Before Saturday, the routine at the many White House Correspondents’ Association dinners I’ve attended since 2000 has been the same. It’s “nerd prom” weekend in D.C. Before the dinner itself, journalists attend pre-parties wearing black tie. Then we file into the ballroom and chit-chat with friends, colleagues and others as we all find our tables.
Inside the Hilton ballroom, there’s the announcement of the vice president. Then, most years, there’s the announcement of the president of the United States and the first lady. With President Donald Trump in attendance Saturday night, this was how everything began. Like normal.
Before Saturday, I had never personally experienced a shooting event like this. Yet I intuitively knew what to do. Drop to the floor. Get under the table.
After the president and vice president entered, there was the trooping of the colors by members of the armed services with their flags and battle banners to the dais. The national anthem was sung and the colors were trooped out of the room.
A few remarks and then the dinner was underway. I was seated next to my MS NOW colleague Carol Leonnig. And then … POP, POP, POP, POP.
All of us dove for the floor. I don’t recall any screaming. How much of the silence in that room was learned behavior? This nation has endured hundreds of mass shootings just in the 20-plus years I’ve been attending this dinner — from politically or racially motivated events to other horrific slayings, like the deaths of eight children in Louisiana just last weekend. But I had never personally experienced a shooting event like this. Yet I intuitively knew what to do. Drop to the floor. Get under the table.
The few people who tried to drum up a “USA, USA” chant were shushed down. After I noticed that I was no longer hearing pops, I peeked over the table and grabbed the cellphone that I had left on the tabletop. I got video of various security teams whisking their protectees out of the room, away from the threat. And then, hands shaking, I tapped out text messages to my husband and my mom, letting them know that I was OK. After that, once we were allowed to go, I got out of the room.
Once out of the hotel, I found myself walking under the covered portico not far from where a gunman tried to take President Ronald Reagan’s life on March 30, 1981. Then I spotted the presidential vehicle still sitting outside the Hilton — the two Cadillac limousines adorned with the U.S. flag, the presidential flag and the presidential seal on the doors. I took a photo at 8:53 p.m. to mark the sadly historic moment. Trump was still inside the hotel.
By the time I got home, I saw that the president had said he wanted the show to go on. He wanted to return to the ballroom. But law enforcement protocols prevailed. Trump decamped to the White House, addressing the nation from the briefing room.
A few facts stand out even as investigators work to identify the background and motives of the man who charged a security checkpoint and was arrested Saturday: If it turns out the suspect was indeed trying to get to the president, it will be the third such attempt since July 2024. Whatever one’s politics, we should all be able to agree: Gun violence is a scourge on this nation. There were 408 mass shootings in the United States last year, according to the Gun Violence Data Hub. That counts incidents in which four or more people — excluding the shooter — were injured or killed. But mass shootings are a tiny fraction of gun incidents in this country. There were more than 14,000 shooting deaths in the United States in 2025 and even more injuries.
Once again, we have been reminded that even the president of the United States, the most protected individual in the world, is not immune from attempted gun violence. And those of us in the room with him Saturday were also not out of its reach.
Jonathan Capehart
Jonathan Capehart is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-host of MS NOW’s “The Weekend,” airing Saturdays and Sundays from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. He is a political analyst for PBS “NewsHour” and former member of The Washington Post’s editorial board and writes an occasional newsletter on Substack.