President Donald Trump experienced his third assassination attempt on April 25 during his appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel, an annual event sponsored by the White House Correspondents’ Association.
The suspect in that shooting, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, is alleged to have wanted to assassinate Trump, along with senior members of his cabinet. He is currently awaiting trial.
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The first assassination attempt on Trump was perpetrated by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks during Trump’s campaign speech at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024.
Crooks wounded Trump in the upper portion of his right ear and killed one rallygoer, Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old former volunteer fire chief and project engineer from Sarver, PA, who shielded his family from gunfire during the event. A Secret Service officer killed the suspected shooter near the scene of the attack.
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The second attempt on Trump’s life occurred in September 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida, when Secret Service agents spotted Ryan Wesley Routh hiding in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club, where Trump, who at the time was the former president and the current Republican Party presidential candidate, was playing a round of golf.
Routh, 58, a former Trump supporter, was seen pointing an AK-17-style rifle at Trump, which led a Secret Service agent to fire at him. At trial, Routh was sentenced to life in federal prison plus 84 months for the attempted assassination of Trump.
Other attempted, but less high-visibility incidents on Trump’s life include:
· June 2016, Treasure Island casino, when Michael Steven Sandford, 20, tried to snatch a police officer’s handgun and was arrested.
· September 2017, during Trump’s visit to a North Dakota oil refinery, when Gregory Lee Leingang, 42, stole a forklift that he intended to use to flip Trump’s limousine. Leingang pleaded guilty at his trial.
· September 2020, when Trump was sent letters containing toxic ricin. Pascale Ferrier, a 56-year-old woman with dual Canadian and French citizenship, admitted to sending the letter and later pleaded guilty.
· April 2024, Asif Raza Merchant, a 47-year-old Pakistani man, was hired by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to target Trump, Joe Biden, and Nikki Haley. In March 2026, he was convicted of murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries.
The White House Correspondents’ Association sponsors the annual dinner to fund scholarships and promote a free press. It is supported primarily by member news organizations, journalists, and private donations. The Washington Hilton hosts the event and donates meals, while the Secret Service provides security whenever the President attends.
President Ronald Reagan endured an attempted assassination outside the same hotel on March 30, 1981. John Hinckley Jr., 25, shot and injured Reagan as he returned from a speaking engagement at the hotel to his limousine.
Hinckley seriously wounded Reagan with a revolver bullet, hitting the President under his left arm, breaking a rib, and puncturing a lung, causing severe internal bleeding. The shooter also seriously wounded White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty. Though President Reagan and the other three survived, Brady suffered brain damage and was permanently disabled. He died in 2014 as a result of his injury.
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21, 1982, and was confined to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital psychiatric facility in Washington, D.C. He was discharged in 2016.
In the aftermath of Reagan’s assassination attempt, Congress in 1993 passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, requiring mandatory background checks and waiting periods for handgun purchases. Though Reagan was a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and initially opposed the measure, he eventually supported it as “common sense” to allow law enforcement to conduct background checks.
Reagan eventually argued that with the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms” comes the responsibility to use firearms safely and cautiously.
Trump, however, has taken a different approach. Only two days after the attempt on his life at the Washington Hilton, the administration did not call for common sense gun safety reform, and Trump did not give a clarion call to unify the nation. Instead, he erupted with blame on Democrats on the White House website.
“This past weekend, another Radical Left lunatic attempted to assassinate President Donald J. Trump — the third such attack on President Trump in under two years,” declared a White House press release.
“The attack was not random; it was the predictable result of years of reckless, inflammatory, and escalating rhetoric from Democrats. By relentlessly smearing President Trump, his Administration, and tens of millions of Americans as ‘fascists,’ ‘Nazis,’ and ‘threats,’ these sick Democrats have created a toxic environment that incites their supporters to violence again and again.
“As Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, the manifesto of the would-be assassin reads like Democrat talking points — ‘indistinguishable from the words we hear daily from their party.”’
“The rhetoric has only escalated throughout President Trump’s second term… For over a decade, Democrats have mainstreamed the language of violence and insurrection — then feign shock when their unhinged supporters act on it.”
