Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-04-27 Monday

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Democracy Now! Monday, April 27, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. This was tragic. It was a night that none of us will forget for a very long time. But do not forget that the system worked. The Secret Service kept us safe. And that man was quickly apprehended and subdued a minute, seconds after he tried to breach the perimeter. A gunman tries to storm the White House Correspondents Association dinner Saturday night, shooting at security.

before he was tackled to the ground and arrested. He'll be arraigned today. The Secret Service evacuated President Trump and other officials as attendees fled or took cover under tables. In his reported manifesto, the gunman said he planned to target Trump administration officials. We'll be joined here in New York by California Congress member Rojana. He's calling for a bipartisan national commission on political violence.

And we go to Vermont to speak with journalist and professor Jeff Charlotte, author of The Undertoe, scenes from a slow civil war. Then the Trump administrations announced new measures to ramp up and expedite executions of death row prisoners, including authorizing death by firing squad. We'll speak to longtime anti-death penalty advocate, sister Helen Prejohn. I'm not at all surprised that Trump is doing this to try to expand the methods of executions and to get as many executions as he can. We already saw what he did in his first term when he had 13 people executed before he left office.

All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. in peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. A gunman charged a security checkpoint at the White House correspondence dinner Saturday night at the Washington Hilton, exchanging gunfire with law enforcement before being subdued and taken into custody. President Trump and other senior administration officials were abruptly evacuated from the ballroom as secret service agents swarm the venue, and some attendees ducked under tables. The suspect has been identified as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen from Torrance, California.

He checked into the hotel the day before, traveling by train from Los Angeles to Chicago to Washington, D.C. Allen's expected to be formally charged in court today. He reportedly left behind a written manifesto in which he stated he wanted to talk. target officials in the Trump administration. In his so-called manifesto, the suspected gunman does not mention President Trump by name, but writes, quote, I'm a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me, and I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to cope my hands with his crimes, unquote.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, President Trump became a judge. defensive when host Nora O'Donnell read an excerpt of the suspect's manifesto. Do you think he was referring to you? Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. I got associated with 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's say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this interview and they'll probably, I read the manifesto. You know, it was a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things. And I was never, excuse me, excuse me, you shouldn't be reading that on 60 minutes. You're a disgrace. President Trump quickly moved to use the attack to promote the massive new ballroom he's constructing on the White House grounds, posting on Truth Social Sunday morning, this event would never have happened with the militarily

top secret ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough, he said. The Justice Department also used the shooting at the White House Correspondents dinner to try to pressure the National Trust for Historic Preservation to drop their lawsuit against Trump's $400 million ballroom project. Assistant Attorney General Brett Schumet gave the trust until 9 a.m. today to dismiss its lawsuit, writing in a letter that the ballroom, quote, will ensure the safety and security of the president for decades to come and prevent future assassination attempts on the president at the Washington Hilton. Meanwhile, on Sunday, nine people were injured in a mass shooting near the campus of the University

of Indiana Bloomington. ceasefire talks between the U.S. and Iran collapsed over the weekend. President Trump abruptly canceled a planned trip to Pakistan by special envoy Steve Whitkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, posting the decision on truth social. Minutes after Pakistani officials announced that the Iranian foreign minister of Basaragchi had left Islamabad. Ararachi traveled today to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the ceasefire negotiations.

Axios is reporting Iran gave the U.S. a new proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuzin and the war with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage. Meanwhile, Reuters reports an internal Pentagon email has outlined options for punishing NATO allies that Trump administration believes failed to support the U.S. operations in the Iran war, including suspending Spain from the alliance. Lebanon's health ministry reports Israeli strikes killed 14 people and wounded 37 others on Sunday, including two children. Despite the U.S. brokered ceasefire, the Israeli military also ordered residents to evacuate

seven towns north of the Latani River beyond the so-called buffer zone. Israeli forces have occupied. Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it had attacked Israeli troops in the war. inside Lebanon as well as the rescue force that came to evacuate them. One Israeli soldier was killed and six more wounded. More than 2,500 people have been killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon since March 2nd, including 177 children and 100 medics, according to Lebanon's health ministry. More than 1.2 million people, nearly a fifth of Lebanon's population, have been displaced. In Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 12 Palestinians Friday, including eight people killed

when Israeli forces struck a police vehicle in Chayniz. A separate attack in Gaza City killed two police officers. Two others were killed in the bombing of a house in Bethlehia in northern Gaza. Since the U.S. brokered ceasefire last year, Israel's killed at least 984 Palestinians. This is Al-Jabair. His brother was killed in an Israeli attack on Friday. They should find a solution. Enough. They should find a solution. Where is the new government? Where is the new government? Where is it? You hear of five, ten martyrs every day. Where? The Israelis advance on us, fire and projectiles. And we are living in the east of Gaza, close to death. Where should we go?

