Stories about the Secret Service | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

The United States Secret Service was created 161 years ago when Abraham Lincoln signed it into law. That same day, he was fatally wounded by an assassin. Since then, the services mission has evolved from catching counterfeits to protecting the lives of presidents, their families, and other top officials. Today, in the age of AI, the threats are not just from a lone assassin's bullet, but autonomous attack drones. The US is a country that feels on edge. The Secret Service told us the number of threats is way up against its protectees, especially President Trump. He has been the target of more assassination attempts than any other president. So, we wanted to speak to the director of the agency, Sean Curran. He's been an agent for 25 years and is now leading the Secret Service that's in the line of fire. How would you describe the current threat environment in this country?

>> It's like we've never seen before. The threats on our full-time protectes are up just over 40% since they than they were last year. That's a massive increase. >> Sean Curran is the 28th director of the United States Secret Service. He told us that since January, there have been 10,000 threats on the people they protect. 10,000 threat cases just this year. >> And the year's not over. >> Curran and his deputy director, Matthew Quinn, spoke to 60 Minutes in their first joint interview. >> What's driving that? >> Look, I think a lot of it has to do with the internet. You know, people are more accessible. uh information is more accessible. Um it's it's definitely new to us. >> In the last two and a half years, there have been three known attempts on President Trump's life. At a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, >> his Florida golf course, and the White House correspondents dinner, where a shooter breached the security perimeter.

President Trump is one of the most polarizing political figures in American history. Is that in some way leading to the increase in these threats? >> We are an a-olitical organization. We're here to protect who we're we're sworn to protect. >> Look, I would say there's people on both sides of the aisle that either love or hate any president. I think the biggest factor we're dealing with today is uh mental health issues for sure. And more people are being pushed over the edge in either direction. The world is different than what it was 20 years ago. You know, social media changes people. Do more threats come from the left or right? >> We don't weigh it that way. Uh we we just look at, you know, who who is, you know, making the threat. We investigate it and we run it down each and every threat. >> Research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed a spike in incidents at the local and national level from the left in 2025. It was the first time left-wing attacks have been higher than right-wing attacks in 30 years. This year that trend has reversed with more attacks coming from the right so far. 8 months into a war with Iran, the threats from outside the country are also growing. They have vowed revenge. How do you deal with that when you're in charge of protecting the president?

>> Turn on the TV and you can see the funeral where there are massive banners saying kill president Trump. So do we recognize the threat environment is increased? Absolutely. How we do it and how we change, that's where we prefer to stay in the in the background. >> Few people know the risks more than Director Curran, who just two years ago was the lead agent protecting President Trump when he was campaigning on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania. Get down. Get down. Get down. >> Curran was among the agents who shielded President Trump when Thomas Krooks fired eight rounds at the stage from a rooftop 155 yards away. >> You've not talked a lot about what happened in Butler until now. >> I haven't really reflected on it. I've kept myself busy. I've I've just worked and worked. I've gone from assignment to assignment so that I've probably taken my mind off of it. It's what we train to do. It's what you never want to do. What goes through your mind as the lead agent?

>> I mean, we were face to face and then I have to think about the next move. You don't have time to think about anything else. I am his vest. You know, I wear my vest for him. It's not for me. >> You were the lead agent in charge. Is it true that you had requested additional resources and were denied? >> I'd rather not get into the past. Um, I will tell you that I did request additional resources and I'll leave it at that. A congressional hearing led then director Kimberly Cheetel to resign over the breakdown of security that day. The newly reelected Donald Trump put his lead agent in charge of the Secret Service. This past June, the final government report on Butler was released. The Inspector General report found, quote, "The Secret Service missed multiple opportunities to detect, prevent, and disrupt the assassination attempt. This was a massive failure by many accounts. Can you assure the American people as the director that something like this won't happen again?

