AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
There were also many members of Congress at last night's dinner. The shooting comes as federal and local elected officials are grappling with a dramatic increase in threats of political violence. NPR congressional reporter Eric McDaniel joins us now here in the studio this morning. Good to see you, Eric.
ERIC MCDANIEL, BYLINE: Good morning.
RASCOE: And so this was obviously a scary moment. You weren't in the ballroom, but there were members of Congress. How are they reacting?
MCDANIEL: Like everyone else, they were panicked and confused. Florida Republican Representative Maria Salazar said she was hiding under the table with other guests after recognizing the sound of gunshots behind her outside of the ballroom. Many lawmakers, including Speaker Mike Johnson, were quickly swept away by security there, but many made their way out of the event, like many of our colleagues, many other attendees - on the foot. Here's Republican Andy Ogles of Tennessee in a video he shared of himself and two colleagues in a car minutes after the shooting took place.
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ANDY OGLES: Shots fire, obviously, at the dinner. But pray for our country. Pray for the leaders that were - may still be on premise.
RASCOE: So we don't know about the motive for the shooting, but for a lot of journalists and a lot of lawmakers, this was not their first experience with targeted violence.
MCDANIEL: Right. Notably, as our audience will remember, lawmakers were targeted during the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Murder the press was also carved into a Capitol Building doorway that day, and more than a dozen journalists were assaulted by rioters, according to a track by the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Last night, former Democratic speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi of California, shared this message on X, quote, "it's a great relief that the president, first lady and everyone in attendance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner is safe following a terrifying act of violence inside the venue." She went on to say, quote, "as someone whose family has suffered political violence, my prayers are with the injured officer and all those affected by the trauma of these horrible incident."
Her husband - Nancy Pelosi's husband, that is - was beaten in the head with a hammer by a supporter of President Trump who broke into her home while she was out of town several years ago. In 2017, a Bernie Sanders supporter opened fire on Republican members of Congress who were practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game. Steve Scalise of Louisiana nearly died. He's since made a full recovery. Capitol police investigate - they estimate they investigated roughly 14,000 threats against members of Congress in 2025. So this is a huge issue.
RASCOE: Congress is in town this week. How do you imagine this is going to be talked about?
MCDANIEL: There is a political dimension here. A Secret Service agent wearing a bulletproof vest, as you probably heard Danielle say, was shot and is expected to be OK. But Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and that agency has been shuttered for months, meaning Congress hasn't appropriated money for their paychecks. Here's Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee.
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MIKE LEE: The very same Secret Service that just saved President Trump's life - and thank heaven above that he's safe - has been defunded, along with the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, for more than two months. To my Democrat colleagues in the Senate, it's time to end this. Let's end the Homeland Security shutdown now. Please.
MCDANIEL: It's worth noting the Senate has passed a unanimous bipartisan agreement twice to fund the Department of Homeland Security minus many immigration enforcement functions, but House Republicans have yet to take up that measure. Democrats first refused to fund DHS as part of an effort to secure reforms like body-worn cameras for immigration enforcement officers in the wake of the fatal shooting of two American citizens in Minneapolis. That said, even though the Secret Service appears to have done well, last night's event is a reminder that there are real stakes in our work that these government agencies do, and it's reality that Congress' job is to get DHS back open.
RASCOE: That's NPR congressional reporter Eric McDaniel. Eric, thank you so much.
MCDANIEL: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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