MAGA Is Saying The Same Thing After The White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting

Posted 2 hours ago

The White House Correspondents' Dinner is an independent event held by the White House Correspondents' Association to celebrate the First Amendment.

It's worth noting that Saturday's annual event was the first time President Trump ever attended.

Then, the shooting happened.

The entire evening was cut short after an armed man was caught attempting to enter the venue.

As news of the security breach spread, the MAGA community had one reaction and one reaction only:

"This is why we need a ballroom."

MeidasTouch posted a screenshot showing a wave of popular MAGA accounts calling for the new ballroom:

One tweet from Meghan McCain went particularly viral: "I don’t want to hear one more fucking criticism of Trump’s new ballroom at the White House."

And @BlueGeorgia said, "The latest script just dropped."

So, let’s break this claim down, because many people are saying it's FAR from accurate.

First, let's talk security at the event.

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin detailed a surprisingly lax experience prior to entering the dinner:

He explained:

"The first exterior security for me was on the street outside of the hotel. I flashed my ticket and was waved through in one second. My name was not checked against any list, I showed no ID, I was not patted down and did not go through a metal detector. I probably could have shown a ticket from a prior year or a fake one as they barely looked at it. (I don't know who that exterior security was, they were guys in suits)."

"From that point, I walked into the hotel with no further security check, and I walked down to the Fox pre-party where there were multiple ballrooms that were absolutely PACKED with attendees. Still did not go through any security at that point."

"Hypothetically, If I had hidden an explosive in my shoe or my jacket, I would have had no problem getting into one of those ballrooms."

"Only once it was time to get into the main ballroom for the dinner did we pass through magnetometers, empty our pockets, and get a pat down. And even that checkpoint was just outside of the dinner room."

"Two things can be true at the same time. Secret Service reacted quickly to an active armed threat and prevented that threat from getting into the ballroom. But the security leading up to that point, in my opinion, appeared to be lacking severely."

Other journalists shared similar stories.

Fox News host Kennedy said she was never asked for an ID, "I was never asked for a key, but could’ve produced one from a different city. Also never asked for ID, and waltzed through the lobby and lower ballroom areas like I owned the place."

And NY Post correspondent Lydia Moynihan posted about how it was harder to get into unofficial parties than this one: "It was harder to get into parties over WHCD weekend than it was to get into the Washington Hilton last night."

That's not the only reason why this "we need the ballroom" arguement isn't checking out.

Others have pointed out that the White House ballroom wouldn’t even be used to host the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in the first place.

Sam Stein explained, "I think it's important to note that the correspondents dinner wouldn't be at a White House ballroom even if it were built. The dinner is not a White House event. It's a WHCA event. Also, Trump had never attended before (would he host a dinner he didn't attend)."

Finally, there's the whole "when was this about security in the first place?"

CNN's David Axelrod noted how there was no mention of security as a concern or need for the new ballroom when the ballroom was announced last July.

Still, that didn't stop the White House from pushing the "Build the White House Ballroom" objective. They posted this Sunday morning:

Thoughts???

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