Once again, a shooter came dangerously close to President Donald Trump.
The storming of a security checkpoint on Saturday night by a gunman, at the hotel hosting the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, was the third time in three years that Trump faced danger. During the 2024 campaign, he survived two assassination attempts, including a bullet that grazed his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In this case, with hundreds of journalists, government authorities and guests, he was shot at by security forces before being detained.
It is not yet known what the man’s motivation was, but the outbreak of violence will certainly reignite questions about the plague of political violence afflicting the United States and whether there is sufficient security around Trump, one of the most targeted presidents in history.
“It’s a dangerous profession,” Trump said later at the White House, referring to being a political leader. He compared his line of work to being a race car driver or a rodeo rider and said presidents were more likely to be shot at or killed.
“No one told me this was such a dangerous profession,” he said.
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There were no metal detectors installed at the hotel entrances, and a security perimeter was only established closer to the ballroom, further inside the Washington Hilton. Security video released by Trump showed the gunman running past the security checkpoint before being captured some distance from the ballroom.
Trump said the incident reinforced why he wanted to build a $400 million ballroom on the White House grounds, which he said would be equipped with the latest security features. That project is currently subject to litigation.
“It’s not a particularly safe building,” he said of the Hilton, before launching into an argument for the need for his planned ballroom. “It’s bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom.”
On July 13, 2024, Trump became the first U.S. president or former president to face an assassination attempt since 1981, when a bullet grazed his ear while he was giving a speech in Butler.
The 20-year-old shooter managed to fire several shots at Trump before the Secret Service returned fire and killed the attacker. But the fact that he came so close to killing Trump sparked immediate demands for changes in the Secret Service. The agency’s competence was called into question.
Trump on Saturday praised the response of the Secret Service and other agencies, and gave credit to the sniper who killed the shooter in Butler. “He got it right between the eyes from 400 yards away, without any warning,” Trump said, adding, “If he hadn’t done that, other than me, you would have had a lot more people dead.”
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Then, on September 15, 2024, a man armed with a rifle hid in the vegetation at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, planning to shoot Trump.
The suspect, Ryan Routh, was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Asked on Saturday why he believed he was the target of violence so often, Trump said it was due to the consequential nature of his presidency.
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“I have studied assassinations, and I have to say that the most impactful, the people who do the most” are the targets, Trump said, adding: “The people who do the most, the people who have the biggest impact — those are the ones they go after.”
In addition to the known attempts on Trump’s life, he faced other threats. Federal prosecutors said Iranian agents conspired to kill Trump in retaliation for the U.S. killing during Trump’s first term of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who helped lead Iran’s terrorism campaign.
The president is the highest-profile target of political violence, but threats have affected officeholders at the local, state and federal levels for years. The violence claimed the lives of members of both major political parties.
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There was the 2017 mass shooting of Republicans at a congressional baseball practice that nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana. And there was the murder last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Democrats also often live under threat. There were the murders, in Minnesota, of a Democratic state representative and her husband; the arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro; an attack with a hammer on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; the shots fired at a Kamala Harris campaign office in Arizona.
There was also the attack, on January 6, 2021, by a pro-Trump mob on the Capitol, which injured around 150 police officers.
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Threats against members of Congress from both parties have skyrocketed.
Trump on Saturday acknowledged the mood.
“In light of tonight’s events, I ask that all Americans wholeheartedly renew their commitment to resolve our differences peacefully,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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