WASHINGTON (AP) — A man armed with guns and knives stormed the lobby outside a high-profile journalists’ dinner attended by President Donald Trump and multiple senior U.S. leaders on Saturday night, rushing toward the ballroom before Secret Service agents swarmed him and took him into custody. The president was uninjured and was hustled away.
Guests went diving under tables as the scene unfolded and some reported hearing shots outside the vast subterranean ballroom in the Washington Hilton where the event was being held.
One law enforcement official said a gunman had opened fire. A law enforcement officer was shot in the bullet-resistant vest but is expected to be OK, several sources told The Associated Press.
The shooting suspect — described by Trump as a “sick person” — was identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, two law enforcement officials told the AP.
“When you’re impactful, they go after you. When you’re not impactful, they leave you alone,” Trump, safe and uninjured and still in his tuxedo, said at the White House two hours later. “They seem to think he was a lone wolf.”
There was no immediate indication of any other involvement, and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said she had ”no reason” to believe anyone else was involved. Video posted by Trump showed the suspect running past security barricades as Secret Service agents ran toward him.
“There does not appear to be any sort of danger to the public at this time,” Bowser said at a separate news conference.
All officials protected by the Secret Service were evacuated. Those in attendance included Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — and many other leaders of the Trump administration on a night when the nation is at war with Iran.
It was the third time since 2024 that the president had been under threat by an attacker in his immediate vicinity — including the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, that injured him and killed a local firefighter.
“Today we need levels of security that probably nobody has ever seen before,” the president said. But he also said, “We’re not going to let anybody take over our society.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said charges related to Saturday night’s attack will be filed shortly, and that the nature of the charges would be obvious considering what had happened at the dinner. Blanche stressed that “the investigation is obviously ongoing and just started.”
FBI Director Kash Patel, flanking Trump, said the agency is examining a long gun and shell casings recovered from the scene, as well as interviewing witnesses from the dinner. He urged anyone with information to come forward.
Dinner turns to disorder
Guests were dining on a spring pea and burrata salad when noise began — noise Trump said he initially thought was a tray dropping but some journalists believed were five to eight gunshots.
The Secret Service and other authorities swarmed the room as guests ducked under tables by the hundreds. Audible gasps echoed through the ballroom as guests realized something was happening; hundreds of journalists immediately got on phones to call in information.
“Out of the way, sir!” someone yelled. Others yelled to duck. From one corner, a “God Bless America” chant began as the president was escorted offstage. He fell briefly — he apparently tripped — and was helped up by Secret Service agents. Outside the hotel, members of the National Guard and other authorities flooded the area as helicopters circled overhead.
After an initial attempt to resume, the event was scrapped for the night and will be rescheduled.
“We will do this again,” said Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. Shortly afterward, staff began breaking down table settings and the presidential lectern.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he and his wife, Kelly, who both attended the event, were “praying for our country tonight.” The House Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, said “The violence and chaos in America must end.”
The banquet hall — where hundreds of prominent journalists, celebrities and national leaders were awaiting Trump’s remarks — was immediately evacuated. Members of the National Guard took up position inside the building as people were allowed to leave but not immediately reenter. Security outside was also extremely tight.
Republican Rep. MIke Lawler of New York, a guest at the dinner, said he heard a pop and “we didn’t know what the hell it was. And then you heard all sorts of things clatter.” Lawler said he gets “death threats often” and said “I think we live in a climate where everybody recognizes its a problem, but I don’t think people fully appreciate how much of a problem it really is.”
The event had initially appeared set to resume after the disorder. Servers refolded napkins and refilled water glasses in preparation for Trump’s return. Another worker prepared the president’s teleprompter for the remarks he was scheduled to make.
Generally, the Hilton hotel, where the dinner has taken place for years, remains open to regular guests during the correspondents’ dinner, and security has typically been focused on the ballroom and rather than the hotel at large, with little screening for people not entering the dinner itself. In past years, that has created openings for disruptions in the lobby and other public spaces, including protests in which security moved to remove guests who unfurled banners or staged demonstrations.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. outside the Hilton — an event that prompted redesigns of the property that increased security and added a special presidential suite near the entrance where chief executives could be taken. Trump was dispatched there briefly after the incident Saturday night.
Event would have highlighted Trump’s relationship with press
Trump’s attendance at Saturday’s annual dinner in Washington for his first time as president is putting his administration’s often-contentious relationship with the press on full public display.
Trump arrived to an event where the leaders of a nation at war mingled with celebrities, journalists and even a puppet — Triumph the Insult Comic Dog — in a dinner that typically generates debate about whether the relationship between journalists and their sources should include socializing together and putting aside sometimes adversarial relationships.
Trump was being watched closely at the event held by the organization of reporters who cover him and his administration. Past presidents who have attended have generally spoken about the importance of free speech and the First Amendment, adding in some light roasts about individual journalists.
The Republican president did not attend during his first term or the first year of his second. He came as a guest in 2011, sitting in the audience as President Barack Obama, a Democrat, made some jokes about the New York real estate developer. Trump also attended as a private citizen in 2015.
Trump entered the banquet hall of the Washington Hilton to the strains of “Hail to the Chief” and greeted prominent journalists on the dais, also pausing to laud White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt with a cheerful pointing of his finger.
Past dinners have also featured comedians who poke at presidents. This year, the group opted to hire mentalist Oz Pearlman as the featured entertainment.
Between berating individual reporters, fighting organizations like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press in court and restricting press access to the Pentagon, the administration’s animus toward journalists has been a fixture of Trump’s second term.
A few dozen protesters stood across the hotel in the runup to the event. One was dressed in a prison uniform, wearing a Hegseth mask and red gloves. Another carried a sign saying, “Journalism is dead.”
AP journalists Michael Balsamo, Zeke Miller and Anna Johnson contributed to this report. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
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