Donald Trump spoke with CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell in an interview that aired Sunday night on 60 Minutes describing his ordeal at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner when shots rang out.
A gunman opened fire at the Washington Hilton hotel Saturday night, though he did not breach the basement-level ballroom where Trump was sitting at the time. The president described the events in an even tone, saying that he did not feel particularly alarmed as they unfolded.
“I wasn’t worried,” Trump said in the interview when asked how worried he was about possible injuries after hearing the gun shots. “I understand life. We live in a crazy world.”
Trump told 60 Minutes that his curiosity probably slowed the Secret Service’s efforts to rush him to safety.
“I wanted to see what was happening,” Trump said. “I wasn’t making it that easy for them. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of problem, a bad one – and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom.
“I was surrounded by great people,” Trump added. “And I probably made them act a little more slowly. I said, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute.’”
Secret Service officers, however, repeatedly told the president and first lady, Melania Trump, to hit the floor, Trump said.
“I started walking,” Trump said. “And they said, ‘Please go down, please go down on the floor.’ So I went down and the first lady went down also.”
Secret Service officers eventually led Trump and other administration members to safety after the shots were fired.
Law enforcement officers exchanged fire with the suspected gunman Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, at the hotel before tackling and arresting him. Allen was armed with knives, a shotgun and a handgun at the time of his arrest.
The shooting appears politically motivated and may have targeted other top US officials in addition to Trump, according to the acting US attorney general, Todd Blanche.
“We do believe, based upon just a very preliminary start to understanding what happened, that he was targeting members of the administration,” Blanche said in an interview with CBS News on Sunday.
The suspect allegedly sent writings to family members fulminating against the Trump administration that some have described as a “manifesto”. The 1,100-word screed is signed “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen”.
The 60 Minutes interview got confrontational when O’Donnell read portions of the manifesto on air that appeared to refer to Trump as a “rapist” and a “pedophile” and asked Trump to react.
“I was waiting for you to read that, because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people,” Trump said. “Yeah he did write that, I’m not a rapist … I read the manifesto. You know, he’s a sick person. You shouldn’t be reading that on 60 Minutes, you’re a disgrace, but go ahead, let’s finish the interview.
Trump continued to take jabs at O’Donnell for the rest of the interview. After she noted that Allen, the suspected shooter, had reportedly attended a “No Kings” protest, Trump shot back: “The reason you have people like that, is you have people doing ‘No Kings’. I’m not a king. What I am – If I was a king, I wouldn’t be dealing with you.”
Notwithstanding Trump’s criticisms of the press, which he described as a “soft on crime”, he urged the White House Correspondents’ Association to reschedule the event within the next 30 days.
“I don’t want to see it be canceled. I think it’s really bad for a crazy person to be able to cancel something like this,” Trump said, adding: “It’s not that I want to go. I’m very busy. I don’t need that.”