President Donald Trump was the target of yet another assassination attempt this weekend, this time during the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Details are still coming in, but what does seem clear now more than ever is that Trump Derangement Syndrome is no longer just a joke or online meme. It is a very real psychological sickness driven by a left-wing cult of violence that is tearing at the seams of American society.
Video of the terrifying moment during the event at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., shows the President speaking with someone on stage when muffled shots are heard in the background. Secret Service then quickly rushed Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other high-profile cabinet members out of the room.
Trump later posted on Truth Social that a “shooter has been apprehended” and applauded Secret Service and law enforcement officers for acting “quickly and bravely.” He also briefly spoke to members of the press from the White House Press Briefing Room podium to update them on the situation.
There have been no reported fatalities or serious injuries from the incident. One law enforcement officer was reportedly hit in his bulletproof vest.
The alleged shooter has been identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California. Allen, allegedly a substitute teacher who recently won “Teacher of the Month” in Los Angeles County, had a shotgun, handgun, and multiple knives as he unsuccessfully attempted to rush through a Secret Service checkpoint before being apprehended. An unknown number of shots were fired.
Over the next few days and weeks, expect plenty of back-and-forth debate online about Allen’s political leanings and past statements. Liberals are already claiming with zero evidence that the whole thing was a hoax (just as they have with past Trump assassination attempts) while simultaneously claiming that Allen is actually a radical right-winger. Conservatives (with substantially more evidence, including the fact that Allen reportedly donated to Kamala Harris), are pegging him as yet another left-wing terrorist.
But Allen’s personal politics shouldn’t be the main focus here. His actions reveal a deep and sinister undercurrent of violence in our culture directed at President Trump – and all of his supporters – that keeps showing up over and over. On that front, there is no question that the broader liberal establishment, and particularly the corporate media, are responsible.
Americans won’t need to be reminded of the near-miss assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2022. That shooting killed two people in the crowd behind Trump and critically injured two others. Then there was the second major assassination attempt in Florida, when another would-be killer was captured with a rifle at Trump International Golf Club.
But while those incidents dominated the headlines for several weeks, they weren’t the only ones. Back in 2016, a British national attempted to grab a police officer’s firearm at a Trump rally in Las Vegas, later telling authorities that he wanted to shoot him. In 2017, another deranged individual tried to flip Trump’s presidential motorcade with a forklift in North Dakota. In 2020, a French-Canadian citizen mailed Trump a package containing deadly ricin poison. In July 2024, a Pakistani national was arrested for partaking in a murder-for-hire scheme to take out Trump. And just this past February, Secret Service killed an individual who brought a shotgun and a gas canister to Mar-a-Lago.
There’s also the broader context of violence against conservatives – most notably the assassination of Charlie Kirk last year. Many other conservative influencers face death threats almost daily and have had their addresses and personal details posted online. Left-wing influencers like Hasan Piker openly call for death to conservatives.
Liberals can deflect all they want, but the reality is that it seems as if it is primarily right-wing figures who are facing down such violence – strongly suggesting that it is the left that has a violence problem, not the right. Joe Biden was notoriously unpopular, but he never had a bullet graze his ear, and we never heard stories about lunatics storming events he was attending to try to murder him.
There will be plenty to analyze as more details emerge about Allen and what motivated him to commit this seemingly insane act that had virtually no chance of success. But this shocking story has already reinforced the disastrous consequences of the left-wing cult of violence – and that it must stop before more people end up dead.
Shane Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
