International
Former Secret Service agents describe ‘apocalyptic security failure’ at Trump event

Police vehicles near the site of the Butler, Pa., venue where President Donald Trump was speaking when he was struck in the ear by a bullet in an assassination attempt
From The Center Square
Former U.S. Secret Service agents and security experts argue the Secret Service’s failure to prevent an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Saturday was “apocalyptic,” exhibiting a “massive security breach.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has called for a congressional investigation. Multiple members of Congress are asking how a shooter ever reached a rooftop of a building to fire a shot at Trump, including U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Florida, an Army veteran and counter sniper for the State Department who coordinated protective details for then Vice President Joe Biden, Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush.
The assassination attempt on Trump was “a massive security breach,” Mills told CNN. The distance between the shooter and Trump was roughly 400 to 500 feet, “which is nothing for a shot adjacent to the stage of the president,” he said. “There was no one on that building, … in the building, standing next to the building to ensure there’s no access to the building,” he said. If there were, they “could have prevented this shooting.”
In an interview with Fox News, Mills said that the shots fired were the kind that soldiers learn in basic training boot camp and are “requested to make within nine weeks. This is one of the easiest shots.”
He said his job at the State Department involved working with an advanced team to establish a perimeter and “identify areas of threat that you would be able to mitigate … whether it be a building, … a lone tree … a parking lot. … Bottom line is this is massive negligence.”
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi has said agents responded quickly and the agency “added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of [Trump’s] increased campaign travel.”
Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino questioned this claim, asking on Fox News, “Which ones? You’re telling me the best technology you have was deployed and you missed a shooter 130 yards away … and even worse, it’s broad daylight on a white roof.”
He asked if there was forward-looking infrared deployed and if there was aerial support like drones and helicopters.
Bongino also pointed out that Trump “knew to duck … and saved his own life. That’s just a fact. The evacuation did not go right. The rule with the Secret Service is ‘cover the protectee’ and evacuate. The other rule is ‘maximum to the protectee, minimum to the problem. … Because you don’t know that’s the only problem. It could be a distraction. There could be another person in the crowd … you could be looking at multiple shooters.”
“The failure here is absolutely catastrophic,” he said, calling on Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle to resign immediately. He said Secret Service “absolutely resolutely 100% failed. This was an apocalyptic security failure. … An uneventful failure is never a success. The fact that Donald Trump didn’t die … is no reason for anybody to take some kind of victory lap.”
Former Secret Service agent Jeff James agreed, telling WTAE ABC News the agents on the stage should have moved Trump off sooner because the first shots fired “may have been the precursor in the real attack. There may have been four more gunmen who were going to start opening fire. I would have rather seen him get him into the armored cars and get him out of there more quickly.”
Bill Pickle, a former deputy assistant Secret Service director, told the Wall Street Journal, “The reality is there’s just no excuse for the Secret Service to be unable to provide sufficient resources to cover an open rooftop 100 yards away from the site. And there’s no way he should’ve got those shots off.”
Retired Secret Service agent Donald Mihalek called the failed assassination attempt “historic, drawing parallels to the 1912 shooting of Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee,” the Journal reported. “Roosevelt, then a former president who was running for a third term in the White House, was shot while heading to a campaign event. He survived the attempt on his life.”
Erik Prince, who previously provided diplomatic security services, said, “unaccountable bloated bureaucracies continue to fail us as Americans. Donald J. Trump is alive today solely due to a bad wind estimate by an evil would be assassin.”
Prince analyzed the wind at the time of the shot, arguing it was enough to displace the bullet two inches from Trump’s “intended forehead to his ear. DJT [Trump] was not saved by USSS [U.S. Secret Service] brilliance. The fact that USSS allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150 yards to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence.
“Clearly there was adequate uncontrolled dead space for a shooter to move into position and take multiple aimed shots,” he said, adding that one counter sniper “was clearly overwhelmed as his face came off his rifle instead of doing his job to kill the shooter.”
