EXCLUSIVE — Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) introduced legislation on Friday to make Cole Tomas Allen, the alleged shooter who targeted President Donald Trump at last month’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, eligible for the death penalty.
The Protect the Presidency Act would increase the possible punishment for failed assassination attempts on a president to match that, as if the attempt were fatal. If the measure were currently law, federal prosecutors could seek the death penalty in Allen’s case.
“A failed assassin is still an assassin and should be treated as such under the law,” Gooden told the Washington Examiner. “The harshest punishments should be on the table for those who try to murder the President.”
According to the current U.S. criminal code, “attempting to kill or kidnap the president is punishable” by up to life in prison. Gooden’s bill would amend the criminal code to make the death penalty also an eligible punishment.
The attempt on Trump’s life at the correspondents’ dinner was the third in nearly three years. The president faced two assassination attempts as he campaigned for the White House in 2024, one of which resulted in him being shot in the head at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Allen has not yet been sentenced, but has been indicted on four federal charges from last month’s attack.
Four presidents have been assassinated while sitting in office, including former Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Numerous others have survived assassination attempts.
Gooden’s bill comes as political violence has been on the rise.
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Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in Utah last September while speaking on a college campus. Last June, Minnesota Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed as well.
In April 2025, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and his family survived an arson attack at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion by an antisemitic assailant. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband was beaten at his home by an intruder with a hammer in October 2022.