It’s time to start asking why security keeps failing President Trump
In the wake of this weekend’s shocking attempted assassination of President Trump and, potentially, multiple senior cabinet officials, it’s time to start asking some serious questions about this repetitive cycle of security failures
Opinion-editorial by Summer Lane | April 27, 2026
Why do dangerous gunmen keep getting close to President Donald Trump?
As the President of the United States, the last thing an executive should be worried about is whether his Secret Service detail will fail to protect him, fail to secure a perimeter, or fail to let a gunman get even remotely close to him or his family.
And yet, over the weekend, there was an assassination attempt against the president during an event that seems to have been woefully unsecured.
Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner turned chilling when alleged gunman Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of California, opened fire in the area outside the event banquet, prompting the immediate evacuation of the president, the First Lady, and the entire senior cabinet.
Yes, the entire senior cabinet was onsite, under one roof, in a hotel in Washington, D.C., that should have been airtight if the Secret Service had done its job correctly.
This brings the assassination attempts against President Trump up to three. Alongside other reported failures in the executive security detail over the past few years, it begs a single question: why does this keep happening, and what does it mean?
Saturday’s incident is another breach in a long line of security failures
The suspected shooter was arraigned Monday in federal court, where a judge told him he was facing three counts, according to The New York Times. A federal prosecutor, per the outlet, told the judge that Allen allegedly came to D.C. with “a pump-action shotgun, a pistol, and three knives,” with the intent of political assassination.
He is accused of attempting to assassinate the President of the United States.
The shooter allegedly broke through a security checkpoint inside the Hilton hotel where the WHCD was being held, but never reached the ballroom where the president and senior cabinet officials were seated. Gunfire ensued, injuring one Secret Service agent.
It is shocking that a single man, armed with loaded weapons, was able to get inside a facility where the president and the U.S. line of succession were located.
Of course, this is the third high-profile assassination attempt against President Trump, preceded by the now-infamous Butler near-assassination (a lone gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, allegedly took the shot that bloodied the president’s ear) and another plot by Ryan Wesley Routh (yet another alleged solo player who brought a rifle to the Trump International Golf Club while the president was onsite).
There have been other known breaches of security for President Trump. According to Axios, attempts against the president date back to 2016, ranging from insane murder-for-hire plots via the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. to the recent 21-year-old who showed up to Mar-a-Lago with a shotgun.
Another example? In 2025, a troubling security breach occurred when far-left activists with CODEPINK allegedly received advance knowledge that President Trump would be dining at Joe’s Seafood in D.C., staging an in-house protest several feet away from the president, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and even Vice President J.D. Vance.
It cannot be overstated just how impossible it should have been for mere protesters to get this close to any president, let alone know where he was going to be.
Why does this keep happening?
Broad incompetence? Or something much more sinister?
When something keeps happening – repeatedly – it’s only logical to stop and ask why?
“There have now been 3 assassination attempts against President Trump and multiple breeches [sic] of his security perimeter—how and why does this keep happening?” observed Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
He added, “Dismissing it as sheer incompetence can only explain so much. The purpose of any system is what it does. We need to be asking: what is the purpose of this system?”
He’s right. This is the question everyone needs to ask. The Secret Service shouldn’t make mistakes like this. So why are they? Why are men with loaded weapons getting close enough to the president to fire off a shot?
In the alleged manifesto released by the media over the weekend, Allen supposedly wrote this about his experience walking into the Hilton:
“No damn security. Not in transport. Not in the hotel. Not in the event. Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance. I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat. The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.”
Does this demonstrate nothing more than incompetence on the security team’s part? Partly. Is the Secret Service merely understaffed and overworked, as some have suggested? Perhaps.
Americans probably don’t recall serious and repetitive lapses of security for any other modern president, because this is not the norm. Aside from President John F. Kennedy (who was indeed killed) and President Ronald Reagan (who almost died from a gunshot wound in 1981), the Secret Service is the best of the best, and they have always protected the executive branch well.
The continual security failures around President Trump suggest, perhaps, a darker motive.
Is this a soft flex from shadowed entities, ensuring President Trump receives a message that he alone understands? Is this a foreign power, reminding the Trump administration not to step out of line? Is this a threat from within? Is it both a foreign and internal warning?
These are the complex and chilling questions that deserve to be answered.
The narrative and actions of a so-called “lone gunman” aren’t enough to explain this away. Sure, there may very well be plenty of crazed lunatics out there, but none of them should be able to infiltrate a security perimeter meant to protect the entire senior cabinet of the U.S. government.
What happened on Saturday was not only a failure of basic security, but it was a sinister sign that President Trump is not as safe as he should be – and he knows it.
This is an unacceptable standard that Americans should reject for the sake of not only President Trump, but for all future presidents. No leader should ever fear this kind of physical threat while in or out of office.
Photo: Adobe Stock
