The Washington Hilton ballroom is filled with attendees of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)
By Anthony Iafrate April 26, 2026 at 8:15am
Journalists present at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night appeared to laugh after hearing that President Donald Trump would speak at the White House after surviving an apparent assassination attempt.
White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) president Weijia Jiang took the podium less than an hour after shots were fired at the dinner — which had prompted the successful evacuations of Trump and senior officials in his administration.
Jiang told the media members gathered that the president was going to hold a press briefing at the White House prompting a short outburst of laughter from the attendees.
“That is not a joke,” Jiang, who is CBS News’ Senior White House Correspondent, responded after appearing to smile and briefly chuckle herself. Journalists continued to laugh after the WHCA president made the distinction.
Earlier during her remarks at the podium, Jiang told the press corps that Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, “the cabinet, everybody’s safe,” prompting a smattering of applause.
“And he [Trump] insists that we will reschedule this event in the next 30 days, and that he wanted to do it tonight,” Jiang went on to say.
“He wanted to continue despite the news, but has to follow security protocol.
“I said earlier tonight that journalism is a public service, because when there is an emergency, we run to the crisis, not away from it,” she added. “And on a night when we are thinking about the freedoms in the First Amendment, we must also think about how fragile they are. I saw all of you reporting, and that’s what we do.”
At around 9:10 p.m. ET, just about 45 minutes after the shots were fired, multiple journalists in attendance at the dinner could be seen drinking wine, video footage of the event shows.
“They don’t want to leave, it’s just kind of the nature of reporters, they want to see what happened,” a reporter covering the event said. according to MS NOW’s feed.
“There’s also people popping the bottles of wine that hadn’t been opened yet. People trying to relax after an obvious stressful time.”
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