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white house correspondents dinner
Trump Uses Correspondents' Dinner Shooting to Justify Expanding Spying Powers as Deadline Nears
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is set to expire Thursday, and the president is claiming Saturday's shooting proved "the safety of our nation" depends on the program.
Apr 27, 2026
An exchange of gunfire between an armed suspect and law enforcement outside the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday came days ahead of a deadline for extending far-reaching government surveillance powers, and President Donald Trump wasted no time in claiming that the attempted attack on the event proved that the FBI must be permitted to spy on Americans without obtaining warrants.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Trump repeated his previous remarks that he is "willing to give up [his] security" in favor of extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is set to expire on Thursday—and suggested other Americans should do the same for "the safety of our nation."
Section 702 allows US intelligence agencies to surveil the electronic communications of foreign nationals overseas without a warrant. Since some of the nearly 350,000 foreign nationals whose communications have been collected under the law are in touch with Americans, Section 702 allows for the collection of emails, text messages, and phone calls of US citizens.
Fox anchor Jacqui Heinrich emphasized that "we don't know right now" whether the suspect in Saturday's shooting, Cole Tomas Allen, "was radicalized" by a foreign individual or group, but asked whether the attack drove home "the importance of having these tools to protect our country from these kinds of threats."
The president responded by complaining that former FBI Director James Comey used FISA to obtain warrants to surveil a former Trump aide as part of the agency's investigation into the 2016 Trump presidential campaign's communications with Russia, before saying FISA has been used in the US-Israeli war on Iran and in the US military's invasion of Venezuela earlier this year.
"It's really needed for national security," said Trump. "Iran is decimated, and we got a lot of information by using FISA... I'm willing to give up my security for the military because ultimately that's to me the highest cause is, you know, the safety of our nation."
Pres. Trump, under prodding from Fox News, exploits White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting to push for Congress to approve FISA domestic spying program: "It's really needed for national security…"
He reiterates that he's willing to give up his liberties for safety. pic.twitter.com/tmcepp0Wgn
— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) April 26, 2026
Jordan Liz, an associate professor of philosophy at San José State University, wrote last week in a column at Common Dreams that while Trump, Republican lawmakers, and US intelligence agencies "make sweeping claims about the terror attacks that Section 702 has prevented, there is little publicly available evidence to support this."
"According to the Cato Institute, there is only one well-documented, independently corroborated case of Section 702 preventing a terrorist attack on American soil: the 2009 New York subway bombing plot," wrote Liz. "In that case, Section 702 was used by the [National Security Agency] to track an exchange between an al-Qaeda courier and Najibullah Zazi, who was living in the US. The NSA passed this information to the FBI, which identified Zazi and disrupted the attack before it took place. Importantly, however, the NSA allegedly received the courier’s foreign email address from the government’s British intelligence partners. At best then, this success was a byproduct of productive intelligence sharing between allies. Rather than proving the necessity of Section 702, this incident underscores how Trump’s inane attacks against key US allies undermine our national security."
The suspect in Saturday's shooting is believed to have acted alone, and no evidence has been released that he was in communication with any foreign entities. A document he wrote alluded to his Christian beliefs and to reports of the administration's abuse of immigrants in detention centers, its boat-bombing operations in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, and the bombing of an elementary school in Iran.
The president has been pushing in recent weeks for an extension of Section 702. The program was last reauthorized in 2024, and earlier this month two efforts to extend the program—one for 18 months and the other for five years—failed, with opponents objecting to a lack of privacy reforms and to a loophole allowing data brokers to sell private information about Americans to government agencies that have not obtained judicial approval to seize the data.
After those proposals failed, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last week unveiled a new bill to extend Section 702 for three years and require the FBI to submit monthly reports on its reviews of Americans' private data to an oversight official, as well as imposing penalties for abuse—provisions that were dismissed by privacy advocates.
The House Rules Committee was set to convene on Monday, a step toward advancing the new bill toward a vote in the House, and according to NPR, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) circulated a memo late last week urging his colleagues to reject the Republicans' latest proposal.
The bill, he wrote, "continues the disastrous policy of trusting the FBI to self-police and self-report its abuses of Section 702 and backdoor searches of Americans' data... FBI agents can still collect, search, and review Americans' communications without any review from a judge."
Four Democrats in the House—Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Tom Suozzi (D-NJ), Marie Gluesencamp Perez (D-Wash.), and Jared Golden (D-Maine)—broke with the party and joined the GOP earlier this month in supporting a procedural vote to advance the reauthorization of Section 702, and privacy advocates are ramping up pressure on them to oppose the latest proposal for an extension.
"It all comes down to those four and where they are going to land,” Hajar Hammado, a senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, told The Intercept Monday, “and if they are going to continue to try to hand Trump and [White House homeland security adviser] Stephen Miller warrantless surveillance authorities without any sort of checks or reforms that make sure they’re not violating civil liberties.”
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Trump Uses Shooting Outside White House Correspondents' Dinner to Boost Corrupt Ballroom
President Donald Trump was evacuated from the White House Correspondents' Dinner after a gunman charged a security checkpoint at the hotel hosting the event.
Apr 26, 2026
US President Donald Trump used a lone gunman's storming of the lobby outside the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night to promote his $400 million White House ballroom project, which is riddled with glaring conflicts of interest.
Speaking at a press conference after being evacuated from the Washington Hilton hotel hosting the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Trump declared that "this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we're planning at the White House." The president added that "we need the ballroom," saying, "We need levels of security that probably nobody's ever seen before."
President Trump says tonight’s shooting at the WHCD is a clear example of why we need a need a new ballroom for The White House pic.twitter.com/a6dzeH9nyB
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 26, 2026
A man armed with multiple weapons, including a shotgun, charged a security checkpoint outside the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night, setting off a chaotic scramble to evacuate Trump and members of his administration who were present at the private event.
