The moment the shots rang out, Oz Pearlman thought it was a bomb.
The mentalist was onstage at the Washington Hilton Saturday night, performing for President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at the 2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner, when an armed man charged through a security checkpoint and into the ballroom. Pearlman dropped to all fours. Secret Service agents brought Trump down directly in front of him.
"I'll never forget the image for my whole life," Pearlman told CNN's Dana Bash afterward. "They bring the president down directly in front of me. And we just look at each other for about two seconds."
The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, was charged with two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence and one count of assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon, according to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Allen's arraignment was scheduled for Monday, with additional charges expected. One Secret Service officer was shot but saved by a bulletproof vest, Trump confirmed at a subsequent White House news conference.
In the minutes before the shooting, Pearlman had been performing a trick on White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is expecting a baby within days. The two had spoken backstage about the name she had chosen for her daughter, and Pearlman promised to guess it onstage. He was in the middle of writing down his answer — a name he later revealed to ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl to be "Vivian" — when the gunfire began. Leavitt never got to confirm whether he was right before everyone dove for cover. She later gave him permission to share the name publicly.
Pearlman also described his initial confusion at the chaos unfolding around him. "Because of the way that it was being approached, it wasn't like guns out," he told Bash. "It was like to stop someone. So my first panic when you see in the videos, looking, looking, and then I go down." He added, with some dark resignation, that he had predicted footage of himself at the dinner would be watched for decades. "I unfortunately said that the clip with me and President Trump will be seen five years, 10 years, and 20 years from now. And it was spot on, but for all the wrong reasons."
White House Correspondents' Association president Weijia Jiang, a CBS News senior White House correspondent who was seated at the main table when the shooting began, praised the journalists in attendance the following morning. "Last night's shooting at the Washington Hilton was a harrowing moment for everyone in attendance," she wrote on X. "Last night, those journalists showed exactly the kind of calm and courage that work demands, jumping into reporting immediately after the incident unfolded."
Jiang said the WHCA board would meet to assess the incident and determine how to proceed. Trump, at his post-shooting briefing, indicated he would like to reschedule the dinner within 30 days. He also took to Truth Social to argue the incident validated his push to build a new ballroom on White House grounds. "This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House," he wrote Sunday morning.
Allen's arraignment is set for Monday in Washington.
