Our White House reporter describes what it was like inside the Hilton ballroom when the gunman tried to charge into the event.

Read Online | April 28, 2026 | E-Paper | 🎧 Listen

“One can acquire everything in solitude—except character.”

— Stendhal

Cathy He
Politics Editor

Good morning! It’s Tuesday. Here are today’s top stories:

Our White House correspondent, Travis Gillmore, was inside the ballroom when a gunman attempted to charge into the venue to target President Donald Trump and his cabinet officials. He describes how the scene unfolded on the night.
The suspect, Cole Allen, 31, has been charged with attempting to assassinate Trump, along with two other offenses. Justice Department officials say more charges are expected.
The White House said that Trump held discussions with national security aides after the Iranian regime submitted a new proposal to resolve the conflict.
The possibility of a U.S. exit from NATO leaves European leaders assessing military capabilities without American might. Here’s what experts tell us about how the alliance would fare without the world’s most powerful military force.
🍵 Health: Why Fruit Doesn’t Taste Like It Used To

Thousands attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner held at the Washington Hilton hotel on April 25, 2026. (Travis Gillmore/The Epoch Times)

What It Was Like Inside the Ballroom During the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

WASHINGTON—An evening meant as a celebration of the First Amendment and the journalists who cover the White House went from glitz and glamour to fear and confusion in a matter of moments on April 25 when an attacker attempted to rush through security at the Washington Hilton hotel by shooting at Secret Service agents.

Nearly 3,000 guests dressed in tuxedos and gowns were packed into the approximately 29,000-square-foot International Ballroom, where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has been held since 1968.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were introduced to the crowd, with the presentation of colors by the United States Armed Forces Color Guard and the United States Marine Band.

Attendees had just finished their spring pea and burrata salads, and dozens of waiters were filing into the room to retrieve the plates when loud noises were heard coming from the back of the ballroom.

The sounds were muffled, and some guests, including the president, believed they were the result of an accident, possibly someone dropping trays or tray tables the waitstaff were carrying.

However, the uncertainty quickly turned into what appeared like an instantaneous reaction, as thousands of people hit the floor, many diving under tables for protection.

Agents grabbed the president, first lady, Vice President JD Vance, and Second Lady Usha Vance, and swiftly removed them from the stage.

After scanning the room for signs of threats and observing none, The Epoch Times and a few other reporters stood up and began covering the scene, while many in the room stayed near the floor.

Dozens of heavily armed law enforcement and Secret Service agents flooded into the area. They were climbing over tables—which were spaced so tightly with chairs it was difficult to navigate through the room—to safeguard Cabinet members.

The Epoch Times witnessed agents grab Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines, removing them from the ballroom by kicking over barriers and taking them out a side entrance.

Once agents secured the area, they ordered the attendees to leave through the entrance and back out through the magnetometers that secured the dining area. This was the same route guests took to get to the dining room.

The area in question, where suspect Cole Allen allegedly shot at Secret Service agents before he was detained, was on the terrace level, a floor above the concourse level where the president was sitting at the dinner. (More)

DC GALA SHOOTING

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have called for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired after a joke he made about the first lady. In a show aired before the White House Correspondents’ dinner shooting, Kimmel joked that Melania Trump looked like she had a “glow like an expectant widow.”
Secret Service Director Sean Curran said the detention of the suspected shooter showed that a ‘multi-layered protection’ plan worked on Saturday night. Here’s what we know about security at White House correspondents’ dinner.

POLITICS

Trump has removed all members of the National Science Board, an independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled a new congressional map of the Sunshine State that would add four districts favorable for Republicans. The legislature convenes today for the start of a special session to consider the maps.

SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court summarily reversed a lower court ruling that blocked Texas from implementing its mid-decade redistricting of the state’s congressional map.
The high court yesterday grappled with Monsanto’s appeal that asks it to block thousands of lawsuits that allege that the company failed to warn consumers that Roundup, its popular weedkiller, could cause cancer.
The Supreme Court also wrestled with the constitutionality of police using cell phone location data while investigating crimes. During oral arguments, the justices asked attorneys about how much privacy Americans could expect, as well as how authorities could obtain geofencing warrants, or warrants for cell phone data transmitted from a specified location.
The high court said it won’t hear an appeal from Florida parents who say school personnel illegally did not disclose the gender transition of their daughter.

