The NPR Politics Podcast - DOJ charges suspect in White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

The Justice Department has charged 31-year-old Cole Allen with trying to assassinate President Trump during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday. We discuss what we know about Allen and how Trump responded to Saturday’s shooting.This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. We are recording this at 2.27 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, April 27, 2026. Today on the show, what more do we know about the man who charged the security perimeter at the White House Correspondents dinner on Saturday night and opened fire? The Secret Service tackled him, but during the chaotic few minutes that followed, President Trump, the first lady, and several cabinet members were rushed out of the building. The Justice Department has identified the gunman as 31-year-old Cole Allen from California. And Ryan, Alan was in court today. What is he being charged with? That's right. I actually just left the courtroom where he made his initial appearance. He walked in. He was wearing blue prison garb, sat down at the defense table with two public defenders who have been appointed by the court to defend him. Now, the magistrate judge read out the counts against him. He said there are three total. one of them is attempt to assassinate the president that carries a potential maximum sentence

of life in prison. Second count is transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce for a felony. That's up to 10 years in prison. That's the potential sentence there if he's convicted. And then the third count was discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. So as of now, just to kind of summarize, he's been charged by criminal complaint, faces three counts. Those are the three counts against him. he is being held for now. He will remain in custody. And a detention hearing is scheduled for

Thursday. It's important to say that the complaint as of this moment is still sealed. So I have not seen it. The judge ordered it to be unsealed, but sometimes it takes a little bit of time. So what we know, not having seen that charging document yet, is largely based off what Justice Department officials have said, primarily acting attorney general Todd Blanche. He said, Alan traveled from Los Angeles to Chicago by train and then from Chicago to Washington, D.C. by train. He stayed at the Hilton Hotel in Washington. That is the same hotel where the White House Correspondents dinner takes place. So he had a room at the hotel on Saturday night, the night that the incident happened. He had a shotgun, a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun with him, as well as a handgun and three knives.

That's according to the Justice Department. And that's most of the picture that we have. received thus far from the government. They also said, it's important to add, that they believe, based on the preliminary information thus far, the evidence that they've collected in the investigation to this point, that his intention was to target administration officials. That's what we know as of now. But again, there will likely be more information in the criminal complaint when we get a look at it. And I mean, what about him as a person? I mean, do we know anything about his biography where he grew up, you know, what he was like? We know that he grew up in in Southern California. He's from Torrance, California. He has a mechanical engineering degree

from Caltech. He has a master's in computer science from another state college. He's been working as a teacher, basically tutoring kids for college entrance exams. According to people who our NPR colleagues have spoken with who worked with him, he was a very good teacher. And from what people who knew him have said about him, he seems to have been a very kind of kind and quiet, amicable guy. Do we know anything more about the motivations or anything Alan has said or done that indicate why he did this? The full scope of why he may have done this, what the motive may have been, is something that Blanche has said they are still digging in on. They're still trying to figure out. And that, of course, is the question ultimately that we all want an answer to,

why an individual would take it upon themselves, allegedly, to travel across the country with weapons to then attack an event where the president and much of the president's cabinet was in attendance. Ryan, thinking about this investigation, is there any indication at all that Allen was being assisted by anybody else? Or does it seem like he was on his own? Well, from what Blanche has said at this point in time, investigators haven't uncovered any evidence that would suggest that Alan had any co-conspirators. In other words, everything points to him being a lone actor. And also, he's been asked about whether there was any sort of foreign connection. And Blanche has said there's no evidence of any sort of foreign connection or foreign nexus that they have found. He's been charged with three things at this point. Is that going to be it or is the assumption that there is going to be more charges as the investigation unfolds?

