Original subtitles

They're the men and women tasked with providing around -the -clock protection

for one of the most powerful people in the world.

You have to think like the assassin.

If I wanted to cause harm to the President of the United States, how

it? You need to make sure that you're constantly thinking of the

They have technology that's at the extremes of what we're capable of doing.

We put ourselves in harm's way for our protectees. Mission first, protection

second.

How does the Secret Service keep the President of the United States safe from

threats both known and unknown?

How do they offer protection from the world's most advanced weapons and the

ultimate threat of assassination?

Perhaps the answers to these questions can be found in America's Book of

Secrets.

South Korea, June 29th, 2019.

At 3 .46 p .m. local time, the 45th President of the United States, Donald

J. Trump, steps across a low concrete barrier within the joint security area

the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

In doing so, he becomes America's first Commander -in -Chief.

to set foot inside one of the most dangerous and oppressive countries on

the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.

Trump setting foot in North Korea is one of those things that presidents have to

have the option to do. While he's the president, he's in charge of American

foreign policy. But it's an extremely challenging problem for the Secret

Service.

Just one day previously, the president, while in Japan for an international

summit, arranged for the face -to -face meeting with a man who, up to that

moment, had expressed contempt for the United States, the Supreme Leader of

North Korea, Kim Jong -un.

And just as surprising, President Trump initiated the meeting via Twitter.

While the Secret Service usually has months to prepare for an official state

visit, in this case, they had less than 24 hours.

Secret Service agents know that they are never going to eliminate risk. It's

about managing risk.

So bringing the president 20 feet into North Korea, we understand what those

risks are.

There's a risk tolerance that we have that we can allow.

The dynamic is a little bit different. We have a foreign adversary.

We have standing armies. What are we going to do in a tactical situation, a

medical situation, or if we had to relocate the president?

Secret Service had multiple plans in place, plans in place that coordinated

U .S. military assets, with our foreign counterparts from South Korea,

intelligence services.

The plan was very comprehensive, as it is anywhere that we bring the president.

The president's encounter in North Korean territory was followed by a sit

meeting just inside South Korean territory.

It was during this event that tensions escalated and North Korean bodyguards

blocked U .S. government officials and media from access to the two leaders.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham was even injured in a physical

altercation.

But even in this extremely volatile environment, members of the U .S. Secret

Service were undoubtedly ensuring the president's safety.

But is it possible they were also safeguarding their own trade secrets?

I would be very surprised if there weren't a lot of North Korean and

Russian and Chinese assets just waiting to see what capabilities the U .S.

turned on as President Trump stepped foot in North Korea.

The Secret Service might have abstained from using some of its most cutting

-edge technologies just to make sure that they weren't detected, but for

Korea, that's just... too great of a potential intelligence windfall to let

pass by.

It had been just a few months prior that President Trump had asked that the

Secret Service's annual budget be raised 7 % to more than $2 .3 billion.

It was an acknowledgment of how dangerous the world had become, how

mission of the Secret Service was, and how far the organization had come since

its humble origins in the mid -19th century.

The U .S. Secret Service is actually a relatively small agency compared to

ones. A lot of people think that the U .S. Secret Service was founded to

the presidents of the United States. It's actually not true.

The U .S. Secret Service was founded to investigate counterfeit currency.

1865 by Abraham Lincoln.

Ironically, the legislation establishing the Secret Service was signed by

Abraham Lincoln the very same day.

that he was assassinated. But at that point, the Secret Service had nothing to

do with protecting the president.

The Secret Service officially began protecting the president of the United

States in 1902, after William McKinley was shot and killed just six months into

his second term.

Since then, 15 attempts have been made on the lives of sitting presidents.

But on November 22, 1963, at approximately 12 .30 p .m.,

while riding in a convertible Lincoln Continental as part of a motorcade in

Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy was struck by two bullets, fired from

long range by Lee Harvey Oswald, and murdered in cold

blood.

after President Kennedy was killed in Dallas in November of 1963.

