It happened again. A deranged left-adherent, Cole Allen, fueled by hate, came too close to assassinating President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night.
Allen, a 31-year-old teacher and video game developer from Torrance, California, charged at the security checkpoint outside the ballroom. Before being tackled, he fired at least five shots, hitting one Secret Service agent who will recover fully due to wearing a bulletproof vest. When apprehended, Allen was carrying a pistol, a shotgun, and multiple knives.
Ten minutes before the shooting, Allen sent a manifesto to his family members. He declared: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
According to the New York Post, Allen was affiliated with the progressive group “The Wide Awakes” and attended a left-wing “No Kings!” protest in California. In his manifesto, Allen bragged about how easily he planned the attack. He questioned: “What the hell is the Secret Service doing?” He condemned the agency for a “level of incompetence” that was “insane.” Allen stated: “I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got … is nothing. No damn security … Not in the hotel. Not in the event.”
Not only did Allen understand the inadequate security for the dinner, but many attendees also experienced similar vulnerabilities. Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake posted: “I can’t believe how lax the security was… Upon entering nobody asked to visibly INSPECT my ticket nor asked for my photo identification. All one had to do was flash what appeared to be a ticket, and they were fine with that.”
Conservative influencer Mads Campbell noted: “To enter the event, there was ‘no bag check. no real screening. no line.’ Just thousands of people packed together, being pushed through the doors as fast as possible—it felt wrong immediately. Like, viscerally wrong.” She attended with her best friend, who felt “something is going to happen.” Campbell added: “There needs to be accountability because this should never happen again.”
Yet, sadly, it keeps happening to President Trump.
How did Allen—whom he called a “Friendly Federal Assassin”—get so close? How did Thomas Matthew Crooks gain access to a roof closest to the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024? He deployed a drone to scout the location while the Secret Service claimed the roof was too steep for agents. Before being killed by a Secret Service sniper, Crooks fired eight shots at Trump, wounding him in the ear, killing firefighter Corey Comperatore, and injuring two others.
Several months later, how did Ryan Routh know President Trump was playing golf in West Palm Beach, Florida? He waited 12 hours in a sniper’s nest in the bushes next to the course, armed with backpacks, an SKS-style rifle with scope, a Go-Pro camera, and ceramic tiles that may have been body armor. A Secret Service agent noticed Routh’s gun protruding from the bushes and fired shots at him. Although Routh escaped, he was apprehended after being spotted by a local resident.
On February 22, 2026, Austin Tucker Martin illegally entered the north gate of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. He carried a shotgun and a can of gasoline. After law enforcement officials ordered him to drop the items, Martin raised the shotgun to a shooting position. Thereupon, he was shot dead by officers. Fortunately, Trump and his wife were in Washington, D.C., so no law enforcement officials were injured.
Along with the assassination attempts, there have been other major security lapses around President Trump. On August 31 last year, a member of the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia brought a loaded Glock into the facility while Trump was on premises—the weapon not detected by Secret Service handheld magnetometers. On September 20, 2025, Jacob Samuel Winkler was arrested for pointing a red laser beam at Marine One, an act that “posed a risk of flash blindness and pilot disorientation” and “placed Marine One at risk of an airborne collision.”
How were these individuals allowed so close to the president? While investigations continue into recent incidents, Americans are increasingly familiar with security lapses placing our nation’s 47th commander in chief at serious risk. The pattern of failures over the past two years has exposed critical vulnerabilities endangering both President Trump and the country.
