Mentalist and White House Correspondents' Dinner host Oz Pearlman provided a firsthand account of the attack that occurred during the event, telling CNN's Dana Bash that he initially thought the commotion was due to a medical emergency before realizing the severity of the situation.
Describing the experience as "incredibly surreal" on Sunday's episode of "State of the Union," Pearlman recounted being at a critical moment of a trick, attempting to guess the name of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's baby for President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, when he heard a disturbance.
"It wasn't gunshots. I wasn't sure if it was a tray," he explained. "We're also higher than everyone, so we have a very good vantage point versus the thousands of people in the room."
Pearlman continued, "I see everyone swarming one table. And I'm looking and trying to understand, and then you see people getting down ... I didn't hear any shots or see what looked like a shooter. I thought there was about to be a bomb."
The performer added, "Like I really very much thought, 'Oh my God, it's about to explode,' because of the way that it was being approached wasn't like guns out. It was like to stop someone."
Hiding Under the Table
Pearlman said he dropped to the ground and hid under a table where Trump was "less than a foot away from him." The two made eye contact, and Pearlman remembered thinking, "Oh no, are we about to die?"
The suspected shooter was apprehended by law enforcement after firing several shots outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton, where the event was taking place.
White House officials have obtained writings from the suspect, a 31-year-old man from California, in which he "clearly stated he wanted to target administration officials."
