Donald and Melania Trump entered the hall at 8:16 to cheers and applause. “Hail to the Chief” was followed by presentation of the colors and the National Anthem. We had a brief introduction from Weijia Jiang, this year’s president of the White House Correspondents Association, followed by dinner.
Two questions hovered in the background. One, how would President Trump treat the press? And two, would he, as had many presidents in the past at this event, treat the audience to a little self-deprecating humor? “Donald Trump” and “self-deprecation” are not words you often hear together, but who knows? The President is also a master communicator who reads his audience well.
We never found out. At about 8:35, four loud noises were heard from the back of the room. They were shots.
The Secret Service rushed on to stage. “Get down, stay down!” The President and First Lady, and rest of the head table, were evacuated. Cabinet secretaries and other dignitaries were hustled out of the room. It emerged that a couple of protesters had made their way to the red carpet upstairs where they waved signs calling for Pete Hegseth to be arrested. Did any make their way downstairs to the ballroom? As of this writing that is not known. We do know that the shooter, a 31-year-old Californian man, is in custody. What will the anti-Trump press say about this incident? How about Chuck Schumer? Will there be any remorse, any self-reflection on the consequences of their industrial-strength hatred for Donald Trump? I am not counting on it.
Meanwhile, the President seems to be taking the event in stride. “Quite an evening in D.C.,” he posted shortly after the shooting. “Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’ but, will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement. They will make a decision shortly. Regardless of that decision, the evening will be much different than planned, and we’ll just, plain, have to do it again.” Sang, meet froid.
The President then added this addendum: “Law Enforcement has requested that we leave the premises, consistent with protocol, which we will do, immediately. I will be giving a press conference in 30 minutes from the White House Press Briefing Room. The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition. We will be speaking to you in a half an hour. I have spoken with all the representatives in charge of the event, and we will be rescheduling within 30 days.”
The Hilton was the site, in 1981, of John Hinckley Jr. attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. The venue is still used, but the security is much tighter… Watching this year, I wonder whether so much self-satisfaction was ever crowded into a single room? The judges are still out on that question. This 105th iteration of the media’s celebration of itself, in which some 2600 souls are stuffed into the Hilton’s ballroom, might give us an answer. Beforehand, among many other celebrities, much of the president’s Cabinet milled around the red carpet and White House Correspondent Association’s step-and-repeat upstairs while the cameras flashed, the microphones bristled, and the video rolled. RFK Jr. was there, as was Lee Zeldin, Doug Bergum, Tulsi Gabbard, Scott Bessent, Marco Rubio, Kari Lake, Pete Hegseth, and others.
“The First Amendment,” “Free Speech,” “A Free Media” are different ways of enunciating what the dinner is supposed to be all about. Not much mention, if any, will be given to the clamp down on free speech under the Biden administration or the liberating revolution sparked by Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and his campaign to restore speech to the platform and hence to the wider media environment.
Donald Trump has probably given the media more access to his thoughts than any president in history. At least part of many of his Cabinet meetings are open to the media and he seldom boards or exits a plane without stopping to answer questions. If he thinks a question is stupid or ill-informed, he will say so. Fake news he treats as fake news. The media hates that, of course, but has anyone ever treated them more like adults?
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