Wild moment sleepy Trump appears to doze off at White House Correspondents' dinner

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The dinner was rescheduled by the White House Correspondents' Association after a man armed with guns and knives stormed the original April event.

21:15 ET, 24 Jul 2026Updated 21:19 ET, 24 Jul 2026

A tired-looking Donald Trump appeared to doze off at the rescheduled White House Correspondents' dinner tonight.

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As awards to journalists were handed out for their reporting of the second Trump administration, Trump appeared to momentarily doze off as he was seated on the dais, sitting between White House Correspondents’ Association Weijia Jiang and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Trump has been spotted on camera dozing off at numerous occasions.

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The dinner was rescheduled by the White House Correspondents' Association after the dinner in April was canceled when a man armed with guns and knives stormed the lobby.

Officials from the Trump administration, including White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are in attendance at the dinner.

Ahead of tonight's dinner, streets were closed to vehicle traffic for blocks in every direction outside of the Waldorf Astoria in downtown Washington, D.C.

Dozens of Metropolitan Police and Secret Service agents are on duty in the area, with around 4,300 members of the National Guard deployed to the streets.

At the original event in April, Trump was uninjured after the armed gunman charged toward the ballroom in a chaotic encounter with Secret Service agents and was rushed off the stage. The armed man, who officials said was a guest at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner was being held, was taken into custody and was expected in court Monday. Police believe he opened fire and acted alone, but did not say who his intended target was or describe a motive.

“When you’re impactful, they go after you. When you’re not impactful, they leave you alone,” Trump, safe and uninjured and still in his tuxedo, said at the White House two hours later. “They seem to think he was a lone wolf.”

Tonight, two additional awards were handed out at the dinner, one to Victor Gonzales, the Secret Service agent who was staffing a security checkpoint in April and was struck in his protective vest.

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“Officer Gonzales… ran toward danger so that thousands of others could make it home safely,” Weijia Jiang, WHCA president, said in a statement. “His courage stemmed from a dedication to service, which we are looking forward to honoring this week.”

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A second award will be presented to the staff of the Washington Hilton hotel, site of the first dinner.