>> Yes. >> You're convinced? >> I am convinced. >> The agency at every level has been dangerously understaffed for years. Are you there now on the staffing? >> We have 942 people in training today. If you looked back last year, there was maybe 200 in training. Since Butler, the Secret Service has expanded the formidable security footprint that surrounds the president. We saw that at the Secret Services training center in Maryland. With the president back on the campaign trail ahead of the midterm elections, Curran has added new training to avoid the mistakes of Butler. >> Move. Well, this is the so-called beast, right? >> Yes. >> Yeah. I mean, >> even the president's limousine is getting regular updates. Most of them classified. >> Oh my god, it's so thick. Why is it so thick? >> Well, it's it's it's the ballistics that are built into it. Go ahead. I got the door.

>> Okay. >> The vehicle weighs up to 10 tons >> with bulletproof glass and defensive counter measures. So is and is my understanding too like with the beast that you could it will protect against a chemical weapons attack too. >> Um I don't want to get into its capabilities but uh it's it can do a lot. >> Director Curran added this medical response truck because of what he saw in Butler. It houses a trauma unit and a field surgeon ready to treat gunshot wounds. >> And this intimidating looking armored personnel carrier is new to the president's motorcade. Why would you need a vehicle this big? >> When you look at some of the significant civil disturbance events we've had, how do you move people? You look at getting teams to the capital during the January 6th event. This provides us the ability to get people where they need to be and take care of them, keep them safe. >> Did you have this for January 6th? No. >> Now, the Secret Service is preparing for a new threat unlike any scene in its history.

Last week, the director left headquarters to personally test counter drone ammunition. >> Deputy Director Quinn is leading the AY's new multi-million dollar program to develop offensive and defensive drone capabilities. >> What you're seeing right now is one of our fixed wing platforms. >> This has capability to stay up for a significant period of time, provide realtime situational awareness for for everybody on the ground. The war in Ukraine has become a testing ground for the weaponization of drones, and that hasn't gone unnoticed by the Secret Service. What are you learning from the battlefield in Ukraine? >> Everything. We just had teams come back about 2 weeks ago. They are on the front. They're on the battlefield with this. We know that technology is going to hit the homeland at some point. So, we're using lessons learned there to build our program and make sure we're ahead of it before it gets here. You mean you think that drone attacks will happen here in the United States?

>> We have to plan for it. We have to assume that that that it's possible. Um the second we're not, we're going to get caught flatfooted. >> Oh yeah, >> there it goes. >> There it goes. The drone hunter. Okay. >> They showed us the drone hunter, a weapon which uses AI and radar to disable enemy drones and capture them with a net. >> Locked. >> You heard the operator just say locked. What that means is that drone hunter just locked on to the offending drone. So now it's going to start hunting. >> Whoa. >> See now? So now it's >> what you see is the drone hanging from the drone hunter. So the bad guy drone is now captured. It's going to take it to a predetermined safe area. The concern is that a small rudimentary drone like this one could be weaponized with explosives and do serious damage to a large concert, sporting event, or campaign rally.

>> Just this much of C4 is plenty enough to do a lot of damage. So, it doesn't have to be a big drone. >> You're saying just even a small amount of explosives could be >> could cause a problem. 60 Minutes has learned the Secret Service took down a drone using electronic jamming equipment at the Army Navy game in Baltimore last December, where the president and members of Congress were in attendance. Despite all the new technology, the threat of an attack by a swarm of drones on a place like the White House is still an issue. >> Swarms are a huge problem and a big threat. I'd love to tell you the swarm problem's solved. It's not. >> I will tell you that at the White House, White House is the safest place on Earth. >> The president posted an AI picture of sort of a drone and a bunch of drones on top of what would be the new White House ballroom. Is that what the future's going to look like? >> Yes, we're deploying equipment everywhere that uh makes the most sense to ensure that the White House remains the safest place in the world. But do we need to militarize all of Washington DC in order to protect the president?

