Few Americans trust the Secret Service after a gunman nearly killed Trump, an AP-NORC poll finds

Most Americans have doubts about the Secret Service's ability to keep presidential candidates safe after last month's attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life, a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds.

Only around 3 in 10 Americans are extremely or very confident that the Secret Service can keep the presidential candidates safe from violence before the election, according to the poll. The survey also found that about 7 in 10 Americans think the Secret Service bears at least a moderate amount of responsibility for the assassination attempt.

The law enforcement agency tasked with protecting presidents for more than a century is under intense scrutiny after a gunman got within 150 yards of Trump and fired several bullets from an AR-style rifle. Trump was injured in one ear but was millimeters away from being killed.

The poll was conducted after the resignation of director Kimberly Cheatle, who faced intense questioning at a congressional hearing that was broadcast live last week and in which she gave evasive answers. The new acting director Ronald Rowe said earlier this week that he was “ashamed” after the July 13 attack in Butler, Pennsylvania, saying he considered it indefensible that the roof used by the gunman was not secured.

During a news conference Friday, Rowe acknowledged the agency’s loss of trust from the American people. He said people generally only know about the agency’s failures — not its successes. He praised the agency’s staff who are quietly “working in the background” to protect political rallies, inauguration day and other events.

“We will earn back your trust,” he vowed.

The poll revealed that Americans were most likely to say that political division in the U.S. had “a great deal” of responsibility for the assassination attempt.

Half of U.S. adults say that, while about 4 in 10 say the Secret Service bears a high level of responsibility, and about 4 in 10 say the widespread availability of guns is greatly responsible.

Democrats were far more likely to blame the availability of guns while Republicans were more likely to blame the Secret Service.

Roger Berg, a 70-year-old farmer from Keota, Iowa, is planning to vote for Trump, the Republican nominee, in November. But he expressed discontent about Republicans blaming President Joe Biden for issues he thought Biden had no control over. Biden ended his reelection bid eight days after the shooting and has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, now the likely Democratic nominee.

“The people that are making everything about politics, I wish they would just quit,” Berg said. “They pin it all on Biden, and I don’t believe in that.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are substantially more likely than independents or Republicans to say the availability of guns bears a great deal of responsibility. Six in 10 Democrats say this, compared to about one-third of independents and 15% of Republicans.

Republican respondents were more likely than independents and Democrats to blame the Secret Service: About half of Republicans think the Secret Service has a great deal of responsibility, compared to around 4 in 10 Democrats and independents.

George Velasco, a 65-year-old Navy veteran from Tucson, Arizona, said he thought both the Secret Service and local law enforcement were to blame along with poor communication and a lack of proper planning. The Secret Service’s acting director said earlier this week that it was regrettable that local law enforcement had not alerted his agency before the shooting that an armed subject had been spotted on a roof, while also recognizing the Secret Service assumed that state and local police had presence.

“It was as if the Secret Service expected those guys to know what they had to do,” Velasco said. “It was a very small area, a small town. How did they expect them to know how to prepare for something huge like that rally?”

The poll found that half of Americans think local law enforcement in Pennsylvania had at least a moderate amount of responsibility for the assassination attempt, although only about 2 in 10 said it had “a great deal” of responsibility.

The Secret Service was first created as part of the Treasury Department to investigate the counterfeiting of U.S. currency during the Civil War. The agency began informally protecting presidents in 1894, according to the its records. Congress requested Secret Service protection of U.S. presidents after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.

Protection was extended to the president's immediate family, presidents-elect and vice presidents after a White House police officer was shot and killed while protecting President Harry S. Truman in 1950. It was later extended to former presidents in 1965. After the 1968 assassination of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Congress authorized protection of major presidential and vice presidential candidates.

About one-third of Americans are extremely or very confident that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, will conduct a full and fair investigation of the assassination attempt, while about one-third are somewhat confident and about 3 in 10 are not very confident or not at all confident.

