<p>Donald Trump on Tuesday said the Secret Service should be giving him protection — and he suggested partisan politics might be why the agency isn’t providing it. In a 90-minute interview with The Hill, the Republican presidential front-runner pointed out that he has attracted large crowds just like Barack Obama did eight years ago as a White House candidate and that by this point in the 2008 cycle, the Illinois senator had Secret Service protection. Trump doesn’t, and he’s not happy about it. “I want to put them on notice because they should have a liability,” he said. “Personally, I think if Obama were doing as well as me he would’ve had Secret Service [earlier]. I have by far the biggest crowds.” Obama was given Secret Service protection on May 3, 2007. At the time, law enforcement officials acknowledged it was unusually early in the presidential cycle to grant a presidential candidate protection, but also said it was not based on specific threats. Pressed on details, Trump asked one of his private security officers to describe the discussions the Secret Service has had with his campaign. The talks were described as preliminary, and the Trump camp says the Secret Service had not provided a definitive answer on when — or if — the billionaire businessman will receive government protection. “They’re in no rush because I’m a Republican. They don’t give a shit,” Trump said jokingly. It was an off-the-cuff remark he later clarified. “Of course I don’t think they’d want anything to happen. But I would think they should be very proactive and want protection for somebody like me that has 20,000 people at any time,” Trump said. “You would think that they would want to be very proactive, but we have not heard from them.”</p>
