President and First Lady Whisked Away Safely After Shots Fired at Correspondents’ Dinner
A suspected gunman charged a security checkpoint and was swiftly apprehended.
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were unharmed on Saturday after they were rushed out of a Washington, D.C., hotel where a suspected gunman fired shots outside a ballroom while the White House Correspondents Association dinner was taking place.
The Secret Service said a 31-year-old man from California was uninjured and taken into custody after he sprinted through the magnetometer security screening area and fired shots outside of the ballroom just minutes into the dinner. The man, according to law enforcement, was armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives. Secret Service agents in response appeared to draw their guns at the assailant. One Secret Service agent was shot by the suspected gunman, but saved by the fact that he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Video inside the ballroom captured a stunned first lady and the president around 8:36 p.m. EDT ducking under the table where they were seated as security swarmed the dais before escorting them out. White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang moments earlier had made opening remarks.
Shortly after the president and first lady were whisked away, Mr. Trump assembled a press briefing at the White House where reporters still in their formal wear asked questions of the president who was dressed in a tuxedo. The event was canceled for security protocol reasons.
“The man has been captured,” President Trump said during the briefing. Details about the gunman and his motive were still unclear, although the man reportedly stayed at the hotel. Mr. Trump also stated that the dinner should be rescheduled in the “next 30 days.”
“We’ll make it bigger and better. We are not going to let anyone take over our society,” the president said.
The president also thanked the first lady, who was present inside the White House press briefing room.
Recalling the events of the evening, the president described how “it was a rather traumatic experience” for the first lady. He recalled how his wife was “very cognizant” of what was happening.
“She was saying, ‘That’s a bad noise,’” Trump said.
Outside the ballroom on the entry level of the hotel, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, an eyewitness to the event, reported that he was standing just feet from the shooter when the incident happened and was thrown to the floor and protected by a law enforcement officer. The gunman was firing as Blitzer was taken to the ground.
“I just saw a big gun” and “heard a lot of bangs,” Blitzer told network anchors shortly after the incident. “It was a very frightening moment.”
The shots were fired outside the ballroom, he said, describing three to six shots fired as “very loud.”
Back in the press briefing, the president was asked how Saturday’s incident would impact him given his survival of an attempted assassination during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, where his ear was grazed by a bullet.
“I’ve studied assassinations and the most impactful people,” he said. “The people who do the most, the people who make the biggest impact, they are the ones they go after.”
He went on to say the ballroom was “very secure” and law enforcement acted “very quickly.”
“I was very impressed with the Secret Service,” the president said, who also noted that the incident was another reason why the proposed White House Ballroom should be built. The construction has been halted by a district judge who recently ordered that it needed approval from Congress.
Before closing out his remarks during the briefing, the president gestured to the first lady off camera saying, “I have a first lady who’s doing a terrific job. She loves the country, and she recognizes it better than anybody. She’s told me numerous times, ‘You are in a dangerous job,’ but that goes along with her, too. I mean, it’s dangerous for her, too. We sat there tonight we heard that noise and it was either a tray or a bullet. I thought, I was hoping it was a tray, but it wasn’t.”