hermann Tertsch and appeared in El Debate. Sin respeto del enemigo)
The Islamic State has announced new attacks following the one in Solingen in Germany, which cost three dead and seven wounded in a knife attack by an illegal Syrian immigrant who was under a deportation order. In a communiqué it calls on all Muslims to murder Europeans in revenge for the war in Gaza. The Islamic State wants to profit from the climate of hatred toward Israel and the West that has broken out among Muslims residing in Europe, massively supported by the left and by some European governments, as a result of Israel’s war against Hamas. This has happened before: that the Islamic State strives not to be eclipsed by Hamas or other jihadist groups.
What is indeed novel, according to German experts on jihadism, is that the communiqué, in its pages titled “Jihad in Europe,” not only displays the usual ferocious hatred but openly mocks Germany, its government and the West in general. The murderers are laughing at us. And they expound at length in their mockery of the German government’s anti-terrorist measures after this attack, which has shaken Germany like few others. And which has laid absolutely bare that the German security forces have lost control over an Islamist population that arrived in waves ever since Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the border in September 2015. Germany will one day have a government that declares Merkel one of the beings who has done the most harm to the nation and to all of Europe, surpassed only by the great Nazi and communist murderers of the 20th century. In any case, Germany then received the coup de grâce to its internal security and to its social cohesion, the two immense achievements that had brought peace and immense prosperity after 1945.
The mockery of the jihadist enemy sounds very much like the mockery of the murderer Nicolás Maduro these days, who laughs at everyone because he knows that he kills and knows how to kill and is willing to do so, and for that reason he has the upper hand over all those who, from within the democracies, are not going to do anything to him. Maduro counts on an army of accomplices among those who rule in the countries that supposedly defend those who win elections against those who lose them and torture and murder to remain in power. The jihadists too count on their accomplices: the volunteers who are aware of the interests of Iran or Qatar or so many others, and the involuntary ones, who are all those Westerners who do not understand that they are facing people who want to exterminate them.
The Islamic State communiqué openly laughs at its enemy, to whom it denies all respect and in whose fear and confusion it demonstrably delights. It alludes to the ban on carrying knives in Germany, which has been proposed after the recent attacks, and suggests to its followers that they can also use “hammers and birthday cakes.” The novelty of the communiqué lies in this mockery, which is a sort of coming out of the closet from restrained mockery into the lewd laughter of humiliation. With the following message: “We laugh at you because we are going to beat you, because we believe and you do not, because we defend what is ours and want to impose it and you no longer even know what is yours.” It should surprise no one. It marks a grave trend that has been developing for decades but is now widespread. The radicalized Muslim communities in Europe have always cultivated hatred and contempt for the decadence and immorality of their Western hosts.
But not open mockery. As the German singer and songwriter Heinz Rudolf Kunze said years ago in a song called Willkommen Ihr Mörder (Welcome, Murderers): “When they are among themselves they laugh a lot at us,” at us Westerners who are so tolerant that we do not defend what is ours. At the weak Westerners who let them take from us, little by little, everything: from space in medical consultations, to aid with the taxpayer’s money for those who never contribute anything and who spread a parasitic culture of good conscience because it weakens the enemy, to the granting of housing and even the streets they occupy to pray without anyone daring to dispute their occupation of public space.
In the communiqué they now openly laugh at the impotence of the German government to halt these attacks and say that if the authorities are going to set about measuring the length of blades, some people can resort to a birthday cake — with explosives inside, of course — or to some good hammers, which also kill. All of this reflects the untenable situation that has been created by Western governments that try to confront jihadist terrorism as if it were a Western criminal phenomenon. And on top of that they attack those who do know how to deal with these forces of criminal fanatical delirium because they know them from within — see the Israeli security forces.
Western civilization is beginning to enter its death throes in a lack of self-respect that has already crystallized into the general contempt of its worst enemies. Those who are incapable of defending their own people and what is theirs have no excuse. But on top of that they receive the deserved contempt of their enemies. To those of us who still believe there is a remedy, however hard and traumatic and perhaps by now very dramatic, I leave the phrase of Ramiro de Maeztu: “To be is to defend oneself.” If we want to go on being, let us defend ourselves from the enemies and the traitors alike.
Hermann Tertsch is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.
Since Russia’s unlawful invasion into Ukraine, the Biden-Harris administration has shirked diplomacy in favor of policies that increasingly guarantee escalation of the war. Now Ukrainian soldiers claim about 480 square miles in Russia’s Kursk region with U.S. and NATO armored vehicles and weapons – killing and injuring Russian civilians.
This should concern Americans. But the Biden-Harris administration has no objections, only justification . Moscow believes the U.S. not only created the conditions for the incursion, but also helped plan it .
“The West is fighting us with the hands of the Ukrainians ,” Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk. Imagine the jarring psychological impact on Russian citizens watching German-built tanks roll in – reminiscent of World War II.
Despite what D.C. hawks claim, Putin has repeatedly communicated, before and during the war, that NATO enlargement to Ukraine initiated his invasion , not Russian expansionism into Central Europe. However, the tragic irony is that although Russian expansion is not likely, a broader and nuclear war could be.
The U.S. has become a de facto combatant in the Russia-Ukraine war; we are no longer neutral bystanders. But hardly anyone seems to notice our insidious walk-up to triggering a broader war or nuclear strike.
President Joe Biden continually insisted (“Okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys”) that the U.S. must limit the type of weapons we send to Ukraine, and the ways the weapons could be used against Russia, to avoid a direct NATO conflict with Russia and prevent, in his words, “World War III.”
But the Biden-Harris administration has continuously changed policy to supply Ukraine with increasingly more weapons, with more sophisticated and advanced capability and more lethality . U.S. policy previously held that U.S. weapons could only be used to attack Russians within Ukraine, but our weapons are now increasingly being used within Russian territory .
Russia has warned that the U.S. would “cross a red line” as a “direct party to the conflict” if it supplied longer-range missiles to Kyiv.
But in April 2024, in a major policy shift, the Biden administration secretly shipped a longer-range version of ATACMS to Ukraine with a range of about 190 miles and capability to strike deep into Russian territory. Ukraine used these to target a Russian military airfield in Crimea and troops in the southeast of Ukraine. However, the condition that U.S. missiles could not be used to attack inside Russia still holds.
But for how long? Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to push the U.S. to lift restrictions, demanding to strike Russian targets as far as 300 miles into Russian territory.
