"I didn't rape anybody," says Trump in response to shooter's message

In an interview with CBS News, Trump was asked for his views on the manifesto, where the shooter had said, "Administration officials, they are targets." And he also wrote this, "I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."

Trump called the interviewer 'horrible' for asking the question. The interviewer referred to a message sent by the man accused of charging through a security checkpoint and opening fire at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington DC. The suspect "clearly stated" he wanted to target administration officials, the White House said.

"Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you are horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I am not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody. I am not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person," he said.

Trump added, "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. But I said to myself, "You know, I'll do this interview and they'll probably..." I read the manifesto. You know, it's a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things," he replied.

The usual pointed response was startling because his approach towards the media was quite toned down after the shooting incident on Saturday.

Trump heaped rare praise on mediapersons for their responsible coverage of the shooting incident at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington DC and added that the event will be rescheduled to take place within 30 days.

Trump assured the White House Correspondents' Association President Weijia Jiang that they will soon reschedule the event.

"Madam Chairman, I just want to say you did a fantastic job. What a beautiful evening and we're going to reschedule. Okay? Thank you very much. And after that, it's very tough for her to ask a killer question, right? But you have done a fantastic job," he said.

Trump described what went through his mind during the shooting incident while addressing the press later.

"Actually, it was it's always shocking when something like this happens. It's happened to me a little bit and that never changes. The fact we were sitting right next to each other, the first lady on my right, and I heard a noise and sort of thought it was a tray. I thought it was a tray going down, I've heard that many times and it was pretty loud noise. And it was from quite far away. He hadn't breached the area at all, they really got him. But so it was quite far away, but it was a gun," he said.

Trump said that First Lady Melania was the one to feel that something was off.

"And some people really understood that pretty quickly, other people didn't. I was watching to see what was happening. Probably should have gone down even faster. Melania was very cognizant I think of what happened. I think she knew immediately what happened. She was saying, "That's a bad noise."," he said. (ANI)