What To Know
- Donald Trump criticized Norah O’Donnell for reading excerpts from the alleged manifesto of the suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting.
- Trump vehemently denied allegations and expressed frustration at being associated with them.
- The president repeatedly called O’Donnell “disgraceful” for quoting the manifesto during the interview.
Donald Trump was not happy with 60 Minutes reporter Norah O’Donnell after she read from the alleged manifesto of Cole Allen, the suspect who stormed the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday (April 25).
During the interview, taped on Sunday (April 26), just hours after the shooting, O’Donnell read portions from the manifesto, in which Allen said he believed it was his righteous duty to take out Trump administration officials.
“The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President,” O’Donnell said. “He appears to reference a motive in it. He writes this quote, ‘Administration officials, they are targets.’ And he also wrote this, ‘I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.’ What’s your reaction to that?”
Trump responded, “Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re… horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
O’Donnell then turned it back on the president, asking, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?”
A frustrated Trump replied, “Excuse me… I’m not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person? I got associated with all…stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let’s say, Epstein or other things.”
He continued, “But I said to myself, ‘You know, I’ll do this interview and they’ll probably…’ I read the manifesto. You know, he’s a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I’m not any of those things.”
Trump’s name appears more than 38,000 times in the batch of Jeffrey Epstein files released earlier this year, according to a New York Times review of the documents. In February, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told Axios he searched the unredacted files for mentions of “Trump” and found “more than a million” results.
When O’Donnell told Trump she was just quoting the suspect’s alleged words, the president called her “disgraceful.”
“You shouldn’t be reading that on 60 Minutes,” he stated. “You’re a disgrace. But go ahead. Let’s finish the interview.”
When the former CBS Evening News host tried to read another quote from the manifesto, Trump again called her “disgraceful.”
You can watch the segment in the video above and let us know your thoughts below.
60 Minutes, Sundays, 7/6 c, CBS
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