And, in May 2024, the Biden-Harris administration did another major “about face,” allowing Ukraine to use U.S. artillery and “fire short-range rockets from HIMARS launchers” to conduct “limited” strikes against military targets inside Russian territory. NATO powers –Germany and others, including France – are following suit.
This is the first time a U.S. president has allowed strikes within borders of a nuclear-armed adversary, despite Putin’s warning that this could provoke retaliation and war . Biden’s White House gaslights the American people, characterizing the strikes as “acts of self-defense.”
In June 2024, Russia expanded tactical nuclear weapons drills to a military district bordering Baltic NATO member states plus Norway, Poland, and Finland. Coincidence? Of course not.
This summer the first fighter jets – the U.S.-made F-16 – also arrived in Ukraine and started operations against Russia, despite Biden’s previous assurances (“ don’t kid yourself ”) that sending offensive weapons like F-16s or tanks would, again , start “World War III.” The U.S. has also sent M1Abrams tanks.
How far will we go? Humiliating and provoking a Great Power with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, run by an authoritarian government, is not smart. We cannot predict what Russia may do if we continue in this way. Knowing and understanding the “red line” of an adversary isn’t weakness, it’s wisdom.
Escalation to nuclear combat could come at the U.S. in unanticipated ways. Putin, angered and embarrassed by the strikes and incursion into Russia, could decide to use a radiological or tactical nuclear weapon, on his own evacuated terrain in Kursk. Employment of such an “area denial weapon” would severely restrict any efforts to traverse or occupy the terrain and create a buffer, plus send an extremely powerful and unmistakable message to Zelenskyy, Biden and NATO.
Recent headlines that Ukraine is “turning the tables” on Russia are deceptive. As Ukraine moves further into Russian territory, Russia makes equal gains in the east of Ukraine, capturing the city of Serhivvka and advancing ever closer to a vital logistics hub. Since February 2022, Russian troops have claimed more than 18% of Ukraine , resulting in “horrific casualties” for Ukrainians. War is expected to grind on, without a decisive victory.
How far then, will we go? The further we escalate, the more desperate all leaders will act. Once broader or nuclear war starts, it will be too late to “un-ring the bell.”
Yet, no Western leader save Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has given serious discussion, thought, or action to the negotiation of peace. In fact, Orbán visited Zelenskyy to discuss peace, but was visciously ridiculed for also visiting Putin to do the same. Why?
Why is Western diplomacy dormant in detering the ongoing devastation of Ukraine, and a potential walk up to world-wide war?
It is incumbent upon the United States to stop the escalation of weapons and warfare, and bring about immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations, based on Ukrainian neutrality and Russian reparations. Only wise U.S. leadership can bring peace and stop a potentially bigger and more devastating war.
Shea Bradley-Farrell is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.
On Aug. 6, Ukraine launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Within two days, almost 1,000 Ukrainian troops had entered the territory. The Russian government immediately declared a state of emergency, and Russian reserves were mobilized. Russia has designated its defense as a counterterrorism operation.
A Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson hinted at the motive behind the Ukrainian offensive, saying: “The sooner Russia agrees (to peace), the sooner Ukrainian raids on Russian territory will stop.” President Vladimir Putin responded by saying the invasion is “an attempt by Kyiv to stop Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and gain leverage in possible future peace talks.” However, there is a need to analyze the strategic implications of Ukraine’s incursion into Russian soil.
Ukraine’s military has attempted to regain its lost territories by launching drone strikes inside the Russian Federation, along with a few attacks staged by anti-Putin Russian exile militias inside their homeland.
The Kursk offensive marks a new strategy by Kyiv. It is a surprise military operation. So far, Ukraine has managed to occupy several villages and towns, forcing over 100,000 Russian residents to flee. This could also be described as a shock strategy to force the Russians to reassess their calculations in the war. Nevertheless, this operation has not significantly altered the battlefield realities.
Ukraine planned the attack in secret, with troop movements initially announced as training exercises. Even the senior officers who received the orders to advance into Russia were informed of the military plan just days before it began.
This is the first foreign incursion into Russia since the Second World War. “I’m happy to be riding a tank into Russia; it’s better than them driving tanks into our country,” a Ukrainian soldier told The New York Times.
The Russian government has accused the West of colluding with the Ukrainians to strike Russia. Moscow insists that its stance on future negotiations with Kyiv will not change as a result of the incursion.
It is unclear how much support the invasion has generated among the Ukrainian people. The size of the land occupied by Ukraine is small compared with the areas taken by Russia from Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022. And if Ukraine aims to embarrass Russia, military analysts must assess whether battlefield embarrassment of an enemy can translate into ultimate victory. Another strategic question is whether the incursion can break the current political and military stalemate over the war.
Ukraine will be hoping to achieve a military success similar to its counteroffensive in the summer of 2022, which helped to reclaim the northeastern region of Kharkiv. However, Kyiv has not disclosed the number of casualties resulting from the Kursk incursion.
Russia might mobilize more troops and civilians to expel the Ukrainians from Kursk. This situation could evoke memories of Russia’s fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Putin could proclaim it as another “Great Patriotic War,” referencing the Soviet resistance.
Additionally, Ukraine could use its control of Kursk as a bargaining chip for the territories Russia has occupied in Ukraine over the past two-and-a-half years. Among the areas taken by Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine are Kherson Oblast, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Donetsk People’s Republic, Luhansk Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, and the southernmost part of Mykolaiv Raion (Kinburn Peninsula). This does not include the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in February 2014. Russia has captured more territory from Kyiv than Ukraine has seized from Moscow. Thus, Ukraine may not be able to force the Kremlin into making significant concessions to return Kursk to the Russian Federation.
If the fighting continues until the US presidential election, or if Ukraine is forced to retreat from Kursk, the Democrats may appear weak before the electorate for supporting a failing war. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is also a problem for Donald Trump because many Republicans want Ukraine to defeat Russia, and oppose his call for Kyiv to accept some territorial losses to achieve a ceasefire. So far, Vice President Kamala Harris has remained silent on Ukraine’s invasion.
Maria Maalouf is a Senior Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.
For most of the nuclear age nuclear weapons were thought by the West to be instruments of deterrence, to prevent war. Today, over time, the criminal enterprises such as Russia, China, and North Korea, that masquerade as legitimate nation-states, see nuclear weapons as instruments of coercion and blackmail. This unnerving point was underscored by the unanimous October 2023 Strategic Posture Commission report and echoed by another new Congressionally initiated report on the National Security Strategy of the United States just issued in July 2024.
