The suspect of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting was named by officials as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance in the Los Angeles region, California.
After he was detained by security agents inside the Washington Hilton hotel he told law enforcement officials he wanted to shoot officials in the Trump administration, two sources told CBS, the BBC’s US news partner.
On Sunday, Trump told Fox News that the suspect “had a lot of hatred in his heart for a while”, and said his family knew he had “difficulties”. He added that the suspect had a “manifesto”, and suggested he was “strongly anti-Christian”.
The BBC’s partner CBS News has seen a written document believed to be linked to the suspect, saying he wanted to target members of the Trump administration “from highest-ranking to lowest”.
BBC Verify has been looking into Allen’s online presence.
Voter registration records appear to show he had registered no party preference, though records suggest in October 2024 he donated $25 (£18.50) to a fundraising platform with money earmarked for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
On LinkedIn, Allen describes himself as a mechanical engineer, game developer and teacher, who studied mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and took part in its Christian fellowship.
In December 2024 he was named teacher of the month by a tutoring company for college age students, and he graduated with a master’s in computer science in 2025 from California State University, Dominguez Hills.