That motorcade in Dallas, you'd never see that happening today.

An open car, people very close to where the cars are going, the cars slowing

down in the motorcade and so on.

Specifically to the issue with JFK in Dallas, Texas, on that tragic day.

There was a judgment call that was made not to put the roof on the car, have an

open -top vehicle in the motorcade.

Prior to that tragic day, the Secret Service wasn't thinking about those long

-range, very tactical threats from a sharpshooter.

The death of President Kennedy caused the nation to mourn and the Secret

to take bold action.

Just days after the assassination, the Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency, more commonly known as DARPA, launched a clandestine program to

the president known as Project STAR.

Project STAR basically asked them to figure out how they would kill a

and then create defenses from those methods.

Project STAR, led by newly installed director Robert Sproul.

tasked military scientists to conceive more exotic wargaming scenarios.

The biggest and most obvious, when Kennedy was assassinated, he was riding

limousine with no armor that had the top removed so that he would be more

visible. DARPA added steel and titanium to the limousine to keep it better

protected from ballistics, and they had to figure out the science of making

bulletproof glass.

Nearly any vehicle that carries the president carries the legacy of Project

Like a lot of DARPA programs, Project STAR came as a result of something going

on in the real world. The result was a lot of deep thinking about how can we

protect the President of the United States.

You have to think like the assassin.

If I wanted to cause harm to the President of the United States, how

it? And you work in reverse, you reverse engineer it, and then you create your

security plan.

DARPA designed countermeasures for scores of other assassination scenarios.

Some of these ended up feeling a little bit like bond tools, such as methods of

redirecting the way that flags would fly behind the president during speeches so

that shooters would adjust for the wrong wind.

While many of the futuristic scenarios never came to fruition, the impact on

Secret Service is long -lasting.

Beyond the concepts of how to protect the president, Perhaps the most

tool is the men and women who comprise the Secret Service.

The selection process is really interesting.

They get thousands, if not tens of thousands, of applications per year.

look at so many different things.

Education, any special skills that you bring to the table. Are you healthy and

strong enough to do the job? Physical demeanor, physical power, physical

strength is a huge part of the position.

And academic, testing.

16 weeks in the Secret Service training facility in Maryland, and also

additional training in a federal facility in Georgia. It's a very

preparation to guard the president.

There are certain qualities you need to have to be an agent, and really you have

the Secret Service star and the five points of the star.

Integrity, dignity, loyalty, worthy of trust and confidence, and above all,

bravery. You cannot be a coward to do this job.

In addition to the uncompromising personality traits required of Secret

agents, there's an arsenal of unique tools to help them with their mission.

In fact, one of the most effective means of protecting the president may

actually be the White House itself.

Washington, D .C., September 19, 2014, at 7 .20

p .m.

42 -year -old Omar J. Gonzalez, an Iraq War veteran suffering from post

-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, scales the iron perimeter fence of the

White House and races 70 yards across the lawn through the North Portico

Gonzalez not only scaled the outside fence, but he got inside the White

which is not locked.

There's a saying in the Secret Service, complacency kills.

And the moment that you become complacent, a threat will present

And that's exactly what happened on this day.

Generally, these people are stopped a few paces from the big fence.

But in this case, this was a tremendous breach of security that this fellow

could have gotten in there, so it could have been very dangerous.

After subduing the suspect...

Secret Service agents discover a Spyderco folding knife with a three -and

-half -inch serrated blade in his pocket.

They also find 800 rounds of ammunition and two hatchets in his Ford Bronco

parked just outside the White House complex.

Omar Gonzalez was already familiar to the Secret Service.

Just one month before the breach, they interviewed him regarding a traffic stop

that revealed a small arsenal of weapons, including a sawed -off shotgun,

several assault rifles, and a map of Washington with a circle around the

House.

So with that very specific incident, it was a dark day for the Secret Service.

