{"id":462,"date":"2026-04-26T01:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T01:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/04\/26\/trump-fought-like-hell-to-return-to-white-house-correspondents-dinner-after-shots-were-fired-shares-details-on-suspect\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T01:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T01:01:00","slug":"trump-fought-like-hell-to-return-to-white-house-correspondents-dinner-after-shots-were-fired-shares-details-on-suspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/04\/26\/trump-fought-like-hell-to-return-to-white-house-correspondents-dinner-after-shots-were-fired-shares-details-on-suspect\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump \u201cFought Like Hell\u201d to Return to White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner After Shots Were Fired, Shares Details on Suspect"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p> \tPresident Donald <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/trump\/\" id=\"auto-tag_trump_1\" data-tag=\"trump\">Trump<\/a> and first lady Melania Trump were rushed offstage and evacuated from the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association dinner after shots were fired at the Washington Hilton ballroom on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p> \tThe suspect, later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/general-news\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-suspect-identified-1236577378\/\">reported to be 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen<\/a>, was quickly taken into custody, and the rest of the dinner was postponed, with the WHCA and Trump saying it would be rescheduled within 30 days.  <\/p>\n<p> \tSpeaking to members of the media in a press conference at the White House after the incident, Trump said that the suspect was \u201carmed with multiple weapons\u201d and charged through a security checkpoint, and an accompanying <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116468650367386223\">video<\/a> of the incident was shared on the president\u2019s Truth Social page. He also revealed that an officer was shot, but \u201csaved by the fact that he was wearing a obviously very good bulletproof vest.\u201d  \t<\/p>\n<p> \t\u201cHe was shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun, and the vest did the job,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI just spoke to the officer, and he\u2019s doing great.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> \tThe president went on to commend the response time from law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n<p> \t\u201cThe response time was really incredible, and we\u2019re going to reschedule. We\u2019re gonna do it again, we\u2019re not gonna let anybody take over our society; we\u2019re not gonna cancel things because we can\u2019t do that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted to stay tonight. I will tell you, I fought like hell to stay, but it was protocol.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> \tTrump said that he had a \u201crough\u201d speech ready for the dinner, but that the events of Saturday night will likely shift his remarks to be \u201cprobably very nice.\u201d  \t<\/p>\n<p> \t\u201cI am ready, willing and able, and I was all set to really rip it,\u201d Trump said of his planned speech for the dinner, the first one he attended as president. \u201cI\u2019ll be very boring the next time, but we\u2019re going to have a great event.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> \tWhen answering questions from reporters, Trump said that he believed the suspect acted alone. During a separate press briefing, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro confirmed the suspect is being charged with using a firearm and assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon and added there will likely be \u201cmany more charges\u201d to come.<\/p>\n<p> \tTrump also recounted the moment as it happened, explaining that he initially thought a tray had dropped. The president said it sounded \u201cquite far away\u201d but recalled that the first lady was \u201cvery cognizant\u201d\u00a0that it could have been a shooting.<\/p>\n<p> \tTrump and the first lady were seated on the stage with the head of the White House Correspondents Association, CBS News\u2019 Weijia Jiang, when loud sounds were heard inside the dinner. Secret Service agents rushed the stage and escorted Trump, the first lady, Vice President J.D. Vance and others on the dais to safety.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Watch: Trump, Melania Evacuated Offstage at White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner | WSJ News\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" data-cookieconsent=\"statistics, marketing\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9Z3_6YAbwiI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><div class=\"cookieconsent-optout-statistics cookieconsent-optout-marketing\">Please accept <a href=\"javascript:Cookiebot.renew()\">statistics, marketing<\/a> cookies to watch this video.<\/div> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p> \tAfter roughly an hour of uncertainty about whether the dinner would continue and if Trump would return, as reporters mingled about the ballroom, Jiang announced that the rest of the event would be postponed and shared that law enforcement officials had ordered everyone to exit the premises.  \t<\/p>\n<p> \tA news executive on the scene shared details from inside the venue with <em>The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>. \u201cWe heard shots and people were huddled under the tables and\u00a0threw themselves on the ground as soon as the shots rang out,\u201d the exec said. \u201cBut the band kept playing. There was a lot of panic in one corner of the room, and it seemed like in other corners no one could hear what was going on. Some people here really want to get the hell out, but at the moment they are blocking everyone from leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> \tThe exec continued, \u201cEveryone is on the phone right now but reception here is very spotty. There\u2019s a pack of CNN reporters huddled around [CNN chief] Mark Thompson, all of them on their phones. It\u2019s like controlled pandemonium.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> \tTrump\u2019s attendance at this year\u2019s dinner was highly anticipated as it was his first appearance at the annual event as president, though he attended multiple times before he was elected, most famously in 2011 when both then-President Barack Obama and featured entertainer Seth Meyers poked fun at him while he looked unamused. Some have said that this experience <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/seth-meyers-compares-donald-trump-929355\/\">may have inspired Trump\u2019s decision<\/a> to first run for president in 2015.<\/p>\n<p> \tStill Trump\u2019s decision to attend was met with controversy as Dan Rather, the Society of Professional Journalists, and 350-plus other journalists and organizations signed a letter calling on the body to \u201cforcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump\u2019s efforts to trample freedom of the press.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> \t<em>More to come.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed offstage and evacuated from the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association dinner after shots were fired at the Washington Hilton ballroom on Saturday night. The suspect, later reported to be 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, was quickly taken into custody, and the rest of the dinner was postponed, with the WHCA and Trump saying it would be rescheduled within 30 days. Speaking to members of the media in a press conference at the White House after the incident, Trump said that the suspect was \u201carmed with multiple weapons\u201d and charged through a security checkpoint, and an accompanying video of the incident was shared [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,2,28,57,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-hollywood","category-news","category-trump","category-white-house-correspondents-association-dinner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}