>> No. The whole goal of our job is to provide maximum resources without the appearance of overwhelming, overt militaristic site. There's ways to do it and still let Americans maintain their freedoms and still provide protection at the highest level. That protection extends to the new Air Force One, a 747 donated by the Middle Eastern country of Qatar. Adding security enhancements to that plane cost the US nearly $400 million, according to the US Air Force. >> Does the Secret Service fully trust a plane that was given by a foreign government? >> We trust that plane >> because you checked it all out. >> I won't get into that, but you can you can make your assumptions. Despite his confidence, the Secret Service would not let the president fly home on that plane from Turkey in July after intelligence reports of an Iranian plot to fire a missile at the presidential jet. Instead, the Secret Service pulled off a complicated scheme using the old Air Force One. They snuck President Trump into a catering truck.

cabinet members, White House staff, the press, and Secret Service agents were left on the decoy plane. So, when the president said that it was a Secret Service decision to use a decoy plane when leaving the NATO summit in Turkey this summer, why did the Secret Service make that decision? >> Look, that's not the first time we've done that. Um, we wish that wasn't reported because that takes some of our tactics away from being able to do something similar again. Um, certainly wasn't the first time we were we we did something like that. >> You're telling me the president's been on a decoy plane before? >> I didn't say that. I'm just saying that's not the first time we did something like that before. >> But your agents were left behind with other staffers on this decoy Air Force One in Turkey. Were you you were okay with that? >> When you're operating in any protective detail with the president of the United States for any president, the priority is the president. Everyone else, staff, agents, media, personnel involved are not the priority, including our own personnel. As hard as that may be for some to understand, the mission is to protect the president of the United States.

If you think what happened at Virginia Tech is incomprehensible, you're about to meet some people who understand that kind of madness very well. They're the people who protect the president of the United States. For years, the US Secret Service has sent psychologists into prisons and mental hospitals to interview those bent on assassination. Their interviews bring extraordinary insight into the mind of an assassin. And they've discovered that many of the same characteristics found in assassins can also be found in school shooters. In recent years, we've had unprecedented access to the Secret Service Intelligence Division. What you're about to see is rare. They don't call it the Secret Service for nothing. When it comes to protecting the presidential motorcade, this is without a doubt the most hostile town in America. You won't find this street on any map. It's the Secret Service training center outside Washington.

>> The line is ready. >> They built it after the Kennedy assassination to drill the agents of the presidential protection detail. There's even an airport with one half of an Air Force One where agents take turns playing the commander-in-chief >> and the gunman in the crowd. >> This is practice for last ditch defense. But as one agent told us, if the guns come out, we've already failed. It's up to the Secret Service Intelligence Division to stop the assassin before he picks up a gun. And how do you know we're talking about the president? >> They open new cases every month investigating people who may want to harm those under Secret Service protection. >> Okay. Well, that person's name is familiar. >> The trouble is how to sort out those who just make a threat from those who actually pose a threat. >> Many of those who had committed attacks did not threaten prior to their act of violence.

>> In 1999, then special agent Brian Voscule and psychologist Dr. Robert Fine were the primary authors of a groundbreaking Secret Service study of stalkers and assassins. They called it the exceptional case study. They analyzed 83 attacks and interviewed gunmen including Arthur Brimmer who gunned down presidential candidate George Wallace and Mark Chapman who murdered John Linen. >> What was it that struck you about the 83 cases you researched in the exceptional case study? There was no quote profile of an assassin and near assassin. People came from a range of backgrounds. Some had criminal records, most did not. Some had histories of violence, most did not. The behavior and the acts generally included things like communication to others, uh, planning, target selection. >> These were not impulsive, out of the blue attacks. And we found acts that were engaged in that were identifiable, understandable, uh, and consistent with someone who might be on a pathway toward mounting an attack.

>> This is one of their interviews in a psychiatric ward with a man called JD. >> I was looking for a location where I could test fire the the gun. >> In the late 1980s, JD stalked two presidents across the country, robbing banks to pay for the travel. What was JD's motivation? JD was a person who had uh dropped out of graduate school, who had served in the military, who uh became uh convinced uh that he had uh a choice to make, that aliens were ordering him either to kill innocent school children or to kill the president. Why do you worry about him? He sounds like he's too crazy to be a threat. >> Because he was quite organized. because he believed that he had this horrible choice. And the organization that he had to look normal, to explore security, to get weapons, to travel around the country was quite chilling. Though if you talked with him, he was did not come across as a hostile, angry, fitting any stereotype of quote an assassin. I decided I was going to dress up like a law enforcement person. So, I uh bought a suit and shoes and bought a uh a trench coat and had a haircut.

