72 Hours Later: What We’ve Learned From the White House Dinner Incident

Hello friends, I'm Jung Faye. Within 72 hours, three things happened in the United States. First, California teacher Cole Allen was officially charged with attempting to assassinate the President of the United States, facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Second, First Lady Melania personally confronted the host of ABC's late night show. Kimo did this because two days before the shooting, he publicly mocked the First Lady as a soon-to-be widow. Third, at the White House Correspondent's dinner, 188 bottles of fine wine were served, but after the event, only 41 bottles were recovered. On social media, videos are now circulating showing these well-dressed men and women at the dinner stealing wine. Today, we've compiled all the latest updates on these ongoing developments for you in one go. Here at Debate Points, our main focus is the Understand in 25 Minutes series. No rambling, just pure substance. Be sure to watch until the end and don't forget to subscribe. On Monday, April 27th at 1.45pm in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the White House Correspondent's dinner shooter, Cole Thomas, Alan, dressed in a blue prison uniform, was escorted into the courtroom. This was his first public appearance since the incident. The courtroom sketch artist captured his appearance, thin, wearing handcuffs, and with his head slightly bowed. The judge asked him, Are you able to understand today's court proceedings? Alan replied, No problem at all, Your Honor. Other than that, he did not say anything else. This was his first court appearance, and according to the procedures of U.S. federal law, he has not yet reached the stage of formally pleading guilty or not guilty. That will be reserved for a later preliminary hearing. However, the prosecution has already laid out all the charges. Currently, three charges have been made public. The first is attempted assassination of the President of the United States, which was newly added on Monday and carries the highest possible sentence, life imprisonment. The second charge is transporting firearms and ammunition across state lines with the intent to commit a felony, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. The third charge is discharging a firearm during a violent crime, which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life imprisonment. Moreover, this sentence must be served consecutively with the previous sentences, meaning they cannot be served concurrently and must be added together. If all three of these felonies are found to be true and stacked together, Alan would never have a chance to leave prison for the rest of his life. Now, the FBI and the prosecution have already released the FBI affidavit and Alan's own statement revealing more details about the crime. First, he planned this operation for nearly three weeks. In early March, Trump publicly announced that he would attend this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner. Then, on April 6th, a month later, Alan booked a room at the Hilton Hotel for three nights. On the 21st, he took a train from Los Angeles, arriving in Chicago two days later, where he transferred to a second train. He arrived in Washington at 1pm on the 24th. The main reason for taking the train was probably because trains don't check for guns, whereas planes do. That same afternoon, at 3pm, he checked into the Hilton Hotel. According to the FBI affidavit, he specifically booked a particular room at the Hilton, meaning he didn't just randomly reserve any room. Beforehand, he had already conducted detailed research on the Hilton Hotel's room layout, the locations of security checks, and the red carpet area, and deliberately chose the room that would be most convenient for committing the crime. As early as 2023, he bought a handgun, and in 2025, he purchased this shotgun. After buying the guns, he hid them at home, where he lived with his parents without their knowledge, and often went to a nearby shooting range to practice shooting. That day, after disassembling the guns, he packed the parts into different pieces of luggage. Since he was a registered guest, Hilton did not x-ray or use metal detectors on his bags. A few minutes before committing the crime that day, he sent a scheduled email to his family and friends. He had written this email in advance, and set it to be sent automatically at 8.40pm, which was the time he broke in. This email is the manifesto of the shooter that is now repeatedly quoted by the media. In the manifesto, he listed a set of rules of engagement and an assassination list ranked by official position. Officials from the Trump administration, including Mr. Kash Patel, were all targets, ranked according to their positions. Secret service agents, hotel security, Capitol Police, and the National Guard were not to be his targets unless they shot at him first. Hotel staff and guests were not targets. So this person was actually preparing to assassinate the entire Trump administration team. He was ready for a massacre. Yet at the end of his email, he even signed off as Coal Coalface Friendly Federal Assassin Alan Friendly Federal Assassin Alan. This level of delusion is truly severe. Why is that? Because he believed that this time he was coming to help society get rid of a pedophile rapist and a traitor, and that most of the people attending this event were accomplices. That's what he wrote in his manifesto. The police also revealed another piece of information. Alan had close ties with a left-wing organization called the Wide Awakes. He had participated in the No Kings anti-Trump protest in California. No Kings, this has been one of the most iconic anti-Trump slogans in American left-wing street movements over the past two years. So it's very clear that this is someone