From Arson to Assassination: A Timeline of Rising Political Attacks in the U.S.

The past year has seen a sharp increase in violent incidents against government officials. According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the number of such attacks reached a 30-year high in 2025.

The research organization estimated that at least 20 domestic attacks took place against Trump administration officials in 2025. In comparison, 10 such incidents were recorded in 2024. The number has particularly increased due to the immigration crackdown, which led to clashes between the public and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

The CSIS reported that out of the 20 violent incidents, 10 were plotted by the far left and eight originated from the far right. One such plot was thwarted on January 28, 2025, when Capitol Police arrested a suspect carrying Molotov cocktails and a knife. The suspect was allegedly planning to assassinate House Speaker Mike Johnson, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

On March 30, 2025, the New Mexico Republican Party headquarters was targeted by arsonists. The building was set on fire and vandalized with anti-ICE graffiti. Less than two weeks later, an intruder broke into Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s house and set it on fire. Shapiro and his family were inside at the time and had to flee.

On May 30, 2025, a woman was taken into custody for threatening to shoot Senator Marsha Blackburn on live television. The violence escalated further in June when a gunman shot and killed Minnesota House Democratic Leader Melissa Hortman and her husband at their home in a targeted attack.

On September 10, 2025, far-right political activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead during a debate at Utah Valley University. The violence continued on November 26, when a targeted shooting in Washington, D.C., killed a 20-year-old National Guard member and wounded another.

More recently, President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice-President JD Vance, and several administrative officials had a narrow escape when a gunman tried to barge into the White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 25, 2026. A Secret Service officer was injured in the attack, but the alleged assailant, Cole Tomas Allen, was apprehended.

An expert warned that the rising number of political attacks could signal a return to the turbulent era of the 1960s and 1970s, when several leaders were targeted.

‘We lost two Kennedys, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, in a very short number of years,” former FBI agent Katherine Schweit said in an interview with The Independent.

“And I think that temperament, that appetite for political violence after the assassinations in the ’60s and ’70s waned because people saw that violence just causes more violence, and they began to move towards what we need, of course, which is peaceful discord, because that is the foundation of our democracy,” Schweit added.