President Donald Trump lashed out at a “60 Minutes” interview after journalist Norah O’Donnell read from his almost assassin’s manifesto on air.
The confrontation unfolded during a Sunday sit-down following a shooting attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, where authorities say a 31-year-old suspect exchanged gunfire with Secret Service agents.
According to investigators, the suspect sent a message to family members minutes before the incident, outlining his grievances and targeting Trump directly.
“I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me,” the document read. “And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, r-pist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
🚨WOW!!! Trump slams 60 Minutes: "You should be ashamed of yourself, reading that—because I'm not any of those things. You are a disgrace."pic.twitter.com/DZEqWgYSZg
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) April 26, 2026
O’Donnell read the passage aloud during the interview, prompting an immediate negative reaction from Trump.
“Well, I was waiting for you to read that, because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people. Horrible people,” Trump shot back. “Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a r-pist. I didn’t r-pe anybody.”
O’Donnell pressed further, asking whether Trump believed the statement referred to him.
NEW: The manifesto for alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman Cole Allen has been released.
In the manifesto, Allen mocked Secret Service for being "incompetent" and for the poor security at the hotel.
Here is the manifesto, in part, per the New York Post:
"Hello… pic.twitter.com/FoKJwX9B7Z
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 26, 2026
“I’m not a pedophile,” Trump replied sharply. “You read that crap from some sick person? I got associated with all— stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated.”
He then pivoted to accuse political opponents and media figures of selectively amplifying allegations.
“Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let’s say Epstein or other things,” Trump noted, referencing the disgraced financier.
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The president continued to criticize the decision to read the manifesto aloud.
“I read the manifesto. You know, he’s a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I’m not any of those things,” Trump remarked. “You shouldn’t be reading that on ’60 Minutes.’ You’re a disgrace.”
The exchange came as O’Donnell attempted to steer the conversation toward Trump’s relationship with the press in the aftermath of the shooting.
“Look, for whatever reason, we disagree on a lot of subjects,” Trump added. “We talked about crime, I am very strong on crime. It seems like the press isn’t.”
He then broadened the criticism beyond journalists. “It’s not so much the press, but the press plus the Democrats. It’s almost like they are one and the same,” Trump alleged.
The President also described his own actions during the shooting, suggesting he hesitated before fully complying with security instructions.
“And I wasn’t going to make it that easy for them, I wanted to see what was going on,” he said about his Secret Service detail.
He recalled that agents initially struggled to determine whether the situation was serious.
“They started to realize maybe it was a bad problem… different from normal noise that you hear from a ballroom,” Trump added.
As the situation escalated, agents instructed him and First Lady Melania Trump to get down.
“So I dropped to the floor and the First Lady went down also,” he explained.
Trump suggested his hesitation may have affected how quickly agents reacted. “I probably made them act a little bit more sluggish,” he detailed. “I said, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, let me see.’”
He also dismissed critics who questioned the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
“I think they’re more sick than they are con people,” Trump pointed out. “But there are con people.”
The president rejected the idea that political violence has intensified in recent years.
“You go back 20 years, 40 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years, it’s always been there,” he said. “People are assassinated, people are injured, people are hurt.”
Still, he singled out Democrats for contributing to a hostile political environment.
“I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is very dangerous,” Trump commented. “I really think it’s very dangerous for the country.”
During a separate appearance on CNN, Rep. Jamie Raskin was asked whether Democrats should reconsider their language when criticizing Trump.
“What rhetoric do you have in mind?” Raskin asked, appearing caught off guard.
When pressed, he drew a distinction between personal attacks and policy critiques. “I have no personal problem with Donald Trump at all,” Raskin claimed. “I talk about the policies of this administration.”
He pointed to issues including immigration enforcement and incidents involving ICE as examples of the concerns he raises publicly.
“I’m talking about policies. I don’t personalize it,” Raskin went on. “And I certainly have never called the press the enemy of the people.”
The attempted attack marked the latest in a series of threats against Trump, including a 2024 incident in Pennsylvania where a gunman wounded the president and killed a supporter.
When asked why he believes he has been repeatedly targeted, Trump pointed to the visibility and impact of his presidency.
“I must tell you the most impactful people, the people that do the most… those are the ones that they go after,” he remarked.
He compared himself to historical figures who were targeted for assassination attempts. “You take a look at the people — Abraham Lincoln — I mean, you go through the people that have gone through this,” Trump said.
He suggested attackers tend to focus on individuals who influence the direction of the country. “They don’t go after people that don’t do much because they like it that way,” he stated.
Trump framed his own presidency as a driving force behind the attention. “We’ve changed this country, and there are a lot of people that are not happy about that,” he said.
The president also used the moment to push for changes to event security, arguing that the current venue for the correspondents’ dinner presents challenges.
He described plans for a new ballroom on White House grounds designed to eliminate those vulnerabilities.
“It’s got every single bell and whistle you can possibly have for security and safety,” Trump explained.
He pointed to features including reinforced glass and restricted access points. “We’re building a big, beautiful, very, very secure ballroom in every way with massive bulletproof glass,” he said.
The location, he argued, would allow events to take place without requiring the president to leave what he described as the most secure grounds in the world.
“We also need a better location and the location is on the White House grounds,” Trump concluded.
The President didn’t call her a filthy clam licker, which she is, so Why the nasty comments about him? Oh, and by the time psycho shooter boy’s trial is over alcatraz will have been remodeled for his life’s pleasure.
I think there should be a wall of democrats surrounding our President wherever he goes to be used as human shields.