Paul Hunter recounts the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting on Front Burner

0:00You know that feeling when you reach the end of a really good true crime series? You want to know more. More about the people involved, where the case is now, and what it's like behind the scenes. I get that. I'm Kathleen Goldhar and on my podcast Crime Story, I speak with the leading storytellers of true crime to dig deeper into the cases we all just can't stop thinking about. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everyone, Paul Hunter here. On Saturday, I was one of the journalists in the room at the White House Correspondents Dinner when shots rang out.

0:43We're working on a two blocks from the White House episode for you on Wednesday on the fallout from the shooting. But until then, here is the CBC's daily news podcast front burner with my recount about what it was like in the room as all of that happened. Thanks for listening. Hi, everyone. I'm Jamie Poissom. On Saturday night, as U.S. President Donald Trump sat on a dais in front of a room full of journalists,

1:14the muffled sound of gunshots. Our colleague Paul Hunter was in the room. He is the CBC's senior Washington correspondent and co-host of the podcast Two Blocks from the White House. He joins me today to describe what happened and the aftermath of a potential third assassination attempt of U.S. President Donald Trump.

1:39Paul, thank you so much for being here. I'm glad you're safe and that everybody at the dinner on Saturday night is safe. Hey, Jamie. Happy to be here. Thank you. I'm going to timestamp this conversation we're talking on Sunday afternoon. You were, of course, as we've said, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night. This is a pretty iconic event, a gathering of the White House press corps, various celebrities, and last night members of the Trump administration, including the U.S. president himself. And just can you describe to me the moment that you realized something had gone seriously wrong here?

2:19The gunshots weren't muffled, Jamie. They were loud to us. It kind of depended where you were in the room because there was kind of a lot of white noise going on. People were chit-chatting at all their tables. And if you were up near the dais, up near Donald Trump, up at the front where the major American networks were sitting, I think a lot of people thought it was dishes being dropped or something like that. But where we were sitting, right near the open doors at the back, the shots were loud. and they were like the pop, pop, pop that we always hear people describe when they're at a mass shooting.

2:53And this wasn't a mass shooting, obviously, but it was the pop, pop, pop, the repetition. And it's like, honestly, my first impulse was like, what? Because I knew it was gunfire. It sounded like gunfire. And I thought, like, it didn't make sense, right? And it's like, at first, I hate to say it, but I thought it was like some sort of skit or joke or something like that. And then people started shouting, shooter, shooter, shooter, down, down, down, down. Right. And it was like, oh, my God, this is real. And people started diving under the tables and chairs were flying and like people's shoes were coming off.

3:32And you didn't know what was going on. And that's what was so scary about it. And I'm like, we were like right by the door. Right. And so I was hiding behind this big concrete column that was there. I was there with some friends from Radio Canada, and they got themselves under the table. Wow. It was surreal. And again, you're in the most, what we, if you'd asked me last night, where are you, Paul? I would have said, I'm in the most secure room, perhaps on the planet at this point, given the attendees, given Donald Trump was there, given Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, given RFK Jr., Scott Besant, Cash Patel.

4:12They were all there. The vice president, Melania, is like, you are in no safer place on the planet. And I think that's part of what led the first impression to being this can't be real. But it was. Totally surreal. I mean, I didn't realize that you were so close to where the shots actually rang out. That must have been incredibly scary. tell me a little bit about what was happening at the front of the room where Trump was seated after the shots rang out when they rang out I think the room collectively not the secret service but the room had this same feeling that I had like what right secret service jumped into action you know I went down as low as I could as well hiding behind that column by the time I don't know how long it was a few seconds or a minute whatever when i looked next looked up at the dais empty they were gone they pulled vance away they pulled trump away they pulled melania trump away empty and and by the way what i'm thinking is and this the secret service would have thought the same thing what's going to happen next right like if if that one person got that close to the room are there others right is there is there somebody in the room who somehow got a gun in here.

5:32That's all I'm thinking on the ground is, is this the point where a whole bunch of people come in with AR-15s and start spraying the crowd? Am I safe enough? Are my friends safe enough? Am I going to die? Is somebody going to get shot? You don't know. So when I looked up and I saw the dais and it was empty, then I saw Secret Service coming in from all corners of this room. It was like a platoon of, and I'm thinking, how many are there? Like it was just one after the, Going after those cabinet secretaries at the front who were, as we came to understand it, they themselves were pushed down under the tables at the same time.

6:05And then what they wanted to do was bring them out, get them out of this room and into safety. And so because of where we were sitting, a lot of them were marched by where we by then were standing. There goes Kash Patel. There goes another. There goes another. It's sort of being pushed by their security guards with their arms around them. You know, I hate to say it, Jamie, but it's sort of true. It's just like in the movies. We've seen movies like this countless times of incidents like that. And it's exactly how it played out from the pop, pop, pop to the mayhem in the room and things flying everywhere to the president being whisked out to the Secret Service coming in and taking everybody else out.

