Barack Obama issued a carefully worded statement Sunday evening in response to the latest assassination attempt targeting President Donald Trump and senior officials at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
According to Gateway Pundit, 31-year-old Cole Allen allegedly burst into the lobby of the Washington Hilton on Saturday night and opened fire as the annual media and political gala was underway. President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and multiple Cabinet officials were swiftly evacuated from the ballroom by Secret Service agents as chaos erupted.
Security footage reportedly shows Allen sprinting past a Secret Service checkpoint while federal agents returned fire in a desperate effort to neutralize the threat. By Sunday, authorities had disclosed that Allen had written a manifesto in which he detailed his hatred for pedophile, rapist Trump and admitted he was specifically targeting the President and his team.
Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. Im not the person raped in a detention camp. Im not the fisherman executed without trial, Allen wrote, invoking a distorted moral rationale for political violence. Im 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 behavior; it is complicity in the oppressors crimes.
I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes, Allen added, explicitly framing his attack as a personal crusade against President Trump. Yet despite this manifesto, Obama publicly insisted that the shooters motives remain unclear.
Although we dont yet have the details about the motives behind last nights shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, its incumbent upon all us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy, Obama said, sidestepping the openly anti-Trump rhetoric in Allens own words. Its also a sobering reminder of the courage and sacrifice that U.S. Secret Service Agents show every day. Im grateful to them and thankful that the agent who was shot is going to be okay, Obama added, prompting widespread criticism from conservatives who see a glaring double standard in how political violence is acknowledgedor ignoredwhen the target is President Trump.
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