On the anniversary of the use of two nuclear weapons against Japan at the end of World War II, it’s appropriate to examine again whether President Truman made the right decision. Most analysis treats Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki as unnecessary at best and even criminal at worst, as solely a political move to intimidate the USSR, detract from Moscow’s role in defeating the Japanese and to show folks who was boss. On top of which, it is often claimed the Japanese government was ready to surrender, primarily as it anticipated a coming blockade of the homeland. In short, no such use of nuclear weapons was necessary.
As part of the almost ritualistic assessment of Truman’s decision, this year saw a slight twist in the assessments. A new poll was taken using word for word the same questions Roper polls used in 1945 to test American attitudes toward the use of nuclear weapons. One analysis led by Scott Sagan was disappointed most Americans actually support a strong and robust deterrent, as well as generally supporting the Truman decision to end WW2 by using nuclear weapons.
Such polls also show a public resistant to accepting the idea of lessening the salience of nuclear deterrence in US security policy. And that any such policy would also have to persuade Russia and China to lessen the role of nuclear weapons in their security strategies, a prospect not even far over the horizon let alone possible in the near-term.
In fact, the very opposite is occurring. Over two decades ago, Russia issued a 1999 directive to develop low-yield, highly accurate, battlefield nuclear weapons, a plan implemented by Russian President Putin. China also has built over 300 new ICBM silos just in the past few years and is now beginning to fill the silos with two types of missiles—which can each carry 3-10 warheads.
Projections by James Howe are that around 2035-45, Russia could have 7000+ deployed strategic long-range nuclear warheads, while Chris Yeaw of the University of Nebraska projects China and Russia together could easily have 10,000 deployed nuclear weapons by 2035-40.
In the face of such numbers, what sense does it make to assume nuclear US restraint will be mirrored by China and Russia when the two latter countries have been building new nuclear weapon systems for between 10-20 years? And have even accelerated the pace of their acquisition to where the recently retired commander of the US Strategic Command described China’s nuclear growth as “breathtaking.”
The critics of US nuclear modernization continue to complain the US is accelerating or initiating an arms race when in fact the very opposite is the case. In 2002-3 and 2010, the US reduced its nuclear forces from six thousand down to one thousand five hundred and fifty and limited its theater or regional nuclear forces to around two hundred gravity bombs in Europe. The US nuclear modernization plan now moving forward replaces only the force structure allowed by the New START treaty. And even if we uploaded all our current SLBM and ICBM forces with more warheads, we might be able to deploy somewhere around an additional 1000 warheads over the next 3-4 years but probably not considerably more, hardly an example of the US leading an arms race.
While Russia joined the US in both nuclear arms deals in 2002 and 2010, the theater systems they already had measured in the multiple thousands of warheads and were not under any arms limits. And Russia also has long-range systems that are also not under an any arms limits such as the Backfire bomber, while their ability to buildup far beyond the START limits continues to grow.
The question on the table is thus how reckless Xi and Putin will be with their projected very large arsenals, and will they use nuclear weapons not only for coercion but actually employ such weapons? To say nothing of the rulers in Iran and North Korea who are top state sponsors of terror and are allied closely with China and Russia and each other.
Unless the US builds a deterrent second to none, we may find out the hard way when nuclear weapons are used, as both Russia and China have both threatened to do on a serial basis.
Some global zero advocates minimize China’s buildup and still try and characterize the nuclear strategy of China as reflecting a “minimal deterrent” which is often described as a simple plan to retaliate only with limited nuclear weapons. And not use nuclear weapons first nor use nuclear weapons for coercive purposes or against nations that were non-nuclear powers.
But when Chinese government officials were cited threatening Japan with nuclear strikes should Japan come to the defense of Taiwan, the whitewash of Chinese nuclear strategy disappeared. And just so everyone understood, China emphasized “just as happened in WWII” Japan would be defeated.
So, is the US justified in building a better deterrent in the face of China and Russia building up?
A new assessment of the bombing in Japan at the end of WWII reveals that using the evidence in radio communications of the Japanese which the US was intercepting reveals the central role played by the nuclear strikes in Japan, especially the second nuclear bomb, in persuading the Japanese emperor to break the deadlock in his war cabinet and agree to an unconditional surrender.
Secondary but in the mix was the threat of a naval blockade of the islands. But of no special importance was the Russian presence in Northeast China and NE Asia with respect to the Japanese decision to adopt unconditional surrender, although the Russian presence may have impacted the regional decisions of some Japanese forces on the Asian mainland to stop fighting.
The end of the war and the Japanese surrender was not just a relief from the prospects of an island invasion and more than one million American and allied soldier casualties. While one million Japanese civilians tragically were lost in the war, often left unmentioned are the eighteen million civilians killed in China, Burma (now Myanmar), Indonesia, Malaysia, and Korea at the hands of Imperial Japan. The end of the war ended the continued awful loss of civilian life throughout East Asia, a development that must also be weighed in the mix.
And the end of the near half century of brutal Japanese occupation of Korea finally freed the Korean people to create the ROK as a beacon of economic prosperity and freedom—despite a terrible war in 1950-53 brought about by North Korea, China, and the USSR.
The lessons of August1945 over Japan are that deterrence works. Especially when demonstrated as the US did on August 6th and August 9th. The incredible damage done to the two cities just with the use of two bombs seared into the world’s memory the nature of atomic warfare, especially when weapons some 20 or 50-fold bigger than the two weapons used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki became parts of the nuclear forces around the world.
That may be one reason no such weapons have been used since, over a period of 79 years.
Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.
The country and the rest of the world are still incredulous—how could a 20-year-old lone gunman manage to defeat the nation’s elite protectors and fire 8 rounds from an AK that nearly inflicted a fatal skull injury on a Presidential nominee? By divine intervention and the momentary distraction of the shooter by a Butler, PA police officer, Former President Trump escaped an assassination at a rally in Butler, PA on Saturday, July 13th. Now, more than three weeks later, despite two Congressional Oversight hearings with now former Director Cheatle and Acting Director Rowe there are still many unanswered questions and very troubling facts continue to emerge. Former Director Cheatle’s vacuous responses to the Oversight Committee’s questions and Acting Director Rowe’s equally indirect answers and misinformed statements on July 30th (including the FBI’s limited statements) have allowed serious questions to linger. Numerous theories, some supported with facts and other less credible, have been developing. Numerous articles have been published. Senator Grassley, as reported by Real Clear Politics, RCP on July 22nd, has received agency whistleblowers’ information, audio and texts from Butler law enforcement officers. These have exposed many disturbing, negligent lapses and security omissions contradicting many claims made by Cheadle and Rowe.
