The president Donald Trump humorously referred this Tuesday to the performance of the Secret Service during the attempted attack that occurred at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and he wryly described the moment when the agents rushed to pull Vice President JD Vance out of his chair in a matter of seconds.
Trump made the comments during the Rose Garden Club Dinner, an event held at the White House in honor of National Police Week, where he publicly thanked the director of the Secret Service, Sean Curran, for the response of his agents that night.
"I thought you did a great job two weeks ago. Do you know why? Because I'm here," Trump said, addressing Curran. "We consider being here a success," the president joked at one point during his speech shared by CBS News.
The president recalled the moment when the agents evacuated Vance and described it as "the view of the week": "I saw how they took JD by the shoulders and lifted him up as if he were a little child. I said, why didn’t they lift me up that quickly? They literally yanked JD out of his seat."
Trump concluded the comment by addressing the vice president directly: "But you did the job, JD, right? I think so."
The incident Trump was referring to occurred around 8:36 p.m. on April 25 at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C., the venue for the 105th Annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, which gathered approximately 2,600 attendees.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31 years old, a resident of Torrance, California, and a teacher by profession, ran into the security checkpoint armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and several knives.
Allen fired between five and eight times before being neutralized by Secret Service agents in the hotel lobby, without reaching the main hall where the attendees were located.
A Secret Service agent was injured by a projectile that was stopped by his bulletproof vest; there were no civilian casualties or fatalities.
Trump, Melania Trump, Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and several cabinet members —including Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel— were evacuated unharmed. It was the first time Trump attended the Correspondents' Dinner as an incumbent president during his second term.
After the attack, Trump posted on Truth Social: "The Secret Service and law enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely."
Allen was charged with four federal counts, including attempted murder of the president. This Tuesday, the same day Trump joked about the incident, Allen pleaded not guilty before federal judge Trevor McFadden. The next status hearing in the case is scheduled for June 29, 2026.
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