President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed out of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner by Secret Service agents on Saturday (April 25) night after a man opened fire with a shotgun on security personnel, officials said.

"A man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons, and he was taken down by some very brave members of the Secret Service," Trump said at a White House press conference after the incident.

Officials believe he is a "lone wolf" who acted alone, Trump said, adding that federal agents were raiding the California home of the suspected shooter.

After the sound of shots, dinner attendees immediately stopped talking and people started screaming “Get down, get down!" Many of the 2,600 attendees took cover while waiters fled to the front of the dining hall.

Other security personnel in combat fatigues stormed the stage and evacuated Trump and his wife. Some security personnel took up position on the stage, pointing their rifles into the ballroom. Cabinet members were evacuated from the venue one by one.

The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, a marquee fixture of Washington’s social calendar each year, was also attended by many members of Trump’s cabinet and other senior administration officials. The event is held in the basement ballroom of the Hilton hotel.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (APRIL 25, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all)

1. U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, WALKING TO PODIUM

2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

"A man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons and he was taken down by some very brave members of Secret Service and they acted very quickly."

3. WHITE FLASH

4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

"The man has been captured, they're going to his apartment, I guess he lives in California. And he's a sick person, a very sick person."

5. WHITE FLASH

6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

"One officer was shot but saved by the fact that he was wearing obviously a very good bulletproof vest. He was shot from (a) very close distance with a very powerful gun and the vest did the job. I just spoke to the officer and he's doing great, he's in great shape."

7. WHITE FLASH

8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

"No, I mean he was a guy who looked pretty evil when he was down, they had him down, he was fighting hard, he was in my opinion a sick person. Who would do that but a sick person? But I think you're going to find out everything about him, no reason to talk about it now but tomorrow at this time, long before this time you're going to know a lot fo things about him. They seem to think he was a lone wolf, and I feel that too."

9. WHITE FLASH

10. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

"We looked at all the conditions that took place tonight and I will say you know it's not a particularly secure building and I didn't want to say this 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 150 years for lots of different reasons but today's a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody's ever seen before."

11. WHITE FLASH

12. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

"But in light of this evening's events I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts in resolving our difference(s) peacefully. We have to resolve our differences. I will say, you have Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals, and progressives. Those words are interchangeable perhaps but maybe they're not, yet everybody in that room, big crowd, record-setting crowd, it was a record-setting group of people. And it was a tremendous amount of love and coming together, I watched and I was very very impressed by that."

WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (APRIL 25, 2026) (UNRESTRICTED POOL - Access all)

13. TRUMP LISTENING TO WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS ASSOCIATION CHAIRMAN, WEIJIA JIANG, ASKING QUESTION

14. JIANG ASKING QUESTION

WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (APRIL 25, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all)

15. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

"It's always shocking when something like this happens, it's happened to me a little bit and that never changes. The fact we were sitting next to each other, First Lady on my right, and I heard a noise and could have thought it was a tray, I thought it was a tray going down and I've heard that many times and it was pretty loud noise and it was from quite far away, he hadn't breached the area at all. They already got him. So it was quite far away, but it was a gun."

16. WHITE FLASH

17. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

"I was watching to see what was happening, probably should've gone down even faster. Melania was very cognisant I think of what happened, I think she knew immediately what happened. She was saying, that's a bad noise and we were whisked away along with other people, we were literally whisked away."

18. WHITE FLASH

19. TRUMP LEAVING PODIUM