Trump evacuated from Correspondents' Dinner following reported shots

[14:38] Simon Lakovich, Sarah Cook of CBS News, from Getty Images, Art Lima of CBS News, [15:07] Jackie Heinrich of Fox News, Bloomberg Justin Singh, the White House Press [15:34] Secretary Caroline Leavitt, from ABC News, Karen Travers, Trevor Hunnicutt from [15:55] Writers, Courtney Subramanin from Bloomberg News, from Time Magazine, Brian [16:10] Bennett. And join us in welcoming the President of the White House [16:21] Correspondents Association, from CBS News, Weijia Jiang. This evening, [16:36] Mentalist Ose Perlman. And now please welcome the Vice President of the United [16:50] States, J.D. Vance. 45th and 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, [17:34] and First Lady Melania Trump. Gentlemen, please rise for the nation's colors [18:20] presented by the Joint Armed Forces Color Guard and please remain standing for our [18:25] national anthem performed by the U.S. Marine Band. Ladies and gentlemen, please [22:21] welcome the President of the White House Correspondents Association from CBS [22:25] News, Weijia Jiang. Welcome. Welcome to the 2026 White House Correspondents [22:40] Dinner. Thank you to the President's own Marine Corps Band led by drum major, [22:44] Master Gunnery Sergeant Steven Williams, and vocalist, Master Gunnery Sergeant Kevin [22:50] Benier. Good evening to everyone. President Trump, Madam First Lady, on behalf of the [23:02] White House Correspondents Association, thank you for being here. It is meaningful that you're with us [23:07] tonight. And White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, thank you for everything you and your team [23:18] does to work with us every day, whether you like it or not. I'm biased, but covering the White House [23:25] is the best assignment in all of journalism. We have the privilege of covering the biggest story [23:34] in the world every single day. The speed is exhilarating, demanding, and it offers a critical public [23:42] service. Strong journalism benefits the entire country. Tonight we will celebrate the exceptional [23:48] work you have done and toast a group of promising students who want to follow your lead. Of course, [23:55] at the heart of both of those things is the importance of the First Amendment. I want to take [24:00] a moment to recognize some important people who helped me tackle this job and who helped make this [24:04] night possible. First, to the members of the White House Correspondents Association, thank you. Thank you [24:12] for this opportunity to lead. It is an honor and a privilege. Thank you to my advisor in this role, [24:20] Kelly O'Donnell of NBC News, and to the other past WHC presidents who have helped me navigate challenges. To my CBS [24:31] News bosses, Tom Sobrowski, Barry Weiss, Mark Lima, thank you. Thank you for your leadership and support. To the [24:41] relentless CBS News team, especially the White House unit, I am grateful to call you not just colleagues, but friends. And [24:49] thanks to the mentors and other friends who have kept me balanced this year and always. And of course to my [24:55] family. In a world full of chaos, you are my calm and I love you. We have a big night ahead and we're [25:05] going to get started now. So enjoy your dinner and we'll be back. Thank you. Everyone's going to want as [1:00:05] many details as possible and right now we don't have that, but I can tell you that our program is going to [1:00:11] resume momentarily. Um, and, um, we will have more details to share also momentarily, but for now, [1:00:25] please just be patient as we, um, figure out just how much time it will be, but it shouldn't be that much [1:00:32] longer. Thank you very much. Thank you is going to be resuming momentarily with details to share [1:00:47] about lunch. There's a discussion about details which is being passed. Perhaps Peter, you have [1:01:02] more information at this point than I do. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth being removed. All these [1:21:54] individual, individual details. All these folks being removed. And I mean, this is a witness so quickly [1:22:04] and also it took a lot of time because of the formation of these tables. Have you gotten any information [1:22:10] more than we've heard from Weijia Zhang about this continuing? Uh, you know, what we know was the [1:22:14] announcement saying this will continue in some way. And we have also also heard that the president [1:22:19] wants to come back. Yes. So we have heard that the president wants to come back. Um, our sourcing, [1:22:25] some say that he is confirmed to come back. Some say that he wants to come back. Uh, but obviously I [1:22:30] talked to one administration official still left in the room tonight who said that, uh, whether or not he does [1:22:36] come back, uh, because of Secret Service, they believe that he wants to come back because this [1:22:40] would now be his third assassination attempt. And this would be a moment for him to be present and [1:22:45] show America that he is still here. Of course, the question of whether or not Secret Service wants [1:22:50] him back in the room, whether or not it would be okay, whether or not they feel we've heard that [1:22:54] they believe that their threat is neutralized. But whether or not Secret Service feels confident [1:22:58] enough to put him back in the room is one thing. But we have heard that he wants to be better. Peter, [1:23:03] I, I, I just heard you. You're heading out. Jasmine, thank you so much. Thank you so much. [1:23:19] The mic is not working. Please take your seats. The program will begin. We will be shortly. [1:27:07] Dinner service will begin momentarily. The service will begin momentarily. We will have an update from [1:29:09] the poker seat. Thank you so much. This is a room full of reporters. So I know you've already seen the [1:40:54] president's tweet. My apologies, his post on truth social and law enforcement has requested that we [1:41:05] leave the premises consistent with protocol. And he wanted to emphasize that nobody was hurt. [1:41:17] He and the first lady, the cabinet, everybody's safe. The president will be having a press briefing [1:41:34] at the White House in 30 minutes. That is not a joke. And he insists that we will reschedule this event [1:41:49] in the next 30 days and that he wanted to do it tonight. He wanted to continue despite the news, [1:42:00] but has to follow security protocol. I said earlier tonight that journalism is a public service [1:42:09] because when there is an emergency, we run to the crisis, not away from it. And on a night when we [1:42:17] are thinking about the freedoms in the First Amendment, we must also think about how fragile they are. [1:42:23] I saw all of you reporting and that's what we do. So thank God everybody is safe. And thank you [1:42:42] for coming together tonight. We will do this again. Thank you.