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The poll of 1143 adults was conducted July 25-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

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Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

FILE - Members of the Secret Service look on as Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event, July 20, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Mich. Few Americans have high confidence in the Secret Service's ability to keep presidential candidates safe after last month's attempt on Trump's life. That is according to a new poll conducted July 25-29, from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Only around three in 10 Americans are extremely or very confident that the Secret Service can keep the presidential candidates safe from violence before the election. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by Secret Service at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024. Few Americans have high confidence in the Secret Service's ability to keep presidential candidates safe after last month's attempt on Trump's life. That is according to a new poll conducted July 25-29, 2024, from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Only around three in 10 Americans are extremely or very confident that the Secret Service can keep the presidential candidates safe from violence before the election. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday killed at least three people and wounded more than a dozen others, Lebanese health officials said, the first Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital in months that came after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with rockets.

Israel announced the strike, but didn't immediately specify the target in Beirut's crowded southern suburbs, where Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group holds sway.

Lebanon's Health Ministry reported that at least three people were killed and 17 others wounded as local networks broadcast footage of wounded people being pulled from the ruins of a flattened building and ambulances rushing to the scene of the strike.

The strike in Dahiyeh, just kilometers from downtown Beirut, hit during rush hour, as people were leaving work and students headed home from school.

The escalation came as the region awaited the revenge promised by the militant group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for this week’s mass bombing attack on pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members.

Israel's rare strike on the Beirut suburbs came after Hezbollah pounded Israel with 140 rockets, which the Israeli military said came in three waves targeting sites along the ravaged border with Lebanon.

Following the attacks, the Israeli military said that it had struck areas across southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah infrastructure, but didn’t provide details of damage.

Hezbollah said that its attacks had targeted several sites along the border with Katyusha rockets, including multiple air defense bases as well as the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade they said they’d struck for the first time.

The Israeli military said that 120 missiles were launched at areas of the Golan Heights, Safed and the Upper Galilee, some of which were intercepted. Fire crews were working to extinguish blazes caused by pieces of debris that fell to the ground in several areas, the military said.

The military didn’t say whether any missiles had hit targets or caused any casualties.

Another 20 missiles were shot at the areas of Meron and Netua, and most fell in open areas, the military said, adding that no injuries were reported.

Hezbollah said that the rockets were in retaliation for Israeli strikes on villages and homes in southern Lebanon, not two days of attacks widely blamed on Israel that set off explosives in thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies.

On Thursday, Israel said its military had struck “hundreds of rocket launcher barrels” in southern Lebanon, saying that they “were ready to be used in the immediate future to fire toward Israeli territory.”

The army also ordered residents in parts of the Golan Heights and northern Israel to avoid public gatherings, minimize movements and stay close to shelters in anticipation of the rocket fire that eventually came Friday.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire since Oct. 8, a day after the Israel-Hamas war’s opening salvo, but Friday’s rocket barrages were heavier than normal.

Nasrallah on Thursday vowed to keep up daily strikes on Israel despite this week’s deadly sabotage of its members’ communication devices, which he described as a “severe blow.”

At least 20 were killed in the attacks and thousands were wounded when pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The sophisticated attacks have heightened fears that the cross-border exchanges of fire will escalate into all-out war. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the attacks.

In recent days, Israel has moved a powerful fighting force up to the northern border, officials have escalated their rhetoric, and the country’s security Cabinet has designated the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel an official war goal.

Fighting in Gaza has slowed, but casualties continue to rise.

Overnight, Palestinian authorities said that 15 people were killed in multiple Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.

Those included six people, including an unknown number of children, in an airstrike early Friday morning in Gaza City that hit a family home, Gaza’s Civil Defense said. Another person was killed in Gaza City when a strike hit a group of people on a street.

Israel maintains that it only targets militants, and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military, which rarely comments on individual strikes, had no immediate comment.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says that more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count, but says a little over half of those killed were women and children.

Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

More than 95,000 people have also been wounded in Gaza since Oct. 7, the Health Ministry said.

The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.

A woman checks the scene of a missile strike from her damaged house in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Rescuers carry a body at the scene of a missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Ambulances arrive at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

People stand on top of a damaged car at the scene of a missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

People and rescuers gather at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

People gather near a damaged building at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

People gather at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

People gather at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept a rocket fired from Lebanon, in northern Israel, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)