{"id":54632,"date":"2025-11-28T11:33:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T11:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/54632\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T11:33:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T11:33:24","slug":"trump-claims-national-guard-shooting-suspect-went-cuckoo-calls-reporter-a-stupid-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/54632\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump claims National Guard shooting suspect ‘went cuckoo,’ calls reporter ‘a stupid person’"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump claimed that the suspect behind the shooting<\/a> of two National Guard troops in Washington, DC \u201cwent cuckoo\u201d and faulted poor vetting for letting him into the country during a fiery exchange with a reporter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went cuckoo, he went nuts. And that happens too often with these people,\u201d Trump told a reporter who highlighted suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal\u2019s ties to the CIA. \u201cThere was no vetting or anything. They came in unvetted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we have a lot of others in this country. We\u2019re going to get them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump claimed that the Afghan terror suspect behind the shooting of two national Guard troops near the White House \u201cwent cuckoo\u201d and faulted poor vetting for letting him into the country. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Trump took questions from reporters after thanking half a dozen military units for their service during a\u00a0Thanksgiving\u00a0video call. The president also updated them on the\u00a0death of West Virginia National Guard member\u00a0Sarah Beckstrom<\/a>, who had been in\u00a0critical condition at the hospital since she was shot twice by the suspect Wednesday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lakanwal was allowed into the US under the Biden administration\u2019s \u201cOperation Allies Welcome\u201d program in 2021\u00a0for Afghans who aided America.\u00a0The president\u00a0bristled when the reporter argued that\u00a0the Afghan refugees accepted into the US\u00a0had been vetted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you a stupid person?\u201d Trump fired back when pressed. \u201cBecause they came in on a plane along with thousands of other people that shouldn\u2019t be here, and you\u2019re just asking questions because you\u2019re a stupid person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after getting sworn in for his second term, Trump moved to halt Afghan refugee resettlement in the US and later restricted travel from the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lakanwal trekked from Washington state to the nation\u2019s capital, where he allegedly carried out the brutal ambush attack just blocks away from the White House. FBI<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, in the wake of the shooting, the Trump administration went a step further, announcing that it was immediately suspending<\/a>\u00a0\u201cprocessing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals\u201d indefinitely pending a review of vetting protocols.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s live coverage of President Trump and national politics for the latest news and analysis<\/a><\/p>\n

Immigration officials are also pursuing \u201ca full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,\u201d according to\u00a0US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump shows a printed photo during a call with service members from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 27, 2025. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Lakanwal served in the elite NDS-03 counterterrorism unit in Afghanistan, one of at least five paramilitary \u201cZero Units\u201d that worked with the CIA, according to the nonprofit group AfghanEvac,\u00a0a nonprofit run by American veterans helping resettle Afghan allies in the US, but not Lakanwal.<\/p>\n

CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed that\u00a0Lakanwal had worked with the agency, but did not specify the unit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Follow the latest on the National Guard shooting in Washington, DC: <\/p>\n

\u201cThis individual \u2014 and so many others \u2014 should have never been allowed to come here,\u201d CIA director John Ratcliffe said in response to the shooting, revealing that Lakanwal previously worked for a unit tied to the spy agency.<\/p>\n

Lakanwal, who is married with five children, had trekked from Washington state<\/a> to the nation\u2019s capital, where he allegedly carried out the brutal ambush attack just blocks away from the White House, local authorities said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beckstrom eventually succumbed to her injuries and died on Thursday evening. Facebook \/ Sarah Beckstrom<\/p>\n

West Virginia National Guard members, Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries Thursday, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, was left critically wounded from the shooting.<\/p>\n

US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro warned that\u00a0Lakanwal will face murder charges and Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed that prosecutors will seek the death penalty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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So far, authorities have hit Lakanwal with at\u00a0least three counts of assault with intent to kill and criminal possession of a weapon, which carry up to 15 years behind bars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The suspect is currently recovering from his injuries\u00a0after a National Guard member opened fire on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump claimed that the suspect behind the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, DC \u201cwent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29880,153,5435,9,11,10,87,3980,1069,58,8093],"class_list":{"0":"post-54632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-national-guard","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-shootings","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-us-news","18":"tag-washington-dc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}