‘Scary’ - Witness describes Donald Trump assassination attempt 🔫

0:00Sydney's best break first. Well, we want to check in with Olivia Rengold from the free press. She was in the room at the White House Correspondence dinner when Donald Trump survived a third major assassination attempt. Olivia Rengold joins us on the line from Washington DC live right now. Olivia, thank you very much for joining us. Yeah, thank you for having me. Can you give us a sense of what was going on in the moments before we heard the gunshots? Yeah, it was, you know, things were, it was an exciting night. We were enjoying our appetizer. I was seated at a table with colleagues from CBS and we were kind of discussing news stories. And then we heard four, I would describe them as like nox or blows. I actually thought it was a drum beat at first. I thought someone was banging on a drum, but it was strong. Like I kind of felt it in my, in my body almost like a gust of energy or wind or something.

1:04And I, you know, my impulse was to kind of carry on as normal because I thought it was a protest. And then suddenly there was a lot of commotion where people were diving under tables. And so I was seated actually at the closest table possible to the door that I believe the gunman would have entered through. And so immediately, you know, we all tried to run away from the door and ended up creating makeshift barricades with these chairs. And while you guys were hiding under tables and keeping as low as possible, we had the Secret Service rushing in to remove the President Donald Trump and the Vice President J.D. Vance. Right, right. I mean, it makes sense that there would be people with guns in the rooms, but in the room, but, you know, I did not realize like we were seated. So many people actually were, were armed.

2:04I did not see any guns drawn. I guess I was just trying to really keep my head down, but I've seen all the footage where there were guns drawn in every direction as the Secret Service and all these different kinds of, you know, security and police agents were trying to figure out where this threat was coming from because the first reaction I think was just infusion. Were you scared? You must have been. Yeah, I actually was quite scared. I ended up holding hands with this total stranger. I just didn't even say a word. I just grabbed his hand. And I said to him, like, this is such a sad day for our country. But, you know, I, I guess I spoke almost in past tense, but in the present, I wasn't quite sure it was resolved.

3:04I was just staring at this door, feeling like there was a, there's someone was going to storm through at any moment. We were all, I think, trying to prepare for that possibility. Well, that's a thing we can now all see the CCTV footage. And we know that the Secret Service outside brought down the gunman as he was trying to storm into the room. But in the seconds after you heard those gunshots, you don't know how many people are outside. You don't know whether they're going to make their way inside. No, and there was, there was so much infusion and commotion where Secret Service were really, you know, you could fear people yelling through the door. There were people trying to get up and leave. And Secret Service was kind of handling some people roughly, obviously, because they're, they don't know what's going on. And if that rat is ongoing and they're trying to protect people. So in retrospect, it was just one lone gunman who allegedly was a teacher from California and did not have, does not seem to have signs of mental illness,

4:08but was just a completely politically radicalized individual. Do we know how close he got to the ballroom where you guys were? I do not know if he made it down this stairs or the escalator. He did not get inside the ballroom, but I don't know how close he got. My understanding in retrospect are those sounds I was hearing that I described as, as blows or kind of knocks on a door that they were gunshots that were fired, defensively by Secret Service agents. So, you know, the Secret Service did their job. And if you watch that video, this guy, he just comes out of nowhere and you got to give it to him. He was running extremely fast, but the Secret Service acted faster. And he'd been stung as a guest in the Hilton Hotel. Yeah, that is what I've seen reported, which makes sense because the Hilton hotel,

5:09you know, this happens annually at the Hilton. And it's a ginormous hotel. I believe it has over a thousand rooms in it. And so everything just kind of carries on as usual. They don't shut down the hotel and there are so many entrances and exits. And I will say security did feel lighter than what I would normally expect for an event with the president when I have covered events that the president is speaking at in the past. I would say it's at least like two notches above TSA, which is our airport security, where oftentimes everything you bring into the event is assessed by a bomb sniffing dog. And my purse was only searched through by just one guy with a flashlight who was under immense pressure to just like keep the line moving. So in retrospect, it makes sense that that has happened because it's just so many people, so many entrances and exits.

6:12And it's a hard event to keep secure. I'm glad to know that you're a guy if you worked out who's hand you a holding. You know, I think that is a great question. I think it was this man who I remember about him is he used to be on the board of EBS, which is the public broadcasting system in the US. And so I've been meaning to Google him. It's been on my to do list to Google him because it was actually a really touching and sweet interaction. And I just want to thank him. We're glad that you're okay. And thank you very much for joining us all the way to Sydney, Australia from Washington, DC. Of course. Thank you. Olivia Rengold from the free press. She was in the room. And after the gunshots rang out, she was hiding under a table. If you've got a new step, email penit2gb.com.