America's Talking - Boulder Attack Suspect Said He Had No Regrets, Would ‘Do It Again'

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

(The Center Square) – The man charged in Sunday’s terrorist attack in Boulder told law enforcement that he had no regrets for his actions and would “do it again” if released. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national illegally in the country, is being held in the Boulder County Jail on a $10 million bond. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the attack at Tuesday's White House briefing, calling Soliman a "monster" and the attack "pure evil."Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story:WATCH: Boulder attack suspect said he had no regrets, would 'do it again'Boulder 'terror' suspect's family in ICE custody, pending deportationJudge blocks order to deport Boulder suspect's familyBoulder attack suspect appears in court, 118 charges filed Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to American Focus. I'm Sarah Roderick Fitch, editor with the Center Square. Today we are joined by Elise Appel, our Colorado reporter, who has been following the Boulder Colorado terror incident that happened last weekend on Sunday. Elise, welcome. Thanks for having me on. Can you tell us a little bit about the case? What exactly transpired? So on Sunday, Muhammad Soleiman, a 45-year-old Egyptian National, actually arrived at the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. There, he ended up attacking a pro-Israel event organized by a group called One for Their Lives, which is an organization that just advocates for the return of Israeli hostages by demonstrating once a week. So the attack started at 126, and Solomon arrived with a flamethrower, multiple Molotov cocktails, actually over 12 Molotov cocktails, ended up throwing some of those, setting people in fire. Law enforcement very quickly arrived unseen and arrested Solomon. He is currently in the Boulder County Jail on a $10 million bond.

So we're awaiting charges against him. So some of those charges, there's some hate crime charges. Those are federal. Is he facing federal charges as well? Yes. So he's facing both federal and state charges. So some of the state charges are, you know, obviously multiple counts of attempted murder. But he's also facing that federal charge of it's called commission of a hate crime,

which actually has a maximum sentence. of life in prison. So the local law enforcement, state law enforcement, and federal law enforcement have all been working together to bring charges against Solomon. Will there be terror charges too coming, or do we know about anything about that? Yeah, so they've talked about it. The federal attorney general talked about possibly filing terrorism charges, but they haven't officially filed those yet. All they filed are the hate crime charges. Yeah, because I mean, it's been, it was quickly, I know it was quickly deemed a terrorist attack. I mean, there was some in the media and then some of the left that were sort of slow to call it that. But the Attorney General, FBI director, Cash Patel was very quick to saying, hey, this was a terror attack. So it's kind of interesting to see if it's going to sort of move in that direction. And do we know, I know the investigation is still early on, but is there any word that there was maybe a coordinated effort? or anything like that? Yeah, so at this point, law enforcement is saying that there are no other suspects in the case. On that point, though, they have actually arrested. IIS has come in and actually arrested Solomon's family, as they were also here illegally. So we'll see how that goes forward. At this time, no charges. Legal charges have actually been filed against his family. But they definitely are looking at that. And just they're looking to see if maybe they had any prior knowledge.

of the attack, which maybe then they would press charges against the family. But at this point, they are in ICE custody. Law enforcement was very quick to say, though, that they do not think that there are any other suspects involved in the case. And we're quick to assure the community that even though there's going to be an enhanced law enforcement presence in the community, they definitely don't think there are any other collaborators in the attack. I think it's really interesting. One of the things about that, though, I mean, they're kind of quick to say, hey, there's no collaborators, collaborators. But the fact that he's an Egyptian national has been in the country, I think a couple years, correct? He overseed a visa, which some people know, some of people don't. Egypt is the really kind of the epicenter of sort of this new Islamic kind of Islamist movement, the jihadist movement, I guess you could say it started with, really started with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is in the Egyptian, which started in Egypt. So it's kind of interesting that he's an Egyptian, an Egyptian national.

So, you know, it begs to question whether or not, especially since he's been here just two years. Not exactly sure if we know when he entered the country. We know the opportunity. Yeah. Okay, 2022. Just really interesting that it's just kind of that he came from there and then also, you know, that he does come from Egypt, whether or not there was some radicalization going on over there before he came over to the United States or maybe if it happened over here. I know that he has said that he has no regrets, that he wanted to kill all the Zionists. So he's not really denying it at this point.

And am I correct? He said he was willing to die, right? I mean, he thought he was going to go down as a martyr, right? Yeah, it was very clear that he was willing to die, but also that he was very willing to tell law enforcement that not only did he have no regrets, but that he would do it again if he was released. I do think it was really interesting with you mentioning Egypt, because, you know, just last night, President Trump signed that executive order restricting

nationals, some foreign nationals coming into the country. And what I thought was super interesting about that was that Egypt actually wasn't on the list, even though he talked about, specifically talked about this Boulder terrorism incident and talked about how many people are in the country, you know, overstaying their visas. I thought it was so interesting that even though he specifically mentioned this incident that Egypt actually wasn't on that list of restricted countries. No, I thought that was really interesting too. And, I mean, you know, you kind of wonder, I mean, there's also been talk. I know Tom Homan, the border czar has since the whole border. since the Boulder incident happened, he has been warning of more terror attacks sort of imminent. And if maybe if this sort of has sort of precipitated all that is just, you know,

there's concern with people here. They don't know. They haven't been able to vet it. I know that Afghanistan was on that list. I know that once we pulled out of Afghanistan and we accepted all these refugees and everything like that, I knew that the government had said, admitted that they really were able to vet them and they lost track of thousands of people. They just were checked in and then on some of these military bases and then they just sort of left. So it's really interesting to see, you know, maybe this is all sort of, you know, tying into, you know, something that, you know, maybe they're receiving or they're hearing on their end chatter, who knows. But it's certainly troubling, I'd say the least. But you were

talking about the family. And so I knew the, the, The White House had said, like it was Tuesday night, or the ICE and the White House said, hey, they were going to be deported immediately. We don't really know too much about the family. I mean, he's five kids. One of them, I think, is grown that we know if she was there.

She's been similar to college, right? Yeah, college. She had like a scholarship. She had a scholarship, is that correct? I think so. Do we know how that happened? She was not, they weren't here legally. I don't know.

I mean, those are just some lingering questions. regarding the family and, yes, certainly what they knew. We don't know the ages of all the children. We just kind of know about one. And the wife, what did she know? And I think that is law enforcement concern. I think that's law enforcement's concerns currently. That's ISIS concerns.

And obviously, they overstayed their visas. So that's also ISIS concern. But as of now, law enforcement has said that they are not, do not have any charges again. the family, but they're definitely investigating that. Because Solomon, Solomon himself said that he had been considering

the attack for over a year. So it definitely was very premeditated, and it would be quite shocking if he didn't have something. That his wife, you know, I'm not saying the children, but, you know, his wife didn't maybe have some sort of inclination. And especially if he thought he was going to die, you know, leaving his family, his wife, and five children to fend for themselves.

If I'm correct, was he just like an Uber driver or what was his? Yeah, he was just an Uber driver. Okay. So, I mean, he wasn't making probably very much money, imagine, especially with five kids and living in the Denver area. I would say that's pretty, you know, expensive. So, yeah, I would imagine that, you know, there would be something, but we don't know. I mean, that's obviously to come out. But I think it's really interesting.

But thank you so much, Elise, for sharing. that information with us and we'll keep up keep us updated and see where the case goes from here