Video Conspiracy theories surge after WHCA dinner attack Justice correspondent David Spunt provides an update on suspect Cole Allen, charged in the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner attack. Fox News contributor Hugh Hewitt discusses the impact of extreme rhetoric online.
Over the weekend, President Donald Trump suffered his third major assassination attempt. In the first attempt, in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, a bullet clipped his ear. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by Secret Service agents. Two months later, in a second attempt, Ryan Routh was arrested while lying in wait at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course.
These three major attempts don’t include attempts like the one by Austin Tucker Martin, who was shot dead by Secret Service agents two months ago after he breached the security barrier at Mar-a-Lago while Trump was not at the property. Nor do they include the one by Asif Merchant, a Pakistani business owner with ties to Iran, who had tried to hire hitmen to kill the president. Those stories were almost instantly out of the news cycle.
With a count of at least five, Trump has arguably been one of the most targeted presidents in American history. It’s long past time for his adversaries to do something to stop these attacks. What comes next after this kind of open violence?
Trump is trying to bring down the temperature, but he keeps butting up against those on the left who don’t want that. The media is even worse.
FROM TRAINED ASSASSINS TO RALLY STAGE RUSHERS, HERE'S EVERY KNOWN ATTEMPT ON TRUMP'S LIFE SINCE 2016
Following the aborted WHCA event, Trump contacted ABC’s Jonathan Karl, who reported that the president called him early on Sunday morning to check in on him and also emphasized "the unity that he felt in that moment, that he felt at the dinner before the shooting and certainly after, with the people who reached out to him." Trump wanted it to be a unifying moment.
But in his "60 Minutes" interview over the weekend with Norah O’Donnell of CBS, O’Donnell brought up that the alleged attempted assassin, Cole Allen, wrote in a manifesto, "I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."
Where are the grown-ups in the room? Even when Democrats do the right thing and condemn violence, something that should be expected of all elected officials but isn’t, they go to great lengths to pretend Trump isn’t the target of violence.
Calling it "stunning," O’Donnell asked Trump for his reaction to that. Trump reacted negatively, of course, because when else would a victim of a crime be made to answer for gibberish nonsense believed by a criminal who wants him dead? If the intended victim had been President Barack Obama or Joe Biden, would O’Donnell have presented either man with the would-be killer’s rambling complaints and asked them to answer for them? Of course not.
TRUMP CALLS '60 MINUTES' HOST 'DISGRACEFUL' FOR READING WHCD SUSPECT'S ALLEGED MANIFESTO ON AIR
Part of the problem is that so much of the left is mired in conspiracy theories, about things like Trump being a pedophile, but also about whether any of the assassination attempts are real. They are not being discouraged from those troubling and evil ideas by anyone, least of all members of the media who should be telling them the truth.
O’Donnell’s decision to recite these disgusting lies only furthers them. She didn’t portray them as the kind of crazy things a would-be assassin might say. Instead, she pretended not to understand that the alleged attempted killer was referring to Trump. It was sickening.
Chuck Todd, once considered a somewhat serious host of NBC’s "Meet the Press," blamed Trump for the violence against him. "I’m not going to any events where Trump’s at," Todd said Monday on a podcast. "I don’t feel safe." "Chaos follows him," podcast host Chris Cillizza chimed in, agreeing. Truly disgusting.
OBAMA SAYS MOTIVE UNCLEAR DESPITE MANIFESTO OUTLINING ALLEGED TARGETS IN WHCD SHOOTING
Where are the grown-ups in the room? Even when Democrats do the right thing and condemn violence, something that should be expected of all elected officials but isn’t, they go to great lengths to pretend Trump isn’t the target of violence.
Former President Barack Obama vaguely tweeted in opposition to violence after the assassination attempt without ever saying the president’s name: "Although we don’t yet have the details about the motives behind last night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it’s incumbent upon all us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy," Obama posted on X. But by the time he posted, we already fully knew what Cole Allen was allegedly there to do. Obama just didn’t want to give the president "credit" for being a victim and instead kept his anti-violence pleas vague.
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A few days before the WHCD, Jimmy Kimmel joked that Melania Trump was "glowing like an expectant widow."
"Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America," the first lady posted on X.
She’s absolutely right. Kimmel hasn’t been funny in over a decade, and his shtick is largely just rage and hate aimed at Trump and his family.
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It wasn’t funny before, but as the assassination attempts tick up in number, the media has to own its role in normalizing the violence. It would be better for us all if they did that starting now.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM KAROL MARKOWICZ
Karol Markowicz is a columnist for the New York Post and writes frequently for Fox News Opinion. She is the co-author of the bestselling book, "Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation" and host of "The Karol Markowicz Show." Follow her on Twitter @Karol.
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