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I don’t want to hear any more about motives.
When someone commits a mass shooting – or attempts to kill the President – they are by definition crazy.
In the case of the Washington Hilton gunman, his motive is stated in his so-called manifesto: He hates President Donald Trump.
Despite a background in engineering and teaching, he was somehow convinced that Trump was in cahoots with Jeffrey Epstein, and called the president a rapist and pedophile.
How Trump survived: Battling the media, former aides and assassination attempts
The Washington Hilton gunman’s manifesto made one thing very clear: He hates President Donald Trump. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
But then again, who cares about the motive? Anyone who would storm a program protected by the Secret Service – knowing that he could easily be killed – is not smart.
We do this all the time, trying to impose a rational framework on irrational attackers.
The shooter was charged in court yesterday with attempted assassination of the President.
Cole Allen charged with attempted murder of Trump in first court appearance since WHCA dinner shooting
Another thing we do regularly is blame an entire class of people for the actions of a single attacker.
After the Secret Service captured the California gunman – whom I am not naming, as is my general policy of not giving them the attention they deserve – many conservatives blamed “leftists.”
Trump himself accused Democrats of delivering “dangerous” and “hateful” speeches.
MS Now anchor Antonia Hilton countered that the President should have said more about the inflammatory rhetoric.
Just weeks earlier, he said, he had “posted online about the potential destruction of an entire civilization” and “called his political enemies ‘vermin, lunatics, scum, terrorists, the enemy within.’ They have certainly contributed – at the very least – to political rhetoric.”
Jimmy Kimmel wound up calling First Lady Melania Trump an “expecting widow” in a joke. (Getty Images)
This ideological finger-pointing is nothing new. A year earlier, a gunman claiming to be a police officer killed Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat and former speaker, and her husband in their home. The Trump-supporting killer also wounded a Democratic senator and his wife in their home. Trump said he was “not familiar” with the matter.
A year ago, a man with mental illness and a criminal record set fire to the mansion of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro on the first night of Passover. He said that if he had encountered Shapiro he would have attacked him with a sledgehammer. He had tried to convince his family to vote for Trump and criticized Shapiro for his stance on Palestinians. Trump did not contact Shapiro that day but called the next day.
The gunman who fatally wounded Democratic Representative Gabby Giffords and killed six other people in Arizona was said by many in the press to have been inspired by Sarah Palin’s political map that put political opponents in jail. It turned out that the killer never saw the map. The New York Times apologized and corrected the false allegation, and Palin’s lawsuit against the newspaper was unsuccessful.
This also parallels the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which President Clinton blamed on the atmosphere created by the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative broadcasters.
The security lapses at the Washington Hilton were inexcusable. It’s no coincidence that President Reagan was shot outside the same hotel in 1981, an attack I covered that left Reagan with much more blood than originally reported.
All the gunman had to do to beat the system was to take a train to Washington and check in as a guest. As with previous White House Correspondents’ Association dinners, ticket checking was inconsistent. Some journalists and other guests come there only for pre-parties organized by news organizations.
As Red Letter reporter Abi Baker explained:
“I didn’t have dinner tickets, just a pre-party invitation, so I flashed my phone at security, pulling up the email invitation. There were no barcodes to scan, no lists to check off — just an email to a network news reception that anyone could forward. At the party I was invited to, no one asked for ID, only my name. At the other place, just a short walk from the ballroom, I walked in without stopping.”
Incredibly, the Secret Service did not even implement the highest level of security for an event attended by the President, Vice President, House Speaker, and top Cabinet officials. There were other events and receptions going on in the hotel at the same time, so the building could not be secured. There may be other reasons to get rid of the press dinner, but it may never again be held at the Hilton, a massive structure that has twice now been the target of a presidential assassination attempt.
Kimmel calls Melania Trump a ‘hopeful widow’ before shooting White House correspondents dinner
Meanwhile, Melania Trump criticized Jimmy Kimmel for telling this joke:
During a parody skit about the press dinner he said: “Our First Lady Melania is here. Look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have the glow of an expectant widow.”
