After former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally on Saturday, right-wing media attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s emphasis on hiring more women in the force to suggest that such initiatives “compromised” the caliber of the agency. Conservative media are arguing that “there should not be any women” in the Secret Service, and claiming that “DEI got someone killed.”
Molly Butler / Media Matters
Research/Study
“DEI got someone killed”: Right-wing media blame diversity initiatives for Trump rally shooting
Written by Emma Mae Weber, Charis Hoard & Bushra Sultana
Research contributions from Zachary Pleat
Published
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Background
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- On July 13, former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania during his speech at a campaign rally. One rally attendee was killed and two others injured. The 20-year-old suspected shooter was a registered Republican, and he reportedly donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a liberal voter turnout group, in 2021. The FBI is still investigating the shooter's motive. [The Associated Press, 7/15/24; The New York Times, 7/14/24; NBC, 7/15/24]
- The Secret Service and local law enforcement have come under fire for their security preparations for the rally. Some have questioned whether the size of the security perimeter was too small and if the sweep of the facility was thorough enough. There is also a video circulating of civilians spotting the gunman before the shooting took place. [CNN, 7/15/24; NBC, 7/15/24]
- Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told CBS News in 2023 that her goal was to have 30% female recruits in the agency by 2030. “I'm very conscious as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Cheatle said. [CBS News, 5/18/23]
- Right-wing media have a history of using diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to attack their targets, claiming that they “didn’t earn it.” In March, for example, right-wing media targeted Black individuals in high-level positions such as Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. In January, right-wing media blamed diversity, equity, and inclusion for multiple failures in Boeing planes. Around the same time, several conservative personalities celebrated the resignation of former Harvard President Claudine Gay, who was the university’s first Black president, as a victory over “DEI ideology” and “the DEI cancer.” [Media Matters, 4/5/24, 1/25/24, 1/5/24, 1/12/24]
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Right-wing media tried to link the Trump attack to DEI policies and Kimberly Cheatle’s focus on hiring more women in the Secret Service
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- Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy said that the agency’s goal to have 30 percent female force is “a very unbelievable mission goal for something that is so important.” Campos-Duffy added, “If people are afraid to run for office, that is a disservice to the entire citizenry. That is — talk about undermining and threatening democracy.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 7/14/24]
- The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh wrote, “There should not be any women in the Secret Service. These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women.” [Twitter/X, 7/14/24]
- Fox host Emily Compagno asked her guest if the diversity hiring initiative, “with the purpose of fulfilling diversity requirements, compromised the caliber of the Secret Service agents.” Retired Secret Service agent Jeff James responded in part, “One of the problems that I saw when I was at the end of my career and I was doing background investigations on new hires was the things we started to say OK to that weren’t OK when I was hired. … I think more so than whether an applicant is male or female, race, color, religion, that there is a caliber and there is a bar that they should meet in all things.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 7/15/24]
- Frequent Fox guest Charles Marino said the director of the Secret Service has to “demonstrate that she has not lowered standards within the agency to achieve what she wants to do on the diversity side.” Marino claimed, “This is going to have to fall on her. And that's why one of the areas I said it’s going to be under great scrutiny here is the hiring process and the training process. Have people met the standards across the board both from a physical standpoint and an intellectual and experienced standpoint to achieve the mission?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/15/24]
- Fox News contributor and former FBI agent Nicole Parker attacked Cheatle’s 2023 comments, saying, “The fact that they are more concerned about DEI and hiring a certain percentage of females is absolutely unacceptable.” Parker said, “Since when should you hire someone just because they're a female? I am a female. I should not be hired based on my gender; I should be hired because I am the most qualified. How about instead of focusing on 30% of female agents, why don't you start buying 30 drones? That could've really eliminated the problem here." [Fox News, Special Coverage of the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump, 7/14/24]
- Newsmax’s Carl Higbie blamed Cheatle, saying she “made a major push for this DEI and soft policing and that’s a problem and it came to fruition.” Higbie asserted, “She's had a huge push on DEI and making sure that everybody has an opportunity. Well, you know what? Donald Trump almost didn't have an opportunity to continue his campaign because of her policies, because she's too worried about how it's going to look in the papers the next day that she's encouraged people to be weak on what they're training, and that's a problem.” [Newsmax, Greg Kelly This Week, 7/14/24]
- OAN host Dan Ball said, “Maybe Ms. Cheadle has been too worried about making sure all of the agents use the proper pronouns.” He also claimed, “She didn't have a lot of qualifications, but maybe in this new DEI, CRT, woke world, we will worry more about ideology and making sure someone gets people's pronouns right than doing the job the Secret Service was intended to, which is to take a bullet for the president or to stop someone from shooting one of our presidents or a presidential candidate.” [One America News, Special coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, 7/13/24]
- Fox Nation host Dan Bongino criticized the Secret Service, saying the agency “put out, you know, a thousand tweets about all of this DEI stuff.” Bongino added: “Do I know that's related here? I don't. I’m just saying, like — you have one job, and only one job.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 7/14/24]
- The Daily Wire published a piece that said “Biden DEI push in Secret Service led to unqualified agents.” The piece claimed that months ago “there were indications that the Biden administration’s focus on identity politics had undermined competence at the protective agency.” [The Daily Wire, 7/14/24]
- In multiple posts, Christopher Rufo, who has spearheaded the right's attack on critical race theory, attacked the CIA’s DEI program, rhetorically asking, “Is the president safer when he is protected by a strong, nonbinary Latinx womxn?” [Twitter/X, 7/15/24, 7/15/24; Media Matters, 6/23/21]
- Discussing the Secret Service, Fox host Brian Kilmeade claimed that “we know that so many different industries have been hurt” by DEI. He also attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, saying: “We know that being politically correct and the DEI got us Kamala Harris as a vice president.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/15/24]
- On X, OutKick host Tomi Lahren wrote, “Maybe the former president should have all former military men and preferably special operators protecting him instead of DEI hires.” [Twitter/X, 7/14/24]
- Anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok attacked the female CIA agent on Trump’s detail, writing, “The results of DEI. DEI got someone killed.” [Twitter/X, 7/15/24]