“I can’t imagine a more dangerous profession,” Donald Trump said about his job, just hours after being involved in another serious security incident.
While a small army of Secret Service agents makes the president of the United States arguably the most protected person in the world, keeping him safe is proving to be an arduous task.
First, in the summer of 2024, he suffered an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which a bullet grazed his ear. Just 64 days later, Trump was once again the target of an assailant while playing golf at his Florida course.
And now, after gunfire disrupted the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the capital’s Hilton resort, Trump’s security is once again under scrutiny.
While the motive and exact target of the alleged shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, remain unclear, questions are mounting about how a gunman could get so close to the president.
Police said security officers and the suspect exchanged gunfire on a floor of the resort, just above where Trump and other guests had gathered.
Among the unknowns is whether sufficient security measures were implemented at the resort that housed some of Washington’s most influential politicians, diplomats and journalists.
Gary O’Donoghue, the BBC’s chief North American correspondent, who attended the dinner, said that while the streets around the Washington Hilton were closed for hours, security at the venue itself “was not particularly tight.”
“The man at the door just took a quick look at my entrance from what must have been a distance of six feet,” he wrote.
The dinner tickets only had the table numbers printed on them, not the names of the guests. No identification was requested at any time upon entering the resort.
Guests heading to dinner descended escalators from the main lobbies, before passing through a security checkpoint in an area one floor above the ballroom entrances. At the beginning of dinner, they went down a staircase to enter.
Security camera images posted on social media by Trump show the suspect going through one of the checkpoints, before secret service agents opened fire. Authorities have stated that he was carrying a shotgun, a pistol and several knives.
He exchanged gunfire with officers before being detained.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer told the network that he saw the suspect shoot several times with a “very dangerous” weapon.
The president later posted a photo of a shirtless man on the ground, with his hands cuffed behind his back and surrounded by secret service agents.
Acting US Attorney Todd Blanche told NBC Data that it appeared the target was administration officials, “probably including the president.”
Police have indicated that Cole Tomas Allen was a guest at the Washington Hilton, which continued to operate as a resort despite housing some of the most powerful people in the world.
The resort closed its doors to the public hours before the start of the event on Saturday, and access was restricted to resort guests and those with tickets to dinner or receptions held at the venue.
Once Trump sat in the ballroom, extensive security, including heavily armed counterattack teams, secured the room moments after shots were fired outside.
The former ambassador of the United Kingdom in Washington, Kim Darroch, who had already attended correspondents’ dinners, criticized the security arrangement.
“If you had been there [como huésped del hotel] “and if you had wanted to break into the dinner with bad intentions, you would have only had to get through a security check… and then you would have arrived in the ballroom,” he told the BBC’s “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.”
“Not a particularly secure building”
Trump himself later stated that the Hilton “was not a particularly secure building,” adding that the incident demonstrated the importance of the new White House ballroom, currently under construction but subject to litigation.
“It’s actually a bigger room and much more secure. It’s drone-proof. It has bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom,” he said.
The president also praised the “bravery” of the Secret Service, who escorted him and Vice President JD Vance off the stage, saying they did “a great job.”
Presidential and police security experts have noted that the fact that the attacker never reached the ballroom suggests the security measures worked.
Former Secret Service agent Jeffrey James, who helped protect Trump during his first presidency, noted that the attacker was detained at an “outside perimeter checkpoint” and never reached the floor where Trump was. He also praised the communication between the agents.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s This Day whether the footage showed a delay in Trump’s retreat from the stage, James said officers had used a “tactical pause” of several seconds to ensure they did not rush into an ambush.
Former FBI special agent Jeff Kroeger had previously told the BBC: “This is precisely what the secret service is trained to do.” When the shots were heard, they “converged around the president,” creating a “body barrier,” he added.
Also a former secret service agent, Barry Donadio, told the BBC that there did not appear to be a “lack of agents, officers and police” at the event.
Commenting on how security could change, some experts indicated they expected stricter measures for Trump events, such as a wider perimeter.
The shooting is the latest episode of political violence in the United States, which data shows is on the rise.
In 2023, US Capitol Police investigated more than 8,000 threats, a 50% increase from 2018.
The murder of Charlie Kirk in Utah last year further exposed the deep political divisions in the United States. The conservative commentator was shot while speaking at a Turning Level USA event, in an act of violence that was filmed and broadcast online.
Months earlier, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband, Imprint, were shot to death, while former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked with a hammer and hospitalized with a fractured skull.
Other targets of presidential assassination attempts include Republican President Ronald Reagan, who was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in 1981. Reagan suffered a punctured lung in the shooting, but survived.
The attack took place in front of the Washington Hilton, the same resort that hosted Saturday’s gala.
Asked about the frequency of these attacks at his events, Trump said he had “studied assassinations” and that previous presidents such as Abraham Lincoln were also targeted.
“They are important figures, and I don’t want to say that I feel honored by it, I regret to say that I feel honored by it, but I have done a lot [por Estados Unidos]”.
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