Trump blames shooting on ballroom construction delay

On 25 April, a gunman at the White House fired a gun as Donald Trump hosted the annual Correspondents’ Dinner. This is now the third time a gunman has fired at the US President (or seemingly planned to do so).

By this point, Trump is so used to assassination attempts that he immediately began spouting propaganda. While some thought Trump would use the event to drum up support for his failing war on Iran, he chose to prioritise talking about the White House ballroom:

Beyond parody https://t.co/BbYLEWRqJ4

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) April 26, 2026

For those out of the loop, construction on Trump’s glitzy ballroom was recently paused following a court order, and could be put on hold again.

Ballroom blitz

According to the White House Correspondents’ Association, the annual Correspondents’ Dinner is:

our main source of revenue to finance all of our work, including support of the journalists working to cover the president, events and programs to educate the public about the value of the First Amendment and a free press, and scholarships to help the next generation of journalists.

Former president Barack Obama notoriously roasted then-businessman Trump at the 2011 Correspondents’ Dinner:

This moment is widely viewed as the key motivator behind Trump running for president and undoing Obama’s various policies.

Regarding the latest Correspondents’ Dinner, the BBC report that shots were heard at 20:35 ET (00:35 UK time). A C-SPAN video showed the moment when gunshots led to the president’s evacuation:

The shooting happened outside the function room itself, with the would-be attacker rushing through a security checkpoint. Another angle showed the evacuation from the viewpoint of those being evacuated:

New video shows Secret Service evacuating JD Vance following the shooting pic.twitter.com/WaNiuprQvW

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) April 26, 2026

Trump was posting about the shooting on Truth Social within an hour. He would later post the following:

Trump posts photos and security footage of the alleged shooter pic.twitter.com/Fe7tJbAwar

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) April 26, 2026

Less than two hours later, Trump would hold a press conference alongside FBI chief Kash Patel. It was at this press conference that he said the following:

And we looked at all of the conditions that took place tonight, and I will say, you know, it’s not a particularly secure building. And I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House.

It’s actually a larger room, and it’s much more secure. It’s got — it’s drone-proof. It’s bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom.

That’s why Secret Service — that’s why the military are demanding it. They’ve wanted the ballroom for 150 years for lots of different reasons.

But today is a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody has ever seen before.

To be clear, Trump wants a big, fancy ballroom, because he likes big, fancy things, because he’s a big, fancy boy.

While we’re sure it will be very secure, there is no need for it to exist beyond Trump’s own personal desire to envelope himself in obscene levels of luxury.

It didn’t take long for Trump’s minions to to start repeating his message:

i’ll be honest it’s so fucking funny to take this angle after another shooting attempt its just so shameless pic.twitter.com/h1yYKPqjII

— onion person (@CantEverDie) April 26, 2026

Some have suggested this means the event was staged, although this level of coordinated propaganda is fairly streamlined at this point:

This tells us flat out that this was staged. https://t.co/l3TsnYzm7D

— MAGA Cult Slayer🦅🇺🇸 (@MAGACult2) April 26, 2026

At the same time, you really can’t put anything past these people:

It's almost as if none of them are taking this seriously either. pic.twitter.com/Xd1zPhqWoz

— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) April 26, 2026

Trump — ‘Shots fired’

Another strange moment was when Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the following pre-shooting:

Strange wording! https://t.co/VFBzR5aHDB

— Secular Talk ([email protected]) (@KyleKulinski) April 26, 2026

If Trump’s team did pre-plan the event, we’ll no doubt find out when it’s revealed an anonymous person bet a shooting would happen on the prediction markets: