A gunman, identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, was arrested on the evening of April 25 after running through a security checkpoint at a hotel in Washington, D.C., where U.S. President Donald Trump, dozens of top officials in his administration and hundreds of members of the press were attending an annual event for White House reporters, Reuters reported. A Secret Service agent was shot but is expected to make a full recovery after the round hit his bulletproof vest. Cole's precise motivation remains unclear, but acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters on April 26 that Cole was believed to have been targeting members of the Trump administration.

The attack is the latest in a string of violent incidents involving Trump, who survived an assassination attempt in July 2024 while campaigning for the presidential election and another in September 2024, when a Secret Service agent identified a gunman before he could fire shots at Trump. In February 2026, an armed man who tried to enter a secure area at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, was shot and killed.