A counter sniper killed the alleged shooter after he shot several rounds, wounding Trump, killing one, and critically wounding two others.
“In my old business of providing Diplomatic Security in two active war zones we were expected to execute the basics, or we would be fired,” Prince said. “Clearly USSS failed at the basics of a secure perimeter and once shots were fired, their extraction was clumsy and left DJT highly exposed to follow on attacks.”
He also expressed no confidence in anyone being held accountable, saying, “That’s not the Washington way. Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster.”
Health
Kennedy sets a higher bar for pharmaceuticals: This is What Modernization Should Look Like

James Lyons-Weiler
What People, Universities, and Pharma Do Not Yet Understand About the Kennedy Regulatory Bar: It Signals the End of the Regulatory States of America.
Science must outlive the PR cycle.
Modernization, as used today by industry lobbyists and public health officials, often amounts to a euphemism for deregulation: fewer checks, less transparency, and faster product pipelines with fewer questions asked. In contrast, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s approach to public health modernization is actual modernization—where rigorous science, true accountability, and unwavering public safety form the non-negotiable baseline.
The Kennedy Regulatory Bar isn’t a buzzword, and it’s certainly not a rhetorical device. It’s an operating philosophy grounded in scientific integrity and public duty. For those who understand regulatory policy only as an obstacle to commercial throughput, the Kennedy Bar feels like a threat. But to those who understand what science is—a falsifiable, ethical, and reproducible method of discovering truth—it represents nothing less than the restoration of sanity.
Defining the Kennedy Regulatory Bar
Secretary Kennedy has made his expectations perfectly clear. In his own words:
“Journalists like yourself assume that vaccines are encountering the same kind of rigorous safety testing as other drugs, including multiyear double-blind placebo testing. But the fact is that vaccines don’t.”
— Interview, STAT News, Aug. 21, 2017
“By freeing [vaccine makers] from liability for negligence, the 1986 statute removed any incentive for these companies to make safe products. If we want safe and effective vaccines, we need to end the liability shield.”
— Press Statement in Support of HR 5816, Sept. 26, 2024
“Mr. Kennedy believes vaccination should be voluntary and based on informed consent. For consent to be truly informed, the underlying science must be unbiased and free from corporate influence.”
— Campaign FAQ – Vaccines, Kennedy24.com, Aug. 15, 2023
“My mission over the next 18 months… will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power.”
— Campaign Announcement Speech, Boston, Apr. 19, 2023
These principles, articulated repeatedly by Sec. Kennedy across media interviews, press events, and official communications, form the foundation of what we now call the Kennedy Bar.
The Kennedy Regulatory Bar: Five Core Standards
Rigorous Science: Long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials are the gold standard and must not be circumvented. This is but one example. All of biomedical science should be upgraded to highest standards.
Restored Liability: No blanket immunity for manufacturers; liability is essential to safety. This flies in the face of concerted efforts by Pharma to expand liability exemptions (e.g., PREP Act).
Transparency: All trial data must be made publicly available in machine-readable form—no redactions, no gatekeeping. Collins failed to enforce this, and the failure was noted.
Independent Oversight: Regulatory decisions must be made by individuals and boards free of industry conflicts of interest. This includes, but is not limited to, vaccines, drugs, devices, and procedures.
Informed Consent: Patients must receive full, truthful information about benefits and risks—without coercion or censorship, and their rights to free, prior, informed consent are absolute.
These are not radical ideas. They are what science used to be before it was rebranded as a partner to commerce.
Why “Banning the mRNA Vaccines” Isn’t Necessary—If the Regulatory State Is Fixed
Some critics ask: Why not just ban mRNA vaccines outright?
The question misunderstands both the Kennedy Bar and Secretary Kennedy’s governing philosophy. Banning an entire class of biomedical products by executive fiat would mirror the very authoritarianism that corrupted the regulatory state in the first place. The goal is not to replace one top-down mandate with another—it is to restore bottom-up scientific validity, where products succeed or fail based on their actual merit, risk profile, and necessity.
