Barack Obama reacts to WHCD shooting–and ticks off conservatives over suspect’s motive
“It’s incumbent upon all us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy,” said America’s first Black president.
Former President Barack Obama condemned violence and praised the bravery of the United States Secret Service after this past weekend’s shooting scare at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. However, America’s first Black president also ignited fury from the political right for suggesting that the motive of the suspected shooter, charged on Monday for the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, was unknown.
“Although we don’t yet have the details about the motives behind last night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it’s incumbent upon all us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy,” said Obama, who, like all modern presidents, served in the White House during dozens of mass shootings from 2009 to 2017.
The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner added, “It’s also a sobering reminder of the courage and sacrifice that U.S. Secret Service Agents show every day. I’m grateful to them – and thankful that the agent who was shot is going to be okay.”
Obama’s reaction to the April 25 incident at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., was not uncommon, as he often speaks out on national issues since leaving office. However, Republican leaders and conservatives online then railed against Obama for saying federal investigators “don’t yet have the details about the motives.”
“Let’s not pretend to be this clueless about motive,” Lee Zeldin, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, wrote on X. “The attempted assassin put out an anti-Trump manifesto about wanting to kill Trump Admin officials, minutes before trying to storm a ballroom filled with the President, VP, Cabinet, and many others from his Admin.”
“This is another example showing how Barack Obama is one of the most divisive figures in American politics today. So many of our divisions were caused by the smug, demeaning and narrow-minded way he treats his opponents,” said Ari Fleischer, a Fox News contributor and the former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush.
“Here, he pretends to not know the truth about the would-be assassin, although the facts of his left wing views were public hours before Obama’s tweet. It’s classic Obama – pretend to be conciliatory while he is the one who creates the divide. You would hope that Obama would condemn the left after the left tries to kill a President,” added Fleischer “But that’s too much to ask. Once again, Obama proves himself to be a classless divider of our country.”
The suspected WHCD shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old California teacher, wrote a 1,052-word manifesto that he sent to family members 10 minutes before the Saturday shooting. In it, Allen expressed his opposition to the Trump administration and its policies and described a Christian justification for the planned attack.
“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 schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration,” wrote Allen, who signed the letter as “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen.”
President Trump’s initial call for the country to “resolve our differences peacefully” within 24 hours quickly transformed into outrage and pointing the finger, mostly at Democrats, and, ironically, the media, given it was an event celebrating the free press that nearly concluded in bloodshed.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday called statements made by Democratic leaders “despicable.”
Trump himself has often fueled political division and trafficked in politically violent rhetoric. Since returning to the office, Trump has repeatedly hurled personal attacks against Democrats, including former President Obama, whose administration Trump indirectly suggested should be executed for committing “treason.”
“They would be sent to jail for 50 years. And by the way, if it were 100 years ago, or 50 years ago, they would have been executed, but we’re in a different time,” he said during an interview.