The shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner has exposed a serious security vulnerability surrounding President Donald Trump and other senior U.S. officials, a former Defense Department intelligence officer has warned.
And with tensions between Washington and Tehran rising and ceasefire talks stalled, Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, journalists and senior administration officials — a concentration of leadership that Badger said presented significant risk.
"The top three of the line of succession were at this single event," ongoing tensions with Iran, which have escalated amid U.S. and Israeli targeting of Iranian officials and leadership.
Badger pointed to longstanding Iranian hostility tied to the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport ordered by Trump.
"There has been a driving animus, a driving motivation in the Iranian regime — which they’ve stated publicly — to get revenge for that killing of Soleimani," said Badger, who served on the front lines of human intelligence operations, including a 2014 deployment to Afghanistan.
After Soleimani was killed, Ayatollah Khamenei warned that those responsible for the attack would face "unconventional tactics. "Iran and other state actors such as Russia have increasingly reverted to contracting criminals, or gangsters, to conduct hybrid warfare," he said.
Following the incident, Trump underscored the need for more secure venues, advocating for a dedicated White House ballroom.
"It’s got every single bell and whistle you can possibly have for security and safety... It’s really what you need," Trump said on Fox News’ "The Sunday Briefing."