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Trump's press secretary blames Democrats and journalists for attack on president
Karoline Leavitt quickly pivoted to blaming Donald Trump’s opponents for the attack at the White House correspondent’s association on Saturday, including Democratic lawmakers and reporters.
“Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than president Trump. This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat party and even some in the media,” Leavitt said.
“This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at president Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”
She singled out “those who constantly, falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy and compare him to Hitler to score political points” for fueling the violence.
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Leavitt continued by rattling off a list of statements from Democrats in which they accuse Donald Trump of acting like a “dictator” or in an authoritarian fashion.
“Senator Adam Schiff, saying President Trump using a dictator playbook. Senator Ed Markey, calling President Trump a dictator, saying that this administration’s actions are authoritarianism on steroids,” Leavitt said.
But it’s not just Democrats who are worried about the direction Trump has taken governance in the United States during his second term:
Leavitt calls for reopening of homeland security department after attack
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt urged Congress to restart funding to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been partially shut down since mid-February amid a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over immigration enforcement.
“Saturday night served as yet another reminder of how important it is to fund the Department of Homeland Security. It is shameful that the United States Congress has kept this vital agency defunded for 73 days, the longest shutdown of a federal agency in US history,” Leavitt said, adding that the Secret Service, a sub agency of DHS, “has been directly impacted by this reckless political game and gamesmanship.”
Funding for DHS lapsed after Democrats refused to support an appropriations bill for the agency unless it included new restrictions on immigration enforcement operations. Negotiations between the White House and Senate Democrats on those restrictions eventually broke down, and the Senate unanimously passed a bill to fund all of DHS with the exception of some of its agencies focused on deportations.
But House Republicans have refused to pass that bill until those agencies – Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection – are funded. Republicans expect to do that along party lines using the reconciliation procedure, with the Senate taking a major step towards doing that last week:
Trump's press secretary blames Democrats and journalists for attack on president
Karoline Leavitt quickly pivoted to blaming Donald Trump’s opponents for the attack at the White House correspondent’s association on Saturday, including Democratic lawmakers and reporters.
“Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than president Trump. This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat party and even some in the media,” Leavitt said.
“This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at president Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”
She singled out “those who constantly, falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy and compare him to Hitler to score political points” for fueling the violence.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt kicked off the briefing by recounting the events of Saturday night.
“Saturday was supposed to be a joyful evening celebrating free speech and the first amendment with all of you members of the press. Instead, the night was hijacked by a crazed anti-Trump individual who traveled across the country to assassinate the president and as many administration officials as possible,” said Leavitt.
She noted that she was supposed to be on maternity leave, but decided to hold the briefing in light of the attack: “I felt it was prudent to be here today to answer your questions and inform the American people about how the administration is responding to yet another attempt on president Trump’s life.”
King Charles to meet Donald Trump off camera to avoid awkwardness
King Charles will be spared the potential humiliation of being upbraided in public by Donald Trump this week after the White House agreed that any meeting between the two men should be held off camera.
British officials have pushed for the Oval Office meeting between the monarch and the US president to be held off camera for fear of a repeat of the scenes when Trump berated the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in front of the world’s press.
Sources involved in planning the trip say Charles will pose for the cameras at the start of his centrepiece bilateral meeting tomorrow, but will not be filmed talking about anything substantive.
UK ministers have pinned great hopes on the state visit, which they are hoping will help repair the relationship between the two countries at one of its most difficult periods in decades.
With Trump threatening retaliation for criticism of the Iran war by UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the British government is hoping the king might be able to talk the US president down from some of his more aggressive statements.
The king will attend several other events with Trump, at which he will be accompanied by palace officials as well as UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, in line with usual practice for a state visit.
Diplomatic sources suggested that Cooper, who has previously travelled with the monarch to the Vatican, was ready to step in to deal with any awkward moments if required.
She’s ready to leap into action as a human shield for the king should Trump start criticising Starmer or the UK more generally, as he is prone to do.
Justice department to hold news conference at 3pm ET after suspect's court appearance
The Department of Justice will hold a 3pm ET news conference today, led by acting attorney general Todd Blanche, FBI director Kash Patel, and US attorney Jeanine Pirro, following the initial appearance in federal court of the suspected White House correspondents’ dinner gunman.
We’ll bring you all the key lines from that when it gets under way later.
It was 'quickly assessed' that 'continuity of government' was in place after shooting, says Rubio
Speaking to Fox News earlier, secretary of state Marco Rubio described his experience of Saturday night’s shocking shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner.
“I didn’t hear shots I just saw a bunch of security people rushing in,” he said. “The first thing you wonder immediately is ... is there an internal threat, is there a threat inside the ballroom itself?”
