‘I could go on’: Stephen King just named every president who caught a bullet and Congress still can’t act

It’s become increasingly clear that political violence in America doesn’t follow a simple partisan script, a reality Stephen King recently highlighted on X. In a direct response to claims that the Democratic Party is inherently violent, King rattled off a sobering list of historical figures who faced assassination attempts. 

King noted, “Umm…Reagan got shot…Gerald Ford barely avoided it (twice)…JFK got his head blown off…ditto RFK…MLK…I could go on, but the point is the crazies are non-partisan. They’re just nuts.”

This exchange kicked off after Javier Negre, a far-right Spanish media entrepreneur and journalist, posted on X questioning why there hadn’t been assassination attempts against Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or Hillary Clinton. Negre, who is currently based out of the White House, claimed the answer was zero and labeled the Democrats the party of violence in America. 

He needed to do a bit of fact-checking before trying to go off

Negre didn’t stop there, either. Following his initial post, Negre continued to publish strongly worded attacks against Democrats and various journalists. He accused former President Barack Obama of not making a statement, which was not true. He even reposted a video of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as she placed the blame for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting on the Democratic Party.

If you take a look at the history of American politics, it’s easy to see why King’s point resonates. According to The Mirror, there have been 13 other US presidents and candidates who suffered assassination attempts over the last 160 years, with five of those instances proving fatal. The list of those targeted spans across different eras and political affiliations.

The first president to face an assassination bid was Andrew Jackson (D) on January 30, 1835. As he left the Capitol building, an unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence aimed a pistol at him. The gun jammed, and Jackson famously fought back with his walking stick before a second pistol also failed to fire. Lawrence was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Decades later, in 1865, Abraham Lincoln (R) was shot while attending a theatre in Washington, DC with his wife. He died the following morning. The gunman, John Wilkes Booth, was a Confederate sympathiser who was later tracked down and killed by Union soldiers. James Garfield met a similar fate in 1881 when he was shot by Charles Guiteau, an aspiring political opponent. Garfield survived for several weeks before succumbing to his injuries.

In the 20th century, the violence continued. William McKinley (R) was shot in 1901 and died later that September from gangrene, while Theodore Roosevelt (R, then progressive) survived a 1912 shooting after folded papers and a glasses case in his pocket likely softened the impact of the bullet. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) also narrowly escaped a 1933 shooting in Miami.

Harry S. Truman (D) faced a terrifying encounter in November 1950 when gunmen broke into Blair House. While Truman remained unhurt, a police officer and an assailant were killed. 1963 saw the infamous assassination of John F Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. In 1975, Gerald Ford (R) became the only president to survive two separate attempts in the span of just a few weeks. Ronald Reagan was also famously shot in 1981, surviving thanks to quick medical intervention.

Even in more recent history, the threats haven’t disappeared. George W. Bush was targeted during a 2005 trip to the Republic of Georgia when a grenade was thrown his way, though it failed to detonate. In 2011, Oscar Ortega-Hernandez was charged after firing shots at the White House while Barack Obama and his family were away.

The current climate remains tense, with Donald Trump recently comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln after an incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Cole Allen stormed the security perimeter, making this the 3rd attempt to harm Trump. 

It followed other high-profile incidents, including the arrest of Vem Miller in October 2024 for attempting to enter a rally with weapons, and the September 2024 arrest of Ryan Wesley Routh, who was found with a rifle near a golf course in Palm Beach. In July of the same year, Trump was shot at during a rally in Pennsylvania, an event that left him wounded in the ear and resulted in the death of the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks.

When you look at this long, complex timeline, it’s hard to ignore that political violence has touched leaders from both sides of the aisle.