Hi Global Recap readers,
Okay, I may actually be chronically online.
Whenever a major story breaks, I am somehow online to catch it within minutes. Yeah, I have a problem.
I’ve already seen the tinfoil theories, the blame games, the ragebait, and the people trying to justify or praise the attacker. It’s rough.
So, to save you from wading through the sludge yourself, here’s the gist of what people are calling the “third assassination attempt” on Trump.
But if you’re like me and already drowning in the sludge, feel free to skip the first section. I don’t blame you. 👇🏼
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES
Third Attempt
Cole Tomas Allen charging toward the ballroom—mockingly characterized as a “Naruto run.”
A man armed with a shotgun, handgun, and knives bolted toward the White House Correspondents' Dinner ballroom Saturday night while Trump, Melania Trump, JD Vance, Cabinet officials, reporters, and more than 2,500 guests were inside.
Trump was unhurt. A Secret Service officer was hit in his bullet-resistant vest and later released. Officials identified the suspect as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, and said he appeared to have been staying at the Washington Hilton.
The count is now three:
July 2024: Trump was wounded at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
September 2024: a gunman was accused of lying in wait near Trump's Florida golf course.
April 2026: now this.
The Writings
Cole Tomas Allen, after capture.
Cole Tomas Allen, after capture.
The attack looks less random after the writings.
Investigators are reviewing a manifesto-like message Allen sent relatives minutes before the shooting, where he:
confesses that he planned to target Trump administration officials from highest-ranking down
mocked the hotel's weak security,
said law enforcement, employees, and guests were not the primary targets.
Full details are in the manifesto linked above.
The Internet Mess
But here’s where people are calling foul. The manifesto was already out there, yet Obama still posted that “we don’t yet have the details about the motives behind last night’s shooting.”
That line is what’s getting attention.
Critics argue the motive wasn’t exactly a mystery by then: the alleged manifesto reportedly included political grievances and a target list focused on Trump administration officials.
Others, though, say Obama was just being careful—choosing not to assign a motive before the investigation had formally concluded.
Trump supporters also pointed to the broader language Democrats have used around Trump, calling him a “fascist,” a “threat to democracy,” a “Nazi,” and a “pedophile.” Several of those themes appear in the manifesto, which described attendees as complicit in supporting a “pedophile, rapist, and traitor.”
They also highlighted House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ recent “maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time” line about Democrats’ redistricting fight against Trump and Republicans.
Right-wing accounts also started circulating screenshots of posts that appeared to mock Trump surviving the attack.
The main example was Minocqua Brewing Company, a Wisconsin brewery already known for promising “free beer” when Trump dies. After the shooting, its Facebook page posted, “Well, we almost got #freebeerday,” while also floating the idea that Trump had staged the incident (in addition to Charlie Kirk’s death, which they claim Trump staged).
Tinfoil
The weirdest side plot is the Henry Martinez X account, which reportedly posted their only post on X in December 2023. It simply says "Cole Allen."
The claim went viral, but there is no verified evidence linking the account to Allen, the shooting, or any advance knowledge.
Some say time traveller
Others say he was in the know
What's certain is nobody really knows
Irony
“4/25/26 | 10:15pmEDT”
@Scavino47
What makes this especially ironic is that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is supposed to celebrate the First Amendment and free speech.
But some of the assailant’s defenders are twisting that principle beyond recognition, framing Allen the way some extremists frame Booth or Oswald: as someone merely “expressing” himself.
That is not free speech. It is not protected by the First Amendment. It is a perversion of it.
If anything, this is more likely to harden Trump’s base than weaken it. And Trump didn’t win with MAGA voters alone. He also pulled support from the middle, and moments like this may push even more moderates into his camp.
🇮🇷 IRAN
The Missing Leader
Mojtaba Khamenei’s portrait is place on the top right of Ali Khamenei’s.
Click for video
“That confirms it!” is basically what people are saying after spotting Mojtaba Khamenei on a “martyrs” mural in Mashhad.
The mural was meant to honor people who had been martyred. Naturally, it featured Ali Khamenei, Qasem Soleimani, Ebrahim Raisi, and then... Mojtaba Khamenei.
Mojtaba, the current Supreme Leader.
This, combined with weeks of public silence from him, has fueled speculation that Mojtaba is actually dead, and that IRGC officials are quietly running things behind the scenes while still using Khamenei’s name.
Here's what's being reported about his whereabouts:
Iranian officials have said he is alive or recovering.
Outside reporting has described severe injuries.
“Cardboard Mojtaba” meme
📌 Context. Mojtaba Khamenei was named Supreme Leader after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed on Feb. 28.
🇵🇸 PALESTINE
Ballot Test
President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinian authorities held local elections in the West Bank and Gaza's Deir al-Balah, then framed the vote as a first step toward national elections that have been promised, postponed, and politically weaponized for years.
Here's what we know:
Candidates also had to accept the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) program, which recognizes Israel and renounces armed struggle, a filter that kept Hamas and other factions outside the formal contest.
Gaza got one largely symbolic pilot vote (turnout was only about 23%), since the Palestinian Authority only governs semiautonomous areas of the West Bank.
The West Bank vote was municipal races for services like water, roads, and electricity, run under new rules that let voters pick individual candidates.
Still, this is the first electoral opening in Gaza in two decades, and it lands while the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is trying to show the Palestinian Authority can still govern across both territories.
📌 Context. Abbas was elected in 2005 to a four-year term, and many Palestinians have spent years watching national elections vanish into factional splits, occupation, and PA self-preservation.
No Palestinian presidential election has been held since 2005.
🇲🇱 MALI
Junta's Security Bet
Minister of Defense, General Sadio Camara (left), and President of Mali, Colonel Assimi Goïta (right).
Armed groups hit Bamako, Kati, Gao, Kidal, Mopti, and Sevare in coordinated attacks that forced Mali's junta to defend the capital while Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-linked JNIM claimed wider operations.
Mali's Defence Minister, Camara, was killed in a suicide truck bombing on his residence near the capital Bamako.
This cuts straight at the core promise Mali’s junta made when Assimi Goïta seized power: that military rule would restore sovereignty, security, and order.
First, the junta forced out French troops and leaned into anti-French, anti-colonial anger.
Then elections were delayed in the name of stability.
After that, Mali turned to Russian security backing, first through the Wagner Group and later Russia’s Africa Corps.
But years after the coups, the forces the junta claimed it could contain are still able to strike at both the capital and the north.
📌 Context. Mali, a former French colony independent since 1960, has been trapped since 2012 between northern separatism, jihadist expansion, military coups, France's 2022 withdrawal, and Russia's replacement role.
