As the main course ended at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, a series of muffled booms shattered the evening. Gary O'Donoghue, the BBC's Chief North America correspondent who is blind, was seated at a table when he heard a sound he recognized all too well.
"I did a kind of audio double take," O'Donoghue said. "Within moments, I thought – that is the low thudding sound that semi-automatic weapons make."
He heard glass shatter, felt his colleague brush past him diving for the floor, and followed suit, huddling under a tablecloth. The room fell into a tense silence as hundreds of guests waited, unsure if a gunman had entered the ballroom.
O'Donoghue had previously been in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024 when President Donald Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. "The moments after that were filled with screaming and running people," he recalled. "This time was different."
Under the table, he and his colleagues strained to hear any indication of what was happening. A fellow journalist saw Secret Service agents rush President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and Vice-President JD Vance off the stage. Other agents, in helmets and bulletproof vests, trained their guns on the crowd, searching for additional threats.
Just before the dinner, O'Donoghue had spoken with Health Secretary RFK Jr., who was seated nearby. FBI Director Kash Patel was also in the room, shielding his girlfriend as agents ran to his aid.
Questions immediately arose about security. "All the roads had been closed around the Hilton for hours," O'Donoghue noted, "but the security at the venue itself wasn't particularly heavy." He described a cursory ticket check and a lackadaisical wanding. "The security felt like a regular White House Correspondents Dinner – one without the sitting president in attendance."
As the room remained locked down, journalists desperately sought phone signal to report on the incident. O'Donoghue, reflecting on the experience, said, "There was that telltale pricking at the eyes when your mind begins to think about what might have been. And how many of these things you have to go through in this country before your luck runs out."
The incident has raised urgent questions about presidential security protocols, even as the suspect was identified as a 31-year-old Californian.