President Donald Trump was rushed offstage shortly after gunshots were fired outside the ballroom where the White House correspondents’ dinner was in the process of being served on Saturday.
Heavily armed security agents suddenly appeared alongside the banquet table where the president and first lady were sitting with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other guests of honor, shouting for people to get down.
An individual is in custody and being evaluated at a nearby hospital, according to law enforcement sources. But how a person managed to bring a firearm so close to a venue with incredibly tight security precautions is far from clear. Law enforcement said the incident took place near the magnetometers that were set up inside the Washington Hilton.
One officer was shot and is expected to be OK, Trump said at a press conference that was quickly called at the White House afterward.
In an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said officials were still looking to ascertain a motive.
“From our preliminary investigation, it does appear the suspect was targeting members of the administration,” Blanche told CNN’s Dana Bash.
Blanche said the suspect is not cooperating in the investigation.
Trump shared video to social media of the apparent shooter flying past the hotel’s magnetometers, and a photo of the individual being apprehended on the ground. Trump noted that the suspect was from California and that law enforcement personnel were “already at his apartment.”
The man was believed to have been a guest at the Hilton, interim Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Jeffery Carroll said at a separate press conference. He had multiple firearms and knives in his possession, Carroll said.
The president initially indicated that he wanted to continue with the night’s programming — including the speech he was expected to give — but said it was up to the U.S. Secret Service, which decided to call the event off.
“The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have spoken with all the representatives in charge of the event, and we will be rescheduling within 30 days.”
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“Quite an evening in D.C,” he said in an earlier post that praised the work of law enforcement.
Speaking in the White House briefing room, still dressed in his tuxedo, Trump likened the incident to the 2024 assassination attempt on him at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Like the would-be rally assassin, “They seem to think he’s a lone wolf,” Trump said of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner suspect.
Sudden, loud popping sounds around 8:30 p.m. and the swift evacuation had sent a shock through the ballroom as some guests ducked under tables and cleared the room. Prominent news reporters and many top Trump administration officials were among those in the crowd.
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About a half-hour after the commotion, CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang took the podium to announce that the event would resume. She stood at the microphone again shortly before 10 p.m. and announced that the event was over.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was close to the shooter when the chaos began, having stepped out to use the restroom after appetizers were served.
As he walked back to the ballroom, he said, “All of a sudden, I start hearing gunshots in the hall right near me. And the next thing I knew, a police officer threw me to the ground and was on top of me.”
At another point, he said he heard “at least half a dozen gunshots” and that he was subsequently shoved back into the men’s bathroom where others were being held for their safety.
“It was a very, very serious weapon,” Blitzer said. “I don’t think he was trying to shoot me, but I was very close to him as the gunshots were fired. And it was very, very scary, but I’m OK now.”
Blitzer said that out of the roughly 30 White House Correspondents’ Dinners he has attended, he has never seen security as tight as it was Saturday.
Trump had been expected to deliver a lengthy speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The annual event had still attracted much of the usual crowd of media insiders even though the president spent the last year relentlessly attacking the press with lawsuits, investigations and juvenile insults.
Leavitt had been hyping Trump’s speech over the past week.
“It’ll be funny. It’ll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room,” she told Fox News on the event’s version of a red carpet earlier in the night. “So everyone should tune in. It’s going to be really great.”
Later at the press conference, Trump acknowledged that he would not have been able to deliver his speech as prepared after the shooting.
“I was all set to really rip it,” the president remarked. “And I said to my people, ‘This would be the most inappropriate speech if I said what [I had planned].’”
“So I’ll have to save it. I don’t know if I could ever be as rough as I was going to be tonight. I think I’m going to be probably very nice. I’ll be very boring with it next time, but we’re going to have a great event,” he added.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said the suspect has been charged with two counts and will be arraigned Monday.
