{"id":633160,"date":"2026-04-27T02:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T02:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633160\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T02:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T02:08:09","slug":"trump-tells-60-minutes-he-wasnt-worried-during-correspondents-dinner-shooting-white-house-correspondents-dinner-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633160\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump tells 60 Minutes he \u2018wasn\u2019t worried\u2019 during correspondents\u2019 dinner shooting | White House correspondents’ dinner shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump spoke with CBS correspondent Norah O\u2019Donnell in an interview that aired Sunday night on 60 Minutes<\/a> describing his ordeal at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association dinner when shots rang out.<\/p>\n

A gunman opened fire at the Washington Hilton hotel Saturday night, though he did not breach the basement-level ballroom where Trump was sitting at the time. The president described the events in an even tone, saying that he did not feel particularly alarmed as they unfolded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t worried,\u201d Trump said in the interview when asked how worried he was about possible injuries after hearing the gun shots. \u201cI understand life. We live in a crazy world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump told 60 Minutes that his curiosity probably slowed the Secret Service\u2019s efforts to rush him to safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to see what was happening,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t making it that easy for them. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of problem, a bad one \u2013 and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surrounded by great people,\u201d Trump added. \u201cAnd I probably made them act a little more slowly. I said, \u2018Wait a minute, wait a minute.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Secret Service officers, however, repeatedly told the president and first lady, Melania Trump, to hit the floor, Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started walking,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd they said, \u2018Please go down, please go down on the floor.\u2019 So I went down and the first lady went down also.\u201d<\/p>\n

Secret Service officers eventually led Trump and other administration members to safety<\/a> after the shots were fired.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement officers exchanged fire with the suspected gunman Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, at the hotel before tackling and arresting him. Allen was armed<\/a> with knives, a shotgun and a handgun at the time of his arrest.<\/p>\n

The shooting appears politically motivated<\/a> and may have targeted other top US officials in addition to Trump, according to the acting US attorney general, Todd Blanche.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do believe, based upon just a very preliminary start to understanding what happened, that he was targeting members of the administration,\u201d Blanche said in an interview<\/a> with CBS News on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The suspect allegedly sent writings to family members<\/a> fulminating against the Trump administration that some have described as a \u201cmanifesto\u201d. The 1,100-word screed is signed \u201cCole \u2018coldForce\u2019 \u2018Friendly Federal Assassin\u2019 Allen\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 60 Minutes interview got confrontational when O\u2019Donnell read portions of the manifesto on air that appeared to refer to Trump as a \u201crapist\u201d and a \u201cpedophile\u201d and asked Trump to react.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was waiting for you to read that, because I knew you would, because you\u2019re horrible people,\u201d Trump said. \u201cYeah he did write that, I\u2019m not a rapist \u2026 I read the manifesto. You know, he\u2019s a sick person. You shouldn\u2019t be reading that on 60 Minutes, you\u2019re a disgrace, but go ahead, let\u2019s finish the interview.<\/p>\n

Trump continued to take jabs at O\u2019Donnell for the rest of the interview. After she noted that Allen, the suspected shooter, had reportedly attended a \u201cNo Kings\u201d protest, Trump shot back: \u201cThe reason you have people like that, is you have people doing \u2018No Kings\u2019. I\u2019m not a king. What I am \u2013 If I was a king, I wouldn\u2019t be dealing with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding Trump\u2019s criticisms of the press, which he described as a \u201csoft on crime\u201d, he urged the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association to reschedule the event within the next 30 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to see it be canceled. I think it\u2019s really bad for a crazy person to be able to cancel something like this,\u201d Trump said, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s not that I want to go. I\u2019m very busy. I don\u2019t need that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump spoke with CBS correspondent Norah O\u2019Donnell in an interview that aired Sunday night on 60 Minutes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-633160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}