Erik Prince spoke to “Blaze News Tonight” on Monday about the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, the apparent incompetence of some federal agencies, security considerations going forward and what the former president ultimately lost on Sunday.
Lost Paradise
Prince, a former Navy SEAL and founder of the private military company Blackwater, highlighted something that other analyses of the second assassination attempt have ignored: Trump, vilified by the media and the political establishment, was effectively left with no last resort.
“What really sickened me about it was that golf was a happy place for Donald Trump,” Prince said. “He loved golf and he was good at it, and they took that away from him.”
“Every time I see a beautiful tree on the golf course, [Trump] “You think, 'Oh, that's a beautiful avenue, but someone could be hiding and waiting to shoot me.' I feel sorry for the guy.”
Federal Government Failures and Solutions
Prince said Trump not only lost his happy place, but he also nearly lost his life again because “nothing has changed.”
While Kimberly Cheatle has resigned as director of the U.S. Secret Service and several agents have reportedly been placed on administrative leave, private security experts have suggested corruption remains within the organization.
“No one has been fired from the Secret Service,” Prince continued, “nor has there been a cleansing of its officers or ranks.”
“You want an aggressive-thinking human hunter.”
“You know, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity,” Prince added.
Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker asked Prince whether Trump would need to “augment or replace” Secret Service protection before the election.
Prince suggested it would be wise to beef up Trump's security by bringing in some of the Pentagon's more trusted personnel.
The Blackwater founder noted that “there is a lot of capability available in the private sector,” but said blending those capabilities with a federal organization like the USSS would be very difficult.
“The problem with the Secret Service is that 10 to 15 percent are brilliant. Olympic-level performance. Amazing. The other 20 to 30 percent are just bureaucrats. The other 50 percent are really useless, malicious people,” Prince continued.
Top quality A lot. I just don't know how deep their bench is.”
Prince suggested Trump's security personnel could be supplemented by private sector personnel, but a better option would be to draw from “Joint Special Operations Command with SEAL Team Six and Delta.”
“From there, you bring in some operators, because you want people who are predators. You want people hunters. People who think aggressively, who think, 'How are we going to kill Donald J. Trump?' And then you say, 'Here are 20 ways we're going to do it.' And then you execute all 20 ways to make sure he's safe,” Prince said.
Prince suggested that having an offensive thinker in office rather than a reactive thinker would make Trump safer against suspects like Routh and better able to withstand attacks by more skilled killers, such as ISIS terrorists, Hezbollah militants or Latin American gangs.
Regionalization of investigations
Prince stressed that the arrest of the alleged attacker, Ryan Routh, was entirely down to local police, and that the FBI cannot be expected to properly investigate the incident.
“The real heroes yesterday were the sheriffs because they really worked together across county lines,” Prince said. “The federal government had nothing to do with arresting that guy.”
Deputies from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and Martin County Sheriff's Office pursued the suspect and arrested him on Interstate 95 approximately 40 miles from the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the suspect is believed to have fled the USSS.
“I have no confidence that the Miami FBI office is equipped to handle this investigation,” Prince said, adding that the special agent in charge, Jeffrey Veltri, “had to delete his social media history because it was so anti-Trump.”
The whistleblower
House Judiciary Committee Last year, the FBI forced Veltri to remove anti-Trump posts before taking over the Miami branch. Reported The Washington Times.
According to a whistleblower disclosure obtained by The Times, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Director Paul Abbate and Assistant Executive Director Jennifer Moore “wanted to ensure that Mr. Veltri appeared apolitical, and therefore ordered him to remove all anti-Trump posts on Facebook and other social media.”
The FBI has downplayed allegations of political bias, particularly regarding Beltoli's selection to manage Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
“This is going to create intellectual embarrassment for all the weirdos on the left.”
“This is the same FBI that conducted the phony raids on Mar-a-Lago in this documents case,” Prince told “Blaze News Tonight.” “So if he thinks he's going to honestly investigate some left-wing plot to kill President Trump, that's not going to happen.”
Prince stressed the need for Florida to conduct its own investigation, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he would not approve.
Confirmed Sunday is coming.
The Left's Responsibility
Further complicating the security challenges for Trump is his continued demonization by the left.
“When the left creates intellectual space to make the unfounded assertion that Donald Trump is Hitler and that he must be removed and stopped at all costs, He is a threat to democracy “That creates intellectual embarrassment for all the left-wing weirdos who say, 'I'm going to be the savior of the left. I'm going to kill Donald Trump,' and that's exactly what this guy was doing,” Prince said.
The suspected assassin, Ryan Routh, is a convicted felon, ActBlue donor, and enthusiastic supporter of the Ukraine war.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) provided a brief profile of the suspected assassin in a Blaze News op-ed on Tuesday.
Here's what we know so far: Kamala Harris said “democracy is at stake” during her campaign against President Trump. The shooter agreed, using the exact same phrase. He had a Biden-Harris bumper sticker on his truck. He was obsessed with the “fight for democracy” in Ukraine and had absorbed many crazy views on the Russia-Ukraine war. His name was Ryan Routh,
19 donations I agree with the Democratic Party's doctrines, but not at all with the Republican Party's doctrines.
The Blaze News previously reported that Rouse frequently repeats Democratic talking points, including:Democracy is put to the vote“And the January 6th riot was a catastrophe caused by Donald Trump and his undemocratic cohorts.”
In 2023, he self-published his book “Ukraine's Unwinnable War“No one in the United States seems to have the guts to take advantage of natural selection, or even unnatural selection,” Routh said, encouraging the Iranians to assassinate President Trump.
Prince said Routh was inspired by “wild left-wing rhetoric” and “trophy hunting.”
“He was there to kill Donald Trump,” Prince added.
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