President Donald Trump was swiftly escorted off stage by Secret Service when shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday evening.
Reports suggest that the gunmen fired five to eight shots. The Secret Service confirmed that the gunman was taken into custody, as the situation is still under investigation.
Since the chaos erupted at the annual event, “Staged” has been trending on the social media platform X. One user wrote, “Shots fired, the Secret Service rushes in, and they let Trump continue to sit there? And now they’re going to resume the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and Trump still plans to deliver a speech?”
Continuing, the user wrote, “I’m not saying this was staged to boost Trump’s tanking approval numbers, but it certainly looks odd.”
Another user posted, “His approval ratings are so bad that he staged another assassination attempt to get out of the White House correspondents’ dinner.”
Multiple users brought up the president’s approval ratings in relation to the shooting incident at the annual event on Saturday. With about six months before the midterm elections, Trump approval rating has slipped to the mid-30s, according to recent polls by Reuters-Ipsos poll, Strength in Numbers-Verasight, and AP-NORC. The polls show that American approval of Trump’s handling of the economy, immigration, and the Iran war is plummeting.
One user on X posted a video of press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaking to Fox News before the WHCD event, where she made a remark before the shots rang out at the dinner. “It’ll be funny, it’ll be entertaining, there will be some shots fired tonight in the room,” Leavitt said of the speech Trump was supposed to give, “so everyone should tune in — it’s going to be really great.”
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The user responded to the video, writing, “It was staged.”
Chaos took over the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton hotel after a gunman opened fire. The Secret Service immediately rushed the president, first lady, and other officials out of the room. Other guests quickly ducked under their tables for protection, and the room was put into lockdown for roughly an hour.
The president then announced that the event would be rescheduled and that he would hold a press conference at the White House later in the evening.
The Secret Service confirmed the gunman was taken into custody. During the press conference, Trump said a man “with multiple weapons” charged a security checkpoint at the hotel before being apprehended by Secret Service officers. The president also shared the surveillance footage on Truth Social, which showed an individual running with great speed past the security checkpoint.
Two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that the shooting suspect was identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California.
Trump has faced multiple assassination attempts
Trump has been the target of multiple assassination attempts over the years, and renewed questions about his safety were brought up at the press conference.
One reporter asked Trump why he thinks he is frequently subject to assassination attempts. He replied, “The [presidents] that do the most, the people that make the biggest impact, 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. And when you look at the people that have either, whether it was an attempt or a successful attempt, and they’re very impactful people.”
The most serious assassination attempt was at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, when a gunman opened fire toward the stage and Trump’s ear was grazed by the bullet.
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting incident was at the Washington Hilton, which is the same hotel where John Hinkley Jr. tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
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