Politics in America has always been a bit of a contact sport, but lately, things have taken a dark, surreal turn. If you’ve been following the news over the last couple of years, you know the atmosphere has felt heavy. People keep asking the same question: how many assassination attempts on Donald Trump have there actually been?
It’s a simple question with a complicated answer because it depends on how you define an "attempt." Are we talking about active shooters, guys with forklifts, or the dozens of vague threats the Secret Service quietly neutralizes every week?
If we’re looking at the most serious, narrow definition—incidents where a suspect was physically in place with a weapon and a clear intent to kill—the number is two major attempts that occurred during the 2024 campaign. However, if you look at his entire political career, the list of "security incidents" gets much longer and quite a bit stranger.
The Day Everything Changed in Butler
Honestly, most of us will never forget the footage from July 13, 2024. It was a Saturday evening in Butler, Pennsylvania. The sun was setting, and Trump was doing his usual rally routine, gesturing toward a chart about immigration.
Then came the "pops."
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Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, had managed to climb onto a rooftop just 150 yards from the stage. He had a clear line of sight. He fired eight rounds from an AR-15-style rifle. One bullet grazed Trump’s right ear—literally an inch away from a catastrophic head wound.
The aftermath was chaotic. One spectator, Corey Comperatore, was killed while shielding his family. Two others were critically injured. Crooks was killed seconds later by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
What’s wild is that the FBI later concluded in their 2025 final report that Crooks acted alone. No manifesto. No clear political motive. Just a "quiet kid" who had researched the assassination of John F. Kennedy and searched for the dates of both the RNC and DNC. It was a failure of security so massive it led to the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.
The Shrubbery at the Golf Course
Just two months later, on September 15, 2024, lightning nearly struck twice. Trump was golfing at his club in West Palm Beach.
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A Secret Service agent, Robert Fercano, was scouting a hole ahead of the former President when he spotted a rifle barrel poking through the chain-link fence and shrubbery. The gunman, Ryan Wesley Routh, was waiting about 400 yards away.
Fercano fired, Routh dropped his SKS-style rifle and fled in a Nissan, but he didn't get far. A witness took a picture of his license plate, and he was caught on I-95.
Why the Routh Case was Different
Unlike the Butler shooter, Routh had a long, paper-trail-heavy history. He was obsessed with the war in Ukraine and had even written a self-published book where he basically invited Iran to assassinate Trump.
By September 2025, a jury found Routh guilty on all federal counts, including the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate. During the verdict reading, he actually tried to stab himself with a pen before being tackled by U.S. Marshals. As of early 2026, he’s facing a life sentence, with his formal sentencing scheduled for February.
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The Incidents Nobody Talks About
If you broaden the scope beyond those two major headlines, the count for how many assassination attempts on Donald Trump starts to climb. People forget the weird stuff that happened during his first term and his first campaign.
- The Las Vegas Gun Grab (2016): A British man named Michael Sandford tried to pull a pistol out of a police officer’s holster at a rally. He later told investigators he wanted to kill Trump.
- The North Dakota Forklift (2017): This one sounds like a movie plot gone wrong. Gregory Lee Leingang stole a forklift and tried to drive it into the presidential motorcade. His plan? To flip the limo. He was sentenced to 20 years.
- The Ricin Letters (2018 & 2020): Multiple times, people have tried to use the mail. In 2020, a woman named Pascale Ferrier sent a letter containing ricin from Canada. She was eventually sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison.
- The 2025 Air Force One Incident: More recently, there was a major security scare involving a breach near the airfield where Air Force One was stationed, though the details remained highly classified for months due to ongoing national security concerns.
Sorting Fact from Friction
You’ve probably seen "security incidents" on social media that get labeled as assassination attempts. It's important to be careful here. For instance, the 2024 Coachella rally incident where a man was arrested with guns and fake passports was initially called an "attempt" by local sheriffs, but federal investigators later clarified there was no evidence of a plot to kill Trump.
Basically, there is a difference between a guy being a weirdo with a gun and a guy actually hunting the President.
The Real Numbers (As of 2026)
- Confirmed Attempted Assassinations (Active Plots): 2 (Butler and West Palm Beach).
- Convicted Violent Plots (First Term): 2 (The Forklift and Ricin cases).
- Major Security Breaches/Close Calls: 5+.
The Secret Service has since shifted its entire protocol. If you see Trump today, he’s usually behind bulletproof glass. The perimeter is wider. The drones are everywhere.
The fact that we are even discussing how many assassination attempts on Donald Trump have occurred is a testament to how polarized things have become. Whether it’s a lone wolf like Crooks or a politically motivated actor like Routh, the threat level hasn't really dipped, even after the 2024 election.
If you’re trying to keep track of these cases, the best thing to do is follow the federal court dockets. The Ryan Routh sentencing in February 2026 will likely bring more classified evidence to light regarding how he tracked Trump’s movements. Keeping an eye on the Department of Justice’s press releases is the only way to cut through the noise of social media rumors.