Enhanced Presidential Security Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. What happened in Butler and Palm Beach was unacceptable, and it cannot be allowed to happen again.

That is why this week, Congress is coming together, poised to pass a continuing resolution that I hope the Senator will support that will give the Secret Service $231 million in additional funding to provide the Agency with the authority to spend money at a faster rate so that they can meet their mission, and their mission is ``zero fail.''

I am the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, which is charged with funding the Secret Service. I am proud of the quick work that we have done to identify the funds that can be spent between now and the election and between now and the inauguration to make sure that any gaps are closed.

The reason that I rise on this particular bill, though, is because I don't want to promise the American public more than this bill actually delivers.

This bill says that the Secret Service shall use ``the same standards for determining the number of agents required to protect Presidents, Vice Presidents, and major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.'' Now, that may sound meaningful, but in reality, my sense is that that is current law.

Right now, when the Secret Service makes a determination on the provision of protection, it is assessing the protectee's life, their work, their travel patterns, the potential threats, and the risk of harm to that person. The standard that the Secret Service uses is to provide whatever protection level is necessary to meet that ``zero fail'' mission to protect the person under their charge. With a team of experts, the Secret Service determines the level and the type of protection that is needed. That is the process, and those are the existing standards.

Let's be clear. Commanders in Chief--Presidents of the United States--do have certain unique requirements regarding their protection. For instance, the Department of Defense is supplying a traveling Commander in Chief with certain capabilities, chiefly amongst them the ability to stay in contact with our nuclear triad and communication assets necessary for the President to be in seamless communication with the Department of Defense and military command should a crisis arise. That is a unique set of capabilities that a Commander in Chief has, and it goes into the assessment that the Secret Service makes as to the level of protection that the Commander in Chief needs.

They are using the same standard--do whatever is necessary in order to protect the life of the protectee--but Commanders in Chief, because they are Commanders in Chief, have a different constellation of assets that surround them that mean that the standard gets applied accordingly.

So I am not actually going to object. I am not sure that this bill changes anything about the way the Secret Service approaches their mission. They are going to continue to do whatever is necessary in order to protect the detailee, to protect the individual under their mandate. I think the much more substantive thing we are going to do this week is to get them the resources they need. My hope is that all of my Republican colleagues who have been talking about the importance of Secret Service protection are willing to support this increase in funding that the continuing resolution will include.

I will end by expressing my additional hope that we will seek to have a more holistic conversation here about how to protect former President Trump, how to protect President Biden, and how to protect Vice President Harris.

I am ready to move forward with this bill. I don't think it does anything to meaningfully change the way that the Secret Service approaches their job. I am ready to move forward on additional assets.

But we also continue to choose to give weapons of mass destruction to assassins. Other nations around the world don't choose to hand weapons with such accurate long-range capabilities, such powerful destructive force, to these assassins whose brains are breaking.

We also have a constellation of actors in this country who are engaged in a web of conspiracy theories. There is a justification of political violence that exists in this country today--apologies for those people who tried to kill us, attacked us on January 6--that leads many others to contemplate that they will also be let off the hook for their acts of political violence.

So I take the protection of former President Trump and Vice President Harris and everyone under Secret Service protection very seriously.

Let's move ahead with this bill. I don't think it actually solves the problem. Let's pass the additional money so that they have everything they need--the Secret Service--in order to get the job done. Then let's sit down and have a broader conversation about why we have seen this spike in political violence and what other ways Republicans and Democrats can come together.

Only by having that comprehensive conversation about funding, about the lethal means of assassination, about the celebration of political violence that happens in this country will we really do the job that is necessary and help the Secret Service reach their ``zero fail'' mission.

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