President Donald Trump held an urgent press conference from the White House on Saturday evening, just hours after a gunman opened fire inside the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The president confirmed that a Secret Service agent had been shot, but was saved by his bulletproof vest.
“I just spoke to the officer. He’s in great shape!” Trump told reporters.
Trump said that the vest “did the job” and protected the agent from what could have been a fatal incident.
WATCH:
Trump Says He Spoke With Secret Service Officer Who Was Shot But Saved By His Bulletproof Vest pic.twitter.com/R0MDn8CLb0
Following the shooting, the event was cut short, and Trump was evacuated along with Melania Trump before being rushed back to the White House.
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the suspected shooter has been identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of California, who is alive and in custody.
Allen worked as a teacher and was named “Teacher of the Month” in December 2024 at C2 Education in Torrance, according to an Instagram post.
A law enforcement official confirmed there was a shooter. A law enforcement officer was shot in the bullet-resistant vest but is expected to be OK, one law-enforcement officer told The Associated Press.
Some in the crowd reported hearing what they believed to be five to eight shots fired. The banquet hall — where hundreds of prominent journalists, celebrities and national leaders were awaiting Trump’s remarks — was immediately evacuated. Members of the National Guard took up position inside the building as people were allowed to leave but not immediately re-enter. Security outside was also extremely tight.
Those in attendance included Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and many other leaders of the Trump administration.
The Gateway Pundit will continue updating this developing story as more details emerge from law enforcement and the White House.
Update: The WHCD has ended due to a shooting incident.
There are reports that President Trump may return to the stage after a shooting incident at the Washington Hilton.
President Trump on Saturday night is headlining the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Trump is attending the WHCA Dinner for the first time as President.
“For more than 100 years, the journalists of the White House Correspondents’ Association have enjoyed an evening with the president, a dinner that celebrates the First Amendment while supporting the work we do including awards honoring excellent journalism and scholarships to help the next generation of reporters who someday will be the ones asking the questions at the White House,” said Weijia Jiang, President, WHCA.
“We’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him,” he said.
President Trump and First Lady Melania traveled to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner together.
The First Lady and President Trump made a grand entrance at the WHCD.
President Trump, First Lady Melania, Vice President Vance and others have been reportedly rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner amid a ‘security incident.’
The President and his entire Cabinet were safely evacuated after shots were fired in the lobby of the Washington Hilton at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
At first it was reported that the shooter had been killed in the lobby. New reports suggest the shooter has been taken into custody.
President Trump and dignitaries rushed out of WHCA dinner during security incident. Unclear what happened. @CBSNews
Video captured the moment President Trump and First Lady Melania were rushed out.
WATCH:
Secret Service agents jumped on President Trump the moment shots were fired in the lobby.
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Trump released a statement after the shooting:
Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we “LET THE SHOW GO ON” but, will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement. They will make a decision shortly. Regardless of that decision, the evening will be much different than planned, and we’ll just, plain, have to do it again. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Per several reports, the Secret Service evacuated President Donald Trump from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night after shots were heard in the Washington, DC Hilton’s ballroom.
Other cabinet members in attendance were also evacuated.
CNN has reported that the alleged shooter is dead.
Trump, who was attending the event for the first time tonight, posted on Truth Social that he had “recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’” but was complying with law enforcement’s requests.
Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, has announced that the program will soon resume.
Left-wing media is once again scrambling to rewrite recent history—this time over Afghan refugees still stranded overseas after Joe Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
During a recent segment, MSNOW attempted to frame President Donald Trump as “targeting” Afghan allies who assisted the United States during the war.
The claim centers around reports that some Afghan nationals currently living in Qatar may be given relocation options outside the United States, including possible resettlement in other countries.
But the outrage narrative leaves out the most important facts.
First, these individuals were not universally promised permanent resettlement in the United States—certainly not under the Trump administration.
The idea that every Afghan who assisted U.S. efforts was guaranteed entry into the U.S. is simply false. Immigration and refugee policy has always involved a structured vetting process, prioritization, and logistical constraints.
