Moment Trump and Melania rushed off stage during shooting at Washington dinner
An apparent would-be assassin stormed a dinner event in Washington DC where Donald Trump was preparing to address top US journalists.
Gunshots rang out at the hotel where the formal White House Correspondents’ Dinner was taking place on Saturday evening, with one Secret Service agent hit but ‘in good spirits’, the President said.
Dramatic footage from the scene shows personnel rushing on stage to usher away Trump, his wife, Melania, and several other top administration officials.
Multiple agents in full protective gear then replace them, pointing their guns across the room and over the heads of hundreds of high-profile guests.
Officials said the attacker was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives when he charged at a security checkpoint by the ballroom.
Trump later posted pictures of the suspect in the shooting lying face down on the carpeted floor, topless.
US outlets identified him as Cole Thomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California.
Washington police chief Jeffery Carroll said it was believed the suspect had been staying as a guest at the hotel where the event was taking place.
He has been charged with one count of using a firearm during a crime of violence and another of assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.
According to reporters in the room, commotion was heard towards the back of the ballroom just after 8.30pm on Saturday evening, while attendees were being served the first course of their meal.
Shooting marks third time President Trump was under attack
It was the third time since 2024 that the president had been under threat by an attacker in his immediate vicinity – including the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, that injured him and killed a local firefighter.
In 2024, Trump narrowly avoided death when a madman shot at a rally he was speaking at in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The moment after the bullet ‘grazed’ his ear, Trump triumphantly pumped a fist and shouted ‘fight’, a moment which was immortalised in a famous photo.
Just months later, Ryan Routh, 59, set up a sniper’s nest on the edge of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course in Florida before being intercepted by the Secret Service.
The would-be attack was thwarted just months after Trump survived his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
When Routh was found guilty of the crime in September, he tried to stab himself in the neck with a pen in a Florida courtroom.
The President, the First Lady, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had taken their seats minutes before.
At a press conference around 90 minutes after the attack took place, Trump described the suspect as a ‘very sick person’ who appeared to be a ‘lone wolf’.
Still wearing a bow tie and tuxedo, he suggested the incident strengthened the case for his grand new ballroom development in the east wing of the White House, which is being challenged in the courts.
He said: ‘I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House.
‘It’s actually a larger room, and it’s a much more secure. It’s got — it’s drone proof, it’s bulletproof glass.’
Last night’s dinner took place at the Washington Hilton, which was previously the scene of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr, in 1981.
Trump said the incident on Saturday was a ‘rather traumatic experience’ for Melania, who declined to answer questions at her husband’s press conference.
It is the third time in two years that a gunman appears to have come close to firing at Donald Trump.
The other two incidents took place ahead of the 2024 US Presidential Election, which he would go on to win.
Yesterday evening marked the first time Donald Trump had attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a formal event intended to celebrate freedom of the press, in either of his terms.
Trump said the postponed ceremony will take place soon.
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