A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Eliza Terlinden went to Caltech at the same time as Cole Allen, the alleged attacker at Saturday's correspondents' dinner. Terlinden told our cohost Michel Martin they were also in the Caltech Christian Fellowship group together from 2013 to 2015.
ELIZA TERLINDEN: Cole had always struck me as fairly apolitical, to the extent that we had disagreements on the matter. I think the biggest thing was that he just felt I spent too much energy on it relative to more spiritual pursuits. I think above all else, he felt that spreading the Gospel and living a Christ life is very important, and other things came secondary.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
I just was wondering what your reaction was when you heard the news that he was allegedly involved in this incident.
TERLINDEN: My first assumption on hearing the name was just that it was a case of mistaken identity, and it was some other Cole Allen involved in it. Then when I saw the picture, I thought, oh, OK. Yeah, that looks like him. But I still couldn't quite wrap my head around it. But once I read through his manifesto detailing the fact that he was acting out of deeply held moral convictions rather than just committing a wanton act of violence, then it became much more plausible to me.
MARTIN: Say - would you say more about that, if you would?
TERLINDEN: Well, he clearly stated his motive as opposing moral atrocities committed by the U.S. administration. And he was always generally of the opinion of, work within the system insofar as you can, and I guess this is the point that became the exception to that. I very much got a feeling of reluctance from the way he put it - that he did not want to do this. This was not something he took any joy in. But he felt that there was a moral responsibility to oppose unjust policies, and nobody else was doing it. So he would take action.
MARTIN: At the time, did he seem to sort of have a grip on reality in the sense that - this notion that, I'm the only one who can do this? Just - for some people, that just - that suggests heroism, but for others - like, people, that suggests a little bit of being unmoored. And I just wondered if you ever saw any evidence of one or the other when you knew him.
TERLINDEN: I never saw evidence of mental instability. Even reading this manifesto, it struck me that it was relatively analytical and organized, the things that he was doing to try to minimize any harm to innocent people. I got the impression that he was looking at it like an engineering problem he was solving under constraints. It - he saw this, most likely, as his duty as a Christian and as an American. Any rhetoric that he was being anti-Christian is simply inaccurate. And I'm sad that he took this step, but I believe, in his mind, he felt that he didn't have another choice.
MARTIN: Eliza Terlinden went to college with Cole Allen, who is charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this past weekend. Eliza Terlinden, thank you so much for speaking with us. And I know it's not the easiest thing to talk about, so I do appreciate it.
TERLINDEN: Yeah. You're welcome.
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