The rise of left-wing violence and why we're all numb to it
Americano
The Spectator
4.0 • 762 Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The alleged gunman from the White House correspondents' dinner has been named 31 year old Cole Allen. He was arrested at the scene armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiples knives. It later emerged the suspect sent a note to family members before the shooting, apologising to parents, colleagues and bystanders for what he was about to do.
He wrote 'I apologise to everyone....who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.' He added that he may have given 'a lot of people a surprise today' and, although he did not name Mr Trump directly in the writings, he did criticise him and mentioned targeting the administration.
Freddy Gray and Spectator contributor Max Horder discuss the shooter's 'manifesto', how this is a similar example to the Luigi Mangione case and why the world has become immune to political violence.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | How do you make sense of this turbulent world? How do you stay informed, amused and entertained at a time of turbulence? |
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| 0:39.0 | Hello and welcome back to the Americano Show. My name is Freddie Gray. I am the deputy editor of the spectator and the US editor. And I'm pleased to tell you that this is the 10th year of the |
| 0:45.4 | Americano podcast. And I think it's fair to say it's been a fairly fascinating time in American |
| 0:52.4 | politics, life and culture. And that's what we talk about every |
| 0:56.8 | episode on this podcast. So please keep listening and provide as much feedback as you like. |
| 1:03.9 | Today I am delighted to be joined by Max Horder, who is an anthropologist and a fellow at the |
| 1:10.7 | London School of Economics and a contributor to the spectator. |
| 1:15.4 | And Max, as I'm sure you already know, the reason we've asked you back is to talk about the attempted assassination of the president or the violent attack, we should say, on the White House correspondence dinner |
| 1:29.7 | on Saturday night, which everybody knows all about already. |
| 1:35.5 | But it made us think, at the spectator, it obviously made us think of your very prescient cover |
| 1:40.7 | last year, which I'm sure we can flash up on the screen now. And that was about |
| 1:46.7 | the rise of left-wing violence in American political life. And we've just seen, looks like, |
| 1:55.3 | we've just seen another example of what you were talking about. Well, that's certainly right. I mean, it's, you know, the details as we speak now are still unfolding. |
| 2:04.6 | It's not exactly clear so much who the chap was or why he did what he did. |
| 2:10.6 | But we do have one piece of evidence to learn a little bit more about him. |
| 2:13.6 | We do have his kind of manifesto, which not been completely released |
| 2:18.6 | to the public just yet, but a large, large chunks of it have been released. And for anyone who hasn't |
| 2:24.5 | taken the time to read it, it's about a thousand words long. And it's a very interesting sort of |
... |
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