The current situation exists because of Biden’s 2021 withdrawal—an operation widely criticized across the political spectrum for its execution.
When the Taliban rapidly took over Afghanistan following Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces, thousands of Afghan allies were left in limbo. Many were relocated to temporary holding locations, including a former U.S. military base in Qatar.
Years later, many remain there, waiting for final decisions on resettlement.
That is the context MSNOW conveniently ignored.
Instead, the segment leaned heavily on emotional framing, highlighting interpreters, special forces affiliates, and families—including hundreds of children—while suggesting the Trump administration is abandoning them.
The reporting relied in part on claims from outlets like The New York Times, which often shape the initial narrative before it spreads across legacy media.
What is actually being discussed is policy—not abandonment.
Any proposal to relocate individuals to third countries is part of a broader effort to manage a complex backlog created by the rushed withdrawal.
The United States faces limits in processing capacity, security vetting, and long-term integration resources. Those realities do not disappear simply because media outlets frame the issue emotionally.
There is also a double standard in how “promises” are being discussed.
Under the Biden administration, mass entry into the United States surged to record levels, with millions of foreigners encountering minimal barriers at the border. Against that backdrop, claims about strict obligations to resettle specific groups ring hollow.
If anything, the broader immigration system has already been stretched beyond its limits.
Democrats now argue that any alternative to immediate U.S. resettlement for Afghan Refugees is “anti-American.” That argument ignores the fact that refugee policy has always involved coordination with allied countries.
Resettlement does not automatically mean relocation to the United States—especially in cases involving large populations and long delays.
The real story is not about Trump “turning away” allies. Rather, it’s about a policy mess created in 2021 that is still being dealt with years later.
And once again, instead of confronting that reality, legacy media outlets are choosing narrative over facts.
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Since 2022, an average of about 37,000 migrants have arrived in the UK by small boat each year, based on UK Home Office data analyzed by the Migration Observatory. The top nationalities include Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, Syria, and Eritrea. Photo courtesy of the UK government.
At a press conference in Dover, Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s spokesperson on immigration, policing, and national security, launched the party’s mass deportation proposal. He described the UK as “invaded” by migrants and said the plan would be the largest deportation programme in British history. Reform has stated it would deport more than 600,000 people in its first term, using a dedicated unit to track down, detain, and remove those in the country illegally, at a rate of up to 288,000 per year.
Yusuf was born in October 1986 in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, the son of Sri Lankan Muslim immigrants who came to the UK in the early 1980s. His father is a doctor and his mother a nurse, both working for the National Health Service (NHS). A Muslim son of immigrants leading a party strongly associated with anti-immigration politics, Yusuf nonetheless shares many concerns familiar to American conservatives.
Reform UK’s platform addresses illegal immigration, welfare dependency among foreign nationals, and terminating a permanent residency system that gives non-citizens lifetime access to benefits and the right to bring unlimited family members into the country. The party also demands that legal migrants be net contributors to the economy and speak English.
On security, Yusuf argues that Islamist extremism, the dominant share of MI5’s caseload, has gone unaddressed by a government that has preferred to promote right-wing extremism as the primary threat. He links that same culture of avoidance to the grooming gang scandal, in which organized child sexual exploitation by men of Pakistani heritage was covered up for decades by authorities unwilling to confront it. When warnings were ignored and attacks occurred, no one in government was fired and no one was held accountable.
His Reform Party also wants to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been used to block deportations of foreign nationals, including convicted criminals, and which British voters have no power to override.
On legal migrants, Yusuf drew a clear line between tolerance and subsidy. Those in the country on a legal visa, he said, are expected “to pay your way, i.e. be a net contributor to the economy and not be a burden on the taxpayer, to speak English and to not commit crime.” Reform also plans to abolish permanent residency, replacing it with a system requiring visa renewal every five years or a defined path to citizenship.
“This country can ill afford to continue to be a food bank for the world,” he said, pointing to the £9 billion ($12 billion) spent on universal credit (the UK’s main welfare program) for foreign nationals in the previous year alone. He warned that figure would grow as the 3.8 million people who entered under Boris Johnson become eligible for permanent residency (indefinite leave to remain), at which point they gain lifetime access to the welfare system and the right to bring unlimited dependents into the country.
