Tuberville calls for Navy SEALs to protect Trump

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) suggested Monday that Navy SEALs be employed to protect former President Trump, as he lamented the security in place during the second apparent assassination attempt against the GOP nominee.

“I don’t know who’s running our country, but somebody needs to step to the plate and at least act like you care about a Republican candidate, but they truly don’t,” Tuberville said in an interview on Fox Business with Larry Kudlow. “They could care less.”

“There needs to be SEAL teams. There needs to be military,” he continued. “Larry, I don’t know what these people are thinking.”

The Hill has reached out to the White House for a response.

Tuberville’s call for greater security comes after a second apparent assassination attempt was made Sunday on Trump as he played a round of golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Secret Service agents, posted at a few holes nearby, noticed a man with a rifle push the firearm’s muzzle through the perimeter of the course. The rifle was sticking through the bushes 300 to 500 yards away. 

A Secret Service agent fired at the man, who dropped the AK-style rifle and fled in a car. Officials subsequently apprehended the suspect, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, and he was charged with federal gun crimes.

The suspect was taken into custody before he could inflict harm — a marked improvement over the first assassination attempt against Trump in July during a rally in Butler, Pa. That incident prompted fierce scrutiny of the Secret Service’s failure to protect the president from a bullet grazing his ear and subsequently led to the resignation of then-director Kimberly Cheatle. But the effort has prompted renewed concern about the level of security around the former president.

In the interview Monday, Tuberville said security for the GOP presidential nominee ought to be at the highest level that is possible.

“And of course, Chuck Schumer and [Mitch] McConnell and all these people up here are running around with all kinds of security in Washington, D.C., and the one man that we need to protect his life is Donald Trump, and they refuse to do it,” he added, referring to Senate leadership.

Amid questions about the level of protection for Trump, Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho) suggested Monday that Trump consider hiring private security.

“If I’m President Trump, and my objective is to stay alive, I want to look at a lot of different options, including possibly even private security to enhance some of these needs,” Fulcher said in an interview on “The Hill” on NewsNation.