President Trump on Sunday disputed allegations in the alleged gunman’s manifesto while defending the Secret Service response to the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, calling the incident a reminder that the nation must not allow “a crazy person” to cancel important traditions.
In an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Trump acknowledged reading the manifesto sent by the 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California, minutes before the Saturday night attack at the Hilton hotel. The gunman, who ran through a metal detector and fired rounds before being tackled by security personnel, had written that he was targeting Trump administration officials.
“He wrote he was targeting members of the Trump administration,” Trump said. “He’s radicalized. He was a Christian believer, and then he became an anti-Christian, and he had a lot of change.”
The manifesto also contained explicit allegations about Trump’s conduct. The gunman wrote that he was “no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
Trump rejected the characterization without naming himself directly.
“I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody,” Trump said. “I’m not a pedophile. You read that… from some sick person? I got associated with all stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated.”
When pressed about whether the gunman was referring to him, Trump grew combative with the interviewer.
“Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let’s say, Epstein or other things,” Trump said. “You shouldn’t be reading that on 60 Minutes. You’re a disgrace.”
The gunman had cased the venue since Friday, writing in the manifesto that the security arrangements were woefully inadequate. “What I expected is security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every ten feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got is nothing,” he wrote.
Trump said the Secret Service agents performed admirably despite the security breach.
“Those guys did a good job last night. They did a really good job,” Trump said.
He said he wanted to better understand what was happening as security personnel moved to evacuate him and the first lady.
“I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of a problem, bad one,” Trump said. “I was surrounded by great people.”
Trump described being asked to drop to the floor as agents escorted him from the ballroom where more than 2,500 guests had gathered to celebrate the First Amendment and freedom of the press. The president said he complied without hesitation.
“When they said, ‘Drop down,’ that meant trouble. And obviously I’m the president, and I listened to what they said,” Trump said.
The first lady “handled it great,” Trump said. “She’s very strong, smart. She got it. She knew what was happening.”
One Secret Service agent was struck and hit his bulletproof vest, protecting him from serious injury. Trump said he spoke with the agent afterward.
“He didn’t want to go to the hospital. They asked him to go, and he said, ‘I don’t need to go to the hospital.’ But he went because they asked him to go,” Trump said.
Trump said the incident would not deter him from his commitment to attend a rescheduled dinner.
“I want them to do it again. We can’t let something be canceled. It’s not that I wanna go. I’m very busy. I don’t need that. I think it’s very important that they do it again,” Trump said.
He urged the White House Correspondents Association to hold the event within 30 days.
“Tell ’em to get it going, and we should do it within 30 days, and they’ll have even more security, and they’ll have bigger perimeter security. It’ll be fine,” Trump said.
Trump also raised the possibility of permanently relocating future White House Correspondents Dinners to a new East Wing ballroom that he said would be ready ahead of schedule, though not until 2028.
The shooting occurred at the same hotel where President Ronald Reagan was nearly assassinated by John Hinckley in 1981.
During the interview, Trump also spoke more broadly about political violence in the country, saying it has been a persistent problem across centuries rather than a new phenomenon.
“You go back 20 years, 40 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years, it’s always been there. People are assassinated. People are injured. People are hurt,” Trump said. “I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is very dangerous. I really think it’s very dangerous for the country.”
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
