Trump interviewed about the incident

Last night in the nation's capital, a gunman stormed the security perimeter at the White House correspondence dinner. The president, the first lady, the vice president, cabinet members, and more than 2,500 guests were gathered to celebrate the First Amendment freedom of the press. But after shots were fired, the president was evacuated. It was at the same hotel where President Ronald Reagan was nearly assassinated by John Hinckley. 45 I think if you're a president at this point, you just don't go to there again. Just from now on, presidents don't go to this hotel anymore. Years ago, just tonight, federal investigators are looking into the motive of the alleged gun. A 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California. He emailed what a senior official called a manifesto to his family minutes before the attack. He wrote he was targeting members of the Trump administration. We spoke with President Trump this afternoon at the White House about what happened. Here we go. Mr. President, do you know I love how the 60 Minutes intros when I was like 5 years old. They were the exact same as this. They have never changed. Like it has the that 1995 energy. Oh my god. You were the target of the gunman. I don't know. It sounded to me I read a manifesto is he's radicalized. He was a Christian believer and then he became an anti-Christian and he had a lot of change. He's been going through a lot based on what he wrote. His brother complained about him and I think reported him to the police and his sister likewise complained about him. His family was very concerned. He was uh probably a pretty sick guy. I was in the room not far from you, Mr. president. Put a circle around her. Could hear what sounded like gunshots or commotion. People nearby could smell the gunpowder. Um, everybody hit the floor. How worried were you that there were going to be injuries? I wasn't worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world. You are sitting there next to the first lady, the entertainer named O. Wow. All right. Pearlman is talking to you. He's known as the mentalist. When did you know something was wrong? Yeah. Right around that point. Uh in fact you can see the expression on the first lady's uh face and your president of the evening chairman or president or both who is doing a great job by the way your associate. Yeah she was a terrific person you know he didn't know how to say her name you know for a fact bro like he was like you know that yeah her she did it. Yeah, the the person running it did a great job. They were asking Uhhuh. the name of Caroline's child that he didn't know, I guess, but the press secretary is expecting and he was trying to guess the baby's name. That's right. You mentioned the first lady, her face. She looked very alarmed cuz there Yeah. Well, I don't want to say and people don't like having it said that they were scared, but certainly I mean, who wouldn't be when you have a situation like that? By that time, I think she realized ahead of time that that was more of a bullet than it was a tray. And she was uh I looked at her face just a little while ago before I came. I saw the scene. They played it for me and you know, pretty good closeup and uh she looked uh very upset about what just took place. You know, why not? You see the security It's just like he doesn't give a [ __ ] I guess. Yeah. I mean, she I looked at it and yeah, she looked up. Yeah. Moving quickly within seconds, grabbing the vice president by his coat, lifting him up, bringing him out. Then the counter assault comes in. 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? Well, what happened is uh 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. He was intentionally making it harder for that time. started to realize 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 uh 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." So, you know, I'm telling guys just at that moment where it looks like you go sort of down with the service. You were telling them to wait. Well, I know 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, but we were asked to go down by the agents as I was walking. In other words, they wanted you almost to crawl. I was standing up pretty much. I was standing up and then turned around the opposite direction and started pretty much walking out pretty tall, a little bent over because I, you know, I'm not looking to be standing too tall and uh but I was walking out was pretty about halfway there and they said, "Please go down to the floor. Please go down to the floor." So So he didn't want to crawl around because it would look bad. That's probably why he didn't want to do it cuz like it would look like he's crawling around on the floor. Like it's embarrassing, right? I mean that's the president crawling around. I mean like you know you if they had a picture of him crawling around like I mean this would have everybody people would have been using this all the time to the floor. Yeah. Like think about how much aura he would have lost from that. First lady, what was your thought about that? What did the first lady say? Well, my thought was, you know, I've been through this before a couple of times and uh she has not to this extent. She handled it great. I mean, she was she's very It's actually the first time meme. It's like, oh, it's your first assassination attempt. Smart. She got it. She knew what was happening. She listened. I did, too, by the way. Cuz this was the first time she When they said Yeah. When they said drop down, that meant trouble. And obviously I'm the president and I listened to what they said. Please drop down, sir. Please drop down. So I was was walking halfway and then I dropped down at the final because we had little ways to go where you're exposed to the ballroom surroundings. And uh then I got up and we went to a hold room for a while and I tried to get them to continue the event if possible. You wanted to go back in. I did. I really did. You can see the gunman. That's smart because like if you let people like this [ __ ] up the event, then they think that they can do it regularly to [ __ ] up more events running through the metal detectors and he fired off one or two rounds. Yeah, they probably they also hadn't served the food yet. That's true. It was rather incredible actually. It was he was like a blur. It might have been swarming with security. I I will say, look, I say it because I'm a big fan of the people of law enforcement. And you know, some of these people, they may be crazy, but they're not stupid and they figure things out. He ran 45 yards, they say, and he just went to it and then boom, he popped through it. I mean, he ran like I think the NFL should sign him up. He was fast. Oh my god. When you look at it, it's almost like a blur, right? But it was amazing cuz as soon as they saw that, talk about how fast you could see them drawing their guns. They were so professional. It was it was fast. Aimed their guns and then they took them down immediately. Mhm. 2 hours later, the president was back at the White House to brief reporters. I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was in one way very beautiful. Do you think this will change your relationship with the press? Well, look, for whatever reason, we disagree on a lot of subjects. Uh we talk about nobody knows why. I'm very strong on crime. It seems like the press isn't. Uh, it's not so much the press, it's the press plus the Democrats because they're almost one and the same. It's like the craziest thing. I have the strongest border we've ever had in the country. We're, as you know, it said zero people for nine months came into our country through our southern border. We have a very tough border. The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President. He appears to reference a motive in it. He writes this quote administration officials they are targets and he also wrote this. I am no longer willing to rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. What's your reaction? Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you're you're horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah. He you did you guys did you notice he looked directly at the camera? Watch. Coat my hands with his crimes. See, he knew, bro. He's like, "Aha, right. Okay." With his crimes. What's your reaction to that? Yeah, he did write that. I'm I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody. Uh, oh, you think you think he was referring to you? Excuse me. You read that crap from some sick person. Uh, I got associated with all stuff. See, this is the reason why I totally side with Trump with this stuff is that the Oh, do you think he was referring to you? The amount of dishonesty with that is like just so crazy to me. It is. It's so insanely [ __ ] crazy. And I don't see how other people don't see it entirely. He tries to play innocent. It's so dishonest. It is. This is why I hate the media. I do. I totally hate the media. That has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let's say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this interview and they'll probably I read the manifesto. You know, he's a sick person, but you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things, Mr. President. I was never Excuse me. Excuse me. You shouldn't be reading that on 60 minutes. You're a disgrace. But go ahead. Let's finish the interview. The other thing that he wrote in the disgraceful the other thing in the manif agree with him. I do. I totally agree with him. I think this is insane. Like the media are awful. They're terrible. Trump's an [ __ ] He is an [ __ ] He's a total [ __ ] and we need him to be a He should be an even bigger [ __ ] to these people. They're awful. that I think is worth looking at in terms of determining his motive. He had been staying at the hotel since Friday. He checked in. He said he had cased the place and he wrote, "What the hell is the Secret Service doing?" And he wrote this, quote, "I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 ft, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got is nothing." He wrote, "Like this level of incompetence is insane." Sir, you have already had two. He was pretty incompetent, too, because he got caught and he got like, well, how good is he if I'm still standing here, right? So, what's he the [ __ ] What's he talking [ __ ] for? Still got his ass. I caught pretty easily. So, I'd say he was pretty incompetent, too. You know, I could take any event having to do with security or anything else. I I can always find fault. Those guys did a good job last night. They did a really good job. I mentioned that because again as his motive, you brought this up. He had social media accounts that had anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric. You should read why don't you read all the anti-Trump? Why don't you read it? You just did. So why don't you read it? Well, he had a lot of anti-Christian rhetoric. He had he was part of a group called the wide awakes. He had attended a no kings protest in California. No kings. What did security tell you about? The reason you have people like that is you have people doing no kings. I'm not a king. What I am? You knew that was going to make him mad, bro. Like the moment that you said that was a king, I wouldn't be dealing with you. Also kings. I'm not a king. What I am, if I Jesus Christ. Oh man, look at her eyes. I know. Also at the dinner last night was your secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His sister, Carrie Kennedy, was there. They've both witnessed their father and their uncle be assassinated. That's right. Erica Kirk was there. The House Majority Manuch Scaliz was there. Yeah. Political violence has touched so many people in that room. Is there something that you as president can do? What can be done to change the trajectory? You know, you should say regulate the media. Regulate the media and put more reporters that side against America and cooperate with foreign interests in jail. Say that right now. It' be a perfect thing to say, please. You go back 20 years, 40 years, 100 years, 200, 500 years. It's always been there. People are assassinated. People are injured. People are hurt. And I'm not sure anymore now than there was. I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats, much more so, is is very dangerous. I really think it's very dangerous to the country. President Trump told us he hopes to move events like last night's press gala to the new East Wing Ballroom that he says is ahead of schedule, though it won't be ready until 2028. But he wants last night's dinner Well, that's good. It'll be good. It'll be there for his third term. That's great. Be rescheduled much sooner than that. You are committed to doing this event with the White House correspondents in that's about freedom of the press. I want them because I don't want to see it be cancelled. I don't want to have a crazy person. I think it's really bad. Perfect timing. A crazy person to be able to cancel something like this. There are great people in the press, too. I can name, but I don't want to I don't want to embarrass your show. We have some great people in the press, some very fair people and people that are just on my side. But for the most part, it's a very liberal or very progressive, let's use the word liberal, liberal press. But uh I was just really I was really happy to see the the I don't know how long it'll last the relationship, the friendship, the spirit after a very bad event took place. Now the event turned out to be much less bad because nobody was killed, nobody was hurt. The Secret Service agent uh had I spoke to him, he had a a bulletproof vest on. Unbelievable. He's okay. Oh, he's 100%. Yeah. No, he was 100%. He didn't want to go to the hospital. He really didn't. They asked him to go. He didn't want to go. He said, "I don't need to go to the hospital." But he went because they asked him to go. Well, I know the White House correspondents association very much appreciates you going last night and honoring a commitment to do it. I hope we're going to do it again. Nura, tell them to get it going. And we should do it within 30 days. and they'll have even more security and they'll have bigger perimeter security. It'll be fine they've ever had. We can't let something be It's not that I want to go. It's I have I'm very busy. I don't need that. I think it's very important that they do it again. He's completely right. He is. He's totally right because the moment that you let some [ __ ] derail things like that, then now everything's about that. No, he Yeah. Most secure event ever. There's never been an event. Nobody knows more about security than I do. I'll link you guys the video. And uh yeah, I'll find him out. Why is he uh What is this here? Why is he like the prophet of truth? I know exactly what you're trying to say. Oh god. And uh Yeah. And uh wow. Big beautiful security. I guess so. Make events great again. That's what they say. And he said exactly word for word uh when you weren't paying attention. Yeah, I mean I I I mean I I know he did because that's that's it's obviously what should happen, right?