Trump White House shooting live: President lashes out at questions over shooter’s manifesto and blames Democrats

US president Donald Trump said that the suspect accused of trying to attack administration officials at a black-tie gala on Saturday night was a “pretty sick guy” who had been flagged to law enforcement by family members.

Trump said in TV interviews that the suspect, whom an official identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, of Torrance, California, had posted what Trump described as an “anti-Christian” manifesto.

“He was a Christian, believer, and then he became an anti-Christian, and he had a lot of ⁠change,” Trump told CBS News. “He was probably a pretty sick guy.”

In the manifesto, Allen calls himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and said he planned to attack Trump administration officials, prioritizing them from highest-ranking to lowest but excluding FBI Director Kash Patel, a law enforcement official told Reuters.

Allen cited Christian theology as he said he was trying to protect those harmed by the administration’s policies.

Investigators are scouring the Washington Hilton hotel and a Southern California home for more details on Cole Tomas Allen, the man accused of firing shots at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.

Allen, a teacher, allegedly traveled from his home in Torrance, California, to Chicago and then onto Washington by rail, according to officials.

Once in the capital, he used legally purchased firearms in his alleged attack at the dinner.

Allen is not cooperating with officials, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Face the Nation on Sunday.

The 31-year-old suspect is expected to face weapons and assault charges, and could face further allegations in the future.

“There’s a lot of federal charges that could be in play beyond those two charges, but it depends on us understanding his motive, his intent, his premeditation of what led into him deciding he was going to do what he did last night,” Blanche added.

Allen is set to be arraigned on Monday.

King Charles ‌and Queen Camilla have privately reached out to US president Donald Trump and his wife – first ​lady Melania Trump – to express their sympathies after a shooting at a White House Correspondents’ dinner, a palace source said.

British senior minister ‌Darren Jones said earlier on Sunday that ⁠the government would continue to cooperate closely with US security services ahead of ⁠Charles’ visit and that extensive discussions already under way would continue in the coming days.

“In respect of His Majesty’s visit ‌to the United States ​next week … our security services obviously remain in ‌close cooperation in advance of that,” Jones ​told Sky News.

King Charles’ state visit to the US will go ahead as planned on Monday despite a shooting at a White House dinner attended by president Donald Trump, Buckingham Palace said after discussions with US officials.

Charles and his wife, Queen ⁠Camilla, are due to arrive on Monday for a four-day state visit, but questions arose after a man opened fire on security personnel near the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday, prompting Secret Service agents to rush Trump from the venue.

“I think it’s great; he’ll be very safe,” Trump ⁠said in an interview on CBS News. “The White ​House ⁠grounds are really safe.”

Trump also said there was no indication from authorities that there were additional threats to himself or other officials.

US authorities believe the shooting likely ⁠targeted the president and administration officials, acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

Blanche also said ​he ⁠was confident Charles would be safe during ‌this week’s visit to the US.

The four-day trip – which is to include a private meeting with Trump and an address to Congress marking 250 years since US independence – is ‌intended to reinforce the strained US-British relationship amid differences over ‌the Iran war.

Publicly, members of the administration praised the Secret Service for agents’ quick response on Saturday after a suspected gunman charged the ballroom in the basement of the Washington Hilton, where hundreds of journalists and administration VIPs including the president and vice president were seated for the annual event. No persons inside the ballroom were injured, and the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, was tackled before getting inside.

In private, however, Real Clear Politics reports that seasoned security officials are raising alarms over the Secret Service and the agency’s ability to protect the president. Numerous sources familiar with presidential security protocols bashed Saturday night’s security apparatus at the Hilton in comments to the publication, echoing some criticism leveled by attendees and politicians on social media after the event.

The report also claimed that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles plans to blame the president’s sons, who reportedly pushed for Curran’s appointment, if the president decides to fire him. Wiles, as Trump’s top aide, oversees the Secret Service and also faced some criticism for allowing Curran to remain in his job this long.

Curran took over the agency last year, just months after the president was nearly assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania during a campaign event.

Family members reportedly raised red flags about the man accused of carrying out Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Prior to the shooting, suspect Cole Tomas Allen allegedly sent a manifesto to his family, reportedly prompting Allen’s brother to get in touch with the New London, Connecticut, police department.

Separately, after the shooting, Allen’s sister reportedly spoke with the Secret Service and Washington-area police.

She told them her brother had a tendency to make radical claims and had spoken of a desire to do “something” to fix present-day issues, a senior administration official told NBC News.

Allen had two handguns and a shotgun at home in Torrance, California, that he hid from his parents, she reportedly said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had a sharp response on Sunday for those linking Democrats to Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

“America will not be lectured about civility by far right extremists in Congress,” the New York congressman wrote on X. “Particularly those who provide aid and comfort to hundreds of violent rioters who brutally beat police officers on January 6. There will be ample time to vigorously debate the issues of the day. Now is a time to unify.”

As The Independent has previously reported, recent acts of political violence have been carried out by individuals tied to left- and right-wing ideologies alike.

President Trump is sharing more of his thoughts and recollections about lasts night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

The president described the first lady’s fear after gunshots were heard, which some attendees initially thought was a tray being dropped.

“I think she realized ahead of time that that was more of a bullet than it was a tray,” Trump told 60 Minutes in an interview that aired on Sunday. “She looked very upset about what just took place.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Trump said political violence was a fixture of life, but singled out rhetoric from Democrats as especially dangerous.

“It’s always been there. People are assassinated. People are injured,” Trump told anchor Norah O’Donnell. “People are hurt. I’m not sure that there’s any more now than there was. 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.”

The president lashed out at O’Donnell when she read from a portion of alleged shooter Cole Tomas Allen’s manifesto, which stated, “I’m no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”

The president called CBS News “horrible people” for asking a question about the manifesto.

“I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re horrible people,” Trump said. “Yeah he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody. I’m not a pedophile.”

“You read that crap from some sick person,” the president continued. “I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with let’s say Epstein or other things.”

As has become routine after major news events, conspiracy theories spread rapidly online in the wake of the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

As WIRED notes, numerous users on the left-leaning Bluesky social network simply posted the word “STAGED” after the shooting.

Others on X, which tends to lean more rightward, claimed the shooting was a false flag operation meant to drum up support for President Trump’s White House ballroom project.

Right-wing content creator Matt Walsh seemed to mock these individuals in an X post of his own.

“So in summary we have a plot where all parties involved are working against their own interests with no real discernible benefit to any of them,” he wrote. “There is no evidence of this plan and it doesn’t even make any intuitive sense and the motives for everyone are unclear if not insane, but still I believe it because I’m a very smart person.”

People who knew Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect Cole Allen at his alma matter Caltech are shocked their former classmate is accused of attempting to attack the president.

“I’m pretty shaken up,” Sheila Murthy told The Wall Street Journal.

She described Allen as “somewhat reserved, quiet, and introverted to say the least,” during their time at Caltech, one of the nation’s premier science and engineering universities.

Adrian Costantino, who graduated with Allen, painted a similar picture.

“We were all a little weird, a little nerdy but he was even more nerdy,” he told the Journal. “But he was always nice and kind to people. When I heard about him being involved in this, I was like, holy s***, this is not what I would expect of him.”