Members of President Trump’s campaign are praising the GOP nominee’s Secret Service agents amid claims that the agency’s ‘woke’ hiring practices are to blame for Saturday’s near-fatal security failure.

Trump’s senior campaign advisor, Jason Miller, commended the former president’s Secret Service agents during an interview on CNN Wednesday morning. 

“Everyone who is a part of his detail, they’d put their life on the line anytime for anyone to protect and there shouldn’t be any criticism,” he said. “You saw the way they pounced literally on top of President Trump literally in seconds, putting their own bodies in the way. You can’t criticize people for that.”

The pushback is against widespread criticism of the Secret Service for allowing a shooter to get within 160 yards of the rally’s stage. One member of the crowd was killed and two were critically wounded. 

Much of the flak has been directed toward the female security officers, with critics questioning whether they are large enough to defend the six-foot three-inch President. 

In the hours following the assassination attempt, videos circulated on social media showing several female Secret Service agents scrambling to bring the president to safety, with one seemingly struggling to holster her weapon. 

“There should not be any women in the Secret Service,” political commentator Matt Walsh said to his nearly three million followers on X. “These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women.”

Florida Representative Cory Mills added fuel to the fire, denouncing the Biden Administration’s efforts to hire candidates with diverse backgrounds. 

“Look, I’m not sure about who the individuals are on the individual detail, Secret Service, but I can tell you under this Biden administration, the one thing I’ve seen is massive D.E.I. hires,” Mr. Mills said on Fox News. 

“And I can tell you when you primarily, when you primarily go after D-E-I,” he added, “you end up with D-I-E.”

However, those close to Trump have refrained from furthering the DEI-hire narrative. The presidential hopeful’s son, Eric Trump, pitched his support for one of the female officers who shielded his father during the attack on Saturday. 

“She would take a bullet for me, she would take a bullet for him, as courageous as they come. Same with everybody else who is around him — the head of his detail was on that stage,” he said in an earlier CNN interview.

He notes, however, that “there was a breakdown” in the system and “there has to be accountability” for the attack. “There better be answers. There better be answers as to how that can happen,” he added. “We better make damn sure that can never happen again.”

The head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, has since stated that the agency is working “with all involved Federal, state and local agencies to understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from ever taking place again.” 

On Wednesday, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security announced that they had opened an investigation into the Secret Service’s handling of the assassination attempt.