Trump debunks claims he ‘fell’ amid WHCD scare, says he was told ‘to go down’ the floor with Melania

WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump says he didn’t stumble when chaos erupted at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

The 79-year-old commander-in-chief addressed the now-viral moment that showed him hitting the floor as Secret Service agents swarmed the ballroom at the Washington Hilton in D.C. after gunfire rang out. Video footage had sparked claims that Trump fell while being rushed out.

Trump explains moment he went down

In a Sunday sit-down with Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes, Trump insisted the move was very much intentional.

"You see the security moving quickly within seconds, grabbing the Vice President by his coat, lifting him up, bringing him out. Then the counter-assault comes in. Took 10 seconds for them to flank you, Mr. President, and then 20 seconds to get you out. It looked chaotic. At one point, you were down. What was happening?" O’Donnell asked.

Trump said, "Well, what happened is it was a little bit me. I wanted to see what was happening, and I wasn't making it that easy for him. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time, we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, a different kind of a problem, a bad one, and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, which you hear all the time. And I was surrounded by great people, and I probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me see. Wait a minute. So I'm telling guys-"

O’Donnell interjected, "Just at that moment where it looks like you go down with the surface, you were telling them to-"

"Well, I know what happened is then I started walking with them," Trump explained. "I turned, I started walking, and then said, 'Please go down, please go down on the floor.' So I went down, and the first lady went down also. But we were asked to go down by the agents as I was walking. In other words, I was-"

"They wanted you almost to crawl out," O’Donnell noted.

"Pretty much," Trump said. "I was standing up and then turned around the opposite direction and started pretty much walking out pretty tall, a little bent over because you know I'm not looking to be standing too tall. But I was walking out. It was pretty about halfway there, and they said, 'Please go down to the floor. Please go down to the floor.' So I dropped to the floor, so did the First Lady." 

Trump shrugs off danger

Despite the frantic evacuation, Trump said he wasn't rattled in the least.

"I wasn't worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world," he told O’Donnell.

Authorities later identified the suspect as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, who allegedly opened fire near a security checkpoint during the event. He was arrested and is expected to appear in court on Monday.

Trump had been attending the high-profile dinner alongside Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and senior aide Stephen Miller when the shots rang out.

After being hustled offstage, Trump told reporters at a Saturday briefing that he couldn't "imagine that there's any profession that's more dangerous."

In a statement Sunday, the White House said Trump “stands fearless” after surviving “an assassination attempt when shots were fired.”