Performer Oz Pearlman recounts correspondents' dinner shooting: 'Oh no, are we about to die?'
Mentalist Oz Pearlman, who was set to perform at the 2026 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on Saturday night, recounted the harrowing details that took place during the shooting incident outside the ballroom, telling ABC News' Jonathan Karl that his "first thought" was "are we about to die?"
Authorities said a suspect identified as Cole Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, allegedly charged a security checkpoint outside the dinner armed with a shotgun and other weapons before he was taken into custody.
Pearlman said that he and President Donald Trump were "side-by-side" after the Secret Service forced the president to get down.
"When I dropped down, and dropped down to all fours, and I'm waiting and bracing because I think a bomb's going to go off. I watch the two Secret Service guys get behind the president, bring him down. And just by pure chance, he gets brought down. We're facing up to directions right next to me," Pearlman told Karl. "So the exact same way you are at this distance, which I've never really been, from President Trump, side to side. And I just look at him right here, and I think right that moment, I can piece it back when it happened. I go, in my head, I go, 'Oh no, are we about to die?' That was my first thought."
Pearlman adds that he was unable to tell Trump's condition because "his eyes weren't registering" and that it "seemed to me like he was in shock."
"I'm looking at him, and I can't gauge from him what happened to him," Pearlman said. "No part of me was like, he's OK. Because also, I didn't expect them to take him down so violently, because if this is kind of a fire drill, or we're not sure, they never would have tackled him that hard."
"His eyes were not registering ... It was too sudden. It was those two beats of looking at each other. It's also really surreal, because I don't know -- I met the president five minutes before that was the first time in my life. So I didn't expect to have that level of a moment where, again, God forbid, anything would happen, but like, if you're in a life or death situation next to someone you don't really know, it's jarring," Pearlman said.
Pearlman said he "army-crawled" out, which brought him to a "crazy" scene backstage.
"So we get backstage, we're all standing. There's so many people with guns going by, and so we've got SWAT team -- full tactical, like, assault rifles. There's also [a] dude just walking around with handguns," Pearlman said.
He said the scene unfolded a "split second" after he performed a trick in which he successfully guessed White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's baby's name.
"And if you watch, the craziest part about is, it happened at a split second after the reveal. So if you watch everyone around me, [gasps], they look amazed, because the trick was really good. And then we all saw it. Same moment," Pearlman said.
"I was guessing what her unborn child's name was going to be," Pearlman revealed after receiving approval from Leavitt to share the trick.
"Tell me you didn't guess that," Karl said.
"So I looked at her, I said, 'Think of how many letters,' and if you watch it, you can watch the clip. I'm guessing I said six, seven letters. She goes, 'Yes.' And then I said, you think of a V. And that's when the first lady goes, 'How does he know this?' And then I write down the name, and I say, 'what are you naming your daughter with V?' And right, when I turn that around, you can see Weijia [Jiang] from CBS go 'Gasp,' and then you see the first lady go [gasp] because she couldn't believe it, and [Leavitt] goes, 'That's the name of my daughter.'"
Pressed on what the name of Leavitt's daughter will be, Pearlman responded: "She's got to tell you, but I believe it's Vivian."
