Trump Hears Gunshot At White House Correspondents' Dinner, He Can Have Ballroom Now?
It's only fair!
On Saturday night the White House Correspondents’ dinner — attended by Donald Trump and his whole cadre, including wife Melania and Vice President JD Vance — was interrupted by a shooter armed with multiple weapons who tried to blast his way in to the event being held a floor below at the Washington DC Hilton. The very same place, by the way, that then-President Ronald Reagan was shot in front of by John Hinckley Jr. in 1981. If “mentalist” Oz Pearlman hadn’t at that moment been channeling his talents into trying to read Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s mind, maybe he could have seen it coming!
Meanwhile, as the events above unfolded a level above, Trump himself kept sanguine as a lamb before being escorted away, while Vance got yoinked out by the shoulders (before Trump did, weird). Cabinet members Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Stephen Miller were left to scramble, and in the case of Miller, viral pictures sure make it look like he was using his pregnant wife as a human shield, on their way to the emergency stairwells.
Click here to see a picture of Stephen Miller guiding his pregnant wife by the right boob, like a very manly man. And then this:
So that seems pretty cringe!
The alleged shooter was identified as 31-year-old mechanical engineer and teacher Cole Allen of Torrance, California, who was also a guest of the hotel. Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich reported:
![NEWS: new info on the WHCD shooting suspect, Cole Allen, from the White House. I’ll be talking with President Trump about all of this in 30 minutes on @SundayBriefFNC The suspect’s written manifesto clearly stated he wanted to target administration officials. He also had a ton of anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric on his social media accounts. ALLEN’s brother had notified New London PD (CT) of ALLEN’s alleged manifesto he had sent to his family members prior to the incident. Secret Service and Montgomery County Police interviewed [redacted] ALLEN’s sister, at their residence in Rockville, MD. The following highlights from the interview: •Allen said her brother had a tendency to make radical statements and his rhetoric constantly referenced a plan to do “something” to fix the issues with today’s world. •Confirmed ALLEN purchased two handguns and a shotgun from Cap Tactical Firearms and kept them stored at their parent’s home and that their parents were unaware that ALLEN was keeping the firearms in the home. •ALLEN would regularly go to the shooting range to train with his firearms •ALLEN was part of a group called ‘The Wide Awakes’ •ALLEN attended a ‘No Kings’ protest in California at some point](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bKe9!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe211eedc-0e3b-479a-916a-f1f8b06873ad_1192x1106.jpeg "NEWS: new info on the WHCD shooting suspect, Cole Allen, from the White House. I’ll be talking with President Trump about all of this in 30 minutes on @SundayBriefFNC The suspect’s written manifesto clearly stated he wanted to target administration officials. He also had a ton of anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric on his social media accounts. ALLEN’s brother had notified New London PD (CT) of ALLEN’s alleged manifesto he had sent to his family members prior to the incident. Secret Service and Montgomery County Police interviewed [redacted] ALLEN’s sister, at their residence in Rockville, MD. The following highlights from the interview: •Allen said her brother had a tendency to make radical statements and his rhetoric constantly referenced a plan to do “something” to fix the issues with today’s world. •Confirmed ALLEN purchased two handguns and a shotgun from Cap Tactical Firearms and kept them stored at their parent’s home and that their parents were unaware that ALLEN was keeping the firearms in the home. •ALLEN would regularly go to the shooting range to train with his firearms •ALLEN was part of a group called ‘The Wide Awakes’ •ALLEN attended a ‘No Kings’ protest in California at some point")
There were no injuries to the shooter or anyone else, though a law-enforcement officer wearing a bullet-proof vest was allegedly struck by a bullet in the chest, then checked and then released from the hospital.
Immediately following the melee and upon his arrival home, Trump held a press conference at the White House blaming the shooting on the mean judge who put a hold on his $400 million donor-funded ballroom bunker, and rhapsodizing at the unity and love he felt from the room.
He also called in to The Sunday Briefing the next morning, to hit the same points he and X-bots had been hitting in the 12-something hours ever since: everyone in the room unified with love for him and cheered immediately, and PLEASE GIVE BUNKER BABY HIS BUNKER BALLROOM!
“I saw some Democrats as we were leaving, and they were generally hostile, and last night they were great to me. Politicians, congressmen, senators, they were waving and saying ‘great going’ and ‘hello.’ So there was something very nice […] I think they came together. […] As you know we’re building a very, very secure ballroom…”]
Fact check, a judge ordered dozers-down on the ballroom on April 1, and any politicians who might have taken the time to wave “great going” and “hello” at him as the Secret Service rushed them to safety, we suspect sarcasm.
Trump took to his shitty website for more of the same.
And he posted multiple pics of the suspected shooter and the takedown. Just regular presidential stuff.
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One Democratic senator did indeed rally around the Trump’s ballroom cause, can you guess who? It was John Fetterman, who posted a screenshot of a story by Mediaite editor Joe DePaolo about how lax the hotel’s security was. Guess he got the memo, somehow.
In the immediate aftermath, theories started to abound that the event was staged, that it was a setup, that it was designed to glean support and sympathy, like Russia/Viktor Orbán’s idea for a popularity-boosting fake assassination plot they called “The Gamechanger.”
Of course, that would seem like quite a stretch, quite an ask. Moreover, in Trump world, are there enough brain cells to pull something like that off, even with plenty of help? Shrug emoji!
Nevertheless, ever since the first attempt on Trump’s life in July of 2024, such theories have gone mainstream enough that even CNN and Trump supporters who aren’t Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene have been just asking questions. Fully half of Republicans don’t think shooter Matthew Crooks acted alone.
Who fucking knows? But when the President of the United States of America gets shot at — or there’s a shooter a floor away from the president — and it is immediately a mainstream notion that it was staged, that is not a sign of a healthy, functioning democracy.
At the same time, hate it when people who traffic in propaganda and conspiracy theories wake up one day and nobody believes their official stories either!
On CNN Sunday Morning, Dana Bash practically accused Rep. Jamie Raskin of pulling the trigger himself.
Great, now it’s Democrats’ fault for opposing Dear Leader at all.
On Sunday, suspected gunman Cole Allen’s manifesto was leaked to the media. Read it if you’re interested in such things, but it kind of throws cold water on the conspiracy theories. Sorry!
Allen will be arraigned today. We’re sure the team of Todd Blanche, Kash Patel and US Attorney Jeanine Pirro are more than up to the task of finding the truth.
[WSJ gift link / Washington Post archive link / Mediaite]
I've lived in this town all my life, worked on the hill, etc. I don't recall anyone bellyaching for a ballroom until this fucknut showed up.
Grassy knoll meets gassy troll.