WASHINGTON, U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted to see what happened when Secret Service agents kicked him out of a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night after a gunman opened fire at a hotel.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Trump described the chaotic moments that followed the shooting at the Washington Hilton, one floor above the underground ballroom where the annual dinner was held.
Asked how worried he was about possible injuries after hearing the gunfire, Trump said: “I’m not worried. I know life. We live in a crazy world.”
The US president said he wanted to see for himself what happened, which could slow down Secret Service efforts to get him to safety.
“I wanted to see what was going on. I didn’t make it easy for them. I wanted to see what was going on. That’s when we started to realize that this could be a bad problem, a different type of problem, a bad problem – and different from the normal noise in a ballroom,” he said.
“I’m surrounded by great people. I probably told them to move a little slower. I said, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,'” the president recalled, adding that the Secret Service agent had to repeatedly tell him to get on the floor as he left the podium.
“I started walking. They said, ‘Please get down, please get down on the floor.’ So I fell down and so did the first lady,” Trump said.
The interview featured some heated moments, with Trump being asked about certain references to him in a manifesto the suspect shared with his family before the attack.
“I’m waiting for you to read this because I know you will, because you are terrible people,” Trump said.
“Yes, he did write, I’m not a rapist… I read the manifesto. You know, he was a patient. You shouldn’t be reading this on 60 Minutes, you’re a disgrace, but go ahead and let’s finish the interview,” the president said.
When the interviewer later asked if he believed the shooter was specifically referring to him, Trump said: “I’m not a pedophile… Did you read some bullshit on some patient? I was connected to everything that had nothing to do with me. I was totally absolved.”
The president urged the White House Correspondents’ Association to reschedule the event within the next 30 days.
“I don’t want to see it canceled. I think it’s really bad for a crazy person to be able to cancel something like that,” Trump said. “It’s not that I want to go. I’m busy. I don’t need that.”
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
