The Donald Trump Assassination Attempts Everyone Forgot About

You probably remember it: It was July 2024, and Donald Trump raised his fist in the air after surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. It gave the public an iconic image of the former president and his media team the perfect photo for campaign ads. Unfortunately, this is by no means the only attempt on Trump's life since entering politics.

To discuss the assassination attempts on Trump's life in full, we have to go back to his first run for office in 2016. In June of that year, a British man named Michael Steven Sandford attended one of the candidate's rallies in Las Vegas, Nevada and planned to kill him while he was speaking at Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. After being arrested, the 20-year-old pleaded guilty to "being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm" and disrupting an official function, per the Department of Justice. Despite arguing mental health issues and autism as a defense, he was sentenced and ultimately deported.

In 2017, Gregory Lee Leingang stole a forklift from an oil refinery in North Dakota and planned to drive it into Trump's vehicle as he headed to a presidential rally. The culprit was stopped and caught when the vehicle got stuck in the refinery, and he eventually confessed to his plan to kill Trump — by flipping his car.

The Pennsylvania assassination plot during the 2024 election is the most well-known of the attempts on Donald Trump's life. In the months after, U.S. intelligence officials claimed Iran might have been plotting to kill the former president, though public details about those alleged plans have mostly been held close to the vest. The second apparent attempt during the same race was thwarted on a Palm Beach, Florida golf course. The alleged assassin, Ryan Routh, camped out on a course Trump was playing on for hours, waiting for him to get close enough or a shot. Secret Service guards spotted Routh in the bushes before he had a chance to fire, but prosecutors say a note found in his home confirms he was there to try and kill Trump.

In October 2024, a man named Vem Miller was arrested outside of a Trump Rally in Coachella Valley for carrying firearms. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told the Southern California News Group that deputies had "probably stopped another assassination attempt," but Miller claimed to be an avid Trump supporter. He faces misdemeanor gun charges and is now suing Bianco for defamation for the sheriff's suggestion that Miller might have been part of an assassination plot.