The Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting and Assassination in America

Just after 8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 25, a private tutor from California who had traveled to Washington, DC, tried to kill President Donald Trump and members of his administration. This year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was the first that Trump had attended as president, but it wasn’t the first attempt on his life – or, for that matter, anywhere near the first attempt on a president’s life. It wasn’t even the first time the Washington Hilton was the chosen venue for an assassination.

Dinner and a Shooting

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is a yearly event hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of the United States. Before winning the 2016 election, Trump had attended the annual dinner as a private citizen, but he had avoided going as president to protest the media’s coverage of him. Instead, he had chosen the same day to host what he called the Fake News Awards.

This year was to be different. The president said at a news conference after the incident that the night was supposed to be about people of all political stripes – right and left, conservative and liberal and progressive, Republican and Democrat and independent – gathering together in celebration of free speech. Instead, it became a story of political violence.

Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from California, carrying a shotgun, a handgun, and several knives, rushed through the security barrier set up by the Secret Service. Shots were fired, though no one was injured. He was quickly subdued and arrested, but the dinner was canceled.

What causes a person to attempt a political assassination? According to an email he sent to relatives before his actions, Allen saw the Trump administration as such a terrible abuser of human rights that he felt something had to be done to stop it – even if that meant committing murder. But the motives for assassination are as diverse as the people who attempt it. Sadly, America is no stranger to political assassination.

Assassination Dangers of the Presidency

This was not the first assassination attempt against Trump. Back in 2024, during the presidential campaign, two attempts were made on Trump’s life. At a rally in Butler, PA, a gunman on a rooftop fired his gun several times at the president. Trump was shot in the ear – a very close call – and another guest was killed. Then, at a golf course in Florida, a man  with a rifle was caught, after he was lying in wait to shoot Trump. Both planned to kill Trump to keep him from getting elected.

This also wasn’t the first attempted assassination at that particular hotel, which is often referred to as the Hinkley Hilton. On March 30, 1981, John Hinkley fired six shots outside the Hilton, hitting President Ronald Reagan, White House Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and police officer Thomas Delahanty.

President Reagan recovered, which makes this weekend’s second failed assassination attempt at the site. Hinkley, however, tried to kill Reagan – who had been an actor before getting into politics – to get the attention of actress Jodi Foster, with whom he had become obsessed.

In total, four US presidents have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Several more, however, survived attempts. Trump and Reagan are just the most recent. Harry S. Truman was targeted by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1950, and Theodore Roosevelt was shot while campaigning for re-election in 1912 and lived with the bullet in his chest.

At a press conference after the incident, the president remarked that his job was more dangerous than being a race car driver or bull rider. He said that fewer than 10% of 1% of either die. He was right to point out that a president has a statistically higher chance of dying on the job than either profession, but his numbers may be a bit off. The president’s given number is 0.1%. The actual for bull riders is about 0.004%, according to workerscompensation.com. A NASCAR report reveals that about 1.5% of all race car drivers have died in crashes. But with four presidents assassinated out of a total of just 45, that’s a rate of 8.88%. That means a president is almost six times more likely to be shot than a race car driver is to die in a wreck, and more than 2,000 times likely to die on the job than a bull rider!

1. On April 25, 2026, someone tried and failed to kill President Donald Trump and members of his administration at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
2. This was the second time someone had attempted to kill a president at the Washington Hilton; Ronald Reagan was shot there in 1981 but survived.
3. Four US presidents have been assassinated while in office – though many more attempts were unsuccessful.