The April 2026 attack, apparently targeting Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, is the latest in a long history of assassination attempts on US presidents and political violence in America
On April 25, 2026, Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner after a man, armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives, fired on security personnel at a checkpoint in the Washington Hilton hotel. The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, a California resident, was tackled and arrested. He was believed to have been a guest at the hotel, where top US officials were gathered for the dinner, raising fresh questions about their security.
Trump, who has survived two attempts on his life since 2024 amid deepening political polarization, told reporters he believed that he was the target of Allen’s attack. Allen was able to smuggle the shotgun into the hotel, which hosts the annual dinner, a fixture of Washington’s social calendar, despite the heavy security for members of Trump’s cabinet and senior administration officials.
In 1981, the Washington Hilton was also the scene of an attempt on President Ronald Reagan‘s life. Reagan was shot and wounded by a would-be assassin, trying to impress a Hollywood actress. There has since been an increase in threats against elected officials in the US, where incidents or plots have targeted presidents George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama when they were in office or after that.
2024 Trump Assassination Attempts
In the run-up to the November 2024 American presidential elections, Trump became the first serving or former president to be wounded in an attack in four decades. A gunman tried to assassinate him at a rally in Pennsylvania, leaving him, two others injured, and one person dead on July 13 that year. Trump clutched his ear as the shots rang out. He ducked as blood oozed out and security raced to surround him. Trump pumped his fist at the crowd when he was immediately moved offstage to safety, rushed to a nearby hospital, and declared fine after the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was killed.
Over two months later, Secret Service agents spotted a man wielding a gun and hiding in bushes at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach while Trump was there. The man was sentenced to life in prison as it was deemed an assassination attempt.
Trump became the second former president seeking reelection after serving four years in office to survive an assassination attempt. In October 1912, Theodore Roosevelt survived after being shot in his chest before he was due to address a campaign event in Milwaukee, where Trump was nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. What is remarkable is that Theodore Roosevelt, 53, who served as the 26th president, chose to go ahead with his 90-minute speech with a bullet lodged in his chest, bolstering his tough image.
How a Bullet Failed to Stop the ‘Bull Moose’
A metal eyeglasses case and the text of his 50-page folded speech in his pocket saved Theodore Roosevelt. They slowed down the bullet before it penetrated his chest, minimizing the potential damage. The bullet created a dime-sized wound. Theodore Roosevelt insisted on delivering a speech—one of the most extraordinary in American history—before going to the hospital.
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Theodore Roosevelt started his address by telling an astounded crowd that he did not know whether they fully understood that he had just been shot. ‘But it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose,’ he said, referring to the Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party, which he formed after breaking off from the Republican Party. He went on to deliver the 90-minute address after apologizing saying he might be unable to speak as long as normal as a result of the bullet, which was aimed at his heart but got lodged against a rib four inches from the sternum. Theodore Roosevelt agreed to be taken to the hospital only after concluding his address.
William McKinley, whom Vice-president Theodore Roosevelt succeeded as the president, was among the three other American presidents who had been killed until then. Theodore Roosevelt left office voluntarily. He helped elect William Howard Taft as the president after declining to run in 1908. Theodore Roosevelt challenged Taft for the presidency after a falling out within four years. Taft beat Theodore Roosevelt for the Republican nomination. This prompted Roosevelt to break off and form the Progressive Party to compete in the contest against Taft and the Democratic Party candidate and New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson.
The Assassination Attempt That Reshaped US Politics
In the middle of the 1912 presidential campaign, John Schrank, a tavern owner, approached Roosevelt and fired at him with a revolver when the former president left the Gilpatrick Hotel in Milwaukee for his campaign event. Schrank was tackled but Theodore Roosevelt saved him from getting killed. John Schrank acted in an individual capacity. Roosevelt’s biographer Edmund Morris wrote John Schrank was ‘the dull-eyed, unmistakable expressionlessness of insanity’ when the former president asked him why he had done it.
John Schrank later told investigators that he had had visions of William McKinley, whose death elevated Roosevelt to the presidency, calling for his successor’s death. He saw it as his responsibility to stop Roosevelt from breaking George Washington’s tradition of serving more than two terms. Decades later, the twenty-second Amendment to the US Constitution ratified in February 1951 prohibited anyone elected president twice from being reelected. It also prevents someone, who filled an unexpired presidential term lasting more than two years, from being elected president more than once.
University of Texas at Austin historian and Roosevelt’s other biographer HW Brands wrote the attempt on the 26th president’s life captured the country’s imagination but he could not win but finished ahead of Taft. Woodrow Wilson managed to win as Roosevelt’s candidacy split the Republican vote. Roosevelt conceded defeat saying like all other good citizens, he accepted the result with good humor and contentment. Unlike him, Trump’s supporters ransacked the Capitol with his encouragement to march on the building where the American legislative body meets to stop Congress from ratifying Joe Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021.
From Lincoln to Kennedy and the Rising Tide of Political Violence
According to the Congressional Research Service, at least 15 direct assaults against presidents, presidents-elect, and candidates have led to five deaths. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated when John Wilkes Booth shot him in the head in April 1865 for supporting Black rights as Lincon was attending a special performance of the comedy Our American Cousin in Washington with his wife, Mary Todd. Lincoln fought over slavery and issued the proclamation granting freedom to slaves two years before his assassination.
President James Garfield died of his wounds two and a half months after he was shot at a Washington train station in 1881. An anarchist assassinated President William McKinley in 1901 in Buffalo (New York). President John F Kennedy was shot in 1963 in Dallas (Texas) as he rode in a motorcade. President Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts escaping unhurt. Robert F Kennedy, a presidential candidate, was assassinated in 1968 at a Los Angeles hotel.
Violence has been a part of American political culture. However, the emergence of Trump has inflamed it further at a volatile time in the country’s history. The stormy campaign for the 2024 presidential elections and the failed attempt on Trump’s life were feared to make the situation worse.
