opening fire and rushing toward the ballroom<\/a>. A law enforcement officer was shot, with the bullet hitting his bulletproof vest.<\/p>\n\u201cHe was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives as he ran into that checkpoint,\u201d DC police chief Jeffrey Carroll said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point it does appear he is a lone actor, a lone gunman,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cThere does not appear to be any sort of danger to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump hosted a press conference at the White House shortly after the incident, joined by first lady Melania Trump, who appeared on the verge of tears when her husband mentioned prior assassination attempts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a tremendous amount of love and coming together I watched,\u201d the president said. \u201cI was very, very impressed by that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump revealed that he heard the gunshots, but was not immediately aware of the danger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard a noise, and thought it was a tray going down,\u201d he said. \u201cWe heard that noise, and it was either a tray or a bullet. I was hoping it was a tray.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president vowed to headline a new, rescheduled correspondents dinner within 30 days and to rework his prepared remarks, in which he said he had been prepared to rip into reporters.<\/p>\n
Trump praised White House Correspondents\u2019 Association president Weijia Jiang of CBS News, with whom he sat on stage, for her leadership, prompting the briefing room to erupt in applause. <\/p>\n
\u201cI fought like hell to stay,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey said, \u2018Please, sir,\u2019 because they didn\u2019t know \u2026 there was a lot of action going on, and they didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump said Allen \u201cwas fast \u2014 he was running full blast\u201d and \u201ccharged from 50 yards away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president said that he doesn\u2019t believe the attack was linked to the ongoing US-Israeli war with Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to deter me from winning the war In Iran. I don\u2019t know if that had anything to do with it. I really don\u2019t think so, based on what we know,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n
He also vowed to continue his hard-charging political style.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of other people, you know, you read stories when they become basket cases, to be honest with you. I\u2019m not a basket case,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to live because I want to make this country great. That\u2019s why I want to live. When you\u2019re impactful, they go after you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president declined to answer a question about how weapons were smuggled inside the hotel.<\/p>\n
Guests had to pass an outer security perimeter, where they were required to show either a ticket or an invitation to a pre-party. There was no screening for weapons except for immediately before the ballroom.<\/p>\n
A witness told The Post that the suspect appeared to emerge from a \u201cmakeshift room\u201d near the entrance where bar carts were being stored and where \u201cthere was no security\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was in that room [\u2026] he grabbed it out of a bag or something,\u201d said witness Helen Mabus, a volunteer working the event, adding that the weapon \u201cwas long\u201d and \u201cdidn\u2019t look like a typical gun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Witnesses described a frantic scene inside the venue after between four and eight shots were fired.<\/p>\n
Attendees dove under tables as confusion spread when a phalanx of armed Secret Service agents thundered down the central aisle.<\/p>\n
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who was sitting with the Washington Post, was stepped on by a Secret Service agent, a witness told The Post\u2019s Miranda Device. Dhillon confirmed that she suffered a \u201cfacial bruise\u201d during the mayhem.<\/p>\n
An elderly man in attendance also appeared to be injured and limped out of the ballroom with assistance.<\/p>\n
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was sitting with The Post about 40 feet from the president, said shortly afterwards that \u201cI was hoping the room hadn\u2019t been breached.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of high value targets in the room,\u201d Bessent said. \u201cThe president and vice president were both up on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also noted that the same hotel was \u201cwhere Reagan got shot\u201d in 1981 by John Hinckley Jr.<\/p>\n
It was not clear in the immediate aftermath of the incident what had occurred.<\/p>\n
Trump praised law enforcement for acting quickly as he revealed what happened on social media. <\/p>\n
\u201cQuite an evening in DC Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social, where he posted a photo of the suspect.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we \u2018LET THE SHOW GO ON,\u2019 but will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Witnesses described a frantic scene inside the venue after seven to eight shots were fired. C2 Education\/Facebook<\/p>\n
Law enforcement will soon search the suspect\u2019s Torrance residence, according to the president, and are \u201casking him a lot of questions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner on Saturday night has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2136,57,9,11,10,1069,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-210062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-metro","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-trump","14":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}