On Saturday, a lone gunman attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally. Trump was hit in the ear and rushed offstage by Secret Service agents. In the days since, many have criticized the Secret Service for not adequately securing the area surrounding the rally. And a growing number on the right have said that the female Secret Service agents are to blame.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, also a woman, has gotten heat for the agency’s role in not better protecting Trump. In a statement, she said that Trump’s security personnel has been updated since Saturday.
However, Cheatle specifically has come under fire from the right, with angry calls for her to resign over incompetency. An old story about her efforts to increase female representation in the Secret Service also recirculated, claiming the agency was hiring unqualified people to meet DEI standards.
Coincidentally, Trump tweeted about an Obama-era female Secret Service director in 2014 who he thought seemed “way over her head.” Now, the tweet is being praised by his supporters.
“The woman who is the Secret Service Director looks like she is way over her head,” Trump tweeted on Oct. 1, 2014. “Why can’t the president appoint the best and the brightest?”
Later that day, Julia Pierson resigned from her post as the director of the Secret Service after an armed man entered the White House during former President Barack Obama’s time in office. Pierson’s resignation was preceded by reports of “gaps in presidential security.”
Trump’s tweet wasn’t necessarily calling out her gender, but his fans certainly took it that way.
Some X users who responded to Trump’s tweet said that he had “predicted the future” with his tweet about Pierson.
“You predicted the future!” one X user wrote.
“This man knows it all!!!” another person said.
“Time traveler?!” an X user said.
Others, though, incorrectly thought Trump’s 2014 tweet was about Cheatle. Trump has not tweeted since 2021, save for one in 2023 when he shared a photo of his mugshot taken at a Fulton County jail in conjunction with his Georgia criminal arrest, which has been postponed until after the election.
“Yes, she is!” one X user tweeted, seeming to refer to Cheatle. “She’s not very good at making up believable excuses either.”
Another X user tweeted “Kimberly Cheatle” alongside a popular meme that says “and I took that personally” joking she decided to perform worse than the previous female director.
And users continued to harp in the responses about their concerns over gender quotas.
“This is what gender quotas look like in practice,” an X user replied to Trump. “All identity quotas have larger consequences than people realize.”
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