The Pathetic Mainstream Media Coverage of Last Night’s Washington D.C. Shooting

Lessons in obscene servility

This morning’s subject line from a Politico newsletter email: “‘Can this really be happening? Again?”¹

I knew I was in for a treat when that obsequious, pandering slop rolled in. I’m going to reproduce its awfulness in its entirety, with, of course, my comments. Grab your morning Sunday rum and settle in for the ride.

Trigger warning: This report might be a bit crude for a Sunday.

The original report is in

block quotes like this.

And my annotations/comments are in bold italics underneath the relevant passage.

Like this.

Politico’s report and my comments

Good Sunday morning. This is Jack Blanchard, writing on a White House Correspondents Dinner weekend like no other.

Drop me a line.

Oh, Jack, my sweet summer child, I think the only line of yours I’ll be interested in is a line of the coke you jingoistic cheerleaders snorted before the dinner.

WHAT WE KNOW:

I was afraid you’d start with that.

The armed man accused of trying to storm last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner is in custody and scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow in a D.C. courthouse.

I would have started with, “The man recruited for Trump’s latest false flag fake assassination attempt,” but you do you.

He faces two charges related to using a firearm and assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon, though more will likely follow.

You’re acting like he’ll stay alive in jail.

Multiple law enforcement officials named him as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, of Torrance, California, per the AP. Federal officers swarmed his California home overnight, though it’s unclear if they entered, per NYT.

The attack: Police said the suspect was armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives, and tried to storm a security checkpoint just outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton. (President Donald Trump posted this extraordinary security footage.)

Alrighty, stop right there. You call this extraordinary?

My dude. You couldn’t produce grainier footage if you used video editing software’s “grain” filter. Also, that doesn’t look staged. Like, not at all. Well done!

BREAKING…

As y’all might expect, Ruminato has obtained exclusive footage that Trump originally intended to release. He was talked out of it by the Secret Service.

Multiple shots were fired, and a Secret Service agent was hit in the chest. Trump said the agent’s bulletproof vest absorbed the damage, and the agent was in good spirits at the hospital last night.

“We did such a better job than those dummies in Butler. I can’t wait for the next one! Let’s blackmail a female shooter next time!”

The suspect was quickly apprehended, as this picture (also posted by Trump) shows. Police believe he was staying at the hotel and acted alone.

Ummm, the video shows the guy running right past about ten of them. I would hope he was quickly apprehended. Also, great picture, Donald, but I do have one question.

Question: Is it now official policy to disrobe before participating in a false flag event? Thank you for your attention to this matter.

INSIDE THE ROOM: We were just finishing the salad course when shots rang out, the mood lurching from convivial chatter to confusion and panic.

I looked up the word “convivial,” just to check if the definition of the word hasn’t changed in the past 50 years or so, with me unawares. Sure enough, AI has generously added its own flavor to what Webster might say:

Convivial (adjective) describes a person, atmosphere, or event that is friendly, lively, and enjoyable, often involving eating, drinking, and good company.

If you can refer to the host of this shit show as good company, even when accompanied by a fellow paid trickster (a mentalist and magician who calls himself Oz, of course), it quickly becomes clear why the media has transformed into a propaganda arm for the world’s worst child predator.

Shouts to get down, the crash of dishes, a flurry of tuxedos and ball gowns diving under tables. Oz Pearlman was literally mid-trick on stage with the president.

Dear God, why won’t you answer my prayers? I was praying for Oz to disappear Trump, or, at the least, send him to an Antarctic ice floe wearing his skivvies.

Also, Jack. A flurry of tuxedos? I normally don’t like to bash another writer, but “flurry of tuxedos” is the best you can do for such an amazing, terrific (best ever) news event?

The famed mentalist “didn’t see it coming,” he told Playbook’s Ali Bianco afterward. “I thought the room was about to explode, I dropped faster than anyone.”

If only it had exploded, Oz, if only it had. Also, Oz Pearlman is famous? I’m running with the wrong circle.

Evacuation:

Stop, Jack! I don’t want to see the word “Evacuation” and “Trump” in the same sentence! It makes me think of his diapers and stench, and not in a good way. Phrasing, Jack. Phrasing.

The president, VP JD Vance, then other Cabinet members, were whisked out by armed teams. (This Getty footage is remarkable.)

What you call remarkable, Jack, I call comic relief. Let’s have a looksee, shall we?

