The landmark hotel, famous for President Ronald Reagan surviving John Hinkley’s assassination attempt in 1981, is in the news again after authorities allege Cole Allen, 31, checked into the hotel Friday night with plans to mass murder President Donald Trump and Cabinet officials inside the hotel ballroom.
And Allen got close, too, which is why attendees inside the ballroom heard gunshots one floor above them.
About six seconds of now-famous surveillance footage show Allen, holding a shotgun, bolting past a security checkpoint at 8:40 p.m. on the Terrace level of the Hilton.
Authorities allege he fired one shotgun blast at a Secret Service agent, who was saved by his ballistic vest, and other agents opened fire but missed their target. The gunman likely tripped and fell instead, ending his plans to be what he called a "friendly federal assassin."
Alarmed by the incident, many eyewitnesses are criticizing what they call a lack of adequate security inside the hotel. If a team of better-trained and better-armed assassins had planned the attack, they would have seen the president, the vice president, and top Cabinet officials, all in one ballroom.
One eyewitness was Bill Melugin, the Fox News correspondent. In an X post, he described getting through the first exterior security in “one second” after flashing his ticket for the event.
“My name was not checked against any list, I showed no ID, I was not patted down and did not go through a metal detector. I probably could have shown a ticket from a prior year or a fake one as they barely looked at it,” Melugin wrote.
After that entry, Melugin said he did not go through any more interior security checks until he was outside the ballroom itself. That security check was tighter, with magnetometers and a pat down.
“And even that checkpoint was just outside of the dinner room,” he wrote.
Hours before gunshots rang out, Fox News host Jimmy Failla had already noticed the poor security, too. Tasked with doing red carpet interviews outside the ballroom, he can be heard in a hot-mic moment telling another reporter that “two random chicks” were standing at the ballroom doors.
“Like, guys, they’re not even trying anymore,” Failla said. “I just mean, like, they’re not even Secret Service people.”
After the shooting, Failla recounted the incident on Fox News. “I knew security was bad the minute they let my team in. I just didn’t know it was that bad,” he said.
After attending the dinner, too, Outkick founder Clay Travis agreed Melugin was “correct” about his observations.
“My exact experience. We are lucky this wasn’t far worse,” Travis wrote in an X post.
Another person surprised by the lack of security at the Hilton is Allen, the alleged shooter. In his manifesto, which described his plans to kill Trump and his Cabinet, the would-be assassin remarks about the lack of security he had seen after checking into the hotel a day earlier, on Friday. In the writings, Allen wrote “what the Hell is the Secret Service doing?” after he expected cameras and armed agents all over.
“I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat,” Allen wrote.
The current director of the U.S. Secret Service is Sean Curran. He is most famous as the sunglass-wearing agent who protected a wounded Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania campaign rally.
A knowledgeable source about the U.S. Secret Service is Susan Crabtree, a Real Clear Politics reporter. Her news beat includes the Secret Service and its political fights going back to Butler and its failure to protect the perimeter around Trump.
Citing her news sources at that agency, Crabtree reported Monday political infighting at the Secret Service involves Susie Wiles, President Trump’s chief of staff. The agency could have undergone “reforms” that were recommended by Kristi Noem, the former DHS secretary, but Wiles rejected that push earlier this year. A source told Crabtree that a top DHS official, who came prepared to discuss ideas for improving the Secret Service, was escorted away after Curran complained to Wiles about the unwelcome visit.
Reacting to that report, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday it’s “absolutely absurd” Susie Wiles would object to “anything that would help strengthen protection for her boss and friend.”
In a related story for The Daily Wire, White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan tracked down a comment from a Secret Service spokesman.
“While the protective model for White House Correspondents’ Dinner event proved effective, the key takeaway for future events is that enhancements should be expected at every level, as that is how the model is designed to function,” the spokesman told Daily Wire.
In a second post about Allen versus the Secret Service, Travis says agents allowed an armed man to run past them, fired at him and missed, and only caught him after he tripped and fell.
"Assassination attempts four and five are coming. You know it, I know it, we have to be better at protecting the president," he warned.
