ABC’s Jonathan Karl detailed a phone call from President Donald Trump on Sunday morning — just hours after the shocking White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting — and said that the president, who’d once derided him as a “third-rate” journalist, had called to check if he was OK.
Karl, a White House correspondent and former president of the White House Correspondent’s Association, described the conversation with the president on ABC’s This Week to host George Stephanopoulos. Saturday evening’s annual dinner at the Washington Hilton was disrupted by gunshots when officials say suspect Cole Allen charged through a security perimeter armed with multiple weapons.
“My phone rang shortly after 7am, my landline, George, actually a number that few people call, and it was President Trump calling … At first he was calling to see if I was OK, with what happened last night; ‘Are you OK?’” Karl recalled Trump asking.
Trump also “reiterated many of the things he said in his press conference last night, emphasizing the unity that he felt in that moment, that he felt at the dinner, before the shooting and certainly after, with the people who reached out to him,” Karl told Stephanopoulos.
“And he said absolutely, and he was quite firm about this, that dinner must be rescheduled. It must be rescheduled.”
Karl added that during his tenure as WHCA president his team and Trump’s coordinated together on what could have been Trump’s first appearance at the dinner as president.
Instead, that year’s dinner, in 2020, was called off due to the Covid-19 pandemic which forced an end to large-scale indoor gatherings. Trump instead made that history at Saturday’s event, adding another layer of significance to the shocking scene that occurred at the Washington Hilton as a shooting occurred directly outside the dinner.
The ABC correspondent and hundreds of other Washington journalists and political elite were packed into the basement event space at the Washington Hilton Saturday evening when the shooting took place. It isn’t completely clear who fired, but five gunshots were heard in a hallway outside of the ballroom and a man was tackled by security and arrested.
One Secret Service officer was struck by gunfire, according to officials, but was not seriously injured. No one inside the dinner was injured, but attendees ducked under tables as Secret Service whisked away the president, vice president, and other VIPs.
“He knows that I was a former president of the White House Correspondents Association, and worked with him on a dinner that never actually happened back during covid. And he was saying, ‘We’ve got to get this dinner back on. It has to happen,’” said Karl.
Trump has previously criticized Karl on his social media, including earlier in April when he wrote about Karl’s latest book: “Third rate news ‘anchor’ Jonathan Karl of ABC Fake News, the worst and most corrupt Network in the business, wrote another made up book about me where his stories and ‘reporting’ bare no relationship to the truth.”
Karl added that he spoke to Oz Pearlman, the night’s featured entertainer and the first non-comedian to perform at the event in years.
“He said that the thought that went through his mind was that he thought that President Trump had been shot,” Karl said, describing how Pearlman was face-to-face with the president as they ducked for cover onstage. “Because [Trump] had that look of shock in his eyes, and he was brought down so hard by the Secret Service and the thought that went through his head beyond that was, ‘We’re all going to die.’ He was absolutely terrified in that moment.”
Trump was not injured, nor was anyone onstage. Secret Service agents and other security swarmed the ballroom seconds after the shots rang out, some holding rifles.
Saturday evening’s event was aimed at honoring both the White House press corps and members of the White House who interact with reporters, including the president. But the dinner itself never occurred, and the event was locked down for roughly an hour just minutes after the national anthem was sung. WHCA officials and the president initially declared that the event would go on once the lockdown was lifted, but attendees were later told to exit the hotel as several blocks around the Hilton were locked down.
Hotel guests were briefly unable to return to their rooms and crowds milled about in the DC nighttime, searching for ride shares and other transportation options. A man identified as Cole Tomas Allen of California was identified by authorities as the suspect and was seen in pictures face-down after being tackled by security at the event. Officials say he was armed with multiple weapons, including a shotgun, and was staying at the Hilton during the event.
On Sunday the president also declared on Truth Social that the security breach exemplified the need for the construction of his $400 million ballroom project at the White House to serve as a secure event space.
“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!” Trump declared.
In remarks to reporters at a press conference, a still tuxedo-clad Trump said late Saturday evening that the dinner would be rescheduled within a month.
