Tamara Keith was president of the WHCA from 2022-2023 and planned the 2023 dinner.
The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner has long been held at the Washington Hilton, which hosts a lot of high profile events at least in part because of a unique design that is specifically intended for presidential security. There’s even a special entrance for the president and a dedicated holding room behind the stage with a presidential seal engraved on the floor.
These design changes were made with intention after President Ronald Reagan was shot outside the hotel in 1981.
In the years when the president attends the WHCA dinner, the Secret Service takes over the security for the event, though numerous law enforcement agencies had personnel on site Saturday night. The hotel also hosts the annual National Prayer Breakfast in the same ballroom with similar government dignitaries and that event is also secured by the Secret Service.
The Washington Hilton is a busy hotel with more than 1100 rooms and many unrelated guests. There are also pre-dinner receptions and just a lot of people coming in and out. And, whenever this many people gather and when the president is out in public, there are always risks.
The closer you get to the ballroom, though, which is two levels down from the main lobby of the hotel, the tighter the security gets. Everyone has to show a ticket and go through airport security style screening. That screening takes place one floor above the ballroom entrance.
With those security realities and that hotel layout in mind, this is how events unfolded on Saturday evening: inside the ballroom, there was a lull in the program around 8:30 p.m. as the wait staff were coming around to pick up salad plates when a noise that sounded like a rapid burst of gunfire rang out. Secret Service agents came running into the room from all angles.
The president and vice president were pulled from the stage as guests took cover. Other security details climbed on tables and chairs searching the packed ballroom for cabinet secretaries, and the speaker of the house, people in the presidential line of succession and extracted them from the room.
What we know now is that the gunman was actually one floor above the ballroom. He ran through a security checkpoint headed for the stairs that lead down to the ballroom, but he was tackled before he got there.
There has been criticism that the alleged assailant was able to get as close as he was. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche addressed those concerns in a press conference at the Department of Justice on Monday afternoon.
“I want to make this clear. This man was a floor above the ballroom with hundreds of federal agents between him and the president of the United States,” Blanche said. “Law enforcement did not fail. They did exactly what they are trained to do.”
A senior White House official shared a statement on the condition of anonymity to speak freely saying the president stands by the Secret Service.
“President Trump has said he personally thinks they did an excellent job neutralizing the shooter and moving the President, First Lady, Vice President and cabinet to safety.”
The official went on to say that Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, will hold a meeting this week with top officials from DHS, the Secret Service and White House operations to discuss current security processes and procedures for the president.
The president has indicated he would like to hold another dinner in the next 30 days which seems logistically and financially unlikely. In an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday evening, he did encourage the WHCA to redo the event with tighter security — but stopped short of saying he would attend.
“We should do it within 30 days, and they’ll have even more security, and they’ll have bigger perimeter security,” Trump said. “It’ll be fine. But tell ’em to do it again.”
“It’s not that I wanna go. I’m very busy. I don’t need that,” he added.
But he implied he didn’t want to let the bad guys win and said, “I think it’s very important that they do it again.”
