The Daily Populous Tuesday April 28th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by inews.co.uk and submitted by theipaper

close Cancel email WhatsApp link share Share bookmark Save

When CBS News booked Donald Trump for its flagship 60 Minutes programme this weekend, it surely must have been expecting a combative interview.

Trump would have just attended the White House correspondents’ dinner for the first time in either of his presidencies, and for the first time since 2011, when then-president Barack Obama infamously made Trump the butt of one of his jokes in his speech at the dinner – a quip which it has been suggested fuelled the real estate mogul’s run for the presidency a few years later.

There were high expectations for Trump’s return to the dinner, then. His speech was expected to be a chance for him to berate his media enemies while they had to sit in front of him and listen in silence.

The show might have had the chance to tackle Trump on that, and his aggressive use of the powers of his office against the media, including appointing a chair of the Federal Communications Commission who has repeatedly threatened channels with regulatory action over their supposed bias against Trump, as well as lawsuits against several newspapers and TV networks – including CBS.

Instead, 60 Minutes had the first set-piece interview with the President since the third attempt on his life in the past two years, after a suspect was detained with weapons at a security checkpoint inside the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC.

Once again, Trump was surprisingly sanguine about someone wanting to kill him, and a gunman getting relatively close to him during a public appearance. He seems to take potential assassination attempts as a compliment, remarking in the aftermath of the attack that people only tried to kill the most “impactful” presidents.

Trump appeared relaxed when describing the shooting to 60 Minutes’ correspondent Norah O’Donnell. “I wasn’t worried, I understand life. We live in a crazy world,” he said, adding that he had been more curious than alarmed by the commotion as the suspected assailant was detained near the hotel ballroom.

Perhaps after surviving a much nearer miss when he came under fire at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July 2024, and later being targeted by a would-be assassin on his Florida golf course, Trump is simply unfazed. After all, he claimed divine providence had saved him when a bullet grazed his ear in Pennsylvania.

Donald Trump beside the First Lady and CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang at the White House correspondents’ dinner. The network had booked an post-event interview slot with the President weeks in advance (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

That relaxed Trump disappeared in a heartbeat, though, when O’Donnell gently probed the President over the contents of a manifesto believed to have been penned by the suspect behind the attack, which read: “I am no longer willing to permit a paedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”

O’Donnell read out the manifesto – which had been cited widely in pro-Trump media to suggest the attacker may have been radicalised by the media, or by Democrats – provoking a furious reaction from a President, who then remained irritable for the rest of the interview. “You’re horrible people,” he said. “I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody…I’m not a paedophile. You read that crap from some sick person?”

A visibly rattled Trump later called O’Donnell “disgraceful” and told her that “you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I’m not any of those things”.

In reality, O’Donnell barely pressed Trump on any of these points. A New York court held in a 2023 civil case that Trump had sexually abused the writer E Jean Carroll. He was caught on camera boasting about grabbing girls “by the pussy”. There is a long trail of documentary evidence detailing Trump’s enduring and close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein – including that some of Epstein’s victims were recruited from the President’s Mar-a-Lago country club.

60 Minutes’ parent company, CBS News, was recently bought out by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison, who installed a new, friendlier to Trump editor-in-chief in the form of Bari Weiss. But the interview showed just how hard it is to please Trump in 2026 – the mere act of reading the manifesto and asking Trump to respond to it was enough to set off a temper tantrum from the most powerful man in the West.

Trump might have shown that he doesn’t fear assassins, but he showed us his weaknesses at the same time. He is still all too aware that Epstein could bring down his voting coalition, and he is too angry and thin-skinned to respond to it with anything other than irritation, peevishness or fury.

The President surrounds himself with sycophants, who flatter him and make sure he only sees the news they want him to see. Trump is so used to being cossetted that he can no longer handle even the softest of pushbacks.

He knows that his links to Epstein have caused him unprecedented harm within the Maga ecosystem, now compounded by controversy over his actions in Iran. He wants his critics silenced.

02K30C1 on April 27th, 2026 at 15:19 UTC »

"In the shooter's manifesto, he says he says he does not want our government associated with a rapist and pedophile..."

