Eduard Ribas has been covering White House news for more than four years for the Efe agency and last night was a gala with a lot “expectation”. He was one of the 2,000 attendees at the dinner that the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) organizes in Washington every last Saturday in April, to which Donald Trump He was coming for the first time as president, and I was very curious to hear his speech. “The most inappropriate speech ever given,” according to Trump himself, words that did not come out of his mouth due to the attempted attack on the hotel that was hosting the gala and which forced the president to immediately evacuate.
“It has been a fright for everyone,” Ribas explains by phone to EL PERIÓDICO. He was sitting very close to the main door and could clearly hear the shots. It was around 8:30 and the official program had not yet started, although the attendees were already in their seats, Trump and the rest of the cabinet members at the presidential table, and the pea and burrata salad had been served. “We immediately threw ourselves on the ground. Many agents have begun to run past and have evacuated Trump, Melania and the rest of the members of the Government. Trump seemed not to have heard the shots,” he adds.
The “tension” in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton has been reduced within a few minutes when it was seen that there was no danger and little by little the journalists, many of whom recorded what happened with their mobile phones, and the rest of the attendees have been leaving the place. In addition to the fact that it seemed that the event was suspended, as it ended up being, many needed to go outside to be able to transmit their chronicles and images. When being in a basementin the room “there was no internet signal.”
“It’s been pretty heavy“, highlights Ribas, who later went to the White House to cover the press conference called by Trump minutes after the shooting.
Accustomed to much calmer coverage with Joe Bidenthis Catalan journalist confesses that the Republican’s presidency is being a very intense one. “He doesn’t give us any respite.”
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