Third Assassination Attempt at Ritzy DC Media Dinner. Drawing a Straight Line: From Hasan Piker to California Teacher Cole Allen. Obama Wonders What Motive Might Be. More
Thank God the third time wasn’t a charm.
President Trump dodged another bullet, the third assassination attempt of President Trump on record. This time the would-be White House Correspondents’ Association dinner assassin left behind a manifesto that makes his motives crystal clear.
Except for the willfully blind brigade who hide behind “the search for a motive.” Yes, that includes Barack Obama. In a mealy-mouthed X post the ex-President opined that “it’s incumbent upon all of us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy.” Ya think?
Begging to differ is alleged shooter Cal Tech grad Cole Allen, 31, a teacher (why am I not surprised?), who emailed his “manifesto” to his family 10 minutes before the attack. Which is decidedly inconvenient but not an insurmountable obstacle for the “search for a motive” crowd. The dinner took place at the Washington Hilton (which, alas, does not have an unblemished record with regard to gunmen and Presidents) (via CBS linked above):
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect wrote a “manifesto” that stated he planned to target Trump administration officials, “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,” according to a copy obtained by CBS News.
Cole Allen, 31, wrote that law enforcement, hotel employees and guests weren’t his intended targets but that he would still attack them to get to the administration, adding: “I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Allen’s “screed,” which the New York Post published yesterday began “Hello, everybody!” and called President Trump “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor,” familiar TDS themes showing. Allen outlined his “rules of engagement”—i.e., he said he would not kill Secret Service agents, Capitol police, or guests unless necessary. Curiously, the manifesto said he would not attack FBI Director Kash Patel, who was present at the dinner.
The scene was shocking. Guests hid under tables (and here and here) as the Secret Service and law enforcement officers rushed into the ballroom, some with weapons drawn, to remove the president and administration officials from harm’s way. The New York Post’s Miranda Devine writes about president Trump’s masterful presser shortly after the attempt:
Two hours later, he was at the podium in the White House press briefing room — named after James Brady, the White House press secretary shot in the head and paralyzed in the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan outside the same Washington Hilton hotel.
The historical echo was not lost on any of the hastily assembled journalists still dressed in their black-tie finery.
If his Trump-deranged critics could be honest with themselves for a moment, they would admit that the president’s remarks that night were pitch-perfect.
Wearing his tuxedo, he offered calm reassurance, wry humor, and even kindness to the shaken reporters and to a nation sick of ongoing political violence.
He called on Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, who had been sitting next to him on stage that night, to ask the first question, complimenting the CBS News reporter with whom he has had an acrimonious relationship.
“Madam chairman,” he said, “I just want to say you did a fantastic job. What a beautiful evening.”
Then he quipped: “And after that, it’s very tough for her to ask a killer question.”
The president called for unity and demanded that the WHCA dinner be held again within 30 days. Faith Bottum of the Wall Street Journal says that Trump stood tall under fire.
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal is headlined “A ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ in Washington” (that’s what Allen called himself) also said that Trump hit the right notes. The WSJ editorial also reminds us of what we don’t need:
Rep. Ro Khanna, the California Democrat with his own designs on the White House, called Sunday for a commission on political violence. But we don’t need a study group to tell Americans how to behave. We need our political and media classes to stop talking and writing in apocalyptic terms and restore reason to political debates. We need to revive the traditional moral line that violence is unacceptable.
Trump was more obstreperous later on “60 Minutes.” (And here.) Security concerns at the Hilton turn out to be a boost for the ballroom. The Free Beacon explores Allen’s Bluesky posts, Kamala Harris support, and attendance at “No Kings” event. Please, somebody, find a motive! The Free Press’s lead story early this morning is an editorial that finds the WHCA dinner attack “only the latest assault on the foundations of our way of life.” Suzy Weiss in the same outlet had a takeaway from the evening: “Dudes Rock.” Weiss writes:
It was a big night for men who use the word ‘vehicle,’ opine on the Roman Empire, and show up as heroes when we actually need them.
Ms. Must was delighted that National Review drew a straight line from the violence advocated last week in the New York Tines by leftie darling Hasan Piker and Saturday’s near tragedy. George Washington University law professor and Fox Contributor Jonathan Turley also penned a good column on the “moral monstrosity” of the New York Times Hasan Piker podcast. Victor Davis Hanson writes about mainstreaming hate against the president.
Sadly, Ms. Must doesn’t expect the likes of Piker & Co. to refrain from putting targets on the backs of those they oppose. But the Wall Street Journal has a good editorial on “One of ‘the Rich’ Answers Mamdani’s Insult.” New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Piker ally, stood in front of hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin’s apartment to put a target on Griffin’s back. Griffin may decline to build a multi-billion-dollar project in New York. The Editors:
Stigmatizing the rich by name is popular on the left these days, in the manner advised by Saul Alinsky. It’s good to see at least someone fighting back. More CEOs and others will have to do so if the U.S. is going to defeat what is becoming an ugly campaign to turn America into a socialist state.
The WHCA dinner isn’t the only sacred institution (just kidding) under attack. Mollie Hemingway, whose new book on Justice Alito is making waves, writes that the collegiality of the Supreme Court is dangerously threatened. Rep. Elise Stefanik’s recent book, meanwhile, is hailed as providing an antidote to Ivy League decay in a review of her new book, “Poisoned Ivies,” by Danielle Shapiro at City Journal:
Stefanik anchors her diagnosis of elite American academia in the now-infamous congressional hearings during which she pressed the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania until they admitted that endorsing the genocide of Jews did not necessarily violate their institutions’ codes of conduct. Drawing on statistical data, documentary evidence, and individual stories, Stefanik demonstrates that this sort of “academically lazy moral bankruptcy” is entrenched across the elite universities and within the bureaucracy of each school.
It’s easy to get lost in Stefanik’s “catalog of horrors,” but her accounts reveal four types of institutional deterioration: financial dependencies, administrative double standards, faculty radicalization, and physical violence….
Stefanik has shown how universities have abandoned their commitments. It’s up to the American people and lawmakers to get them back on a more constructive path.
“Why Can’t Americans Buy More Affordable Health-Care Plans?” in City Journal proposes that households should be able to enroll in plans exempt from ACA rules, which would help to reduce costs. Chris Pipes concludes:
One-size-fits-all coverage may be an inevitable consequence of single-payer health care systems. It need not be a feature of American private insurance.
Looks like Jerome Powell won’t be the man who came to dinner (and wouldn’t leave). Senator Thom Tillis will vote yes for Fed head nominee Kevin Warsh. Fox Digital has a series of updates on the Iran situation. As some wag said, looks like Iran’s leaders are reading MSNBC Now and think they’re winning. They seem to think they have more bargaining chips than is the case.
