On the night of April 30, 2011, Donald Trump sat in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton as the butt of the most consequential set of jokes in modern American political history. Fifteen years later, almost to the week, he returned to the same hotel — this time as a sitting US president — and was rushed from the building amid gunfire.
The arc between those two nights tells much of the story of Trump, the realty businessman and reality TV star who went on to become arguably the most powerful person in the world.
Night that started it all: ‘The Donald’
Trump attended the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner as a guest of The Washington Post, invited by then editor Lally Weymouth. He had spent weeks inflaming the “birther” movement — publicly demanding that the then President Barack Obama produce his birth certificate and questioning the legality of his presidency.
Obama had just that day released the document.
He arrived at the dinner armed with material. “Now, I know he’s taken some flak lately,” Obama told the room, “but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald.”
Obama then mocked Trump’s interest in conspiracy theories: “And that’s because he can finally get back to focussing on the issues that matter, like: did we fake the moon landing?”
Comedian Seth Meyers followed from the podium. “Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican,” Meyers said, “which is surprising since I just assumed he’d be running as a joke.”
Trump sat through the barrage in silence, his expression captured by television cameras trained on his table. At some points, he nodded, smirked, smiled too.
Those who were with him that night later said the moment was transformative.
“I think that is the night he resolves to run for president,” Trump adviser Roger Stone told PBS Frontline in a 2016 documentary ‘The Choice’.
“I think that he is kind of motivated by it: ‘Maybe I’ll just run!'” he said.
Trump himself has denied as much. Speaking to Fox News earlier this year, he said he had been treated “rudely and crudely” that evening, but insisted the dinner was not what drove his candidacy.
“There are many reasons I’m running,” he told The Washington Post in 2016, “but that’s not one of them.”
The boycott years in his first term
Whatever the dinner’s role in his decision to run, Trump made clear after taking office that he had no intention of returning to the annual event.
He skipped the event for all four years of his first term, citing the media’s coverage of the Russia-interference investigation into his campaign, and what he described as a hostile press corps. “The press was so nasty, I just — so I didn’t do it,” he said.
Each year the dinner took place without him, the chair of the White House Correspondents’ Association opened proceedings by noting the president’s absence and what it said about the administration’s relationship with a free press.
The return: April 26, 2026
Trump’s decision to attend this year’s dinner was framed as a gesture of reconciliation, timed to coincide with America’s 250th birthday celebrations.
“The White House Correspondents’ Association very nicely asked the President to join them at their annual dinner this year as the honoree, which he gladly accepted,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle confirmed.
But the evening was cut short.
Shortly before shots rang out, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen — a teacher and engineer from Torrance, California — rushed a security checkpoint outside the ballroom armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives.
A Secret Service officer was struck but protected by a bulletproof vest.
Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice-President JD Vance, and senior cabinet members were evacuated.
Acting attorney general Todd Blanche confirmed on Sunday that investigators believe Allen had travelled from California by train to target the president and his administration. “It does appear that he did, in fact, set out to target folks who work in the administration, likely including the president,” Blanche told NBC News.
Allen had sent a written manifesto to family members approximately ten minutes before the attack. “Let me start off by apologising to everyone whose trust I abused,” the note began.
It expressed political grievances and a belief that targeting administration officials was, in Allen’s words, his duty.
His manifesto included the line: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” When a journalist read it to Trump, he replied, “I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
Trump has faced allegations about his connections with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted pedophile who died by suicide in jail in 2019. The ‘Epstein files’ related to his conduct and crimes were released recently, and Trump is mentioned in them as being his guest at times.
‘Third attempt
Trump also called it a third attempt on his life in under two years, referencing two assassination attempts in Butler, Pennsylvania, and West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2024. “I’ve been through this before a couple of times,” he said.
Former President Obama issued a statement on Sunday urging Americans to “reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy”, adding: “I’m grateful to them — and thankful that the agent who was shot is going to be okay.”
Cole Tomas Allen was expected to be arraigned by Monday. Charges so far included use of a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer.
