WASHINGTON: A lipreader has revealed how Vice President JD Vance reacted as an apparent would-be assassin stormed a dinner event in Washington DC.
Gunshots rang out at the hotel where the formal White House Correspondents’ Dinner was being held, where Donald Trump was preparing to address top US journalists on Saturday evening.
Dramatic footage from the scene shows personnel rushing on stage to pull Trump, his wife, Melania, and several other top administration officials.
Secret Service members clutched onto the Vice President and yanked him out of his seat as the chaos unfolded.
Forensic lipreader Nicola Hickling revealed that a bodyguard apparently went up to Vance, shouting: ‘Run, run.’
The Vice President responded ‘What’s happening? I’m going before he left the stage in a hurry.
Officials said the attacker was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives when he charged at a security checkpoint by the ballroom.
Trump later posted pictures of the suspect in the shooting lying face down on the carpeted floor, topless.
US outlets identified him as Cole Thomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California.
Another guest seen escorted away from the scene was Erika Kirk, wife of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on a college campus in September.
Erika could be seen in tears leaving the venue, saying to a bodyguard: ‘I just wanna go home’.
Donald Trump also revealed what his wife told him after bullets were fired in the Washington Hilton Hotel.
At a press conference in the West Wing after the shooting, Trump said: It’s always shocking when something like this happens.
‘The fact that we were sitting next to each other, the first lady on my right, and I heard a noise,’ Trump said, adding they thought ‘it was either a tray or a bullet.
‘I heard a noise and kinda thought it was a tray going down.’
He said Melania instantly recognised the sound as a ‘bad noise,’ adding that ‘it was a rather traumatic experience for her.’
‘Melania was very cognizant,’ he continued.
Within seconds of the shots, the President, First Lady, and Vice President ducked for cover under their table on stage at the front of the room.
Secret Service agents then escorted them off the stage and combed through the banquet hall to secure top Cabinet figures.
An officer was shot during the exchange, Trump confirmed.
‘One officer was shot, but saved by the fact that he was wearing an – obviously – a very good bulletproof vest. He was shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun, and the vest did the job.’