Definitely tasteless. But that was days before Kimmel or anyone else imagined there would be a shootout at the dinner.
“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is aimed at dividing our country,” the first lady said in a statement. “His monologue about my family is not comedy – his words are devastating and deepen the political sickness within America,” he said in a statement. “People like Kimmel should not have the opportunity to enter our homes every evening to spread hate…
“A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will continue to work covertly to protect him. Enough is enough. It’s time for ABC to take a stand. How many more times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”
The president added his voice yesterday, saying that in light of his “disgusting calls for violence,” Kimmel “should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.” To be fair, Kimmel wasn’t calling for violence, he was doing a comedy sketch, but his words were offensive.
Melania Trump calls on ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel for ‘hateful and violent rhetoric’
In December, as part of their long-running feud, Trump called Kimmel a “dead man walking!” And CBS should “put him to sleep…it’s a humanitarian act!”
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said yesterday that Trump has been the target of “completely insane” rhetoric since he first ran for president. He blamed a “leftist culture of hate”. By falsely accusing him of being “fascist” and a “threat to democracy,” elected Democrats and some in the media have “helped legitimize this violence and bring us into this dark moment,” he said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson called for the temperature to be lowered, saying, “You have some of the most prominent figures on the Democrat side in the House and the Senate effectively calling for war. They use these types of metaphors. And it incites violence, because there are paranoid people in society, and they get radicalized online.”
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said Trump has been the target of “completely insane” rhetoric. (Ivan Vucci/Reuters)
During an interview on “60 Minutes”, Norah O’Donnell read from the shooter’s document. After somehow convincing herself that Trump was part of Jeffrey Epstein’s child abuse network, she wrote: “I am no longer willing to allow a pedophile, rapist and traitor to cover my hands with his crimes.”
Trump said, “I was waiting for you to read it, because I knew you would – because you’re terrible people… I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody. Sorry, I’m not a pedophile. You read that nonsense from some sick person… You should be ashamed of yourself for reading it – because I’m none of those things.”
O’Donnell said she was merely quoting the shooter’s words.
Trump calls ’60 Minutes’ host ‘disgraceful’ for reading WHCD suspect’s alleged manifesto on air
It is important to understand that Trump also has a history of violent rhetoric. He has accused the journalists of “treason”, a crime punishable by death.
He has said, “If I’m not elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath,” although he was referring to the auto industry.
During the campaign, he said that the Democrats were running a “Gestapo administration”.
In 2020, he reposted a video of a supporter saying, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”
Trump himself is not untouched by violent rhetoric. (Getty Images/Bloomberg)
Two days before the election, he said this about insurgent Republican Liz Cheney:
“She’s a radical pro-war. Let’s set her up with a nine-barreled rifle pointed at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when guns are pointed in her face.”
And, of course, he forgave and praised the rioters of January 6.
A Utah prosecutor said the man charged with murdering conservative activist Charlie Kirk last September had gravitated toward leftist ideology, despite coming from a Republican family, and had become “increasingly concerned about gay and trans rights.” (She had a transgender roommate.)
The shooter asked in court last week to bar the media from covering the trial because it taints the jury pool.
But this brings us back to the useless question of motive. Who cares? There is no doubt that the recent incidents of violence have come from shooters and suspects who could at least be described as anti-Trump.
Some criticized the President for bringing up his planned White House Ballroom, as it would be bulletproof and heavily guarded. It’s no surprise that he would use this opportunity to complete his pet project.
But a tragedy that could have been worse was fortunately averted.
Subscribe to Howie’s Media Buzzmeter podcast, a look at the hottest stories of the day
FBI Director Kash Patel, who was at the Hilton media dinner, said at a briefing yesterday that Trump had given a “message of unity” after the shootings Saturday night. We can use more of it from both sides.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch said, “The political violence and rhetoric must stop.” He did not single out “many people in this room” for the negative coverage of the president.
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Luckily for all of us, the Secret Service manned the last security checkpoint, preventing the irrational gunman from opening fire in the room below.
