Trump dinner shooting live updates:<\/a> <\/a>For the latest news on the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner shooting, read our blog.<\/p>\n Agents swarmed around tables as plates crashed to the floor of the massive ballroom of the Washington Hilton \u2014 the same hotel where president Ronald Reagan survived an assassination attempt 45 years earlier.<\/p>\n The attack marks the third alleged assassination attempt on Mr Trump in three years.<\/p>\n Josh Roose, an associate professor of politics at Deakin University, said there had been numerous assassinations of sitting presidents and political figures on both sides of US politics.<\/p>\n “This is not unusual. However, the frequency of attempts to assassinate Trump does appear to be unusual,” he said.<\/p>\n Over the decades a total of four sitting US presidents have been assassinated.<\/p>\n Assassinated US presidentsJohn F Kennedy In 1963 John F Kennedy was visiting Dallas, Texas to soft launch his re-election campaign after three years in power.<\/p>\n Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys, who were travelling in an open limousine.<\/p>\n The 46-year-old Democrat was shot in the neck and head while sitting next to his wife, Jackie Kennedy.<\/p>\n He died in hospital 30 minutes later and Lyndon B Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president.<\/p>\n Former US marine Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and charged with the assassination<\/a>, but was fatally shot days later.<\/p>\n William McKinley In 1901 William McKinley was shot at close range by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, New York.<\/p>\n His assassin believed the president, who led the US to victory in the Spanish-American War, was an enemy of the working class.<\/p>\n Doctors removed one of the two bullets that penetrated McKinley’s stomach and sternum and there was hope he would survive.<\/p>\n The public was under the impression that the 58-year-old was going to recover, but he died of complications from his wounds more than a week later.<\/p>\n Vice-president Theodore Roosevelt then assumed the presidency.<\/p>\n James Garfield In 1881 James Garfield was shot in the back as he walked through a railway station in Washington.<\/p>\n The 49-year-old was shot with a .442 British Bulldog revolver by Charles J Guiteau, who had stalked the president for weeks.<\/p>\n He killed Garfield because the president had refused to appoint him to a European consulship.<\/p>\n Guiteau, who was 39, bought the revolver specifically because he thought it would look impressive displayed a museum after the killing.<\/p>\n Doctors were unable to locate the bullet and the president died almost three months later.<\/p>\n Vice-president Chester A Arthur became the 21st US president.<\/p>\n Abraham Lincoln On Good Friday in 1865, president Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by Confederate sympathiser John Wilkes Booth at a Washington theatre.<\/p>\n He was watching the play Our American Cousin at the time.<\/p>\n Lincoln, who was one month into his second term, died the following morning.<\/p>\n The death of the 16th president triggered what was then the largest manhunt in American history.<\/p>\n Vice-president Andrew Johnson took the oath of office as the 17th president.<\/p>\n Political violence in the US today<\/p>\n Dr Roose said the US, where weapons were easily accessible, was experiencing rising polarisation amid entrenched extremism and decades of socio-economic strain.<\/p>\n A history of Secret Service failures, from JFK to Trump<\/a><\/p>\n Each time the Secret Service fails, it learns and adapts to keep its “protectees” safe. But is it able to fulfil that crucial duty?<\/p>\n He said political discourse in the country had always been polarising and aggressive because of the right to free speech.<\/p>\n “Right-wing extremism over there, in particular, is very problematic \u2014 it has been for a prolonged period of time,” Dr Roose said.<\/p>\n “But then, more recently, it has been left-wing extremism. We’re talking about [accused killer] Luigi Mangione<\/a> \u2026 the Charlie Kirk<\/a> assassination.”<\/p>\n “We’re talking here about a long history of it, but also a willingness to accept it because the constitution won’t allow meaningful reform on gun laws.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest attack on US President Donald Trump has once again thrust his country’s long history with political…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8664,29368,4367,29367,12,29371,29365,29362,29364,18498,29372,29370,29366,10,11,29369,29363],"class_list":{"0":"post-46752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-donald-trump","8":"tag-abraham-lincoln","9":"tag-andrew-johnson","10":"tag-charlie-kirk","11":"tag-chester-a-arthur","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-how-many-us-presidents-have-been-assassinated","14":"tag-jackie-kennedy","15":"tag-james-garfield","16":"tag-jfk","17":"tag-john-f-kennedy","18":"tag-john-roose","19":"tag-luigi-mangione","20":"tag-lyndon-b-johnson","21":"tag-potus","22":"tag-president-of-the-united-states","23":"tag-trump-assassination","24":"tag-william-mckinley"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116479151793137118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Men](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/82debf239281ae6187295b3af0d04f6b.jpeg\")
The first assassination attempt against Donald Trump took place at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024.(Getty: Jabin Botsford\/The Washington Post)<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/d7ef742aa4af76557ca133b172082b3b.jpeg\")
John F Kennedy was murdered in 1963.(Reuters: JFK Presidential Library\/The White House\/Robert Knudsen)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/8f76ad916896b437db4ac801df34bc4f.jpeg\")
William McKinley was shot dead in 1901.(AFP: Ann Ronan Picture Library)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9c30bb225e9e6a7d68f331fb440f672f.jpeg\")
James Abram Garfield was assassinated in 1881.(FPG\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/aab0c7e5795d38cd9d1f55897eac537e.jpeg\")
Abraham Lincoln was shot dead in 1865.(Wikimedia Commons: Moses Parker Rice)<\/p>\n