After the third known assassination attempt against him since the summer of 2024, President Trump reiterated what he sees as the need for a secure venue at the White House to host high-level events.
Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old part-time teacher, video game developer and mechanical engineer, and the suspect currently in custody, was quickly subdued after firing a shotgun near the main screening area during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
McFarland: Only 'recourse' of Far Left is murderBy Steve Jordahl After President Trump once again escaped an assassin’s bullet, a Christian apologist says God is protecting the U.S. president who is a target of unhinged left-wing hatred. When an assassin's bullet nicked President Trump's ear in Butler, Pennsylvania, missing by a fraction on an inch when the president turned his head, many people, including the president himself, said it was a miracle and that God spared him. Describing the weekend shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Christian author and speaker Alex McFarland told American Family Radio it was divine providence. “Clearly, the protective hand of God has been with President Trump,” McFarland told the “Today’s Issues” program. McFarland insisted most of the violence comes from the political Far Left whose belief system and worldview have been warped by secularism. “Whether it be climate activists or transgender activists, or gay activists or abortion activists, they can't debate the issues. So their recourse is, we'll kill him,” McFarland said. "If you don't believe in God, then you don't care about that," said show host Tim Wildmon. |
A Secret Service agent was struck by a bullet but saved by his ballistics vest.
On Monday, three charges were announced in court: Attempted assassination of President Trump; interstate transportation of weapons; discharge of a firearm during criminal violence.
Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and others were ushered to safety.
The area at the Washington Hilton was secured, and the investigation is ongoing. A court appearance was expected Monday as prosecutors work to build their case against him.
Allen sent a “manifesto” explaining his intentions to family members shortly before the attack. Trump wasn’t his only target. His writings referenced Trump administration officials “from highest to lowest.”
He is not a registered Democrat but donated to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in 2024 and had a yard sign supporting a Democratic candidate in a local election outside his Los Angeles County home.
“It’s very reasonable for a president, especially a president who has now been shot at three times, and probably has likely had many other assassinations attempts against him foiled that we don’t know about … If this president wants to not do public events that aren't in environments that he and his team can control, that’s a very reasonable thing to want to do,” Tim Rice, the Washington, D.C., bureau chief and deputy managing editor for The Daily Wire, said on American Family Radio Monday.
Last July, Trump announced plans to tear down the East Wing and build a 90,000-foot ballroom at the White House primarily for the purpose of hosting secure high-level events.
Work continues while Democrat lawsuits proceed.
The courts have permitted construction of an underground security complex (including bunkers and medical facilities) due to national security claims, and above-ground ballroom construction has resumed under a stay pending further review. Cranes and active work are visible at the site.
The ballroom is expected to be completed by the summer of 2028, according to an assessment by the National Park Service last August.
Any compassion for Trump that trickled out from the first wave of media coverage won’t last long, Rice said.
“The voices will be more amplified. I think people are going to start coming out with more and more criticisms as everyone sort of gets their sea legs back,” he told show host Jenna Ellis.
In his initial court appearance, Allen was expected to face charges of using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon. Additional charges are expected, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said.
“Investigators and prosecutors want to build the case carefully so that it doesn't get dismissed on a technicality,” Gerard Filitti, an attorney with Lawfare Project, told Ellis.
“All of this is a process. These initial charges are meant to assure that he stays behind bars while this investigation is being carried out,” Filitti said.
There’s little chance Allen will be released on bond regardless of potential political leanings of any judge who might draw his case.
“I think that whatever political ideologies judges have, they stop short of releasing back onto the street someone who charged a gathering of hundreds of people, of over a thousand people, including the president, with an attempt to an attempt to kill people,” Filitti said.
The prosecution of an attempt on the life of the president is important, but what must be addressed is the climate that produced it. From social media to cable news, Democrat voters are repeatedly told their U.S. president is crazy and dangerous, and he is routinely compared to a dictator and Adolf Hitler.
One example of that climate happened days earlier, on Thursday, when "Late Show" host Jimmy Kimmel joked about Melania Trump being a widow. Kimmel's skit was a parody of telling jokes at the dinner.
Reacting to Kimmel's joke, in light of the shooting, the first lady wrote his monologue "isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America."
She also demanded ABC News "take a stand" against what she called "hateful and violent rhetoric."
The “echo chamber” that exists with the daily news cycle of anti-Trump rhetoric is responsible for Saturday’s events, previous attempts on Trump’s life, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk as well, Filitti said.
“It's elected officials, liberals who are making these allegations, podcasts, social media,” he said.
The argument has become personal, not political.
“They’re framing a narrative grounded in Marxist origins about the oppressor and the oppressed. When you are suppressing, when you are considering yourself to be oppressed and fighting for them, then you're justifying political violence because it's a life and death matter,” Filitti said.