The U.S. Justice Department said Friday. It'll use firing squads and single- drug, lethal injections to kill, condemn federal prisoners as seeks to ramp up and expedite capital punishment. It's also planning to impose new restrictions on the ability of death row prisoners to seek clemency or pardons, along with a regulation designed to cut years off the federal appeals process for state death penalty cases. At the Vatican, Pope Leo reiterated the Catholic Church's opposition to capital punishment on the same day the Trump administration announced, its plans to expedite, expand state-sanctioned killings. In this regard, we affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after various

serious crimes are committed. Furthermore, effective systems of detention can be and have been developed that protect citizens, while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption. Later in the broadcast, we'll speak with sister Helen Prejohn, the renowned anti-death penalty activists. We'll speak to her in Chicago, where Pope Leo comes from. The Board of Immigration Appeals, BIA, has issued a ruling that makes it easier for the Trump administration to deport people with DACA. That's deferred action for childhood arrivals. The new precedent decision by a three-judge panel outlined DACA can no longer guarantee deportation relief for thousands of people.

The BIA operates within the Department of Justice. The ruling came in the case of Catalina Sochil Santiago, DACA recipient and immigration rights advocate, who was released from an ICE jail last October after being detained for about two months. the targeting of people with DACA has intensified under Trump's second term with nearly 300 DACA recipients arrested last year, according to the Texas Tribune. In Colorado and Egyptian mother and her five children were detained by federal immigration agents for several hours Saturday, less than two days after a federal judge ordered their release from the only U.S. family detention center where they'd been imprisoned for 10 months. Hayam El Gamal was arrested when she complied with a requirement she check in with an ICE office in Denver. Her lawyer says she and her children were put aboard a deportation flight, but were removed from the plane before it could leave the U.S. after a federal court granted an emergency injunction.

The El Gamal family has already endured the longest known family detention under President Trump's second term at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dill, where they say their mental health suffered as they endured abhorrent medical care, rotten food, and a disregard for their religious freedom to practice Islam, they said. The Department of Homeland Security has given guidance to immigration officers instructing them to deny green cards to immigrants who burn the U.S. flag, criticize the state of Israel, or participate in pro-Palestinian campus protests. That's according to the New York Times, citing. internal DHS training documents which have not been previously reported. The guidance discourages officers from granting permanent residency to people with a history

of, quote, endorsing, promoting, or supporting anti-American views or anti-Semitic terrorism, ideologies, or groups, unquote. One example of questionable speech provided to officers is social media posts that declares, quote, stop Israeli terror and Palestine, unquote, and shows the Israeli flag crossed out. In Washington, D.C., a federal appeals court ruled Trump's claims of an invasion in order to shut down asylum requests at the U.S. Mexico border is unlawful. ACLU attorney legal earned, who argued the case, said, quote, this decision puts an end to the inhumane Trump policy of sending people, including families with little children,

horrific danger without even a hearing, unquote. Trump issued the proclamation on his first day back in office. The U.S. military said Sunday it carried out another strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific ocean, killing at least three people. U.S. Southern Command shared a video of a boat bursting into flames as it moved through open international waters. The Trump administration once again claimed the vessel was carrying drugs without providing. any evidence. Since September, the Pentagon says it's killed at least 185 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. The attacks have been widely condemned as illegal. The Mexican government

said Saturday, the two U.S. CIA agents killed in a car crash in northern Mexico after a drug rate earlier this month were not authorized to participate in such operations in the country. The car crash prompted an investigation into the agent's role with Mexico's Ministry of Security saying in a statement, quote, Mexican law is clear. It does not permit the participation of foreign agents and operations within the national territory, unquote. Two Mexican law enforcement officers were also killed in the crash. In Ukraine, Russian drone and missile attacks killed at least 16 people over the weekend, including nine people killed in the Nipro, where Russian onslaught sparked fires across the city and partly destroyed several blocks

of homes and businesses. Dozens of people were left wounded. This is a 74-year-old resident of the Nipro, who narrowly avoided death when his apartment building was bombed. Can you imagine the force of the explosion? It was so loud. I was laying down when the first blast went on. Debris started raining down on me, and the balcony was blown away.