who harbored intense political hatred toward the Trump administration, especially toward Trump himself. The most absurd part is how Alan himself characterized his actions. He believed that eliminating officials from the Trump administration was his duty, a contribution to society. Alan's sister had even personally reported her brother's radical remarks to the police. She said her brother had hinted that he was going to do something to fix the problems of the world. This person is seriously disturbed. Yet it was this kind of California elite youth who believed that assassinating the president of the United States, or even government officials as a whole, was his duty. So where did this sense of duty come from, from the university campus? So-called freedom actually refers to the acerbic and harsh news media and the leftist ideology that permeates American society. Traditional political differences have now turned into hatred toward political figures, and political debate in society has become the kind of class antagonism seen in communist societies. Today's America is in the midst of a cultural war between its traditional founding principles, Christian civilization, and a leftist ideology that is, in essence, communist at its core. If you find it hard to understand why I say this, I invite you to watch this episode. In this episode, I analyze in detail the concept of class, why it so easily incites social hatred today, and what its relationship is with communism. So for those who missed it, I encourage you to watch that episode. Unfortunately, this kind of hatred has already seeped into every aspect of American society, including appearing every night on the TV screens of millions of American households. Jimmy Kimmel is the leading late-night show host on ABC. He has been hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live for over 20 years, and on the night of April 23rd, which was two days before the shooting incident happened, he performed a skit on the show, which was set up to mimic the White House Correspondents' dinner from back in the day. In the skit, he took the stage as the host and guest, and then made jokes about each member of the Trump family, one by one. When it came to the First Lady Melania, he stared into the camera and said, Our First Lady Melania is here with us today. Look at Melania. She is truly beautiful. Mrs. Trump, the glow on your face is just like that of a woman about to become a widow. In the same performance, he went on to say, If the President has a medical emergency tonight, do we have a doctor here? Oh, sorry, I meant, do we have Jesus here? I always get those two mixed up. And then, two days later, a gunman really did storm into the banquet hall where Trump was. At this point, to accommodate as many viewers as possible, we need to quickly introduce Jimmy Kimmel. This isn't the first time he's made similar remarks. Last September, when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Kimmel also mocked Trump supporters on his show, saying they were doing everything they could to exploit Kirk's death for political gain. This comment caused a huge uproar, and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, Brandon Carr, stepped in to apply pressure. The two largest ABC affiliate TV station owners in the United States, Nextdoor Media and Sinclair, publicly announced that they would stop airing his show. ABC itself also followed suit and suspended the program. We actually did a special episode covering this incident, so if you missed it, feel free to check it out. At the time, this was considered the biggest crisis of Kimmel's career. However, after a few days, due to a strong backlash from liberal groups, ABC resumed broadcasting his show. Coming back to this recent widow remark, it also sparked widespread protests. What's even more unusual is that Melania herself personally stepped in to fight back, calling Kimmel a coward. She said he was using hateful and violent language to divide America, and that he was putting on a show at the expense of her family. This is not comedy, but rather something that corrodes people's hearts and deepens America's political illness. People like Kimmel should not have the opportunity to enter our homes every night and spread hatred. She called on ABC to immediately fire Kimmel. Friends, regarding this attitude, please share your views in the comments section. He called for a boycott and made his first public statement after the shooting incident. He didn't talk about the shooter, nor did he mention the investigation. The first person he targeted was Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel later actually continued to joke about this, saying, Have you ever had a morning like this? Waking up to find that the first lady has issued a statement demanding your company fire you. She then tried to defend herself, saying she was referring to Trump, who's almost 80 years old. Melania is even younger than I am. This isn't a call for assassination. It's just a light joke about the age gap. Do you accept this kind of explanation, friends? Leave a comment and let me know. Timo can criticize Trump's policies and oppose the direction of his administration. These are his rights as an American citizen and as a member of the media. But calling the wife of a 78-year-old man about to be widowed, isn't that cursing Trump and even packaging it as comedy material? This isn't freedom of speech. This is a serious failure of speech. This isn't freedom of the press. It's the greatest defilement of the words freedom and press. There are also journalists from the anti-Trump camp, media professionals who have publicly opposed Trump over the years. But on the night of April 25th, some of them, together with Trump in a rare moment, showed something different. People who almost faced the risk of being assassinated. CNN