Performer Oz Pearlman recounts correspondents' dinner shooting: 'Oh no, are we about to die?'
He said he couldn't tell Trump's condition -- "his eyes weren't registering." 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. It was those two beats of looking at each other.