Who is Trump’s “would-be assassin”… were there security failings at DC shooting?

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0:30so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. It's always shocking when something like this happens, happened to me a little bit, and that never changes. The fact, we were sitting right next to each other, the first lady on my right, and I heard a noise and sort of thought it was a tray. I thought it was a tray going down. I've heard that many times and it was pretty loud noise and it was from quite far away. He hadn't breached the area at all. They really got him. But so it was quite far away, but it was a gun. And some people really understood that pretty quickly.

1:16Other people didn't. I was watching to see what was happening. Probably should have gone down even faster. Melania was very cognizant, I think, of what happened. And I think she knew immediately what happened. She was saying, that's a bad noise. And we were whisked away along with other people, but we were really whisked away. President Trump there speaking from the White House last night, just an hour or so after the incident that he's describing there. And he does sound a bit shaken, but who wouldn't be in the circumstances? The third serious assassination attempt against him in less than two years.

1:56He says he was the likely target. There are a lot of questions to be asked about what happened last night, the security failures, the implications of it and the motives. Many issues for us to get into in this special edition. Welcome to AmeriCast.

2:15AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up, and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up!

2:42Hello, it's Sarah here. Unusually, for once, in what Justin likes to call the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in BBC New Broadcasting House. Yes, Sarah, it's an unusual thing for you to be there. But of course, it is an unusual day in as much as we've got sudden news to talk about. So you're there and I'm at home in also in London, but in South London. And I should say the time as well at the moment, because things will carry on. And as usual, events will be added to when it comes to information. So we are talking at seven o 'clock in the evening on Sunday in London. And we're going to talk in just a second to our colleague Tom Bateman, who was actually in the room when all of this happened.

3:23But I suppose we should kick off, Sarah, with just a word or two. I mean, number one, about what the White House Correspondents Dinner is, because it is it is a big event, isn't it? Yes, it is. It's about two and a half thousand people gathered together in the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel in Washington. and traditionally it is attended by the president, by many of the senior members of the cabinet, the vice president and it's an opportunity for the president and the press to have a little bit more fun and set aside the adversarial nature of the relationship that there often is and make a few jokes at each other's expense.

3:59Donald Trump though has eschewed all of that normally so he didn't come at all during his first term, he didn't come last year but at the last minute he changed his mind and decided that he was going to come this year. And he'd prepared a pretty fiery speech where he was going to take quite a few pot shots at the press. Alongside Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, the vice president, the first lady, cabinet members, including Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, RFK Jr., the health secretary, Kash Patel, the head of the FBI. And at this event, people had sat down, I think were just starting their starters, so to speak, their burrata salad, I believe it was, when they heard a very loud crash.

4:41And then all of a sudden this turned into a major security incident. Yeah. Described by Jeff Carroll, who's the interim chief of police for the Metropolitan Police Department. This is the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, who described what he had been told about what happened from the scene. As the mayor mentioned, at approximately 8.36 tonight, an individual charged a U.S. Secret Service checkpoint here in the lobby area of the hotel. He was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives. As he ran into that checkpoint, members of law enforcement from the United States Secret Service intercepted that individual.

5:18This is a very preliminary investigation at this point. We do know that law enforcement exchanged gunfire with the individual. We do know that a U.S. Secret Service Unicorn Division officer was struck in his vest. He was transported to a local hospital for treatment. He seems to be in good spirits at this time. The suspect in this case, he was not struck by gunfire. However, he was transported to a local hospital to be evaluated. Again, we're very early in the investigation. We have members of the United States Secret Service, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the FBI here to continue to investigate this matter.

5:54but at this point it does appear he is a lone actor a lone gunman that does not appear to be any sort of danger to the public at this time however we are continuing to investigate this matter okay let's hear from tom bateman then our bbc colleague who was there in the room tom tell us yeah hi guys it is great to be with you um and i was there at the dinner last night as were i mean you know two and a half thousand people including most of the uh senior levels of the american government and just about every journalist you can think of in Washington. And so this extraordinary moment, really, you know, where all hell broke loose in the room and we were ending up cowering under tables as the president, the vice president, the first lady were bundled off the stage.

6:37Now, obviously, as you were going in, you didn't know there was going to be a security incident. You must presumably have had to pass through some level of security. Tell us what that was like arriving at the dinner. Well, you do. And, you know, I mean, both of you have been to this event in the past and I've been to it once before two years ago and basically it was exactly the same format which is you get a little card ticket which doesn't have your name on it it has a table number but it there's there's no name on that it's just basically the invite and you're told by the White House Correspondents Association to bring some photographic ID to prove you are who you are but basically what happens is at the Washington Hilton there's always a huge traffic jam and it is basically surprisingly easy to get first of all very close to the hotel.

