To address its outdated training infrastructure, the U.S. Secret Service utilized a Hollywood-style replica of the White House, owned by filmmaker Tyler Perry, for operative preparedness exercises.
The Secret Service's recourse to a mock White House underscores both the agency's ingenuity and its dire need for better training resources, Fox News reported.
Located in Atlanta, the faux White House sits within Tyler Perry’s extensive 330-acre studio complex atop the historic ground of Fort McPherson Army base. This unique arrangement comes as the Secret Service contends with aging facilities, showcasing a broad need for significant upgrades.
Casting light on this peculiar situation, The New York Times' Eric Lipton discussed on the podcast “The Daily,” the agency’s challenges related to inadequate training infrastructures and budget constraints. “The Secret Service is so short on proper training facilities that they actually sent, on several occasions, their personnel down to the Atlanta area to train at a mock White House that Tyler Perry had built as a stage there in Georgia,” Lipton revealed.
After an intruder scaled the White House fence in a 2014 security breach, officials proposed establishing a more suitable training locale. However, over a decade later, they have not fulfilled this proposal.
July 13, 2023, marked a grim reminder of the weaknesses in presidential protection after an attempt was made on former President Trump's life. This incident magnified the immediate need for improved training settings, prompting former Director Kimberly Cheatle to explore alternate training options like Perry’s replicated White House, before her resignation later that month.
These shortcomings, including a reduced staff count from 7,811 in 2021 to 7,689 in 2023 and a rapidly growing list of protectees—now nearly double the number in 2015—further complicate the Secret Service's operational capacity.
Ronald Rowe, Acting Director of the Secret Service, spoke on the recent legislative support aimed at empowering the agency, “We thank Congress for addressing some of the U.S. Secret Service’s most immediate needs in this heightened threat environment.
This short-term funding will better equip the U.S. Secret Service to enhance security measures in the months ahead. We look forward to working with Congress on full-year funding to deliver the additional personnel, technology, and equipment our workforce needs to do their jobs.” Rowe’s statement came after the House passed a bill on September 20, 2024, to strengthen the Service's protection capabilities.
Interestingly, for Air Force One protection exercises, the Service uses a forward half of an airplane designed in the 1960s, further illustrating the dated nature of their resources.
Lipton, on the situation, subsequently noted the critical importance of flawless presidential protection: “There are few jobs anywhere where you have to be perfect, and any imperfection, when it comes to protecting the president means, potentially, the life of the president. On any given day, there can't be even the slightest errors in that work, and so it attracts a certain type of person.”
Despite Congress allocating $3 billion to the Secret Service last month, much of this funding merely aims at short-term mitigation rather than long-term solutions like building a dedicated training facility, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Ultimately, the use of Tyler Perry’s Hollywood set not only amplifies the Secret Service's resourcefulness in a crunch but starkly highlights the acute need for modernized, dedicated training facilities to safeguard national leaders effectively in an increasingly complex threat landscape.
