Former Secret Service officials warn of low-tech threats facing Trump after latest Mar-a-Lago breach

Deadly Mar-a-Lago shooting highlights Trump as "most threatened president in U.S. history," former Secret Service agents warn after latest security breach. Homeland Security Former Secret Service officials warn of low-tech threats facing Trump after latest Mar-a-Lago breach Weekend Mar-a-Lago shooting marks latest incident after Butler rally attack and golf course confrontation as experts cite 'copycat effect' concerns By Morgan Phillips Fox News Published February 23, 2026 6:15pm EST Facebook Twitter Threads Flipboard Comments Print Email Add Fox News on Google close Video Armed intruder killed at Mar-a-Lago, FBI investigates breach at Trump's Florida home FBI investigates after an armed man is shot and killed attempting to breach Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump's Florida home. Secret Service and local deputies responded. Former FBI investigator Bill Daly discusses the ongoing investigation. NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A deadly confrontation at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend is the latest in a string of high-profile security incidents involving President Donald Trump, as former Secret Service officials warn that low-tech, lone actors now pose one of the toughest challenges to presidential protection. "It should be quite clear to all of us by now that Trump is the most threatened president in the history of the U.S.," former Secret Service agent William "Bill" Gage told Fox News Digital Monday, pointing to multiple high-profile incidents in recent years. Unlike past presidencies, where threat levels often subsided over time, Gage said, "the longer he's president, the more these attacks keep happening."Gage said the most difficult cases to prevent are often the least sophisticated. The recent incidents, he noted, were "super low-tech attacks by people with zero training," using rudimentary weapons. "If you were standing behind them in line at Starbucks, you wouldn’t have given them a second look," he said. Gage said the threat landscape shifted over the course of his 12-year career as a Secret Service agent. When he joined the Secret Service in 2002, he said the agency was moving away from what he described as the traditional "lone gunman" model — figures like Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated John F. Kennedy, or international militants such as "Carlos the Jackal," one of the world's most wanted terrorists in the '70s and 80s — and adapting to a post-9/11 world focused on coordinated terrorist networks like al Qaeda and later ISIS. A deadly confrontation at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend is the latest in a string of high-profile security incidents involving President Donald Trump. (Marco Bello/Reuters) "But if you look at Butler and the two incidents at Mar-a-Lago, those were super low-tech attacks," Gage said. "The low-tech actors are the ones that tend to slip through the cracks."He also warned of a potential copycat effect when details of such incidents become public. "If it were up to the Secret Service, they would never report any of these incidents ever," Gage said, arguing that widespread coverage allows others to "study what happened" and attempt to refine it. In today’s hyperconnected political climate, he said, that dynamic adds another layer of complexity for agents trying to stop the next threat before it materializes. In the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, a 21-year-old man identified as Austin Tucker Martin of North Carolina was shot and killed by U.S. Secret Service agents and a local sheriff’s deputy after entering the secure perimeter of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Authorities say Martin drove through the north gate carrying a shotgun and a gasoline can. After being ordered to drop both, he dropped the can but raised the shotgun toward officers, who fired and killed him at the scene. Trump and First lady Melania Trump were in Washington at the time.The incident marked the third highly publicized security encounter involving Trump in less than two years. In July 2024, a gunman opened fire at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing Trump’s ear and killing an attendee before being shot by a Secret Service sniper. In September 2024, a man armed with a rifle was confronted by agents near Trump’s golf course while he was playing; that suspect was later convicted on attempted assassination charges.While the incidents have drawn intense attention, former Deputy Assistant Director Don Mihalek said the latest Mar-a-Lago intrusion does not necessarily signal a breakdown in protective systems. "He got through an exterior gate of an active club," Mihalek told Fox News Digital. "This wasn’t someone reaching the president’s residence." Agents confronted the suspect within seconds, he said, describing the rapid response as evidence that overlapping security layers functioned as designed.Mihalek said presidential protection relies on multiple rings of security because outer perimeters at properties like Mar-a-Lago cannot be sealed in the same way as the White House. "If he ended up in the president’s house on Mar-a-Lago, that might be a different conversation," he said.He also cautioned against viewing recent