An assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has heightened concerns about political violence and has increased awareness of past attacks on presidents and candidates.
A gunman, who the FBI identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire at a rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing Trump’s ear. The Secret Service confirmed that Crooks and an audience member died, and two other attendees are in critical condition. Trump was checked at a local hospital and released a few hours later.
Reporters heard numerous shots and Secret Service rushed the stage. Video captured by CBS News shows Trump touching his ear and then crouching to the ground. Some blood could be seen on his face.
In a social media post shared on Saturday night, Trump thanked law enforcement officials for their quick actions.
Past direct attacks against presidents and candidates
A 2008 report compiled by the Congressional Research Service detailed 15 direct assaults against presidents, presidents-elect and candidates, with five resulting in death.
At least seven of the past nine presidents have been targets of assaults, attacks or assassination attempts. The Congressional Research Service report says presidents who survived attacks include Gerald Ford (twice in 1975), Ronald Reagan (a near-fatal shooting in 1981), Bill Clinton (when the White House was fired upon in 1994) and George W. Bush (when an attacker threw a grenade that did not explode towards him and the president of Georgia during an event in Tbilisi in 2005). The latest Congressional Research Service report, citing Secret Service as source, also says that there have been attempts on former President Barack Obama, Trump and President Biden.
Two others who served as president were attacked, either as a president-elect (Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933) or as a presidential candidate (Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, when he was seeking the presidency after being out of office for nearly four years).
Two other presidential candidates —Robert F. Kennedy, who was killed in 1968, and George C. Wallace, who was seriously wounded in 1972— were also victims of direct assaults, according to the report compiled by the Congressional Research Service.
Presidents who were assassinated
Four presidents — Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy — were assassinated.
Of the 15 attacks listed in the report, only the Lincoln assassination was the result of a broad conspiracy, the report says. But conspiracy theories still surround many of these events.
In only one incident — the Lincoln assassination — was a broad conspiracy proven, although such contentions have arisen on other occasions. Only one other incident involved more than one participant — the 1950 assault on Blair House, the temporary residence of President Harry S. Truman. But no evidence of other conspirators emerged from the subsequent investigation or prosecution.
Of the 18 attacks or assassination attempts on presidents or presidential candidates, all but two involved firearms. Thirteen of the fifteen attacks were committed by men, with both assassination attempts on Ford committed by women. Fourteen of the 15 assaults occurred within the U.S.
First documented attack on a president
According to the Congressional Research Service, the first attack on a president occurred in 1835, when an attacker’s pistol misfired against President Andrew Jackson. The attacker, Richard Lawrence, was declared insane. He said “Jackson was preventing him from obtaining large sums of money and was ruining the country,” the report says.
Source: Congressional Research Service, 2008 and 2024
— Jake Miller and John Kelly contributed reporting.