>> JD stalked the presidents for 3 years with a 38 caliber handgun. But before he got close enough, he was busted for robbing banks. >> What do we know about assassins that we didn't know before? >> The assassins and your attackers followed a path. They planned. They thought they made efforts to get weapons. Assassination is the end result, we believe, of an understandable and often discernable process of behavior. >> When someone is on a path toward an attack or considering attack, other persons with whom this person comes in contact know some degree of the activities and the planning uh that this person is engaging in. >> Other people know what's going on. they knew enough uh that would cause a reasonable person to conclude that there's the basis for concern and that there is activity that might end in some lethal action. >> There there were situations in which uh a person would communicate for example that he was considering killing himself.

>> So a desire for suicide if you will is an important marker. >> The line between suicide and homicide can be a very thin line. >> They're going in. They're going in. It was after Coline in 1999 that the Secret Service thought that what it knew about assassins might apply to school shootings. After the Coline attacks, the Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, asked whether the Department of Education could work with the Secret Service to do a similar study to the one we had done on assassination uh to school shooters. In the year 2000, Fine Voscule and psychologist Marissa Ready went back to the prisons and mental hospitals this time to interview kids who attacked their schools. >> In my life, things had never been okay. It never seemed like anybody cared. Never. This is the Secret Service interview with school shooter Luke Wooden, who in 1997 killed his mother, killed two students at school, and wounded seven others.

>> I couldn't find a reason not to do it. >> The new research evolved into a joint project with the Department of Education called the Safe School Initiative. >> George Anne Rooney is a threat assessment specialist at the Secret Service. with the school attackers that we studied. There's no profile there. There's no set of demographics that they share. Uh but there are certain behaviors that they undertake. >> Behaviors that she says are like those of assassins. >> This isn't an individual who just snaps and wakes up and decides they're going to attack their school. There's a planning process. This planning a lot of times if you know what to look for, it can be detectable. >> And one theme they detected was bullying. Twoth3 of the school shooters were victims of bullies. >> Call you gay, call you stupid or fat or whatever. Just uh kid sometimes throw rocks at me and push me and kick me and hit me and stuff like that.

>> The Secret Service research reads like a road map into the mind of Virginia Tech killer Sun-hi Joe. He mentioned suicide to others and he planned for months, buying one of his guns nearly three months before the attack. Now, investigators are asking whether Joe told others about his plan. The Secret Service found that that is much more common than you might imagine. >> These for the most part are an adolescent population. They really uh will talk about what they're intending to do. And that's what we found is that in a majority of these cases, these individuals are communicating what they're intending to do to someone. >> In 81% of school shootings they studied, other kids knew in advance and said nothing. Today, the Secret Service is trying to figure out why. With a new study due out in a couple of months, psychologist Dr. William Pollock gave us an advanced look at his interviews with the kids who knew but didn't tell adults. Well, think about it from their point of view. You're afraid to tell them because one, uh, you're afraid you'll get in trouble. Two, you're afraid your name will get out and people will hurt you. And three, you're afraid that the person you talk about won't get help, but will somehow be harmed or adjudicated. So, you keep your mouth shut.

>> When you say 81% of these people told someone what they were going to do, what do you mean? How specific were they? It started out at the lowest end being, you know, I'm so angry I might kill someone or hurt someone in this school. Up to and including tomorrow I'm coming with a gun, so be careful. Don't come or one shooter actually said bring your camera to take pictures. >> In that particular case, did the person who was told tell the authorities? >> No, they brought the camera. Another finding common among most of the shooters was what Luke Woodham said that there was no adult in his life that he felt he could talk to. >> Any grown-ups? You know, tell me about that. We We were grown-ups. I was didn't care. I I kept a lot of hurt inside. I mean, I just felt like nobody cared.

