WASHINGTON, April 27 — US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the suspect accused of trying to attack administration officials at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was a “pretty sick guy” who had an anti-Christian manifesto. Trump said in TV interviews that the suspect’s family previously expressed concerns about him to law enforcement officials. The suspect, whom an official identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, of Torrance, California, was arrested at the scene of the event in Washington, D.C.
“He was a Christian, believer, and then he became an anti-Christian, and he had a lot of change,” Trump told CBS’ “60 Minutes” programme. “He was probably a pretty sick guy.”
The manifesto was sent to members of Allen’s family shortly before the attack, a law enforcement official told Reuters. In it, the suspect called himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin,” the official said.
“Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behaviour; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes,” the manifesto read, according to the official.
Targets listed in the manifesto included administration officials – although not FBI Director Kash Patel – prioritised from highest-ranking to lowest, the official said.
The manifesto mocked the “insane” lack of security at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner was held, the official added.
“Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance,” the manifesto’s author reportedly wrote. “I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.” The chaotic events raised fresh questions about the security of top US officials, many of whom were gathered in the hotel’s expansive ballroom. Trump seized on the attention brought by the incident to promote his planned White House ballroom as a safer venue for such events.
“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The suspect traveled by Amtrak train from Los Angeles to Chicago and then to Washington, checking into the Hilton on Friday, acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said on multiple Sunday talk shows, adding that Trump and top members of his administration were the likely targets. Train passengers in the United States are not required to pass through airport-style metal detectors.
Amtrak said it is cooperating with the investigation.
Political violence
Officials have said that the suspect fired a shotgun at a Secret Service agent at a security checkpoint in the Washington Hilton hotel before being tackled and arrested.
Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and cabinet officials were rushed out as the incident unfolded. The Secret Service agent who was shot escaped serious injury because the bullet struck his protective vest, Trump said.
Trump, who had boycotted the media gala in the past, has requested that the dinner be rescheduled within 30 days. White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang of CBS said the group’s board would determine their next steps. The suspect will be charged in federal court on Monday with assault of a federal officer, discharging a firearm and attempting to kill a federal officer, Blanche said, adding he did not know if there was an Iran connection to the attack. Further federal indictments will be coming later, Blanche said. Saturday’s incident was another reminder of a rising tide of political violence in the United States in recent years. Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead at a rally last September, just months after the June 2025 slaying of Democratic Minnesota state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband and the wounding of a Minnesota state senator. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in the days following Kirk’s murder found that Americans believe increasingly harsh rhetoric surrounding politics is encouraging violence in the US
A White House official said law enforcement officials who interviewed Allen’s sister were told he had a tendency to make radical statements, had attended an anti-Trump “No Kings” protest and referred to a plan to do “something” to fix issues with today’s world.
Trump suggested the protest might have spurred the suspect to action. “Part of the reason you have people like that is you have people doing No Kings,” he told CBS. “I’m not a king.”
Around the world, leaders condemned the attack and expressed relief that Trump and all present were safe.
A planned US visit by King Charles of Britain scheduled to start on Monday will proceed, Trump and British officials said. Little was immediately known about the alleged shooter’s background, but social media posts indicated he had worked at C2 Education, a national private test preparation and tutoring service. C2 Education said in a statement that it was cooperating with law enforcement investigators.
Washington Interim Police Chief Jeffery Carroll said the suspect was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives.
Allen had purchased two handguns and a shotgun and stored them at his parents’ home, the White House official said.
The suspect lived with his parents in a two-story house on a tree-lined street with picket fences and craftsman-style homes in the historic district of Torrance, a seaside town in the South Bay area of greater Los Angeles.
Neighbors in the middle-class neighbourhood on Sunday said they were only casually acquainted with him and his parents, with most saying they never spoke to him beyond a brief hello or waving to them as they gave Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters. — Reuters
WASHINGTON, April 26 — The shooting on Saturday night of a Secret Service agent at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner raises questions yet again about the protection afforded to America’s political leaders at a time of increased political violence.
Hundreds of agents from several law enforcement agencies were tasked with protecting the annual bash, which President Donald Trump headlined this year.
Yet a suspect with a shotgun and other weapons managed to get just a floor above the Washington ballroom where an extraordinary concentration of cabinet members, high-ranking lawmakers and celebrities were dining.