Multiple layers of protection failed.

Extensive amount of time and effort was put into understanding why they failed.

Although there had been a spate of White House fence jumpers, at least 16 in the

previous five years,

Fallout from the security breach was swift.

On October 1st, 2014,

Secret Service Director Julia Pearson was forced to resign.

After the incident, enhanced safety protocols were deployed, including

additional fencing, sophisticated infrared sensors, and a revised edict on

use of deadly force.

So the Secret Service has gone back.

They have re -engineered.

The way that they protect that house, they've become more comprehensive.

That will never happen again.

You're in the White House. It is like being in a military base. You have

all over the White House grounds.

There are uniformed guards everywhere.

You have Secret Service agents all over the place.

There are about 1 ,200 Secret Service officers to protect the White House and

the grounds.

Secret Service has countersnipers stationed on the roof of the White House

across the street.

Secret Service has to manage out from the White House.

and control the environment within the fence line and beyond the fence line. It

could be the threat of an explosive device.

It could be a protest.

It could be someone who is trying to jump over the fence. It could be someone

who got over the fence.

Although the White House is now considered one of the most fortified

in the world, surprisingly, up until World War II, it was largely accessible

the public.

In 1945,

When President Harry Truman moved into the White House, he found it to be

in shambles.

Between 1949 and 1952, Congress authorized a complete renovation,

the iconic sandstone exterior intact.

When the dust settled, an impressive and ultra -secret array of new security

features had been built into the structure and the 18 acres of grounds

it. There's a couple of places at the White House that are most secretive, and

so we don't know as much about them.

There's a little alcove outside the Oval Office where you push a panel, a door

opens, it's an elevator, it takes you down, and you find yourself in a tunnel,

and that tunnel goes to the East Wing, which is the residence part of the White

House.

That was designed to get the president out of there if he was under attack.

I was the Air Force military aide to the president.

My mission was primarily to be an emergency action officer.

So in other words, if anything happened on the White House complex, we were in a

circle of safety around the president to make sure the office and the continuity

of government still was in line.

And if we needed the president to move, we never disclosed the avenues that he

gets to a certain location on campus, on the 18 acres.

In the West Wing, just below the Oval Office.

There's a top -secret area where America's commander -in -chief can

control U .S. military forces around the world.

It functions as an advanced communications headquarters, the

The Situation Room is the innermost sanctum of the White House. It is where

president or members of his staff will go to have the most intimate of

conversations, whether it has to do with intelligence or national security.

The Situation Room is an operations center. As you can imagine, with all

information flowing in and out, there is cybersecurity everywhere.

I would characterize it as being some of the most sophisticated in the world.

I was the body man for President Barack Obama.

So I've been in the Situation Room. In terms of the protocols, the Situation

Room, in theory, is the ultimate skiff.

Skiff meaning it is a place in which no other people can fear here. The idea is

that the information that is being transmitted or communicated within those

walls are not being retransmitted or listened to in other places.

This is the room where military missions are supervised.

The famous photographs that people will remember of President Obama in the

Situation Room as the military raid was being conducted that killed bin Laden.

But as much as the Situation Room functions as the executive command

during a national crisis, where does the Secret Service put the president when

there's immediate physical danger at the White House itself?

May 29th, 2020.

A fast -moving crowd is protesting against police brutality.

It swarms Lafayette Square across from the White House.

As the chaos threatens to spiral out of control, it's widely reported that

Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump into a secure bunker deep

beneath the White House.

As protesters got close to the barrier, they eventually breached an outer

barrier. And the Secret Service took that as a sign that, hey, this is

too dangerous. We need to get the first family to safety. And they rushed the

family into the bunker.

Officials had previously refused to confirm or deny the existence of such a

clandestine bunker.

However, investigative reporter Ronald Kessler points to a major classified

construction project that broke ground on the north lawn of the White House in

2010 as proof.

I broke the story about that.

