The events of Saturday evening are clearly going to be added to the annals of events about which people say, “Where were you when…” And the aftermath is still coming on.
On Sunday morning, in the wake of what appears to be a third assassination attempt, President Donald Trump appeared on Fox News with host Jacqui Heinrich to discuss the aftermath of the White House Correspondence Dinner attack, and his priorities for ensuring the safety of future events of this nature: Namely, the proposed White House ballroom.
“It’s always tough when you have 1,000 rooms. It’s a large hotel right on top,” says @POTUS on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner venue.
“We’re building a big, beautiful, very, very secure ballroom… You need drone-proofing, you need everything… The location’s on the… pic.twitter.com/612E8y7O5O
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 26, 2026
President Trump said:
Well, it’s always tough when you have a thousand rooms. It’s a large hotel right on top, and so people come down in elevators, and they’re right over the top of where you’re speaking. They are not very far away, and it’s pretty tough. As we know, we’re building a big, beautiful, very, very secure ballroom everywhere, with massive bulletproof glass. It’s almost four inches thick. Pretty amazing stuff.
[Jacqui Heinrich:] When do you think that will be ready?
All different elements. You need like drone-proofing… drone-proofing, everything. We need everything. But we also need a location. And the location’s on the White House grounds, which is the most secure ground probably in the world, including the fencing, including everything else. The president doesn’t have to leave the premises. It’s really very scary. This is mostly for future presidents.
These are good points, and leave it to President Trump to take the narrowly averted tragedy and use it to make the case for the greatly increased security of a new White House facility.
The president went on to reveal the New York real-estate developer that still lives within him:
We’re actually ahead of schedule, and we’re right on budget and ahead of schedule. It was always scheduled to open in ’28, and probably I would have five or six months of use, but other people have many years, hopefully hundreds of years, of use. But it’s going to be a magnificent building. It was also designed in conjunction with the military and in conjunction with Secret Service. It’s got every single bell and whistle you can possibly have for security and safety. We’ll have that done very much on time, even ahead of schedule. It’s ahead of schedule now.
It’s really what you need. I mean, you can’t have a thousand rooms, or whatever it is, a very big hotel on top of the ballroom, and people come down in an elevator right next to the ballroom. And nobody is blaming them. They are good people, they’re very good people. I know the people well. I’ve been in that room many times. But you know, it’s had difficulty in the past, and a new one is set not to have that kind of thing. All of the traps are knocked out.
Security has, of course, been a large part of the argument for the new White House ballroom all along, and President Trump has, in the past, correctly noted that a large number of nations have facilities of this kind precisely for this purpose: To provide a secure environment for large events, to ensure that incidents of this nature do not occur.
While this incident could very well have ended in tragedy, it does give President Trump another arrow in his quiver in his fight to get this thing built.
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President Trump notes:
This was designed at the highest level by top military and Secret Service. It was really… It’s a joint venture.
Presidents have wanted it for 150 years, just because they wanted a big space. But military and Secret Service have wanted it for many years. I’m getting it built. The one good thing is that now everybody knows how badly needed it is.
Now, this event won’t – shouldn’t, frankly – change the legal arguments around the building of the ballroom. Matters of the law and of the courts aren’t subject to change after an event, even a narrowly averted assassination. But the court of public opinion does have a role, and this was a pretty clear illustration of the advantages of a secure, sizable facility like the one President Trump is trying to build, and as the president notes, this will serve future presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike, for many years.
It’s a thin silver lining, but this event may just serve to grease the skids a little.
In closing, the president and Jacqui Heinrich shared a heartfelt moment:
JUST NOW: President Trump and @JacquiHeinrich share a heartfelt moment reflecting on the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
HEINRICH: “Thank you for your leadership in the moments afterward and for coming on and giving the country the strength to not let those… pic.twitter.com/khoGXgY3yN
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 26, 2026
Here’s how that went:
Jacqui Heinrich: I want to thank you, Mr. President, for joining us today, and I also want to say how grateful we were last night, as a member of the Board of the White House Correspondent’s Association, and the incoming president of that association, we were very grateful to have you there, taking part in a tradition that recognizes the role of the free press in our democracy, and we’re all sad that it went the way that it did. We’re all grateful that we get to come home to our loved ones, and be together afterwards, and thank for your leadership in the moments afterward, and for coming on and giving the country the strength to not let those who would wish to harm us stop us from our pursuit of our liberties.
President Trump: Well, Jacqui, thank you very much, it’s very nice, very nice. Let’s do it again. Let’s not let people like this change the course of our country. We’re not going to let that happen. So, hopefully you guys can get it on and get it together, and I’ll be there, I promise.
Well spoken, and yes, the dinner should go on, as soon as it can be arranged. And next time, hopefully, without further incidents of this nature.
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