National Review Online
Sunday, April 26, 2026
An armed man charged toward the ballroom where President
Trump and high-level members of his administration were attending the White
House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.
After an exchange of gunfire with security, he was
subdued, while Trump and others were whisked from the room by Secret Service.
The correspondents’ dinner is an entrenched Washington
institution. Seeing guests have to take cover under tables, and high-level
officials shield their wives as heavily armed security officers swarmed the
dais, was another jarring indicator of the insanity that has gripped our
national politics.
This is the third serious attempt on Donald Trump’s life.
We need to learn more about the suspect, a 31-year-old man named Cole Allen,
although he appears from his social media activity to be a fervent Trump hater
who decided to take matters into his own hands.
American life has always had its share of fanatics who
kill or try to kill politically prominent people, and Allen alone bears
responsibility for his acts. Yet, the feverish opposition to Trump — who is
another Hitler, according to the left, and might be the Antichrist, according
to disaffected acolyte Tucker Carlson — provides a permission slip for sundry
fanatics and losers to resort to political violence.
Perhaps this incident will lead the New York Times
and others to conclude that the It Boy of left-winger influencers, Hasan Piker,
a consistent advocate of political terrorism, isn’t as fascinating and cute as
they believe. Just last week, the Times had Piker and a New Yorker
writer on for a friendly conversation about the propriety of killing
health-care executives and blowing up pipelines.
Meantime, what have been routine events in our politics
have to be reconsidered. For decades, no one thought it was intolerably risky
to have the president and top officials who constitute the presidential
succession in the same ballroom together for a night of schmoozing with the
press. Now, it looks like a practice to be avoided.
The correspondents’ dinner will obviously have to change.
The security perimeter around the ballroom held, but dinner and cocktail party
invitees, as well as hotel guests, get proximity to high-level officials before
having to pass through magnetometers. Reports suggest that Allen had checked in
to the hotel, allowing him access to the people and activities outside the
ballroom; he could well have carried out a horrific attack without even trying
to enter the ballroom.
Once he emerged as a threat, the Secret Service reacted
quickly and ably. That’s reassuring, but this shouldn’t be the new normal.
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