There was heavy excavation going on, as you can imagine, on the north lawn, and

the General Services Administration put out the false narrative that this was

just to relocate utility lines, but actually it was the secret bunker built

the Defense Department, which is actually five or six stories deep.

It has supplies that last months, food, oxygen.

And that is where the president would go in the event of an attack because it's

protected against even a nuclear strike.

So people often ask me at the White House, is there a bunker? What does the

bunker look like? All I can say is that the White House is a secure environment

and that within it, there are secure places that the Secret Service can go to

ensure that the president's safe.

Beyond that.

Everything is classified.

Is it possible that when the Secret Service relocated President Trump, they

inadvertently confirmed the existence of a fortified and clandestine bunker?

And if such a bunker, buried five stories underground, is ultimately

keep the president safe at home, how does the Secret Service ensure that

of protection when the president is on the move?

Manhattan, New York, September 24th, 2018.

Presidential helicopter Marine One arrives at the Wall Street teleport,

President Donald Trump.

President Trump makes his way to the 73rd United Nations General Assembly in

brand new, heavily armored presidential limousine known as The Beast.

The beast as it's referred to is one of the most recognizable vehicles in the

world. People see that as a symbol of the presidency.

The size, the gravitas of that vehicle is in tandem to the position that the

person holds who's sitting inside.

The beast is designed so that if there is some type of attack, the president

actually be in the vehicle and withstand the attack.

And that you can not only just withstand the attack, but that you're able to

move him.

to a place of safety.

Just what exactly are the specific designs and materials used to construct

beast? Well, that's hard to know, since that information is top secret and

highly classified.

But there are some clues, and they can be found in San Antonio, Texas.

That's where Texas Armoring Corporation's Trent Kendall leads a team

provides state -of -the -art vehicle armoring similar to what would

be found on the presidential limousine.

Everything that Texas Armoring does to manufacture an armored vehicle is very

similar to what goes into the beast. The beast is just supersized.

The materials are supersized. The braking system is supersized. The

system is supersized.

The Beast is perhaps the most advanced armored vehicle in the world. Based on

what we do and how we armor our vehicles, it gives us a pretty good idea

we can expect to be inside the presidential limousine.

The Beast weighs an estimated 20 ,000 pounds and requires a highly modified V

engine. And even then, it only hits a top speed of 60 miles per hour.

Each of the dozen or more limousines in the presidential fleet is built by

General Motors from the ground up at a reported cost of nearly $2 million per

vehicle. It might look like a standard Cadillac limousine, but it's definitely

not. It's a specialized armored vehicle that's probably more in line of like a

tank or other military -type vehicle.

What we would expect to see in the Beast...

are the same materials that we use. The ballistic glass, the ballistic steel,

the run -flat tires, those things would be the same.

The difference is the beast has a maximum level of protection.

The undercarriage of the beast is likely protected with different types of

composite materials, composite armor, that is meant to suppress the explosive

effect as well as the concussion of a blast coming underneath the vehicle.

But in terms of what it'll actually stop, the Secret Service has, you know,

that under wraps.

The fuel tank is protected with ballistic nylon and then sprayed with a

rubberized undercoating to protect against the element.

What this ballistic nylon does is it protects against hand grenades, IEDs,

landmines, so that your fuel won't leak out or your whole vehicle won't explode.

While the beast is used to protect the president, it's believed...

The vehicle has some rather effective countermeasures.

So in addition to the actual ballistic protection on the presidential

there's likely some emergency countermeasures to buy extra time in the

that the presidents attack.

So there's a good chance there's the night vision equipped on the vehicle.

They probably have a store of weapons for the driver to access as like a last

-ditch protection.

There's likely blood supplies of the president's blood on board in the event

that he's seriously wounded and they don't have time to airlift him.

As we've witnessed in the past, with the assassination of JFK and the attempted

assassination of Ronald Reagan, perhaps the most clear and present danger is

from a gunman.

have set up a ballistic glass test to demonstrate just how safe the president

would be from incoming fire.

