Next gun attack on Trump raises serious questions about his safety

While a small army of Secret Service agents makes the president perhaps the most protected person in the world, keeping him safe is turning out to be anything but easy.

Initially, there was an assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 2024, when a bullet touched his ear. Just 64 days later, Trump was again the target of a potential bomber while playing golf in his Florida field.

And now, just a few hours after the shooting broke up the dinner atmosphere of the White House Correspondent Association at the Hilton Hotel in the American capital, Trump's safety is again under surveillance.

As the alleged author's precise motive and objective, 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, remains unclear, questions are growing about how an armed person could draw so close to the president.

Among them is the level of security control in the hotel where some of Washington's most important politicians, diplomats, and journalists were located.

Gary O'Donoghue, the BBC's top North American correspondent, who was at dinner, said that although the streets around Washington Hilton were closed for hours, the safety of the environment itself “was not particularly strong”.

The man at the door outside just glanced at my very surface ticket from about two feet away, he wrote.

The images from security cameras published on social networks from Trump show the suspect running through a checkpoint of the Secret Service, which was located on the floor above the large hall. Authorities have said he had a hunting gun, a pistol and several knives with him.

He traded fire with officers before being neutral.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer told the network he saw the suspect shoot several times with a super, very serious “weapon.

The president then published a picture of a man with no shirt lying on the floor with his hands tied behind his back while around him were Secret Service officers.

US acting attorney-in-chief Todd Blanche told NBC News that his target seemed to be administration officials, “likely President” himself.

Police have said that Cole Thomas Allen was a guest in Washington Hilton, who continued to function as a hotel, despite some of the most powerful people in the world in the same building.

Former British Ambassador to Washington Kim Darroch, who attended correspondents' dinners earlier, was critical of the way security was organised.

If you were there [as hotel guest] and you had bad intentions to enter this dinner, there was only one security barrier you had to pass... and then you were in the room,” he told the BBC on Sunday's show with Laura Kuensberg.

Trump himself later said Hilton “is not a particularly safe building”, adding that the incident showed the importance of the new White House hall under construction, but currently subject to judicial process.

It's actually a bigger room and much safer. It's protected by drones. There's bulletproof glass. We need the big hall,” he said.

The president also praised “the “character of the Secret Service, which removed him and the vice president JD Vance from the scene, saying they “did excellent work”.

Law enforcement experts and presidential security have said that the fact that the armed person never managed to enter the main hall indicates that the security measures worked.

Former FBI special agent Jeff Kroeger told the BBC: “This is exactly what the Secret Service is trained for.” When the shots were heard, they “focused on President”, creating a “barrers”, he said.