WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday night that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect “attacked our constitution”, adding he wanted the annual event to go on.
“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,” Trump said during a press conference at the White House.
The suspect is alive, was taken into custody and is being treated for injuries, Trump said. The president praised the Secret Service’s quick action as well as the members of the press.
Trump said he “heard a noise” and thought it was a “tray going down.”
“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.
“The first lady and I were taken very quickly, rushed off the stage,” Trump said.
Trump struck an optimistic tone while speaking with the press, praising the reporters who covered the event, some of whom were still wearing their black-tie attire from the dinner in the briefing room.
“This was an event dedicated to the freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press, and in a certain way, it did,” Trump said. “I saw a room that was just totally unified.”
Trump also addressed political violence, saying “no country is immune.”
“We have to, we have to resolve our differences,” 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.”