Much of what the Secret Service has learned is in a new interactive CD using actors. It teaches the teachers the right questions to ask of students, parents, and friends. >> They push him around. They call him Weezer. The usual stuff. >> How does this help you separate those who are talking about an attack and those who are really serious about making one? >> Are they studying prior attacks? Are they trying to acquire a weapon? As you're seeing with these interviews of this hypothetical student's friends, they seem to be concerned about him. >> Since January, the Department of Education has been shipping the CDs to school districts nationwide. But until Virginia Tech, it had no plans to send them to universities. Brian Bosu and Robert Fine left the Secret Service in 2001, and they don't speak for the service today, but they're presenting their research all around the country. Last week it was a meeting of school psychologists. >> It is a very important discussion to have uh surely this week in the aftermath of what happened in Virginia.

That's going to be kind. >> Their research found 10 key characteristics of school shootings and so far Joe meets seven out of 10. >> Here's a person who was suicidal, a person who felt they'd been bullied, a person who felt there was no one else they could talk to, a person who had access to weapons. You just check the boxes off one after another. >> There was knowledge of this man's behavior in a number of different places that perhaps if there had been a central place to pull the information together by a group of responsible adults, people might have said, "We have a problem here." >> A group of adults like a task force set up in advance to watch for and manage the warning signs. Joe was referred to mental health counseling, but there's no evidence that anyone followed up. >> In those situations, it's important to not drop the ball, we think, to be determined, to be innovative, to find ways to do more than offer somebody help to say, "We're going to maintain contact with you because you're scaring people."

You know, I'm curious. Among the school shooters you talked to, how many of them regretted what they did? They saw that what they had done was awful and a tragedy for everybody, for the victims, for themselves, for the families of the victims, for their families. And they talked with us in the hope that the sharing their story might lead adults to intervene in a determined way to prevent young people from engaging in these kinds of acts of violence. It was 12 years ago we first saw this picture. Secret Service agent Clint Hill climbing in the back of the presidential limousine that dreadful November day in Dallas to try to push Jacqueline Kennedy back to protect her life. Clint Hill was a Secret Service agent for 17 years. He was chief of the White House detail, later assistant director of the service.

The agents one meets on duty are almost faceless, humorless, single-minded in their devotion to their chore. And Clint Hill was no different on duty. But Clint retired from the Secret Service 4 months ago at the age of 43. In the first public statement he has made, sitting with his wife Gwen, he told us some startling things about the Secret Service. >> A lot of the agents are getting tired. uh in 1968 when the service was required to begin protecting candidates on June 6th >> after Bob Kennedy was killed. >> Yes. After that it became apparent that the agents were really suffering from extreme fatigue. They were working 12 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week. They were gone from home for weeks, months at a time. And then Director Rally testified to that up in in Congress and testified that doctors who had examined many of these agents were suffering the same type of fatigue that many military men suffer suffer in battle.

Victims of battle fatigue or not, the Secret Service still must run down and check out each and every potential assassin. >> Clint, you people at the Secret Service keep a list of potentially dangerous people, right? Something in the order of 35, 40, 45,000 names, >> right? >> And we hear that that list is constantly updated >> every day. >> But Sarah Moore wasn't on that list. Lynette from wasn't on that list. >> Okay. >> Wait a second. Arthur Bremer wasn't on that list. James Earl Ray wasn't there. Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't on that list. Sirhan Sirhan wasn't on that list. >> Is Mike Wallace on it? >> Well, I I have no present intention. >> Tomorrow afternoon at 4:00, do I know for a fact that Mike Wallace is not be becoming a psychiatric problem? You know, if I could predict every person who would stand in a crowd with a gun in their hand, I'd be the greatest thing since Jean Dixon.

