President Trump on stage at the White House Correspondents' Dinner before the event was interrupted by a shooting on April 25, 2026. Photo by Pool/ABACA/Shutterstock In my four decades protecting lives — from the streets of the South Bronx as an NYPD detective in the robbery and gun squads to building and leading a powerhouse security company — I have never seen a more alarming pattern of incompetence.
In the past 22 months, four documented assassination attempts have been made against President Donald Trump.
My experience growing Brosnan Risk Consultants from a one-man basement operation into a firm deploying over 7,000 elite security professionals across 43 states has sharpened my ability to spot the micro-gaps, systemic breakdowns and unforgivable lapses that others overlook.
And I’ve been physically present at every one of those four would-be assassination locations.
I’ve walked the rooftops, scoured the perimeters and tested the protocols myself.
What I’ve found is not just failure, but an alarming level of negligence that will get the president killed unless we act now.
On July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa., Thomas Matthew Crooks exploited catastrophic failures in communication, coordination, command and control.
Local, state and federal agencies collapsed at the most basic level.
The shooter was the only person who thought to put a drone in the air that day: Incredibly, none of the multiple agencies on scene did.
With readily available counter-drone technology, integrated with ironclad security protocols and real-time command, Crooks would have been identified and neutralized long before he climbed Building 6 and fired.
Two months later, on Sept. 15, 2024, Ryan Wesley Routh hid in the bushes at Trump International Golf Course with an automatic weapon for nearly 12 hours.
Twelve hours — when a simple canine patrol would’ve identified him in minutes.
The complete absence of proactive, layered detection assets at that golf course was inexcusable, and nearly fatal.
On Feb. 22 of this year, Austin Tucker Martin tried to breach the North Gate at Mar-a-Lago armed with a shotgun and a gas can.
I have personally ridden my motorcycle through that exact gate more than 100 times, so I saw it in action: It was a legacy, heavy gate with a slow cycle that took up to 60 seconds to close.
Any competent security plan would have ensured that gate would snap shut almost instantly, like a mousetrap, when a threat was spotted, eliminating the window for penetration.
The danger was identified after the February breach and was quickly corrected, now replaced by an updated gate that closes lightning fast.
This is what intelligent security planning requires — constant reassessment — because the Winter White House cannot be protected with half-measures.
Then came Saturday’s attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, when Cole Tomas Allen allegedly sprinted through the magnetometer with multiple weapons and shot a Secret Service officer en route to the International Ballroom as the event got underway.
Plainclothes and uniformed officers positioned strategically in the Hilton Hotel’s lobby would have dropped him cold before he ever reached the checkpoint.
Moreover, magnetometers should have been mandatory at the hotel’s Connecticut Avenue entrance for the duration of the event.
This 1,107-room Hilton — potentially packed with 2,000 or more guests and 2,500 attendees — required full choke-and-funnel screening: metal detectors, bag searches and ID checks for everyone, hotel guests included.
Even then, a second magnetometer checkpoint was essential outside the ballroom, with armed officers at the escalator base, staircases and throughout the lobby.
Yet such basic layered security measures were ignored.
These attempts on Trump’s life were not random acts of God.
And the near misses were the predictable result of outdated thinking, weak technology, fragmented command and personnel who lack the elite training and battlefield mindset required for this threat level.
After a lifetime spent building systems that close every micro-gap, I know what works: seamless integration of the best and brightest — former Delta Force, Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, top law enforcement — paired with world-class canines, counter-drone capability, rapid-response protocols and zero tolerance for slow gates or blind spots.
We must immediately get smarter — demanding truly comprehensive, ironclad security built by top professionals — or we’ll see attempts like these again and again.
Sooner or later, one will succeed, and someone will kill the president of the United States.
The American people deserve better. Trump does, too.
No previous president has had so many confirmed attempts on his life.
What worked for Jimmy Carter clearly doesn’t work for Donald Trump.
Different world, different rules: The US Secret Service’s entire playbook — from protocol and policy to procedures and staffing — must undergo a total overhaul.
We need the highest level of protection this nation can provide before the next attempt on Trump becomes the last one.
Patrick J. Brosnan is a former NYPD detective and founder of Brosnan Risk Consultants, the nation’s largest privately held security company.