Under the Kennedy Bar, no product—mRNA or otherwise—can bypass the full burden of proof:
- Did it go through long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials?
- Were all adverse events transparently reported and analyzed?
- Was there independent oversight?
- Can the public access the raw data?
- Was informed consent meaningfully obtained?
If the answer is no—as it has been for many mRNA formulations—then the product simply fails to meet the regulatory standard. No ban is needed. Reality disqualifies it.
The Kennedy strategy is structural, not performative. It focuses on building a regulatory ecosystem that is incapable of licensing unsafe or ineffective products. This is a stronger safeguard than any prohibition. Rather than banning, Kennedy’s approach makes bad science impossible to pass off as medicine.
Once transparency is non-negotiable…
Once liability is restored…
Once regulatory capture is dismantled…
Then any product built on hype, shortcuts, or undisclosed risks—whether mRNA or otherwise—will collapse under the weight of real scrutiny.
That is not censorship. That is civilization defending itself by enforcing its own standards.
Integration Over Isolation
What sets Kennedy’s approach apart is not only the bar he sets for scientific integrity, but it is obvious this is how he is implementing it across government. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, he is already working to integrate the work of all HHS agencies—CDC, NIH, FDA, CMS, HRSA, and others—into a coherent, collaborative ecosystem. No longer will one hand of government ignore the consequences of the other.
Where prior administrations tolerated bureaucratic silos and jurisdictional loopholes, Kennedy insists that scientific rigor be institutionalized—not merely idealized. Under his leadership, agencies are being asked to communicate better, share safety signals earlier, co-design surveillance systems, and synchronize risk communication strategies.
This is not just about stopping regulatory failure. It’s about building functional synergy between the very institutions tasked with protecting public health.
The Academy’s Crisis of Conscience
Many universities have not yet recognized that the Kennedy Bar creates a mirror they cannot easily turn away from. For decades, medical schools and public health departments have received lavish funding from pharmaceutical companies and government agencies with revolving doors. This arrangement has subtly—sometimes overtly—coerced researchers to conform to sponsor expectations, burying negative results and rewarding compliance with publication and promotion.
Secretary Kennedy has quietly changed the rules of engagement. Prestige will no longer in the place of principles. A new standard is emerging, and it doesn’t care what editorial board endorsed your work—it asks what you measured, how long you observed it, and who paid you to interpret it.
I recently gave a speech “How to Speak MAHA” to a collection of research administrators at midwestern state Universities. They did not grasp the reality that those Universities who are cheerleading their researchers to submit more, not fewer, grant proposals in response to calls for proposals to transform medicine will be scheduled for prestige and more funding. Good actors will be rewarded. Those obsessed with their bottom lines will have to find funding elsewhere. Those publishing in sketchy journals against the recommendations of HHS might suffer a ding in their grant scores.
The message from this administration is simple, and our universities now face a choice: modernize into true scientific integrity, or double down on performative consensus. The Kennedy Bar forces the question: Is your institution educating scientists—or training enablers? No grant is worth the erosion of public trust. No journal impact factor outweighs the duty to truth. The age of science as branding is over. The age of science as science—open, accountable, and rigorous—has returned.
The Industry’s Real Dilemma
Pharma does not fear Kennedy because he’s against innovation. They fear him because he demands real innovation—scientific advancements that can survive public scrutiny, not just regulatory maneuvering.
For decades, the vaccine industry has relied on two tricks: (1) measuring success through surrogate endpoints like antibody titers rather than clinical outcomes, and (2) conducting studies in silos—never long enough, never with full data access, and almost never with independent safety boards. This system has produced a torrent of marginally tested products with maximum immunity from liability and minimal transparency.
Under the Kennedy Bar, the era of “emergency forever” is over. The industry must either meet real scientific thresholds or lose the public’s trust—entirely. This is not punishment. It’s evolution. It’s the grown-up phase of medicine. A moment of maturation for a sector that has long preferred speed over scrutiny, revenue over rigor.
And it comes with a choice: evolve or… be revealed.
