A group of agents had already whisked Trump out of the ballroom, while guests on the dais and seated across the room ducked under tables. Law-enforcement officers, clad in helmets and flak jackets and wielding long guns, materialized on the stage. One W.H.C.A. photographer took out his camera and pointed it at the fleeing crowd.
Trump insisted that the show would go on. (“I fought like hell to stay,” he later said.)
Eventually, we were moved back into the ballroom. There were cloth dinner napkins all over the ground. I took a seat at a table of half-eaten goat-cheese salads and an empty bottle of red wine. Over the loudspeaker, someone said that the “dinner service will resume momentarily.” Seconds later, the wranglers rushed us out—the President was leaving. We sprinted past Pete Hegseth and his wife, up the stairs and across the red carpet. National Guardsmen lined the rope where guests had posed earlier for photographs.
The motorcade drove back to the White House in three minutes. “We are flying,” as a veteran reporter in one of the vans put it. “Fastest motorcade I’ve ever been in.” Trump had announced on Truth Social that he would be giving a press conference shortly. I took a seat in the briefing room. The flags that typically stand behind the podium when the President speaks were hastily brought in. Trump appeared, flanked by Cabinet officials. Melania stood to the side with Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, whose maternity leave had started the day before. Reporters and staffers from the press office were still in tuxedos and evening gowns, some holding their high heels.
Trump spoke quietly. A man armed with multiple weapons had charged a security checkpoint, he said. The assailant had been taken down by the Secret Service and was in custody. “I’ve studied assassinations,” Trump said. “The people that have gone through this, where they got ’em”—he cited Abraham Lincoln—“the people that do the most, the people that make the biggest impact, they’re the ones that they go after.” He went on, “Just take a look at the names. They’re big names, and I hate to say that I’m honored by that, but I’ve done a lot. We’ve done a lot. We’ve taken this country, and we were a laughingstock for years, and now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. We’ve changed this country, and there are a lot of people that are not happy about that.” He also blamed the Hilton. “It’s not a particularly secure building,” he said. (A friend of mine used to sneak into an annual conference held there to avoid paying for a ticket.) “I didn’t want to say this,” Trump continued, “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 much more secure. It’s drone-proof, it’s bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom. That’s why Secret Service, that’s why the military are demanding it. They’ve wanted the ballroom for a hundred and fifty years for lots of different reasons. But today’s a little bit different.” He told us that we would try the dinner again soon, but that he might update his remarks. He’d been working with comedians on a speech roasting the press. “I was all set to really rip it,” he said. “I said to my people, This would be the most inappropriate speech ever if I made it now. So I’ll have to save it. I don’t know if I could ever be as rough as I was going to be tonight. I think I’m going to be probably very nice. I’ll be boring the next time.” ♦