The bullet -resistant glass that we're going to shoot today is two inches

It has several layers of glass that are sealed together with polyurethane, and

then the inner layer is polycarbonate. We estimate the presidential beast to be

about five to six inches thick based on conventional ballistic glass that we use

here.

Lawrence will now test the integrity of the ballistic glass by firing at close

range with an AK -47 assault rifle.

This ballistic glass demonstration is a good idea of what would happen if the

president were to be attacked.

This type of glass is certainly what they're using to keep him safe.

It's dispersing the kinetic energy of the bullet as it goes in. So you can

actually... dig the bullet out of here. It's still contained within this

ballistic block.

So keep in mind that there's no such thing as bulletproof glass.

Everything is bullet resistant.

So when the president is traveling in the beast, that's going to buy him extra

time to get out of that dangerous situation.

As impressive as the beast may be, safeguarding the president while on the

requires more than the protection of a single vehicle.

The motorcade movements within protection are extremely dangerous, and

why. It's what we refer to as the deadly diamond.

Everyone knows where you're starting from, and everyone knows where you're

going. And that's where attacks are most likely going to happen.

President's motorcade can actually be quite long, and there's a lot of

vehicles, and each vehicle can serve different functions.

You'll see police vehicles. You'll see staff vehicles.

You'll see a press vehicle.

Then you'll see ballistic vehicles that belong to the Secret Service.

You'll see two limos as well, and even an ambulance for emergency purposes.

So now we have to think about how do we protect that moving target throughout

urban environments, war zones, foreign countries.

How are you going to operate?

When a tactical, medical, or relocation situation, how does that vehicle come

into play?

On the ground, the Secret Service protects the president with precision

work, coordinated and planned by a vast team of agents.

But how do they maintain that level of protection at 30 ,000 feet?

The answer involves quick thinking and lots of training, all at more than 600

miles per hour.

June 15, 1974.

Air Force One, the Boeing 707 aircraft used to transport the President of the

United States, enters Syrian airspace on its way to Damascus.

On board, President Richard Nixon and his staff are preparing for a highly

anticipated visit celebrating a historic detente between Israel and Syria.

Four Soviet MiGs appear out of nowhere.

As the Russian fighters take position behind Air Force One's wing, pilot

Ralph Albertazzi takes immediate invasive action.

It was a tremendous scare, really, for the president and for everybody aboard

the plane.

Albertazzi threw the plane into a dive.

Half the staff was not buckled in, and so they're hitting the ceiling. It was

that steep a dive.

But it was a mistake.

The leaders of Syria wanted an honor guard of planes to escort Air Force One

into their country, but they neglected to pass it along through the chain of

command to the pilot of Air Force One.

President Nixon, by the way, never mentioned it later.

He always wanted to put on this tough exterior, but he admitted to a friend

later that he thought that they were not going to survive it, that this was

going to be the end.

In the years following this near crisis, preventing even the possibility of a

similar situation has become a top priority for the Secret Service.

As a result, not only were Air Force One's security and communications

updated and enhanced,

So was Air Force One itself.

What makes Air Force One the most secure airplane in the world is the security

features that it has on board.

Unfortunately, not a lot that I can discuss here. Most of it is classified.

But what I will say is it may look like a regular 747, but the entire plane has

been engineered for that critical airborne protection of the president

point A to point B.

Beyond its many secret offensive and defensive options while in flight, Air

Force One also fulfills another critical function.

Because while protecting the President's safety at 30 ,000 feet is Air Force

One's primary mission, its design also incorporates protections for the United

States itself.

Air Force One is the flying White House.

It's the way the president gets around the world.

It's come to symbolize the president's power, the reach of the American

presidency in the United States, and technological prowess of the United

I remember the first time I saw Air Force One, and it was the most amazing

I'd ever seen.

It was just gleaming.

