Trump faces unprecedented third assassination attempt
President Donald Trump infamously acknowledges he is choosing the world's most "dangerous profession," but surviving a third unprecedented assassination attempt -- including one where he was shot in the ear -- is only hardening his resolve.
"I've studied assassinations, and I must tell you, the most impactful people, the people that do the most" are the targets, Trump said in a Saturday night White House press briefing after an alleged would-be assassin was stopped by U.S. Secret Service at the Washington Hilton, the notorious site of former President Ronald Reagan's shooting in 1981.
"You take a look at the people, Abraham Lincoln, I mean, you go through the people that have gone through this where they got them, but the people that do the most, the people that make the biggest impact, they're the ones that they go after.
"They don't go after the ones that don't do much because they like it that way."
In Trump's case, three thwarted assassinations are part of his presidential lore, facing a string of shootings, plots and major security breaches unlike anything in history.
Trump cautiously admitted, "I hate to say I'm honored by that," but noted that "the big names" and the big movers are the targets.
Saturday night’s chaos at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington adding a new entry to a list already defined by gunfire in Butler, Pa. (July 13, 2024), an armed suspect at his Florida golf club (Sept. 15, 2024) and the Secret Service discovery of a sniper's nest in eyeshot of where Air Force One lands at Palm Beach International in Florida.
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Trump hailed the unity at the WHCA dinner in a room of some of his fiercest critics in the media, urging Americans to unify in divided political times.
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"In light of this evening's events, I asked that all Americans recommit with their hearts and resolving our differences peacefully," Trump said. "We have to resolve our differences."
"I will say you had Republicans, Democrats, Independents, conservatives, liberals and progressives -- those words are interchangeable, perhaps, but maybe they're not -- but yet everybody in that room, big crowd, record setting crowd. There was a record setting group of people, and there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together," Trump continued.
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"I watched, and I was very, very impressed by that."
Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed from the Washington Hilton after shots were fired outside the ballroom, where the president had been scheduled to speak.
Authorities said one officer was shot but protected by a ballistic vest, and the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen of California, was taken into custody before breaching the room.
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The three men at the center of the most serious known threats are now Thomas Matthew Crooks (Butler suspect, deceased), Ryan Wesley Routh (Palm Beach suspect, sentenced to life) and now Allen (arrested and charged Saturday night).
Crooks, 20, opened fire at the July 13, 2024, campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The FBI identified Crooks as the shooter after he hit Trump in the right ear and killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore before being shot dead by a Secret Service countersniper.
Routh, 59, received a life sentence for his attempt at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in September 2024. Prosecutors said Secret Service agents spotted him with a rifle near the course while Trump was playing, prompting an agent to open fire before Routh could get a shot off.
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Allen, identified in Saturday night’s Washington incident, is the newest name on that list. Authorities have announced firearms and assault-related charges.
Law enforcement at a Saturday night news conference said Allen was armed with multiple weapons and allegedly fired during a rush at a security perimeter near the dinner, striking a Secret Service agent in his bullet-proof vest before being "tackled" to the ground without taking a bullet from the Secret Service.
"One officer was shot, but saved by the fact that he was wearing a obviously a very good bulletproof vest," Trump told reporters, many still in their tuxedos, having left the canceled WHCA dinner, too. "He was shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun, and the vest did the job. I just spoke to the officer and he's doing great. He's great shape. He's very high spirits, and we told him we love him and respect him."
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Taken together, the three cases underscore how Trump’s security profile has changed from unusually fraught to historically extraordinary. One attempt drew blood on a campaign stage, another ended in a life sentence after a rifle ambush at a golf course, and the latest forced a presidential evacuation from one of Washington’s highest-profile public events.
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Trump signaled Saturday night that he does not plan to retreat from public appearances despite the repeated threats.
"The response time was really incredible. and we're going to reschedule," Trump said. "We're going to do it again."
"We're not going to let anybody take over our society," he added. "We're not going to cancel things out because we can't do that. We wanted to stay tonight."
Other thwarted plots and security scares
Beyond the three highest-profile cases, Trump has faced a broader pattern of violent threats and close calls dating back to his first campaign.
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In June 2016, Michael Steven Sandford, a British national, allegedly tried to grab a police officer’s gun at a Trump rally in Las Vegas and later told investigators he intended to kill Trump, according to court records and contemporaneous reporting.
In March 2016, Thomas Dimassimo rushed the stage at a Dayton, Ohio, rally before Secret Service agents tackled him.
And in November 2016, Trump was briefly rushed offstage in Reno, Nevada, after someone in the crowd shouted "gun," though authorities later said the man detained was unarmed.
Public reporting has also documented later threats not carried out at Trump’s immediate location, including a 2020 ricin letter case; a 2024 murder-for-hire plot tied to Iran; a 2017 North Dakota incident in which a man stole a forklift and aimed it toward the presidential motorcade; and a February 2026 confrontation at Mar-a-Lago in which Secret Service fatally shot a 21-year-old who was armed with a shotgun and gas canister while Trump was in Washington.