Mentalist and White House Correspondents’ Dinner host Oz Pearlman gave a firsthand account of what he saw during an attack on the event, telling CNN’s Dana Bash he first thought the chaos was caused by someone having a “medical emergency” before realizing the situation was much more serious.
Calling the experience “incredibly surreal” during Sunday’s episode of “State of the Union,” Pearlman recalled being at a “pivotal moment” of a trick trying to guess White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s baby’s name for her, President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump when he heard a commotion.
“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.”
“I see everyone swarming one table. And I’m looking and trying to understand, and then you see people getting down ...,” Pearlman went on. “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.”
