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THE BIG PICTURE
The WHCD shooter has been named as Cole Tomas Allen of Southern California, and his manifesto appears to confirm he was targeting Trump administration officials — too bad no one believes it was real. Regardless, it has set off a week of security recriminations, political exploitation, and an unanswered question about what it means when the President of the United States keeps nearly getting killed.
Meanwhile, Iran peace talks have fully collapsed, Pakistan is scrambling to salvage negotiations, and a federal judge is warning that Trump may be running a $10 billion self-dealing scam through the IRS.
Oh, and he exploded at Norah O’Donnell that he’s not a pedophile. Happy Monday!
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
1. The WHCD Shooting Is About to Become a Culture War Battlefield
A gunman named Cole Tomas Allen reportedly traveled from California to Washington, breached the Washington Hilton with guns and knives, wounded a Secret Service agent, and was arrested before reaching the ballroom where Trump and his cabinet sat (The Guardian US). A manifesto reportedly targeting Trump administration officials is now public (The Daily Beast).
Within hours, Trump was doing jokes about the suspect's sprint speed (The Daily Beast), claiming he was "honored" by assassination attempts (Huffington Post News), and pivoting to his $400 million White House ballroom as the real solution (The Guardian US).
Expect the next 24 hours to be defined by competing narratives: the right demanding this be used to justify more surveillance and crackdowns; the left pointing out that a man who has deliberately polarized the country to a breaking point is now surprised people are broken. The accountability question nobody in power wants to answer — why does this keep happening — is exactly what CBS's Norah O'Donnell tried to ask in Trump’s 60 Minutes interview, and exactly what he erupted over (The Daily Beast).
Yesterday, in our most-voted-in-poll-ever, you all let it be known that you’re not buying any of it. The comments down below are not to be missed.
2. Trump's '60 Minutes' Meltdown Is Fuel for the Feeds
Trump sat down with CBS for a "60 Minutes" interview after the shooting and it went exactly as expected: he snapped at anchor Norah O'Donnell for reading from the suspect's manifesto, declared "I'm not a pedophile" unprompted (The Daily Beast), and claimed he "wasn't worried" during the attack (The Guardian US). The clip of a sitting president screaming "I'm not a pedophile" on the most-watched news program in America is already spreading. What will trend next: the manifesto's specific claims that prompted that outburst, and whatever opposition research or court documents the suspect's writings reference. Jim Jordan has already tried to link the shooting to the Southern Poverty Law Center without a shred of evidence (Huffington Post News), which tells you exactly where MAGA's counterpunch is headed. This is going to get uglier before it gets clearer.
TODAY’S QUESTION
3. The Security Fiasco Will Swallow Susie Wiles — and Maybe More
The shooting was not just a political shock. It was a procedural catastrophe. The Daily Beast's executive editor was sleeping in the room next to Allen at the Washington Hilton, and has published a first-person account of a jaw-dropping security failure (The Daily Beast). The Secret Service is furious (The Daily Beast), and Trump's own allies are already in the blame game, with pressure reportedly building to oust chief of staff Susie Wiles (The Daily Beast). The White House is now reportedly weighing new physical armor for Trump in public settings (The Daily Beast). Watch for leaks from Secret Service and intelligence officials in the next news cycle — the institutional resentment toward political appointees running security decisions is real, and someone is going to talk. The fact that Vance was evacuated before Trump, which Trump himself had to awkwardly explain away (The Daily Beast), is the kind of detail that turns into a week-long story.
4. The Iran Talks Collapse Could Spiral Fast
While the WHCD shooting has consumed the political oxygen, something serious happened on the diplomatic front: the latest U.S.-Iran talks have collapsed. Iran's foreign minister left Pakistan, Trump told his envoys not to travel to Islamabad, and Pakistan is now scrambling to salvage negotiations (Huffington Post News). Trump told reporters Iran's leaders can "just call" if they want to talk (AP Politics), which is not diplomacy — it's a man checking his phone. Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth's Iran war messaging is being directly shaped by his Christian nationalist church (The Guardian US), and the ceasefires holding across the region are described by AP as "shaky" and resting on "mutual threats" (AP Politics). If talks do not restart in the next 48 hours, expect the war hawks inside the administration — whose sermons are already written — to move.
5. The Federal Reserve Power Grab Just Got Unblocked
This story got buried under the shooting but it is significant: Sen. Thom Tillis has dropped his opposition to Kevin Warsh as Fed chair after the Justice Department ended its investigation into Tillis (AP Politics). Read that sentence again. A senator was blocking a Trump nomination. The DOJ investigation into him went away. Now he's not blocking it anymore. Warsh's confirmation will now likely move forward, handing Trump effective political control of the Federal Reserve at a moment of extraordinary economic fragility. This is precisely the kind of quid pro quo that gets normalized in plain sight when every headline is about a shooting.
