Donald Trump returns to the annual press gala, interrupted at the end of April by a shooting
Three months after an alleged assassination attempt which caused his evacuation in chaos, Donald Trump will make his return to the big Washington press gala on Friday July 24. The rescheduled event will be held under enhanced security.
The American president must deliver the speech he was unable to deliver on April 25, when a shootout broke out between federal agents and an armed man who tried to enter the room. The latter, Cole Allen, a 31-year-old Californian, is charged with four counts, including attempted assassination of the President of the United States and assault of a federal agent with a deadly weapon. He pleaded not guilty.
Donald Trump announced at the beginning of June that he had accepted a new invitation to the dinner, which traditionally brings together each year the elite of politics and the media from the American capital, in tuxedos and long dresses. He welcomed it as “very good news because we cannot let crazy people change our way of life.”
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Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) which is organizing the dinner, stressed for her part that the rescheduling had been decided so as not to let “an act of violence have the last word.”
A “more intimate” dinner
The Secret Service took no risks on Friday: a large part of the American capital is cordoned off and a vast security cordon is in place to guarantee the smooth running of the event.
The location of the feasts has changed, moving from the Washington Hilton to the Waldorf Astoria, a former hotel in the Trump galaxy. The dinner will also be much smaller and “more intimate”, according to the organizers.
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The big question is what tone the president will adopt towards the media, against whom he had planned a virulent speech at the end of April.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who will also be in attendance, told reporters Thursday that Donald Trump would “celebrate free speech and the First Amendment alongside all of you members of the media.” “The president is eager to finish what he started before a dastardly assassination attempt derails the original event,” she added.
“Enemies of the people”
Donald Trump offered rare praise to the press in the wake of the April shooting and saw a “sign of strength and courage” in the WHCA’s decision to reschedule the dinner. But he has since suggested that he could resume his recurring criticism on Friday evening.
“I don’t know if I’m going to repeat the same nasty statements, at least about some people, but we’ll find out soon,” he said in June.
The April dinner was the first in which Donald Trump took part in his two terms as president, an absence until then which reflected his contempt for the media, described as “enemies of the people”.
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In addition to the presidential speech, the new evening maintains the same program, with a performance by mentalist Oz Pearlman. However, there will be a tribute to a Secret Service agent who helped neutralize Cole Allen and the Hilton staff.
The boss of the Secret Service, Sean Curran, assured Wednesday that the service was ready for the event and rejected the criticisms received since the April incident. “The device worked, the system worked,” he told reporters, arguing that a cordon had prevented the alleged assailant from reaching the large room where the dinner was being held.
With AFP
