Hours after a shooting that sent Secret Service agents rushing President Trump from the stage at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday evening, Mr. Trump held a news conference.
Still wearing his tuxedo, he gave the first question to Weijia Jiang, the president of the association and a White House correspondent for CBS News, and praised her, something he does not usually do with reporters.
“Madam chairman,” he said, “I just want to say you did a fantastic job. What a beautiful evening.”
Ms. Jiang, who played a key role in planning the dinner had been seated next to Mr. Trump on the stage when shots rang out and delivered a calm announcement to the stunned guests after the shooting suspect was in custody. At the news conference, dressed in her evening gown, she thanked Mr. Trump for his comments before posing her question.
“Can you describe what was going through your mind?” she asked the president. Mr. Trump spoke of how the Secret Service had rushed him from his seat between Ms. Jiang and Melania Trump, the first lady.
Ms. Jiang later recounted her own experience. Speaking to CBS, she said the dinner had been a moment for administration officials and the news media to mark the importance of the First Amendment. She described how she and Mr. Trump had hit the ground. They were so close that they were touching, she said, before agents evacuated him.
“I had no idea what was going on,” she said.
Afterward, Ms. Jiang retook the stage. With some emotion in her voice, she said that the evening would continue, prompting loud applause. But eventually, an announcement was made that the authorities preferred that the crowd depart.
This was the first time that Mr. Trump, as president, had attended the black-tie dinner, which takes place annually on the last Saturday in April. He had boycotted the event in his first term and did not attend last year.
Ms. Jiang, the first nonwhite woman to lead the correspondents’ association, has sparred with Mr. Trump in the past. In 2020, he abruptly ended a news conference after she pressed him on why he suggested that she “ask China” about coronavirus death rates.
“Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically?” she said.
Ms. Jiang has described how she was born in China and raised in rural West Virginia, where her parents owned a Chinese restaurant. They often worked 18 hours a day, she said in 2024. “The gift that they gave me was my work ethic,” she said, “and my understanding of what an opportunity it is to be able to do work that we love.”
Amelia Nierenberg is a Times reporter covering international news from London.
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