The man who attacked Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Association dinner was targeting "administration officials," including President Donald Trump, according to a note he left in a hotel room before the incident.
Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old man from Torrance, California, was tackled and taken into custody after he stormed a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton, the hotel where the event was being held.
The White House shared a security video of the incident shortly after it unfolded on Saturday night:
"A man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons, and he was taken down by some very brave members of Secret Service." - President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/N3UTveVNFM
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 26, 2026
In a rambling manifesto that Allen allegedly sent to family and friends just before launching his attack, he said he was "no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes." Elsewhere, the note pointed to "the fisherman executed without trial" and to school children who had been "blown up," apparent references to the Trump administration's military strikes in Venezuela and Iran.
Allen graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He reportedly traveled from his home in Los Angeles to Washington last week.
In an interview on Sunday, Trump called the attacker a "sick person" and said that he hoped the dinner would be rescheduled soon.
Allen is expected to be charged in federal court on Monday.
Build the ballroom. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Trump and many conservative commentators said the incident proved the wisdom of the president's plan to construct a ballroom at the White House.
President Trump: This is why we need the ballroom pic.twitter.com/iUmT2aHKWj
— Popstonox (@Popstonox) April 26, 2026
I don't want to hear one more fucking criticism of Trump's new ballroom at the White House.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) April 26, 2026
This actually makes very little sense. For one, the White House Correspondents' Association is a private entity, and the president is a guest at their dinner. Assuming that the dinner would take place at the White House, if it had a ballroom, seems erroneous.
More importantly, I don't understand the rush to claim that security at the Hilton somehow failed. The would-be gunman was stopped and arrested long before he got close enough to harm any of his intended targets.
Subsequent investigations may reveal some failure, but from the perspective of Monday morning, it looks like the security apparatus worked more or less as intended.
The shooting happened on the level above the ballroom where the White House Correspondents Association dinner was.
I don't think people hearing about this -- or even those of us in the room -- realized how far from the president, VP and other guests this incident was. It was on… pic.twitter.com/TO5VEJdB0Q— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 26, 2026
Of course, the Trump administration may want to use this attack to advance the ballroom project—a federal judge halted the project earlier this month because it lacked congressional approval and failed to address a vital national security issue. Or Trump could simply do what he should have done from the beginning and get permission from Congress to build the thing.
An even bigger airline bailout might be coming.
Now that Spirit Airlines has lined up a $500 million bailout from the White House, other low-cost carriers are putting their hands out too. The Wall Street Journal reports that Frontier and Avelo are part of a group that's seeking $2.5 billion in government aid.
As Spirit did, the other airlines are reportedly offering partial stakes or equity to the federal government, according to the Journal's reporting. Executives from several low-cost airlines reportedly met with Department of Transportation officials last week to make the request.
It's almost like bailouts create moral hazards and bad incentives.
Scenes from Virginia: I took a lovely weekend road trip to Roanoke, Virginia, and along the way made my first-ever pit stop at a Buc-ee's—the Texas-based chain of supersized convenience stores that opened its first Virginia location last year.
And it was awesome. Have you ever been to a gas station that sells freshly made beef brisket and a dozen varieties of fudge? Now, I have. Here is an entire wall dedicated to beef jerky.
At more than 75,000 square feet and with more than 100 gas pumps, Virginia's first Buc-ee's is a dizzying display of pure, uncompromising American capitalism. Even the paintings on the walls of the hallway leading to the bathrooms are for sale. Truly, an experience.
There could soon be another Buc-ee's closer to Washington, D.C., but the project is currently being slowed by people who are worried that it might cause traffic…on I-95. C'mon.
QUICK LINKS
- The Atlantic profiles Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), "one of the few Republicans who is unafraid of President Trump."
- On the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown, Reason's Ron Bailey takes a look at how "central planning and totalitarian secrecy," not nuclear power, should be blamed for the crisis.
- New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani used Ken Griffin's Manhattan penthouse as the backdrop for a video announcing a new "tax the rich" scheme. Now, Griffin's company, Citadel Securities, might be pulling the plug on a $6 billion construction project and other investments in the city. Someday, politicians will realize that capital is mobile.
- Bob Odenkirk on aging: "In the face of what I consider the limitations of being a person, which are strict and seem immutable, we've got to keep trying. I don't know what the future is if we don't hope to be better than we are right now."
- Sabastian Sawe finished the London Marathon in less than two hours on Sunday, becoming the first runner to achieve that milestone in an official race. That's an astonishing pace of 4:33 per mile, for more than 26 miles!
Sabastian Sawe & Yomif Kejelcha both just ran the London Marathon in UNDER 2 HOURS!!!
A WORLD RECORD! pic.twitter.com/MRNzuNsz15
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) April 26, 2026
The post Shots Fired appeared first on Reason.com.