I had just grabbed a cigarette and gone into the toilet. And the last blast, it went off right next to me, and everything came crashing down. If I hadn't gone to the toilet, I don't know if I'd still be alive. Meanwhile, Russian officials say Ukrainian attack on the Russian-occupied Zeparitsa nuclear power plant killed a worker. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, said it had launched an investigation and reiterated that such attacks, quote, endanger nuclear safety and must not take place, end quote. In Mali, armed Taurag separatists joined fighters with an al-Qaeda-linked affiliate in a massive coordinated attack on the capital, Bamako, and four other cities Saturday.

Amidst reports of explosions and gunfire at Bamako's International Airport, officials reported Molly's defense minister at Saggio Kamara was killed when an apparent suicide attacker set off a truck bomb as a residence. Molly's military ruler, General Assimi Goita, was reportedly moved to a secure location after his home was targeted. He has yet to make a public statement. And Maine's Democratic governor, Janet Mills, has vetoed what would have been the nation's first statewide moratorium on large AI data centers. Mills said in a statement she'd block the landmark bill because it did not include an exception on a data center in the town of Jay. at the site of a vacant mill that shuttered in 2023.

Maine's data center moratorium had drawn strong bipartisan support and was backed by Maine residents who'd raised alarm about the potential threats to the environment and higher energy costs. At least a half a dozen states, including New York and Michigan, have considered similar measures. To see our coverage of this story with the sponsor of the Maine legislation, go to DemocracyNow.org. And those are some of the headlines.

This is Democracy Now. Democrysnow.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. More details are emerging about the gunman who rushed a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents Association dinner Saturday night and exchanged gunfire with law enforcement. The suspect was tackled and arrested before reaching the ballroom. Authorities have identified the men as Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old who traveled by train to Washington, D.C., from California through Chicago. He'd booked a room at the Washington Hilton where the dinner was taking place.

He was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives. Alan was a graduate of the California Institute of Technology and worked as a tutor. In writing, sent a family shortly before the shooting. Alan reportedly described himself as the friendly federal assassin, unquote, and reference grievances with Trump policies. Ellen's expected to be charged today with two counts of using a firearm and one count of assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon and maybe more charges. Officials believe Alan acted alone.

Video from inside the ballroom shows a chaotic scene in the moments after. Attendees heard nearby gunshots shortly after the dinner began. We just watched security, racing up to the dais and taking President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. Also, Vice President J.D. Vance and other top officials were rushed off the stage by Secret Services. Guests crouched under tables for cover. On Sunday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared on ABC this week and talked about the investigation. Well, we're 12 hours into the investigation. The FBI and other law enforcement work through, through the night, they executed search warrants on both coasts, both in D.C. at the hotel room

where he was staying, which was inside the conference center where we had the dinner. And also in Los Angeles, at the suspected home, we know that he had two firearms on him, as has been reported, along with some knives. We believe that he traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago and then Chicago to Washington, D.C. And we've executed search warrants. on his devices as well. We've started talking to folks that know him and to try to just continue to gather information and evidence. I was on the phone with the director of the FBI after 1 o'clock last night, and they were working through the night. He was working through the night. And I think that as the days go by, we'll certainly learn more. But that's what we know

so far. In his so-called manifesto, the gunman Cole Allen does not mention President Trump by name, but writes, quote, I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me. I'm no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes, unquote. He also wrote he planned to target administration officials, with the exception of FBI director Cash Patel. On Sunday, President Trump was interviewed on CBS's 60 Minutes by Nora O'Donnell. The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President. He appears to reference a motive in it.

He writes this, quote, administration officials, they are targets. And he also wrote this. I'm no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. What's your reaction to that? 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'm not a pedophile. Do you think he was referring to you? Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person.

I got associated with 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's say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this interview and they'll probably, I read the manifesto, you know, as a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things. And I was never, excuse me, excuse me, you shouldn't be reading that on 60 minutes. You're a disgrace.

That's President Trump admonishing CBS's Nora O'Donnell on 60 minutes. Trump has sued CBS and 60 minutes. settled with him. We begin today's show with Congressmember Rokana, Democratic Congress member from California, who's called for a bipartisan National Commission for Political Violence. Thanks again for joining us. Good to have you in our studio. Why don't we start off with this commission? What are you calling for? Well, first of all, the violence is never the answer in a democracy. And we've seen too many incidents, not just assassination attempts on the president's life, assassination attempts on Governor Shapiro, Paul Pelosi attacked by someone going to

Speaker Pelosi's house. We need to lower the temperature and we need to look at the causes of political violence, whether that's social media algorithms, whether it's mental health issues, whether it is access to guns, whether it is heated rhetoric, and what we can do to lower the temperature and prevent violence while not trampling on the First Amendment. So what would this mean? What would this mean? What would this commencement? mission look like? Well, I think it would look at what we can do, first of all, on social media algorithms. Right now, you have social media basically for profit, sensationalizing information and sending information to people who are vulnerable. Do we need reforms on Section 230? We need to

look at what sensible recommendations there can be on gun laws, what sensible recommendations there can be for security, for elected officials. What are standards in terms of what we We want elected officials, how to communicate so that we aren't inciting violence in the ways that we've seen in our democracy, not to regulate it, but as a conversation about how we have more civility in our politics. Let me ask you about gun violence. You have, oh, how many attacks we've been talking about just in the last week, numerous other cases of gun violence across the country.

