{"id":496,"date":"2026-04-26T22:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T22:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/04\/26\/trump-gets-defensive-in-60-minutes-interview-after-norah-odonnell-reads-from-suspects-manifesto-calls-her-a-disgrace\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T22:08:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T22:08:00","slug":"trump-gets-defensive-in-60-minutes-interview-after-norah-odonnell-reads-from-suspects-manifesto-calls-her-a-disgrace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/04\/26\/trump-gets-defensive-in-60-minutes-interview-after-norah-odonnell-reads-from-suspects-manifesto-calls-her-a-disgrace\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Gets Defensive in \u201960 Minutes\u2019 Interview After Norah O\u2019Donnell Reads From Suspect\u2019s Manifesto, Calls Her a \u201cDisgrace\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\tA subdued \u2014 and, at one point, defensive \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> sat down with Norah O\u2019Donnell for an interview that aired Sunday night on 60 Minutes<\/a><\/em> to share his perspective of what happened in the moments after shots were fired at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner.<\/p>\n

\tAllen reportedly emailed a \u201cmanifesto\u201d to his family moments before the attack, saying he was targeting members of the Trump administration.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\tAsked if he thought he was the target, Trump told O\u2019Donnell: \u201cI don\u2019t know. It sounded, to me \u2014 I read a manifesto \u2014 [that] he\u2019s radicalized. He was a Christian, believer, and then he became an anti-Christian, and he had a lotta change. He\u2019s been going through a lot, based on what he wrote. His brother complained about him and I think reported him to the police. And his sister, likewise, complained about him. His family was very concerned. He was probably a pretty sick guy.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tWhen O\u2019Donnell started reading from the gunman\u2019s alleged manifesto, the interview got tense. She read this quote, alleged written by the suspect: \u201cI am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\tTrump, visibly annoyed, replied: \u201cWell, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you\u2019re horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I\u2019m not a rapist. I didn\u2019t rape anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tInterjected O\u2019Donnell: \u201cOh, you think \u2014 do you think he was referring to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\tReplied Trump: \u201cI\u2019m not a pedophile. Excuse me. Excuse me. I\u2019m not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person? I got associated with all \u2014 stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let\u2019s say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, \u2018You know, I\u2019ll do this interview and they\u2019ll probably\u2019 \u2014 I read the manifesto. You know, he\u2019s a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I\u2019m not any of those things.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tSaid O\u2019Donnell: \u201cMr. President, these are the gunman\u2019s words \u2014 \u201c<\/p>\n

\tTrump continued: \u201cAnd I was never \u2014 excuse me. Excuse me. You shouldn\u2019t be reading that on 60 Minutes. <\/em>You\u2019re a disgrace. But go ahead. Let\u2019s finish the interview.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWhen O\u2019Donnell added that the suspect reportedly wrote in his manifesto that the hotel had what he perceived to be a lack of security (\u201cLike, this level of incompetence is insane\u201d), Trump replied: \u201cWell, he was pretty incompetent too, because he got caught. And he got caught pretty easily. So I\u2019d say he was pretty incompetent too. You know, I can take any event having to do with security or anything else. I can always find fault. Those guys did a good job last night. They did a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tTrump added that he wants the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner to be rescheduled, ideally within the next 30 days.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI don\u2019t want to see it be canceled. \u2026 I think it\u2019s really bad for a crazy person to be able to cancel something like this,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cThere are great people in the press too I can name, but I don\u2019t want to \u2014 I don\u2019t want to embarrass your show. We have some great people in the press, some very fair people, and people that are just on my side. But for the most part, it\u2019s a very liberal or very progressive\u2013 let\u2019s use the word liberal. Liberal press. But I was just really \u2026 happy to see the \u2014 I don\u2019t know how long it\u2019ll last \u2014 the relationship, the friendship, the spirit after a very bad event took place. Now, the event turned out to be much less bad because nobody was killed. Nobody was hurt.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tWhen O\u2019Donnell told Trump that the \u201cWhite House Correspondents\u2019 Association very much appreciates you going last night and honoring a commitment to do it again,\u201d he replied: \u201cI hope we\u2019re going to do it again. Norah, tell \u2019em to get it going, and we should do it within 30 days, and they\u2019ll have even more security, and they\u2019ll have bigger perimeter security. It\u2019ll be fine. But tell \u2019em to do it again. We can\u2019t let something be \u2014 it\u2019s not that I wanna go; it\u2019s no, I\u2019m very busy; I don\u2019t need that \u2014 I think it\u2019s very important that they do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tAs the event got under way Saturday night at the Washington Hilton, a gunman reportedly charged through a security checkpoint and into ballroom where the event was taking place armed with multiple weapons. He fired multiple shots before being subdued by authorities. He was later identified as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old\u00a0teacher from Torrance, California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\tIn a press briefing, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Allen will be charged with using a firearm and assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon and that there will likely be \u201cmany more charges\u201d to come.<\/p>\n

