Donald Trump’s Evading Third Assassination Attempt Stirs Memories Of President Ford

Donald Trump was involved in a security incident during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25. The 79-year-old president was promptly protected by Secret Service personnel and taken to safety.

Meanwhile, 31-year-old suspect Cole Tomas Allen was taken into custody after authorities said he fired two rounds toward the gathering. Investigators said he was carrying a semiautomatic handgun, a pump-action shotgun and three knives.

Throughout his presidential career, and even while running for office, Trump has faced a number of assassination attempts. The first was in 2016 during a rally in Las Vegas. A 20-year-old man reportedly tried to grab the service pistol of a police officer providing security at the event.

The man was immediately restrained, prompting renewed scrutiny of existing security arrangements. The suspect later said he wanted to kill Trump to prevent him from becoming president.

In 2024, another assassination attempt took place in Pennsylvania. Trump was attending a campaign rally as he ran for a second term. He was shot and wounded in his upper right ear by a 20-year-old gunman. The suspect fired a total of eight rounds from the roof of a nearby building before being fatally shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper team.

The recent turn of events has reminded many of a similar fate met by ex-President Gerald R. Ford. Within a very short presidency, he had become a target of two assassination attempts spaced out over just 17 days.

As per a supervisory curator at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, the first of these attacks happened when the ex-President was in Sacramento to meet the then-Californian governor. A woman in a red dress shot the bullet as soon as President Ford crossed the plaza.

The curator, Dr. Mirelle Luecke, recalled: “He decided to walk across the plaza from his hotel to his meeting when there was a woman in a red dress who fired a shot.” President Ford escaped unhurt since it was the U.S. Secret Service who jumped straight into action and whisked him away from harm’s way.

Ford faced a second assassination attempt the same month when he was in San Francisco. A bystander fired two rounds at President Ford as he attended a talk session at an event.

Dr. Luecke remembered, “He was back out in California, in San Francisco, getting ready to attend a talk at the AFL CIO, and there was the second attempt. Two shots were fired by Sarah Jane Moore, and a bystander was able to knock the second shot wide, and Ford was ushered into a limousine.”

The repeated number of assassination attempts thereafter prompted President Ford to begin wearing a Kevlar vest from then on. But these jostling events did not deter him from moving as per schedule.

The curator mentioned, “He wanted to remain speaking to the American people and being present and he talks to reporters, talking about how he feels like it's the duty of the President to make these connections with the American people. o, he was really determined that even despite these two really scary assassination attempts, that he would continue to get out there.”