star reporter Caitlin Collins has long had fierce confrontations with Trump's White House spokesperson, Levitt. For those of you who regularly follow our program, you must be quite familiar with her. She's also one of the representative figures of the so-called fake news media that Trump has repeatedly singled out and criticized. That night at the White House press conference hosted by Trump, she uncharacteristically expressed goodwill. She said to Trump, I want to thank you for just updating us on the latest information about the shooter. Thank you, President Trump. And thank you for updating us on the suspect earlier. Were you aware of any threats? Was your team aware of any threats beforehand? And do you believe you were the target tonight? I guess. I mean, these people, they're crazy. They're crazy. And, you know, you just never know. It was very far away from me. He had to go through a lot. No, we had resources all over. We had resources sitting at tables, literally in disguise. Maybe even sitting at your table. Who knows? But we had people all over the room. So he had a long way to go. That was really the first line of defense. And they got him. And they really, you know, they acted incredibly. No, we have, we've had no, there was no notification. Any political motivations behind this? Maybe by tomorrow or the next day, you know. He's in custody. And they're asking him a lot of questions. I guess they're going over everything. And they're already at his apartment. He lives in California. And they'll be over there. So they'll be able to tell you. Thank you, Caitlin. Nonsense. It might not seem like much. But take a look at how Trump used to comment on him. CNN has no ratings because of people like you, you know. She's a young woman. I've known you for 10 years. And I don't think I've ever seen you smile. I don't think I've ever seen a smile on your face. Because you know you're not telling the truth. And you're, you belong to a very dishonest organization. And they should be ashamed of you. For the first time that evening, I sensed a hint of concern and friendliness toward Trump in Caitlin's tone. This might have been the first time Caitlin thanked Trump before asking a question. And even gave him a slight smile at the end. And Trump, of course, he noticed. So at the end, he made a point to say, Thank you, Caitlin. There's also another person who has recently become very popular. The Chinese woman sitting next to Trump, Zhang Weijia. Let me introduce her background. She was born in June 1983 in Xiamen, Fujian. Some say that when she was two years old, she came to the United States with her parents as undocumented immigrants. Later, her parents opened a Chinese restaurant called Chinatown in a small town in West Virginia. When Zhang Weijia was 13, she became interested in journalism under the encouragement of a middle school teacher. Later, she attended the College of William and Mary, majoring in philosophy and minoring in chemistry. After that, she went on to the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. In 2015, she joined CBS News. And in 2018, she became a senior White House correspondent for CBS. Starting this year, she serves as the president of the White House Correspondents Association. And this year's dinner was organized by her in her role as president. As for the feud between her and Trump, it mainly took place during Trump's first term, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were three major well-known confrontations, and we'll talk about the most famous one, which happened at the Rose Garden press conference on May 11th, 2020. At that time, Zhang Weijia asked Trump a question. You have repeatedly said that the U.S. leads the world in testing, but Americans are still dying every day. Why do you view your pandemic response this way? Objectively speaking, this question was quite a trap, with a sense of a preset stance. First of all, it directly framed the issue then asked Trump to explain, essentially characterizing Trump's pandemic response as treating it like a global competition. This in itself was quite aggressive. Furthermore, the idea of a global competition is just a standard label used by the Chinese Communist Party. The vast majority of contexts where terms like global competition are used are actually describing the Chinese Communist Party. At the time, Trump responded, maybe you should ask China this question. Don't ask me, ask China. Then Zhang Weijia immediately followed up. Sir, why are you saying this to me? You see, this is taking the answer personally. It's implying that Trump has a racial issue. This is the most sensitive area that easily triggers the left's fragile feelings. Trump said, I say this to everyone. Zhang Weijia pressed further asking, why is it so important to say this? At this point, the question became somewhat unreasonable. So Trump directly ended the press conference. He got up and left. There is also a very important background to this exchange. Zhang Weijia compared the number of COVID-19 deaths in the US with Trump's boasting about testing. The angle of this question was highly consistent with the angle taken by Chinese state media when criticizing Trump at the time. Back then, the Chinese Communist Party's domestic propaganda kept emphasizing that the pandemic in the US was out of control and that the US had the highest death toll, using this to highlight the success of China's zero COVID policy. Zhang Weijia's approach, using the death toll to question the claim of being the best in the world was completely in line with that propaganda narrative. