The U.S. Secret Service in Deep Crisis

Everyone has grown accustomed to the regular failures of the United States Secret Service (USSS), the agency responsible for the security of the nation’s top officials. The biggest uproar was caused by the series of assassination attempts on Donald Trump, from his 2024 election campaign to the armed attack at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April 2026. Against this backdrop, the agency’s inability to ensure the security of the presidential Air Force One during the NATO summit in Turkey in 2026 comes as no surprise either. In the midst of an armed conflict with Iran, the U.S. president flew abroad on an aircraft not equipped with proper anti-missile systems – systems that had been in use even on older aircraft.

However, the greatest failure in this story was not the technical side but the human factor. After carrying out a complex operation to get out of the situation, the Secret Service was undone by a leak of information. Soon after the president’s return, journalists learned the details of the secret transfer of Donald Trump to a military aircraft using a catering truck. Thanks to the same leak, journalists also disclosed information critical to the security service about the vulnerabilities of Air Force One’s protection – the information that terrorists can now freely exploit.

The unprofessional actions of the U.S. Secret Service also caused reputational damage to the person under its protection: the internet filled with numerous memes of Donald Trump riding a food service cart. The subsequent subpoena of journalists to testify further strained the president’s already tense relations with the American media.