On Sunday, nine people were injured in a mass shooting near the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington. I bet most people in this country didn't even hear about this shooting with the number of victims of it in Indiana as people focused on the White House Correspondence dinner shooting. In Virginia, you have Lieutenant Governor, the former Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, recently fatally shot his estranged wife, Serena, Fairfax before taking his own life, a murder suicide. In Louisiana, the 31-year-old army veteran murdered eight children, including seven of his own, in a mass shooting rampage that spanned four locations across Shreveport last week. And we're just talking about the last week. What about the easy accessibility of guns in this country? Well, it's shocking and tragic and makes me angry. I've been in

Congress 10 years, we haven't passed anything significant. We know what would work. We know that when we had the assault weapons ban of 1993, 1994, that had lowered violence, we let that expire. We know we need universal background checks. We know that we need red flag laws to go to a court and take the guns away from people who have significant mental health issues where people raise a flag. And we just have not been able to pass that. But there is, I do think, a difference between political violence and all of the horrific violence we're seeing with guns more generally. And that is that political violence strikes at the very heart of democracy. We cannot have a democracy if people are saying we're going to kill you if we disagree with

your viewpoint. And that has to be condemned in the most strong, unequivocal terms. I remember years ago when President Clinton said something along the line. So this was after the shooting at Columbine. We have to teach our children that violence is not the answer. And this is when NATO was attacking Yugoslavia. And I'm wondering about that broader context of the massive violence. We're looking at the U.S. and Israel bombing Iran. We're looking at the attack on Venezuela.

I was just reading in headlines about the attacks in the Pacific and Caribbean on these boats that the Trump administration doesn't provide evidence but says they're carrying drugs. But this level of violence in the world, if you can talk about what it means to have a government that makes violence look acceptable in some cases. But then you have this horror at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, this attempted attack on the mass dinner of hundreds of journalists and Trump administration officials. that is clearly and rightly condemned. But what is considered acceptable and what isn't? Well, I think that Dr. King said that militarism overseas leads to the corrosion of a society and violence at home. And we live in times where there has been violence.

There was violence with Netanyahu in Gaza that our country supported. You have the president threatening to wipe off Iranian civil civil. You have a fuel blockade in Cuba leading to starvation. As you reported, we are shooting boats in the Caribbean. Some of those people innocent. And this has not recognized the dignity of human beings. That does not in any way justify the assassination attempt. But what it does suggest is that we have a culture that has embraced violence inconsistent with our ideals. Interestingly, as you said, in no way does this justify. But in this reported manifesto, and by the way, this gunman, Cole Allen, 31 years old,

apparently sent this minutes before he engaged in his attack to family members. And they went to law enforcement in their community quickly. And they said this is what our brother or whoever he was in relation to them is saying. So in the manifesto, Cole Allen referenced U.S. foreign policy. He wrote, quote, Objection 1. As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek. Rebuttal. Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed.

I'm not the person raped in a detention camp. I'm not the fisherman executed without trial. I'm not a school kid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration. That's what he wrote in the manifesto. Well, sometimes, just because he had intelligence of Caltech, it's not correlated with character or wisdom. It's a totally incoherent argument, and he's doing real damage to the most vulnerable. By engaging in violence, he's actually hurting the very causes that he seeks to uphold. And what we need to say is very clearly, violence has no place.

There's a democratic process to bring change. you can go organize. You can stand in no king's protests. You can help lead new people to be elected. But when you take up arms, what you lead to actually is a response of censorship or a stronger security state. He's undermining the very causes that he claims to care about. What do you make of President Trump the way he attacked Nora O'Donnell? once again, particularly going after a woman journalist. Well, it's a pattern of his, which is to attack the press. And this could be a moment.

A normal president would have said this was an attack not just on me. This was an attack on our democracy. It was attack on journalists. And I'm appalled by what's happening. And this is a time to celebrate open, free society. Instead, it takes his personal anger, and he can't transcend that. And it's just very, very sad to see to him attacking it. And it's sad to see some people conflating the condemnation of political bonds, which should be clear with criticism.