You just can't do that. Let's say that somebody is on the list. None of these people were on the list. Let's say that Oswald Moore from were on the list. >> Yes. >> Well, then what do you do about it? Let's say that they show up in the crowd. >> You keep them under surveillance. Just keep looking at them. keep an agent with them >> for any hand motion or the >> any unusual movement whatsoever. >> How did they miss Sarah Jane Moore? >> Well, she just never came to their attention. >> You say as far as I know. >> You say as far as you know. But San Francisco Police Inspector Jack O'Shea says that he warned the FBI and the Secret Service that Sarah Jane Moore might be another squeaky from. Nonetheless, there she was front line across the street from the president. According to the agents, as I understood their testimony, that's not what they claim was said to them. And I believe the agents. Then we brought up the question of whether the Secret Service has the final say when it comes to protecting the president.

>> Do you ever get into a fight with the president's chief of staff about something that you recommended? Chief of staff said, "No, that's not the way it's going to be." >> Yes. Uh who? >> Bob Holderman. >> About what? >> The building of a presidential car. >> The building of the car. We wanted a certain type top on the car that would protect the president from the rear. And uh he said no. >> If you'd had protection in Dallas from the rear, Jack Kennedy would still be alive. >> Yes, he would. >> That's why we wanted it. >> Can I take you back to November 22nd in 1963? You were on the fender of the Secret Service car, right behind President Kennedy's car. At the first shot, you ran forward and jumped on the back of the president's car in less than two seconds, pulling Mrs. Kennedy down into her seat, protecting her. But first of all, she was out on the trunk of that car.

>> She was out of the backseat of that car. Not a lot of trunk of that car. Well, she was she she had climbed out of the back and she was on the way back, right? And because of the fact that her husband's part of his her husband's head had been shot off and gone off of the street. >> She wasn't she wasn't trying to climb out of the car. She was no she was simply trying to reach that head part of the head to bring it back. >> That's the only thing in the in the 12 years since that assassination. Undoubtedly, you have thought and thought and thought again about it and studied it. Do you have any reason to believe that there was more than one gun, more than one assassin? Was Lee Harvey Oswald alone or were there others with him?

>> There were only three shots and uh it was one gun, three shots. >> You're satisfied Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone >> completely. >> Was there any way? Was there anything that the Secret Service or that Clint Hill could have done to keep that from happening? >> Clintel. Yes. >> Clint. Yes. What do you mean? If he had reacted about uh 5/10en of a second faster or maybe a second faster, >> I wouldn't be here today. >> You mean you would have gotten there and you would have taken the shot? >> The third shot? Yes, sir. >> And that would have been all right with you.

>> That would have been fine with me. >> But you couldn't. You got there in in less than two seconds, Clint. You you you couldn't have gotten there. You you don't you surely don't have any sense of guilt about that. >> Yes, I certainly do. I have a great deal of guilt about that. Had I turned in a different direction, I'd have made it. That was my fault. Oh, no one has ever suggested that for an instant. >> All that you did was show great bravery and great presence of mind. >> What was on the citation that was given you for your work on November 22nd, 1963? Extraordinary courage and heroic effort in the face of maximum danger. >> Mike, I don't care about that. If I had reacted just a little bit quicker and I could have, I guess, now live with that to my grave.

>> You can understand it took Clint Hill some moments to compose himself after talking so openly of his memories of that day in Dallas. >> Is that what's responsible for your early retirement from the service? >> Yes, sir, it is. You really are a uh a victim in a sense of combat fatigue. >> Well, that's not exactly what the doctors call it. >> What do they call it? I have a severe neurological problem caused by what has happened in the past and they've recommended psychiatric help traceable to what has taken place in your li your life Gwen's life and the and the lives of the people that you're guarding. >> They trace it all back to 1963. Well, then we turned to other subjects. We asked this former chief of the White House Secret Service detail whether there was ever a time when any of the five presidents he served expressed deep concern for his own personal safety.

