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Shots Fired at White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump Evacuated, Suspect Detained, No One Injured
by The Epoch Times.com, April 25, 2026
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were evacuated from the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Washington Hilton on Saturday evening after an assailant breached a security checkpoint near the ballroom and shot a Secret Service agent.
The Secret Service has confirmed that the president, the first lady, and all protectees are safe. The agency said the alleged shooter is in custody.
Several Epoch Times staff on the scene heard shots at about 8:40 p.m. and witnessed the reaction. Immediately after around five shots rang out, Secret Service agents rushed the stage.
Later in the evening Trump shared photos on Truth Social of the alleged suspect on the ground, with his arms behind his back. He also posted security footage showing a man rushing through the security perimeter.
“He was running full blast,” Trump said during a press briefing at the White House after the incident. “And they got him before they got any further, I was very far away.”
The president also confirmed that one Secret Service agent had been shot during the incident.
“One officer was shot, but saved by the fact that he was wearing an obviously, a very good bulletproof vest,” Trump said from the White House briefing room. “He was shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun.”
The president said he had spoken with the agent and that he was “doing great.”
Trump said the suspect is from California and authorities were going to investigate his apartment. He described the man as “very sick.”
“My impression was that he was a lone wolf,” Trump said.
At the briefing, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche praised law enforcement and said the investigation is “ongoing and just started.”
“The charges should be self evident, given the conduct, but as you'll hear, there will be multiple charges surrounding the shooting, around the possession of firearms and anything else that we can get on this guy,” he said.
“There is federal law enforcement already working on search warrants and doing their job, and I don’t want to get ahead of them.”
FBI Director Kash Patel urged people to call the agency with tips if they had information. He said that the process of examining the suspect’s background had already begun.
“We will analyze all evidence immediately to make sure that we safeguard this country,” Patel said at the briefing.
Trump was attending the dinner for the first time as president and he was scheduled to deliver a speech at approximately 9 p.m. ET. He was seated on stage at the front of the ballroom.
During the briefing, he recounted that he heard a noise at the dinner and thought it was “a tray going down.”
Though the shooter’s exact motivations were unclear, Trump indicated he thought he was the target. “I guess,” he said, when asked whether he thought the shooter was targeting him.
“The people that do the most, the people that make the biggest impact,” he said. “They’re the ones that they go after. They don’t go after the ones that don’t do much, because they like it that way.”
Trump faced two assassination attempts as a candidate during the 2024 presidential race, including one at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump told reporters on Saturday night that he wouldn’t stop participating in events because of the violence he faced.
Suspect Facing Multiple Charges After Shooting at WH Correspondents’ Dinner
The Justice Department said on April 25 that the suspect behind the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner faced at least two charges and would be arraigned after the weekend.
“The defendant will be arraigned on Monday in federal district court, but make no mistake, there will be many more charges based upon the information that we are learning in this very fluid situation,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said during a press conference with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Pirro said that the suspect faced a count of using a firearm during a crime of violence, as well as a count related to assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.
Bowser said that both the suspect and a Secret Service agent were transported to the hospital.
In an earlier briefing at the White House, President Donald Trump said a Secret Service agent was shot in the incident. The president added that he had spoken with the agent and that he was “doing great.”
Trump said the suspect was from California and that authorities were going to his apartment. Also at the podium was Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said the investigation was ongoing.
Pirro said it was “clear, based upon what we know so far, that this individual was intent on doing as much harm and as much damage as he could.”
According to Interim D.C. Chief of Police Jeff Carroll, the suspect was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives. “As he ran through that checkpoint, members of law enforcement from the United States Secret Service intercepted that individual,” Carroll said.
He added that the man appeared to be acting alone. “There does not appear to be any sort of danger to the public,” Carroll said.
Carroll said the investigation was in a preliminary stage but that he believed the suspect was a guest at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner took place.
“We'll go through video across the hotel to figure out how the gun got in, how it got down here,” he said.
FBI Director Kash Patel urged people to call the agency with tips if they had information. He said that the process of examining the suspect’s background had already begun.
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