As of this writing, the Secret Service has been guarded with their responses to the Oversight Committee’s inquiry and to the public. Rowe’s limited statements seem to contradict evidence from Butler law enforcement authorities and video evidence obtained from the public.
In an effort to set the record straight and in the spirit of urging critical reforms, the following factual information supported by video evidence and statements from Butler Police officers and SWAT officers assigned to the rally on July 13th with direct operational knowledge, is set forth. It is critically important to bring clarity to the information being reported.
This review will highlight key omissions of protective advance procedures during the security planning of the July 13, 2024 rally. . Many recommendations set forth by the 435-page U.S. Secret Service Protective Mission Panel’s report from December 2014 (after serious security failures prompted this inquiry) were not fully implemented. Conspicuously absent among them was and remains—the failure of protective detail agents to complete consistent training—“at least 12% of work hours by fiscal year 2025.” According to Jason Chaffetz, the agency has woefully failed to achieve this training target. He says the Secret Service has been on notice since 2015 to implement effective changes, namely training and accountability to prevent the failures like those seen in Butler, PA.
The intent is to fact check the numerous statements and theories put forth by self-proclaimed experts and balance those with some credible authorities. In the spirit of separating facts from theory—context, background and explanations of the facts as we know them are sorely needed. Effective, tested protective strategies and advance procedures will be presented as a basis of comparison.
Normally I would not comment with this amount of detail on related matters. However, this assassination attempt has exposed systemic operational failures of the Secret Service’s protective arm and the advance team’s preparations. For example Real Clear Politics, RCP on July 30 referenced CNN reports and admissions by Rowe that expose the fact that security resources were denied for the Trump detail despite repeated requests by the detail agents. This has been an on-going complaint by detail agents and whistleblowers for at least two years. Denied resources for Trump rallies include counter sniper teams, drones, canine teams, metal detection equipment and other matériel. Further, documents show where Rowe decided unilaterally to restrict counter sniper teams to any Trump event beyond driving distance outside of D.C. While Cheatle, Rowe and the Secret Service spokesman initially denied this, whistleblower reports has forced them to confront their denials. RCP further reports the Butler rally was not allocated any counter sniper teams but Secret Service management reversed the decision and sent two teams to Butler with one day to conduct a survey that normally takes two to three days to complete.
This is appalling given the thousands of on-going death threats directed at Trump andthe Iranian assassination plot discovered before the Butler rally.
All of us need to avoid feeding into conspiracies. Fair-minded folks want the forensics experts to complete their investigation and analysis based on facts. Hopefully this will minimize theories that are gaining attention. Additionally, when unsupported theories are not checked, there is a risk of feeding into them and they seemingly become more credible. The other risk is people tend to lose their objectivity and unintentionally get drawn into these conspiracies. With the cascade of information bombarding us, we have difficulty discriminating credible facts from fiction and “exciting” and “dramatic” theories. Everyone needs to be reminded to take a deep breath, pause and consider verified facts. To do this effectively, it is important to understand context and known factors.
The following is set forth based on what has been reported by credible, law enforcement agencies and other official sources on the ground at the Butler rally site, information from a closed-door Oversight Hearing, others familiar with the facts (as best that can be determined) and video evidence leading up to, during and after the assassination attempt. The FBI is continuing their investigation.
Tragedies as serious as a nearly successful assassination resulting in injuring a Presidential nominee, the death of one spectator and serious injuries of two other supporters is not an isolated event. There were and are a host of diverse factors at play at the Butler rally before and during that impacted the attack. Contributing factors are multi-factored and complex. Agency mission, leadership, federal statutes, intelligence information, agency policies, training, security resources, physics, human factors, political tension and others play a role.
Isolating these elements and assigning a predictive value of each poses a near impossible challenge.
Suffice it to say the collective circumstances (as we now know) at play leading up to, during and immediately following the attack are very disturbing and are indicative of the Secret Service’s negligent execution of their protective plan. Before we can move forward, key omissions and departures from established protective procedures need to be identified. This will give insights on factors that contributed to the security vulnerabilities and failings at the rally. Hopefully, this will help guide our understanding and conclusions based on fact and verified evidence. Most important, the ultimate goal is to learn how we can collectively, from our respective vantage points, do everything possible to prevent attacks like this from happening in the future.
While rare (the last assassination attempt of a president occurred 43 years ago), none of us are naïve enough to think a breakdown in security would never occur again. However, ensuring that effective, scalable security procedures are consistently implemented will minimize the possibility of a repeat (as much as humanly possible), is the goal moving forward. Hopefully this review will ensure a more diligent focus on preventive security measures. If a response is needed, it will be immediate and effective.
What we do know now is the earlier blame shifting of security responsibility, communications breakdowns and serious omissions of basic security advance operating procedures are worse than originally reported. The security missteps point to profound negligence in the execution of the security plan. Key to understanding the egregious breakdown in security is answering how the shooter slipped through the cracks after being observed by local counter snipers at a picnic table on July 13th at 4:26 PM. A Beaver County counter sniper’s text message released by Beaver County officials reported initial sightings of a suspicious individual about 100 minutes before the shooting. He was observed by a Pennsylvania State Police Officer with a range finder exhibiting suspicious behavior. His photo was reportedly sent to the Police Command Post. Apparently this information was not passed to the Secret Service Security Room at this first sighting. A video taken more than an hour before the shooting, at about 5:06 PM, shows Crooks in front of the AGR building. This sighting of a suspicious person was reported to police by spectators. Police on the ground were looking for him up to the time of the shooting.
On July 23, 2024, the New York Times reported the FBI determined a local SWAT team spotted Crooks on the roof of a warehouse about 18 minutes before Trump took the stage (about 5:44 PM) and 27 minutes before the assassination attempt (6:11:33 PM). Why was this report of a man on a roof lost and/or not reported to the Secret Service and the other officers at the rally?
On July 19, 2024, CBS News reported information from three sources that closed door meetings between Secret Service/FBI officials and law makers the Secret Service was aware of a suspicious person 20 minutes before the shooting began. At 5:51 PM State Police alerted the U.S. Secret Service about a suspicious person within a minute of this sighting.
Why were the Trump protective detail agents not immediately notified?Why was Trump not informed? Trump took the stage at 6:02 PM, a full 17 minutes after multiple reports of a suspicious person with a range finder were received and passed to law enforcement radio channels? The Secret Service treated this as a generic suspicious-person-notice until minutes before the shooting.