“Enough is enough. As President Trump said, Americans must ‘recommit with their hearts in resolving our differences peacefully.’”
Also in response to the assassination attempt, Trump, members of his administration, and others in the Republican Party, like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), called for Congress to fund Trump’s vanity project of the White House ballroom at taxpayer expense of $400 million.
But even if Trump’s gaudy Russian imperialist-style ballroom ever reaches completion, it will never serve as the site for the White House Press Correspondents’ annual dinner, since the White House Press Association, and not the White House, organizes and sponsors the event.
Following the dinner, Trump’s Department of “Justice” indicted former FBI Director James Comey for posting a picture to social media of seashells arranged on a North Carolina beach in the shape of the numbers, “86 47.” DOJ officials said the photo represented a threat against Trump.
And yet, no Republican accused anyone of inciting violence by writing “86 46” during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Trump’s first term: A failure of commonsense gun safety reforms
On February 22, 2018, during the second year of Trump’s first term, he hosted a “listening session” at the White House on the critical issue of gun violence.
Present at the meeting were several surviving students and parents of deceased students from the tragic February 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people and injured another 18.
Immediately after learning of the shooting, Trump publicly offered his prayers and condolences to the victims’ families, writing, “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.” Two days later, Trump and the First Lady flew on Air Force One to the site of the tragedy, where they spoke. They visited the hospital where eight of the injured had been admitted.
To open the White House meeting, Trump asked participants for suggestions and ideas on how to make our country’s schools safer. One student asked for more active shooter trainings and a more coordinated response by agencies and individuals.
In a poignant and emotional comment, another student said, “I was born into a world where I have never experienced safety and peace.” Other students nodded in agreement.
A parent who lost his daughter shouted out his rage toward the president: “It should have been one shooting, and we should have fixed it! And I’m pissed. My child isn’t here. She’s in North Lauderdale at King David Cemetery!
During the White House listening session, Trump said he would ask Congress to strengthen background checks on firearms purchases and to raise the age to buy a gun to 21. He also proposed arming teachers as one solution to stop these tragedies. “If you had a teacher who is adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly,” he said.
Trump’s plan included arming up to 20% of the teachers to stop “maniacs” from attacking students. The following day, he called a “gun-free” school a “magnet” for criminals and tweeted, “Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive.”
Over the past several decades, since the 1990s, gun violence has increased exponentially. Presidents from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Joe Biden have stepped up by showing our country their compassion and empathy for the victims, their families, and their friends, and for a frightened nation that demands an end to these senseless deaths and injuries that weaken our entire body politic.
While Trump did suggest a few policy changes to improve school safety and mental health community resources, he is not particularly known for his skills at being “consoler-in-chief,” unlike, for example, Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama – and before them, like President Reagan and President Franklin Roosevelt.
Close-up pictures of Trump at the meeting with survivors of the shooting revealed a handwritten “cheat sheet” written in bold black letters and printed on official White House stationery, which he carried into the room listing five points he was to cover and the precise language he was to use.
The first on the list was a reminder to ask the question, “What would you most want me to know about your experience?” There was also a reminder to ask participants for their ideas on resources to curb gun violence.
Two written talking points in particular – “I hear you” and “What can we do to help you feel safe?” – triggered the most outrage by political pundits and many others throughout the United States. It showed Trump’s absolute inability to express sympathy to those most needing support and comfort during a traumatic time in their lives.
His suggestion to arm 20% of school personnel also prompted outrage, with many commenting that educators are already saddled with too many mandated responsibilities and few resources to adequately fulfill their duties, not to mention that the idea of bringing guns into schools could easily give rise to even more fatalities and injuries.
While Trump issued an executive order banning bump stocks in 2017, following a mass shooting at an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas, the Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional by a vote of 6-3 in June 2024, under the Biden administration.
Trump has continued to loosen or eliminate firearms safety policies, despite the fact that all reputable studies confirm that the more accessible firearms are, the more gun deaths increase, and the more public health suffers.
Thoughts, prayers, and blame upon Democrats, unfortunately, are all that Trump and Congressional Republicans will offer.
Our nation and its leaders must stop this insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And Trump must be held accountable for his complicity.
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