U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a press briefing at the White House, following a shooting incident during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026
On Saturday, a computer engineer and teacher named Cole Allen attempted to storm the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with the alleged intention of shooting the president and members of his Cabinet. While the media has reported on many aspects of the situation, according to journalist and national security expert David Rothkopf, the world is talking about all the details except “those that may be most important.”
To that end, he lists five things he thinks more Americans should be considering in the wake of the attack.
First, Rothkopf declares that he doesn’t “care how close Allen got to the president last night, there was a much more violent man already in the ballroom. That is Trump.” He explains that “a lone wolf whackjob with a few weapons under his jacket is nothing compared with the threat posed by a whackjob who controls the world’s most potent military.”
Second, he notes that there was only a single casualty during the attack (the shooter himself), whereas, “with one similarly deranged act on February 28, Trump — without rationale, plan or concern for the consequences of his act — launched a war against Iran that has thus far resulted in the deaths of over 5,000 people,” along with wide-ranging economic and political hardship. “You tell me who the more dangerous criminal in the room was Saturday night,” writes Rothkopf, “and if you’re not sure ask the parents of the schoolgirls and other innocents who died as a result of Trump’s illegal war.”
Third, he says that the shooting drew out “one of the most insufferable Trumps of all — the one in which the con man, serial sex abuser, war criminal, racist, misogynist, immoral, most corrupt president in U.S. history became Saint Donald, the MAGA martyr.” Afterwards, Trump mused about the need to bring Americans together, but Rothkopf argues, “no president in our modern history has done more to promote division or violence in the U.S. than Trump.”
Fourth, Rothkopf notes that, speaking of political violence, “could we please take a moment to remember that the largest, bloodiest, violent attack on any Washington institution in modern memory was actually led by…Trump,” who triggered the January 6 attack on the Capitol, then did nothing to stop it.
And finally, Rothkopf asserts that Trump’s claim that the attack justifies the need for his ballroom-bunker complex “reflects Trump’s twisted view of the world…his desire to be a king in the castle rather than a servant of all Americans living in ‘the people’s house.’” It “suggests his authoritarian impulse to want to control all exposure to him… His sense is that this is his country now.”
Rothkopf concludes by saying that while Trump has called for the event to be rescheduled, “That shouldn’t happen. The event will only end up being hijacked by Trump so that he can, as he desperately wants to do, control the national narrative and direct it away from the criticism and questioning he so richly deserves.”