And you see the doors open and the president of the United States comes

It's extraordinary.

Air Force One is essentially maintained and protected by the Air Force. It is

their plane.

We are a guest when we go on that plane.

My role as a commander of Air Mobility Command was to oversee the military

airlift of cargo based off the needs of the presidency.

You need to make sure that you're constantly thinking of the contingency.

Where is Air Force One going to be parked? How is Air Force One secured?

How is the field secured?

You're talking about hundreds of authorities to fly what's needed to

president. You've got Marine One.

You've got the Air Force One.

You've got the White House staff.

You've got the press corps.

You've got everything that goes with the president to move. That's all the

packages that get moved by the military.

That coordination done by Airlift Ops, now we check off, okay, we've got the

lift required, yes, we're good to go.

We've got communications in place, yes, we're good to go. Then you do an advance

of the trip, and you make sure everything's in order.

No matter where the president goes, there are cybersecurity implications.

We are talking about ensuring the commander -in -chief, the head of state,

the leader of the United States

execute his job and his staff can execute their jobs securely without any

interference no matter where they are deployed to.

So because it's Air Force One, we will work very closely with the military and

we'll just leave it at that.

It is a doomsday airplane.

It has to function as a command and control post in the event of a nuclear

conflict.

So you have to think about what the world would be like after Nuclear bombs

going off in different places.

Will there be the kind of infrastructure that airplanes use?

Navigation aids, air traffic control, even weather assistance.

So they have to anticipate what that world would be like and make sure it's

still possible for the pilots to fly the airplane safely.

To keep pace with evolving 21st century threats.

The United States Air Force recently commissioned the development of two

747s to serve as the new and improved Air Force One.

At a cost of more than $1 .6 billion apiece, some government insiders say

these planes are being designed not only with the latest technology in mind, but

with secret capabilities that push the boundaries of physics.

The actual budget numbers, you can look them up, but the details of the

technology are not in there. We don't get to know a whole lot about them. We

know that they use an infrared jammer for heat -seeking missiles.

It's probable that they also use some form of active radar jamming for radar

-guided missiles.

The anti -missile devices were designed to release CHAP to divert incoming

missiles, heat -seeking missiles.

They're there now, and I'm sure they'll be there for the next plane.

Boeing had a very interesting patent a few years ago where they looked at how

they could interrupt the shockwave that would come from an explosion.

What Boeing technology is trying to do is create a sort of force field around

aircraft.

It's basically a quick lightning strike that would exactly counter the

explosion, effectively stopping it and preventing any shrapnel or force wave

from either destroying the fuselage or taking out the engine.

Boeing patented this technology about five years ago. So if Boeing has figured

this out, the first plane it's going to exist on is Air Force One.

Could the new Air Force One actually be equipped with some type of force field?

And if so, could there be other advanced technologies to protect the president

still in development?

Countermeasures that were once believed to exist only in science fiction.

According to government insiders, the answer...

is yes.

Washington, D .C., January 25, 2015.

At approximately 3 a .m. local time, an unidentified aircraft quietly flies past

the perimeter fence surrounding the White House and makes its way undetected

towards the executive residence.

Secret Service agents immediately swarm the area with guns drawn.

only to discover no assassin, but instead, a consumer drone.

The idea that a recreational operator crashed a drone on the ground creates

possibility that if someone were intentionally flying a drone on the

they might have been able to get it into the mansion and potentially attack

someone inside, if not the president himself.

It's an extremely challenging problem for the Secret Service.

foreign flying objects entering into airspace that are unidentified.

Those are some of the highest threats you would see because there's so much

unknown.

The unauthorized drones foray onto White House grounds was certainly a wake -up

call that more needed to be done to protect against serious breaches of

security.

The airspace security program that's put forth by the Secret Service is

classified.

What I can say is that the airspace over the White House is highly restrictive.

The collaboration between the military, the FAA, and the Secret Service.