The delayed, ineffective response to these warnings violates the Secret Service’s core protective responsibility to notify the protective detail and the post agents of potential threats when the behaviors fit the lone shooter profile. Crooks’ behavior was not “merely suspicious.” The first sightings of Crooks alarmed police officers. To deem Crooks’ behavior as merely suspicious is irresponsible. Further, in the context of the thousands of documented threats received by the Trump detail, the Secret Service Intelligence Division and the Iranian assassination plot received before the rally, an urgent and heightened alert and response to the reported behaviors were clearly in order. The Secret Service’s own threat assessment center provides guidance to employees and law enforcement agencies to assist in the detection of would be attackers (See Planning-page 12-18). Why were these lone shooter profile behaviors, that fit those being exhibited by Crooks, not considered when these reports were received?
Crooks exhibited many of the predictive behaviors identified by the Secret Service and other numerous post shooting attack studies associated with lone shooters. The investigation to date shows Crooks visited the rally site at least twice before the rally and once (leaving and returning) the same day before the attack. Crooks evaluated the rally site two hours before the rally with his own drone, probed security at various locations, brought a range finder and paced nervously before leaving, apparently eluding officers trying to locate him. All of these behaviors, sightings and notifications by local police officers and spectators, were not prioritized as a threat by the Secret Service until Crooks was seen with a rifle on the AGR building. Why didn’t the Secret Service agents and the Secret Service counter sniper teams link these behaviors to the behavioral profile known to be typical of lone shooters? Cheatle lamely claimed to the Oversight Committee the suspicious behavior was only “suspicious” and not deemed a threat until Crooks was seen with a gun on the roof of the AGR building. Not prioritizing this as a threat and alerting the Trump detail immediately about Crook’s’ early behaviors, known to be linked to the behavioral profile of known shooters, is nothing short of negligent. On July 30, 2024, at the Oversight Committee hearing, Rowe gave an equally evasive answer to Senator’s Lee’s question as to why Trump was allowed on the stage with the behaviors cited above. Rowe stated (0-:27) a threat needs a weapon “it comes to weapon, a potential threat, is he carrying an IED…? To be characterized as a threat, Rowe’s statement that Crooks needed to have been seen with a gun or IED before decisive intervention should be taken is naïve. This exposes his lack of understanding and failure to link Crooks’ behavior as more than suspicious despite sightings of Crooks with a gun well before the shooting.. Assessments like this chill decisive decision making. Similar indecision allowed Omar Gonzalez to scale the White House fence on September 19, 2014, overpower a Uniformed Division Officer and enter the Diplomatic Entrance of the White House.
The behavioral profiles cited in the Secret Service Threat Assessment Centers Mass Attacks in Public Places Guidance recommendations, published in January 2023, define behaviors displayed by Crooks’ as threatening. Similar pre-attack behaviors are clearly linked to shootings and have been validated in published metadata summarizing the conclusions of studies of mass shootings in the past 40+ years. Crooks’ behavior should have been linked to the lone shooter behavioral profiles. Crooks exhibited many of these behaviors before Trump took the stage. To attempt to ”dilute” these disturbing behaviors that exceed the baseline of normal spectator behaviors, is negligent. If the Detail Leader and shift agents protecting Trump were notified after the first sightings (they were not), Trump would have been held in the limo or holding room or taken off the stage until the suspicious person was located.
Not informing the Detail Leader, Trump and the rally security agents about the suspicious person from the early sightings, especially his nervous movements, possessing a range finder and evading police is among the most egregious failures at the Butler rally. The Police Command Post and the Secret Service Security Room should have informed the Secret Service detail protecting Trump—immediately.
The FBI investigation has now confirmed Crooks exhibited many other pre-attack behaviors, i.e. using aliases to purchase precursor bombmaking materials and researching the DNC schedule in Chicago and historical assassination details.
The most important protective tool required to effectively protect people and assets are competent security team members, a thorough security advance and a diligent review of the security measures before the visit of the protectee. The security advance elements, resources and physical response protocols need to be rigorously applied and continually refined to match evolving threats and be scalable to adapt to changing circumstances.
Any effective dignitary security advance requires teamwork by developing a cohesive team with ALL partners in the city and jurisdiction being visited, especially the public safety responders.
Presidential advances and Presidential campaign advances with heightened political tension with thousands of protectee death threats require diligent attention to every facet of the security preparations. Commensurate manpower, resources, a scalable security plan and oversight that match threat levels is required! This is a tall order but needs to be done.
Information gleaned from the Butler County law enforcement agencies assigned to the rally site, whistleblowers and members of the public to include videos taken, before, during and after the shooting are detailed below. All point to the fact many immutable tenets of protection were not followed, not implemented and/or ignored.
U. S. Secret Service Legal Authority
Before the deviations from and omissions of well-established Secret Service advance procedures are identified and explained, the legal protective authority needs to be referenced. Very few media outlets are reporting this.
The jurisdictional investigative and protective authority of the Secret Service is defined in the United States Code, Title 18 Section 3056. As it relates to Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates, the following section of the Code specifically applies.
Title 18 U.S.C.’ 3056(a)(7) authorizes the U.S. Secret Service to provide protection for major Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates.
This authority cannot be abdicated to local law enforcement. Former Director Cheatle and Acting Director Rowe erroneously stated it could be. Cheatle claimed local law enforcement were responsible for the security of the AGR Building in Butler, PA. Crooks fired eight (8) AR rounds from the roof in the direction of the stage hitting Trump and three others. Cheatle specifically stated the AGR building was outside the security perimeter and the building was not swept. Cheatle essentially blamed local law enforcement for the security failure.
On July 30, 2024, Acting Director Rowe testified: “We made an assumption that there was going to be uniformed presence out there, that there would be sufficient eyes to cover that, that there was going to be the local counter sniper teams.”
These claims fly in the face of the statements of the local police officers assigned to support the sectors and posts at the Butler rally. Cheatle and Rowe attempted to shift blame and responsibility to local law enforcement. This is not supported by law nor precedent. It is simply not tenable.
The USSS is always responsible for identifying and preventing any threat regardless of its origin; inside or outside established “secure” perimeters during an official event. This has never been proffered as a defense for absolution of protective responsibility in the history of the Secret Service. The Secret Service is the overall lead agency responsible for all Presidential candidate security arrangements. This is not delegable.
On July 20, 2024,The New York Times reported that several local officers, including Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe, stated:
None of the law enforcement agencies that assisted the Secret Service that day — the Pennsylvania State Police, the Butler Township Police Department, the Butler County Sheriff, Pittsburgh Bureau of Police or the multicounty tactical teams—say they weregiven responsibility for watching the zone outside the Secret Service’s fenced security perimeter…More specifically, the local law enforcement officials stated that none of them were assigned to safeguard the complex of warehouses just north of the farm show grounds including the AGR building.
