Panic during dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel, with correspondents accredited to the White House. Donald Trump and his wife, unharmed, were immediately taken away while the man, later identified as Cole Tomas Allen, who had opened fire while speeding through security checks. The man was a guest at the hotel, which explains why he could have brought knives, a rifle and a pistol with him. A federal agent was injured. From information released by the US media, Allen, 31 years old, resident in Torrence, a suburb of Los Angeles, is an engineer, teacher, and video game developer.
In his profile he describes himself as «part-time teacher at C2 Education»a test prep and tutoring company. In December 2024, the company named him teacher of the month. Graduated in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2017, earned a master’s degree in computer science from California State University-Dominguez Hills last year. The records also show that, in October 2024, he donated $25 to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
Trump then resumed the press conference, dismissing the incident, calling the man “a lone wolf” and adding that “he is a sick, very sick man.” On the fact that he was armed he declared: «How did that weapon get in? I won’t think about it, my life is dangerous, for now I have managed it very well, very often you become easy targets when you have a public office. I worry about the country, not about myself. We didn’t know if that noise was a tray falling or a bullet.” And he added: “What happened will not prevent me from winning the war against Iran.”
Before leaving for Washington, Trump had given an interview on Iran Fox news revealed that it had blocked negotiations with Tehran by canceling the trip of its envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Islamabad. After the cancellation, according to Trump, a draft agreement arrived from Iran “which was much better than the previous one”. Even if “they offered a lot but not enough”. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left for Muscat, leaving the Pakistani capitalwhere he met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Asim Munir, delivering a response that Tehran deemed “exhaustive”. Trump, however, declared to Fox: «I told my collaborators a little while ago that they were preparing to leave “No, you’re not going to take an 18-hour flight to go there. We hold all the cards. They can call us whenever they want, but you’re not going to take any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.”“”. And on the question of whether he will resume the war he replied: “No. It doesn’t mean that. We haven’t thought about it yet.” According to the American president «There is a huge infighting and confusion within their (Iranian ed.) “leadership”. Nobody knows who is in charge, not even them. If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!,” he shouted. One of the controversial points is the storage of enriched uranium that Iran would like to deliver to Moscow, while Trump would like it for the USA.
Meanwhile, despite the declared truce, Netanyahu, who badly digested Trump’s opposition to the ceasefire in the Land of Cedars, ordered the Israeli military to “attack forcefully” in southern Lebanon. The state news agency National News Agency reported two attacks in quick succession in a town in Bint Jbeil district, another in a town in Tire district and attacks in two other towns in Nabatieh district. Israel has also extended the so-called “yellow zone” on the model of Gaza, including not only southern Lebanon and the area bordering Syria but also the sea from Tire to the south. One of the most fishy seas in the area and, above all, the one where the better gas fields. Before the Israeli attacks, agreements had been reached for extraction with large companies including Total and Eni. The situation of the local populations who no longer even have the income from fishing is disastrous.
