In one of the most jarring scenes of a night already defined by chaos and gunfire, a senior White House official stood up in a ballroom still under active lockdown and attempted to lead a patriotic cheer.
Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino was seen and heard standing up and shouting 'God bless America' before chanting 'USA! USA! USA!' moments after a gunman exchanged fire with Secret Service agents outside the Washington Hilton ballroom on 25 April 2026. The attempt was met not with enthusiasm, but with silence, and then with shushing. It instantly became one of the defining, uncomfortable images of the night.
The White House Correspondents' Dinner had devolved into pandemonium whenCole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old from Torrance, California, rushed a security checkpoint armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives. Secret Service fished VIPs from the crowd, among them Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and senior White House advisers Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino.
The video appears to show at least one woman awkwardly keeping the chant going before it was eventually shushed into silence by the alarmed crowd, most of whom were crouching toward the floor as law enforcement officers surveilled the scene from the event stage. The moment was captured in multiple video clips that immediately spread across social media.
Reporters on the scene, including Puck News politics reporter Peter Hamby, noted that even Trump supporters in the room rejected the attempt. Hamby posted on X: 'Dan Scavino tried to start a USA! USA! chant after the threat, and absolutely no one wanted to hear it. Even Trump folks. Terrible.'
One note from the front of the ballroom tonight:Dan Scavino tried to start at USA! USA! chant after the threat — and absolutely no one wanted to hear it. Even Trump folks. Terrible.
I got some video of Dan’s chantpic.twitter.com/HqdR0bXKZG
Footage posted by Puck News co-founder Matthew Belloni on X showed Scavino's outburst in real time, drawing a torrent of criticism. Users on social media savaged the move, dubbing it 'stupid,' with one person writing: 'Can't bring myself to unmute because I can already feel the secondhand embarrassment.'
Another person called Scavino a 'drunk fool' and slammed his actions for 'disrupting a situation that serious.' The footage showed Scavino rallying while Secret Service agents were still scanning the venue following the shooting.
Not all initial reports were uniformly critical. Fox News journalist Trey Yingst posted on X that Scavino 'turned to the crowd chanting 'USA!' and described it as 'a powerful moment as police and Secret Service scanned the crowd with guns raised inside the ballroom.' The divergence in reaction illustrated how sharply the moment divided observers along ideological lines.
Source: International Business Times UK
