Washington DC - President Donald Trump recently had a meltdown after he was pressed about one damning line included in a letter attributed to the alleged White House Correspondents' Dinner shooter.
On Sunday night, the president sat down for an interview with 60 Minutes, during which anchor Norah O'Donnell read excerpts from a note left by alleged gunman, Cole Tomas Allen.
The note detailed why Trump administration officials were the "targets" of the attack, and, in an apparent reference to the president, the auther says they are "no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."
This sent Trump off the deep end.
"I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you're horrible people. Horrible people," he said in the interview.
"Yeah, he did write that. I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody."
When O'Donnell asked if he believed the alleged shooter was referring to him, Trump grew more irate.
"I'm not a pedophile! Excuse me. Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile! " he exclaimed. "You read that crap from some sick person? I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let’s say, Epstein or other things."
"You should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things," he concluded.
Donald Trump's longstanding ties to Jeffrey Epstein
The interview came after Allen allegedly rushed the Hilton Hotel ballroom where the dinner was taking place on Saturday night and opened fire with a weapon before he was subdued by law enforcement.
The shooter's purported letter referenced Trump's decades long relationship with notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Since the beginning of his second term, the president has been facing heightened scrutiny over his connections to Epstein, as files released by the Justice Department revealed they were much closer than he has repeatedly claimed.
Though his name appears countless times in the files, Trump has insisted specific details have "exonerated" him of any wrong doing, and that only Democrats mentioned in the documents, such as Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, should face any form of accountability.
The Republican has tried desperately to sweep the Epstein story under the rug, which has sparked conspiracy theories that he has been using major events, such as his decision to go to war with Iran, to distract from the scandal.
After the dinner shooting, many on social media posed similar theories, as many believed the president staged the attack to gain support ahead of November's Midterms.