6. A Federal Judge Just Flagged a $10 Billion Trump Self-Dealing Scheme
This one is not getting the attention it deserves. A federal judge has warned that Trump could effectively "fleece the public" through a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS — an agency that now reports to him (The Daily Beast). The judge invoked the legal prohibition against "collusive" suits, which is the court's way of saying: this looks like a president suing himself to give himself money. It is a story about corruption so brazen it almost sounds made up, which is exactly why it will get buried under the shooting coverage.
WHAT TO WATCH IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS
The manifesto: What exactly is in the Cole Tomas Allen manifesto beyond the claims already leaked? How much does the public learn about him and his plan? Full publication or selective disclosure will shape the next phase of the political fight entirely.
Political violence discourse: The establishment media will default to condemning violence in the abstract while avoiding the structural question. The structural question is the important one.
Susie Wiles: Is she fired, reassigned, or does Trump publicly back her? The answer will tell you who is winning the internal blame war.
Iran: Does Pakistan succeed in restarting talks? Any military movement in the Strait of Hormuz region would escalate immediately.
Warsh confirmation timeline: Now that Tillis is on board, how fast does Senate leadership move? A hearing date announcement would confirm this is being fast-tracked.
Netanyahu opposition consolidation: Two former Israeli prime ministers merging their parties against him (Huffington Post News) is a significant development in Israeli politics that has downstream implications for U.S. policy on Gaza. Worth watching.
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👀 KEPT OUT OF YOUR FEED
What the algorithm buried:
The gunman's manifesto named every Trump official as a target — except one.
MAGA world thought Ben Stiller was celebrating the White House shooting — he was talking about something else
Florida Republicans are about to try the one redistricting move their own constitution explicitly forbids — and they're saying the quiet part loud enough to hand lawyers a gift-wrapped lawsuit.
A U.S. soldier allegedly made $400K betting on a secret op — then bragged about it to a woman he'd never met in person
Trump used a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner to demand his $400 million ballroom get built— and blamed a woman walking her dog for standing in his way.
MTG is worried about what Trump will do with the dinner shooting — and for once, she might have a point.
NOTICE POLLING
Yesterday, we asked, Do you think the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting was staged?
This was one of our most voted-in polls EVER - and OVER 96% OF YOU SAID YES:
“Seems likely. Also thinking the first shooting, where his ear was supposedly shot, was also a fake. Things don't add up. ”
- annaflorin99
“Of course it was staged! That's the only reason he was there. Everyone knows he hates the reporters and he has never attended the correspondents dinner before. This was just another distraction from the Epstein files and his "war"”
- jaycee0703
“No precautions, needing a distraction to falling polling numbers, the mention of “shots will be fired “ desperation of a failing regime ”
- skytarot
“Donald needs to get a new M.O. His speech about security being tighter at his properties is so lame and transparent! This old fat dude needs to step down and relieve the American people of his constant lies stealing cheating (faking - how’s that ear fatso?) and anyone with half a brain is on to his grifts and lies and bullshit!!! DJT is a disaster and we, the people, deserve better!!! Resign or be thrown out on your fat ass!!!!!”
- debroth
“Duh....way too easy for a gun to get in...and somehow no one was hurt and we should now hold events at a Trump owned place... pretty convenient if you ask me...”
- mrsfellis“This isn't the first time dementia Donnie has a staged shooting! The one with his ear that was healed in one day, and now the setup for this firing of a gun that didn't hurt anybody. Just another sham to get sympathy because he is the most hated president we've ever had in the United States. Everyone should decline to go to any event in one of his properties !t He's going to put more money in his pocket from the taxpayers. The only people who will believe anything from the dementia donny are all of his weirdo followers”
- lizabettx2
“It’s something he would do any way, anyhow, he would do it. My question is why anyone else went along with it - they should be jailed…”
- client-pasture.00
“I think every single thing this man does is staged. Every. Single. Thing. Full stop!”
- anne.gunn19805
“He’ll do anything to get his way. The fact of the seeming lack of real security further points to this being staged.”
- a.smoot
“This con man will go to any length to divert the attention away from his pedo acts and pedo friends.”
- webbtide5
“"Staged" was my first thought, and nothing I've read has changed my mind.”
- capthonb3
“Lightning fast recovery and press conferences. In a normal situation everyone would be whisked off to a safe space for hours and the entire room cleared immediately.”
- tonyaburdine
“It was staged because Trump always gets his way...he wants that ballroom built and his NAME stamped on the building before his term ends..let me wage a bet that he will win again.. IT'S SO SAD TO SEE A COUNTRY DESTROYED BY A BAFOON!!”
- mami.papi
Until next time,