I mean, obviously, you should be able to criticize the president of the States and say that he did a bad job and he's bad for the country. And that's very, very different than threatening him with violence. Now, you hear Nora O'Donnell in this when she talks about she's reading from the manifesto and says he's referring to pedophiles and rapists. And when President Trump says, I am not a rapist, I am not a pedophile, she says, oh, because he didn't name Trump. Are you saying he's referring to you? I mean, that was a very interesting moment. Well, as you know, Thomas Massey and I passed the Epstein Transparency Act to get the Epstein files released. This has been the single biggest issue that has had a blow to the administration.

They've been covering up these files. And you can tell it's on the president's mind. He's aware of this. His own wife, the first lady, said, we need justice for Epstein survivors. He still has not, his Justice Department hasn't released the documents. They aren't prosecuting any of the Epstein class, these people who raped and abused these girls. And this is on his mind that he says, no, I have nothing to do with Epstein. But the reality is this was bipartisan legislation.

It's the first time Congress has stood up to Donald Trump. and we need to continue to demand the release of these files and these prosecutions. What do you make of Pam Bondi not coming forward on April 14th? I mean, granted, she was no longer Attorney General. And would you say that Trump fired her because he didn't want her to come forward on April 14th? And they would say, because she's not AG, she doesn't have to. But they have, isn't it your committee, the House Oversight Committee, has subpoenaed the ex-boyfriend of Gielaine Maxwell.

Yes. Well, look, I drafted the subpoena with Nancy Mace for Pam Bondi. It was not as Attorney General. It was in her personal capacity. So she's in defiance of the subpoena. In violation of the subpoena, she should be held in contempt. Is she going to be? Who holds her in contempt? Well, the Oversight Committee has to vote on it, and Congress has to vote on it. And we are working to get the Republican votes, the same people who voted for our subpoena. to say, look, now you need to hold her in contempt. She's not showing up to Congress. You were willing to hold the Clintons in contempt when they didn't come before the committee. They then

testified, why wouldn't you hold Pam Bondi in contempt? She was far more relevant. But she was fired in part because of her mishandling of the Epstein files. There is no issue, not the war in Iran, not prices that has hurt Donald Trump more with his own base than Epstein. And that is because he ran saying that the government was corrupt, that he was going to expose that corruption, And he has turned out to cover up for the rich and powerful people who wrote laws for their own benefit and abused these young girls. And that has really turned a lot of people who voted for Trump against him. And that's why I believe Bondi was fired. And that's why the administration is reeling on this issue.

So what's going to happen next in the Epstein Files case? Again, three million files or pages have not been released. Well, first, King Charles is coming tomorrow. I had requested that he meet with the survivors. He hasn't done that, but the British ambassador assures me that he's going to address it in his remarks to Congress tomorrow. And explain why you want the king to address it? Well, his brother is implicated serious allegations. Prince Andrews, a former Prince Andrew, of having a...

The man formerly known as Prince. Yes. Of having abused, allegedly abused young girls. And, of course, he engaged in financial impropriety. There is questions about the royal family's relationship with Epstein. And so I thought he owed it to the survivors to acknowledge them and acknowledge their pain. And if he's not going to meet them, he should at least address that when he addresses the Congress. But we are continuing to subpoena people, including Bill Gates, including other people who came Howard Lutney, who went to the island.

We're continuing to push for the release. And we're continuing to push for the prosecution of some of these individuals who are in these files who the survivors tell us raped and abused them as younger. girls. There have been no prosecutions yet in the United States, though they're prosecutions in many other parts of the world. President Trump said in that interview with Norodon, that he was exonerated when referencing pedophilia or rape. Was he exonerated? He has not been exonerated. If anything, there's been a cover-up. They first did not release the files of someone who made very serious accusations against President Trump. Then they released the files because of journalists reporting saying they had selectively released files.

Now, there is nothing so far that implicates him, but exoneration doesn't mean there's nothing also that exonerates him. The reality is we still don't have three million files, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. Political reports, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are divided over whether President Trump should pardon Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator convicted co-conspirator Galane Maxwell in exchange for cooperation in the panel's Epstein investigation. That's according to committee chair James Comer in an interview last week. That's shocking. And when the survivors testified in front of the Capitol with Thomas Massey and me and Marjorie Taylor Green, they said that it would be a punch to their gut to pardon Maxwell. She was part of the abuse.