Alarmingly, statements made by the local agencies indicate the majority of their assignments were to provide security inside or along the perimeter fencing leaving the outside perimeter beyond the fencing exposed. The only outer perimeter police presence were officers assigned to direct traffic. There were however, three local counter snipers assigned to use the 2nd floor window from inside of a building adjacent to the AGR building. They were instructed to monitor the inner perimeter crowd only.
Butler Township Commissioner Edward Natali stated unequivocally:
“There were seven officers all assigned to traffic detail. Period!! The BTPD was NOT responsible for securing AGR or any other location…“Anyone who says so, reports on it, implies it, etc… is uninformed, lying, or covering their own backsides.”
The seven Butler Township police officers were assigned traffic posts but once there was a suspicious person notification, four of the seven officers left their posts to look for him.
Anyone familiar with basic security understands that limiting exposure requires creating strong, integrated and functional perimeters. Limiting your focus on the inner perimeter is just plain myopic, especially in an environment with upswept and unposted buildings in the outer perimeters less than 150 yards away from the protectee. It appears the Secret Service advance team forgot one of the most basic security perimeter concepts—all rings of security need to be fortified and integrated into the overall security plan. It needs to be one team, one fight. An absence of security or weakness in the outer security perimeters reduces the time needed to respond to a threat and shortens the distance between the attacker and the protectee—all factors favorable to the attacker.
Security Advance Omissions Leading to Critical Failures
Normally a Presidential and/or Presidential candidate security advance, especially one conducted for a candidate nominee of Trump’s stature and threat level, should include tested advance protection procedures that have been implemented consistently by the Secret Service for decades. These are well documented in Candidate Nominee Operations directives and manuals. Terminology of these may vary but their security function is clear. Omissions of these could lead to catastrophic consequences. In Butler there were key omissions and an assassination nearly occurred as a result.
Credible sources, whistleblower reports, local police agency statements and Oversight Committee hearing testimony identified negligent deviations and omissions of standard Secret Service protective operation procedures.
It is noted many of the security omissions have been acknowledged by Cheatle and Rowe. Other missteps have been denied despite local police officer statements/texts, whistleblower reports, Secret Service emails and media reporting.
Security Advance Omissions/Oversights:
· Assigning an inexperienced agent to lead the advance in Butler, PA.
· Middle perimeter security manpower included 1-2 Secret Service agents, far fewer than comparable size rallies.
· The security plan was inner perimeter focused with less emphasis on the outer perimeters.
· Local police officers were too siloed and not integrated with the overall security plan.
· Unclear radio communications reporting procedures.
· No officers were assigned to monitor the perimeter beyond the rally perimeter fence to include the AGR building and other warehouses.
· Secret Service did not attend a police meeting with local police counterparts. This prevented functional pairing of Secret Service agents and police officers.
· No helicopter surveillance was provided.
· The Secret Service did not deploy a drone and declined one offered by local law enforcement.
· No Counter Surveillance Unit or Intelligence Unit were available.
· The Secret Service counter sniper team was deployed one day before the rally.
· Four local counter sniper units were located inside the rally perimeter fence; three others inside an adjacent building (next to the AGR building) to monitor the rally
· Secret Service agents did not monitor the AGR building.
· The Secret Service counter sniper teams were not operationally integrated with the local sniper teams.
· No supervisor site review or walk-thru was conducted before the rally.
Resulting Operational Failures:
There were numerous failures resulting from not following established security advance procedures. On July 19, 2024, Breitbart reported nine critical, interconnected planning failures. These are all the result of a negligent failure to follow established advance procedures. These are valid but deserve more context. The following failures are identified to date.
Collectively these oversights led to critical operational failures, the most egregious of which was not communicating Crooks’ threatening behavior to the entire security team when it was first noted by the police at least an hour before the shooting. There were several opportunities after the first sighting of Crooks that should have been communicated to all the police officers and the agents assigned to the rally and critically, to the Trump detail agents.
Given the number of police agencies assigned, the potential for disjointed communications, coordinated through two separate communications hubs, should have been anticipated. A dedicated emergency reporting channel should have been set up and tested. These communications and related technology updates to include drones have been acquired but the Secret Service has been slow to adapt and implement them.
The Secret Service advance agent should have requested the local snipers to take positions outside the AGR building.
The Secret Service drone was not utilized in Butler. Inexplicably, the Secret Service turned down a drone offered by the local police.
A counter-surveillance agent or roving intelligence team should have been available to respond to reports of a suspicious person.
The advance agent should have met with the Secret Service counter sniper teams and local sniper teams to establish a joint workable operations plan. The Secret Service counter sniper survey should have been jointly reviewed with the local sniper teams. This would have identified vulnerable areas and clarified the rules of engagement and statutory authorities. This would have provided would have provided for better sector surveillance and a more cohesive operational team. This would have made life and death split-second decision making more accurate. The fact the Secret Service counter sniper teams did not have communications with the local sniper teams. Collectively, these factors and others contributed to delays.
Secret Service emails reported by Real Clear Politics obtained by Senator Grassley determined 1 – 3 Secret Service agents were assigned to support the Butler rally. Whereas 12 Secret Service agents were assigned to First Lady Dr. Jill Biden for a function in Pittsburgh the same day. The majority of security posts were assigned and held by Homeland Security agents. Current and former Secret Service personnel expressed concern over this and similar disparate resource allocations, i.e. giving Biden more resources than Trump. Trump detail agents have reported this disparity for at least two years prior to the Butler assassination attempt. At the July 30th Oversight hearing Senator Cruz asked Rowe about these and other documented discrepancies, Rowe’s stated rationale was “the sitting president holds national command authority to launch a nuclear strike, sir.” Rowe’s answer (4:30-7:34) did not address threat levels against Trump and how that would affect security resource allocations and the actual numbers disparity.
Senator Grassley, Real Clear Politics and whistleblower reports exposed that Cheatle and Rowe were directly involved in denying requests for needed crowd screening equipment, additional agency manpower, counter sniper teams and other resources for Trump rallies.
It is noted that Rowe was evasive and did not answer the question: “Did you directly approve withholding security resource allocations for Former President Trump vis à vis President Biden events?” This disparate resource allocation exposes more vulnerability to Trump. Notably, no Secret Service counter sniper teams were given to support Trump’s rallies prior to the Butler, PA rally. To rely on local sniper team(s) as the sole sniper resource, with admitted radio interoperability problems between the local police and the Secret Service, poses numerous operational risks.
