At the exact moment gunshots erupted at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a mentalist was revealing the name of press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s unborn daughter to President Trump
In the seconds before gunfire shattered the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, President Donald Trump was watching a mentalist try to guess the name of his pregnant press secretary’s unborn daughter.
Trump revealed the details Sunday on CBS News’ 60 Minutes, describing the extraordinary collision of spectacle and chaos that unfolded Saturday night at the Washington Hilton as a 31-year-old Los Angeles teacher stormed toward the ballroom with two guns and opened fire on law enforcement. No guests were killed, and the suspect is in custody.
Entertainer Oz Pearlman, billed as “the mentalist,” had been performing at the head table for Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is expecting a baby within days.
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Pearlman had accepted a challenge from Leavitt to guess the name she had chosen for her daughter, working letter by letter toward a reveal he had written on a sheet of notebook paper.
It was at that precise moment, paper in hand, the table leaning in, that everything changed. CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell, who was in the room, pressed Trump on the experience during an interview on 60 Minutes.
“I was in the room not far from you, Mr. President. I could hear what sounded like gunshots or commotion,” O’Donnell said.
“Right,” Trump replied. “People nearby could smell the gunpowder. Everybody hit the floor. How worried were you that there were going to be injuries?” O’Donnell asked.
“I wasn’t worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world,” Trump said. O’Donnell asked Trump when he first realized something was wrong.
“Right around that point,” Trump said. “In fact, you can see the expression on the First Lady’s face and your president of the evening, chairman or president or both, who was doing a great job, by the way…”
“Weijia Jiang, of CBS News,” O’Donnell offered. “She was a terrific person,” Trump said. “They were asking the name of Karoline’s child, whom he didn’t know, I guess.”
O’Donnell confirmed, “Your press secretary is expecting, and he was trying to guess the baby’s name.”
“That’s right,” Trump said. When O’Donnell noted that Melania Trump appeared visibly alarmed in footage from the event, Trump was measured but candid.
“I don’t want to say, and people don’t like having it said that they were scared. But certainly, I mean, who wouldn’t be when you have a situation like that?” Trump said. “By that time, I think she realized ahead of time that it was more of a bullet than it was a tray. And she was — I looked at her face just a little while ago before I came. I saw the scene. They played it for me and, you know, pretty good close-up. And she looked very upset about what had just taken place. Why not?”
The name “Vivian” had been written on the paper, revealed after the scene was secured. Trump later said he wanted the dinner rescheduled within 30 days.
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