INSIDE THE BALLROOM: Being at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner During an Assassination Attempt on Trump

“What’s happening??”

It was Elizabeth Mitchell, the Daily Signal’s White House reporter. She was seated next to me at Saturday evening’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. There was urgency and confusion in her voice.

Our table was to the right of and somewhat back from the dais, where President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, First Lady Melania Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang of CBS News were seated, along with others.

Elizabeth was looking in that general direction. I was looking at my salad. I turned toward her as she spoke. In a split second, before I tried to see what was happening, I knew, or at least feared, that something was very, very wrong.

I had been a White House reporter for many years, from the second term of Bill Clinton to the first of Trump. I know very well that “what’s happening?” is not a question you need to ask at a presidential event. Because, there is a plan, worked out days, weeks, or even months in advance, and everything always proceeds calmly according to plan. Surprising things may be said at a White House event—although even that was fairly unusual before Trump— but nothing surprising ever happens.

The night had seemed about the same as the dozen or so White House Correspondents’ dinners I had attended in the past, except for the massive security presence, which has grown around presidential events consistently since 9/11. Outside the venue was a vast Praetorian Guard of police and roadblocks, inside a proliferation of law enforcement, including Secret Service, who were somewhat identifiable even in their tuxes, intently surveying the area and looking incongruously unsociable.

A lot of this event is not as glamorous as you’d think. It doesn’t particularly need to be on your bucket list. You might find yourself chatting amicably with a celebrity, especially when Democrats have the White House, and Hollywood descends on the party.

I had crashed several pre-dinner cocktail parties that were onsite at the Washington Hilton, known archly among veteran journalists as the “Hinckley Hilton,” since that’s where John Hinckley tried to kill Ronald Reagan. These are all jammed with sweaty journalists and their guests, done up in tuxedos and dresses, climbing over each other to try to get to the bar. Kind of like a penguin colony diving into the ocean.

I was mainly seeking bourbon sours and hors d’oeuvres, which tend to be better than the dinner itself. Not this year, though, because the main plate would be “Prime Chateaubriand & Maine Lobster.” I hadn’t been to one of these events in a number of years, and I was delighted to find that the bartenders’ pouring arms had stiffened significantly, with my second bourbon sour amounting to more of a bourbon with a splash of sour. So I was in pretty good spirits, pun intended, by the time we were ordered to wander over to the ballroom for dinner.

Everything proceeded as planned. The president was introduced to the glorious notes of Hail to the Chief, played in person by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band. Next was The Presentation of Colors, one of my favorite parts, in which the flag of each armed service is marched over to the president as the sublime Trio Section of the National Emblem is played. Our salads, bread, and bottles of red and white wine had preceded us at the table, and we began to eat and drink to the clatter of silverware and the patter of light conversation.

“What’s happening??”

I turned to the middle of the room and saw people starting to lower themselves instinctively to avoid danger. Everything had been perfectly normal, and now nothing was normal at all. There was some kind of general commotion in the middle of the room, and someone went racing from the back directly toward the dais. That must be it, someone is speeding toward the president to try to kill him, I thought. I looked over at the dais, but there was suddenly no one seated at the head table, as if the thing had been decapitated.

The runner had disappeared into the activity in front of the dais, where tuxedoed Secret Service were leaping across tables and chairs. I thought they were subduing an attacker, but it turned out they were mainly trying to both get in front of the main table and start removing Cabinet secretaries in the line of succession. People in military uniforms materialized out of nowhere on the dais and trained their rifles on the crowd in case a bad guy popped out.

The room faded to silence. Many guests ducked under tables, but while there was fear in some faces, there was also a notable and admirable absence of panic. Instinct from my reporting years kicked in and I started taking video and stood up to get a better view.

Someone burst through the silence defiantly proclaiming, “God bless America” and trying to get a “USA! USA!” chant going, but everyone else realized that was a dumb idea while the Secret Service was trying to do its job, and he and one or two others quickly stifled it.

Soon, the silence rose to a murmur, and guests were just standing or sitting and waiting to be told what to do. People a thousand miles away watching the news began to know more than we did, texting us information, some of it wrong. “There was an explosion.” “One assailant was shot and killed, another taken to the hospital.” No explosion, no one killed. There were shots, and some in the room had heard them. I didn’t.

And then, a waiter blankly came by to start clearing the salads. As if absolutely nothing had happened. I guess people seemed like they were finished with their salads. He soon disappeared.

We were told to stay, the event would continue. That seemed quite unlikely. A little later, we were told to leave. And we did.