Jul 13, 2024 - Politics & Policy

Trump rally violence recalls historic presidential attacks

Members of the press and media gather outside of the Good Samaritan Hospital where Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was taken after he was fatally shot during his Presidential Campaign on June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles, CA Photo: Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images — Members of the press and media gather outside of the Good Samaritan Hospital where Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was taken after he was fatally shot during his presidential campaign on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles. Photo: Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

The shooting at former President Trump's Pennsylvania rally on Saturday is one of more than a dozen attacks on American presidents, presidents-elect or presidential candidates in U.S history.

Driving the news: Trump is safe and has said he was shot in the upper ear. He was photographed with blood on his face and fell to the ground before a crowd of onlookers.

There were 15 "direct assaults" on presidents, presidents-elect and candidates between 1835 and 2005, according to a congressional report published in 2008, but additional attacks have been attempted since then.
In 2011 a man was charged with attempting to assassinate then-President Obama after authorities said he fired shots at the White House, and in 2018, the Secret Service intercepted a pipe bomb that had been sent to him.
In 2016, a man at a Las Vegas rally for then-candidate Trump attempted to pull a gun off a police officer and later admitted he'd intended to kill him. A year later, another man attempted to steal a forklift during a Trump rally in an assassination attempt.

Here are other notable attacks on American presidents and candidates in the 20th and 21st centuries:

George W. Bush

What happened: In 2005, an attacker threw a grenade at Bush during a rally in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it didn't explode. Read the FBI's report.

Ronald Reagan

A man is sprawled on the ground while others, wearing suits, attend to him. — A man holds an automatic rifle at the scene of an assassination attempt of President Reagan outside the Washington Hilton hotel in D.C. on March 30, 1981. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

What happened: Reagan was leaving the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., after speaking to the AFL-CIO when John Hinckley Jr. fired a .22 caliber revolver, injuring Reagan when one of the "devastator" bullets ricocheted off a limousine.

"President Reagan's wounds were not noticed until he began to cough up blood," according to the Reagan Library.
Three others were injured during the attack.

Gerald R. Ford

Gerald Ford stands near a car as a crowd looks up past him. — Secret Service agents, police and bystanders react approximately one second after Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Ford in San Francisco on Sept. 22, 1975. Photo: Courtesy of Gerald R. Ford Library

What happened: Ford is the only president with the dubious honor of surviving two shootings, according to the congressional report.

On Sept. 5, 1975, a gunshot by Lynette Alice Fromme misfired.
17 days later, Sara Jane Moore missed her target on the first shot. During the second, a bystander grabbed the gun and it ricocheted into a taxi driver. He was injured but recovered, the report says.

George C. Wallace

George Wallace lays in a hospital bed, holding up a newspaper, while his wife leans over him and smiles. — Gov. George Wallace and his wife, Cornelia, hold up a newspaper on May 17, 1972, with headlines about his victories in the Maryland and Michigan Democratic presidential primaries. Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down by one of several gunshot wounds suffered May 15 while campaigning at a shopping center in Laurel, Md. Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images

What happened: George Wallace, then-Alabama governor and Democratic presidential hopeful, was shot after a rally in Laurel, Maryland, on May 15, 1972.

Wallace was shot five times and became paralyzed from the waist down.
A notorious segregationist before the shooting, the incident changed his perspective. Wallace "spent his remaining years seeking forgiveness from the Black community for the hatred and division he'd sown at the height of the civil rights movement," the magazine says.

Robert F. Kennedy

What happened: After winning the Democratic primary in California on June 5, 1968, Kennedy was walking through the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan.

Kennedy died the following day.

Harry S. Truman

What happened: Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola fired shots at the White House on Nov. 1, 1950, according to the congressional report.

Truman was unharmed, but a White House police officer was killed and two others were injured.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

What happened: Three weeks before he was elected, Roosevelt heard what he thought were firecrackers when Giuseppe Zangara opened fire on Feb. 15, 1933.

The bullets missed Roosevelt, but they hit and killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who'd been standing nearby, according to the congressional report.

Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt chats with three other men. — President Teddy Roosevelt shortly before an assassination attempt by John F. Schrank. Photo: Flickr Commons project/George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress

What happened: Teddy Roosevelt was a two-term president — he was appointed to office after the assassination of then-President William McKinley in 1901 and won his own term in 1904 — and campaigning for a third.

Roosevelt was leaving dinner at a Milwaukee hotel on Oct. 14, 1912, when John Schrank aimed his .38-caliber Colt revolver, according to the Library of Congress.

Schrank believed that McKinley had asked Schrank to avenge his death in a dream, the Library of Congress says.
Schrank's bullets would have hit Roosevelt were it not for the president's 50-page thick speech, folded up in his jacket pocket, and a metal eyeglass case, according to the Library of Congress.

How many sitting presidents have been assassinated

Context: Four U.S. presidents were assassinated during their terms in the White House: Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, McKinley and John F. Kennedy.

Lincoln was shot in the head April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth while watching a performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. He died the following morning.
Garfield was shot July 2, 1881, by Charles Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield was shot in the back and another bullet grazed his shoulder. He lived another 79 days before dying Sept. 19 from infections sustained when his doctor treated his wounds with unsterilized fingers and medical instruments.
McKinley was shot Sept. 6, 1901, at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York, by Leon Czolgosz. McKinley was shot twice in the abdomen and died Sept. 14.
Kennedy was killed Nov. 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, with his wife and first lady, Jackie Kennedy, then-Texas Gov. John Connally, and Connally's wife, Nellie Connally. The president was shot in the back and the head by Lee Harvey Oswald from the sixth floor of a nearby building. Kennedy was pronounced dead at a local hospital approximately 30 minutes after the shooting. His brother Robert was also assassinated in 1968.

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