US President Donald Trump survived another assassination attempt on Saturday evening, the third in two years, during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
US Secret Service agents bundled President Trump from the stage, as shots rang out at a media gala, in what the president later described as an attack by a “would-be assassin”.
Armed guards opened fire at the gunman, who charged through a security checkpoint just outside the ballroom of the hotel, where Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, senior government officials and hundreds of other black-tie guests had gathered.
“A man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons and he was taken down by some very brave members of the Secret Service,” Trump told a press conference at the White House, shortly after the incident.
“They seem to think he was a lone wolf and I feel that too,” he said, after posting video of the gunman sprinting past security, as guards drew their weapons. The man was detained at the scene.
Trump insisted that the incident would not deter him from the Iran war, although he believed the incident was unlikely linked to the conflict.
City officials said the suspect, who will be arraigned in court on Monday on firearm and assault charges, appeared to have been a guest at the hotel. He was armed with a shotgun, handgun and knives.
“Law enforcement exchanged gunfire with the individual,” Washington police chief Jeffrey Carroll told reporters. “A US Secret Service uniformed division officer was struck in his vest. “He was transported to a local hospital for treatment. He appears to be in good spirits.”
Trump was the target of an assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024. A gunman fired several shots, killing an audience member and lightly wounding the president in the ear.
A few months later, another man was arrested, after a Secret Service agent saw the barrel of a rifle poking from the bushes on the perimeter of the West Palm Beach golf course, where Trump was playing a round.
The Washington Hilton, where Saturday’s gala was taking place, was the site where Republican President Ronald Reagan was shot by a would-be assassin in 1981. (AFP)
