Mentalist Oz Perlman, who hosted the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night, reveals the magic trick he performed on Carolyn Leavitt moments before the shooting.
Perelman was seen speaking with White House press secretary and First Lady Melania Trump, who was sitting next to President Donald Trump, and then showed them a mysterious piece of paper. Moments later, they all dropped to the floor behind the table on stage, before Trump and Melania were quickly escorted from the Washington Hilton ballroom.
ABC News Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl later met the mentalist who revealed what was written on the paper.
“She challenged me,” said Carolyn Leavitt, press secretary. I’m having a baby next week.” We were talking about it because we both have children, and she said, “Can you guess what I’m calling my daughter?” And he said, “And this was happening behind the scenes.” “We were interrupted because the president came in. So I said: Let’s keep it when we get on stage.”
Later, Perelman went on stage to introduce himself to Trump and Melania, when he performed the magic trick on Levitt, with the president and first lady also watching closely.
“I was coming to say hello to the president and the first lady, and I was guessing letter by letter how many letters were in the letter.” [Leavitt’s unborn child’s] “Then the moment you see it happening, you write the name down and say, ‘How did you do?'” he remembers the name. And I turned around and that’s when I saw the First Lady saying: Oh! Is that the name?”
However, before Levitt could confirm whether Perlman was right, a gunman burst into the dance hall and opened fire. The suspect, later identified as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, was reportedly forced through a security checkpoint into the Washington Hilton Ballroom with multiple weapons.
US Attorney Jeanine Pirro confirmed in a press conference that the suspect will be charged with using a firearm and assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon, and that there will likely be “many other charges” in the future. Trump also said in a separate news conference at the White House that an officer was shot but saved by a bulletproof vest.
Once the scene was under control, Perlman told Carl that Levitt had given him permission to share the name he had written on the paper.
“I think the name is Vivian,” he said. “So, yeah, that’s what you guessed.”
