“I am not a pedophile.” Donald Trump responded to the manifesto of the man who carried out the shooting at the event in Washington

The US President Donald Trump has responded to the manifesto of the man who carried out the shooting at the White House Correspondentsʼ Association dinner on April 26. The shooter said he did not want to "let a pedophile, rapist, and traitor sully" his hands with his crimes.

Trump commented on the shooterʼs words in an interview with CBS News.

When the journalist read an excerpt from the manifesto, Trump said he expected such a question in an interview, because journalists are “terrible people”. He later said it was a shame to be asked such a question, adding that he was “not a rapist” and “hadn’t raped anyone”.

When asked if Trump believed this part of the manifesto was about him, he said: "Iʼm not a pedophile. Did you read that nonsense from some sick person? I was linked to all these things that had nothing to do with me. I was completely exonerated. Your friends on the other side were just linked to, say, Epstein or other things. [...] I read the manifesto. Heʼs a sick person. But you should be ashamed to read it, because I have nothing to do with these things."

Shooting at Trump event

On April 26, a shooting occurred during the White House Correspondentsʼ Association dinner, which was attended by US President Donald Trump. An attacker, armed with guns and knives, burst into the lobby near the venue for the journalistsʼ dinner and rushed into the ballroom before Secret Service agents surrounded him and detained him.

Trump was not injured, he was urgently taken out of the room. The man managed to shoot several times and hit a law enforcement officer — he was wearing a bulletproof vest, he was fine.

The suspect was identified as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, a tutor from California. He was a guest at the hotel where the event was held, but it is not known when he checked in or what law enforcement found in his room.

Ten minutes before the attack, Allen sent a manifesto to his family, calling himself a “friendly federal assassin”. The man emphasized that he was a U.S. citizen and that everything the American government did reflected on him. The text stated that he no longer wanted to “let a pedophile, rapist, and traitor sully” his hands with his crimes.

The targets, the manifesto says, were Trump administration officials, with the exception of FBI Director Kesha Patel. The gunman called Secret Service officers “targets only out of necessity” and hoped they were wearing body armor. He called other law enforcement officers “not targets if possible”, and everyone else “not targets at all”.

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