Photo: Evan Vucci Associated Press Several women from the Secret Service rushed to protect and evacuate the Republican candidate, targeted by gunfire on Saturday during an open-air meeting in Pennsylvania.
Sarah Titterton – Agence France-Presse in Washington
Posted yesterday at 7:06 a.m.
- United States
“Too small”, “too weak”: after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump during a meeting, the American ultraconservative right attacks the women of the Secret Service responsible for protecting the former president.
The Secret Service, which must protect senior American political figures, finds itself not only in the crosshairs of critics who wonder how a shooter was able to find himself as close to the ex-president but also to sexist comments which call into question his “DEI”, “Diversity, equity and inclusiveness” recruitment policy.
Several women, in suits and dark glasses typical of Secret Service agents, rushed to protect and evacuate the Republican candidate, who was shot on Saturday during an open-air meeting in Pennsylvania.
“There should be no women in the Secret Service. These agents are supposed to be the best and none of the best (in the profession) are women,” ultraconservative commentator Matt Walsh wrote on X.
“I cannot imagine that a DEI recruit coming from @pepsi would not be a good choice to lead the Secret Service #sarcasm,” added Republican representative to the House of Representatives Tim Burchett on the same network.
He was referring to Kimberly Cheatle — the second woman to lead the federal agency — who oversaw security at PepsiCo for a few years before returning to the Secret Service, where she had already worked for nearly 30 years.
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« Wokisme »
The Secret Service, which opened its contingent of agents to women in 1971, aims to have 30% by 2030, CBS News reported last year.
“I'm very concerned … about making sure that we attract diverse candidates and that we develop and provide opportunities to all of our employees, especially women,” Kimberly Cheatle said at the time.
The ultraconservative right did not hesitate to use this extract to denounce “wokism” in recruitment.
“The results (of policies) of DEI: the DEI killed someone,” we read in a post from the Libs of TikTok account viewed more than 10 million times on X.
Requested by AFP , the Secret Service did not immediately react.
Human resources attempted to accelerate the diversification of their recruiting practices in the United States after the murder in 2020 of African-American George Floyd, which provoked a large anti-racist movement.
But conservatives have intensified their counterattack in recent months, claiming that these practices “disadvantage” white men.
J.D. Vance, Ohio senator chosen as Donald Trump's running mate, in the lead, with a bill introduced in June to eliminate the federal government's DEI programs.
“DEI is racism, pure and simple. It’s time to ban it nationally, starting with the federal government,” he wrote on X.
Male agents in Milwaukee
Secret Service recruitment had already come under criticism in May, after Congress launched an investigation into an incident involving a security agent for Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a letter to Kimberly Cheatle, the Republican elected official from Kentucky, James Comer expressed concern about the recruitment of this agent and in particular the background check, affirming that the understaffing situation “had led the agency to lower its strict standards as part of DEI efforts.”
In response, agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi told the American press that employees were recruited according to “the highest professional standards (…) and that in no case had the agency lowered them”.
The director of the Secret Service ignored calls for his resignation and the agency indicated that it would participate “fully” in the independent investigation requested by President Joe Biden. Kimberly Cheatle should, according to James Comer, be heard by Congress on July 22.
Joe Biden said he felt “safe” with Secret Service agents, recognizing however that the question remained “open” as to whether the agents anticipated the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
During his first public appearance at the Republican convention in Milwaukee on Monday, Donald Trump appeared surrounded by male operatives. “THIS is how you protect a president,” conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley wrote on X.