GUNMAN’S MANIFESTO IS ANTI-TRUMP SOCIAL MEDIA COME TO LIFE. Like many a would-be killer before him, Cole Allen, the armed man who allegedly crashed into the White House correspondents’ dinner in hopes of killing President Donald Trump and top administration officials, wrote a manifesto explaining his actions.
It wasn’t a crazy manifesto, like the Unabomber. It wasn’t an identity-consumed manifesto, like the Tennessee transgender shooter. Instead, it was an oddly cheerful document, especially given that Allen appeared to expect to be killed in his attack. But more than anything, Allen’s manifesto resembled the reams of anti-Trump boilerplate one sees on some left-leaning social media.
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“I am a citizen of the United States of America,” Allen wrote. “What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
It’s a very, very familiar expression to anyone who has spent any time reading Resistance social media. It is based on three falsehoods about Trump. First, the “pedophile” part is an obvious reference to the Jeffrey Epstein case, in which Trump has not been credibly accused of any wrongdoing, much less pedophilia. Second, the “rapist” part is a reference to the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit against Trump in which the jury specifically ruled that Trump did not rape Carroll. (The jurors found him liable for “sexual abuse.”) And third, the “traitor” part is a reference to the long Russia investigation, at the end of which special counsel Robert Mueller admitted that he could not establish that “collusion,” the key crime alleged in the case, had ever happened, much less that Trump engaged in it.
Nevertheless, calling Trump a “pedophile, rapist, and traitor” is entirely common in some circles on the Left. For example, go to Bluesky, the site established as a liberal, anti-Trump alternative to X. The site’s users were calling Trump a “pedophile” long before Allen showed up at the correspondents’ dinner. And indeed, after Allen’s manifesto came out, some at Bluesky were defending Allen’s use of the word, arguing that even though he was a would-be assassin, he was right about Trump. In short, Allen’s manifesto would fit right in on Bluesky — it would be entirely unremarkable.
And not just Bluesky. On Sunday evening, CBS News’s 60 Minutes gave Allen a huge boost when correspondent Norah O’Donnell pressed Trump to respond to the shooter’s charge.
“The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President,” O’Donnell said to Trump. “He appears to reference a motive. In it, he writes this: ‘I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.’ What’s your reaction?”
“I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people,” a clearly angry Trump said to O’Donnell. “Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody …”
At that moment, O’Donnell broke in with, “Oh, you think he was referring to you?” It would have been a laughably disingenuous jab had the subject not been so serious.
Trump ignored O’Donnell and continued: “I’m not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. … I said to myself, you know, I’ll do this interview and they’ll probably — I read the manifesto, he’s a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that, because I’m not any of those things. You shouldn’t be reading that on 60 Minutes. You’re a disgrace. But go ahead, let’s finish the interview.”
The exchange was an extraordinary moment. By seeking to murder Trump and top administration officials, Allen managed to have his grievances presented, in his own words, straight to the president of the United States on a widely-watched network news program. How could any would-be assassin not view that as a victory? No, Allen didn’t get Trump, but his manifesto is receiving attention it never would have had he not showed up in Washington armed to the teeth with a plan to kill.
