The News You Need on April 27th, 2026.

The news you need today from Scott Horton and Charles Kaiser, Assassination Edition.

Apr 27, 2026

As American as Apple Pie

New York Post

Charles: Presidential assassinations are an unfortunate American tradition. Of the four successful ones–Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy–Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s were the most profoundly shocking.

Lincoln’s because he was the first, and it changed the course of American history; Kennedy’s mostly because there had been none since McKinley’s 62 years earlier.

Wikipedia notes, “Many assassination attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, were motivated by a desire to change the policy of the American government.”

Our current president has been the target of three assassination attempts, if the official stories are true. Saturday’s was apparently carried out by 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen. The would-be assassin shares the belief of many of his fellow citizens that our current president is the head of a criminal syndicate who is guilty of war crimes abroad and countless high crimes and misdemeanors at home.

For the last sixteen months, neither Congress nor the United States Supreme court has done anything important to restrain him.

You may disagree with the manifesto Cole sent to his family ten minutes before his failed assault.

But it was clearly written by a thoughtful American.

His reasons for acting are not insane: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”

He also explained why he did not believe this is the right moment to turn the other cheek: “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.”

What are a citizen’s obligations when his government has been seized by a cabal working every day to undo the rule of law in America?

Here is Cole’s full answer to that question, courtesy of the New York Post.

Cole Tomas Allen on graduation day.

“Hello everybody!

So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused.

I apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for “Most Wanted.”

I apologize to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency (by the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly DO need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status.)

I apologize to all of the people I traveled next to, all the workers who handled my luggage, and all the other non-targeted people at the hotel who I put in danger simply by being near.

I apologize to everyone who was abused and/or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.

I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it. Again, my sincere apologies.

On to why I did any of this:

I am 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 coat my hands with his crimes. (Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)

While I’m discussing this, I’ll also go over my expected rules of engagement (probably in a terrible format, but I’m not military so too bad.)

Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest

Secret Service: they are targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible (aka, I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who *aren’t*

Hotel Security: not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me)

Capitol Police: same as Hotel Security

National Guard: same as Hotel Security

Hotel Employees: not targets at all

Guests: not targets at all

In order to minimize casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls)

I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

Rebuttals to objections:

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 schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.

Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.

Objection 2: This is not a convenient time for you to do this.

Rebuttal: I need whoever thinks this way to take a couple minutes and realize that the world isn’t about them. Do you think that when I see someone raped or murdered or abused, I should walk on by because it would be “inconvenient” for people who aren’t the victim?

This was the best timing and chance of success I could come up with.

Objection 3: You didn’t get them all.

Rebuttal: Gotta start somewhere.

Objection 4: As a half-black, half-white person, you shouldn’t be the one doing this.

Rebuttal: I don’t see anyone else picking up the slack

Objection 5: Yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

Rebuttal: The United States of America are ruled by the law, not by any one or several people. In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything so unlawfully ordered.

I would also like to extend my appreciation to a great many people since I will not be likely to be able to talk with them again (unless the Secret Service is *astoundingly* incompetent.)

Thank you to my family, both personal and church, for your love over these 31 years.

Thank you to my friends, for your companionship over many years.

Thank you to my colleagues over many jobs, for your positivity and professionalism.

Thank you to my students for your enthusiasm and love of learning.

Thank you to the many acquaintances I’ve met, in person and online, for short interactions and long-term relationships, for your perspectives and inspiration.

Thank you all for everything.

Sincerely,

Cole “coldForce” “Friendly Federal Assassin” Allen

PS: Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone.

Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.

What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing.

No damn security.

Not in transport.

Not in the hotel.

Not in the event.

Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance.

I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.

The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.

Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.

Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.

Actually insane.

Oh and if anyone is curious is how doing something like feels: it’s awful. I want to throw up; I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and never will, for all the people whose trust this betrays; I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.

Can’t really recommend it! Stay in school, kids.”

Secret Service reaction to Cole’s intrusion.

Fifty years from now, historians will decide whether Cole is remembered as a John Wilkes Booth, or a Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the German officer who spearheaded the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler.

Quote of the Day

“One of the things that made it such a crazy scene was that the people who were running around the hallways with guns were wearing suits and tuxedos because so many of the agents were dressed up like party guests.”

–Shawn McCreesh

Young Shawn McCreesh, a White House correspondent for the New York Times, learned on Saturday night that timing is EVERYTHING. He said in his video he had just “asked a young Secret Service Agent to” take him to “the bathroom and suddenly we heard all this yelling all this commotion. We both darted out of the bathroom and there were five or six agents pointing their guns. Whatever had happened had happened just there past the bathroom.”

An hour after the main event, McCreesh and Tyler Pager did a fine job of capturing the insane vibe at Trump’s press conference back at the White House after the attack:

But, really, Trump argued, the whole thing was just the latest example of why he needs to build his maximum-security, legally challenged ballroom at the White House.

“I didn’t want to say this,” he said, “but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House. It’s actually a larger room, and it’s a much more secure. It’s got — it’s drone proof, it’s bulletproof glass.”

It is no longer implausible to imagine that if this was a false operation, its purpose was to guarantee the construction of Trump’s beloved ballroom. That suggests how much this administration has done to degrade our expectations of what is possile in 2026.

McCreesh and Pager continued:

On the whole, Mr. Trump’s response from the podium late Saturday evening was remarkably zen from a man who has survived two assassination attempts, and whose wife was just ducking under a table while gun-toting agents bum-rushed the ballroom around them.

Who knows how or if the president’s mind-set, his rhetoric, his political instincts or his security apparatus may change in the coming days or weeks. Very little was revealed at the news conference about the suspect’s motivations.

Still, Mr. Trump kept downplaying any insinuation that this latest scare would alter how he goes about his life.

“I like not to think about it,” he said. “I lead a pretty normal life, considering, you know, it’s a dangerous life. I think I’m, I think I handle it as well — as well as it can be handled.”

He added: “To be honest with you, I’m not a basket case.”

All week long he had been aiming screeds at the news outlets in the room, but now he was praising the reporters before him, complimenting their outfits, using a polite tone of voice and thanking them for their work.

“You’ve been very responsible in your coverage,” he said. “I will say I’ve been seeing what’s been out. You’ve been very responsible.”

This was definitely not the message he had planned to deliver to the media tonight. He said he was going to make what he called the “most inappropriate speech ever made,” and sounded a bit disappointed that he had been robbed of that opportunity. So disappointed, in fact, that he vowed the dinner would be rescheduled for some time in the next 30 days.

But then, he would need a rewrite — or at least that is what he said for now.

“I don’t know if I can ever be as rough as I was going to be tonight,” he said. “I think I’m going to be probably very nice. I’ll be very boring the next time, but we’re going to have a great event.”

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