US President Donald Trump lashed out at a journalist during his '60 Minutes' interview for reading out the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect's alleged manifesto on air on Sunday.
Trump lashed out at the CBS News Correspondent after she quoted some of the parts on the suspects. Cole Allen’s alleged manifesto called her a ‘disgrace’. He also said that she should be ‘ashamed of herself’.
Norah O'Donnell had read out a part of the 1,052-word missive where the suspect allegedly wrote about his motive.
“I am no longer willing to permit a paedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” She quoted the alleged gunman.
When asked about his reaction to the words Trump said, “Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people,”
“Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.” “I am not a paedophile.” he retorted,
“I’m not a paedophile,” Trump emphatically told the journalist. “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 chastised the interviewer for reading the “crap “ written by “some sick person”
When she asked whether Trump was worried when he realised that a gunman had entered the area, Trump said, “I wasn’t worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world.” When asked about First Lady Melania Trump’s reaction to the shooting, the president said, “People don’t like having it said that they were scared. But who wouldn’t be when you have a situation like that?” The president later said, “My thought was, ‘I’ve been through this a couple of times before. She [Melania] has not to this extent. She handled it great.”
Trump had also said that the shooter was “pretty incompetent and that he got caught pretty easily.
The President is planning to reschedule the dinner as he didn't want “a crazy person to be able to cancel something like this.”
In the manifesto, 31-year-old California resident Cole Tomas Allen mentions his rules of engagement and ranked Trump officials in a priority list. FBI Kash Patel was notably excluded from the list.