A White House official has revealed that President Donald Trump has written Vice President JD Vance a letter in the event that he should be assassinated.
Sebastian Gorka, who has led the Trump administration’s counterterrorism strategy this term, said there were multiple “protocols” in place in the event that something happened to the president, including the existence of a personal message to the vice president.
“We have protocols, trust me. Not ones I can discuss, but we have protocols,” Gorka said, speaking to The New York Post podcast “Pod Force One” on Wednesday.
“There is a letter in the drawer in the Resolute Desk that is addressed to the vice president should something happen to him,” Gorka said.
In January, Trump said he had left “very firm instructions” in the case that he should be assassinated by Iran, following death threats.
“I’ve left notification… [that if] anything ever happens, we’re going to blow the – the whole country is going to get blown up,” the president told NewsNation. The president did not mention any letter he had written to Vance at the time.
Trump has already survived three public assassination attempts, the most recent of which came late last month at the White House Correspondent’s dinner, when an armed man rushed past security, allegedly in an attempt to get to the president and other senior administration officials.
Video showed Vance being swiftly escorted from the event on April 25, while Trump remained seated, though the president later admitted that it had likely been his own doing as he had “wanted to see what was going on.”
The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Cole Allen, was subdued by law enforcement shortly after he opened fire with a long gun at a security checkpoint near the ballroom, according to officials.
Allen later appeared in court charged with attempting to assassinate the president, among other charges, and has pleaded not guilty.
Trump also survived two other assassination attempts in the run up to the 2024 presidential election, the first at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
The then-Republican presidential candidate was grazed by a bullet shot by would-be assassin Thomas Crooks before being swarmed by Secret Service members and escorted, bleeding from the ear, from the arena. One attendee was killed and two others wounded before a Secret Service counter sniper opened fire on Crooks and killed him.
The second attempt on Trump’s life came just two months later at his International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Ryan Routh shot at the president while he was playing golf and was subsequently chased down by Secret Service members and apprehended.
Routh was tried in September last year and he was convicted on all counts. He was sentenced to life in prison in February.
