President Trump returned to the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Friday, three months after a gunman’s attack cut the annual event short and sent him and other officials scrambling for safety.
The original dinner, held at the Washington Hilton on April 25, ended abruptly when a man later identified as Cole Tomas Allen ran past a security checkpoint armed with a shotgun, a handgun and knives, exchanging gunfire with security before he was stopped. One Secret Service officer, Victor Gonzales, was struck in the chest but was protected by his vest and later released from the hospital. No one was killed. Trump vowed within days that the dinner would be rescheduled, and the WHCA eventually set the new date for July 24, this time at the Waldorf Astoria with a smaller crowd of roughly 700 people and tighter security, down from the more than 2,000 who typically attend at the Hilton.
Opening his remarks, Trump told the crowd “the show must go on,” a nod to his comments in the immediate aftermath of the April attack, and joked that “just like my presidency, the second time is always better.” Outgoing WHCA president Weijia Jiang used her own remarks to honor Officer Gonzales for confronting the gunman, telling the crowd the association refused to let “an act of violence have the final word.” The evening also recognized Washington Hilton staff for their response that night, and featured mentalist Oz Pearlman as the entertainment.
Trump, who has historically had a combative relationship with the press corps at this event, said he planned a softer tone than he’d originally intended for the April dinner, though he still took aim at incoming WHCA president Jacqui Heinrich, calling her tough and “nasty” as a reporter. The rescheduled dinner was framed by organizers less as a return to normal and more as a statement that the event, and the press corps behind it, wouldn’t be driven off by the earlier attack.