Report: Trump, Carson to receive Secret Service protection

The Secret Service is extending protection to GOP presidential contenders Donald Trump and Ben Carson, while beefing up Dem front-runner Hillary Clinton’s security, according to a report from Newsmax on Saturday.

Trump and Carson will receive agents as early as next week, with each candidate being assigned approximately two dozen agents. The report cites a source close to the agency’s planning.

{mosads}The move comes days after Trump, the GOP front-runner, told The Hill in an exclusive interview that he should have Secret Service protection.

Trump noted that he had attracted large crowds on the trail and pointed out that Barack Obama had agents protecting him by this point in the 2008 presidential cycle.

“I want to put them on notice because they should have a liability,” he told The Hill. “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.”

“They’re in no rush because I’m a Republican. They don’t give a shit,” Trump added as a joke.

Trump has relied on his private security detail to protect him on the campaign trail. He reportedly bolstered that security team after receiving a threat linked to the family of escaped Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Trump has been a critic of Mexico and immigration from that country.

Trump’s son, Eric Trump, told Fox News’s “Fox and Friends,” in an interview on Friday that he wished his father had a security detail.

As a former first lady, Hillary Clinton has long had Secret Service protection.

A source told Newsmax that Carson had received a number of threats, calling them “off the charts.”

Carson’s campaign would not confirm or deny reports that he was slated to receive Secret Service protection.

The report said that Carson was initially reluctant to accept a detail but relented when he was given intelligence about potential threats.

“It is widely believed ISIS would like to strike a major political target in the U.S.,” the source told Newsmax.