He said he watched the staff follow “all the security protocols”, adding:
It was sort of an unfortunate situation that happened there, where one individual can disrupt what is one of the bigger nights in Washington, especially when the president attends.
That’s kind of the world we live in right now.
As well as Donald Trump, many key figures in the presidential line of succession including vice-president JD Vance and Rubio himself were at the event.
Rubio said that after administration officials “went backstage to the command center, where the president sat in the back” after being rushed out of the ballroom, it was “quickly assessed” that the “continuity of government” was in place.
Sort of the first assessment that needed to be made was to be clear that all the continuity of government things were in place, and that was quickly assessed to be the case.
Washington Hilton puts out statement about event's security
In a statement issued today, the Washington Hilton hotel, the venue for Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, has said it had been operating under “stringent” Secret Service protocols.
“The hotel was operating under stringent security protocols for the property as directed by the U.S. Secret Service, which led security,” a hotel spokesperson said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.
The Secret Service, which is responsible for the president’s safety, worked in coordination with a range of security teams, including local Washington DC police and hotel security, the spokesperson added.
Congressman to convene roundtable on Epstein's abuses ahead of king's visit
Ro Khanna, the Democratic congressman who co-authored the legislation authorizing release of the investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein, will on Tuesday convene a roundtable to discuss the disgraced financier’s abuses ahead of King Charles’s address to a joint session of Congress.
Khanna last month sent the king a letter asking him to meet with survivors of Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, but Charles declined through his lawyers.
The roundtable scheduled for 11am will feature Sharlene Rochard, a survivor of Epstein’s abuse and Sky and Amanda Roberts, relatives of Virginia Giuffre, who said she was abused by the king’s brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, an allegation he denies.
The king is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress after 3pm on Tuesday.
White House correspondent's dinner was not given highest security classification - report
Though Donald Trump and other top government officials – including vice-president JD Vance and speaker of the House Mike Johnson – attended the White House correspondent’s dinner, it was not given the government’s highest security classification for events, the Washington Post reports.
Occasions that bring together such high-ranking figures in the US government are often designated a “National Special Security Event”, however it is unclear if such a designation would have been appropriate for the annual White House press corps dinner which presidents have often – but not always – attended. Here’s more, from the Post:
When so many officials gather in one place for official functions such as an inauguration or State of the Union address, the secretary of homeland security typically puts the Secret Service in charge of coordinating all security through a formal designation known as a “National Special Security Event.”
There was no such designation on Saturday night at an event also attended by thousands of journalists and other government officials, according to local and federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss security details. The suspected gunman, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, wrote a statement saying he wanted to target members of the Trump administration and ridiculed what he called lax security at the hotel, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the writings. He said Iranian agents could easily have brought more dangerous weapons to the venue, according to the text.
…
One D.C. government official said they were not aware of an instance when the annual dinner had been designated as a National Special Security Event. It typically hosts high-ranking officials, but the lineup of those who attend varies from year to year.
WHCA Executive Director Steve Thomma also said in a text he was not aware of such a designation in the past. “Not a thing that’s ever come up in my time as executive director,” said Thomma, who has been the association’s executive director since 2017.
The Secret Service considered the site it was charged with protecting to be the ballroom and the immediate perimeter around it, according to two law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because there is a pending prosecution. The agency did not take responsibility for the entire Hilton hotel.
Outside, D.C. police handled road closures and traffic. In between, there was no clear responsibility for the security of the thousands of guests and rest of the Hilton property, where authorities said the suspect had booked a room.
In an interview on SiriusXM this morning, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, said that the president worries about his chances of assassination “every time he goes somewhere”.
“At the end of the day, we’re all human beings. Donald Trump is a human being. He doesn’t deserve to have his life put in jeopardy multiple times now,” Lara Trump said.
“He doesn’t deserve to think every time he goes somewhere – and don’t kid yourself, he absolutely does – is this going to be the time where someone tries to take me out again? And like I said, I don’t know how many chances one person actually gets. And that is a really, really scary thought.”
Lara Trump is married to the president’s third child, Eric Trump.
Melania Trump accuses ABC of refusing to 'take a stand' on comedian Jimmy Kimmel
Melania Trump this morning accused Jimmy Kimmel of “hateful and violent rhetoric” and said it was “time for ABC to take a stand” against the comedian who has long been critical of Donald Trump and his policies.
The first lady appeared to be referring to a monologue by Kimmel broadcast before the Saturday attack on the White House correspondent’s dinner, in which he referred to Melania Trump as an “expectant widow”.
Her criticism follows an episode last September where ABC suspended Kimmel after Brendan Carr, the pro-Trump chair of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened the network for jokes the comedian made about the president. The incident sparked an uproar amid allegations that Carr was attacking the constitutional right to free speech, and ABC late brought Kimmel back on air.
