WHITE HOUSE - U.S. President Donald Trump was abruptly escorted by a U.S. Secret Service agent just after the start of a White House media briefing Monday afternoon because of a shooting outside the building.
Trump returned to the briefing room lectern minutes later and said, “There was an actual shooting and somebody’s been taken to the hospital.”
The shots were fired by law enforcement, according to the president, who said he believed the person who was shot was armed.
Two gunshots were heard by at least one reporter who was in the briefing room.
"I heard two shots in rapid succession just after you took the podium,” Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts told the president when Trump asked the journalist what he had heard.
The Secret Service confirmed a shooting had taken place near 17th Street Northwest and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest in Washington, D.C
According to the District of Columbia’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, its units were dispatched to respond to a person who had been shot in the upper body.
The president said the situation “seems to be very well under control.”
“You were surprised, I was surprised also,” Trump told reporters when he returned to the briefing room, saying he had been taken to the Oval Office.
“I do want to thank the Secret Service. They are fantastic,” Trump said, adding that he was not certain the incident “had to do anything with me.”
U.S. Secret Service Police stand outside the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, in Washington, as a news conference by President Donald Trump was paused, Aug. 10, 2020.
Asked by a reporter if he was rattled by the extraordinary event, he responded. “I don’t know. Do I seem rattled?”
Trump told reporters he gave no thought to not resuming the briefing once the Secret Service told him it was safe to do so.