With the looming termination of Kamala Harris‘s Secret Service protection in the next few hours, the security of the former Vice President of the United States has become the latest battlefront in the political war between Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump.
About to start a 15-date book tour on September 24, one day after her 2024 campaign memoir 107 Days comes out, the ex-VP saw Trump revoke her extended Secret Service protection on August 28.
The usual six months of Secret Service protection an ex-Veep receives had been extended to 18 months by Joe Biden in the last days of his presidency for his former running mate. That semi-secret order by POTUS 46 came in no small part I’m told by the threats the first woman and first person of color to hold the office had been subjected to.
Not the first and likely not the last of the former Celebrity Apprentice host’s such moves against rivals and critics, Trump ended all that in a very short letter last week to the Department of Homeland Security. “You are hereby authorized to discontinue any security-related procedures previously authorized by Executive Memorandum, beyond those required by law, for the following individual, effective September 1, 2025: Former Vice President Kamala D. Harris,” it said above Trump’s signature.
This isn’t the first hit Trump has taken at Harris since taking office again.
Back in the spring, Trump pulled the former VP’s security clearance, along with those of Joe Biden Hilary Clinton and others. Biden took Trump’s security clearance away in 2021 due to the MAGA leader’s “erratic behavior.”
Circumspect to a fault as always, Harris’ office this time round kept its public reaction short when Trump took her protection away with just a few days notice. “The Vice President is grateful to the United States Secret Service for their professionalism, dedication, and unwavering commitment to safety,” Harris aide Kirsten Allen said of the end of the protection detail by Trump. Harris’ office did not respond to a further request Deadline for comment today.
However, that initial curt response may be in part because it appears that persistent Trump troller Newsom, who has taken on the role of Leader of the Opposition in the minds of many against POTUS’ increasingly authoritarian rule, has ordered a security arrangement for his long time ally Harris. Nothing has been made public yet, but reports that the California Highway Patrol, will take over protection tomorrow for Harris have been confirmed to Deadline by law enforcement sources.
“Our office does not comment on security arrangements,” Gov Newsom’s Communications chief Izzy Gardon has said, holding the official line. “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses,” he added.
Still, in what a state insider termed “a matter of conscience and decency, as well as an effort to diminish Trump” by Newsom, a combination of CHP and LAPD protection for Harris has been given the greet light.
To that, the former Veep will have the protection level that a dignitary like the Governor, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis enjoy. While an insider cautioned not to read too much into it, there is no word on how long the CHP and LAPD protection for Harris, who recently announced she would not run for Governor of the Golden State in 2026, will last. Discussions about protection for the former VP when the ex-state Attorney General and Senator is traveling outside California are ongoing and “complicated,” I’m told.
Kicking off in NYC late next month, Harris’ 107 Days book tour has only two stops in her home state right now. The 2024 Democratic Party candidate for President will be at LA’s Wiltern on September 29 and in San Francisco on October 5. The tour ends in Miami just before Thanksgiving on November 20.
California Highway Patrol officers arrest a protester on the 101 Freeway during an anti-ICE protest in downtown LA on June 8, 2025 (Photo by BENJAMIN HANSON/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
It should be noted that CHP officers played a contentious role containing and arresting protestors on the streets of DTLA back in June. They also played a widely applauded role in maintaining order in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires that ravaged LA in January.
Contacted by Deadline, the Secret Service, which is a part of DHS, referred us to the White House for comment and clarification on the whys and hows of the discontinuation of Harris’ detail so soon before she is about to make her first significant public appearances since leaving office on January 20. The White House did not respond our request for comment or insights into Trump’s seemingly sudden and very public swipe at his 2024 election opponent.
Yet, with a preamble of political neutrality, more than one federal law enforcement official told Deadline that Trump’s yanking of Harris’ detail was no more unusual that the extension the ex-VP had been given. In fact, there were no reports of significant threats against Harris, sources says. There were, however, some concerns her upcoming nationwide book tour, which also has stops in Canada and the UK, could strain her detail.
Six months of Secret Service has been the norm for Vice Presidents since Congress legislated the protection in 2008. While past VPs like Al Gore have asked for extensions of their agent detail, it was President Barack Obama’s executive order for Dick Cheney in 2009 that truly put the process in motion. Cheney, called Darth Vader by many for his ruthlessness, was granted a further six months by DHS that saw him covered until January 2010. He currently has no Secret Service protection, nor does Trump’s first VP Mike Pence, who was denied an extension by the Biden administration.
There is also another factor that plays into all this underneath the partisan rancor, one federal law enforcement source stated. “Don’t forget about the U.N.,” he said deadpan.
In less than 10 days, the U.N. General Assembly is set to begin in New York City, with leaders from all over the world in attendance and Trump scheduled to his first speech to the organization since returning to office. “it’s a heavy lift, with over 100 heads of state receiving Secret Service protection,” the source said, noting how the September 9 – 29 U.N. General Assembly requires extra resources and agents be pulled from all over the DHS unit.
Still, already in the anti-Trump trenches over the masked ICE raids and abductions that the administration unleashed purposefully on LA earlier this year and the stationing of troops in the city over protests following the detentions of the undocumented, green card holders and some US citizens, Mayor Karen Bass quickly said what many thought of the Trump action against Harris. The ex-Congresswoman and longtime Harris ally called the move late last week “another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation” by Trump. “This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles.”
LA mayor Karen Bass & the VP Kamala Harris during a march for abortion rights in Los Angeles, April 15, 2023 (Photo by APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images)
A Hollywood producer who has been a major donor to Democrats over the years, was a big contributor to Harris’ short campaign last year, and is no big fan of Bass vehemently seconded the Mayor’s remarks by calling Trump “a would-be dictator who thinks he can bully and scare everyone into submission.” The deep-pocketed producer added Trump “clearly doesn’t know Kamala Harris very well if he thinks that’s going to work.”
As the Secret Service pull their agents (some of whom have been with the former VP since the 202 campaign) and equipment out of Harris’ Brentwood home tonight ahead of that September 1 deadline, state officers from CHP’s Dignitary Protection Unit are already moving in place, I’m told.
That’s just step one.
“DPS also provides, as directed, protective services to national and international dignitaries who are visiting California on official business,” the unit says of its mission. “This includes: the advance security assessments of sites and locations to be visited, safe and secure transportation, protection at designated venues, collaboration with allied agency law enforcement, and other services as required.”
In short, it’s no Secret Service, but its not nothin’
Aside from four years at the VP’s official home at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC, Harris and her husband, ex-Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff (who lost his Secret Service detail a couple of months ago too) have had their house on the West Side of LA as their primary personal residence for years. That house has had a Secret Service presence since 2021. That protection didn’t seem to stop two individuals all in black from getting onto Harris’ property in the early morning last January during the wildfires curfew. Harris herself was not at the house and LAPD were called to the scene and detained the duo.
A state of affairs that will now be the new normal for the ex-Veep.
For the record, former Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden have lifetime Secret Service protection, for now.
Source link