In addition to Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and various other government officials were in attendance, many with their own security details.
‘Not particularly secure building,’ Trump says
It is too early to definitively say whether there were any law enforcement failures or miscommunications.
But coming less than two years after a pair of assassination attempts against Trump during the presidential campaign in 2024, Saturday’s incident suggests even the nation’s most comprehensive personal security apparatus has points of vulnerability.
Washington’s police chief said the alleged gunman — who was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and knives — was staying at the Washington Hilton hotel where the dinner took place.
During an impromptu White House press conference after the incident, Trump praised first responders, including the Secret Service.
He also mused about the dangers of being president, noting some of his predecessors had been assassinated, but adding that the suspect had not been close to “breaching” the doors of the ballroom.
“It’s not particularly a secure building,” Trump said of the hotel about a 10-minute drive from the White House. It was also the site of a 1981 assassination attempt against then-President Ronald Reagan. While the roughly 2,600 attendees were required to pass through metal detectors to enter the basement ballroom, they needed only to show a ticket to enter the hotel itself, which also was open to guests. With the venue’s entrance surrounded by demonstrators, many protesting the Trump administration’s war against Iran, attendees were quickly waved through.
In video footage, the gunman can be seen charging down a hallway past a security checkpoint. He then shot an agent, before being tackled and handcuffed, according to authorities.
Inside the ballroom, attendees were still eating the spring pea and burrata salad when guests toward the back of the room reported hearing multiple gunshots.
Secret Service agents quickly rushed Trump and Vance off the long head table, though the protective agents for many cabinet members and lawmakers — seated on the floor with the journalists and their guests — reacted in different fashions. Some agents clambered through the packed ballroom, standing on chairs and overturning tableware to reach protectees, while bewildered guests ducked under tables.
Security details for cabinet members, including Rubio, Bessent and Burgum, pushed their protectees to the ground and formed human shields. Most protectees were eventually ushered out, though the timing of their removals varied significantly, with some being spirited out almost immediately and some staying put for minutes.
Trump, who narrowly escaped death in 2024 when a would-be assassin’s bullet skimmed his ear during a campaign stop, was for his part eager to restart the festivities, White House officials said.
He later told journalists the Secret Service determined that continuing the event would be impossible. — Reuters
WASHINGTON, April 26 — President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner by Secret Service agents on Saturday night after a man armed with a shotgun tried to breach security, officials said.
The armed man fired at a Secret Service agent, an FBI official told Reuters. The agent was hit in an area covered by protective gear and not harmed, the official said.
All federal officials, including Trump, were safe. About an hour after Trump was rushed from the event, he posted on Truth Social that a “shooter had been apprehended.”
“Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job,” Trump added.
‘Get down, get down!’
Shortly afterwards, he posted, “The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition.” He said he would be holding a White House press conference on Saturday night.
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said the service was investigating a shooting near the main screening area at the entrance to the event.
After the sound of shots, dinner attendees immediately stopped talking and people started screaming “Get down, get down!” Many of the 2,600 attendees took cover while waiters fled to the front of the dining hall.
Security agents pushed cabinet officials to the ground, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Other security personnel in combat fatigues stormed the stage and evacuated Trump and his wife. Some security personnel took up position on the stage, pointing their rifles into the ballroom. Cabinet members were then evacuated from the venue one by one.
Trump and the First Lady bent down behind the dais before being hustled out by Secret Service officers. Trump stayed backstage about one hour, a source told Reuters.
“We are staying,” he was overheard saying, the source said.
The event eventually was cancelled for the evening. Trump posted on social media that he hoped it could be rescheduled in 30 days.
Saturday was the first time Trump has attended the correspondents’ dinner as president.
He was the subject of two assassination attempts in 2024, after he left the White House in 2021 and while he was campaigning for re-election.
The most serious occurred while Trump was campaigning at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. Trump was shot and wounded in his upper ear by a 20-year-old gunman. The gunman was shot dead by security personnel.
Just over two months after the Butler shooting, Secret Service agents spotted a man wielding a gun and hiding in bushes at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, while Trump was on the course. It was deemed an assassination attempt and the suspect was sentenced to life in prison in February.
The site of Saturday’s dinner, the Washington Hilton, was the scene of an attempt on the life of President Ronald Reagan, who was shot and wounded by a would-be assassin outside the hotel in 1981. — Reuters
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