Administration Orders Secret Service to Guard RFK Jr.

President Biden has ordered the Secret Service to protect independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday that Biden had directed the protection be provided "both prior to and after the events of this past weekend," referring to the attempt in Pennsylvania to assassinate Donald Trump. Law enforcement officials have said that there has been an uptick in violent rhetoric since the attack at the Trump rally, the AP reports. Biden and Trump are "constantly the subject of threats," Mayorkas said. "We are in a heightened and very dynamic threat environment."

Polls have given little reason to think Kennedy could win the election, but his campaign events have drawn large crowds, per the AP. Kennedy, whose father was assassinated in 1968, had asked for Secret Service protection earlier in his campaign but not received it. The decision is not usually made by the president. The major parties' candidates receive it by law once the election is 120 days away. Other candidates have to meet certain requirements, and the protection has to be approved by a committee of congressional leaders and the Homeland Security secretary.

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