“It’s totally unfair to expect them to foot that bill,” he said of British taxpayers, “and even worse to brand them racist.” Just like in the US, anyone who speaks out against open borders risks being called racist, except that in the UK it can land you in jail. Over 12,000 people were arrested in 2023 alone for social media posts under UK communications laws, a number that had more than doubled since 2017. In one case, Luke Yarwood received an 18-month sentence for anti-immigration posts on X that had been viewed just 33 times.
Yusuf has also argued that British citizens’ rights are being placed “beneath those of criminals” under the European Convention on Human Rights, and Reform has pledged to leave the treaty. More broadly, he has described current immigration levels as “unsustainable” for public services.
Yusuf told reporters that the majority of MI5’s caseload is “Islamist terrorism, so that is a fact,” and accused the government of performing “the most extraordinary gymnastics in order to not actually address the problem.” He pointed to official language in a recent report that used the word “alleged” when describing grooming gang crimes, despite hundreds of convictions.
“We know there’s been an almighty cover-up,” he said, adding that Labour had acknowledged this only by permitting partial inquiries rather than the full national inquiry Reform is demanding. He accused the government of being willing to “sacrifice the lives of its own people at the altar of this virtue-signalling diversity.”
Yusuf also invoked the July 2024 Southport attack, in which Axel Rudakubana, a British citizen of Rwandan heritage, stabbed and killed three girls at a dance class: Bebe King, aged six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, aged nine. He pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder, possession of terrorist material, and producing ricin.
Ricin is a highly toxic poison derived from castor beans. It is one of the most dangerous naturally occurring substances and has been used in assassination attempts and terrorist plots. There is no antidote.
He was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years. Authorities had flagged Rudakubana to the government’s counter-extremism program three times between 2019 and 2021, when he was between 13 and 14 years old.
Each time, he was assessed and cleared. Yusuf demanded accountability: “Who has been fired? Who has paid a price for this inside the state system? Not a single person funded by the taxpayer whose job it was to keep those little girls alive has paid any penalty.” A subsequent government inquiry found an “inappropriate merry-go-round” of agencies passing responsibility and concluded the culture of unaccountability “has to end.” No one has been fired.
The grooming-gang prosecutions at the center of this debate involved perpetrators who were overwhelmingly men of Pakistani heritage. Operation Stovewood, the largest such investigation in UK history, identified 323 suspects in Rotherham, nearly two-thirds of Pakistani background, and secured 42 convictions. The Jay Report confirmed most victims were white British girls. The 2025 Baroness Casey audit found the same pattern across Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire.
Convicted perpetrators included Mohammed Amar, Mohammed Siyab, Yasser Ajaibe, Mohammed Zameer Sadiq, Abid Saddiq, Tahir Yassin, and Ramin Bari in Rotherham, and Zahid, Shahzad, Ahmed, Bashir, Khan, Akram, and Hussain in the separate Rochdale prosecutions, which covered crimes committed between 2000 and 2006. The Casey report cautioned that ethnicity data was not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators nationally, making broader conclusions impossible.
In the end, American conservatives would see Reform UK’s platform as the kind of common-sense policies held by the Trump administration and that many wish would become enshrined in law in their own country.
What Yusuf is describing, however, is not current UK law but proposed policy. These measures can only take place if Reform UK wins the next election and Nigel Farage becomes prime minister. Even then, the UK would have to withdraw from international treaties to carry out mass deportations, and that withdrawal could itself be challenged in court, a scenario that will sound familiar to Trump voters who have watched activist judges thwart immigration reform while the clock ticks toward the midterms.
As bad as things are in the UK, they are worse in the European Union. Meloni in Italy, working within EU constraints, has found that her best efforts to stop the endless flow of migrants have fallen short. Orbán in Hungary defied those constraints and was taken to court by the EU and stripped of billions in funding. However, he managed to keep his country’s borders largely secure but was voted out of office on April 12, 2026, after 16 years in power.
