Donald Trump has relived the terrifying moment the Secret Service made him crawl on the floor to safety amid a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The glitzy event on Saturday evening was marred by a shooter rushing into the Washington Hilton and firing off several rounds.
Speaking to CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Trump said that upon hearing the shots, ‘we started to realise maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of a problem, bad one, and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, which you hear all the time.’
He said Secret Service agents told him to drop to the floor to avoid being hit with bullets, to which he responded: ‘I said “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me see. Wait a minute”.’
Trump added: ‘I was walking out… about halfway there, and they said, “Please go down to the floor. Please go down to the floor.” So I dropped to the floor. So did the First Lady.’
The US president added that the incident was ‘rather [a] traumatic experience’ for his wife Melania: ‘Melania was very cognisant. The First Lady was doing a terrific job. She loves the country.
‘She recognises it better than any. But she told me numerous times, she said “you are in a dangerous job”.’
He also lashed out at CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell, calling her a ‘disgrace’ for reading excerpts of Cole Thomas Allen’s manifesto that made wild accusations toward the President.
Donald Trump told CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell she was a ‘disgrace’ for reading excerpts of Cole Thomas Allen’s manifesto that called the President a ‘rapist, pedophile, traitor’
Allen, 31, sent the outrageous claims to his family ten minutes prior to attempting to attack the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which Trump was attending for the first time in over a decade.
During the interview, O’Donnell read some of the most inciting lines of Allen’s missive which Trump slammed.
‘He appears to reference a motive. In it, he writes this: quote, ”Administrative officials, they are targets.” He also wrote this: “I am no longer willing to permit a paedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” What’s your reaction to that?’
Trump replied: ‘Well, I was waiting for you to read that, because I knew you would. Because you’re horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I am not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.’
O’Donnell attempted to interrupt Trump, asking: ‘Oh, do you think he was referring to you?’
‘Excuse me. Excuse me. I am not a paedophile,’ he quickly said, cutting the anchor off.
Trump then appeared to refer to what he felt was the connection Allen was attempting to make between himself and paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
‘You read that crap from some sick person. I got associated with all 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.’
Trump has never been charged with a crime in connection to Epstein, who the President has said he kicked out of his Mar-a-Lago club decades ago.
The President continued to go after O’Donnell and appeared to regret going on with the interview at all.
In an interview with 60 Minutes Sunday, O’Donnell read some of the most inciting lines of Allen’s missive which Trump slammed
Allen (pictured) made lurid claims regarding President Trump in the manifesto sent to family members
‘But I said to myself, you know, I’ll do this interview and they’ll probably — I read the manifesto. It was a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that, because I’m not any of those things.’
O’Donnell continued to clarify that those were the gunman’s words but he was having none of it.
‘Excuse me. Excuse me. You shouldn’t be reading that on 60 minutes. You’re a disgrace. But go ahead, let’s finish the interview,’ he said.
O’Donnell had asked Trump if he may try to improve his relationship with a combative press in the wake of the shooting.
‘Look, for whatever reason, we disagree on a lot of subjects. We talked about crime, I am very strong on crime. It seems like the press isn’t,’ Trump said.
‘It’s not so much the press, but the press plus the Democrats. It’s almost like they are one and the same.’
Trump also called those who questioned the shooting ‘sick.’
‘I think they’re more sick than they are con people,’ he said. ‘But there are con people.’
He later denied that political violence is worse than it has been in previous generations – though he lambasted Democrats for their rhetoric.
‘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 told O’Donnell.
Guests take cover after U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner
But he later accused Democrats of using inflammatory language.
‘I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is very dangerous,’ Trump said. ‘I really think it’s very dangerous for the country.’
He said the alleged shooter was ‘almost like a blur’ as he raced through the hotel hallway on Saturday night, joking that the ‘NFL should sign him up.’
‘But it was amazing because as soon as they [law enforcement] saw that, you could see them draw their guns. They were so professional, aimed their guns, and then they took him down immediately,’ Trump said.
Trump reiterated his calls for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to be rescheduled.
He said it would include ‘bigger security’ and ‘more perimeter security.’
‘I think it’s important that they do it again,’ Trump said of the dinner, adding that he does not want a ‘crazy person’ to succeed in cancelling it.
Allen, 31, sent the eerie anti-Trump writing to his family members just 10 minutes before he fired shots at the hotel in Washington, where the ritzy press gala was taking place on Saturday night.
The harrowing writing was given to the police by a relative, a US official said.
According to the New York Post, Allen’s manifesto read: ‘Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial.
‘I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration. Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behaviour; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.
Members of the FBI walk to inspect the neighbourhood where the house associated with Cole Tomas Allen
‘In order to minimise casualties, I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls).
‘I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a paedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.’
His targets included ‘administration officials (not including [FBI Director Kash] Patel): they are targets, prioritised from highest-ranking to lowest.’
Allen wrote, allegedly referencing the president: ‘I am no longer willing to permit a paedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.’
Trump spoke out on Sunday morning, following the chaotic night at the dinner.
He told Fox that the shooter ‘had a lot of hatred in his heart’ and that religion was a reason why the gunman attacked.
The President said this morning: ‘He had a lot of hatred in his heart for quite a while.’
He added that the manifesto was ‘a religious thing. It was strongly anti-Christian.’
‘He’s got some big problems with the rest of his life, but it’s very, very bad, very bad situation,’ the President continued.
Allen, a teacher from Torrance, California, had a manifesto, and his siblings knew he had firearms and were worried about him.
On Saturday night, chilling surveillance footage captured the moment gun-wielding Allen stormed past security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Allen was seen wearing all black as he sprinted inside the Washington Hilton hotel on Saturday evening with a gun in hand, video posted by President Trump on Truth Social showed.
Just moments before he ran, security guards were seen standing in the hallway, but as soon as he sped by, they immediately reacted and pulled out their firearms.
Police revealed the suspect had a number of weapons on him, including a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives.
President Trump shared a stunning image shortly after the shooting, showing the suspect shirtless and lying face down on the carpet.
Law enforcement confirmed he was not struck by gunfire while being stopped, but has since been taken to the hospital for evaluation.
Allen was a guest at the Hilton hotel, where the event was taking place.
Surveillance video shows the suspect sprinting past a security checkpoint and attempting to reach the doors to the ballroom where the president was gathered, along with his most senior cabinet members and thousands of journalists.
Evidence found on Allen’s electronic devices and in his writings points towards the theory that he intended to target administration members in attendance at the dinner.
His family members told law enforcement that Allen had sent them some of his disturbing writings before the attack, which prompted one of them to alert police. The writings did not specifically mention the dinner on Saturday.
Another family member told investigators that Allen has made radical statements and that he frequently mentioned plans to do ‘something’ to fix problems with today’s world.
The family added that Allen would regularly visit a shooting range to train with his guns. A senior US official told CBS News that the suspected gunman was part of a group called The Wide Awakes and that he attended a No Kings protest in California.