6:44That added to the surreality of it because we've seen it in the movies so many times. And yet here it was in action. It was nuts. Paul, at what point do you kind of exhale a little bit? Like at what point do you kind of realize that the situation might be under control and that, you know, something else isn't coming and that finally you're probably safe? To me, like, so we're then in lockdown, right? And I'm getting shivers just talking about this, Jamie, because I sort of don't know if I've exhaled yet. But we're in lockdown for a good long time, not really knowing what was even going on outside.

7:28You couldn't call at my cell phone. I could not get a call out. I finally called CBC News Network via WhatsApp to get on the air and try to describe what I was seeing. But you had very little idea of what was on the outside of those doors. We're stuck in there for an hour. Your adrenaline is racing, right? You're trying to make sense of what you've just experienced. And finally, and again, I have no idea what time it was, Jamie, but finally they opened the doors and we got out. And so I took the elevator. At this point, my phone is dead. Like battery is gone. We go up the escalator and I'm going out.

8:00I live about a 20 minute walk away. So I get out of the hotel and all you see is this wall of police cars and ambulances and red and blue and white lights flashing. And maybe it was then. I don't know. It's like, oh, I'm out. Everything seems secure. I'm just going to walk home. But to really honestly answer the question, Jamie, I'm not sure that I have exhaled yet. Yeah. I mean, this is such a harrowing story you've just told. What was the security like, like as you were going into the building? Well, that's a good question. There was lots, you know, it was starting to rain when I went. So, you know, although I could have walked up to the Hilton, I jumped in a taxi and then the taxi ran into security perimeters like a couple of blocks away.

8:51So I was like, of course. So, OK, I'm going to walk the last couple of blocks. That's security perimeter number one. By the time you got to the edge of the block on which the Hilton is, you had to show your tickets. You weren't being patted down. There was no wanding, but you're not getting any further unless you show your tickets. Fine. Here it is. Boom. Go. Climb up the hill a little bit and you get to the perimeter of the property, show tickets again. Get to the door, show tickets. Nobody's getting past unless you have tickets, right? Get to the escalator, going to the ballroom, tickets. It's then when you're entering the ballroom that they had the magnometers.

9:22Do you see security everywhere? 100%. I started taking pictures of them. I mean, the whole fun of these things is to go and just take pictures of all the crazy stuff going on at these events normally, right? I started taking pictures of guys with the earpieces and the curly cables behind them just for the fun of it while I was waiting to get into the ballroom. So it felt like a secure event, and it was a secure event. I talk about that being the most secure room perhaps on the planet at that moment given the supreme amount of power that was sitting down at those various tables. But to be honest, they did their job in a sense, right?

9:57The shooter did not get into that room. The shooter did not kill anybody in that room. How the shooter got to that point is another matter, right? And we're learning that he had checked into the suspect had checked into the hotel. And if you read his manifesto, he was quite amazed by the fact that nobody bothered to check him as he checked in and it surprised him, you know. So how did that guy get to that point is the question.

10:36certainly i mean we don't know a ton about him so far but um there was certainly a level of planning here he must have had to book that room he took the train uh from california to chicago i think and then chicago to washington and obviously there are no metal detectors on those trains so So it seems like there was some planning here. And just tell me more about what we know about the alleged shooter at this point. Not a lot. As we speak, you and I right now, authorities are going through everything that you can find about him online and otherwise. He has been identified as 31-year-old Cole Allen from California.

11:16The interim chief of police for D.C. said the suspect charged the checkpoint with a shotgun and was also armed with a handgun and multiple knives. The most we know, besides name, age, he was a part time teacher, et cetera, et cetera, is from that manifesto that has been published now in which he talks about anger at the administration. I think the key line is I think he calls a number of people in the administration pedophiles and rapists. I'm no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. What's your reaction? Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you're you're you're horrible people.

11:57Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody. Oh, you think he was referring to you? Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let's say, Epstein or other things. But it seems clear, taken at face value, that he had intent with this. He's effectively acknowledging everything that he was going to do, which played out last night. And you're right. I mean, to check into that hotel, nothing gets packed for these events.

12:42It's the event of the year in this city, right? So presumably, this was an event planned for some time and carefully to take the train so you don't have to check weapons on an airline. But the guns that he had, and there were two of them, were legally bought, right, and knives, legally purchased in 2023, 2025. But that's not an unusual thing in this country, right? There are 400 to 500 million guns in this country. That unto itself is not a thing. But his intent seems to have been a thing, and he's quite clear about it in his manifesto. Yeah. I mean, I saw some reports, too, that a family member alerted police about some writings he had shared, calling himself the friendly federal assassin, indicating he wanted to target administration officials.

