High-level government officials have always had some level of security, but they didn’t have to hide from the people they governed. Presidents have Secret Service details and state-of-the-art security at the White House and their residences. I drove within a few miles of Mar-a-Lago yesterday, and will do so again today. I have no desire to get closer. One man has already been killed breaching security at Mar-a-Lago, and eleven others arrested after trespassing. It doesn’t take much these days to be labeled a domestic terrorist, and my writings alone could get me so named.
After the President, only three Cabinet officials normally get Secret Service protection. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Vacant because Kristi Noem got kicked to the curb. Even before the recent incursion into Iran, which most people would call a war, several other Trump officials began living on military bases to provide additional security because they no longer felt safe in their homes, even with added security. The official line is that these officials were receiving threats and being doxxed, with little information about who was making those threats.
Attorney General Pam Bondi recently moved from a Washington, D.C. apartment to an undisclosed military base in the D.C. area. She’s said to have been receiving threats from drug cartels and people upset with her handling of the Epstein Files. She’s no doubt pissed off all the FBI officials and Justice Department employees fired on her watch for having investigated her boss. Many of those people carry guns.
Kristi Noem had moved onto a combined Navy and Coast Guard base soon after taking the job. She was the face of targeting brown people across the country, picking up citizens and non-citizens alike, spitting back out most of the non-citizens she collected. She headed up the mobilization of troops into major cities. When two (white) American citizens were killed, she labeled them domestic terrorists. What got her booted was saying Donald Trump approved of her spending $220 million in taxpayer money on a public relations campaign promoting herself. Noem is still living on base while transitioning to her made-up position as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas.
Stephen Miller is the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. He is the only named official in United States history, not confirmed to his position by the Senate, who has been allowed to remain in military housing. There are allegedly a couple of others in the current administration staying on military bases for their safety, but we don’t know who they are. There is a precedent for people with Miller’s views staying on military bases. Between 1943 and 1946, Camp Blanding in Florida held captured German POWs. Miller would have fit right in.
No U.S. Secretary of State in the entire 234‑year history of the office has ever lived on a military base, until Marco Rubio. From Thomas Jefferson (1790) through Antony Blinken (2021–2025), Secretaries of State have always lived in private residences, Government‑leased homes, or secure civilian houses. Rubio is allegedly staying at Fort McNair.
One of Rubio’s neighbors at Fort McNair is allegedly Pete Hegseth. Pete moved to a base either in late 2024 or early 2025. He reported harrassment and became the first Secretary of Defense to ever live in military housing. SECDEFs never lived on a base during the Korean War, Vietnam War, the height of the Cold War, Post 9/11, or the Iraq or Afghanistan Wars.
Other Trump officials have been rumored to stay on bases, without confirmation. They include Kash Patel, Dan Scavino, and Ric Grenell. All of those, if true, would be the first time in history that people in their positions lived in military housing. There is the question of who is paying for their housing.
Ordinarily, the question would be: how have Trump and his officials angered so many people that, for the first time in history, they have to hide out? Looking back, the people in the world who are not pissed off by Trump et al. are relatively few. Trump imposed tariffs against the entire world, even uninhabited islands. He destroyed businesses and families with his unconstitutional bull, and now has to pay everything back.
His officials were involved in sending ICE and Border Patrol to American cities, terrorizing immigrants and citizens alike. His people cut off international aid that they used to brag saved millions. Doesn’t cutting off that aid therefore kill millions?
Trump broke his promise to MAGA and involved America in a potential forever war. Even they have figured out that they’re being lied to about the reason. Forget about affordability. On my drive to Miami, I paid $4.40 a gallon on the way down and $4.50 on the way back. The next time I fill up, it may exceed $100, and we don’t want to talk about groceries.
Wherever the immigrants who established your family in America came from, Trump has done something to infuriate that country. The one possible exception is Russia, which Trump aids and abets.
In hindsight, it’s a wonder that the whole Trump administration isn’t hiding out on military bases. One caveat, though, is that when the military realizes the man who views them as suckers and losers is sending some of them to their deaths in an unnecessary war. Will a base really be the safest place to be?