President Donald Trump sang the praises of the officers who rushed to respond after shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner—especially for their looks.
Speaking to 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O’Donnell in an extended interview on Sunday night, the president said he initially resisted Secret Service attempts to usher him out of the ballroom at the Washington Hilton after 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen opened fire outside the room because he was trying to see what was going on.
“I did want to see what was happening, because, you know, I’m the president,” he told O’Donnell. “In one way I guess I should be hiding, and in another way I want to see if I can be helpful, but I did watch, because I could see what was going on at the door.”
He then began delivering effusive praise for the officers on the scene, telling O’Donnell, “I also saw a lot of very strong, physically strong, really attractive law enforcement people come through those doors, and frankly it made me feel very safe, very, very safe—there was nobody that was going to get by them.”
“They were very impressive. I think the whole operation was very impressive,” he added.
Allen, a part-time teacher and video game developer from Torrance, California, gained access to the Washington Hilton where the dinner was being held while armed with a shotgun, handgun, and several knives.
Daily Beast Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty, who was attending the event and stayed in the room next to Allen’s, appeared on MS NOW’s The Weekend: Primetime on Sunday night to discuss the security measures in place at the event.
Dougherty explained that there were no searches, including upon check-in, with attendees only encountering magnetometers at the checkpoint directly outside the ballroom.
“The only time I went past a checkpoint was at the same magnetometers that Cole Allen, 31, sprinted past with his gun,” Dougherty wrote in a report for the Beast.
Citing senior law enforcement sources, CBS News reported that Allen was able to use the hotel’s interior stairwells to bypass public areas and gain access to the terrace level above the ballroom.
Officials familiar with the event’s security plans told The Washington Post that the Trump administration had provided a lower level of security for the dinner than it has for other gatherings of high-ranking officials.
The president was joined at the event by other senior members of his administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. FBI Director Kash Patel was there as a guest of the Daily Mail.
Security was so lax surrounding the event that in the manifesto Allen sent to his family members minutes prior to the shooting, the suspected gunman blasted the lack of security measures in place.
“What the hell is the Secret Service doing?” he wrote.
Writing that he “expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo,” Allen instead found “no damn security” on his cross-country train ride to D.C. or at the event itself.
“Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance,” he continued. “I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.”
