Trump reflects on shooting as White House Correspondents' Dinner resumes
US President Donald Trump addressed the rescheduled White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington on Friday, three months after a shooting forced the original event to be abandoned.
Trump told guests he had initially wanted the April dinner to continue despite the gunfire.
"As I said three months ago, the show must go on," Trump said. "We were backstage, and we both wanted to just have it go on, whether it was 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock in the morning, it didn't matter. But in the end, it made more sense to do it the way we're doing it."
The rescheduled event was held under heightened security, with Trump saying lessons had been learned from the attack.
"A lot was learned from that evening. A tremendous amount was learned about security and about other things," he said. He later joked that "the second time is always better" before adding that he was "only kidding."
The original dinner was abandoned in April after an armed man allegedly opened fire near a security checkpoint, prompting the evacuation of Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other senior officials.
The suspect, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, was charged with four counts, including attempted assassination of the president, and pleaded not guilty in May.
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