From Butler to Washington, previous attacks on Trump and the controversy

The shots fired at Donald Trump, in Washington during the dinner with journalists on 25 April, represent the third alleged attack on the US president since 2024, the year of the presidential election that brought him to his second term in the White House.

The most sensational case is the attack in Butler, Pennsylvania, dated 13 July 2024. The tycoon was holding an election rally at the Meridian agricultural fair. At 6.11 p.m. local time, while he was on stage, Trump was hit by a bullet in the right ear: according to the reconstruction of the events, the shot was fired by the 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks with a AR-15-style sniper rifle from the roof of a nearby building. Protected by Secret Service men, Trump was escorted into a vehicle and taken to Butler Hospital in non-critical condition. Federal and local authorities reported two deaths: the bomber and a rally attendee, Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter from Buffalo. Two other participants were seriously injured. In recent days, the American Maga world has questioned the affair, claiming that Butler's bombing was a set-up.

The second alleged attack on Trump also took place during the election campaign. On 16 September 2024, 59-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh walked armed with an AK 47 automatic rifle into the tycoon's golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, lurking in the bushes, and opened fire. The bomber was arrested and on 4 February this year was sentenced to life imprisonment.

And so we come to the attack on 25 April 2026, at the moment of minimum popularity for the US president, mired in the war in Iran after the Ice affair and the Epstein scandal. At the Hilton Hotel in Washington, where the White House Correspondents' Dinner, an event of maximum media prominence, was underway, was arrested Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California.