Third attempt: Defiant Trump shrugs off gunman threat

TOI correspondent from Washington: A California school teacher who graduated from Caltech and interned at a Nasa lab was apprehended by the Secret Service on Saturday after he tried to shoot his way into a media dinner with the intent to attack US President Donald Trump who was to speak at the event.

In what was described as a third such attempt to target Trump, a 32-year old man named Cole Tomas Allen tried to storm into the Washington Hilton Hotel banquet hall where the US President was attending the annual White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner.





The gathering of media figures, social elites, and political heavies, including Trump’s cabinet associates, had just settled in for a pre-speech dinner when several gun shots were heard outside the hall, sending Secret Service scrambling to evacuate the President, First Lady Melania Trump, and other senior administration officials, including vice-president JD Vance. No shots were fired at the President himself or at the gathering.

White House and Secret Service officials later said Allen, who was staying at the same hotel, tried to shoot his way past the main magnetometer screening area outside the banquet hall but was tackled by security and arrested unharmed. A Secret Service agent who was shot at by Allen was saved by his bullet proof vest.

Washington Hilton, a few blocks from the White House, is the same hotel where John Hinkley Jr. tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Appearing in the White House briefing room about an hour after he had been evacuated, President Trump, looking quite composed, referred to previous attempts on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, and in Palm Beach, said it was not the first time his life was in danger, and urged Americans to resolve differences peacefully.

Asked why he thought he was being targeted, Trump, invoking Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, said it was always the most impactful people who are targeted. “The people that do the most… the people who make the most impact, they go after them. I hate to say I am honored by that…. I have done a lot (for the US),” he asserted.

He also pivoted to the Iran situation, saying “when you do things like that you become a target.”

Rejecting the idea of giving up public appearances, Trump used the occasion to make the case for the White House ballroom he is obsessed with, saying the hotel where the incident took place was not particularly secure and even the military and Secret Service is demanding a secure, drone-proof ballroom.

“It is a dangerous profession…nobody told me it was such a dangerous profession,” Trump joked, saying he is there to do a job, and with the job come risks. In fact, he said, he “fought like hell” to stay on and speak at the event, but he was overruled by security personnel.

In a social media post about an hour after the incident, Trump wrote: “Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’ but will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement. They will make a decision shortly. Regardless of that decision, the evening will be much different than planned, and we’ll just, plain, have to do it again.”

Trump’s message earned encomiums from many of his supporters, who portrayed the incident as a third assassination attempt on him and praised his courage in wanting to return to deliver his speech. Some supporters blamed the “radical left” for the purported assassination attempt even as the first sketchy details were trickling out, while chronic Trump critics picked holes in the official version, dubbing it "staged."

The US Secret Service said in a statement soon after the incident that it is investigating a shooting incident near the main magnetometer screening area in the hotel and one individual is in custody. While some reports said one suspect was shot in the melee, the Secret Service said the “condition of those involved is not yet known, and law enforcement is actively assessing the situation,” suggesting there may be others involved. Trump however said the incident appeared to involve a “lone wolf."

The WHCA dinner is an annual roast and toast, which Trump has avoided from the time he became President, ostensibly because he believes the most of the media is hostile to him. But he made an exception this year, and instead of a well-known comedian or late night host who typically roasts the country’s movers and shakers, he was to deliver the keynote himself, with a “mentalist” providing entertainment for the evening.

But about half an hour into the evening when dinner was about to be served, there were several popping sounds outside the banquet hall while Trump and the first lady were seated on the dais nattering with guests around them, including the mentalist Oz Pearlman. Secret Service agents came storming through the aisles yelling "get down, get down," while other agents swarmed around the president and the first lady and rushed them out. Security detail attached to various cabinet members also shepherded them out.