CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Armed assailant (Cole Tomas Allen) sprinting through supposed secure area, Washington Hilton, April 25, 2026, FBI Field Audio/Video.

In a recent conversation, a friend and I casually discussed, as one does, the declining skills of American presidential assassins. In the first two hundred years (roughly) after the nation’s founding in 1776, we noted, there were nine attempts, four of which were successful – Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy (44%). Since that time, there have been seven attempts, none successful (0%). The most obvious reason for the decline is improved presidential protection.

But given the many demonstrable failures in security, that doesn’t seem the best explanation. Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, shot at Gerald Ford from point blank range; she only failed to hit him because she didn’t properly cock her pistol. Just two weeks later, Sara Jane More also shot at Ford, this time from 40 feet away; she missed and a civilian grabbed her gun and subdued her before she could fire a second round. In 1981, John Hinkley was just ten feet from Ronald Reagan when he squeezed off six shots. All missed their targets, though one ricocheted and struck Reagan in the lung, seriously injuring him. In each case, the Secret Service deserved a grade of F.

The two assassination attempts in 2024 came when Trump was a candidate, not president, so they don’t count in our tally. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that the Thomas Mathew Crooks attempt could be called a comedy of errors, if it weren’t for the tragic death of an innocent bystander and the killing of Crooks himself. The would-be assassin fired eight shots from an AR-15 rifle using a red dot sight. Those sights are not telescopic and thus significantly less precise from long distances. Crooks made a rookie error in choosing the wrong equipment. The Secret Service also performed badly. They failed to spot the shooter early, while he was casing the premises, and allowed Crooks to establish a clear sightline from the roof of a nearby building.  Rounds flew everywhere, and Trump was apparently struck on the ear by a bullet fragment, though that remains contested.

Video of the attack two weeks ago at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner shows no less than eight police and Secret Service officers and one sniffer dog standing around a dismantled magnetometer while the would be shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, dashed toward the ballroom. Five shots were fired at him; none hit their mark, though one may have struck another agent. The knives and shotgun Allen carried (in addition to his pistol) are useless for the purpose of modern-day presidential assassination and only slowed him down. Like Crooks, Allen was poorly prepared for his job, and it was only the ineptitude of police and Secret Service officers that allowed him to get as far as he did. He was apprehended after tripping over a box, or getting tangled up with his own shotgun, a Mossberg 88 Maverick, just outside the auditorium. (As it happens, when I lived in Florida, I owned this model of shotgun. It’s cheap and heavy and I wouldn’t want to run with it. I fired it exactly twice, at a helpless tree stump ten feet away, and missed both times.) More information may emerge to change our understanding of Allen’s planned attack. It could have been an attempted suicide by cop rather than assassination. If so, the cops who couldn’t shoot straight let Allen down.

It’s unclear why the assassins in the cases above performed so poorly. The most likely explanation is that their acts were expressions of narcissism or grandiosity rather than principle. They wanted to be seen, apprehended or perhaps even killed. That isn’t true for the assailants of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley or Kennedy. In each of those cases, the assassin was motivated by political or moral enthusiasm, however misguided. Successfully killing a president, in short, requires the discipline born of overpowering conviction. That’s why it’s rare in the contemporary U.S. Most of us are glad for that fact; a few are unhappy about it; fewer still will openly admit the latter sentiment.

Assassinating the president is a crime under federal statute 18 U.S. Code § 1751. The same law forbids assassinating, kidnapping or assaulting the Vice-President or anyone in line to become president following the office holder’s death or incapacity. There is also a law, 18 U.S. Code § 871, that protects the president, vice-president, etc., against threats of death, kidnapping or other bodily harm. These laws are in addition to other state and federal or state laws against murder, kidnapping, assault, threats of violence and all the rest. In sum,........

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