UnitedHealthcare terminated a social media manager on Tuesday after a viral video showed her expressing apparent disappointment that President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner in Washington on Saturday, April 25.
The employee, identified as Alison King, was filmed reacting to news of the incident, initially dismissing it as staged before adding the remark “aww, they missed,” followed by a comment that such a reaction meant the country was “cooked.”
UnitedHealthcare confirmed her dismissal on Tuesday, stating: “Violence is never acceptable and any comments that suggest otherwise are in no way consistent with our mission and values. The person who made comments online about Saturday night’s incident at a Washington event where President Trump and many other political leaders were gathered is no longer employed by the company.”
The firing places America’s largest health insurer at the centre of a national political violence debate for the second time, following the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brian Thompson in New York City in December 2024. Thompson’s suspected killer, Luigi Mangione, is scheduled to return to court on May 18.
The suspected WHCA dinner shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, was arraigned in United States District Court on charges including one count of attempted assassination of the President, transportation of a firearm across state lines with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Court documents show Allen checked into the Washington Hilton hotel on April 24 after travelling by train from Los Angeles to Chicago, and then on to Washington. Just after 8:40 p.m. on April 25, he ran through a security checkpoint holding a shotgun. A Secret Service officer wearing a ballistic vest was shot once in the chest; that officer returned fire multiple times, and Allen was subsequently arrested without being shot.
Allen did not enter a plea at his Monday appearance before United States Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh, who ordered him held in custody pending further hearings. The attempted assassination charge carries a potential life sentence.
King’s firing is not an isolated case. An Ohio teacher was also terminated this week after a separate video surfaced in which she appeared to lament Trump’s survival of the shooting.