The chief of the Washington, DC police said at a press conference that the suspect, later identified as 31-year-old Cole Allen of Torrance, California, "exchanged gunfire" with law enforcement and a US Secret Service officer "was struck in his vest." The suspect was not shot and was taken into custody, the police chief said.
CBS News White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs noted on social media that the shooting "happened on the level above the ballroom where the White House Correspondents Association dinner was."
"I don't think people hearing about this—or even those of us in the room—realized how far from the president, VP, and other guests this incident was," Jacobs added. "It was on another floor, up some stairs, and several sets of security away. Because the Washington Hilton's hotel and other public spaces were open for other functions, the entire building wasn't secured by the Secret Service, just the specific areas where the WHCA dinner was held."
Trump, who skipped the annual dinner during his first term as his administration assailed press freedoms, said the event would be rescheduled "within 30 days." Some White House reporters boycotted the event, citing the president's relentless attacks on journalists.
The scene was described as "absolute chaos," with Secret Service officers rushing through the ballroom to evacuate Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other administration officials and attendees ducking under tables in confusion and panic.
This is the moment we realized what was happening and got down on the stage. Seconds before, all we could see was a throng of law enforcement barreling toward us from the doors at the back of the room.
Secret agents swept VP Vance, who was seated next to me, into the back. I… pic.twitter.com/ZaxFeZu5p0
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) April 26, 2026
The White House ballroom project that Trump touted at his press conference after being evacuated from the correspondents' dinner has received funding from massive corporations with interests before the federal government. Other donations to the project are shrouded in secrecy.
Public Citizen noted in a recent report that "two-thirds of corporate donors—16 out of a total of 24—have entered into government contracts."
"Lockheed is the largest of these government contractors, having received $191 billion in contracts over the last five years. Altogether, the corporate donors benefited from nearly $43 billion in contracts last year and $279 billion over the last five years," the watchdog group observed. "Most of the corporate donors—14 out of 24—are facing federal enforcement actions and/or have had federal enforcement actions suspended by the Trump administration. These include major antitrust actions involving Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and T-Mobile; labor rights cases involving Amazon, Apple, Caterpillar, Google, Lockheed, and Meta; and SEC matters involving Coinbase and Ripple."
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CBS Invited a War Criminal to Their Dinner Party
At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, journalists like those at CBS should be demanding the answers of Pete Hegseth that he has refused to give to Congress.
Apr 24, 2026
CBS News is inviting Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to join them at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this week—to sit at their table, surrounded by journalists he’s banned from Pentagon press conferences.
Many, including journalists who work at CBS, are calling this invitation distasteful, given Hegseth’s attacks on truth, the First Amendment, and journalism. However, given CBS’s hard pivot to the right after being absorbed into the Ellisons’ media sphere—and with warmonger Bari Weiss at the helm—maybe it’s just what makes sense for CBS. This is just one example of mainstream media not only refusing to ask questions of war criminals, but blatantly befriending them.
This move is particularly interesting given Hegseth’s last few months.
He oversaw and commanded the operation that kidnapped the head of state of another country when the US attacked Venezuela earlier this year. He also oversaw targeted strikes that extrajudicially killed Venezuelan fishermen under the auspices of drug smuggling. Just last month, he started the US war against Iran by using AI to target an elementary school in Minab, killing nearly 200 children in an instant. He’s been in lockstep with President Donald Trump in terms of genocidal rhetoric toward seemingly any country he wakes up hating that day. Now, the Hegseth War Department is reportedly planning a war on Cuba—a country 90 miles away from the United States that has done absolutely nothing to us except try to send emergency medical aid after Hurricane Katrina.
Yet the media keeps framing these threats as if he’s bluffing, as if he hasn’t ordered horrific military actions before, as if the blood of 168 little girls won’t still be dripping from his hands as they sit across from him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The Minab school bombing has seemingly stuck with people in terms of Hegseth’s brutality. Surely, the deliberate targeting of an elementary school is a war crime. Shortly after the bombing, members of Congress submitted a list of 10 questions for Hegseth to answer. It included questions about the use of artificial intelligence in target selection, what steps he took to mitigate civilian harm, and what coordination had been done with Israel. He was also asked what mitigation measures he would take in the future. March 20 was the deadline given to him by Congress, and the day came and went without a word from him.
If the attack in Minab that killed little girls and boys had been an accident, I imagine he could have answered those questions easily. That is one of his many war crimes, possibly one of his most blatant. But a person only needs to commit one war crime to be a war criminal; it just depends on who holds him accountable. If Congress couldn’t get answers to its questions, you would think outlets like CBS would be responsible for having him on their shows and demanding answers, as real journalists would. But instead, they invite him to dinner.
On top of the targeting of a school, Hegseth has also repeatedly—during a ceasefire and delicate negotiations—threatened to bomb Iran’s energy infrastructure. Intentionally attacking power plants or electric grids is a war crime under international law. If carried out as Trump and Hegseth have articulated, wiping out Iran’s power would mean millions of people could die in ways most people in the US can’t even imagine. Power in hospitals would go out, ventilators would shut down, and incubators would stop working. Food would spoil, and transportation—for the sick and injured—would fail. Their blood would be on Hegseth’s hands. Yet the media keeps framing these threats as if he’s bluffing, as if he hasn’t ordered horrific military actions before, as if the blood of 168 little girls won’t still be dripping from his hands as they sit across from him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, journalists like those at CBS should be demanding answers he refused to give to Congress. With a war secretary who bans the press from his briefings, this might be their only chance to get them.
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