Donald Trump has joked that NFL teams should sign White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter Cole Thomas Allen after he sprinted past security in terrifying scenes on Saturday night.
Chilling surveillance footage captured the moment gun-wielding Allen, 31, a teacher from Torrance, California, stormed past Secret Service agents and law enforcement at the Washington Hilton hotel.
Allen dashed past the security checkpoint and attempted to reach the doors to the ballroom where the President was gathered, along with his most senior cabinet members and thousands of journalists.
Trump was asked by CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell during his ’60 Minutes’ interview that aired on Sunday how Allen, who was wearing all black, was able to ‘get that close’.
The President, who had to crawl on the floor to safety during the chaos, responded: ‘I think the NFL should sign him up. He was fast.
‘I’m a big fan of the people of law enforcement, and some of these people – they may be crazy, but they are not stupid, and they figure things out. He ran 45 yards, they say. He just went to it and then boom, popped through.’
Donald Trump has urged NFL teams to sign White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter Cole Thomas Allen after he bolted past security in terrifying scenes on Saturday night
Allen (pictured) made lurid claims regarding President Trump in a manifesto sent to his family
Harrowing surveillance footage captured the moment Allen stormed past security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Just moments before Allen made his dash, security guards were seen standing in the hallway, but as soon as he sped by, they immediately reacted and pulled out their firearms.
‘When you look at it on tape, it’s almost like a blur,’ Trump continued. ‘But it was amazing, because as soon as they saw that, you could see them draw their guns. They were so professional.’
Police later revealed Allen had a number of weapons on him, including a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives.
Allen exchanged fire with Secret Service agents before they tackled him to the ground and arrested him. One agent was struck in his bulletproof vest and is expected to recover. No one else was harmed.
Trump shared a stunning image shortly after the shooting, showing the suspect shirtless and lying face down on the carpet.
Allen’s manifesto, which he sent to his family ten minutes prior to attempting to attack the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, was obtained and published in full by the New York Post.
It detailed his reasoning for the attack, his ‘rules of engagement’ and a ‘rant’ about how little security he encountered.
‘What the hell is the Secret Service doing?’ Allen wrote in a postscript to his manifesto.
Allen exchanged fire with Secret Service agents before they tackled him to the ground
‘I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing,’ he continued.
The radicalized teacher described a ‘sense of arrogance’ at the Washington Hilton Hotel, where the dinner was held.
‘The security at the event is all outside… because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before,’ Allen wrote.
He said that the security was so lacking that, ‘if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed sh**.’ Ma Deuce is a nickname for the M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun.
Earlier in his manifesto, Allen explained why he had attempted to break into the dinner and kill top Trump administration officials.
‘I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,’ he wrote, likely in reference to President Donald Trump. He said that as a citizen of the US, what his representatives do reflects on him.
The suspected shooter added that he had wanted to take action for a long time, ‘but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.’
Trump’s ’60 Minutes’ interview with O’Donnell later turned nasty when he said she was a ‘disgrace’ for reading excerpts of Allen’s manifesto that made wild accusations toward the President.
‘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 pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” What’s your reaction to that?’
Allen is highly educated and academically accomplished, according to his social media. He has no prior criminal record and was unknown to law enforcement in Washington DC
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 pedophile,’ 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 pedophile 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.
‘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.
