It happened again: a deranged leftist, Cole Allen, fueled by hate, came too close to assassinating President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night.
Allen, who lives in Torrance, California, is a 31-year-old teacher and video game developer. He charged at the security checkpoint, right outside the ballroom. Before being tackled, Allen fired shots, hitting one Secret Service agent, who will make a full recovery because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Ironically, the dinner was held at the Washington Hilton, where President Ronald Reagan was seriously wounded by John Hinckley, Jr. on March 30, 1981.
Allen is believed to have traveled to Washington, D.C. by train and checked into the hotel a day or two before the dinner. When he was apprehended, Allen was carrying a pistol, a shotgun, and multiple knives.
Ten minutes before the shooting, Allen sent a manifesto to his family members. He said he was “no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” According to the New York Post, Allen was affiliated with the progressive group “The Wide Awakes” and attended a leftist “No Kings” protest in California. In 2024, he contributed $25 to ActBlue, “Earmarked for Harris for President.”
In his manifesto, Allen bragged about how easy it was to plan the attack. He asked, “What the hell is the Secret Service doing?” He blasted the agency for a “level of incompetence” that was “insane.” Allen said that he “expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got…is nothing. No damn security…Not in the hotel. Not in the event.”
Not only did a deranged lunatic and attempted assassin understand that the security for the dinner was inadequate, but also many of the people who attended. Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake posted, “I can’t believe how lax the security was…Upon entering nobody asked to visibly INSPECT my ticket nor asked for my photo identification. All one had to do was flash what appeared to be a ticket, and they were fine with that.”
Conservative influencer Mads Campbell posted that to enter the event, there was “no bag check. no real screening. no line. just thousands of people packed together, being pushed through the doors as fast as possible, it felt wrong immediately. like, viscerally wrong.”
She attended with her best friend, who felt “something is going to happen.” Campbell said, “There needs to be accountability because this should never happen again.”
Yet, sadly, it keeps happening to President Trump. How did Allen, who called himself a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” get so close?
How did Thomas Matthew Crooks get access to a roof close to the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024? He used a drone to scout the location, while the Secret Service did not utilize drones and claimed the roof was too steep to position their agents prior to the event. Before a Secret Service sniper killed him, Crooks took eight shots at President Trump, wounding him in the ear, killing courageous firefighter Corey Comperatore, and injuring two others.
Several months later, how did Ryan Routh know that President Trump was playing golf in West Palm Beach, Florida, and be allowed to wait for 12 hours in a sniper’s nest in the bushes next to the course? Routh had backpacks, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope, a Go-Pro camera and ceramic tiles that may have been body armor.
Fortunately, a Secret Service agent noticed Routh’s gun protruding from the bushes and fired several shots at him. Although Routh escaped, he was apprehended by law enforcement officials after being noticed by a local resident.
On February 22, 2026, Austin Tucker Martin illegally entered the north gate of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida. He was carrying a shotgun and a can of gasoline. How did he breach the residence’s security perimeter?
After law enforcement officials ordered Martin to drop the items, Martin “raised the shotgun to a shooting position.” Thereupon, he was shot dead by law enforcement officials. Luckily, the President and First Lady were in Washington, D.C. at the time of the incident, and no law enforcement officials were injured.
Along with the assassination attempts, there have been other major security lapses around President Trump. Last August 31, a member of the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, brought a loaded semi-automatic handgun into the facility while the President was on the premises. The weapon, a Glock, was not detected by Secret Service personnel during security screening using handheld magnetometers.
On September 20, 2025, a man was arrested for pointing a red laser beam at Marine One while the President was on board. Jacob Samuel Winkler was arrested and charged with a felony. His actions “posed a risk of flash blindness and pilot disorientation,” and “placed Marine One at risk of an airborne collision.” How was he allowed to get so close to President Trump?
On October 17, 2025, the Secret Service discovered a “hunting stand” in the woods adjacent to the Palm Beach International Airport. It had a perfect line of sight to the exact location where President Trump departed on Air Force One.
The hunting stand was in place for many “months,” so why did it take the Secret Service so long to discover it? This is an airport that the President uses frequently, and the surroundings should be thoroughly checked on a regular basis. Unfortunately, the law enforcement investigation into the “hunting stand” has not produced any leads.
While the investigation continues into the latest incident, the American people are becoming all too familiar with security lapses involving President Trump. Since he faces countless threats, his protection needs to be top-notch. Regrettably, the incidents over the past two years have exposed shocking security breakdowns that are continually placing President Trump in serious jeopardy.
Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from 1-2 p.m. CT nationally on Real America's Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-9 a.m. & 6-7 p.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com. He is the President and General Manager of WGSO Radio, a political columnist, the author of America's Last Chance, and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and at Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com.
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