13:29But I don't think that they knew about the hotel or the White House correspondence dinner. I'll just stress here that these are all early reports and allegations at this point, and nothing has been proven in court. I mean, hopefully we'll learn more in the coming days about him and his alleged motive. He did survive, of course. In the first attempt on Trump's life, the one in Butler, Pennsylvania, on the campaign trail, the shooter was killed. But the second attempt, the shooter survived and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He actually grabbed a pen and attempted to stab himself in the neck after the jury found him guilty.

14:08So, you know, we'll have to kind of keep tabs on what else we might learn there. Yeah, key point. Key point. That's the first thing I thought last night when, you know, the initial, again, we weren't really inside when we were in lockdown inside the room. We weren't really sure what was going on outside. And word started to spread very quickly that the shooter had been had himself or herself. We didn't know at the time being shot and killed. That was the early sort of buzz, for lack of a better term. But as soon as I heard that, I think it was from Trump's truth posting that the shooter had been apprehended, I thought, OK, well, we're going to hear more from that person.

14:44And again, pointing to the manifesto, it seems that the person wants whatever he had been thinking in the lead up to this to be known far and wide. And so I suspect we'll in one way or another hear from him somehow. So a few hours after the event, I think it was around 1030 on Saturday night, if I remember correctly, when I was watching it, Trump went to the White House briefing room still in his tux and he gave this press conference. Well, thank you very much. That was very unexpected. And he told the story of what happened from his own perspective. And I heard a noise and sort of thought it was a tray.

15:27I thought it was a tray going down. I've heard that many times and it was pretty loud noise. And it was from quite far away. He hadn't breached. How would you say that he seemed? And I guess as someone who kind of lived through that whole experience, like what did you make of his demeanor? I thought he was remarkably, I don't know what the word is, calm, sedate, chill about it, you know, given what had happened. I lead a pretty normal life considering it's a dangerous life. I think I handle it as well as it can be handled. I think a lot of other people, you know, you read stories where they become basket cases, to be honest with you.

16:13I'm not a basket case. I really take it as it is. That's the first thing that struck me. He wasn't on fire the way he can sometimes be. It was interesting to hear some of the things that he was saying. I mean, when he brought up the ballroom. 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 drone proof. It's bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom. That's why Secret Service. Effectively saying that if his big giant ballroom had been ready and finished, that maybe this wouldn't have happened.

16:55They wanted 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. And I thought, hmm, politicizing it already because it's been quite a controversial project, obviously. But I don't know. He was, you know, and he went on a little bit about everybody kind of coming together. And it was all these things when such moments can make people forget political differences. You had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals and progressives. Those words are interchangeable, perhaps, but maybe they're not.

17:33But you had everybody in that room, big crowd, record setting crowd. There was a record setting group of people and there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together. I watched. I watched. I don't know. I wasn't sure what to make of that. I don't know. I'm still trying to process what. I'm trying to process what happened at the place. I'm trying to process the words that came out of Trump's mouth last night because it was not your usual Donald Trump. I also thought, here's a guy, I mean, to go back to Butler, the assassination attempt on the campaign trail, I think cynics, conspiracy theorists would say, well, that was well-timed, right?

18:15And I'm not, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that. But here's Trump right now, very low in public opinion, got a very big fight on his hands. You wonder about conspiracy theories, right? And I heard, that was one of the first things I heard muttering in the room last night was, I don't know, I hesitate to say it, Jamie, because it tends to feed that stuff. But people quick, I guess because of recent history, people and the number of times people don't believe sometimes what they see in front of them, that people will start to mutter about these things, if not in that room, in corners of America where conspiracy theories grow, that maybe there was something else going on here because Trump became the kind of guy that said, let's all unite.

19:00Let's stand behind the security of America and the security of our presidents. And that includes me. And let's get that ballroom built. Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting to hear you say that there were people in the room talking about kind of these conspiracy theories, because I was watching online, right? And one thing that struck me last night was that basically within minutes, that speculation, the false flag stuff was just, it's like, there's like this ecosystem now for this sort of thing. after these other attempts on Trump's life and the other instances of political violence that we've seen in America.

19:37It's like this well-oiled machine at this point, the false flag factory, you know? Exactly. I mean, if you take the divided country that this is, add divisive politics to that, multiply that by the number of seemingly endless number of online platforms through which conspiracy theories can grow and move and then multiply that by the many millions and millions of Americans who we sometimes lump together as MAGA. But I think it's fairer to say the many, many millions of Americans who are frustrated and dissatisfied and angry about their lot in life. And is it any wonder that conspiracy theories jump immediately?

