Gunfire erupts at White House correspondents dinner, Weijia Jiang recounts chaos

The last thing Weijia Jiang saw before the room exploded into panic was Melania Trump’s expression of shock and delight at a magic trick on the dais. Moments later, Jiang said, gunfire cracked through the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton, and she followed Donald Trump as he hit the ground before dropping to her own hands and knees.

Jiang, a CBS News senior White House correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, had spent eight months planning the dinner and hoped it would restore some normalcy between the Trump administration and the press. More than 2,500 journalists and guests were gathered in the ballroom, and about 2,600 people were inside when the attack began. The Marine Corps Band had just played the national anthem, and the dais held Trump, Melania Trump, press secretary Karoline Leavitt and entertainer Oz Pearlman, who had been performing a guessing trick.

Authorities said the suspect, identified by law enforcement sources as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, had breached a Secret Service checkpoint outside the ballroom. That security area was separated from the event space by a staircase. Officials said Allen was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives. At least five to eight shots were fired. A Secret Service officer was struck, but the bullet was stopped by a bulletproof vest.

No attendees were seriously injured, but the chaos forced the evacuation of Trump, the first lady, Vice President JD Vance and cabinet members including Marco Rubio, Todd Blanche, Markwayne Mullin and Pete Hegseth. The dinner, which draws prominent journalists, officials and guests, was being held in a setting meant to celebrate the First Amendment and support journalism scholarships and awards. Trump’s appearance also marked the first time he had attended the correspondents’ dinner as president, after 15 years of boycotting it.

In the aftermath, the White House Correspondents’ Association thanked the Secret Service and law enforcement for protecting thousands of guests and praised journalists in the room for their calm and courage. The association said its board would meet to assess what happened and decide how to proceed. Officials said Allen had traveled to Washington by train and was believed to have checked into the hotel on Friday before the event. He was expected to be arraigned Monday in federal court in Washington. The breach cut through one of Washington’s most closely watched rituals, raising immediate questions about how an armed suspect got past layered security and into the orbit of the president.