Inside the Ballroom: Chaos and Confusion

Once there, my thoughts were dominated first by a question: What the hell is actually happening? Then came a journalist’s instinctual reaction: Whatever the answer is, the president just got rushed out of the event, this is a big damn story. Many colleagues while crouching on the floor lifted their phones above their heads to record the scene.

At no time during the episode did I perceive myself or colleagues as in acute danger. Whatever had happened, it was clear that it had taken place just outside the ballroom. There was no indication of an active shooter or a terrorist act underway.

The problem, for a long while, was that there was no indication of any kind in any direction. The physical characteristics of the Hilton ballroom — set deep within the bowels of the cavernous hotel — mean cell phone service is often not very good, especially with thousands of people in attendance.

For the moment, the disruption of the event and the president’s abrupt removal from the scene was the biggest news in the country, and it had been witnessed by hundreds of journalists. But the room was locked down, and most of these reporters could not get connections to learn anything, or to reassure family members that they were OK. For a half-hour or so, once it was clearly safe to stand, people milled about and asked each other what they had heard. The mood was plainly no longer celebratory, but nor for the most part was it solemn and grim. It was mostly anxious and uncertain.

For a while, everyone seemed to be saying the same thing: A would-be attacker had been gunned down by security and was lying dead just a few feet away outside the ballroom’s center doors.

That turned out not to be true. But while we all thought it was true — but before anything had been confirmed — the president of the correspondents’ association, Weijia Jiang of CBS News, came to the podium to assure everyone that the evening’s program would be resuming shortly. Really, while a dead body is just outside and every serious journalist needs to get to work — we are going back to the dinner’s usual fare of awards and humorous speeches? Or would Trump insist on making a dramatic return to the stage? (“I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’” Trump posted on Truth Social as the ballroom waited.)