For now, the situation in the UK serves as a cautionary tale and a teachable moment for Americans on how the left can erode a country and how joining supranational treaties can hamstring government reform.
A transgender substitute teacher at a Virginia school has been arrested after he allegedly threatened to go on a “murder spree” at a local high school.
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said it arrested Hadyn Dollery, 19, of South Riding, on charges of making threats of bodily injury,
“LCSO received information through the Safe2Talk app indicating that Dollery made statements threatening violence at John Champe High School on an online platform,” the sheriff’s office said.
Dollery is locked up at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center and has a court date of May 26 on the charges.
Dollery self-identifies as a woman but was locked up as a man, according to the New York Post.
NEW: The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office arrested a Loudoun County Public Schools substitute teacher.
The Sheriff’s office says: Hadyn Dollery, 19, of Chantilly, was arrested and charged with Threats of Bodily Injury after LCSO received information through the Safe2Talk app… pic.twitter.com/2O0B2jkWm2
Deputy Chris Freck wrote in a criminal complaint that on April 16, the sheriff’s office received an allegation that Dollery made online threats against family and friends, according to the Loudoun Times-Mirror.
Freck said the threats included going on a “murder spree” at a school.
Dollery’s message allegedly included a “kill list,” Freck said.
School representative Dan Adams said Dollery was a “non-licensed” substitute but has since been taken off the list.
To be a non-licensed substitute in Virginia, an individual need only be 18 and have graduated from high school.
Adams did not say which schools used Dollery as a substitute.
“LCPS takes all threats seriously as safety of students, staff and visitors is our highest priority,” Adams said.
The nation has been rocked by prominent transgender-identifying school shooters in recent years.
Audrey Hale, a female who identified as a male, killed six in March 2023 at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, before killing herself.
In August 2025, two children were killed during a mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis as students of the Annunciation Catholic School were attending a school-wide Mass to mark the opening of the academic year. Robert Westman, a male who had his name legally changed to Robin, was responsible for that shooting.
In February, self-described transgender student Jesse Strang shot nine people to death in British Columbia, Canada.
A 2025 analysis of planned or successfully executed mass school shootings by The Western Journal in the aftermath of the Minneapolis incident found that roughly 40 percent of them since 2020 have involved transgender-identifying suspects.
Two massive wildfires in south Georgia have scorched more than 40,000 acres and destroyed over 120 homes.
Extreme drought has turned the region into a tinderbox and allowed flames to spread. Overnight, new fires sparked in rural south Georgia. High winds have made efforts to contain the fires difficult, officials said in a news conference Saturday afternoon.
Brantley County Manager Joey Cason called the wildfires a “dynamic situation” in a Saturday morning video posted to social media and begged residents to “please evacuate” if they are ordered to do so. New evacuation orders were issued as the fire spread.
“Leave the scene. This fire is moving at a fast pace and we do not have much control over where it’s currently moving. Please leave,” Cason said Saturday afternoon at a news conference, addressing Georgia residents facing evacuation orders.
Firefighters battled the blaze in southern Georgia.
WATCH:
NEW VIDEO: Wildfires tear through southern Georgia, wiping out more than 35,000 acres and destroying nearly 90 homes as residents witness the effects of historic drought conditions.
Smoke from fires in southeast Georgia have also caused Air Quality Alerts as dry winds continue… pic.twitter.com/ywq1DG5xye
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp delivered remarks on the state’s efforts to put out the wildfires.
Governor Kemp said the two fires are the most destructive in Georgia’s history.
Kemp said one of the fires is 15% contained.
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Brian Kemp: The Pineland Fire and Highway 82 fire rank number one and two in the country. So we got the two most dangerous, biggest problematic fires anywhere in the United States. We believe that these two fires have created the most lost homes ever in the history of our state. pic.twitter.com/RK6kPttT8Z
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao released a video statement after John Phelan was ousted from the position.
As previously reported, Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan on was fired by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Wednesday.
Undersecretary Hung Cao is now the Acting Secretary of the Navy, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced.
