Breitbart News sat down for an exclusive interview with retired Secret Service agent Paul Eckloff. In part one of the discussion, he noted how both former President Donald Trump’s would-be assassin and the Secret Service got lucky on July 13, 2024.
Eckloff was a Secret Service agent for 23 years, and, during that tenure, he spent time protecting Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Therefore, his take on the attempted assassination of Trump is informative and drawn from decades of experience.
Breitbart News began the interview by asking Eckloff, “Was the 20-year-old’s [attempted assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks’] ability to carry out the near-successful assassination attempt a sign of an inherent problem in Secret Service protection and procedures, or did the kid just get lucky?”
Eckloff answered, “Both” and then elaborated, “What he did is he exploited a weakness that may have existed at any number of sites throughout history — or even in recent times — but he also did get lucky. And what he exploited was not only an Achilles heel in the security plan but an Achilles heel in human nature.”
He continued, “People tend to forget that the security operators, even at the highest levels, are subject to some of the same flaws and failures as any human. And, in this case, I believe the threat was so obvious that they perhaps didn’t take it seriously, and it had deadly consequences.”
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C-SPANEckloff observed, “I think that this particular near-assassination was deceptively simple but also tragically complex. Because of the simplicity, some people can’t wrap their heads around how it would be possible, so they fill that knowledge gap with conspiracies, with ideas, some of which can be quite constructive while others are off the wall or dangerous. Screaming that it was an inside job is an easy accusation that doesn’t bear out in this case. I’m not saying people aren’t right to ask questions, but tearing down the Secret Service or screaming at them in the wake of July 13 out of a sense of personal empowerment is not a way to help the agency improve or make Trump or anyone else safer.”
Breitbart News revisited Eckloff’s first point — that the assassination attempt both revealed an inherent problem in Secret Service protection and demonstrated an instance wherein the 20-year-old got lucky — and Eckloff pointed out, “The Secret Service got lucky, too.”
He expounded, saying, “This near-assassination, heinous and inexcusable though it was, will allow the Secret Service to be forced to reevaluate their security protocols and their stance on how protection for a presidential candidate who happens to be a former president is handled/structured.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
