WASHINGTON — Directly outside the Washington Hilton ballroom, as the yearly White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner got underway Saturday, a Times reporter had just entered the men’s room when he heard a handful of loud pops ring out.
“Shooter!” someone shouted. “Get down! Shots fired!”
Inside the ballroom, thousands of journalists and politicians began to duck for cover as the event devolved from a celebration of free speech to a scene of fear.
The Times had six reporters at the dinner, seated at a table near the right side of the stage.
The Times reporter in the restroom, Gavin Quinton, heard the gunfire around 8:30 p.m. He had left The Times’ table minutes earlier, moving past the TV cameras and up toward the raised terrace near the ballroom’s security entrance. He crossed paths with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.
Outside the restroom, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, had broken into a sprint through the metal detectors, security footage would later show, getting within feet of the ballroom entrance.
Five or six shots fired by Secret Service agents missed Allen before agents brought him down near a staircase leading to the main floor, where Trump sat prominently in view.
A federal agent was hit in the chest in the exchange of gunfire but was wearing a bullet-proof vest and not seriously injured.
Inside the restroom, Quinton crouched near a corner. Others rushed into the room, including three hotel security guards who flung themselves in so quickly their backs slammed against the tiled wall. Within moments, a Secret Service agent positioned himself at the bathroom entrance, his pistol drawn.
“Head count?” he asked.
“A dozen — no, 15!” someone shouted back.
People stayed locked in bathroom stalls. Some tried to overcome the poor cellphone service to call loved ones. Confused, the mix of tuxedo-clad attendees, uniformed hotel guards and waitstaff tried to piece together what had happened.
“He had a gun,” one of the hotel guards said.
Another witness told Quinton that he initially thought Blitzer had been the shooter’s target.
“I look around and I hear shots as I’m opening the door. And I turn and I see him,” the man said of the gunman. “I look again and I’m like, ‘Oh, they just shot someone.’ ”
Blitzer, who was tackled to the floor by officers during the incident, would later say that “the first thing that went through my mind was whether he was going to shoot me.”
As the group speculated over whether the shooter had died in the volley, one man wondered aloud whether the event would continue. Initially thinking the gunman must have been killed, Quinton replied no.
“Why not?” the man asked. “It’s a bad guy who’s dead. It was a good f— ending. Seriously.”
The Washington Hilton has hosted the annual correspondents’ dinner for decades. The event, referred to locally as “Nerd Prom,” now comes with a slate of pre-parties and after-parties.
This was the president’s first appearance at the dinner since 2015; he had skipped it during his entire first term.
Questions now surround the security protocols. Guests faced little screening to enter the hotel on Saturday — a quick flash of a paper ticket — before heading down escalators to the only area with magnetometers, where bags were also searched.
Trump had entered the ballroom at 8:15 p.m. as the Marine band played “Hail to the Chief.”
Twenty minutes later, videos show, Secret Service officers with ballistic vests and long guns barked instructions to clear a path as they rushed into the ballroom and onto the stage.
One agent pulled Vice President JD Vance away. Another escorted Trump, who appeared to trip, but later explained he had been urged to drop to the floor.
Other officials — Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller — were quickly whisked away too.
At The Times’ table in the ballroom, nothing appeared amiss at first.
Waiters had just begun to clear plates of spring pea and burrata salad. The reporters did not hear the gunshots, but watched as the room fell silent and others began to drop from their seats and duck under the floor-length white tablecloths.
One reporter lost a shoe in the process and then feared a gunman would spot it. She dragged it under the table.
They stayed in place for several minutes, texting loved ones and waiting for an all-clear, but none came.
From under the tablecloth, reporters heard someone yell out, “God bless America! USA!” They feared that was the shooter.
It turned out to be Dan Scavino, White House deputy chief of staff. The chant did not catch on.
Eventually, others could be heard speaking loudly and dishes clanking. Guests began to peek out from under their tables and warily stand up. Uneasy laughter flickered about the ballroom.
Cellphone service inside the ballroom was spotty. There was confusion at first about whether a shooting had occurred or whether plates dropping to the floor had been mistaken for gunshots.
“I thought it was a tray going down,” Trump said later.
Just before 9 p.m., Weijia Jiang, a senior White House correspondent for CBS News who is president of the White House Correspondents’ Assn., told guests the program would “resume momentarily.”
A half hour later, Jiang returned to the stage and announced that law enforcement had requested guests leave the premises. She said Trump had told her no one was hurt and that he, the first lady and members of the Cabinet were safe.
In closing remarks, Jiang said journalism is a public service “because when there is an emergency, we run to the crisis — not away from it.”
“And on a night when we are thinking about the freedoms of the 1st Amendment, we must also think about how fragile they are,” she said. “I saw all of you reporting, and that’s what we do.”
Law enforcement and media leaders offered conflicting guidance. Quinton was among the first to evacuate the building, though the vast majority of guests waited inside for longer.
On his way out, he noticed a metal detector had already partially been dismantled when the shooter ran through.
Quinton passed the grounded shooter, restrained on his stomach, near the staircase just 20 or so feet from the bathroom entrance. He lifted his phone and recorded a brief, shaky video of the scene before security forced him out of the hotel and onto the street.
The entire spectrum of emotion was on display when security finally ordered everyone to evacuate. Women in gowns ran in fear. One man sobbed into the sleeves of his evening jacket.
Photos on social media showed others stopping to take selfies. Some drank wine straight form the bottle.
Quinton spotted the presidential motorcade outside of the hotel lobby at about 8:45 p.m. Around the same time, an ambulance arrived as about 100 event attendees were escorted out of the secured event perimeter.
More law enforcement was inside the hotel as guests exited the building, including agents from the Secret Service, ATF, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. National Guard soldiers replaced celebrities and politicians at the red carpet entrance.
Outside, Metropolitan police ushered people north on Columbia Road NW. Hungry guests in tuxedos filed into a nearby 7-Eleven. The dinner’s main course — prime beef and Maine lobster — had not been served.
At the White House afterward, Trump said the event would be rescheduled.
“We’re not going to let anybody take over our society,” he told reporters who had rushed to the news conference still dressed in gowns and black tie. “We’re not going to cancel things out because we can’t do that.”
Meanwhile, the night’s after-parties continued, though organizers attempted a more somber tone. MS NOW, for instance, told those who had RSVP’d that their “Democracy After Hours” party would be a “space for friends and colleagues to be together.”
Independent journalist Tara Palmeri posted a photo on the social media site X of a full party with blue mood lighting.
“People were still partying, still hitting WHCD afterparties last night,” she wrote. “Epstein corruption, an escalating Iran conflict, and an active shooter— and Washington just… kept going. The cognitive dissonance is the system.”
On Sunday morning, the Washington Hilton appeared back to normal, except for the presence of journalists using the hotel as a backdrop for their live shots.
