2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting
shooting in Washington, D.C.
On the evening of April 25, 2026, gunshots were fired near the main security screening area for the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. Shortly afterwards, President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and members of Trump's Cabinet were evacuated from the event by Secret Service officials. This was the first White House Correspondents' Dinner that Trump has attended as president.
Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, who allegedly intended to target multiple Trump administration officials. Allen was arrested near the screening area outside the banquet hall, after running past the security checkpoint while armed. Investigators believe he was staying at the hotel as a guest. One officer was struck in his bullet-resistant vest and admitted to a hospital, then later released. The suspect was taken to the hospital for a single knee injury despite not being hit by gunfire.
A manifesto that officials attributed to Allen criticized Trump administration policies, referred to himself as the "Friendly Federal Assassin", and stated that he intended to target administration officials. The manifesto did not name Trump, but stated "I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes". Allen was charged with four criminal counts, including attempting to assassinate a US president, carrying a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.
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This entry incorporates text from “2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.