President Trump’s security detail faces mounting scrutiny after the Butler assassination attempt last July.
New revelations show the problems run deeper than anyone realized.
And Donald Trump was blindsided after another awful Secret Service failure.
Code Pink protesters got dangerously close to Trump during restaurant visit
President Trump made his first visit to a Washington, D.C. restaurant on September 9 at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab.¹
The unannounced dinner stop was designed to showcase his administration’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital.
Trump brought along Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for what should have been a routine photo opportunity.²
Instead, Code Pink activists managed to position themselves at a table right next to where Trump sat down.
The protesters got within feet of the President before standing up and shouting "Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!"³
Video of the incident shows Trump standing directly in front of the protesters with only inches separating them before he gestured to his security detail to remove them.⁴
What alarmed White House officials most was that table knives sat within easy reach of the protesters throughout the confrontation.⁵
Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles were furious about how close the activists got to the President.
Vance even walked toward the protesters to force the Secret Service into action before two White House staffers finally ushered them away.⁶
The entire incident lasted more than 30 seconds before the President’s detail responded.
Secret Service got chewed out over security failures
The September 9 incident triggered alarm bells throughout the Trump administration.
Wiles called Secret Service leaders into her office for what sources described as a tense meeting where she made clear this level of security failure was "unacceptable" and "couldn’t happen again."⁷
White House officials remain suspicious about how Code Pink knew Trump would be at Joe’s that night since the visit wasn’t publicly announced.
Trump aides believe the group was tipped off either by restaurant workers or someone else with inside knowledge of the President’s plans.⁸
Code Pink organizer Olivia DiNucci told the Washingtonian that a "friend of a friend" called her while she was at another protest and told her Trump would be dining at Joe’s later that evening.⁹
DiNucci called fellow activists and secured a reservation before racing home to change out of her protest clothes from an earlier demonstration.
She arrived at Joe’s with three others roughly an hour ahead of Trump, ordered food and drinks, and plotted their confrontation at the table – assuming the President would be safely tucked away in a private upstairs dining room.¹⁰
Instead, Trump’s table ended up right next to theirs.
A Secret Service spokesperson defended the agency’s performance by claiming "all restaurant guests were screened prior to the president’s arrival, including the protesters who had made a reservation to gain access."¹¹
But that explanation only raised more questions about how protesters were allowed to sit so close to Trump in the first place.
Trump’s spontaneous restaurant visits are now canceled
The Joe’s incident has had immediate consequences for Trump’s ability to make unannounced public appearances.
White House aides confirm they’ve quashed any plans for Trump to do "OTRs" – the internal code for off-the-record events that aren’t pre-announced to the public.¹²
OTRs were a central feature of Trump’s 2024 campaign when he made surprise visits to places like Waffle House and McDonald’s to connect with working-class voters.
But OTRs have lighter security protocols than announced stops where the Secret Service shuts down roads and positions snipers on roofs.
The September 9 restaurant incident came just 15 months after Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.¹³
A Senate investigation found the Secret Service was responsible for "a cascade of preventable failures" at the Butler rally where a gunman wounded Trump and killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore.¹⁴
The agency’s internal review concluded Butler was "the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades."¹⁵
Six Secret Service agents received suspensions ranging from 10 to 42 days over the Butler security failures, but no one was fired.¹⁶
Congressional investigators expressed deep frustration that Secret Service leadership escaped accountability while only lower-level agents faced discipline.
Secret Service Director Sean Curran, who was the top-ranking agent on Trump’s detail during the Butler shooting, has since been promoted to lead the agency.¹⁷
The Joe’s restaurant breach shows the Secret Service still hasn’t fixed its security problems despite promises of reform.
This isn’t just about protesters getting too close at dinner.
The revelation that Trump’s security team can’t even protect an unannounced restaurant visit without activists positioning themselves at the next table raises serious questions about whether the agency has learned anything from Butler.
Trump deserves better protection than what he’s getting from an agency that keeps making the same mistakes.
¹ NBC News, "Protesters disrupt Trump’s rare outing to a D.C. restaurant," September 10, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ TIME, "Trump Confronted by Protesters During Dinner in D.C.," September 10, 2025.
⁵ Axios, "Trump’s run-in with D.C. protesters still haunts his team," October 24, 2025.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ Washingtonian, "How Protesters Got Into the DC Restaurant Where Trump Dined," September 10, 2025.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Axios, "Trump’s run-in with D.C. protesters still haunts his team," October 24, 2025.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ Ibid.
¹⁴ Al Jazeera, "’Inexcusable’: US Senate report faults Secret Service for Trump shooting," July 14, 2025.
¹⁵ Axios, "6 Secret Service agents suspended over Trump assassination attempt protection failures," July 10, 2025.
¹⁶ Ibid.
¹⁷ CNN, "How the near assassination of Trump led to a search for accountability in the Secret Service," July 13, 2025.
