Donald Trump explains slow exit from White House Correspondents' Dinner after shots were fired
Donald Trump admits he "wasn't making it easy" for the security agents trying to escort him out of the room.
Donald Trump insists he was a "little bit" to blame for his slow evacuation from the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
The President of the United States has opened up about the fallout from the incident on Saturday (25.04.26) night when shots were fired at the event, and the 79-year-old leader has been asked about the length of time it took for him and his wife Melania to leave the room.
During a conversation with 60 Seconds, CBS News' Norah O'Donnell asked Trump: "You see the security moving quickly, within seconds, grabbing the vice president by his coat, lifting him up, bringing him out, then the counter assault comes in.
“It took 10 seconds for them to flank you, Mr. President, and then 20 seconds to get you out. It looked chaotic. At one point you were down. What was happening?”
He replied: “Well, what happened is it was a little bit me. I wanted to see what was happening, and I wasn’t making it that easy for him.
"I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time, we started to realise maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of a problem, bad one.
“And different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, which you hear all the time. And I was surrounded by great people, and I probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said, ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me see, wait a minute.’”
Vice President JD Vance was also rushed from the ballroom at the Washington Hilton, while other attendees hid under tables after a man - who has been identified as Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from California - rushed passed a security checkpoint.
Trump was also asked about a moment he appeared to hit the ground as he was leaving.
He explained: "What happened is, then I started walking with him. I turned, I started walking, and they said, ‘Please go down. Please go down on the floor'.
“So I went down, and First Lady went down also. We were asked to go down by the agents as I was walking.”
When it was suggested that the agents wanted him "almost to crawl", the president said that was "pretty much" the situation.
He added: "I was standing up, and then turned around the opposite direction and started pretty much walking out, pretty tall, a little bent over, because, you know, I’m not looking to be standing too tall but I was walking out.
"It was pretty about halfway there, and they said, ‘Please go down to the floor. Please go down to the floor.’ So I dropped to the floor. So did the First Lady.”
