A gunman spent 24 hours casing the Washington Hilton, took a selfie in his hotel room dressed in tactical gear, then sprinted through a Secret Service checkpoint and shot an agent in the chest.
That was six days ago – and the third time in less than two years someone tried to kill Donald Trump.
Now Senator Josh Hawley says Secret Service whistleblowers are telling him nothing has changed since Butler.
What Secret Service Whistleblowers Told Hawley After the Correspondents Dinner Shooting
Hawley went on Hannity Thursday and laid it out plainly.
Multiple Secret Service whistleblowers came forward to him after Butler, after Trump International, and again after the Washington Hilton – and their message was the same every time.
They told him the agency doesn't have the resources it needs, isn't getting the interagency cooperation it needs, and doesn't have the leadership it needs.
Hawley credited the president for changing out the leadership – but said changing names at the top doesn't fix what's broken underneath.
"When you have three attempts on the life of a president in two years," Hawley said, "I think there's some work to do here."
That is about the most understated thing any senator has said this year.
Secret Service Staffing Shortage Has Been Building for Years
This isn't bad luck.
This is an agency that an independent review panel called "bureaucratic, complacent, and static" after Butler.
A bipartisan Senate investigation found failures in communications, protective advance planning, command and control, and coordination with outside law enforcement.
A Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report found the Secret Service counter-sniper team was 73% below required staffing levels.
Seventy-three percent.
That report came out in September 2025 – eight months before a man walked into the same hotel as the president, took a selfie in tactical gear, and tried to shoot his way into the room.
The protective operations arm of the Secret Service is nearly 10% smaller than it was a decade ago despite years of congressional warnings.
Events requiring counter-sniper support increased 151% between 2020 and 2024.
Staffing barely moved.
What happened at the Washington Hilton wasn't a mystery. It was math.
Why the Secret Service Hiring Pipeline Stalled After Butler
Here's what makes this worse.
After Butler, there was momentum to fix the Secret Service.
Bipartisan support. Budget proposals. Hiring goals. Real urgency.
Then the Trump administration funneled new federal law enforcement recruits into ICE training for the deportation push – which created a logjam at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
The pipeline that was supposed to rebuild the Secret Service got clogged.
The window to act closed.
Former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow said it directly: "The moment to do it was at the very beginning of this administration, when you had the momentum out of Butler."
That moment passed.
And six days ago, a man who spent weeks planning the attack – who booked his hotel room within two hours of googling the dinner, crossed the country by train, scouted the hallways the day before, and watched Trump arrive on a live stream minutes before he moved – nearly walked into a room containing the president, the vice president, and half the cabinet.
The agent who stopped him took a bullet to the chest.
He lived because he was wearing a vest.
Three Trump Assassination Attempts and the Same Warnings Every Time
Butler was preventable.
The bipartisan House task force that investigated it used that exact word.
The Senate found failures in communications, coordination, and advance work.
The independent review panel found agents trained to cut corners, forms that told staff to "minimize required manpower," a workforce conditioned to do more with less instead of asking what it takes to do the job right.
Hawley has been on this from the beginning.
He published a comprehensive whistleblower report after Butler.
He forced a Senate committee vote requiring the Secret Service to hand over all documents related to the assassination attempt.
He grilled the acting director on camera.
Now the same whistleblowers – the ones who told him the truth when the agency was stonewalling Congress – are back with the same message.
The problems aren't fixed.
The resources still aren't there.
The cooperation still isn't there.
Three attempts on the life of one president in two years – and the people who work inside the Secret Service are still telling a senator the same things they told him after the first one.
Hawley is right to demand a hearing.
The American people deserve to know whether the most important security operation in the federal government has the resources to do its job – or whether the next attempt is just a matter of time.
Sources:
- Jeff Poor, "Hawley: Whistleblowers Say There Are 'Big Problems' with the Secret Service," Breitbart, May 1, 2026.
- "Suspect in White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Charged with Attempt to Assassinate the President," U.S. Department of Justice, April 27, 2026.
- "Hawley Calls for Congressional Hearing Following Third Assassination Attempt on President Trump," hawley.senate.gov, April 28, 2026.
- "Secret Service Counter Sniper Staffing Crisis Threatens Protection, IG Says," Fox News, September 4, 2025.
- "Whistleblower Report," Senator Josh Hawley, September 16, 2024.
