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President Trump told reporters Saturday night that he wanted the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner to go on after he was evacuated when shots rang out at the hotel where the event was taking place.
The suspect, who is in custody and hospitalized, has been identified by three law enforcement sources as 31-year-old Cole Allen of Torrance California. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the investigation is “ongoing,” and charges will be filed “shortly.”
The president said one Secret Service agent was struck by a round but was protected by a bulletproof vest.
Mr. Trump said he was “very far away” when the shots were fired and said the suspect “hadn’t come anywhere close to breach the doors of the room.”
Asked if he was concerned about the threats to his life, Mr. Trump said, “It’s a dangerous profession.”
Mr. Trump released photos of the suspect and a clip of security video of the incident, “showing the violence of this thug that attacked the Constitution, and also showing how quickly Secret Service and law enforcement acted.”
The evacuation occurred just after 8:30 p.m. ET after the sound of gunfire sent attendees scurrying and ducking under tables. Mr. Trump and first lady Melania Trump were whisked off the stage by Secret Service agents.
The suspect had a shotgun and handgun on him, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
Mr. Trump said he “heard a noise” and thought it was a “tray going down.”
“But it was a gun,” the president said. “And some people really understood that pretty quickly, other people didn’t. I was watching to see what was happening, probably should have gone down even faster. Melania was very cognisant, I think, of what happened. I think she knew immediately what happened.”
“We were whisked away, along with other people, but we were really whisked away,” he added.
Bo Erickson / REUTERS
One officer was shot but “saved by the fact that he was wearing a, obviously, a very good bulletproof vest. He was shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun,” the president said. “The vest did the job.”
The president said he spoke with the officer, and described him as being in good spirits.
“This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press,” the president said. “And in a certain way it did. Because the fact that they just unified, I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was, in one way, very beautiful, a very beautiful thing to see.”
Mr. Trump said the event would be rescheduled within the next 30 days. He added that he “fought like hell” to keep the event going, but law enforcement insisted otherwise.
White House Correspondents Association president and CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang asked Mr. Trump what he was feeling when it occurred, particularly after he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania. Mr. Trump said “it’s always shocking when something like this happens. Happened to me, a little bit. And that never changes.”
Mr. Trump also addressed political violence, saying “no country is immune.”
“It comes with the territory,” he said.
“We have to, we have to resolve our differences,” Mr. Trump said. “I will say you had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals and progressives. Those words are interchangeable, perhaps, but maybe they’re not. But yet everybody in that room, big crowd, record-setting crowd, there was a record-setting group of people, and there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together. I watched, I watched, and I was very, very impressed by that.”
