Key facts
- The Secret Service is preparing for a rescheduled White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
- Director Sean Curran described the current threat level as the highest in his 24-year career.
- Protective-intelligence cases are up 40% and mental-health interventions are up tenfold compared to the previous year.
- The original dinner was disrupted by a shooting incident where a man attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump.
- The agency is prioritizing potential drone threats and has invested in improved detection systems.
The U.S. Secret Service is implementing heightened security measures for a rescheduled White House Correspondents' Association dinner, with Director Sean Curran characterizing the current threat environment as unprecedented in his 24-year career. This comes after an earlier gala was disrupted by a shooting incident.
Curran stated that threats are "off the charts" and the agency is operating at a heightened level of volatility not just for President Donald Trump but for other protectees and local officials. A Secret Service official noted that protective-intelligence cases have increased by approximately 40% compared to the previous year, while mental-health-related interventions are running about ten times higher than at the same point in 2025. The agency has opened around 10,000 threat cases this year.
The dinner has been relocated to the Waldorf Astoria in Washington following an April 25 attack at the Washington Hilton. In that incident, Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old California man, fired a shotgun a floor above the ballroom before being apprehended by agents. Allen has been charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump. Officials confirmed that hundreds of federal agents were positioned between the suspect and the President, who was evacuated along with Vice President JD Vance and cabinet members.
Deputy Director Matthew Quinn emphasized that the agency is not treating this as a simple repeat of the previous event but as a presidential site with significant protectees. He cited external hostility, including Iran's public statements about wanting to kill Trump, and undisclosed intelligence as contributing factors. Quinn also highlighted potential threats from drones as a top priority, suggesting it is "a matter of time" before such attacks reach the United States, referencing activity in Ukraine and at the southern border. Quinn acknowledged a detection system failure during a prior assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania and stated the agency has since invested heavily in addressing this issue.
Regarding the White House itself, Curran indicated that officials are still deliberating on whether to make the existing security fencing permanent, expressing a personal preference for "30-foot fences."