"IM NOT A PEDOPHILE!"

"Oh, you think he was referring to you?"

theipaper on April 27th, 2026 at 15:14 UTC »

When CBS News booked Donald Trump for its flagship 60 Minutes programme this weekend, it surely must have been expecting a combative interview.

Trump would have just attended the White House correspondents’ dinner for the first time in either of his presidencies, and for the first time since 2011, when then-president Barack Obama infamously made Trump the butt of one of his jokes in his speech at the dinner – a quip which it has been suggested fuelled the real estate mogul’s run for the presidency a few years later.

There were high expectations for Trump’s return to the dinner, then. His speech was expected to be a chance for him to berate his media enemies while they had to sit in front of him and listen in silence.

The show might have had the chance to tackle Trump on that, and his aggressive use of the powers of his office against the media, including appointing a chair of the Federal Communications Commission who has repeatedly threatened channels with regulatory action over their supposed bias against Trump, as well as lawsuits against several newspapers and TV networks – including CBS.

Instead, 60 Minutes had the first set-piece interview with the President since the third attempt on his life in the past two years, after a suspect was detained with weapons at a security checkpoint inside the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC.

Once again, Trump was surprisingly sanguine about someone wanting to kill him, and a gunman getting relatively close to him during a public appearance. He seems to take potential assassination attempts as a compliment, remarking in the aftermath of the attack that people only tried to kill the most “impactful” presidents.

Trump appeared relaxed when describing the shooting to 60 Minutes’ correspondent Norah O’Donnell. “I wasn’t worried, I understand life. We live in a crazy world,” he said, adding that he had been more curious than alarmed by the commotion as the suspected assailant was detained near the hotel ballroom.

Perhaps after surviving a much nearer miss when he came under fire at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July 2024, and later being targeted by a would-be assassin on his Florida golf course, Trump is simply unfazed. After all, he claimed divine providence had saved him when a bullet grazed his ear in Pennsylvania.

That relaxed Trump disappeared in a heartbeat, though, when O’Donnell gently probed the President over the contents of a manifesto believed to have been penned by the suspect behind the attack, which read: “I am no longer willing to permit a paedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”

O’Donnell read out the manifesto – which had been cited widely in pro-Trump media to suggest the attacker may have been radicalised by the media, or by Democrats – provoking a furious reaction from a President, who then remained irritable for the rest of the interview. “You’re horrible people,” he said. “I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody…I’m not a paedophile. You read that crap from some sick person?”

A visibly rattled Trump later called O’Donnell “disgraceful” and told her that “you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I’m not any of those things”.

In reality, O’Donnell barely pressed Trump on any of these points. A New York court held in a 2023 civil case that Trump had sexually abused the writer E Jean Carroll. He was caught on camera boasting about grabbing girls “by the pussy”. There is a long trail of documentary evidence detailing Trump’s enduring and close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein – including that some of Epstein’s victims were recruited from the President’s Mar-a-Lago country club.

60 Minutes’ parent company, CBS News, was recently bought out by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison, who installed a new, friendlier to Trump editor-in-chief in the form of Bari Weiss. But the interview showed just how hard it is to please Trump in 2026 – the mere act of reading the manifesto and asking Trump to respond to it was enough to set off a temper tantrum from the most powerful man in the West.

Trump might have shown that he doesn’t fear assassins, but he showed us his weaknesses at the same time. He is still all too aware that Epstein could bring down his voting coalition, and he is too angry and thin-skinned to respond to it with anything other than irritation, peevishness or fury.

The President surrounds himself with sycophants, who flatter him and make sure he only sees the news they want him to see. Trump is so used to being cossetted that he can no longer handle even the softest of pushbacks.

He knows that his links to Epstein have caused him unprecedented harm within the Maga ecosystem, now compounded by controversy over his actions in Iran. He wants his critics silenced.

WhatEvenIsLifeThis on April 27th, 2026 at 15:08 UTC »

if it's that he's a pedophile yeah, it's one of his greatest weaknesses.