The New York Yankees have tightened security ahead of President Donald Trump’s attendance at the Thursday night match against the Detroit Tigers.
The MLB team put up bulletproof glass to protect the Steinbrenner suite at the Yankee Stadium following the shocking assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah on Wednesday.
The president’s team has been on high alert since Kirk, a close Trump ally, was shot dead while speaking to students at Utah Valley University. The suspect is still at large.
The Secret Service said baseball spectators and people around Yankee Stadium can expect to see increased law enforcement presence, reported the Wall Street Journal.
A White House official told the outlet that the president’s team has been having discussions about how to increase his security following Kirk’s killing, which triggered flashbacks to failed assassination attempts on Trump.
“I think it shook everybody to their core, and for many of us, brought back the memories of last July 13 in Butler with the president, and then today is 9/11, so sort of a one-two punch,” Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told conservative pundit Scott Jennings on Thursday.
Trump, however, did not seem concerned.
Asked whether he was worried about his safety in the wake of Kirk’s shooting, Trump told reporters, “Not really.”
“I’m really concerned for our country. We have a great country. We have a radical left group of lunatics out there, just absolute lunatics, and we’re going to get that problem solved,” he said. “I’m only concerned for the country.”
The FBI has released photos of a person of interest in Kirk’s shooting. The grainy images show a man wearing a long-sleeve black shirt imprinted with an American flag. He was also seen wearing glasses, jeans, a hat, and a bookbag.
“He’s an animal, a total animal,” Trump said of the shooter before his departure for the Yankee Stadium. “What he did is disgraceful... So hopefully we’ll have him - and we will deal with him very appropriately.”
Trump paid the Yankees a visit in their locker room ahead of the match.
“You’re gonna win,” he told the team. “For some reason, whatever it was, we won every time I came.”
