MxM News

Quick Hit:

Six Secret Service agents have been suspended without pay for their roles in last summer’s failed security operation that allowed a gunman to shoot then-presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Key Details:

• The suspensions range from 10 to 42 days and involve agents tied to security planning and operations surrounding the July 13, 2024, Trump rally where the then-former president was shot in the ear.
• Deputy Director Quinn said the agents will not be fired but will be reassigned to lower-responsibility roles, adding, “We aren’t going to fire our way out of this… we’re going to fix the deficiencies that put us in that situation.”
• A Senate report released in September found widespread failures by the Secret Service, citing issues including poor coordination with local law enforcement, faulty communication systems, and a lack of aerial surveillance tools.

Diving Deeper:

The U.S. Secret Service has suspended six of its agents for lapses that contributed to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year, according to reporting from CBS News. Deputy Director Matt Quinn told the outlet that while the agents will not be terminated, they have been placed on unpaid leave and will return to duty in positions with reduced operational responsibility.

Quinn made clear the agency was accepting full accountability. “Butler was an operational failure, and we are focused today on ensuring that it never happens again,” he said. “We aren’t going to fire our way out of this. We’re going to focus on the root cause and fix the deficiencies.”

The July 13, 2024, shooting nearly killed the then-former president, who was struck in the ear by a bullet fired by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. The gunman, perched on a rooftop with an unobstructed view of the stage, also killed local firefighter Corey Comperatore and seriously wounded two other rallygoers before he was neutralized by a Secret Service sniper. Investigations later revealed that the roof Crooks used was not properly secured or monitored despite being within clear sightlines of the main event.

A Senate report issued two months after the incident described the failures as “foreseeable and preventable,” pointing to a range of security breakdowns — including vague delegation of responsibilities, poor coordination with local and state law enforcement, and technical issues such as inoperable drone defense systems.

The agency has since made changes, according to Quinn, including the deployment of a new drone fleet and mobile command posts designed to improve real-time coordination and communication between federal agents and local officers.

The Butler shooting wasn’t the only security threat Trump faced in 2024. Two months later, a separate attempt was made on his life at his golf club in Palm Beach, Florida.

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Melissa O’Rourke

The current state of Argentina’s economy is a far cry from what “experts” predicted when they warned that President Javier Milei’s pro-free market leadership would devastate the country.

The chainsaw-wielding libertarian rose to power on promises to slash government spending, implement free-market policies and lift strict currency controls to rescue a nation crippled by inflation, debt and entrenched poverty. Though the pundit class warned that Milei’s policies would spark an economic collapse, the results so far have been a rebuke to those warnings.

Just days before the November 2023 presidential election, 108 economists from around the world signed an open letter claiming that Milei’s “simple solutions” were “likely to cause more devastation in the real world in the short run, while severely reducing policy space in the long run.”

“His policies are poorly thought through. Far from building a consensus, he would struggle to govern,” The Economist’s editorial board wrote in a September 2023 piece describing “Javier Milei’s dangerous allure.”

Well over a year into Milei’s presidency, Argentina is showing its strongest economic performance in years. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) jumped 7.7% in April compared to the same month in 2024, far exceeding expectations.

The GDP is expected to rise by 5.2% in 2025, compared to declines of 1.3% in 2024 and 1.9% in 2023, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Inflation, a long-standing hallmark of Argentina’s economic dysfunction, dropped to 1.5% between April and May, reaching a five-year low. Annual inflation has plunged from 160.9% in November 2023 — just before Milei took office — to 43.5% in May.

Meanwhile, poverty rates have also declined sharply, falling from 52.9% in the first half of 2024 to 38.1% in the second half of the year.

Argentina’s rental housing supply also increased by 212% between December 2023 and June 2024, after Milei repealed the country’s rent control laws, according to the Cato Institute.

“Against the background of a difficult legacy of macroeconomic imbalances, Argentina has embarked on an ambitious reform process, starting with an unprecedented upfront fiscal adjustment. Reforms have started to pay off. Inflation has receded and the economy is set for a strong recovery,” the OECD noted in its new analysis of the Argentinian economy. “Maintaining the reform momentum will be key to restore confidence, boost investment and productivity growth.”

Milei — a self-described anarcho-capitalist — has been an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize the U.S. government, including the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) push to cut spending.

“I come from a country that bought all of those stupid ideas that went from being one of the most affluent countries in the world to one to one of the [poorest],” Milei said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2024. “If you don’t fight for your freedom, they will drag you into misery … Don’t surrender.”