Here’s what Melania Trump said, in a post on X:
Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.
People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.
A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.
Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.
Here’s more about the September episode:
In the wake of the attack on the White House correspondent’s dinner this weekend, the justice department is stepping up efforts to get a conservation group’s lawsuit against Donald Trump’s new ballroom dismissed. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe:
The US Department of Justice has used the weekend shooting in Washington DC to pressure a preservation group to drop a lawsuit seeking to halt the construction of Donald Trump’s White House ballroom.
Several Trump administration officials, including the president, seized on the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to advance their case for the completion of the controversial $400m project, for which the White House’s East Wing was suddenly demolished, arguing the new ballroom was needed as a “safe space”.
On Sunday night, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, posted on social media a letter to lawyers representing the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) calling the trust’s lawsuit “frivolous”. It demanded that the organization voluntarily withdraw it or face a new dismissal motion from the Department of Justice.
“Put simply, your lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and staff at grave risk,” the letter, signed by Brett Shumate, assistant attorney general of the justice department’s civil division, said.
“I hope yesterday’s narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump no matter the cost.”
White House schedules press briefing for 1pm
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt just announced she will hold a briefing at 1pm ET today.
We’ll let you know what she has to say.
Suspect in press gala shooting apologized to family before arrest – report
Cole Tomas Allen sent a message apologizing to his family before his arrest for allegedly attacking the White House correspondent’s dinner, the Washington Post reports.
“I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it,” Allen wrote. The message did not name Donald Trump or outline plans to assassinate him, but was critical of his policies.
“I am a citizen of the United States of America,” Allen wrote, according to the Post. “What my representatives do reflects on me.”
That message prompted his brother to notify police in New London, Connecticut. Police and Secret Service agents in Montgomery county, Maryland, later interviewed his sister, who lives in the city of Rockville, not far from Washington DC.
White House officials plan security meeting after press gala shooting
Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, will convene a meeting this week with top security officials to discuss how to ensure the safety of Donald Trump’s future public appearances, according to the Associated Press.
Citing a senior White House official, the AP reports the meeting will bring together top Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security officials, as well as members of the White House operations team to discuss what went right at the White House correspondents dinner on Saturday, while “exploring additional options” for securing future events.
Another story to watch today is arguments before the supreme court over the potential harms of the weedkiller glyphosate, which could have major implications for consumers ability to sue products that fail to inform them of their risks. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Carey Gillam:
The US supreme court will hear arguments in a key pesticide regulation case on Monday, setting the stage for a ruling that could weaken the ability of consumers to sue companies for failing to warn of product risks.
The case centers on glyphosate – a weedkilling chemical used in the popular Roundup brand and numerous other herbicide products. The chemical has been scientifically linked to cancer in multiple studies, and was classified a probable human carcinogen by an arm of the World Health Organization in 2015.
Monsanto, the company that introduced glyphosate to the world in the 1970s and is now a part of the German conglomerate Bayer, has spent the last decade fighting more than 100,000 lawsuits claiming it failed to warn customers of cancer risks.
While maintaining that its products don’t cause cancer, Monsanto is asking the supreme court to rule that under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (Fifra), it cannot be held liable for failing to warn of a cancer risk if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not found such a risk exists and not required such a warning. The EPA’s position is that glyphosate is “unlikely” to be carcinogenic.
The ongoing congressional redistricting wars will shift to Florida this week, where Republican governor Ron DeSantis has convened the legislature to redraw maps with the intention of helping his party net perhaps three more seats in the House of Representatives. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s George Chidi:
Florida begins a special session on Tuesday in what may be the last front of the redistricting war before the 2026 election, with Republicans trying to redraw maps to pick up more seats in Congress.
Lawmakers enter the session in Tallahassee cloaked in mystery, with no preview of a proposed map to consider and no clear path for Republicans to increase their representation in what appears to be a hostile year for their party.
After Virginians voted on Tuesday to redraw their maps, the nationwide back-and-forth redistricting between states with Democratic and Republican control has left the partisan balance for congressional seats nearly even. Donald Trump’s initial call for Texas legislators to add five Republican-leaning districts was answered by California redrawing its own map, and then Virginia answered changes in Missouri and Ohio with a new map that pulled four districts into expected Democratic gains.
Lawmakers in Florida postponed earlier consideration of a mid-decade redistricting while waiting for a ruling on a US supreme court case – Louisiana v Callais – which may invalidate parts of the Voting Rights Act and offer more room for mapmakers to make changes. But that ruling has yet to be issued.
The filing deadline to run for Congress in Florida is 12 June, and party primary votes are held on 18 August.
