April 26, 2026 - Authorities say Hilton attack suspect was "likely" trying to kill Trump and other U.S. officials

0:00Let's go over to America because it's 29 and it has been quite a day. Simon Marx, LBC's, USA correspondent, my goodness. Where do we stand this evening, Simon? There is all the detail of the alleged gunman, lots and lots of, I mean, I found it jaw-dropping, you know, no criminal record, it seems, a teacher of the year or whatever it was. I mean, just fill us in on whatever is your feeling right now, Simon. Yeah, well, there's growing evidence, Ranveer, from writings that the alleged suspect shared with members of his own family and appears to have left behind in the hotel room in the Hilton hotel where the White House correspondent, Stinner, was taking place that he was certainly motivated by an animus towards the Trump administration by a plan to try and kill

1:01as many Trump administration officials as possible, although rather curiously, apparently according to the Daily Beast in one writing, he suggested that he was going to spare the life of FBI director Cash Patel. His family members became aware of what is being referred to as his manifesto minutes before the attempted attack on the Hilton hotel and indeed minutes before that attack started in Connecticut. His brother was alerting police to his concern that Cole Allen, this 31-year-old teacher from California who apparently had made his way to Washington DC by train. We don't know exactly when a train that took him also through Chicago on his way from coast to coast. The family was certainly sufficiently concerned about what he was telling them he planned to do that they

2:04raised the alarm with police, although seemingly too late for any meaningful action to be taken because in some reporting it was just minutes before he then tried to charge through that metal detector on the ground floor level of the Washington Hilton hotel where the attack was carried out. The dinner, of course, was taking place one floor below in the basement. He's now facing already two federal charges. I suspect a whole host of additional charges will be levied against him in the days ahead and he's going to be making his first court appearance here in Washington DC on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, of course, questions have been raised about whether security needs to be changed in any way for the visit of the King and Queen, which gets underway here in just a few hours' time on Monday, when the royal couple arrived to begin a four-day state visit to the United States, supposedly to celebrate America's 250th birthday or to begin the

3:10process of those celebrations, which of course will run throughout the year with a big series of events taking place on July 4th. Independence Day, we're told that a security review has taken place. There may be some alterations to some of the arrangements, but the schedule for that visit remains very much on and the visit itself, very much still on, despite I think ongoing questions it is fair to say about what a win is going to look like coming out of that visit once it wraps up. But in terms of what all of this has done for the Trump administration, I mean, it was extraordinary last night, I think, to hear the president immediately in his comments at the White House, start advocating for his ballroom to be built where the East Wing used to stand at the White House. He argues that's going to be the kind of secure venue that would have prevented this attack from

4:10taking place at a commercial venue that was obviously being used last night. There are massive questions to answer about the nature of the security operation at that hotel and why it was so laks last night with people entering the dinner, only people entering the dinner in the hotel being required to go through any metal detectors and no photo IDs being required. They simply waved their invitations in the direction of the Secret Service staff, went through the metal detectors and then went straight into the ballroom. All of that highly unusual given that all the other business in the hotel was taking place as usual and there were presumably thousands of other people in the hotel that had not been security screened, including this alleged gunman and extraordinary that, of course, there's no talk here whatsoever about the need for tighter gun control, but instead lots of talk about how this could have been obviated by the completion of

5:15the White House ballroom. Right, Simon, absolutely right there. Let me just also bring to LBC listeners. As you said, he went straight into a press conference 30 minutes also after this attack, but then he also spoke to Fox News in the last few hours. And of course this was Simon, wasn't it? The third attempt on Trump's life in as many years and he claimed that the reason he continues to get shot at is because he gets things done. Let's take a listen. I mean, we have to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon because the whole world would be in

6:19danger. We would get blown up, Israel would get blown up within minutes from the time they got it. So we can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. So this should have been done by previous presidents. It should have been done for years, 47 years it's been going on and nobody did anything about it. We had to do that. I took the greatest economy we've ever had and I said we're going to have to take a little detour and stop that from happening. And that's what happened. And we've done a great job and it'll come to an end very soon and we're going to be very victorious. Simon marks on radio. We can't see your facial expressions, but I could. I mean, so much of that is just poppycock, isn't it? I mean, this argument that only impactful and consequential presidents face assassination attempts. I mean, do we any of us remember particularly the presidency of Gerald Ford? Gerald Ford who took over from Richard Nixon after Watergate

7:20in 1975. He was on the receiving end of two assassination attempts. The president himself diminishes constantly. The presidency of the man he refers to as sleepy Joe Joe Biden who preceded him in the White House in May of 2023 and neo-Nazi tried to ram a truck through a security barrier at the White House while Joe Biden was working inside the building. The man saying that he intended to depose Joe Biden as president. Every single American president regardless of impact or historic significance is absolutely at the risk of assassination attempts and death threats and the number of assassination attempts is not in direct relation, of course, to the impact that those presidents may be having. It is in direct a direct consequence of the extraordinarily lax gun laws that exist in the United States that allow people to get their hands on weapons,

8:26many of them militaristic in nature, and unless and until the United States comes to grips with this, every single successor of Donald Trump in the White House is also going very much to be on the receiving end of death threats and assassination attempts. Then the way in which he immediately goes off to Iran, and he said last night he didn't think there was any link between Iran and this attack, but today suddenly because he seems to think that what he's doing in Iran is so consequential, even though there's no evidence whatsoever to support his claim that Iran was within two weeks of getting a nuclear weapon that could target the United States. I mean, it is all just extraordinary, but once again, a flight of fancy by a president of the United States who is always set to communicate and not often sits back and allows himself to think about the consequences of what has actually been going on in the United States on a day-to-day basis. And you and the rest of the

9:30press lobby in Washington won't even have time to catch your breath from the events of the last 24 hours before the king and the queen land in America for the 250th anniversary of American independence, but of course we know it's not just a diary event, it's not just a cultural hand-shaking. I mean, what do you think we've been asking LBC listeners this evening, Simon, and whether they think that the special relationship can in any way be repaired by the king's visit, your thoughts? I mean, the short answer to that question is no, it can't be, because Donald Trump is president of the United States and he is absolutely intent on diminishing the special relationship, raising ongoing questions about American involvement in NATO, possibly even eventually withdrawing America from NATO, leaving Europe to its own devices, and in accordance with

10:30the official national security policies of his own administration, greasing the wheels for what the White House refers to as patriotic European parties, greasing the wheels for them to get into power in London, in Paris, in Berlin, all over the continent. So we might enjoy 96 rancor-free hours here with the emphasis on the word might. It is possible that the president will want this to pass off without incident in exactly the same way as the government and doubtless the king and queen want it to pass off, but once it is over, the honeymoon is not going to last any longer than it did after that historic unprecedented second-state visit that President Trump made to the UK. I mean, we will revert to type as soon as the royal couple are out of American airspace. Simon Marx, thank you with all your insight this evening, invaluable as always, 851 you listening

11:33to LBC with Ranbir Singh.