Despite being targeted by a trio of assassination attempts in less than two years, President Donald Trump is shrugging off calls for him to wear a bullet-resistant vest during public appearances because it would make him look significantly fatter.
The president had journalists and members of Congress who’d joined him for an Oval Office signing ceremony laughing out loud on Thursday after a reporter pressed him on whether there have been discussions between him and his advisers about adding a vest to his usual suit-and-tie outfits in the wake of last weekend’s attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington.
His deadpan response to the dead-serious query? “ I don’t know if I can handle looking 20 pounds heavier.”
After the room erupted in laughter, the president quipped that some of the guests around him who were laughing the loudest were “physical specimens.”
“If you want to gain 20 to 25 pounds, you can get a vest,” he said.
The president’s self-deprecating response to whether he’d employ body armor came just after he was asked if investigators had determined whether the bullet that had struck a Secret Service Uniformed Division officer in his own vest during the Saturday night incident had come from “friendly fire” or from a weapon fired by the suspect, Cole Allen, as he attempted to sprint through a security checkpoint one floor above the ballroom at the Washington Hilton.
Trump, citing what he described as media reports, said the officer, who was briefly hospitalized but released after the shooting incident, had not been hit by gunfire from another federal agent or officer.
According to the Justice Department, the Uniformed Division officer fired five shots from his service pistol at Allen after the would-be assassin allegedly discharged a shotgun as he attempted to reach the dinner where Trump, Vice President JD Vance, numerous cabinet members and House and Senate leaders were in attendance as guests of White House Correspondents’ Association members.
Allen, who was tackled and arrested by Secret Service agents after not being struck by the officer’s bullets, was charged with “discharging a firearm during a crime of violence” — but not with assaulting federal law enforcement officers.
The charging documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia state that “Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot” and that the officer in question “was shot once in the chest” before firing at Allen.
Trump did marvel, however, at how the officer’s vest “did an amazing job” because it “took a bullet up close” while leaving the officer feeling well enough that he had not wanted to be taken to a hospital.
“The vest totally protected him, still a lot of power behind that shot, though, that’s like getting getting hit by Mike Tyson, but it’s amazing,” he said.
He later admitted that wearing a vest himself is “something you’d consider in one way,” but he added that he did not want to wear one in part because he’d be “giving into a bad element” by doing so.
“I have been asked it happening again, another assassination. I don’t think about it …if I did, I wouldn’t be doing a very good job here. I’d be thinking about nothing, but that… If I did, I wouldn’t be effective,” he said.
