President Donald Trump offered his theory for the motive behind the shooting of two National Guard members near the White House on Wednesday.
Speaking during his Thanksgiving address to troops from his Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday, the president suggested that the gunman may have targeted the guard members after becoming “upset” by the success of the National Guard’s deployment in Washington, D.C.
Why It Matters
West Virginia National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was part of the 2,200 guardsmen deployed to D.C. as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime and immigration operations in the district.
Administration officials have branded the deployment as a success, with Trump announcing during Tuesday’s turkey pardoning ceremony that Washington, D.C., was “now considered a safe zone” that had not “seen a murder in six months.” In fact, there have been 62 homicides in Washington since May 25, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department.
In the wake of the shooting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced he will deploy a further 500 National Guard members to the capital.
What To Know
Suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, of Washington state, is accused of carrying out the “ambush-style” attack on Beckstrom and Wolfe on Wednesday. On Thursday evening, Trump announced that Beckstrom had died from her injuries. Wolfe remains in the hospital in a critical condition.
Lakanwal, an Afghan national, allegedly drove across the country before opening fire on the troops with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. He was then wounded and apprehended by responding troops, according to U.S. Attorney General of the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.
The 29-year-old suspect came to the United States in 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome, the Biden-era effort to resettle Afghans who assisted U.S. forces. The suspect worked with the U.S. government in Afghanistan, including with the CIA, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement. He was then granted asylum in the U.S. in April 2025 under the Trump administration, CNN reports.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is still probing potential motives for the attack, according to Reuters. While officials have not released a motive, on Thursday, Trump shared his own theories.
The president was praising the work of the National Guard since their deployment in D.C., which he said had been “so effective,” when he suggested that their success could have been the cause of the shooting.
“We’ve had very little crime,” Trump said in a video address from his Florida property.
“This happened, I assume, because [the National Guard’s D.C. deployment] was so effective, and maybe this man was so upset because he couldn’t practice crime,” Trump said during his address.
Who is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, Suspect in National Guard shooting?
Lakanwal was one of the roughly 76,000 Afghans brought to the U.S. following the military drawdown from Afghanistan in 2021 as the Taliban swept into power. The program, known as Operation Allies Welcome, launched in the first year of the Biden administration in order to relocate Afghans who had assisted U.S. forces during the two decades of operations in Afghanistan.
Lakanwal worked with the U.S. government as well as the CIA, according to Ratcliffe.
The Trump administration has blamed the Biden administration for admitting “unvetted” Afghans into the country, but it was the Trump administration that approved Lakanwal’s application for asylum, granting it earlier this year.
“We have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country,” Trump said. “For the most part, we don’t want them.”
What People Are Saying
Hegseth said on Wednesday, “After those meetings, [my team and I] were notified that two National Guardsmen had been shot in Washington, D.C., critically wounded by a shooter [and] shot in a cowardly, dastardly act targeting the best of America. It will not stand, and that’s why President Trump has asked me, and I will ask the secretary of the Army to [tell] the National Guard to add 500 additional troops — National Guardsmen — to Washington, D.C.”
President Trump said on Wednesday: “I am determined to ensure that the animal who perpetrated this atrocity pays the steepest possible price.”
General Steven Nordhaus, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said: “We are devastated by this senseless act of violence.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, told Fox News Digital: “In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the US government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “I’ll tell you right now, we will do everything in our power to seek the death penalty for that monster, who should not have been in our country.”
What Happens Next
The FBI is taking the lead in the investigation into the attack, which is being treated as a possible act of international terrorism. Bondi has said that she plans to seek the death penalty against Lakanwal if he is found guilty.
Meanwhile, it is not yet clear when the 500 additional troops will arrive in Washington, and whether they will come from the D.C. National Guard or from other states.
