A very bad week for the Secret Service

The Secret Service’s worst week since John Hinckley Jr. failed to gun down President Ronald Reagan continued with some buggy problems just days after the organization’s embattled director announced plans to step down following bipartisan condemnation.

Fresh off of failing to adequately protect President Donald Trump from a deranged gunman, the Secret Service failed to secure the Watergate Hotel where Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was staying and allowed a pro-Hamas organization to pour live maggots all over a room where he was alleged to be dining. 

“BON APPETIT!! MAGGOTS RELEASED ON THE CRIMINAL ZIONIST’S WAR TABLE!” the Palestinian Youth Movement posted on Instagram, along with a video of insects crawling all over the Watergate’s grounds. “Crickets were released on multiple floors of the hotel. Fire alarms were triggered for over thirty minutes on multiple floors to ensure that there will be no rest.”

In response, the Secret Service confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon that it didn’t stop the bug-wielding protesters from entering the property. “The Watergate facility has an expansive footprint and remains open for businesses, residences and guests,” its spokesman said. The Spectator attempted to reach the Watergate for comment on the incident, but was placed on hold for twenty minutes before being promised a call back that never came. 

The Secret Service’s response is unlikely to fly with lawmakers who have been seething since the agency’s combative head, Kimberly Cheatle, struck a non-cooperative tone with lawmakers of both parties before announcing her resignation. 

“The recent incident at Prime Minister Netanyahu’s hotel is disgraceful,” Senator Ron Johnson, who has led much of the oversight into Cheatle’s leadership, told The Spectator. “Another failure of the Secret Service to prevent such actions raises serious questions about their capabilities and protocols. The perpetrators must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and top management at the Secret Service should be held accountable.”

Over on the House side, Representative Mike Waltz, whose Secret Service criticisms drew a fact-free rebuttal from Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, told The Spectator that while the change in Secret Service leadership “was clearly needed,” the agency’s latest failure “is just unacceptable.

“If you’re spread too thin or need more resources, ask for them,” he implored the embattled agency. 

-Matthew Foldi

On our radar

KAMALA AVOIDS O’BUMMER Barack and Michelle Obama finally endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in a pre-recorded phone call that was released Friday morning. Obama was one of the last major Democrats to endorse Harris’s bid for the presidency. 

WRONG WRAY FBI director Christopher Wray is facing backlash for comments he made in front of Congress speculating that former president Donald Trump’s ear may have been hit by “shrapnel” as opposed to a bullet. A Secret Service spokesman previously confirmed Trump was shot during the rally. 

TAKE A SEAT Southwest Airlines is changing its longstanding open seating policy and will now require customers to select their assigned seats while purchasing tickets. Southwest said 80 percent of its customers prefer assigned seating. 

Are the Kamala-Trump debates happening? 

Vice President Kamala Harris accused Donald Trump of “backpedaling” from debates Thursday, with the Trump campaign stating that they will not consider an ABC-hosted debate until Kamala officially becomes the Democratic nominee.

“ABC Fake News is such a joke, among the absolute WORST in the business. They try to make Crooked Joe into a brave warrior because he didn’t have the ‘guts’  to fight it out — He quit! They then tried to make ‘Sleepy’  look like a great President — he was the WORST, and Lyin’ Kamala into a competent person, which she is not. ABC, the home of George Slopadopolus, is not worthy of holding a Debate, of which I hope there will be many! MAGA2024,” Trump shared on Truth Social this Tuesday.

Before Joe Biden departed from the presidential race, it seemed like the Trump camp was ready for another debate. Now, things appear unclear. Perhaps the Trump campaign is just trying to draw attention to the fact that Kamala’s elevation to the top of the ticket is more of a coronation than a democratic process. Kamala, however, is presenting the move as one stemming from fear. After landing at Joint Base Andrews following stops in Texas and Indiana, she told reporters on that she was “ready to debate Donald Trump.

“I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage,” she added.

The debate, which was scheduled for September, was one of the two that President Joe Biden and Trump had agreed to.

While debates are most surely coming our way, the Trump campaign may very well be attempting to negotiate different terms and conditions now that circumstances have changed. For one, conversations about fairness mattered less when the candidate was Biden and the strategy was mostly competency-centric. While critics have a lot to say, from the campaign’s perspective, it makes sense to reevaluate its approach. Can they secure another debate, hosted by a network and moderators that are less hostile? We’ll see, but that’s exactly what Trump wants. 

–Juan P. Villasmil

Sofa, so good?

What does “fake news” mean in the post-truth era? Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and rebranding of it to X, was supposed to augur a new age of unfiltered information, to combat the censorship of Silicon Valley apparatchiks. For a lot of this week, that meant you’d see Laura Loomer and Charlie Kirk sincerely assuring you that Joe Biden was dead or about to die (he addressed the nation, weakly, on Wednesday, an impressive feat for any corpse). How is the discerning reader supposed to separate fact from falsehood in this climate? 

That’s the question facing tech-savvy Senator J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, this week, after he found himself on the receiving end of an unsavory and very viral rumor: that he had sexual relations with a couch in college and wrote about it in his famous memoir Hillbilly Elegy. 

The rumor started eleven days ago, when X user @rickrudescalves tweeted, “can’t say for sure but he might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to fucking an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (vance, 𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘺, pp. 179-181).” The post was amplified, imitated and set America ablaze. 

“‘JD Vance fucked a couch’ fine we have one thing in common that doesn’t mean I’m gonna vote for the guy,” responded one user, one of thousands of reactions to the anecdote which is… completely fabricated, sadly. 

In the Trump era, the media would appoint its own ombudsmen to determine which stories were “fake news” or “misleading”: think CNN’s in-house poindexter Daniel Dale and the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler. Sure enough, Snopes published a story debunking the rumor, as did the AP’s Fact Check, in a piece headlined “No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch.” 

The AP piece soared just as high, leading to blushes at head office and the article’s deletion, as the story “didn’t go through our standing editing process.” 

So… the AP article authoritatively declaring that J.D. Vance has never admitted to performing a sex act with a couch was removed, meaning… the wire service isn’t sure whether he ever has or not? Cockburn expects the site to put its sharpest reporters on the case. America demands answers.

–Cockburn