Whoa. This is …. strange. I was looking for something for my “Later Night” column that you are reading right now, but what happened and what’s in the news, well, wow and whoa. I never wanted something like this. Yes, I’m serious, it’s strange, because this is about the last place you would ever expect this to happen. You know some of this already, but I worked on this and don’t want to throw it away. My thanks to CNN and to Raw Story:
Journalists covering the White House Correspondents’ Dinner described the chaotic scene that led to the evacuation of President Donald Trump and a shooter reportedly dead. “I did not hear any shots. You just hear yelling like a commotion, someone coming through the room,” a journalist told C-SPAN commentators during live coverage of the dinner. “I instinctively got under the table. Other people got under the table.”
A shooter. At the Correspondents’ dinner. Trump was attending. That’s somewhere I would *never* expect anything like this to happen. The only “sense” in it was that Trump was there. Now he isn’t. I wonder if they’ll continue now that the situation is under control. I kinda hope so. People deserve their moment in the spotlight. It would be a good way to return normality to the room. I’m betting they won’t, though. It’s a pity.
CNN journalist Brian Stelter told viewers that Oz Pearlman was talking to President Donald Trump at his table, “and all of a sudden all hell broke loose.” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported that the dinner was in a “total state of chaos in the ballroom” and that there was “a shooter outside” before it was verified.
“We are now basically locked inside the ballroom,” Collins added. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” Other journalists told C-SPAN commentators that they were “not sure what happened,” but suddenly they saw “Secret Service running on tables.”`
Right off, we can say running on tables is *hard*, so kudos to the Secret Service men who were able to do so. And kudos to them for what they did all over that ballroom. I don’t think they would be running on tables if there *wasn’t* something outside that would endanger Trump. I know they are trained for this sort of thing, but still!
Annnd just got this from CNN:
- President Donald Trump was swiftly escorted off stage by Secret Service after shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, on Saturday. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and his Cabinet members are all safe, sources said.
- CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was outside the main ballroom where the dinner was taking place when he heard gunshots from just a few feet away. Police officers ushered him to safety.
- The dinner program will resume soon, the press association’s president announced. Trump was taken to a secure location and wants to return to the dinner, but the Secret Service does not want him to, according to administration officials.
It seems everything came out okay except for the shooter, and YAY for everyone deciding to keep going with the dinner. That’s awesome. What a night this is for all of them. They will most certainly remember it! It will be a topic of conversation for a long, long time.
See you tomorrow!
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So many in the world says it was staged. I have so many questions. Wasn’t there security throughout the hotel? Wasn’t it sweeped? How did the shooter get from room to elevator to ballroom without being seen with a SHOTGUN! Why did they drag Vance out sooner than 47 (that had to been at least 60 or 90 seconds before they moved 47) and why did 47 fall to the ground – hard time walking now? If it wasn’t staged – security has a lot to answer for.
Secret service seems to have done it’s job as they were supposed to – right?
Huh. I had completely not seen it as staged. If the guy was wearing a jacket (it looked like they stripped him in the picture I saw) it’s easy to hide a shotgun under one of those. As to the remainder of security, I don’t have an answer for that. Trump always has Secret Service so maybe the concern wasn’t as great as it could have been. Sweeping the building is easy. They couldn’t exactly check rooms, just the rest of it. I would assume they brought the dogs in to do a sweep, too. 47 was going to make a speech and leave.
I have no real answers, only guesses for why they took Vance out before 47. We have known that 47 has had a walking problem for awhile, which may be why Vance was first. They knew they would have trouble with 47. He’s also having breathing problems, as we found out when he was trying to make a speech earlier this month, I think.
I vote for staged, just like every so-called attempt has been so far. Rump planned on making a scene at that dinner anyway. How much more does he get out of this? Disgusting!
Every “attempt” thus far, before this one, could have been staged, yes, even the one in Butler and did they actually kill the shooter? We did know that he had planned to make a scene on the way out. It was leaked. The question is, will he remember it and will he use it somewhere else? We all know his brain is rotting. It’s pretty elaborate for this one to be staged. In the manifesto, he said Trump administration and not Trump, which I thought was interesting.
Yea, he’ll get far too much mileage out of this one.