7:22You flash your ticket to somebody who is a member of security. I don't think they're either the hotel staff or kind of hired security. This didn't feel like secret service at that point. So you're past that very easy sort of perimeter. Hotel guests can obviously have already either inside the hotel or can pass through that by showing their room cards. And then basically once you're in the hotel, you're in the hotel. and there is a perimeter of metal detectors, you know, security scanners on this sort of mezzanine level above the ballroom. And I was there with a colleague. We went up to the metal detector.

7:59It was really relaxed, was asked to take everything out of my pockets. I didn't have a bag and you put it on the side, but there was no metal detector for bags. So bags, you just put on a table at the side of the security arch and they were checking those by hand and then you just walk through. Now, at no point did anyone actually check ID. You know, we've been told to bring photographic ID, but nobody asked for it. So nobody actually knew who I was. And the name's not on the ticket. So you go through. It really relaxed. And I was actually, I remember thinking it's quite surprisingly sort of, you know, less stringent than you might find elsewhere, given who is in that room.

8:37I mean, you've got the president of the United States about to be there, the vice president. In fact, there were, we think, up to eighth in the line of succession for the presidency, minus one person. But at least the top three, you know, the president, vice president, speaker of the House, all about to be in that room. And I just remember thinking this is kind of not quite what you'd expect. So you're suggesting oddly lax security getting in. But I think another set of questions is going to be asked, isn't it, about the security surrounding those people who had already checked into the hotel?

9:07because it seems that the suspect, and we'll talk a bit more about him in a second, it seems that the suspect may well have been staying in the hotel and have brought weapons that he had with him into the hotel, which, again, is just staggering, isn't it? So however much the Secret Service behaved bravely in the seconds that you watched them react, Tom, there are going to be questions, aren't there? Absolutely, because, you know, this whole issue of, you know, what's the point of checking people outside the hotel if you've got hundreds or thousands of guests in a hotel that might have checked in the day before that haven't gone through that same layer of security.

9:44And actually, it's something, I mean, you know, this is a real question about diplomatic security because I've done a lot of trips with the Secretary of State, with Antony Blinken and then Marco Rubio. And this is always an issue because you're always staying in hotels. Often they book them, you know, the last minute if this is, you know, a sort of sudden bilateral meeting he has to rush to or something. and they might block book out a part of the hotel for the diplomats and for the journalists. But everyone else in the hotel has already been staying there. So you do notice that a lot, that people are milling around and they can't just sort of chuck out all of the guests.

10:17So I think that's going to be a first issue they're going to have to look at. Clearly he was staying in this hotel. He was booked in and he had appeared already to mention that in some of his writing. you know but then there is the point that there's going to be a question about how he got close to the ballroom and just to sort of continue that point about the the layout in the hotel there's a sort of mezzanine level that you go in at where these metal detectors are and then you go downstairs to the ballroom where they open the ballroom doors at 7 p.m and then you're in the room now I think it's pretty clear what you know Todd Blanche the attorney general and other officials are saying is that that room was completely locked down because you had all of the heavily armed security service, secret service that we saw, you know, storm that room, protecting the room once the president and the VIPs were in there.

11:08So I think, you know, they're saying that actually the president was protected and only the outer perimeter was just breached by this individual. But of course, it's raising a huge number of questions about security. What more do we know about the suspect and what, if anything, about his motive? Well, we know he's a 31-year-old man called Cole Thomas Allen. He lived just outside Los Angeles in California. He, according to his online profiles, he was a computer scientist graduate and a teacher, he had said. He went to a pretty prestigious, to Caltech, pretty prestigious competitive university there.

11:47Now, what the police have said is that they believe he had traveled by train to first to Chicago and then on to Washington, D.C. As you say, they've said he was heavily armed. He had a shotgun, handgun and knives. Now, one of the things that has emerged, as often does in these cases, is a so-called manifesto online writings that have been discovered. Now, these are being widely reported now by the U.S. media. Their existence has been already talked about by law enforcement officials and White House officials. And there is a very lengthy sort of diatribe against Donald Trump in this. He rants about him and basically says it was time for someone to do something about it.

12:31And, you know, that's why I decided to act. It talks about what he views as the legitimate targets in there. and basically talks about senior members of government, except for Kash Patel, the head of the FBI, for some rather strange reason. He's sort of carved out as being a target. Goes on to say that members of the Secret Service will be targets if they get in the way. And so will anyone else basically in the room if they chose to go and see Trump speak and they happen to get in the way of this. So he clearly seems pretty determined, at least according to these online writings. And he also does talk about the security in the hotel.

13:07and effectively says he managed to get there with weapons and nobody stopped him and says that was pretty unbelievable. And Tom, with your own eyes, you were seeing it. Tell us about the moment that you became aware that it was happening. So I was at a table and really we were right in the middle of the room. The band had played, the national anthem had played. There'd been a very short sort of introduction from the head of the White House Correspondents Association. And then the president with the first lady and Caroline Levitt, the press secretary of the White House, were watching some magic tricks being done by the entertainer there, who'd been invited.