I especially appreciated the lady crawling on all fours at the end. I assume she was a journalist who had simply remained in the position that journalists who cover Trump always adhere to.

“I was sitting with Dr. [Mehmet] Oz and his wife Lisa,” Dasha recalls. “His security detail ran at us really fast, and everyone was getting shoved under the table.

I would pay for the opportunity to shove a pile of bootlicking journalists under the table, then maybe even entertain them with some inappropriate water sports. Also, Dasha, why were you sitting with that clown? Did he regale you with MAHA mayhem?

Oz was in ‘doctor’ mode, and kept popping his head up to check if everyone was OK.

Oh my God, Dasha, you think he was popping his head out to help people? Oz? More likely, he wanted to get away from you and other potential targets.

Lisa kept yelling at him to put his head down.”

I really don’t want to hear about their sex life, Dasha. Ick.

Also of note: If it were Trump and Melania, Melania would have booted him in the ass out from under the table to make sure he was alone on the floor and an easy target. Just sayin’.

Flashbacks: For Dasha, who — like many others at the dinner — was in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, it all felt horribly familiar.

Let me guess: “I had visions of Trump slicing his other ear with a razor blade!” No? Okay, well, go on with your subservient, sad report, if you must…

“As I was hearing the sounds and everyone was going under the tables, I was having flashbacks,” she says.

Of Trump groping you? No? I’m not good at this guessing game, am I, Dasha?

“It was exactly the experience, the confusion — thinking, ‘could that be gunshots? No, that can’t be gunshots.’ Then hiding; thinking, ‘are we crazy? Can this really be happening? Again?’”

Muscle memory: And then the room — packed with hundreds of journalists — got to work filming, streaming, texting, scribbling notes.

The only muscle memory I sense is that overpowering urge all mainstream media journalists feel to scramble on their knees as quickly as possible to lick the soles of Trump’s Florsheims.

“You could see the muscle memory of this profession kick in,” POLITICO’s Ben Johansen reflects.

I am glad I did not witness this, Ben. I bet the sight of a hundred mainstream and far-right journalists crawling toward him at a frenetic pace even frightened Trump a tad.

Among them was his colleague Megan Messerly: “Over the next hour or so I wandered the ballroom — barefoot, heels are horrible for reporting

I know. This is why I never entered the profession after majoring in Journalism in college. I said to myself, “Charles, you can’t do this job in high heels.”

— talking to people about how they felt about such a close call,” she tells Playbook.

Megan. A close call is when a staged bullet whizzes by your ear, and you have to whip out a razor blade on a dime! Luckily, there are people nearby who have had a decade or so of experience shooting bad reality TV shows.

“Three administration officials expressed varying degrees of disbelief about what had happened.” POLITICO founder John Harris filed this dispatch from inside the room.

Official Number One: “I just can’t believe this happened again. Especially with us losing the Iran War and on the verge of getting smoked by Epstein Survivors. Such a thing!”

Official Number Two: “Ditto!”

Official Number Three: It’s the economy, stupids!

GET READY FOR THE INQUIRY: There are serious questions about the security.

I thought they did a fine job. They managed to not only capture the shooter, but undress him first. It was a beautiful thing. Good God in heaven, must everyone be a critic?

Trump himself — while heaping praise on the Secret Service — said last night the hotel was “not a particularly secure building.”

Not like that ballroom/rubble thingy he’s got goin’ on!

Like previous years, normal paying guests filled the lobby throughout the evening.

This year, it’s more like preying guests from the far right media that the regime prefers at these little get-togethers.

Quick question… Did Trump have a special, Dr. Seuss-like money vacuum machine installed at the entrance that shoots the money from paying guests directly up into his ass?

Image from www.craiyon.com, public domain (AI)

The ballroom itself was downstairs behind a security cordon, although IDs weren’t checked and security otherwise felt porous. It’s hard to believe future events will follow suit.

Unless, of course, another false flag is needed, which, I’m guessing, will be soon after the malignant moron of Mar-a-Lago manufactures his next crisis.

Unbowed: The president was in a reflective mood during a late-night press conference at the White House.

Here we go. You’re gonna lay it on really thick now, aren’t you, Jack? But can I just make one comment before you continue? Using the word “reflective” in reference to the mad clown is actually prohibited now in the AP Stylebook.

