On the evening of Saturday, April 25, the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner was underway at the Washington Hilton hotel. Donald Trump made his first appearance at the event, during his first term, he had ignored every invitation. The evening ended sooner than planned: at 8:36 p.m. local time, an armed man stormed the Secret Service checkpoint in the hotel lobby and opened fire on security agents. Trump and his wife were immediately evacuated. The president was unharmed.
The attacker was tackled to the ground and handcuffed. Agents found a shotgun, a pistol, and several knives on him. One Secret Service agent was wounded, fortunately, he was wearing a bulletproof vest, and he left the hospital that same night.
What happened inside the hall
The dinner guests: journalists, administration officials, diplomats, were seated in the conference room when the shooting occurred and heard no gunfire. They only realized something was wrong when armed agents suddenly burst into the room. Everyone dove under the tables.
NBC anchor Tom Llamas later recalled that Marco Rubio, seated next to him, was worried about his wife and couldn’t understand what was happening: “We were very close to Trump.” NBC White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez described the scene simply: the evening “ended abruptly.”
Who fired
Major American news outlets identified the attacker as Cole Thomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California. According to his LinkedIn page, he had earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, followed by a master’s in computer science in 2025. He had worked as an engineer before becoming an independent video game developer and part-time tutor. A former high school acquaintance described him as “almost a genius” and “a very level-headed person.”
Allen had no criminal record and had not been on law enforcement’s radar. He was believed to be a guest at the hotel. During questioning, he stated that he wanted to kill “members of the administration”, he did not mention Trump himself as a target. Washington prosecutor Jeanine Pirro announced that Allen had been charged with using a firearm in a violent crime and assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon. He is due to appear in federal court on April 27.
A historical parallel
The Washington Hilton is not an arbitrary address for this kind of event. It was here, in 1981, that the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan took place: as the president was leaving the hotel to reach his car, John Hinckley shot him several times. Reagan suffered a punctured lung and spent twelve days in the hospital. His press secretary James Brady received a severe brain injury and remained disabled for the rest of his life. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was only released in 2016.
What Trump said
At an emergency press conference, the president praised the Secret Service for their “incredible response time” and said he had “desperately wanted to stay” and continue the dinner but that security had insisted on the evacuation. He said he had personally spoken to the wounded agent, who was in “great shape and very high spirits.”
On the moment of the incident itself, Trump was disarmingly candid: “I heard a noise and thought it was a tray. I think Melania understood right away what had happened. She was saying: ‘That’s a bad sound.'”
On Truth Social, the president called the evening “extraordinary” and posted surveillance footage showing seven agents drawing their weapons and giving chase to the attacker. This was the second attempt on Trump’s life in under a year: in the summer of 2024, he was grazed on the ear by a bullet during a rally in Pennsylvania. He joked that, had he known the risks awaiting him, he might not have run at all.
Trump promised to hold a new dinner with journalists within thirty days: “I don’t want these terrible people to change the very foundation of our lives.”