13:41And I think, you know, our viewers and listeners might have seen some of the pictures of this moment, because he's sort of pulling out a white piece of paper, and you hear on the pool camera gunshots. Now, where I was sitting, I didn't hear gunshots. I know that other colleagues towards the back of the room did hear the gunshots quite clearly. the first thing that i that made me aware something was going on was i'd been been chatting to a colleague next to me turned and the back of the room i mean all hell broke loose there was this huge crashing sound what had basically happened was it was the armed secret services in body armor helmets and these you know rifles with scopes and torches rushing into the room from the back to try and secure the stage.

14:29They were clambering over chairs that people were cowering under and getting towards the front of the room, climbing onto the stage. So this extraordinary moment got down under the table. I looked very clearly, could see by this stage, you know, none of the VIPs were on it. The president was gone, First Lady, Caroline Levitt, and the vice president, nowhere to be seen. And instead on stage were two very heavily armed secret service men pointing rifles into the towards basically where we were sitting, the audience with these flashlights. And in some of the reporting I've seen, you know, they're shouting to each other.

15:04Do you track the target and do you track the threat? And one of them was saying no. So they're clearly looking for somebody in case they got into the room. Did you actually see what happened to Donald Trump? Because there are pictures of that from the back aren't there but were you aware of him being there suddenly and then not uh i i'd been having a conversation i think with the person next to me so i hadn't been looking at the stage when it all kicks off behind me so i turned watched all this unfold but that must have been you know 10 seconds and then we're getting down and as soon as i looked at the stage it was empty so that that whole evacuation that we've you know seen the pictures of happened incredibly quickly i mean it must have been less than 20 seconds i think they got everyone off the stage so it was like that You know, they were there and then they weren't, as far as I was concerned.

15:50And as I say, you know, suddenly just replaced with Secret Service agents. Because we were saying earlier there will be questions asked about the security that shots were fired in the vicinity of the president. But this man didn't get into the room itself. It doesn't appear from the reporting that there was any real danger to the president, any chance he would have been able to fire towards him. And the Secret Service did exactly what they ought to in evacuating him incredibly quickly. I mean, can this not be recast as a security success? I mean, I think, you know, it's well, this is the thing.

16:22It's like there is one question around the the security that was there in the hotel. But then I think and certainly what Todd Blanche was the attorney general was trying to suggest. And I think other officials now is that wherever the president goes, I mean, there is basically, as we know, there is a sort of small army that travels with him that creates this bubble around him. And so, you know, as soon as those shots were fired upstairs and they got this guy down, clearly what the president's close protection were doing was securing the president. And they did that, you know, very successfully.

16:58Nothing got in that room. You know, I think there's going to be there will clearly be a whole raft of questions. But it felt like, you know, it felt from the fact that the venue itself felt a bit porous, basically. You know, that is clearly not ideal. And it's worth saying, isn't it, that this was potentially going to be a really big deal speech that he was going to make because he hasn't been to one before, has he? Everyone will sort of vaguely remember that Obama teased him and that caused him to run for the presidency. I'm subbing this down a little bit, but that's what a lot of people seriously believe, that it was the public humiliation by Obama at a previous White House correspondence do that that decided Trump to to go for Obama and to go for him as viciously as he did, etc, etc.

17:45And then there's this relationship with the press where there are plenty of people in the press, aren't the Tom, who really do regard Trump as a fascist, actually, regard him as someone who is trying to suppress freedom of speech. So this this moment where he was going to come to them and make this speech in front of them, it was potentially a very big deal. Yeah, I mean, the speech itself from the president, the fact he was attending was always going to be a huge news story in its own right, because, you know, there has been this increasing standoff between the White House and the press. He didn't come to the White House Correspondents Association dinner last year.

18:23And so neither did most senior members of the administration. And suddenly they were all here with the president. He decided to come. The theme of the dinner for the Correspondents Association was the First Amendment, you know, celebrating free speech. That was meant to make a point about what, you know, as you pointed to, where those parts of the system are deemed to be encroaching on infringing journalistic independence under this White House. And so, you know, there was the potential for this, you know, this moment of this sort of clash of to see what he was going to say at the speech and how he would deal with that.

