A Look at Other Attacks on Presidents
Some context.
Because I am a curious type, I went looking for other known attempts on presidents in recent history.
Congress.gov provides the following: U.S. Secret Service: Threats to and Assaults on Sitting Presidents and Vice Presidents from November of 2024.
Here’s the list:
It seems worth noting that the shooting of Trump in Butler, PA, on the campaign trail does not fit the above category, as Trump was not the sitting president at the time. The same is true of the fellow lying in wait for candidate Trump at his golf course in September of 2024.
Still, since it is unusual for a one-termer to run again, maybe we should count those two attempts as the same category.
Still, based on the table above, Gerald Ford faced the most direct assaults while in office–two in roughly 2.5 years. Reagan, Clinton, and Obama, by contrast, suffered only one such attack in eight years. Granted, Reagan was actually shot.
Trump is unique, if we count attempts to include time in office and candidacy for office (that is, assuming that he was the target last night, which seems likely). Still, Ford’s two attempts in September of 1975 illustrate that maybe we don’t need conspiracy theories to explain these things.
In terms of our current political moment, let’s not forget the following examples of clear political violence in the last decade. This is all needed context, in my view.
- 2017: The shooting of Congressional Republicans at baseball practice.
- 2020: 13 men are arrested on suspicion of seeking to kidnap and murder Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
- 2022: Armed Man Traveled to Justice Kavanaugh’s Home to Kill Him, Officials Say.
- 2022: Paul Pelosi, U.S. House speaker’s husband, attacked inside their San Francisco home. Nancy Pelosi may have been a target as well.
- 2025 (April): Arson attack on the home of PA Governor Josh Shapiro.
- 2025 (June): Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered in their home. The same attacker also shot State Senator John Hoffman and his wife.
- 2025 (August): Shooter attacked CDC headquarters to protest COVID-19 vaccines, authorities say.
- 2025 (October): Political activist Charlie Kirk was murdered at an event at Utah Valley University.
No doubt, I am forgetting some examples. Still, the last half-decade alone (or even the last year) has provided plenty of evidence of a broader political violence problem. This suggests that focusing just on Trump and looking for patterns on there is a mistake.
While not in the same category as the list above, it seems worth noting things like ICE violence in multiple cities, but specifically the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as we attempt to assess the spirit of our current age.
And, as I noted in my previous post, there is the general shooting problem we have in the United States.
The most surprising thing about this attack, to me at least, is that the shooter seemed to be quite rational, to judge from the long message he sent his family just before beginning it. His arguments were coherent, even if one does not agree with them. His observations about the appalling hotel security made minutes before he tested it were perceptive. Yet he apparently believed he could get near enough to Trump and other regime officials to kill them, armed with a shotgun, which was unbelievably irrational.
This is patently false. It overlooks the many times an assassination plot was foiled by federal officials long before the would-be killers got anywhere near the president. Here, for example, is one against Obama from 2009:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_assassination_plot_in_Tennessee
And here is the comprehensive list for all US presidents:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots
Restricting the definition of assassination attempts to incidents where someone managed to get within the vicinity of the president is a deeply misleading way of analyzing the issue, because it gives the false impression Trump has had a higher number of attempts than other modern presidents, when the only real difference with him was a failure by feds to stop these attempts as early as in many of the other examples.
One other thing. The two attempts on Ford happened within a 17-day time frame, both by women (which is itself pretty unusual). In other words, the second was a copycat.
Probably worth noting that Hortman’s husband Mark (and their dog) were also murdered in this attack.
@Kylopod:
No, not patently false. There is a difference between a “Direct Assault” and a plot.
One may or may not be a better metric, but that is a different discussion.
It’s not misleading if what I was looking for was actual attacks. I was not suggesting that this brief post is all there is to say on the subject.
@Kylopod: How is it relevant that one was a copycat? An attack is an attack.
@Jen: Apologies for leaving that out.
@Kylopod: Let me be clear: my point is about debunking conspiracy thinking, and to provide a little context.
I am not sure what it is you think I am arguing.
By the definition of the chart, Trump has had more direct attacks, but only if you count two when he was a candidate.
How is noting that a problem?