Outflanking the “Modernization” Rhetoric
The PR pivot has already begun. Corporate spokespeople and foundation-backed academics are working overtime to redefine “modernization” as “streamlining,” “accelerating,” or “expanding access.” But these are euphemisms for lowering standards, usually without public debate.
Kennedy’s modernization is not deregulation. It is re-regulation—the restoration of the scientific method, the demand for data, and the end of special pleading. His is not a revolution in tone, but in epistemology. He is not rebranding trust—he is rebuilding it.
Science Must Outlive the PR Cycle
Regulatory systems that abandon the scientific method for public relations will inevitably collapse. The people know. They have lived the adverse events. They have watched silence fall where transparency was promised. They’ve seen academic journals censor, media outlets spin, and regulators hedge their language to protect careers rather than lives.
The Kennedy Bar is not a barricade—it is a foundation stone. It does not prevent innovation. It ensures that innovation is real.
So to the regulators: Your authority does not come from secrecy—it comes from public trust.
To the industry: Your survival depends on the integrity of your products, not the slickness of your press kits and forward-looking statements.
And to the universities: Your legacy will not be measured in grants received, but in truths defended.
Those who come up to the bar will see not only translational success, but will also transformational success.
And they will sleep better at night.
Popular Rationalism is a reader-supported publication.
To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribe to Popular Rationalism.
And check out our awesome, in-depth, live full semester courses at IPAK-EDU. Hope to see you in class!
conflict
Victor Davis Hanson Makes a Disturbing Prediction About What Happens If Iran Survives

Amidst rough seas, you need a steady sailor.
Not just what’s happening, but what’s coming next.
“I think we’re going to see things that we haven’t seen in our lifetime in the Middle East,” he said.
This could go one of two ways, neither is small.
Victor Davis Hanson isn’t known for hyperbole. So when he opens with a warning like this, people pay attention:
“We are at an historic time in the Middle East,” he said.
“Never in our lifetimes have we been closer to a complete revolutionary fervor that gives promise of normalcy for the Middle East. And never have we been in more danger of seeing the entire region blow up.”
The paradox is striking.
Peace may be closer than ever, but so is total collapse.
And at the center of it all is the unfolding conflict between Iran and Israel, which Hanson called “surreal.”
Reflecting on the rapid collapse of Iran’s regional dominance, Hanson admitted that even a few years ago, this moment would have been unthinkable.
“If we had this conversation five years ago,” he said, “and I said to you, the Iranian nation that is huge compared to Israel, ten times the population, the Iranian nation has lost all control of the Houthi terrorists, and they are themselves neutered…”
He pointed to a chain reaction across the region: Iran’s proxy forces in Gaza and the West Bank have been neutralized. Hezbollah, once a feared military force, is now dormant.
“They’re gone as a Hamas, as a fighting force. The formidable, the terrifying Hezbollah cadres, they’re inert.”
The chaos in Syria, once a stronghold of Iranian influence, now seems to be working against Tehran.
“There is no more Syria, the Assad dynasty, the pro-Iranian, the Syria. It’s in chaos. But whatever the chaos is, seems to be anti-Iranian.”
The collapse is strategic, not just symbolic. Hanson noted that the so-called “Shia crescent” connecting Tehran to the Mediterranean is no longer intact.
“Lebanon is free of Iranian influence. So is Syria. Gaza, a de facto, will be.”
Even Russia, once a key ally, is no longer a player in the region.
“It’s tied down in Ukraine,” he said.
“Iran itself, the formidable powerhouse of the Middle East that evoked terror all over, has no defenses.”
Over the course of just five days, Israel has launched a targeted military campaign to dismantle Iran’s strategic infrastructure.
According to Hanson, the damage has been sweeping.
“They have dismantled all of the Iranian missile defenses. They have dismantled the terrorist hierarchy. They have dismantled the people who are responsible for the nuclear program.”
And yet, there’s risk.
“The Iranians have sent over 400 ballistic missiles and drones into Israel,” he said, “and 90 percent are stop. But that 10 percent gets through.”