Full statement from Sean Parnell:
Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan is departing the administration, effective immediately.
On behalf of the Secretary of War and Deputy Secretary of War, we are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department and the United States Navy.
We wish him well in his future endeavors.
Undersecretary Hung Cao will become Acting Secretary of the Navy.
At first it was unclear if John Phelan was fired or resigned but Fox News later reported that he was indeed fired.
On Thursday, President Trump’s statement suggested Phelan departed on his own accord.
Full statement from President Trump:
John Phelan is a long time friend, and very successful businessman, who did an outstanding job serving as my Secretary Of The Navy for the last year.
John helped my Administration rebuild Sleepy Joe Biden’s rapidly depleted, and almost abandoned, Navy. Now, because of John, and all of the Great Men and Women lovingly and tirelessly involved, we have the strongest Navy in the World — BY FAR!
John Phelan is smart, tough, and respected by all, and although he has decided to move on from his position as Secretary Of The Navy, I very much appreciate the job that he has done, and would certainly like to have him back within the Trump Administration sometime in the future.
A very special thank you to John for his service to the United States of America! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Later Thursday, President Trump said Phelan had conflicts with some people.
“He’s a very good man.. He’s a hard charger, and he had some conflicts with some other people, mostly as to building and buying new ships,” Trump said.
“I’m very aggressive in the new shipbuilding, amd somehow he just didn’t get along with them,” he said.
In an interview on MSNOW, DNC Chairman Ken Martin attempted to defend Democrats’ latest redistricting effort in Virginia by framing it as a justified response to Republicans.
But his argument overlooked the most important fact: what happened in Virginia is fundamentally different from typical redistricting fights in solid red or solid blue states.
Virginia voters narrowly approved a redistricting referendum, 51.5% to 48.6%, allowing the Democrat-controlled legislature to move forward with a new congressional map.
The map could give Democrats as many as 10 of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats, a dramatic shift from the current 6–5 Democrat advantage.
A Virginia judge later blocked certification of the vote, ruling that the measure violated the state constitution and that the ballot language was misleading. The state is expected to appeal.
That is not a minor technical dispute. It is the core of the issue.
Virginia already had a redistricting process built around a nonpartisan commission. The state’s current congressional map was not some extreme Republican gerrymander.
It reflected Virginia’s closely divided electorate, where Democrats and Republicans both have real political strength. That is why the delegation sat near the middle, not at a 10–1 partisan split.
The new Democrat-backed map would take a competitive swing state and turn its congressional delegation into something that looks nothing like the actual electorate.
Republicans redistrict in states like Texas and Florida because those states are already reliably Republican. Democrats do the same in places like New York and California.
Redistricting is political, and both parties use it. But redrawing a swing state mid-cycle to create a near-total partisan advantage crosses a much more serious line.
Martin did not address that distinction. Instead, he mocked Republicans and claimed Democrats were simply “fighting back.”
He argued that Republicans started the redistricting fight and that Democrats were not “bringing a pencil to a knife fight.”
That may be effective television rhetoric, but it does not answer the basic question: why should a swing state with a nearly balanced electorate be turned into a map where one party could control almost every congressional seat?
Democrats cannot claim to be defending democracy while pushing a map that could reduce Republican representation in Virginia to one seat out of 11.
They cannot insist redistricting is dangerous when Republicans do it, then celebrate when Democrats use the same tool more aggressively in a state where the consequences are far greater.
The hypocrisy is obvious.
A fair map in a swing state should reflect the voters who live there. Virginia is not California. It is not New York. It is not a deep-blue state where Democrats naturally dominate every region.
Rather, Virginia is a competitive state, and its congressional map should reflect that competition.
Instead, Democrats pushed a plan that could wipe out most Republican representation while calling it democracy.
That is the real story from Martin’s MSNOW interview. The DNC chairman did not defend fairness.
He defended a political maneuver designed to give Democrats more seats, more control, and a better chance of taking back the House.
Republicans should call it exactly what it is: a Democrat power grab in one of the most important swing states in the country.
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