20:25It's the world we're in, or at least it's the country that we're in right now, this country. Completely. And just coming back to the ballroom, just for clarity here, just for people who might not be totally caught up on what's going on with this giant$400 million ballroom that he is trying to build, just remind me of the latest. It's currently facing litigation, right? And recently, Trump officials and lawyers have started talking about the ballroom in new ways. They're focused a lot more on it being needed for security reason. Yes, which they see, I think it's fair to say they see as the way forward on it.

21:01The skinny on it is this. Donald Trump decides he wants to put an addition on the White House. It's true that big state events have been held under a tent in the sort of back garden of the White House over time. And that, man, it's an argument that can be made that it requires a proper bricks and mortar place to go. The first issue here was Trump just went and did it without consultation and it was monster sized like it dwarfs the act like the plans dwarf the actual white house so then came thousands and thousands and thousands i think 30 000 right now complaints about the thing to try to stop this from going forward but meanwhile trump just knocked down the east wing and just proceeded anyway and then the loss the legal back and forth and there's been a number of back and forths on this to stop it to start it to stop it to start it it got down to a judge stopping it, but then the first foray into national security came into play, which allows such stuff, such decisions to be made by presidents to do things on the basis of national security.

21:59The argument was made, now that it's gone this far, national security issues are at stake if it's not continued. And so then a judge allowed, well, the work can continue underground because there's an underground aspect to it, but not above ground. And then another legal challenge came, And then that was stayed. And then the work is continued. I walk by the White House as often as not on the way to work. The work is continuing. But to your point, the fact that the administration is now using that national security thing again and again and again. And by the way, this plays into that, doesn't it?

22:29I think it can be viewed as they see that as their way forward to get the ballroom done the way they want it done by arguing national security. And as I say, in a sense, sorry, conspiracy theorists, but in a sense, this plays right into that.

22:56You know that feeling when you reach the end of a really good true crime series? You want to know more. More about the people involved, where the case is now, and what it's like behind the scenes. I get that. I'm Kathleen Goldhar, and on my podcast Crime Story, I speak with the leading storytellers of true crime to dig deeper into the cases we all just can't stop thinking about. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts. You know, as we've talked about, this is not the first potential attempt on Trump's life. And just how are we to kind of wrap our heads around this idea that it looks like someone might have tried to kill this president for the third time now?

23:45Like, I do not think that there is a historical president for this. Well, but isn't there on the specifics? Yes, you're right. But Trump himself talked about how dangerous the gig is. Right. You go by the numbers, the number of assassination attempts on U.S. presidents divided by the number of presidents, and the ratio is pretty high. And Trump, in his briefing last night, compared it to race drivers and bull riders. It's a dangerous profession. You know, I tell the story, race car drivers, I think it's very dangerous. So you take 1 % and then take about 10 % of 1%, just to break it down very easily.

24:27They die so much less than 1%, 10 % of 1%. I think bull riding is very dangerous. If you take about the same 10 % of 1%, much less than 1%. But if you take presidents, it's 5.8%. And about 8 % are shot at. So nobody told me this was such a dangerous profession. He's got a point, in a sense. It's a facile comparison in many ways, but on pure numbers, he's got a point. I mean, you start thinking about it, right? Even in the room last night, Jamie, you think about it, right? So that was at the Washington Hilton, where Reagan was shot in 1981, on the sidewalk outside the hotel where that happened last night.

25:16Yeah, incredible coincidence, I guess. Yeah, but listen, I'm just getting started here, Jamie. So as well as Reagan, James Brady was shot, Reagan's press secretary, in that same incident. James Brady, whom they have now named that blue briefing room that Trump was in last night and that the daily briefings are held in. That is, you know, officially, that's the James Brady briefing room named after the guy who was shot at the Hilton. In the room last night, along with Trump, was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose dad was shot and killed in 1968 at a political event at a hotel in California, and whose uncle, of course, was JFK, who was shot and killed.

25:56Just up the highway is where George Wallace, Democratic presidential candidate, was shot in 1972, I want to say. Right. You know, after things had calmed down a bit, that's when I was talking about the Secret Service coming in and grabbing all the cabinet secretaries and rushing them out to safety. So one of the people that came, I saw Kash Patel walk right by our table because we were right by the main exit. And then all of a sudden there's Steve Scalise, right? And many people may not know him, but he is the Republican House majority leader, very senior Republican. He himself, recall, was shot at the congressional, I don't know if it's for charity, but it's sort of meant to be a feel-good thing, a congressional baseball game in 2017.

26:37I saw him limping out because he still suffers from that shooting. That's what goes on in this country, Jamie. I mean, we know it. I've done stories on this many times over the course of years for all of the above reasons. Rarely do you experience it in person, in lifetime, in a room with the president and gunshots around the corner. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a really good point. This idea that the political violence is a feature, not a bug. I think what I was trying to get at is that I don't I don't think we've seen a president. There be three attempts on his life. Like I was looking at FDR 1933, JFK, obviously 1963, Ford 1975.