19:01It was interesting that Caroline Levitt, the spokeswoman, had done this interview, I think with Fox News, just sort of standing on the red carpet beforehand and was previewing, preempting a bit about his speech and saying, oh, it's going to be feisty. And she said, shots will be fired. I mean, that clip has been going viral, as you can imagine, on social media, which clearly she meant as a metaphor for the speech. But it gave you a sense of the sort of build up to this. And of course, none of this took place. so we should let you go to get on with the day job but it's absolutely fascinating to to hear from you in the room and yes and thank goodness you and everybody else are okay thanks guys great to chat let us listen actually Sarah maybe before we go on and talk about anything else let's listen to what Donald Trump has already said so as well as doing that that CBS sit down that you just told us about he went back to the White House didn't he initially wanted to spend some time there and then go back and make his speech because as Tom was saying he loves nothing better than to talk in front of people and potentially had some pretty feisty things to say though I thought it was interesting and let's listen to a kind of montage of the things he said at this late night news conference that he held this impromptu news conference I thought the tone was interesting for all sorts of other reasons as well but let's have a listen This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press.

20:30And in a certain way it did, because the fact that they just unified, I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was in one way very beautiful. Melania was very cognizant, I think, of what happened. I think she knew immediately what happened. and she was saying, that's a bad noise.

20:53And we were whisked away along with other people, but we were really whisked away. And again, the performance of the Secret Service and the police, all of the law enforcement, I thought it was really good. So it was very quick. There wasn't a lot of time to be thinking, because it was a matter of seconds before we were out the door and gone into an area. I will say, you know, it's not a particularly secure building. And I didn't want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we're planning at the White House. It's actually a larger room and it's much more secure.

21:33It's got drone proof. It's bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom. That's why Secret Service. That's why the military are demanding it. they've wanted the ballroom for 150 years for lots of different reasons but today's a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody's ever seen before we're going to reschedule we're going to do it again we're not going to let anybody take over our society we're not going to cancel things out because we can't do that we wanted to stay tonight. I will tell you, I I fought like hell this day. You know, I tell the story race car drivers.

22:12I think it's very dangerous. So you take one percent and then take about 10 percent of one percent just to break it down very easily. They die so much less than one percent, 10 percent of one percent. I think bull riding is very dangerous. If you take about the same 10 percent of one percent much less than one percent but if you take presidents it's 5.8 percent and about eight percent are shot at so nobody told me this was such a dangerous profession if Marco would have told me maybe I wouldn't have run maybe I would have said I'll take a pass no it's a dangerous profession but I don't view it that way look I'm here to do a job as part of the job it is a dangerous.

23:02I can't imagine that there's any profession that's more dangerous. Well, and particularly for Donald Trump, who, of course, was actually injured when he was shot at during the 2024 campaign in Butler, Pennsylvania. And there was a serious threat in Florida as well when an armed man managed to get onto his golf course where he was playing. So it's even more dangerous, it would seem, for Donald Trump than it has been for some previous presidents. But There's an awful lot in what he had to say there to unpack, Justin. I mean, first off, with him starting with a slightly different tone, talking about a beautiful, unified evening, even though we know that he had planned to make a speech in which he was going to be really, really critical of the press who were in the room.

23:44He was going to be attacking them very firmly. I was all set to really rip it. And I said to my people, this would be the most inappropriate speech ever made if I said, so I'll have to save it. I don't know if I could ever be as rough as I was going to be tonight. I think I'm going to be probably very nice. I'll be very boring the next time, but we're going to have a great event. And this is what happens with Donald Trump. And I think perfectly understandably, when something like this has happened, you get about 48 hours of him saying this could be a unifying moment and he's not going to be attacking people.

24:18He's going to say nice things and compliment people instead. And it doesn't last for very long because he said exactly the same things after Butler, Pennsylvania. And then he turned up at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and, you know, was giving it with both barrels to his critics by the time he'd finished. Yes. Well, he kind of you really sense when he gave that speech in Milwaukee that the initial part of the speech, wasn't it, would have kind of written for him and had been persuaded to play nice, as it were. And then as the speech went on and he went off script a bit, it was it was back to how he was.

24:50Though it's worth saying, though, isn't it, Sarah, he started off after that initial attempt when he was actually grazed by saying fight, fight, fight. And this time around, it's not fight, fight, fight. It's unity. And it's interesting to me. I just wonder whether with the midterms coming up, with him being in a real difficulty politically for all manner of reasons, obviously the Iran war right at the top of the list, whether, you know, he sits down with Susie Wiles and various other, if we call them adults in the room who say, look, you want to find a path forward that works for you. And I'm not suggesting he's suddenly going to become a kind of unifying figure.

25:35That would be ludicrous. But there are certain notes that he might want to hit, I suppose, that could be useful to him, just to put it like that. Because he had pivoted pretty quickly in what he was saying in those clips that we heard there. And this was him talking about an hour after he'd been whisked out of the ballroom in the Hilton Hotel. And he's talking about his own ballroom again, which has been controversial. Many AmeriCasters will know the east wing of the White House was knocked down, which came as a surprise to a lot of people, so that he can build this really large ballroom, which many people think swamps the White House.