Security banquet: queries over Trump protection
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.3 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After a gunman stormed Donald Trump’s dinner with the press, questions are being revived about the president’s security. Germany’s top general explains the country’s new defence strategy. And listeners respond to our Weekend Intelligence episode on the passport bros who go abroad to find “a good woman”.
An earlier version of our lead story stated that the gunman shot a Secret Service agent. Subsequent reports indicate it is unclear whose shot struck the agent.We have now edited the start of the segment.
Guests and host:
- John Prideaux, host of “Checks and Balance” and US editor
- Tom Nuttall, Berlin bureau chief
- Carla Subirana, reporter
- Rosie Blau, co-host of “The Intelligence”
- Jason Palmer, co-hosts of “The intelligence”
Topics covered:
- Donald Trump, assassination attempt, White House dinner, Cole Tomas Allen
- Carsten Breuer, Bundeswehr, NATO, Ukraine
- Passport bros, tradwife, misogyny
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm Rosie Bloor. |
| 0:13.0 | And I'm Jason Palmer. |
| 0:15.0 | Today on the show, we speak to Germany's top general and responses to our weekend intelligence episode on The Passport Bros. |
| 0:32.4 | But first... |
| 0:45.4 | ...the... At the annual White House correspondent's dinner on Saturday, |
| 0:48.0 | Donald Trump, along with hundreds of reporters, |
| 0:50.6 | had been served his first course barata salad. |
| 1:00.7 | Then at 8.32 p.m., a gunman ran past security, shooting a secret service agent and attempting to burst into the crowded ballroom. |
| 1:07.2 | Trump and his Vice President J.D. Vance were rushed away. The shooter was detained, later identified as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, from Torrance, California. |
| 1:20.6 | Trump, still wearing his tuxedo, gave a press conference. |
| 1:25.6 | Nobody told me this was such a dangerous profession. |
| 1:30.5 | If Marco would have told me, maybe I wouldn't have run. |
| 1:33.2 | Maybe I would have said, I'll take a pass. |
| 1:35.3 | No, it's a dangerous profession. |
| 1:37.5 | Havoc at the Hilton, and the third assassination attempt |
| 1:40.9 | on Donald Trump revives questions about the competence of the Secret Service. |
| 1:46.3 | The White House Correspondence Dinner is a really odd institution. Lots of serious political journalists skip it, |
| 1:53.7 | but it's a bit like a sort of nerd Oscars where a group of journalists who normally have a fairly |
| 1:59.8 | oppositional relationship with the president |
| 2:01.7 | all get together in black tie and congratulate themselves on being important and close to power. |
... |
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