UFC president and CEO Dana White recently told USA Today that he thought experiencing Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting in person was “fucking awesome.”
“All of a sudden, it just started getting noisy. Tables started getting flipped over, guys running in with guns, and they were screaming, ‘Get down!’” White, who was in attendance at the dinner, recalled. “I didn’t get down. It was fucking awesome, and I literally took every minute of it in. It was a pretty crazy, unique experience.”
White said he was sitting “right in front of where the president was” when the Secret Service rushed in. He added, “Nobody got tackled, but guys came in looking for the shooter. And they came toward our table. I thought the shooter was over by us or something.”
The 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which took place in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel, was forced to wrap early after gunshots were heard from outside the event. President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and administration officials were quickly evacuated from the event as the shooter was tackled by law enforcement on a different floor of the venue.
Trump held a press conference on Saturday in the aftermath of the shooting, during which he promised to reschedule the WHCD within 30 days.
“We’re going to do it again,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let anybody take over our society. We’re not going to cancel things out, because we can’t do that.”
On Sunday morning, White House Correspondents’ Association president and CBS News senior White House correspondent, Weijia Jiang, released a statement to social media. She wrote, “I know many of you are still processing what happened last night. Thank you to the USSS and all the law enforcement agencies who kept us safe. We are so grateful. To the members of the WHCA, we will get through this together…. We express our deepest gratitude to the U.S. Secret Service and all law enforcement personnel who ensured the safety of everyone in the ballroom and beyond. Their actions protected thousands of guests, and we wish a full and speedy recovery to the officer who was injured in the line of duty. We are grateful everyone in attendance was unharmed, including the President, the First Lady, and the Vice President.”
Trump is set to appear on “60 Minutes” on Sunday night for an interview with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell about the shooting.
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