The White House's defenses against an intentional attack through the airspace

actually start with a very large standoff zone. There's restricted

around the White House in all directions, and anything that flies into

zone, we scramble either co -start helicopters or Air Force jets or both.

to intercept that aircraft and to warn them off away from the area. If they

continue approaching, the Air Force is authorized to shoot down targets over

capital region and risk collateral damage on the ground.

The Secret Service has a lot of technologies available to them. There's

industry out there for counter -UAS technologies, counter -unmanned aircraft

systems. For decades, the technology that the military has been working on

been high -energy lasers.

It's a great way to shoot things down because it moves at the speed of light

it's very powerful.

We've seen an Avenger system deployed on top of the White House equipped with

Stinger missiles. This would give protective forces at the White House the

ability to strike down a target from over three kilometers away from the

launching station.

Despite constantly reviewing and updating its aviation protocols,

Many security experts believe that the Secret Service must act much more

defensively in order to protect the president and the White House right now.

Because what many would consider to be futuristic kinds of threats are already

here.

The 21st century has already seen a lot of technologies mature to the point

where they can become an increased threat.

There's a rising threat from what are called micro drones.

Someone could take cheap drones off the shelf, give them a pre -programmed

mission, and then attempt to use them to attack the president with anything from

a hand grenade to a thermite grenade or a larger payload.

Threats never remain at rest.

They're constantly evolving.

And we are seeing AI technology, machine learning, combined with platforms such

as drones and other types of autonomous vehicles.

That over -the -horizon threat that can be pre -programmed, that doesn't

necessarily need an operator, represents the next wave of threat that the Secret

Service has to prepare for.

While an intelligent swarm of micro -drones may present a clear and present

danger to the president, like most external threats, they can be countered.

But how does the Secret Service defend the president when the threat to his

security details?

is completely invisible to the naked eye.

Washington, D .C.

October 2nd, 2020.

One week after hosting a crowded outdoor ceremony in the White House Rose Garden

to announce his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U .S. Supreme Court, it

is revealed that President Donald Trump has tested positive.

for the potentially deadly COVID -19 virus.

Now, the Secret Service is tasked with protecting the president from threats

only foreign and domestic, but also microscopic and biological.

Health security has become a new domain of the Secret Service because it's been

put into practice now with coronavirus.

When I was a Secret Service agent, we talked about how bacteria and viruses

affect our protectees. How do you create a bubble around the president that's

absent of a deadly virus or bacteria?

One of the things we've learned in 2020 is just how big of a threat disease can

be to the president.

The most visceral example of this, someone could get near their president

they were intentionally infected with a threat, which could potentially kill the

president just as easily as an assassin's bullet or a grenade.

So the virus itself makes an extreme logistical hurdle for the Secret

The medical protocols around the president are very complex.

Secret Service agents have a level of medical training.

Some Secret Service agents are paramedics. We have a close working

with the White House Medical Unit. It's always around the president, whether

we're at the White House.

or traveling, the medical protocols are a significant portion of our protective

methodology. We put ourselves in harm's way for our protectees.

The president is going to do what the president wants to do.

Mission first, self -protection second.

You're actually not protecting the individual.

You're protecting what the presidency is. You're protecting what it

You're protecting the people.

And so you better be good. You better be excellent.

Everyone sleeps a little easier knowing that Department of Homeland Security's

finest members in the Secret Service branch are, you know, helping to execute

a lot of those critical functions.

The Secret Service is going to protect the president, no matter what.

When it says the Secret Service will take a bullet for the president, that's

kidding.

President Barack Obama once remarked, That American democracy is bigger than

one person.

That's why Secret Service agents take an oath to defend the Constitution and not

the individual president.

And after taking that oath, the men and women tasked with protecting the

president perform a duty that demands they succeed 100 % of the time.

They must utilize all of their brain power,

firepower, technology, training, perhaps a few other techniques.

that we may not be aware of, but may someday be revealed in America's Book of

Secrets.