Two Secret Service counter sniper teams were assigned to the Butler rally a day before the event. Normally, counter sniper teams are deployed 2 – 3 days prior to an event for the current sitting president. At the Butler rally two Secret Service counter sniper teams and local sniper resources were used. At the July 30th Oversight Hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham asked Rowe if the Iranian assassination plot factored into the security footprint. Rowe replied: “Secret Service does a threat based protective model.” Whistleblower reports, Real Clear Politics and Representative Mike Waltz dispute this since the Trump detail agents claim additional security resources have been historically denied. denied and prior to the Butler rally by Secret Service managers, (i.e. Cheatle and Rowe). Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi and Rowe claim otherwise. In fact Rowe testified these assertions are false.
Nowhere in the U.S. Code, Title 3056(a)(7) is there a caveat for less effective or fewer security resources when there is a clear, on-going death threat level which Trump clearly had and continues to have. The mission of the Secret Service requires it to deploy resources commensurate with the protectee’s threat level as much as possible. Every Secret Service protectee deserves this. To do otherwise invites an attack as we saw in Butler. It is well documented, supported by decades of metadata, that many would-be attackers, especially lone attackers study their targets, note and exploit vulnerabilities.
Approximately a week after the assassination attempt, several local law enforcement officers from Butler, PA appeared on ABC News and asserted the Secret Service advance team did not coordinate or meet with them before the rally. Jason Woods, the lead sniper stated: “We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened.” Further, Woods stated: “So I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened,” Woods said. “We had no communication.”
Investigations have determined the Secret Service detail agents protecting Trump werenot notified of this suspicious person at any time from the first sighting up to the time he was sighted on the roof. It is noted other Secret Service agents were informed at least 20 minutes before the first bullets were fired. The detail agents should have been notified immediately as soon as a suspicious person was spotted on the roof of the AGR building, at the very least at 5:53 PM. At this point, the suspicious person was no longer “suspicious” by any definition.
There is no way this can be excused. This was now an imminent threat! This notice should have given the detail at least during the 17 minutes and 30 seconds (when Crooks was seen on the roof of the AGR building) to inform the Detail Leader to make the decision to remain in the limo or in the holding room until the threat had been resolved.
There are many hundreds of examples in Secret Service history when a protectee has been moved to or held in a holding room or removed from a site when threats and vulnerabilities are identified.
During the hearings, Rowe acknowledged some radio transmissions were and lost and not relayed. He attributed the miscommunications and delays to the Secret Service’s encryption algorithms. He stated integrating the encrypted system would take many weeks. Certainly that is not a reasonable solution during an emergency and cumbersome since each jurisdiction has their own radio technology. Radio interoperability has long been a problem for responders. It was cited in the 9/11 Commission Report following the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Since then, significant government resources have been provided to law enforcement agencies to achieve better radio interoperability technology among agencies. Notably, following the Oversight Committee Report – U.S Secret Service: An Agency in Crisis, infrastructure investments were made starting in 2017 to facilitate the integration of radio communications between Secret Service and local police. This technology was available but not implemented at the Butler rally.
To blame secure radio encryptions for the delay in getting immediate messages from police officers to the Police Command Post and the Secret Service Security Room is not an excuse.
Creative and imaginative thinking including using common sense solutions like cell phones, jointly staffing Command Posts and or Security Rooms with local police radios would have minimized urgent threat notification delays. Simply having someone physically dispatch to the Command Post to personally deliver urgent messages during the approximately 20-minutes Crooks was sighted on the roof might have saved the day.
The Secret Service Presidential candidate advance teams are normally staffed by agents assigned to the field offices within the jurisdictional, geographic boundaries of the closest field office. Agents are also detailed from other offices as manpower needs and availability dictate. The security advance procedures for a Presidential and a Presidential nominee should have equivalently experienced personnel, resources and technology vis-à -vis for a sitting president’s advance. There should be no qualitative difference—the same protective standards should remain consistent. Whistleblower reports indicate the site advance agent assigned to the Butler rally was not experienced with large-scale advances.
For example, the middle perimeter was staffed with Homeland Security Investigative Agents reportedly with little to no experience with Secret Service protection assignments.
Strategic Failures
Among numerous burning questions: How could a lone 20-year-old with relatively cheap equipment, i.e., a drone, range finder and his father’s AR rifle defeat the Secret Service with 22 agents and approximately 80 additional law enforcement officers assigned to secure the Buller, PA rally site?
Obviously money and supposedly years of sophisticated dignitary protection training, state-of-the-art security surveillance technology, access to classified threat intelligence, an expensive array of assault weapons, encrypted communications systems—all failed. What was missing? Was it leadership? Was it a flawed security strategy? Was it incompetence? Was it an inability to assess risk? Was it an inability to communicate? Was it an inability to craft an effective protective security plan? Was it a combination of all of these?
Or…was it a lack of imagination? The experience and millions of dollars’ worth of equipment available to the Secret Service appeared to be no match for understanding and effectively implementing these tools to counter a lone 20-year-old shooter. Was the Butler, PA attack a one-off or does this expose profound weaknesses of the protective arm of the Secret Service?
Matthew Crooks clearly defeated the Secret Service at its own game. How is this possible? Are the Secret Service advance procedures too canned, too predictable? Strategic planning organizations in the public and private sector, especially in high threat environments, employ Red Team teaming. At a basic level this means considering the adversary’s perspective and goals. Simulate an attack as an adversary would and fortify against it with your security planning. In other words, wear two hats—your good guy hat and the bad guy hat. This will be fairly obvious to seasoned military planners and strategists, However, since this strategy appears to be absent from the security planning at Butler, it deserves to be mentioned. In simple terms…advance planners need to ask themselves: if I were a shooter or bomber, where are the vulnerabilities in this plan? What weakness would I exploit? Then as a security planner I need to ask what am I doing to fix them? This needs to be an evolving, on-going process. These are basic strategic security planning questions. The Army does this on a continuing basis.
There is no evidence the Secret Service conducts any substantive Red Team exercises. The irony here is Crooks did it for them by exposing the security plan’s egregious weaknesses. This is a jolting and tragic wake-up call. Crooks’ budget was probably less than $500. The Secret Service Presidential Campaigns and National Special Security Events budget is reported to be ~$73.3 million from the Office and management and Data. Clearly the security failures are not due to a lack of money.
