The shooting at the White House press dinner, which came amid the Iran war and ongoing peace talks in Islamabad, has raised questions about whether the incident has any connection with events in the Middle East.
The incident occurred on a day when Trump unilaterally canceled the visit of his envoys to Pakistan for peace talks with Iran. The reason he gave for this was that it was simply a waste of time and there was no point in “sitting around discussing useless things”.
However, Trump made it clear that he did not believe the incident could be related to the Middle East conflict, but added a condition: “You can never say anything.”
He said, “I don’t think so, but you can never say never. It’s not going to stop me from winning the Iran war. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it or not; I really don’t think so based on the information that we have, but we’re going to continue to do the best job we can.”
Sharing information about the shooter, Trump said that investigators are currently working on the shooter’s motive, and added that he may have been a “lone wolf”. Trump also said that the man had fired at a Secret Service agent, but the agent survived because of his bulletproof vest.
The shooter has been identified as Cole Thomas Allen, 31; He attacked a security checkpoint “armed with multiple weapons.” According to Reuters report, Allen is from the Los Angeles area and is a graduate of Caltech; He works as a part time teacher and game developer.