Donald Trump is facing threats like no President in recent memory.
The worst almost happened again at his Florida home.
And Scott Bessent took off the gloves against Democrats after a gunman attacked Mar-a-Lago.
Secret Service Shoots and Kills Mar-a-Lago Gunman Austin Tucker Martin
At 1:30 Sunday morning, a 21-year-old named Austin Tucker Martin drove his vehicle through the north gate of Mar-a-Lago as another car was exiting – the kind of gap that takes one second of inattention to exploit.
Martin was carrying a shotgun and a gas can.
Two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy confronted him immediately.
They ordered him to drop his weapons.
Martin put down the gas can – then raised the shotgun to a shooting position.
The agents fired and neutralized the threat.
Martin was declared dead at the scene.
Investigators later found the box the shotgun came in sitting in Martin's vehicle, which means he bought the gun on the way down from North Carolina, where his family had reported him missing days earlier.
Trump was not at Mar-a-Lago – he had spent the night at the White House after the National Governors Association dinner.
Karoline Leavitt went straight to the point on X: "In the middle of the night while most Americans were asleep, the United States Secret Service acted quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person, armed with a gun and a gas canister, who intruded President Trump's home."
Scott Bessent Blames Democrats as Trump Assassination Attempts Mount
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo and didn’t hold back.
He ran the scoreboard: two would-be assassins dead, one – Ryan Routh – in federal prison for life, and a third incident at the President's own home in the middle of the night.
"This existential threat, this venom from the Left, really has to stop," Bessent said. "They have normalized this violence."
Bessent called out a specific campaign ad from Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton – a Democrat running for Senate – in which multiple people in the ad say what amounts to a profane threat toward Trump, and Stratton declares she is "not scared of a wannabe dictator."
That is a Senate candidate's official campaign commercial.
Bessent said he spoke directly with Trump after the incident and that the President and his family are safe – but he made clear that being safe is not the same as being protected from an endless stream of attempts.
"President Trump and his family – they are safe," Bessent said. "But they shouldn't have to endure attempt after attempt."
Stephen Miller added his own piece on X, noting that Democrats had voted to defund the very law enforcement agencies – Homeland Security Investigations, Secret Service support infrastructure – that keep Trump alive.
"Never before in history has federal law enforcement been purposefully defunded," Miller wrote.
This Is Not a Random Pattern
The Butler shooting in July 2024 – Thomas Crooks nearly killed Trump on live television and did kill Corey Comperatore, a husband and father who died shielding his family from the gunfire.
The West Palm Beach golf course in September 2024 – Routh hid in shrubbery for nearly 12 hours with a loaded rifle and was only stopped because a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel before Trump came into view.
Now Mar-a-Lago – a 21-year-old with a shotgun and a gas can at 1:30 in the morning, driving through a gate at Trump's home.
Three attempts in less than two years, and at the same time that Democrats are running Senate ads with profanity-laced calls to confront Trump, and elected officials are calling him a dictator who must be stopped.
Bessent is right – this is not coincidence, and it is not some unrelated series of isolated incidents by random unhinged individuals.
The rhetoric that labels Trump an existential threat to democracy, a criminal, a dictator who must be stopped by any means necessary – that rhetoric lands somewhere.
It landed in Butler.
It landed at West Palm Beach.
It landed at the north gate of Mar-a-Lago at 1:30 in the morning.
The Secret Service did its job Sunday.
New leadership, better protocols, agents who fire without hesitation when a suspect raises a weapon – Sean Curran's team is operating at a level that would have prevented Butler if it had been in place then.
But the Left's answer to three assassination attempts is to run another Senate commercial, use more profanity, and call Trump more names.
At some point, the consequences of that choice belong to the people making it.
Sources:
- Karoline Leavitt, Post on X, White House, February 22, 2026.
- Anthony Guglielmi, Secret Service Statement, February 22, 2026.
- Scott Bessent, Sunday Morning Futures, Fox News, February 22, 2026.
- Stephen Miller, Post on X, February 22, 2026.
- Ward Clark, "Update: Armed Mar-a-Lago Intruder Now Identified," RedState, February 22, 2026.
- "Ryan Wesley Routh Sentenced to Life in Prison for Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. Trump," U.S. Department of Justice, February 4, 2026.
- Fox News, "Bessent Blames Left's Political 'Venom' for Violence After Deadly Mar-a-Lago Incident," February 22, 2026.
