When shots rang out at the Washington Hilton as President Trump sat in the ballroom for the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night, there were echoes of the hotel’s storied presidential history.

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan nearly died after John Hinckley Jr. pulled out a .22 caliber revolver and unleashed six shots in 1.7 seconds, from a mere 15 feet away, as the president was leaving the hotel. He had come from addressing union members of the AFL-CIO in the ballroom, ending his remarks with a familiar line: “Together we’ll make America great again.”

Lead U.S. Secret Service agent Jerry Parr — who was inspired to become an agent after seeing Reagan play one in a film as a boy – acted quickly to throw Reagan in the limousine, according to Del Wilbur, author of “Rawhide Down” (Rawhide was Reagan’s Secret Service code name).

But, said Wilbur, Hinckley’s sixth shot “slaps against the side of the limousine, flattens to the size of a dime, slips through a gap an inch and a half wide between the door and the door frame and hits Reagan.”

Bullets hit White House press secretary James Brady in the head — paralyzing him, D.C. police officer Thomas Delehanty in the back, and U.S. Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy in the chest.

“It’s important to remember how close he came to dying,” said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and senior fellow at the Reagan Institute, recalling how the president insisted on walking into the hospital despite his grave condition, then collapsed inside. “He rallied so the nation wouldn’t panic and think he was dying.”

The assassination attempt was a pivotal moment for the Washington Hilton – and for presidential security.

The Hilton’s presidential attraction

Since its inception, presidents have frequented the Washington Hilton. A wing-shaped building that looks like a bird in flight, the hotel was designed to attract them, featuring a secret passageway, safe room, and spacious ballroom.

The hotel opened 16 months after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. A few years later, the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner was held there for the first time and became a tradition that has continued ever since.

“So how do you get the president to go?” said Wilbur. “Well, you make sure he has his own entrance. They built a whole separate entrance on T Street. And it’s beautiful. There’s a spiral staircase down. There’s a personal elevator. And there’s a holding room down there for him that, at the time before all these great wireless communications, they had wired to communicate with the White House.”

“So that’s where they took Trump right after, to that holding room. No windows, subterranean, and they built that just to attract the president. And the president went there all the time,” he added. “There’s a safe hallway that goes from the bunker, that holding room, all the way to the top. It’s like his own hallway that leads from that to the speech.”

The ballroom is one of the largest in Washington, D.C. Presidents speak there several times a year – and have since Lyndon Johnson. In April 2024, then-President Biden appeared for three speeches in eight days. It has been home to the National Prayer Breakfast, the First Lady’s Luncheon, and inaugural balls.

Presidents Richard Nixon, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Reagan have all attended Inaugural Balls there.

Security adjustments made

But when Reagan was shot, there was a vulnerability point – as the president exited the hotel, he had to step outside to reach his limo. The Hilton later remedied that by constructing a bunker-like garage with a secure door, so the president is not exposed.

“The assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan led to all sorts of changes in Secret Service security,” said Wilbur. “They started using magnetometers at all events. There had been a lot of pressure not to do that because it really disrupted events and kept politicians away from people. People complained a lot. Donors, especially, complained a lot. They started staffing differently. They even added magnetometers to the White House, where they hadn’t been before.”

Forty-five years later, Cole Tomas Allen attempted to rush through a magnetometer into the hotel’s ballroom in an alleged attempt to assassinate Mr. Trump, carrying a pump action shotgun and a .38 caliber pistol, according to an affidavit.

Allen’s alleged “manifesto,” obtained by CBS News, stated that “administration officials” were targets “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,” with the exception of Kash Patel.

“Very unusual” pattern

It was the third alleged attempt on Mr. Trump’s life.

In February, Ryan Routh was sentenced to life in prison for plotting to assassinate him at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, during the 2024 election campaign. Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate Mr. Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing his ear with a bullet, in July 2024.

“It’s very unusual to have multiple attempts,” said Troy. “Gerald Ford had two attempts in California in a one-month period. I can’t think of any recent president that’s had more attempts on his life.”

Reagan prayed for Hinckley after the shooting, expressing compassion for his would-be assassin in his diary. “I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold,” he wrote.

Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. His attempt to kill the president had been an effort to attract the attention of actress Jodie Foster.

His acquittal, which led to a public outcry, had an impact on the federal insanity defense — leading to a shift in the burden of proof. The Insanity Defense Act of 1984 changed the standard for insanity, putting the burden of proof on the defendant to prove insanity. In Hinckley’s case, prosecutors had to prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt.

Hinckley spent more than three decades at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., before being released in 2016. His first television interview was with CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett in 2022.

“I feel terrible for what I did. I have remorse for what I did,” said Hinckley. “If I could take it all back, I would.”

Reagan returned for the first time to the Washington Hilton in September of 1981 for a charity ball, about six months after he was wounded in the assassination attempt. He did not mention the shooting in his brief remarks, but his limousine entered and left the hotel through the new garage entrance.

Mr. Trump has insisted that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner should be rescheduled within 30 days, with increased security.

On the night of the shooting, reporters gathered in the White House press briefing room, some still dressed in black tie.  

“We’re going to do it again,” said Mr. Trump.