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and be as accommodating as possible, regardless of whether the Chinese Communist Party was actually behind him. Because at this point, we don't have more evidence or counter evidence to clarify this issue. But from an objective standpoint at the time, the political effect of his question was clear. It ultimately ended up benefiting the Chinese Communist Party. Going back to that night two years ago, at the moment the gunshot rang out, Zhang Weijia, as we all saw in the video, tried to squeeze into Trump's security team, but unfortunately, he was not a person under Secret Service protection. The Secret Service would only protect Trump. In the end, he used both his hands and feet to climb down from the stage to escape. Later, he returned to the banquet hall and announced that the dinner was cancelled, adding that President Trump originally wanted to continue with the dinner, but he had to comply with security protocols. This sentence is a very subtle detail, carrying a rare warmth of humanity. He took the initiative to tell everyone that Trump wanted to stay. Later, when Trump returned to the White House press conference, he gave his first question to Zhang Weijia. Looking at him, he said, I want to say you did an amazing job tonight. It was a beautiful evening. Then Trump made a joke saying, after what happened tonight, it will be hard for you to ask me tough questions next time. But you really did, and it was fantastic. From Caitlin's reaction and Trump's attitude toward Zhang Weijia, I think this might be the most valuable moment of this White House Correspondents' Dinner. No matter how great the political difference is, they must be grounded in the fundamental kindness of human nature. Only then are we truly worthy of the world's attention when it is said that the city upon a hill, America, is being watched by all. Finally, let's talk about the most ridiculous moment from this White House Dinner. If you've made it this far, hey, give me a like and give yourself a like too, because the most entertaining and amusing scene is about to come. At the beginning, we mentioned that 188 bottles of premium wine were displayed at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but in the end, only 41 bottles remained. So where did the other 147 bottles go? First, let me introduce the background of these wines. The wines for this dinner were specially selected by the White House Correspondents' Association. The selection process was quite eventful, going through three rounds of meetings and candidate lists from the United States to France. In the end, it was a wine from Grailport in the U.S. that won. A Pinot Noir red wine from the Willamette Valley was chosen. The association's total budget was $14,200. So the negotiated cost per bottle was $76. There were a total of 94 tables with two bottles placed on each table, making a total of 188 bottles. This number has a source. A person who claims to be the senior coordinating producer for this banquet is named Peter Jones. Afterwards, he published an article on Substack titled, The Wine I Ordered. He said he has been doing this for 11 years and that all the wine, tables, chairs and banners for this banquet were handled by him. He wrote, I can tell you the vintage of the wine. I can tell you the cost per bottle from the distributor because I personally negotiated the price down from $89 to $76. But I have no way of telling you about those 147 bottles. How were they taken away during the evacuation? How did they leave? Someone was stealing the wine. Tragically, we've covered shootings. We've covered all sorts of scary and terrible events. But it's not often that you have a loved one next to you in those very moments in those terrible events. Terrible events, but it's not often that you have a loved one next to you in those moments. Because the producer described what he personally witnessed backstage. A female reporter from a certain online outlet grabbed two bottles of wine, one in each hand. There was also a man in a tailcoat who stuffed a bottle of wine into the inside pocket of his suit. Another woman picked up a bottle, looked at the label and put it back, then picked up another one. She specifically checked the vintage. In the end, this producer did the math and that Secret Service officer who was hit in the bulletproof vest. The bulletproof vest that officer was wearing cost about $800. And that night, the so-called glamorous media guests took away 147 bottles of wine, which at cost amounted to $11,172. The value of the wine casually taken by the guests was nearly 14 times more expensive than the vest that saved the officer's life. The vast majority of these people were journalists. Up to this point, let's review. Today, we've talked about the scenes that unfolded 72 hours after the incident and how the shooter saw killing Trump administration officials as a duty to rid society of evil. Jimmy Kimmel, who appears on American family television every day, mocked the first lady, saying she was about to become a widow. The subtle changes in Caitlyn and Zhang Weijia after experiencing a life and death moment with President Trump and then the mysterious disappearance of more than 140 bottles of red wine during the shooting incident. Now let's look at the theme of this banquet. A free press for free people. Free journalism dedicated to free people. Doesn't that feel a bit ironic? Freedom has never meant letting things run wild. True freedom is a spiritual pursuit built upon morality and the brilliance of human nature. All right, that's all for today, friends. If you enjoy my 25 minutes to understand everything series, please remember to leave a comment and share your thoughts with me. Every interaction, your likes, shares, subscriptions and comments helps me get recommended by YouTube's algorithm. It helps my voice reach a wider audience. So friends, please don't hesitate to interact. It's also a way to encourage me. All right. Thank you all for watching. We'll meet again soon on Debate Point of View. Don't miss it. See you next time. Bye.