Which brings us to the turning point.
All of this only matters if it ends with Iran’s theocracy on the brink of collapse.
If it doesn’t, everything that’s been gained could be erased.
“All of this chaos and all of this war will be for not if Iran’s theocracy emerges intact from this war.”
Even more dangerous, he added, would be a scenario in which the country’s nuclear infrastructure survives or can be quickly rebuilt.
That possibility has triggered one of the most urgent strategic questions on the table: Can Israel finish the job?
Or will it need help from the United States to strike Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities?
This is where things get complicated.
Under the “America First” foreign policy doctrine, Trump has been clear: no more forever wars, no more ground troops in the Middle East.
But Hanson argued that Trump’s actions tell a deeper story.
“I’m not an isolationist, I’m a Jacksonian,” he said, echoing what Trump might say.
“You should have known that when I took out Soleimani… when I took out Baghdadi… when I took out the Wagner Group.”
The message? Trump doesn’t go looking for wars. But when deterrence is at stake, he’s not afraid to act decisively.
Still, Hanson posed a chilling question: what if the Iranian regime survives?
“If this war should end with the Iranian regime intact and the elements of its nuclear program recoverable,” he warned, “then in some ways it will be all for naught.”
Despite Iran’s military losses, its media destruction and its isolated position, surviving such a coordinated strike could give it something even more powerful than weapons: perceived invincibility.
“It will be more like, oh my gosh, Iran survived everything that Israel, and by association the United States, threw at it.”
“It’s indestructible.”
And that, Hanson suggested, would be the real danger.
Not just a return to the status quo, but a shift in perception that emboldens the regime and reshapes the balance of power across the region.
Now the question hanging over the entire conflict is this: does the world play it safe and allow remnants of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure to survive?
Or risk a final strike that could eliminate the threat for good, but possibly trigger even greater instability?
“Do you risk more danger by taking out and eliminating the nuclear threat for good,” Hanson asked, “and by association, you humiliate the theocracy to the point it can be overthrown?”
That’s the gamble.
He didn’t shy away from his own discomfort with war.
“I don’t like forever wars,” he added.
“I don’t like preemptive wars. I do not like the United States intervening anywhere in that godforsaken area. But if the war ends with the regime intact and a recoverable nuclear program, it won’t just be back to square one. It will be a disaster.”
That’s when he dropped a bombshell prediction of the future in the area after the dust settles in the desert.
Whether this ends in collapse or resurgence, Hanson believes the next phase of the war could reshape the entire region and the world’s understanding of power in the Middle East.
“So we’ll see what happens,” he said.
“And hold on, everybody. I think we’re going to see things that we haven’t seen in our lifetime in the Middle East. And it could turn out very bad.”
“But it could also turn out to be quite revolutionary and remake the map of the entire region.”
This story was made possible with the help of Overton —I couldn’t have done it without him.
If you’d like to support his growing network, consider subscribing for the month or the year. Your support helps him expand his team and cover more stories like this one.
We both truly appreciate your support!
Subscribe to The Vigilant Fox
-
espionage1 day ago
From Sidewinder to P.E.I.: Are Canada’s Political Elites Benefiting from Beijing’s Real Estate Reach?
-
Agriculture1 day ago
Unstung Heroes: Canada’s Honey Bees are not Disappearing – They’re Thriving
-
Daily Caller1 day ago
Unanimous Supreme Court Ruling Inspires Hope For Future Energy Project Permitting
-
Alberta1 day ago
Alberta’s carbon diet – how to lose megatonnes in just three short decades
-
Energy1 day ago
Who put the energy illiterate in charge?
-
Business2 days ago
RFK Jr. planning new restrictions on drug advertising: report
-
Business23 hours ago
Senator wants to torpedo Canada’s oil and gas industry
-
espionage1 day ago
FBI Buried ‘Warning’ Intel on CCP Plot to Elect Biden Using TikTok, Fake IDs, CCP Sympathizers and PRC Students—Grassley Probes Withdrawal