A 31-year-old man armed with multiple weapons rushed a Secret Service checkpoint at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday and opened fire on an officer, federal authorities said. The officer was shot in his ballistic vest and transported to a hospital. Agents returned fire but did not strike the suspect, Cole Thomas Allen, who was also taken to a hospital after the confrontation.
Senior federal law enforcement sources told Fox News that Allen told investigators after his arrest that he was targeting Trump administration officials. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, appearing Sunday on NBC News, declined to specify which officials Allen had intended to target. President Trump and other administration officials present at the dinner were safely evacuated from the venue before the shooting unfolded.
The incident drew swift condemnation from lawmakers and law enforcement officials, who called for a reduction in heated political rhetoric. Retired NYPD inspector Paul Mauro, speaking Sunday on Fox & Friends Weekend, linked the attack to a broader pattern he described as a metastasizing wave of political violence driven by the internet.
"This reminds me a bit of what it was like at the height of the 'age of terrorism,'" Mauro said. He drew a parallel to the way extremist ideology spread online following the post-9/11 era, eventually reaching audiences it would never have found through traditional channels. "The rise of the internet, and the rise of social media specifically, has allowed this ideology to disseminate into corners where previously it would not have found so much support," he added.
Mauro said investigators will almost certainly find evidence of online radicalization once search warrants are executed and Allen's devices are examined. "Almost any person these days can find some place, some niche on the internet that will support your position," he said. He predicted that digital forensics would show Allen "was probably imbibing that kind of ideology online, and he decided to act on it because people were telling him it's the right thing to do."
The attack is not the first time federal law enforcement has confronted politically motivated violence in recent years. Similar concerns followed two assassination attempts against President Trump in 2024 and the September 2025 killing of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus.
The case against Allen remains active. Investigators have not publicly detailed the specific weapons recovered at the scene or identified which Trump officials Allen allegedly intended to harm.