So because this is just a criminal complaint, he has not been indicted yet. The government could certainly add more charges when it comes to. the indictment, and they could always add more charges after that and what's known as a superseding indictment. Blanche did say over the weekend that Alan would face initial charges on Monday. We have that. But he also did say that there is the possibility that prosecutors would add more down the line. And Domenico, you were at the event on Saturday night. Can you tell us a little bit about the security that you saw as you were entering and anything

else that caught your eye? Well, yeah, I mean, security is always tight at these events. I've been going to this for the better part of almost two decades at this point. You have to show credentials to get into pre-parties that you're invited to. You have to have a ticket to get into the ballroom. And before you get into the ballroom for the dinner, you have to go through magnetometers. Now, I'm sure there's going to be some discussion and it's already happening about the kind of security layers that are in place. Because as much as the president and press secretary have been saying that, it worked and that the president is secure and that nobody else was hurt, you know, in all of this as far as the cabinet secretaries go or the president himself and others, other guests in the room, the fact that somebody could run through the magnetometer area into a very wide hallway and, you know, essentially fall to the floor really just steps away from the doors where everyone was and having open fire in that area that's supposed to be very secure. It doesn't make a lot of the people in that

room feel very secure in that moment. And there certainly were a lot of people there, obviously, tons of Secret Service, tons of other law enforcement. And, you know, for a couple minutes, it was very chaotic. I mean, you had, you know, people searching for cabinet secretaries, trying to get them out of the room, you know, trying to spy them under tables, talking to each other, communicating as to whether or not they had eyes on either cabinet secretaries or the shooter himself. It was definitely very chaotic for a couple minutes. Things seemed to settle down. Obviously, the dinner wound up disbanding and, you know, the president wound up speaking later. But always security is very tight at these things. But there's going to be a reassessment for sure.

All right. We're going to take a quick break and more in just a moment. And we're back. And, Domenico, President Trump held a press conference late Saturday night after leaving the scene of the shooting. what can you tell us about his initial response? Well, his initial response certainly conciliatory. His tone did seem to change bringing up his ballroom and the need for a more secure environment. And there's been a political push, really, on the right, almost immediately, number one, calling for the need for the ballroom saying they didn't want to see the left talking about how the ballroom wasn't necessary when something like this happens. And then, of course, the familiar playbook that we've seen now repeatedly after any kind of violent situation where somebody on the right was either hurt or killed or targeted where they blame Democrats and are saying that it's democratic rhetoric that is to blame. But, you know, I have to say, I mean, kind of political outrage and intellectual dishonesty that we're seeing and we can continue to see over, you know, such a long time now it feels like in our politics.

politics has become a kind of toxic fuel for this kind of environment. I mean, people are angry, but the president sets the tone. You know, he called for the destruction of an entire civilization. He celebrated the death of a former FBI director and Robert Mueller. I mean, he rationalized the death of Hollywood producer Rob Reiner, making something political that really had nothing to do with politics. And, you know, you see in a lot of these moments a kind of phony outrage to score political points. And, you know, isn't really what politics is supposed to be about? And that fuels a kind of cynicism and antipathy and the lack of trust in the politics that we continue to see grow. And until people all around look in the mirror and say, what can I do differently for this

kind of environment to bring the temperature down? It's hard to see how any of this ceases. I will also just add that factually, there have been people on both sides of the aisle, be the victims of political violence. And so to put blame on one side is just factually inaccurate. Yeah. And the way the president sort of looked at that. this is talking about how he is being uniquely targeted in some respects. This was the president talking to Fox News. Really, if you're a consequential president, you're in much more danger than if you're not a consequential president. And the fact is there are threats against every president regardless of their party. But again, the environment right now is just hyper polarized and it

doesn't make for a really healthy environment to be able to have political discussions. That might become really tense. It often winds up going very far because I think in some respects the fracture of our social media environment and there just becomes a lack of humanity that I think a lot of us are kind of exhausted from. I understand that the threat environment has increased for all lawmakers, but it does feel notable that President Trump, I mean, in the last couple of years, there have been three different assassination attempts on President Trump. And I guess I'm wondering what to make of that. I mean, is that going to end up being part of his legacy, being president during this period of heightened political violence? In the attempts here that we've seen on the president are certainly high profile, but the rationale or the motivations either have not been clear or have not been consistent.

