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Trump's press secretary blames Democrats and journalists for attack on president
Karoline Leavitt quickly pivoted to blaming Donald Trump’s opponents for the attack at the White House correspondent’s association on Saturday, including Democratic lawmakers and reporters.
“Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than President Trump. This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat party and even some in the media,” Leavitt said.
“This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”
She singled out “those who constantly, falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy and compare him to Hitler to score political points” for fueling the violence.
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Veering back into partisan politics, Leavitt argued that if the White House ballroom had been built, Saturday’s attack would not have been able to happen.
“It’s why the White House ballroom project is not just a fun project for President Trump, like you will read in the media, it is actually critical for our national security,” Leavitt said.
Rightwing commentators had been making such an argument almost immediately after Saturday’s attack, and Republican senators Lindsey Graham, Katie Britt and Eric Schmitt just announced they would today introduce a bill to fund the ballroom’s construction.
Democrats haven’t publicly changed their minds about a project they have scorned:
All that being said, Leavitt said that Donald Trump was “satisfied” with the security response to Saturday’s attack.
“I think if you just sit here and say everything is perfect all the time, that’s not a good way to operate. And so the White House will continue to engage with DHS and with Secret Service of to find ways to improve and strengthen security,” Leavitt said.
“But as far as Saturday night is concerned, the president was satisfied with the response, and he’s very grateful to the men and women who provided the response for him and his wife and members of his team.”
Leavitt continued by rattling off a list of statements from Democrats in which they accuse Donald Trump of acting like a “dictator” or in an authoritarian fashion.
“Senator Adam Schiff, saying President Trump using a dictator playbook. Senator Ed Markey, calling President Trump a dictator, saying that this administration’s actions are authoritarianism on steroids,” Leavitt said.
But it’s not just Democrats who are worried about the direction Trump has taken governance in the United States during his second term:
Leavitt calls for reopening of homeland security department after attack
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt urged Congress to restart funding to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been partially shut down since mid-February amid a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over immigration enforcement.
“Saturday night served as yet another reminder of how important it is to fund the Department of Homeland Security. It is shameful that the United States Congress has kept this vital agency defunded for 73 days, the longest shutdown of a federal agency in US history,” Leavitt said, adding that the Secret Service, a sub-agency of the DHS, “has been directly impacted by this reckless political game and gamesmanship.”
Funding for the DHS lapsed after Democrats refused to support an appropriations bill for the agency unless it included new restrictions on immigration enforcement operations. Negotiations between the White House and Senate Democrats on those restrictions eventually broke down, and the Senate unanimously passed a bill to fund all of the DHS with the exception of some of its agencies focused on deportations.
But House Republicans have refused to pass that bill until those agencies – Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection – are funded. Republicans expect to do that along party lines using the reconciliation procedure, with the Senate taking a major step towards doing that last week:
Trump's press secretary blames Democrats and journalists for attack on president
Karoline Leavitt quickly pivoted to blaming Donald Trump’s opponents for the attack at the White House correspondent’s association on Saturday, including Democratic lawmakers and reporters.
“Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than President Trump. This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat party and even some in the media,” Leavitt said.
“This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”
She singled out “those who constantly, falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy and compare him to Hitler to score political points” for fueling the violence.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt kicked off the briefing by recounting the events of Saturday night.
“Saturday was supposed to be a joyful evening celebrating free speech and the first amendment with all of you members of the press. Instead, the night was hijacked by a crazed anti-Trump individual who traveled across the country to assassinate the president and as many administration officials as possible,” said Leavitt.
She noted that she was supposed to be on maternity leave, but decided to hold the briefing in light of the attack: “I felt it was prudent to be here today to answer your questions and inform the American people about how the administration is responding to yet another attempt on president Trump’s life.”
King Charles to meet Donald Trump off camera to avoid awkwardness
King Charles will be spared the potential humiliation of being upbraided in public by Donald Trump this week after the White House agreed that any meeting between the two men should be held off camera.
British officials have pushed for the Oval Office meeting between the monarch and the US president to be held off camera for fear of a repeat of the scenes when Trump berated the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in front of the world’s press.
Sources involved in planning the trip say Charles will pose for the cameras at the start of his centrepiece bilateral meeting tomorrow, but will not be filmed talking about anything substantive.
UK ministers have pinned great hopes on the state visit, which they are hoping will help repair the relationship between the two countries at one of its most difficult periods in decades.
With Trump threatening retaliation for criticism of the Iran war by UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the British government is hoping the king might be able to talk the US president down from some of his more aggressive statements.
The king will attend several other events with Trump, at which he will be accompanied by palace officials as well as UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, in line with usual practice for a state visit.
Diplomatic sources suggested that Cooper, who has previously travelled with the monarch to the Vatican, was ready to step in to deal with any awkward moments if required.
She’s ready to leap into action as a human shield for the king should Trump start criticising Starmer or the UK more generally, as he is prone to do.
Justice department to hold news conference at 3pm ET after suspect's court appearance
The Department of Justice will hold a 3pm ET news conference today, led by acting attorney general Todd Blanche, FBI director Kash Patel, and US attorney Jeanine Pirro, following the initial appearance in federal court of the suspected White House correspondents’ dinner gunman.
We’ll bring you all the key lines from that when it gets under way later.
It was 'quickly assessed' that 'continuity of government' was in place after shooting, says Rubio
Speaking to Fox News earlier, secretary of state Marco Rubio described his experience of Saturday night’s shocking shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner.
“I didn’t hear shots I just saw a bunch of security people rushing in,” he said. “The first thing you wonder immediately is ... is there an internal threat, is there a threat inside the ballroom itself?”
He said he watched the staff follow “all the security protocols”, adding:
It was sort of an unfortunate situation that happened there, where one individual can disrupt what is one of the bigger nights in Washington, especially when the president attends.
That’s kind of the world we live in right now.
As well as Donald Trump, many key figures in the presidential line of succession including vice-president JD Vance and Rubio himself were at the event.
Rubio said that after administration officials “went backstage to the command center, where the president sat in the back” after being rushed out of the ballroom, it was “quickly assessed” that the “continuity of government” was in place.
Sort of the first assessment that needed to be made was to be clear that all the continuity of government things were in place, and that was quickly assessed to be the case.
Washington Hilton puts out statement about event's security
In a statement issued today, the Washington Hilton hotel, the venue for Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, has said it had been operating under “stringent” Secret Service protocols.
“The hotel was operating under stringent security protocols for the property as directed by the U.S. Secret Service, which led security,” a hotel spokesperson said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.
The Secret Service, which is responsible for the president’s safety, worked in coordination with a range of security teams, including local Washington DC police and hotel security, the spokesperson added.