“It’s a dangerous profession,” he shrugged, after leaving the same hotel where predecessor Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. “When you’re impactful, they go after you. When you’re not impactful, they leave you alone.” But Trump was unbowed. “It’s always shocking when something like this happens,” he said. “I can’t be so concerned that I can’t function.”

You can’t function because your brain stopped working about ten years ago, PedoFührer Crazy Pants. Hey, let’s revisit the new MAGA anthem while we’re at it!

Nobody missed the bigger picture:

You mean that Herr TrumpEpshTeen manufactures domestic and international political events and crises at about the same pace that Kellogg’s cranks out Fruit Loops?

yet another bleak chapter in a national story of spiraling political violence.

Oh. That. Someday, Jack, long after your generation of Trumpy bootlickers is retired and this unbearable decade of madness is over, AI will write books on how you helped usher in this national story of spiraling political violence so that you could collect paychecks from your corporate masters.

No image from the night was more striking than that of Erika Kirk being led from the room in tears.

More striking than this????????

Public domain; original photographer did not protect their copyright.

As Trump himself pointed out, this was supposed to be a dinner “dedicated to free speech.” It was brought to a halt before the first speaker took the stage.

You mean a dinner dedicated to Trump and his effort to destroy free speech and any media company that dares to criticize him? That dinner?

THE SHOW MUST GO ON:

No, Jack. Put away your party dress. This show does not need to go on.

Trump was equally clear that the dinner be rescheduled, bigger and better than before.

Trump hasn’t been clear about anything for at least ten years.

“We’re not gonna let anyone take over our society,” the president said. He even promised to be nice to the journalists next time.

What’s wrong with you, Jack? Did they inject you with something?

That was the prevailing mood at the after-parties, which went ahead last night despite the dinner’s sudden curtailment — albeit with heightened security and a very different vibe.

Oh, thank God!!!!! Maybe y’all can go back on with your lives sooner than you thought!

MS NOW’s gathering at Dupont Underground struck a more somber tone than the raucous party that was planned.

Seeing as they are the only group there that offers even a hint of criticism, I can imagine they were somber long before the “shooting.”

The venue pivoted to a space for journalists to process what they’d just been through, spokesperson Richard Hudock told Ali. NBC’s after-party at the French ambassador’s residence had a similar feel, with one room commandeered by working journalists — though others still danced to Dolly Parton.

Shit, even I would dance to Dolly after peeing my pants, and I’m a pretty terrible dancer.

Today’s brunch events will go ahead as planned — and we’ll see you all at the POLITICO Brunch hosted by Goli Sheikholeslami later this morning.

I won’t be there, Jack. You didn’t invite me, and if you had, I would have shoved you under a table myself.

The brunch is implementing an enhanced security posture.

And providing knee pads for said posture, I hope.

The lasting sense today is rare indeed — of D.C. pulling together in the face of adversity.

Ruminato, in another exclusive, has learned that the grifter in chief is going to sell “United We Stand” condoms on a new merch website dedicated to this event.

HOW LONG WILL IT LAST? The questions around security have quickly become political. It wasn’t just Trump in the room last night, but first lady Melania Trump, Vance, Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and scores of other Cabinet officials and members of Congress. Is the climate simply too dangerous to hold events of this sort in a D.C. hotel?

Please, dear Lord above, I pray that it is so.

Trump and his supporters are already making the case this is why his new (fully bullet-proofed) White House ballroom is a good idea. “I don’t want to hear one more fucking criticism of Trump’s new ballroom,” Meghan McCain wrote on X.

Thanks, Meghan, for desecrating the memory of your father. Keep coming back.

Others, like Katie Miller, agreed and said it was also time to “fund DHS” — the (still shuttered) agency that pays the Secret Service.

AHA!!!!!!! Finally, we understand the genesis for this event. Praise the Lord!!!!

You can expect pressure on Democrats in the days ahead. Trump ally Kari Lake called in to Newsmax to blame CNN’s Jake Tapper and other journalists for “spreading lies” about the president.

I’d laugh, but I think I’ll hibernate the rest of the day and pretend this timeline doesn’t exist.

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Thanks for reading!

Notes

Yes, I do realize there is a tiny chance this is not a false flag event. That doesn’t change the fact that reporting on it is done without the acknowledgement that the man in the Oval Office is a demented old child predator who wears crazy pants.

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Footnotes

1. Politico. “‘Can This Really Be Happening? Again?.’” POLITICO, April 26, 2026. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2026/04/26/can-this-really-be-happening-again-00892125