Mentalist Oz Pearlman, who was beside President Donald Trump during the attack on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, is now detailing the chaotic moments at the head table.
Pearlman, 43, said on State of the Union Sunday that he was in a “pivotal moment” of a trick for Melania Trump, Karoline Leavitt, and the president when sudden movement below made him think someone was having a “medical emergency.”
“It wasn’t gunshots. I wasn’t sure if it was a tray. We’re also higher than everyone, so we have a very good vantage point versus the thousands of people in the room,” he said.
But as the commotion spread, his instincts shifted. “I see everyone swarming one table. And I’m looking and trying to understand, and then you see people getting down... I didn’t hear any shots or see what looked like a shooter. I thought there was about to be a bomb.”
The most-viewed mentalist in the world continued: “Like I really very much thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s about to explode,’ because of the way that it was being approached wasn’t like guns out. It was like to stop someone.”
Pearlman then crouched down at the table as Trump was pulled down “less than a foot away” from him, with the duo locking eyes as he thought, “Oh no, are we about to die?”
The suspect, identified in reports as 31-year-old educator Cole Tomas Allen, had traveled from California and checked into the Hilton two days before the event.
While crouched on the floor with Trump, Pearlman said that he was concerned for the president’s health. “I also wasn‘t sure if he was hurt because his face was not... like, he went down really hard,” he said.
“The Secret Service is not—I thought in the movies, I don’t know if they take you down easy. It was a tackle, like it was NFL, and that would hurt anyone, I don‘t care what age you are. So we were looking at each other, he was just looking. But the expression in his face didn’t show whether there was pain or what was going on.”
The chaos erupted at the exact moment Pearlman was performing a mind-reading trick for Leavitt, where he tried to guess the name she was thinking of.
“The timing is so weird because you see them be amazed because of the name and they go, ‘Oh,’ and then right at that moment is when we all see what happened,” he said.
Asked by host Dana Bash to reveal the name, Pearlman declined. But he later told ABC’s Jon Karl the trick involved guessing the name of Leavitt’s unborn child—and that he had landed on “Vivian.”
Later, Pearlman told ABC’s Jon Karl that he was attempting to guess the name of Leavitt’s unborn child—and “cast” the name “Vivian.”
Looking back, Pearlman said one line from his evening now haunts him.
“I unfortunately said that the clip with me and President Trump will be seen five years, ten years and twenty years from now. And it was spot on, but for all the wrong reasons,” he said.
