President Donald Trump sat down with Norah O’Donnell for an interview scheduled to air Sunday evening 60 minutes To share his perspective on what happened in the moments after the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
O’Donnell noted to Trump that the scene appeared “chaotic” as the Secret Service rushed to protect both the president and Vice President J.D. Vance on Saturday night.
“Well, what happened is — it was me a little bit,” Trump says in a clip shared Sunday. “I wanted to see what was going on, and I wasn’t making it that easy for them. I wanted to see what was going on. And by then we were starting to realize that maybe it was a bad problem, or a different kind of problem, or a bad problem. And different from what might be normal noise from the dance floor, which you hear all the time. I was surrounded by wonderful people. And maybe I made them act a little more slowly. I said, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute.’ Let me see. Wait a minute.
When asked to clarify what he meant, Trump said he started walking with the Secret Service and then they told him to “get on the ground.” He said he and First Lady Melania Trump complied.
He said the reason he was asked to “get off” was because he was “going out too long” and they wanted to protect him.
Watch the clip below.
President Trump said he “wasn’t making it that easy” for the Secret Service to respond when gunfire rang out during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, because he wanted to see what was happening. @NorahODonnell interviews the President tonight on 60 Minutes. pic.twitter.com/Us7RqmMqg2
– 60 Minutes (@60 Minutes) April 26, 2026
The interview with O’Donnell will be broadcast Sunday evening on O’Donnell’s Channel 60 minutes, which airs at 7pm ET/PT on CBS and Paramount+.
As the event began Saturday night at the Washington Hilton, a gunman reportedly attacked a security checkpoint and entered the hall where the event was being held, armed with multiple weapons. He fired several shots before the authorities were able to control him. He was later identified as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen.
At a news conference, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Allen would be charged with use of a firearm and assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon, and that there were likely “many other charges” to come.
Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association and chief White House correspondent for CBS News, called the incident “horrific.”
Carly Thomas contributed to this report.