Caltech grad to ‘friendly federal assassin’: Glenn Beck on how politics radicalized Trump’s latest alleged would-be killer

Last weekend at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton in D.C., a 31-year-old California resident named Cole Tomas Allen allegedly rushed a security checkpoint — armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives — and fired multiple shots in an attempt to target Trump administration officials. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, and Allen was charged with attempted assassination of the president.

Allen, Glenn Beck says, is different from former would-be assassins. He isn’t “some lone wolf,” “crazed madman,” or “basement-dwelling nobody.” He’s “a brilliant Caltech graduate” with a long list of impressive credentials and a normal background by all measures.

Glenn wants to know how a man with a successful history in engineering, computer science, and education, whose students and colleagues “loved him,” became “the friendly federal assassin” — the nom de guerre Allen gave himself in the manifesto he sent to family and friends before he allegedly attempted to kill President Trump and other Cabinet members.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn dives into how a bright person with great potential becomes a radicalized killer and what it means for America if this trend isn’t stopped.

“[Allen] was radicalized the same way our children are being radicalized today — not by some foreign terrorist group, but by the toxic stew that is American politics in 2026,” Glenn says.

From “endless media hysteria” and “the online echo chambers” — where Trump and others in the administration are constantly accused of being “rapists,” “pedophiles,” and “fascists” — to the pervasive “belief that our political opponents aren’t just wrong … they’re evil,” modern society has become a factory that churns out radicals, he explains.

But it’s a complicated issue because these revolutionaries who commit acts of violence in the name of justice consider themselves the good guys.

“[Allen] saw himself as a hero — and that mindset is the danger. The guy thought he was Bonhoeffer!” Glenn exclaims.

Allen’s devolution from a bright man with great potential into an alleged would-be assassin is evidence that our republic is heading toward collapse, he warns.

“Bright young men convinced that violence is the only answer to a political disagreement, when assassination becomes thinkable, when fixing the world means opening fire at a dinner — that’s how our republic unravels,” Glenn says.

If the radicalization and violence continues, government officials and public figures will have to start “living behind the walls,” but it’s everyday Americans who will pay the steepest price by “[losing] a piece of the free open society” that we’ve known for so long.

“It’s the republic that pays the price as we lose yet just one more piece of our soul every time hatred wins,” Glenn says.

“[Allen] wasn’t born this way. He was taught to be this way. He was radicalized step by step, post by post, protest by protest, march after march. He actually began to believe that murder was moral,” he continues.

And Glenn fears he won’t be the last to commit violence against political opponents.

“In a country where political rage is treated like a virtue instead of poison, how many other guys are out there right now?” he asks.

“America, we are running out of warnings.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

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