Alright. Just a guess here, but the instructor put the hat on the gator. My thought is that they were attempting to use their hat as an impromptu blinder so they could wrangle it. Instead, however, the gator could still see, didn’t like what was going on, and bailed.
Soo, showing up in leftist reporter Mussolini’s home to debate his current thoughts about a new type of revolution, bringing a gun just in case. I don’t know if there’s any amount of distraction you could subject Benito to in order to prevent him from thinking up fascism. You’d either have to make him realize it’s stupid or kill him.
Addendum: don’t forget to practice with your handgun beforehand, and bring something to smash a windshield beforehand. This is why there were 8 failed assassination attempts on him.