Assassination Attempt on Trump

Unlike the assassination attempt in Butler and the (failed) attempt in Florida, Cole Thomas Allen’s attempt to break into the Washington Hilton Hotel, where the traditional White House Correspondents’ Dinner was being held, was aimed at eliminating not only Donald Trump himself, but also the entire top leadership of the country.

Along with Trump in the Hilton room were Vice President J.D. Vance and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson — the second and third in line to succeed the current president should the current president be unable to perform his duties.

However, the number four was missing from the event. This was Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore of the US Senate, Senator from Iowa, and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was this oldest sitting member of the Senate (Grassley, 92 years old) who would automatically become president of the United States if Allen succeeded in his plan and destroyed the country’s leadership, so conveniently gathered in one place.

Chuck Grassley is a typical Cold War relic, consistently opposing any agreements with the USSR and later with Russia (notably, he voted against the New START Treaty in 2010). He is a staunch supporter of the Kyiv regime and an even more staunch supporter of Israel.

It would seem difficult to be a greater friend of the Jewish state than Trump himself, but Grassley has managed it. In April 2017, for example, Grassley co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which, if passed, would have made participating in, or even encouraging, boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank a federal crime. Overall, Grassley is the type of Republican who supports Trump but is skeptical, if not hostile, of the MAGA movement.

And this, in my opinion, is the key to what happened on April 25th at the Washington Hilton. Those who used Cole Thomas Allen (or simply enabled him to attempt the assassination) thereby showed Trump and his “support group” a possible scenario for a change of power in the country.

After Trump won the November 2024 election, the prevailing view was that there would be no more assassination attempts against him, as they were pointless — he would be replaced by the much younger J.D. Vance, whom MAGA views as Trump’s natural successor. In other words, Trumpism would continue even without its current leader.

But if we imagine that Allen (or a much more prepared group of professionals who could have breached the Hilton) had succeeded in eliminating not only Trump but also Vance and Johnson, the outcome of such an assassination attempt would have been completely different.

The country would be led by a hard-line Republican hawk, ready to defend Israel even more decisively than Trump, but with nothing in common with the MAGA “people’s movement” and, on Russia, a loyal follower of Ronald Reagan, the victor of the Cold War.

The Hilton shooting wasn’t staged, as many believe, but it wasn’t a real assassination attempt either—it was a warning, a “black mark.” And not just for Trump, but for Trumpism as a whole.