It happened again. Nearly two years after hitting the ground while gunfire rang out in Butler, Pennsylvania, I found myself dropping to the floor of the Washington, DC, ballroom where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was held, once again only yards away from President Donald Trump as bullets were fired.
The venue was different. This time, thousands of Washington’s elite huddled under dinner tables in their finest attire as the chaos unfolded. In Butler, there were hundreds of Trump supporters, donning denim shorts and MAGA tees, crouching down in alarm in the grass – or for journalists like me, hiding by the risers with my television crew – as bullets flew overhead.
But the feeling was the same: confusion, panic, fear, and a lot of unanswered questions.
Last night I thought to myself, “This can’t be happening again. Surely, that wasn’t gunshots.”
Then we saw law enforcement rush into the room, ushering the president and Vice President JD Vance off the stage while others grabbed Cabinet officials from their tables.
Thankfully, the shooting at the Washington Hilton resulted in no deaths, unlike in Butler where one of the bullets killed Trump supporter and father Corey Comperatore.
Major questions remain regarding how the gunman was able to get inside the hotel, where the most powerful people in the country were gathered, albeit one level up from the president. There were similar questions about security following the assassination attempt Butler, with one more glaring than the rest: how could this happen?
