THE ATLANTIC – Politics | Politics & Government

In the chaotic swirl of events after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, doctors feared that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had suffered a heart attack upon arrival at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. The signs were ominous: Johnson’s face was ashen, and he was clutching his chest. “There was the real possibility that the No. 3 in the line of succession would become president,” the historian Michael Beschloss told me. Johnson was reportedly examined and a heart attack ruled out—but not before then–House Speaker John McCormack was told that he might be the next president. The declaration prompted a severe bout of vertigo in the 71-year-old.Few moments in history have so starkly exposed the vulnerabilities of the presidential line of succession—or the lack of clarity about how it is protected. Last night provided another illustration of them. If events at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner had gone differently, a gunman who breached security at the Washington Hilton could have reached a ballroom containing an unusually dense cluster of American power. The president and the vice president were seated a few feet apart. Congressional leadership and many Cabinet secretaries were also on hand. In other words, much of the presidential line of succession was in the same spot—and subject to the same vulnerabilities.Senator Chuck Grassley, 92 and third in line as president pro tempore of the Senate, was home in Iowa—his absence briefly making him one of the most important people in the country. The Correspondents’ Dinner is built for symbolism: the press, the presidency, and Washington’s political elite gathered in a single room, putting their differences aside in celebration of the First Amendment. But the failed attack highlighted the typically unspoken peril of such a gathering, with so many figures in the line of succession crammed into a ballroom packed so tightly with tables, chairs, and people that it was hard to move around—much less duck for cover.Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who served on the presidential detail, told me that the system for protecting the president—and those who might replace him in the event of incapacity—is far more fragmented than it appears. Responsibility for protecting senior officials is divided across multiple agencies: the Secret Service, the Capitol Police, and departmental security teams, each operating with different mandates and chains of command. That system functions best when those requiring protection are dispersed. When they converge, it runs… [TheTopNews] Read More.

On one level, the system worked. The perimeter held. A would-be assassin was tackled in the hallway outside the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner. The one bullet that found a human target—a U.S. Secret Service agent—was halted, in part, by the officer’s phone and bulletproof vest, according to a law-enforcement summary report that we reviewed. A counterassault team promptly swarmed the stage with assault rifles and night-vision equipment in case the lights were cut. The government’s top leaders—president, vice president, Cabinet officials, speaker of the House—were ushered to secure locations in a matter of minutes. No one died in the attack.But the collective sigh of relief and rounds of “I am fine” text messages last night belied a heaviness that administration officials and other dinner attendees were still processing this morning, even as Sunday brunches proceeded apace, albeit with more security and a newly somber sheen. This attack was different from the two prior assassination attempts on Donald Trump because the president was not the only apparent target. The alleged attacker wrote in a manifesto obtained by the New York Post that he was after “administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.”As the evening’s adrenaline faded this morning, this reality began setting in among Trump advisers, someone close to the White House told us. Had things gone differently, the nation’s top officials would have been in real danger. Personal security details are designed to protect the principals at all expense. If a presidential motorcade is attacked, there are contingency plans to have it split, leaving behind the junior staff and traveling press. The priority is clear: Get the president to safety. When the shots rang out last night at the Washington Hilton, multiple teams flooded into the rooms to find their protectees and get them out, climbing over chairs—in some cases with guns drawn or hand on holster—and sometimes leaving spouses, colleagues, and others to fend for themselves.Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was body-blocked by three agents as he walked from the ballroom. His wife, Cheryl Hines, was left to follow alone a few feet behind, climbing over barriers in a ball gown. Speaker Mike Johnson, who was away from his table when the shooting started, had to send armed officers to retrieve his wife, according to a journalist sitting near him. For the other Trump-administration officials and… [TheTopNews] Read More.

Updated at 10:56 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 25, 2026We were under the table before we knew what was happening. One moment a military band was parading out of the Washington Hilton’s cavernous ballroom; hundreds of journalists and government officials, including two dozen of my Atlantic colleagues and myself dressed in our best or borrowed black tie, had turned to our arugula salads.The next moment, armed agents—maybe Secret Service, maybe police, maybe hotel guards; it was hard to tell from where we were huddled under a tablecloth—were pushing their way through mounds of people, climbing over chairs, rushing to the stage, where President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump just moments before had been seated.Just before 8:40 p.m., trays of plates and tableware fell to the floor with a crash and they screamed “Get down! Get down! Get under the table! Abajo! Abajo! ” There was at least one popping sound from the north end of the ballroom. People by the ballroom doors started to duck. Then plainclothes security rushed through the door.One attendee sitting in the upper level of the ballroom right by the doors said he heard five or six hollow shots close by, and saw a Secret Service agent with his gun drawn backing down towards the ballroom, before diving under the tables. Andrew Kolvet, a Turning Point USA spokesman who was seated at a table near the dais, said he heard a “pop pop.”Trump sat onstage for several seconds after the shots, watching people dive under tables before he was swarmed by his heavily armed security. It was the same hotel outside of which President Ronald Reagan was shot and injured in 1981. From then on, Washingtonians have known the sprawling building as the “Hinkley Hilton,” after shooter John Hinkley Jr.Secret Service rushed the president and Vice President J.D. Vance, seated several spots down the dais from Trump, from the room. Senior government officials were dotted throughout the crowd of more than 2,000 people. Those who had planned to attend the dinner, in addition to Trump and Vance, included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and White House adviser Stephen Miller.Under the tables, we were piled on top of each other, squished together between table legs, high heels, and purses. Colleagues texted loved ones and tried to understand what was happening around them. When I poked my head out, I saw two men… [TheTopNews] Read More.

