How Trump is using an assassination attempt to get his $400m ballroom built
There has been no suggestion of changing America’s gun laws after an attempted shooting at the annual Correspondents Dinner. The attack has, instead, been used to justify Trump’s plans to build a controversial $400million ballroom.
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In brief…
- Donald Trump and his MAGA ‘acolytes’ are using an attempted assassination attempt to justify building a new White House ballroom while America faces a cost-of-living crisis.
- Conspiracy theories surround the incident, but Jon Sopel says this is the result of Trump’s own 10 years of lies to the US public, meaning few people now trust their own eyes.
- US reporting has said political violence is not representative of ‘who America is’, but Emily Maitlis says this is exactly who America is.
What’s the story?
When an armed man attempted to storm the annual White House Correspondents dinner at the Washington Hilton hotel on Saturday night, there was no suggestion of changing America’s gun laws.
Instead, the president, his administration and MAGA influencers and supporters online said the assassination attempt showed how important it was to finish building a $400 million ballroom in the grounds of the White House.
No one was injured in the attack. The shooter, 31-year-old Cole Allen, was arrested on the scene after firing between five and eight shots inside the hotel.
“Donald Trump and his acolytes – and it's been quite well organised – are using this as a means to sell the massive, gargantuan ballroom he's building in the East Wing of the White House,” says Jon Sopel.
“He's saying, if it had been held there, there would have been no security risk, because the White House has fantastic security.
“He's got a point, if you want to have complete security, then keep people inside the White House.”
In an average year in Washington, there are an estimated 148 fatal shooting incidents.
“We are back to the biggest, oldest, age-old question of: America. If you don't want this stuff to happen, then change your sodding laws,” says Emily Maitlis.
“This stuff is going on the whole time, and it still remains completely legal to check into a hotel room with a gun.”
Why America needs to ‘wake the fuck up’ to political violence
The Washington Hilton is known by some as the Hinckley Hilton, as it was also the location of an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981 by John Warnock Hinckley Jr. This incident led to the introduction of background checks for anyone purchasing weapons in America.
This time around, The News Agents say there’s “not a cat’s chance” of any change.
“One of the points of the coverage in the US press which I find a bit grating is this stuff saying ‘this is not who we are. This is not who America is’,” says Emily.
“I don't know how to tell you this America - this is exactly who Brits think you are. We think this is who you are every single week of the year.
“This idea that political violence has no place in America, wake the fuck up. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It has been happening throughout your 250-year history, and it's been happening with greater acceleration in the last few years on both sides.”
‘This is what Americans face every day’
In an interview after the attempted shooting, Trump said he wasn’t “worried” by the incident, adding he "understands life and we live in a crazy world".
But, Jon says, there was good reason for him to not be scared – the gunman never got into the ballroom.
“The security system worked, so you wouldn't be that panicked by the situation,” he says.
“The thing that amazed me – and this sounds a terribly dark thing to say – how is it conceivable that the shooter is still alive?”
Video footage shared online shows the Secret Service officers drawing weapons and firing at the gunman several times.
“It seems like every shot missed, and so it's remarkable that there is a guy in custody at the end of this who is going to stand trial,” he adds,
“This is what Americans go through on a daily basis, at a shopping mall, a cinema, a school, a university campus.
“Horrifying as it is, political violence has been part of America's story since Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.”
Was the Washington assassination attempt staged?
Conspiracy theories online have suggested this was a “staged” attack, which Jon blames on 10 years of Trump’s own erasure of a sense of truth in the US public.
People have suggested White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s comments before the event saying “shots will be fired” – referring to political comments, and the actions of the secret service officers during the incident, suggest the details of this attempted shooting are not as they seem.
And it may be Trump himself who is, in part, to blame for this lack of trust.
“We've had 10 years of being lied to so repeatedly, so we tend to think there must be an alternative explanation,” Jon says.
“We stopped being able to believe our own eyes with some of these things.
“I'm afraid, America, it's your same old story of too many guns and too many people.”