So I think for there to be simple solutions or simple hot takes that come immediately after to say, oh, this is because of X, Y, Z, because it fits my personal political narrative. it hasn't borne out to be true with this president. Clearly, Trump is a controversial as well as consequential president, and that can lead to a lot of anger and anxiety from a lot of people because of a lot of the policies that he's put in place and a lot of the ways that people feel about him and the things that have been said around that. In the case of the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania during the 2024 campaign, what the FBI said about the gunman in that instance, Thomas Crooks, according to the FBI, had done research on events where President Biden might speak, as well as where Trump might speak. So the FBI had determined that

in that instance, essentially, Crooks was just looking for a target of opportunity. It turned out that the rally in Butler was near where he lived. And so that's how he ultimately settled on the shooting, targeting President Trump. So that instance seems not so much to even be driven by political animosity so much as potentially just a desire to kill somebody in some spectacular fashion. Domenico, on the point about the ballroom, this idea that President Trump immediately went to, this is basically why we need the ballroom. Can you explain that a little bit?

I think I was a little confused as I saw the headlines floating around on Sunday around that. It's the idea that if there was a presidential ballroom, that the security would naturally be more heightened or what? I don't, I'm not sure I understand the direction. connection between two things. Well, the hotel, the Washington Hilton in D.C., this is where this is held every year. And there are a lot of people mulling around. And not everybody has an invitation to the dinner. A lot of times it's onlookers. A lot of times it's people who are going to

pre-parties. A lot of times it's people who are just hotel guests. Other times it's even people who are going in from the outside to go to the restaurant that's there. And you have a real crush of people and people with different reasons for being there and access that I think that the White House and at least President Trump trying to say is that if you had a more secure facility, someplace that the White House controlled, there aren't a bunch of hotel guests walking around, that they could make it a more secure event. Of course, it's convenient, right? Because the president has run into significant backlash over trying to put in place this ballroom that he wants to see put there. There are also some heightened security.

measures that the president has had plans for, a bunker, things like that, that he alluded to and talked about a little bit in his press briefing on Saturday night. So that's the reason for why the White House wants to do it, but it also does go clearly with something that he's had a politically difficult time getting through. And look, it's not, you know, a Trump thing to want to use a crisis to get something politically through. I mean, Rahm Emanuel, who was Chief of staff to then President Obama said you never let a crisis go to waste. The White House Correspondents Dinner is not a White House event. It's not meant to celebrate the president. It's meant to celebrate the First Amendment, right? And so the idea that the White

House, the president would be hosting an event that is a private event put on by the White House Correspondents Association is just, it's, as I understand it, is not how this is actually supposed to work. Right. And it's the president, the president is invited to this event. It's not an event honoring the president. And I think that sometimes that gets a little confused because of the sort of chummy nature that you might see at these events that a lot of people, frankly, don't like. You know, this is an event that is supposed to be to honor the First Amendment, the work that journalists do, but also to bring together the president and the press for something that's supposed to be civil to say, yes, we have disagreements from time to time, or not even disagreements, just tough questions that can be asked

from reporters. That might make a president uncomfortable. This is the person who's the most powerful person in the world and the press is supposed to be the proxies for people to be able to have those hard questions asked. And it's supposed to be an ability for both sides to come together to say, okay, look, I see the work that you all do because it's important to have an independent free press in this country. It sets a model for independent free press, journalism, and democracy worldwide that others should want to emulate. So as this investigation continues, what questions do you have that still haven't been answered? I mean, the big one that we always want answers to is the motive.

One wants to understand what prompted him to allegedly take the steps that he did and seemingly turned to violence directed at the highest officers of the land. Do we know when he'll be in court again? Yes, he will be back in court on Thursday. for a detention hearing. All right. Well, we can leave it there for today. I'm Miles Parks.

I cover voting. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.