Photographs by Caroline GutmanRepresentative Thomas Massie, the renegade Kentucky Republican who fiercely guards his political independence, doesn’t love being on President Trump’s bad side. He would prefer not to have the president’s allies spend millions to defeat him in a primary. In fact, if Massie had his way, he’d be working for Trump right now.In his telling, in the weeks after the 2024 presidential election, the two men talked about Massie, a farmer who champions raw milk, becoming Trump’s agriculture secretary. Massie had formally endorsed Trump late in the campaign, offering to help him win over libertarians who might be tempted to stay home or vote third party in key battlegrounds. Trump had been appreciative, and the two had chatted by phone to hash out the timing of the endorsement announcement. “Just tweet it. I’ll retweet you,” Trump had told him.The rollout went smoothly, but Massie’s endorsement didn’t get him the job in Trump’s Cabinet.  He was recounting this to me in, of all places, a bridal suite inside a converted barn in his northern-Kentucky district. Massie had just delivered remarks to a friendly crowd in the wedding hall downstairs, part of an acrimonious campaign that, if Trump gets his way, will be Massie’s last. The president’s allies are spending big to defeat Massie in a May 19 primary and prop up Ed Gallrein, a Navy SEAL and a political novice whom Trump personally recruited as a challenger. Massie first won election to the House during the pre-Trump Tea Party era and has handily prevailed in competitive primaries before. But he is also aware of Trump’s unique hold on the GOP: When the president decides he wants a Republican out of Congress, he usually gets his wish. Polls have given Massie a lead over Gallrein, who is not well known in the district, but his advantage is far smaller than in his previous reelection bids.Trump attacks Massie anywhere and everywhere, whether it’s on Truth Social (“A totally ineffective LOSER”), at an event in Massie’s district (“He’s the worst!”), or at the National Prayer Breakfast (“Moron”). He’s even impugned Massie’s new wife, accusing her of being “Radical Left” (Massie says that she voted thrice for Trump) and suggesting that Massie remarried too quickly after the death of his first wife.Massie, by contrast, often talks about Trump less like he’s a sworn enemy and more like he’s a jilted ex who’s still… [TheTopNews] Read More.

On Monday morning, CNN reported that the United States and Iran had been on the verge of striking a deal to end the war when Donald Trump made a series of comments to reporters and on social media that undermined the talks. Sources told CNN that the president’s boasts angered the Iranians. “The Iranians didn’t appreciate POTUS negotiating through social media and making it appear as if they had signed off on issues they hadn’t yet agreed to, and ones that aren’t popular with their people back home,” complained one source, who apparently pleaded with his boss to stop undermining their work.This was Trump’s signal to begin binge-posting about the Iran negotiations. The Iranians may not have appreciated Trump’s stream-of-consciousness messaging, and apparently their American counterparts did not either. But one very important person did.Trump can’t seem to refrain from touting his genius, especially when the subject is dealmaking, his professed speciality. And so, in a torrent of commentary, the president made the case that he is winning very greatly.Already, despite the president’s surface bravado, an undercurrent of nervousness had emerged. Trump was favorably comparing his prospective deal with the Obama administration’s in 2015. “The DEAL that we are making with Iran will be FAR BETTER than the JCPOA, commonly referred to as ‘The Iran Nuclear Deal,’ penned by Barack Hussein Obama and Sleepy Joe Biden, one of the Worst Deals ever made having to do with the Security of our Country,” he wrote on Monday. Simultaneously touting your prospective deal while comparing it to the worst deal ever is a bit like saying, I’m a fantastic basketball player, much better than my late grandmother, who never played the game.[Tom Nichols: Maybe Trump should not have given this speech]In a follow-up post, five minutes later, Trump addressed concerns that the war had gone beyond his promised six-week deadline. His technique, once again, was to reframe expectations. “Despite World War I lasting 4 years, 3 months, and 14 days, World War II lasting 6 years and 1 day, the Korean War lasting 3 years, 1 month, and 2 days, the Vietnam War lasting 19 years, 5 months, and 29 days, and Iraq lasting 8 years, 8 months, and 28 days, they like to say that I promised 6 weeks to defeat Iran, and actually, from the Military standpoint, it was far faster than that, but I’m not going to let them… [TheTopNews] Read More.