It is as though Crooks had the Candidate Nominee Operations advance manual and observed the security advance planning. Crooks visited the site, researched Trump’s schedule, surveyed the site and stage with a drone and probed and tested security.
Leadership should have given the security advance team the training and tools needed to at least be on par with Crooks. Clearly the planning should have expanded the security footprint well beyond the security perimeter defined by the fence. Assuming the outer perimeters were covered by local law enforcement without the requisite police meetings was negligent.
What if the attack had been planned by well-trained terrorists using multiple, simultaneous attack methods as witnessed in the series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France?
Homeland Security published planning guidance to prevent Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attacks (2018). Other salient examples include Mumbai (2009), Brussels (2016) and Barcelona (2017).
Would the Secret Service be able to detect an attack plan like these let alone respond to them?
Since the 9/11 attacks billions of dollars of government resources have been invested in defense strategy revisions, police, military and emergency responder training, communications upgrades and field exercises to better equip all concerned to address evolving threats. The National Response Framework (2019) defines five core capacities to guide the training of the response community: prevent, protect mitigate, respond, recover. The purpose is to “better integrate government and local response efforts.” Simply stated, all security partners need to focus more on prevention and work as a cohesive team.
This guidance needs to be incorporated and operationally reinforced into all joint security efforts.
Goals Moving Forward
To learn the Secret Service systematically failed to protect one of the nation’s Presidential candidate nominees is extremely troubling. The implications are staggering. Given the assassination attempt of Trump at Butler, PA and the security vulnerabilities this has exposed, restoring the pre-eminence of the Secret Service is critical. The highest priority needs to be given to finding long-term solutions. This has national security implications.
Solutions moving forward are challenging since the security failures are a multi-factored problem. Among the most important—stronger leadership, better recruiting, balanced funding allocation, refining intelligence sharing, consistent training, accountability and continuing oversight. The implementation of key protective training initiatives and procedures require review. These include simulated attack exercises, 4th Shift Training field scenarios and practicing advance agent procedures and protocols. It appears many were omitted and/or not followed during the security planning of the July 13th rally.
Immediate recommendations should include committing to a thorough review and implementation of existing protective security policies and procedures. The budget allocations should be balanced more equally for investigations vis à vis protection. The current Secret Service allocations are approximately 70% for the investigative arm and 30% for the protection arm respectively.
Importantly, manpower supplementation for protective details from Homeland Security, should require protective training on par with the protective training metrics required of Secret Service agents. The required training hours for all protective agents should be increased as outlined in the GAO January 2022 Human Capital Strategic Plan.
The Secret Service needs to bring clarity to the remaining questions surrounding the assassination attempt more than three weeks later. Their protectees, the American public, and government legislators deserve it.
The world of team sports provides a compelling metaphor for how games are won. Team members are assigned positions based on ability and experience. They rehearse their plays incessantly until they get it right.
If the Secret Service team expects to win their zero-fail mission, they will need to rebuild a foundation of trust—first. Leadership deficits, disparate experience levels, inconsistent training, dated technology, and other security advance omissions are fixable. Restoring trust with the brothers and sisters in blue and with your prized asset—your protectee poses your biggest challenge. Winning is impossible without trust.
J. Lawrence Cunningham is a Senior Law Enforcement Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC-based, foreign policy and national security think tank. Prior to joining the Gold Institute he served as special agent-in-charge in the U.S. Secret Service.
After President Joe Biden last month dropped out of the US presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. She has received a slew of endorsements from influential figures in her party, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Harris has now requested vetting material for several prominent Democrats for her consideration as to who could be her running mate. Her campaign has announced that the name of her vice presidential candidate will be announced by Aug. 7.
Among those being vetted are Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, while the name of Michigan Sen. Gary Peters has also been mentioned recently. Other Democratic leaders could be contacted, but their names are being kept secret. Harris is fully cognizant that she must win in the following seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
There are limitations on Harris as she deliberates her choices. It would be very odd if she selected former First Lady Michelle Obama or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, as voters might not accept a two-woman presidential ticket. Each of the candidates have strengths and weaknesses. None of them are well known on a national scale. Cooper has already withdrawn from consideration as a potential vice presidential nominee. All of them share Harris’ liberal views, such as the right of women to have abortions, legalizing recreational or medical marijuana and hindering the ability to have access to weapons unless there is a need for them. Notably, all of them support President Biden’s backing of the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu in its war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
These candidates have many vulnerabilities. All lack foreign policy and national security experience. Shapiro is Jewish and Harris could lose Michigan if the big Arab and Muslim communities in that state withhold their support, fearing that Shapiro might advocate strongly for Israel. Shapiro also faces tough opposition from advocates of public schools. He supports private school vouchers. Public school teachers’ unions are against private school vouchers because they give tax credits to the rich for not educating their children in public schools.
Kelly will resign his Senate seat if chosen, allowing the Republican governor of Arizona to select a Republican to replace him. This would deprive the Democrats of their majority in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Peters of Michigan has many credentials, among them being his family’s long history in America. One of his ancestors fought alongside George Washington during the Revolutionary War. However, this is not a reason to vote for him. He has been losing popularity and barely won his Senate seat in 2020. By selecting him, Harris would aim to win the 15 electoral votes of Michigan. But people in America vote for the president, not the vice president. For example, Richard Nixon won the election in 1968 but lost Maryland, which was the home state of his running mate Spiro Agnew.
Beshear in 2019 signed an executive order that restored the voting rights of more than 140,000 people convicted of a felony crime. He justified this by saying that they had served their sentences and that their voting rights should not be denied. Nevertheless, many Americans fear that there could be loopholes and errors in a system granting voting rights to felons, as it could permit people convicted of crimes to manipulate it.
There is no electoral advantage in choosing Walz, as Minnesota has voted Democratic since 1972. And there is no guarantee that his selection would help Harris win the two neighboring states of Wisconsin and Michigan.
Importantly, the vice presidential nominee selected by Harris will have to debate against Republican counterpart J.D. Vance. So far, Vance has been on the attack against the Democrats. He is putting them on the defensive in each argument he enters.
The problem for Harris is that she cannot find a vice presidential candidate who is more conservative than her. She is not deliberating the choice of a centrist Democrat. This represents a governing dilemma for the Democratic Party, which is now adopting many left-wing and radical liberal ideas and policies. The party’s ticket for US president could alienate many conservative-leaning Democrats, who might find it more rewarding to vote for Donald Trump if Harris is joined on the ticket by another liberal politician with similar convictions.
Maria Maalouf is a Senior Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.
