What to Know
Days after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, Vice President JD Vance admitted that the night was difficult for his wife, Usha Vance, who was at home with their children. While JD didn’t really know what was happening in the ballroom when chaos broke out, Usha started seeing social media posts and text messages about what was happening.
“Honestly, it was tougher for my wife, who was at home with the kids and started hearing things through text messages and social media, than it was for me,” JD said during a Wednesday, April 29 interview on The Will Cain Show. “I really didn’t know what was going on.”
He described what happened from his perspective.
🚨 Vice President JD Vance was escorted out by the Secret Service, followed by agents quickly surrounding President Trump after an incident at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner
— TMZ (@TMZ) April 26, 2026
🎥: Getty pic.twitter.com/t25GMqCfL7
JD described witnessing “a lot of commotion” and hearing “some loud noises” in the ballroom without realizing what was actually happening in that moment. He admittedly “had no idea what it was,” and before he knew it, a Secret Service agent showed up to whisk him away.
“Before I had any idea what was going on, I started seeing people sort of duck under their tables and respond to what was going on far in the back of the ballroom, and then an agent comes and whispers in my ear and basically says, ‘Sir, we have to leave,'” he recalled.
He also referenced a video that has been circulating on social media, which shows an agent lifting him off the ground and getting him out of there and into a holding room to “kind of wait and see what’s going on.”
JD also praised the Secret Service.
Reflecting on the night, the vice president focused on how much he appreciates the Secret Service and the work that they do. “As you learn this information, the thing that I really gained an appreciation for, Will, is what an amazing job the agents of the Secret Service do,” he said. “You saw they went right to me, they went to the President of the United States, put their lives in harm’s way.”
When the video of JD being whisked away started circulating on social media, people noticed that agents appeared to get JD out of the space before President Donald Trump, which exacerbated some of the conspiracy theories that have emerged after the shooting.
The president acted like JD was not prioritized over him.
Weird … Vance escorted out before Trump. Then Trump falls down as he’s getting escorted out. pic.twitter.com/OxKSbMZcYx
— Meidas_Charise Lee (@charise_lee) April 26, 2026
During his 60 Minutes interview after the shooting, the president suggested that he was at least partially responsible for the apparent delay. “You see the security moving quickly, within seconds, grabbing the vice president by his coat, lifting him up, bringing him out,” Norah O’Donnell said to the president during the interview. “Then, the counterassault 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?”
He suggested that this could have been his fault. “Well, what happened was, it was a little bit me,” he said. “I wanted to see what was happening, and I wasn’t making it that easy for them. 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.”
He added, “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.'”
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