You are basically then pardoning a someone who committed pedigree. pedophilia or abetted pedophilia, and you are totally ignoring the survivors' own sentiments. It would be just catastrophic on a human level. I want to finally ask you, Trump quickly moved to use the incident, the attack on the White House correspondence dinner, to promote the massive new ballroom he's constructing on the White House grounds. Posting on truth social, this event would never have happened with the military top secret bowl room currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough.

If you could address this, I was just watching Eugene Daniels, the former head of the White House Correspondent Association, he said, we would never hold it at the White House. There is a separation of church and state, meaning between press and the state. Yeah, so he still doesn't understand the First Amendment, which is the freedom of the press. Of course, you would not have a gathering of journalists with a comedian who was supposed to make fun of the president, whoever the president is, doing it at the White House, where the White House gets to dictate the agenda. And so there are other reasons we don't need a ballroom and we don't need corporate donors, basically currying favor with Donald Trump, giving millions of dollars to this

ballroom pet project of his to get policy. But certainly, you would never have this event at the White House. And it just shows that the president still does not get it after all these years, about the importance of the freedom of the press. Finally, the billionaires tax that you and Bernie Sanders are putting forward. The biggest issue in this country is wealth inequality. We have 19 billionaires who have 12.5% of the economy, $3 trillion. That is three times aiming to concentration of the Gilded Age during Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan's Times.

Bernie and I have said, tax them 5%. That means if you're worth $20 billion, you'll now be worth $19 billion. By the way, their returns are about 10, 15% or more over the last few years. And if we did that, we could have every teacher in this country paid at least $60,000. We could have universal child care. We could have free public college. We could give every working family a $3,000 check. We could expand health care to include dental vision hearing.

This is necessary for a new social contract in a country that is just seeing wealth inequality explode. Congress member Roe Kana, Democratic representative from California. Coming up, we speak to journalist and professor Jeff Charlotte, author of The Undertoe, Scenes from a Slow Civil War. Stay with us. The late Malian musician Kaira Arby, Nightingale of the North, performing in our Democracy Now studio, to see all these performances in our studio. Go to DemocracyNow.org. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now. Democerc, I'm Amy Goodman.

As we continue to look at Saturday's shooting at the White House Correspondence dinner in Washington, we're joined by the journalist and author Jeff Charlotte, Professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College, has been tracking the rise of political violence in the United States. His latest book is The Undertoe, Seams from a Slow Civil War. Professor Charlotte, thanks for joining us again. Tell us what you've been tracking since Saturday night. I've been most interested at the sort of the uses and abuses to which MAGA and other factions of the right have put this narrative. Not so much the actual facts of who this shooter, Cole Allen is, but the stories they're telling about him and the stories they're telling about Trump and how he responded.

and using that as part of the sort of the ongoing project of what you can only describe as a kind of deification of Trump as this man who somehow transcends worldly effects. Over the past two days, President Trump has repeatedly claimed that the suspected shooter was anti-Christian. This is Trump appearing on Fox News Sunday. The guy is a stick guy. When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians. That's one thing for sure. He hates Christians, a hatred. Jeff Charlotte, can you respond? It's a startling and on his part savvy claim. He, of course, had access to what we believe to be, it's not even really a manifesto. It's just a statement of intent by this man, Cole Allen, and was able to carry. characterized it as anti-Christian, which was then picked up across right-wing media and across as well as legacy and mainstream media, declaring this as an anti-Christian attack. So when you come to read the document itself, it's kind of startling to see that, in fact, Cole Allen understood his

mission in very explicitly Christian terms and not just Christian terms, but terms familiar. if you've ever read the manifestos of abortion clinic bombers, the idea that you can't turn the other cheek when it comes time to save the lives of the innocent, that the Christian imperative to turn the other cheek doesn't apply if lives are on the line. And he goes further than that. He goes into deeper specificity and a list of sort of five objections that could be made to his awful attack. he offers what are in his mind his justifications. And one of them is yield unto Caesar, what is Caesar's.

And it's a paraphrase of a biblical passage that appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The idea of render under Caesar's, what is Caesar's. The Christians are called upon to defer to the authority of the land. Well, he comes with an argument that says, yeah, but that's not so when the leaders of the land are breaking the law. because the land, the Caesar there stands for the law of the land. And since these administration officials are in his mind breaking the law, as they are, in fact, that he sees us as justification. This is almost the exact same justification used by Vance Bolter, the assassin, the far right,

the fascist assassin in Minnesota who killed state legislatures. This is the much the same rhetoric that you'll find in the old language of the Army of God. the militia that would attack abortion clinics. He's turning it to a different ends. But the last thing you can say is this is anti-Christian. In a Sunday opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald headlined, America's burning with political violence. It's a fire that Trump keeps stoking.

