President Donald Trump, standing at the White House briefing room podium in his tuxedo after the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday night, called for calm.
By Monday, the tone had changed.
Administration officials are taking a more aggressive stance, insisting that the chaos that ensued at the dinner is a powerful justification for many of Trump’s initiatives — from his new White House ballroom, the stalled fight over funding for the Department of Homeland Security and even the firing of late-night provocateur Jimmy Kimmel.
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt accused Democrats of endangering the president’s life with inflammatory rhetoric.
“When you read that manifesto from this shooter, ask yourself how different is that rhetoric from this almost-murderer that you read about on social media and hear about every day in various forms? The answer, if you’re honest with yourself, is that there’s no difference,” he told reporters at a White House briefing.
He read aloud statements from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Sens. Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren and party leaders, including Gove, arguing that years of Democratic vitriol against the president had set the stage for the shooting. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and JB Pritzker of Illinois
Levitt drew a direct line from a joke Kimmel had made two days before the shooting – saying that First Lady Melania Trump had “the glow of a pregnant widow” – and the gunman’s apparent attempt to storm the ballroom where the dinner was being held. The suspect, Cole Thomas Allen, was captured by law enforcement officials before he could reach the ballroom and was charged on Monday with attempted assassination of the President","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/27/correspondents-dinner-shooting-hearing-00892838","_Identification": :"0000019d-d10f-dcf3-a1df-ff9f8ddf0000","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-d10f-dcf3-a1df-ff9f8ddf0001","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>attempted assassination of the president.
It was a sharp contrast to the president’s remarks Saturday evening, when he called on “Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals and progressives” to resolve their differences peacefully. In a room packed with reporters and high-ranking Cabinet officials, Trump said Saturday, “There was a record-setting group of people there, and there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together.”
“I saw it and I was very impressed,” Trump said.
The White House did not respond to a request for further comment.
The firing comes at a crucial moment for the White House as Republicans look to advance several pieces of legislation this week. House Republicans are considering a reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement activities, which the president wants on his desk by June 1. The rest of the Department of Homeland Security would be funded through the regular, bipartisan appropriations process.
Leavitt called the months-long funding lapse “should be a national scandal” and used the shooting to urge Democrats to take action.","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/27/assassination-attempt-fund-dhs-00893423","_Identification": :"0000019d-d10f-dcf3-a1df-ff9f8ddf0002","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-d10f-dcf3-a1df-ff9f8ddf0003","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Used the shooting to urge Democrats to take action. The Secret Service is one of the law enforcement agencies of DHS.
He said, “If Republicans defund DHS, and we see another attempt to assassinate a Democrat president, I expect the media coverage to be relentless and unforgiving.”
Leavitt continued to argue that the firing means Trump’s stalled White House Ballroom project should move forward, as the president did shortly after Saturday’s shooting. Trump reiterated those calls in an interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday evening.
“I’m building a safe ballroom and one of the reasons I’m building it is exactly what happened last night,” he said. “And that ballroom is being built on the most secure piece of property in this country – probably one of the most secure pieces of land in the world.”
The shootings also provide an opportunity for some Republicans who have broken with the president over the deeply unpopular war in Iran to rally around a common enemy.
“I’m very disappointed in Trump, especially about the war. But I certainly thought immediately, as much as he disappoints me, the left is actively trying to kill this guy,” said a former Trump campaign adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. “I almost feel guilty for slandering this guy when he’s literally the target of extremist leftists trying to kill him all the time.”
Others on the right, influenced by MAGA’s war-skeptic audience, moved further. Jack Posobiec and Mike Davis appeared on former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s show Monday morning to lambast the media, raise concerns about the Secret Service’s handling of the president’s security and sharply criticize Democrats against the president.
“The assassination attempts against America’s political leaders — President Trump, Justice (Brett) Kavanaugh, (Representative) Steve Scalise, Charlie Kirk — are all coming from one side: the Democrats,” Davis, a conservative legal activist and attorney close to the White House, said in a text message to POLITICO. “They have created and promoted a culture of murder. This is not a ‘both sides’ problem.”
