We don’t have to guess at would-be assassin Cole Allen’s motives for trying to assassinate Donald Trump, as he laid them out in a good old-fashioned manifesto that was sent to journalists. In it, he wrote that:
“I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
And went on to say that he was acting in retaliation for the Trump administration’s crimes:
“Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.”
In the end, all Allen achieved was disrupting a black-tie event and shooting a Secret Service agent in his bulletproof vest. He will now almost certainly spend the rest of his natural life behind bars.
Trump gave his account of events in an interview with Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes, during which Allen’s motive was read to him and he was asked for his reaction:
TRUMP: I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2026
O'DONNELL: Oh, you think he was referring to you? pic.twitter.com/JXmtB6kUdJ
Trump clearly didn’t appreciate hearing this:
“Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would. Because y-you’re… you’re… horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that, I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
O’Donnell, acting surprised, responded:
“Oh, you think he was referring to you?”
As far as comedy bits go, this is a good one. So, has Trump landed himself in it by assuming the “pedophile, rapist, and traitor” Allen is calling out is him? Well… as much as I hate to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, it’s clear that Allen was specifically targeting him, so it’s a reasonable assumption to make.
Is he a rapist?
However, Trump is on thinner ice with his “I’m not a rapist” assertion. In 2023, Trump was found liable in civil court for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s, with the judge clarifying that what he did qualifies as “rape” under the common, everyday understanding of the word.
Anyhow, Trump also wanted to make one other thing clear:
“I am not a pedophile.”
Well, it’s nice to get that cleared up once and for all. Trump seemed genuinely angry at being quizzed about this, telling O’Donnell:
“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.”
And so Trump remains alive and unassassinated once more and almost seems blase about a gunman trying to rush the stage and kill him. I’m sure he’s at least pleased about the silver lining that this assassin has hugely bolstered his argument to construct an opulent ballroom.
Published: Apr 27, 2026 09:59 am