A former White House staffer, Corey Alpert, writes, quote, political violence has risen sharply over the past decade, more so than any of the five moments. in U.S. history where a sitting president has been shot, leaving four dead and one gravely wounded. Donald Trump has been the leading accelerant of that rise, throwing fuel on the fire at every opportunity. Professor Charlotte, can you respond? Yeah, I mean, it's indisputable, and it's, in fact, the point that far-rightus and fascists make themselves pointing to the number of assassination temps he survived, which is either three or four or

five, depending on how you count it and they can debate amongst themselves. But I think what it points us to is we're losing the usefulness of the term political violence. The better term is violence. As you open the show, what do we call this is violence? This was attempted murder. And we can oppose it plainly and simply as that. what do we call the boat strike with which you open the show that was barely reported yesterday. Is that political violence?

It's murder. I think what Trumpism has done has given us a spectacle politics that has gotten us far past. We're hearing all these cries. We mustn't normalize political violence. That ship has sailed. It is normal. As evidence, you can see. the number of people who are boasting online, well, I didn't really pay attention to this.

I was watching something else. I was out being normal. This idea that this is just the humdrum, the boat strike doesn't need to be reported. The shooting in Indiana, as you mentioned, barely reported. It's just the weather. And I think that is the spectacle of Trumpism. And Trump knows that that weather is good for fascism. And what about this issue? And what about this issue? issue of gun violence. You just heard Congressmember Kana calling for a commission on political violence. Where does the easy availability of guns, whatever shooters' political views are, fit into this story, Jeff? You know, whatever the number, the latest number is $450 million, maybe 500 million guns in civilian hands in the United States.

guns so readily available, such powerful guns. We know this is true in situations of domestic violence. If there's guns in the house, they're more likely going to be used and there's going to be murders committed. If there's guns there, someone is going to take whatever logic, whatever grievance they have, and apply a gun to it. A gun in the sort of the American vernacular is to cure all for whatever problem, whatever ails you. I think, again, when you look at the so-called manifesto of this shooter,

what's striking about it is that so much of it is fairly conventional. People have been combing over his social media. Nothing really stands out. He was a fan of very many popular, liberal, and mostly liberal, some left websites. And yet then there's that moment where he says, okay, but I'm going to add a gun to this because I've got a gun. And even through the manifesto, you see him following the logic of his own gun. He says, okay, I'm going to try and not harm innocent bystanders or whatever he says. But then at the end, he says, but I will go through anybody. I'll kill anybody to achieve this. Gun in hand, he lets the gun lead him. And it's, I mean, we saw it on video, this man charging like he thinks he's an action hero in a movie.

with his gun into the ballroom, a fool on a deadly errand. Very quickly. What is being made of in social media? This alleged shooter saying the man that they now are going to be arraining today, he was going after Trump administration officials except for Cash Patel, right, the head of the FBI. I have no idea what his intention was, but what he was. we're seeing. And I get it. The temptation is to read this as a joke. Like he's owning Cash Patel. And, you know, that's as much the normalization of political violence, of gun violence, as

I'm thinking of T-shirts and bumper stickers by gun zealots with sexual innuendos around bulls that are too grotesque to say on the air. To make a joke of guns is to demand. any possibility we ever have of reducing their absolute prevalence, everydayness. They are normalized in our lives. So I think that's what's happening. And I think that's the kind of, that's Trumpism, even if it's an anti-Trump or saying. It's the idea that all this is just entertainment. Last question.

We just have 30 seconds. We're going on to Sister Helen Prasjean, responding to the Trump administration reinstating firing squad, but the shooting took place at the Washington Hilton. The venue was, of course, the venue of the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. How does this shooting fit into what you describe as the slow civil war that you believe is occurring in the United States, Jeff? Yeah, I think the slow civil war is best understood as kind of almost sort of like episodic. in the same way that what played out on Saturday night was, as my colleague Anthea Butler calls it, the story arc of the week in Trumpism.

And it will be forgotten by next week. That's why it's important to remember to keep tally of all these violent incidents. And by violent incidents, I don't mean shooters, just shooters like this, although certainly them. But to put them in one long list that includes wars in Iran and Venice. Venezuela, all the bombs sent to Gaza, to understand that this, to put them into a conversation with the war on trans folks, all those are part of this slow civil war. This is just one more episode. Jeff Charlotte, want to thank you for being with us, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College's latest book, The Undertoe, scenes from a slow civil war.

