The shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner has exposed a serious security problem surrounding President Donald Trump and other senior US officials, a former Defense Department intelligence officer has warned.
“This could demonstrate that there is a vulnerability in terms of potential access to President Trump or senior officials,” Badger said before warning of “significant vulnerabilities.”
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A split image showing alleged White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooter Cole Allen and President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)
“When you look at your opponent and see weakness, that also fuels motivation,” he said before claiming that “Iran has the motive to attack senior Trump officials, including President Trump.”
“Iran, which has a proven history of using criminals and proxy individuals, could certainly see this as an opportunity.”
Chaos broke out at the Washington Hilton Hotel when a suspected gunman, identified as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen of Torrance, California, stormed a security checkpoint and opened fire.
Trump and other administration officials were chased out of the ballroom as police responded. Allen is currently in custody and made his first court appearance on Monday.
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President Donald Trump is escorted out of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, DC, on April 25, 2026. (Bo Erickson/Reuters)
The meeting included Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, journalists and senior administration officials — a concentration of leadership that Badger said posed significant risk.
“The top three of the line of succession were present at this one event,” Badger noted.
He added that “eight of the nine officials in the line of succession were present at this one event,” warning of a worst-case scenario: “If this individual had somehow been wearing a suicide vest, you could have eliminated all three of these individuals.”
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IRGC Cmdr. Qassem Soleimani shakes hands with Mojtaba Khamenei. (Mehdi Ghasemi/West Asia News Agency via Reuters)
“Imagine if there were multiple people. Imagine if he was wearing suicide vests. Imagine if he was using some sort of drone,” Badger said, highlighting the extent of potential exposure in an unsecured location.
The incident, he said, comes against the backdrop of ongoing tensions with Iran, which have escalated amid US and Israeli attacks on Iranian officials and leaders.
Badger pointed to longstanding Iranian hostility linked to the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, who was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on Trump’s orders.
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IRGC Commander Qassem Soleimani meets with officers and staff of the Supreme Leader in 2016. (Press Office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei/Getty Images)
“There was a driving animus, a driving motivation in the Iranian regime – which they have publicly stated – to retaliate for the killing of Soleimani,” said Badger, who served on the frontlines of human intelligence operations, including a 2014 deployment to Afghanistan.
After Soleimani was killed, Ayatollah Khamenei warned that those responsible for the attack would face “severe revenge“, adding that the death would strengthen and intensify resistance against the United States and Israel.
Badger warned that Iran and other adversaries have increasingly come to rely on unconventional tactics. “Iran and other state actors such as Russia have increasingly fallen back on contracting criminals, or gangsters, to wage hybrid warfare,” he said.
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After the incident, Trump underscored the need for safer locations and advocated for a special ballroom in the White House.
