By Gram Slattery, Bo Erickson and Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – The shooting on Saturday night of a Secret Service agent at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner raises questions yet again about the protection afforded to America’s political leaders at a time of increased political violence.
Hundreds of agents from several law enforcement agencies were tasked with protecting the annual bash, which President Donald Trump headlined this year.
Yet a suspect with a shotgun and other weapons managed to get just a floor above the Washington ballroom where an extraordinary concentration of cabinet members, high-ranking lawmakers and celebrities were dining.
In addition to Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and various other government officials were in attendance, many with their own security details.
‘NOT PARTICULARLY SECURE BUILDING,’ TRUMP SAYS
It is too early to definitively say whether there were any law enforcement failures or miscommunications.
But coming less than two years after a pair of assassination attempts against Trump during the presidential campaign in 2024, Saturday’s incident suggests even the nation’s most comprehensive personal security apparatus has points of vulnerability.
Washington’s police chief said the alleged gunman – who was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and knives – was staying at the Washington Hilton hotel where the dinner took place.
During an impromptu White House press conference after the incident, Trump praised first responders, including the Secret Service.
He also mused about the dangers of being president, noting some of his predecessors had been assassinated, but adding that the suspect had not been close to “breaching” the doors of the ballroom.
“It’s not particularly a secure building,” Trump said of the hotel about a 10-minute drive from the White House. It was also the site of a 1981 assassination attempt against then-President Ronald Reagan.
While the roughly 2,600 attendees were required to pass through metal detectors to enter the basement ballroom, they needed only to show a ticket to enter the hotel itself, which also was open to guests. With the venue’s entrance surrounded by demonstrators, many protesting the Trump administration’s war against Iran, attendees were quickly waved through.
In video footage, the gunman can be seen charging down a hallway past a security checkpoint. He then shot an agent, before being tackled and handcuffed, according to authorities.
Inside the ballroom, attendees were still eating the spring pea and burrata salad when guests toward the back of the room reported hearing multiple gunshots.
Secret Service agents quickly rushed Trump and Vance off the long head table, though the protective agents for many cabinet members and lawmakers – seated on the floor with the journalists and their guests – reacted in different fashions. Some agents clambered through the packed ballroom, standing on chairs and overturning tableware to reach protectees, while bewildered guests ducked under tables.
Security details for cabinet members, including Rubio, Bessent and Burgum, pushed their protectees to the ground and formed human shields. Most protectees were eventually ushered out, though the timing of their removals varied significantly, with some being spirited out almost immediately and some staying put for minutes.
Trump, who narrowly escaped death in 2024 when a would-be assassin’s bullet skimmed his ear during a campaign stop, was for his part eager to restart the festivities, White House officials said.
He later told journalists the Secret Service determined that continuing the event would be impossible.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery, Bo Erickson and Nandita Bose; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and William Mallard)
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