CBS News White House correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association Weijia Jiang spoke after the shooting at the organization’s dinner on Saturday night. She said, “Thank God everybody is safe and thank you for coming together tonight. We will do this again.”
– This is a room full of reporters, so I know you’ve already seen the president’s tweet. My apologies, his post on Truth Social. And law enforcement has requested that we leave the premises, consistent with protocol. And he wanted to emphasize that nobody was hurt. He and the first lady, the cabinet, everybody’s safe. [APPLAUSE] The president will be having a press briefing at the White House in 30 minutes. [LAUGHTER] That is not a joke. And he insists that we will reschedule this event in the next 30 days– [APPLAUSE] –and that he wanted to do it tonight. He wanted to continue, despite the news, but has to follow security protocol. I said earlier tonight that journalism is a public service because when there is an emergency, we run to the crisis, not away from it. And on a night when we are thinking about the freedoms and the First Amendment, we must also think about how fragile they are. I saw all of you reporting, and that’s what we do. [APPLAUSE] So thank God everybody is safe, and thank you for coming together tonight. We will do this again. Thank you.