On April 27, 2026, a gunman opened fire in the security screening area of the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., where the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner was being held. President Donald J. Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and numerous other senior administration officials were present at the dinner.
The shooting marked the third assasination attempt on the president in the past two years.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, Calif., was charged with one count of attempt to assassinate the President of the United States, transportation of a firearm & ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Theogony interviewed Aamer Madhani, a White House reporter for the Associated Press, who attended the correspondents’ dinner. Madhani was in attendance to receive the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage under Deadline Pressure with fellow Associated Press reporter Zeke Miller.
Madhani said that the event had begun as expected, with guests mingling and talking to each other before the speaking and awards portion of the event was supposed to start. The small talk was interrupted, however, by what Madhani described as a series of loud thumps. “It didn’t register as gunshots to me,” he said. “And I’m familiar with gunshots.”
A few moments after the thumps, Madhani noticed the Secret Service rush the president and the first lady out of the room. At that moment, he realized something was wrong.
“I was sort of stunned, and slapshot, and I did nothing for the first 30 to 45 seconds,” he said. “But then I realized, ‘oh yeah, I’m a reporter.’”
Madhani and his AP teammates began to film and work the room, trying to figure out what was going on. From Madhani’s vantage point, he saw the likes of Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, Scott Bessent, the secretary of the treasury, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of war and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, being escorted by security out of the room.
Madhani also realized from discussions with attendees that were sitting in the back of the room opposite of his seat that the thumps he had heard were gunshots.
According to the Justice Department report on the shooting, Allen entered the event through a security checkpoint inside the hotel leading to the hotel’s ballroom.
To enter the hotel, attendees of the dinner had to show their tickets, and guests of the hotel were also allowed access into the building. However, Madhani observed that people were not required to go through metal detectors until they entered the hotel, a noticeable difference from other presidential events.
“Typically, when you go to an indoor event where you’re going to watch or cover the event, and the president’s going to be there, you go through security before you even enter the building,” said Madhani. “This one had the security well into the building, so you would come in and you’re in the lobby with everybody else.”
Upon entering the Terrace Level that led to the ballroom, at 8:30 p.m., Allen charged the security checkpoint, sprinting through the metal detector holding a weapon. Gunshots were heard, and a nearby Secret Service officer was shot in the chest.
A Secret Service officer drew his weapon and fired multiple times at Allen, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot. Allen was then arrested.
Shortly after 8 p.m., the dinner was officially called off by the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Weijia Jiang.
At approximately 10:30 p.m., Trump addressed the press in the White House briefing room following the incident and updated the public on his safety.
Madhani says that the frequent occurrences of attempts on the president’s life should lead the Secret Service and the White House to consider changes in how they protect him.
“The last time an assassination attempt happened on a president was Ronald Reagan in 1981,” said Madhani. “That’s a long time that we went without that level of violence perpetrated against the sitting president.”
Madhani also says that the assasination attempt poses broader questions about the tenor of the political conversation and the prevalence of political violence in America. He cited the arson attack and attempted assasination of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and his family in April of 2025 and the assasination of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband in June of 2025 as examples, alongside the attempts against President Trump.
“I think there’s broader questions about what [this incident] says about the tenor of the political conversation and the prevalence of political violence in our country right now,” said Madhani.
