Trump turns the WHCD shooting into a pitch for the White House ballroom

Within hours of an armed gunman’s attempt to enter the White House Correspondents Dinner, attended by top administration officials and hundreds of journalists, President Donald Trump did what he does best: use the assassination attempt to defend his ballroom project.

During a White House press conference just hours after he and several cabinet members were evacuated, Trump told reporters that the Washington Hilton, the hotel where the WHCD historically takes place, was “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.”

The morning after the alleged assassination attempt, Trump doubled down on his ballroom demands via a Truth Social post. “What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!”

Last month, a federal judge halted construction on the White House ballroom, one of the more controversial projects of the second Trump administration. The $400 million project, which began when Trump suddenly ordered the demolition of the East Wing last October, is widely seen as a vehicle for corporate donors trying to curry favor with Trump. Notably, several major tech and crypto corporations have donated to the nonprofit fund, including Amazon, Apple, Coinbase, Gemini, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, raising questions about whether they’re trying to influence Trump to sign favorable tech policies.

The freeze was in response to a lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, alleging that Trump had acted improperly by not seeking the approval of Congress as required by federal law before destroying the East Wing.

In his post, Trump called the lawsuit “ridiculous” and demanded again that the lawsuit be dropped. “Nothing should be allowed to interfere with with its construction, which is on budget and substantially ahead of schedule!!!”

Preliminary reports identified the alleged shooter as Cole Allen, a 31-year-old man from Torrance, CA, who had been staying at the Washington Hilton, the hotel situated above the ballroom. Although there was lighter security in the immediate entrance to the hotel where paying guests were staying, Allen was unable to breach the security perimeter set around the entrance to the subterranean ballroom.

Though his motivations are still largely unknown, law enforcement agents believe that Allen was there to target Trump and several senior administration officials in attendance, which included Vice President JD Vance, FBI director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and senior advisor Stephen Miller. Hundreds of high-profile journalists were also in attendance, including members of the White House press corps.

This is the third attempt on Trump’s life, making him the US president with the most assassination attempts on his life. The first occurred during a 2024 campaign rally in Butler, PA, where a gunman shot at Trump and managed to graze his ear; the second took place later that year at Mar-a-Lago, where federal agents shot and killed a man attempting to shoot the president while he was golfing. The Washington Hilton has also played host to a previous presidential assassination attempt, when John Hinkley Jr. shot and wounded Ronald Reagain outside the hotel in 1981.