>> Yes, there was. >> When was that? >> In 1968. >> 68. What happened? >> Martin Luther King was killed. >> Yeah. and President Johnson was scheduled to go to a memorial service for him and he called me uh two or three times. Once I recall it was at 2:00 in the morning and I think in the other time was 4 in the morning. About right there. >> The president called you at home? >> Yes. and >> and requested that I be as close to him as possible the next day, preferably not a foot and a half away from him >> because he feared that >> he had the feeling a premonition that uh something was going to happen to him. >> Then we turn to Lynden Johnson's successor Richard Nixon. >> Clint, there's been a lot of talk about San Clementi in Kiscane. Estimate how much work was done on the Kiscane and San Clementi homes of Richard Nixon in the name of security and in the name of the Secret Service.

That was actually unnecessary from the Secret Service point of view. Million dollars worth >> more than that of the total expenditures and I don't recall what they are. I would say that uh more than half of them were not required by the Secret Service. >> By whom? >> Well, by the General Services Administration. >> Well, the General Services Administration doesn't just go out there and say, "Let's uh put in a bed of flowers here or a stand of trees here." Somebody has to say, "Do it." >> Well, I think maybe you better present that question to Bob Haldderman. What you're saying is that Halddederman ordered or somebody in the White House staff said do it and tagged the Secret Service with it. >> Absolutely. Last year, the cost of guarding my Eisenhower by the Secret Service came to $472,000.

I imagine the same thing was true for Best Truman and for Lady Bird Johnson, right? >> Yes. Do they need Secret Service protection? >> In my opinion, no. >> Why do they get Secret Service protection? Because it's a law. Simple as that. What does a Secret Service agent do for my Eisenhower, a Best Truman, or Ladybird? >> Take her to the beauty parlor. >> Yes. It's m it's mainly a service function as opposed to a protective function because the threats aren't aren't there. >> In a sense, you are butlers, chauffeers, companions. >> Very good friend of mine who was formerly the secretary of the treasury. He said exactly what you just said. Now, Mike, that's what you become.

Butlers chauffeers. And I told him, I said, "Mr. Secretary," and I'm not going to say who it is, but >> I know who it is. >> We all know who it is. >> John Connelly. >> John Connelly, right? >> Said, >> "Enough of that." >> That's what he said. >> Enough of that. >> And I said, "I agree with you." Hill also told us there's too much time and money wasted protecting foreign dignitaries visiting this country. Half of them, he thinks, don't need that protection. It ran down to finance minister, the divorced wife of a king the deposed monarch of a certain state. uh without using any name. >> Yeah. >> And it really got to be pretty pretty damn ridiculous to be very frank and honest with you and extremely costly. Money aside, could you give the president, the sitting president and his family and the official Washington better protection? When I say you, I mean the Secret Service. if you didn't have some of these additional chores that you don't believe merit secret service.

>> There's no question about that, Mike. Uh you know, if if you don't have agents sitting places where you don't really need them and you can really utilize them in other situations, you're going to have a better protective effort. It's a political year this one coming up. Obviously, the president of the United States is going to get it. What about candidates? Do uh who knows there may be a dozen Democratic candidates and at least one additional and maybe more Republican candidates in addition to the president. Should they all get it? >> No, they should not. In 1972, it became absolutely ridiculous. Uh Secret Service was required to protect people like Dr. Spock, Tom Anderson from Tennessee, who was the vice president on the I can't recall the name of the ticket, but it was one of them with uh former congressman from California, Schmidz.

>> Congressman Schmidz. Uh they were we were asked to protect Julius Hobson who is from Washington who was a vice presidential candidate on a ticket who was a terminal cancer page patient and who the agents went over and talked to and he signed a letter of declination who was the only person that I know of that did but it gets gets completely out of control. How in the final analysis can the Secret Service protect against somebody who is mentally deranged and suicidal if he or she wants to kill the president of the United States? Is it possible? >> Yeah, it's possible. But if you place the president in a glass cage down on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but it's not practical, you can't do it. >> You mean it's just a chance that we're going to have to take? And it is possible for somebody who is mentally or a fanatic who is willing to sacrifice himself or herself. There's nothing that that the Secret Service in the final analysis can do.

>> You're absolutely correct. It can happen any day. Unfortunately,