Coming up, Death by Firing Squad, we will speak to Sister. Helen Pruchon. Stay with us. First light by Matthew Alexander Thirtel and Vicenza Belomo. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. Death by firing squad. Its efforts to ramp up and expedite federal executions, the Justice Department announced Friday, it's re-implementing lethal injections and authorize the use of firing squads to kill, condemn federal prisoners. It's also planning to implement federal prisoners. It's also planning to impose new restrictions on the ability of death row prisoners to seek clemency or pardons,

along with a regulation designed to cut years off the federal appeals process for state death penalty cases. Five states already allow execution by firing squad, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. At the Vatican, Pope Lio reiterated the Catholic Church's opposition to capital punishment in a pre-recorded video shared with the Paul University to mark the 15th anniversary of Illinois's abolition of the death penalty. We affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after various serious crimes are committed. Furthermore, effective systems of detention can be and have been developed that protect citizens, while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty

of the possibility of redemption. This is why Pope Francis and my recent predecessors repeatedly insisted that the common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment. Consequently, the church teaches that the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. That video of Pope Leo was sent to DePaul University for a conference. on the death penalty. It was Sister Helen Prejean who extended the invitation to the Pope's office for that statement, one of the world's most well-known anti-death penalty advocates and also author of numerous books, including Dead Man Walking, an eyewitness account of the death penalty. A graphic

edition of the book was published in November. A sister Helen Prejohn is joining us from Chicago where that conference is taking place at DePaul. Welcome to Democracy Now. In these few minutes, Sister Prasjan, can you respond to the Trump administration reinstituting death by firing squad? Firing squad and the electric chair and gas. Anything to get executions going, he has now done. I'm not at all surprised that he's done this. When we look at his record and his way of approaching social problems, his first. instinct almost always seems to be demonize someone as an enemy and then kill them and destroy them.

And the death penalty writ large is Iran, it's Gaza, and it's solving all the problems by using violence. We have to remember that in his first term, Trump, in the last six months of his first term. He designated that 13 people were to be executed, and Bill Barr, his attorney general, went in, gave the orders, and they were. I knew some of them and the lawyers who were trying to save their life. But this, when you look at it, it epitomizes trying to solve social problems, all social problems, by designating an enemy and killing the enemy. And you can see that in Trump's rhetoric about political people he considers enemies. He starts going after anybody even who disagrees with him. And he uses violent language about this as treasonous. They ought to be shot. So it's typical of him.

But I also see it in the culture of the deep south, the ex-slave states that are doing all the executions now. I mean, DeSantis in Florida had last year killed 20 people and has already executed six and is lining up more to be killed. But when you look at the total sweep in the United States, most states, either in law or in practice, are not executing people. But the Deep South still is, and they get the rhetoric from Trump.

But I see progress being made, but the whole key, Amy, is to educate the citizens. I mean, even juries now in Texas, when they know they have the option of a life sentence or death, are not giving out death sentences. But we look at these pockets. And I see the reason for it, as I understand it, it's the way the Supreme Court set up the death penalty

and the Greg decision of 76, when they allowed huge discretionary power to prosecutors and to executives to carry out death or not. And so these decisions for death are left in the hands of individuals, and Trump being president is one of them. And so they're using violence like there's no tomorrow right now. These are sad, hard times. Sister Helen Prigion, you have the Trump administration announcing plans to add firing squads, electrocution, and gas asphyxiation to its arsenal of methods to execute federal prisoners on death row. It also noted the obstacles to obtaining

drugs for lethal injections. In this last minute, what you are calling for now at DePaul, in Chicago, where Pope Leo is from. Yeah. Well, the Pope responded readily to the invitation. We were celebrating the 15th anniversary of Illinois, abolishing the death penalty. Governor Pat Quinn, who signed the abolition order into law, was there. So it was to hold up a beacon of light, of hope in the dark times. And so the Pope's very clear. I mean, it was 1,500 years of dialogue in the Catholic Church to reach a position in the catechism of official teaching that no matter how terrible a crime, we can never turn over to governments, that absolute power over human life, that they can decide to kill their citizens.

Sister Helen Brjohn, we have to leave it there, but we're going to do part two and post online at DemocracyNow.org. Sister Helen Pajan is one of the world's most well-known anti-death penalty activist. She's the author of the best-selling book, Dead Man Walking, an eyewitness account of the death penalty. That does it for our show. I'll be in Canada tomorrow night at the Hot Docs Film Festival. Then in Brookline, Massachusetts, in Washington, D.C., and in Baltimore, Czech, DemocracyNow.org,

for Steal the Story. Please. I'm Amy Goodman.