Mentalist Oz Pearlman, who was performing a trick on stage during the shooting, recounted the moments when Secret Service agents tackled President Trump as he encountered the chaos in the ballroom.
“I’ll never forget the image for my whole life,” Pearlman shared with CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They bring the president down directly in front of me, and we just look at each other for about two seconds,” Pearlman said. He thought, “Oh no, are we about to die?”
Pearlman found himself standing between President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, entertaining press secretary Karoline Leavitt when the turmoil erupted. Initially, Pearlman thought there was a medical emergency, but then he feared there might have been a bomb in the room.
Taking cover under the table, Pearlman witnessed Secret Service agents tackle the president beside him, observing that the president “went down really hard.”
“We were looking at each other. He was just looking, but the expression on his face didn’t indicate whether there was pain or what was going on,” Pearlman noted.
Pearlman and others on stage crawled away, worried about gunfire, and described the minutes after the incident as “jarring.”
“It was chaos backstage,” he said.