\tO\u2019Donnell noted to Trump that the scened looked \u201cchaotic\u201d as Secret Service rushed to protect both the president and Vice President J.D. Vance on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cWell, what happened is \u2014 it was a little bit me,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI wanted to see what was happening, and I wasn\u2019t making it that easy for \u2019em. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of a problem, bad one. And different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, which you hear all the time. I was surrounded by great people. And I probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said, \u2018Wait a minute, wait a minute. Lemme see. Wait a minute.’\u201d\u00a0 \t<\/p>\n

\tAsked to clarify what he meant, Trump said he started walking with the Secret Service and then they told him to \u201cgo down on the floor.\u201d He said both he and First Lady Melania Trump complied.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\tThe reason he was asked to \u201cgo down,\u201d he said, was because he was \u201cwalking out pretty tall\u201d and they wanted him protected.<\/p>\n

\tTrump previously said a Secret Service agent had been shot but was wearing a bulletproof vest. He told O\u2019Donnell that the agent is \u201ca hundred percent\u201d OK.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to go to the hospital,\u201d Trump said. \u201cHe really didn\u2019t. They asked him to go, and \u2026 he didn\u2019t want to go. He said, \u2018I don\u2019t need to go to the hospital.\u2019 But he went because they asked him to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tTrump added that he \u201cwasn\u2019t worried\u201d that there would be injuries: \u201cI understand life. We live in a crazy world.\u201d When the president realized what was happening, \u201cmy thought was, \u2018You know, I\u2019ve been through this before a couple of times.\u2019 \u201d Melania, however, \u201chas not to this extent. She handled it great. I mean, she\u2019s very strong, smart. She got it. She knew what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tTrump also noted that the suspect \u201clike a blur\u201d as he was racing into the ballroom and praised the Secret Service for reacting quickly. \u201cI think the NFL should sign him up. He was fast,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWhen you look at it on tape, it\u2019s almost like a blur. But it was amazing \u2019cause as soon as they saw that you could see them draw their guns. They were so professional. Aimed their guns, and then they took him down immediately.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tTrump\u2019s interview with O\u2019Donnell will be broadcast Sunday night on 60 Minutes,<\/em> which airs at 7 p.m. ET\/PT on CBS<\/a> and Paramount+.<\/p>\n

\tCarly Thomas contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A subdued \u2014 and, at one point, defensive \u2014 President Donald Trump sat down with Norah O\u2019Donnell for an interview that aired Sunday night on 60 Minutes to share his perspective of what happened in the moments after shots were fired at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner. Allen reportedly emailed a \u201cmanifesto\u201d to his family moments before the attack, saying he was targeting members of the Trump administration.\u00a0 Asked if he thought he was the target, Trump told O\u2019Donnell: \u201cI don\u2019t know. It sounded, to me \u2014 I read a manifesto \u2014 [that] he\u2019s radicalized. He was a Christian, believer, and then he became an anti-Christian, and he had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[180,181,2,182,183,31,184,85,86,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-60-minutes","category-cbs","category-hollywood","category-norah-odonnell","category-parampount","category-politics","category-president-donald-trump","category-tv","category-tv-news","category-white-house-correspondents-association-dinner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}