LATEST NEWS

Two offshore wind developers have reached deals with the Trump administration to pull plans to build offshore wind farms. They will instead invest in domestic energy projects.
A legal challenge to Virginia’s redistricting amendment was argued before the state’s Supreme Court, with the court considering whether lawmakers followed the state constitution’s requirements for placing the measure on the ballot.
Federal government agencies reported a total estimate of about $186 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2025, an increase of $24 billion from 2024, according to the Government Accountability Office. About $153 billion—roughly 82 percent—of this total arose from overpayments.
More than 1,000 Transportation Security Administration officers have left the agency since the partial shutdown began two-and-a-half months ago.

The Department of Justice in Washington on Feb. 12, 2025. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

WORLD

The Italian government has extradited to the United States a Chinese national accused of hacking into several U.S. universities to steal COVID-19 research and conducting cyberespionage on behalf of the Chinese communist regime.
Malian Defense Minister Gen. Sadio Camara was killed in an attack on his residence during a coordinated assault by separatists and Islamist terrorists.
The Chinese communist regime’s economic planning agency said that it had blocked foreign investment in Meta’s proposed acquisition of AI startup Manus.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s thwarted trip to Eswatini exposes Beijing’s campaign to squeeze Taipei’s dwindling diplomatic space, experts say, yet the move will likely draw greater global support for the democratic island.

OPINION

Are We Being Healed or Managed?—by Mollie Engelhart (Read)
The Real Cause of the Decline in Disease Mortality—by Jeffrey A. Tucker (Read)
The Dirty Bomb Myth—by Lawrence Solomon (Read)
Europe Gas Prices Reach $7.15 a Gallon—by Daniel Lacalle (Read)
America at 250: Still Dominating the World—by Victor Davis Hanson (Read)

Colourful houses in Butuh village, popularly known as Nepal Van Java for its resemblance to hillside villages in Nepal, on the slopes of Mount Sumbing in Magelang, Indonesia, on April 27, 2026. (Devi Rahman/AFP via Getty Images)

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🎙️ Podcast: A once-taboo topic on China is now a U.S. bestseller. This week’s China Watch interviews the author, our own Jan Jekielek, about a tide that has turned. (Listen)

🍿 Movie: ‘A Brother and 7 Siblings’: Familial Faithfulness (Read)

💸 Money: You’re 40 and Never Invested—Here’s Where to Start (Read)

🎵 Music: The ravishing “Adagietto” movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 chronicles the joy of falling in love. (Read & Listen)

💪 (Sponsored) Think creatine is just for bodybuilders? Think again. New research shows it may support strength, energy, and even brain health as you age. Discover 6 common myths—and what most people get wrong. Learn more.*

ARTS & CULTURE

(Left) Abraham Lincoln's popular photograph, taken by Mathew Brady (Right), may have catapulted Lincoln to the presidency and Brady to his status as premier photographer. (Library of Congress)

Mathew Brady: The Photographer Who Helped Make Lincoln President

Abraham Lincoln credited the entrepreneurial photographer with helping him become president.

On Feb. 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln sauntered into Mathew Brady’s New York studio for a photographic portrait. Lincoln was in town to give a speech at the Cooper Institute (today’s Cooper Union), highlighting his views on slavery, the most toxic political issue of the day. The intellectual power of Lincoln’s presentation would fuel the campaign that took him to the White House.

But while Lincoln’s verbiage was profound, the bony 6-foot-4 politician in a wrinkled suit was awkward and disheveled. When Brady asked to “arrange” his shirt collar and jacket, Lincoln quipped, “Ah, I see you want to shorten my neck.”

In the resulting photograph, Lincoln’s collar and bowtie were effectively turned up to camouflage his long neck. Brady maneuvered Lincoln into a statesman-style pose with a solemn expression while his left hand touched a pair of books arranged on stand.

The image presented Lincoln as a man of great knowledge and fortitude and would be widely reprinted in newspapers and lithographs. Lincoln cherished that fateful day in New York, later commenting, “Brady and the Cooper Institute made me President.”

Brady may have been the unlikeliest of kingmakers. Details of his formative years are scant, and Brady often changed his biography. According to James D. Horan’s “Mathew Brady: Historian With a Camera,” in different interviews Brady claimed that he was born in Cork, Ireland, and Warren County, New York, putting his birth year between 1822 and 1824. The only thing known about his parents was their names, Andrew and Julia. (More)

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—Cathy He, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li.

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