Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Sunday, the 26th of April, these are our main stories. In dramatic events in Washington, security agents whisked President Trump away from a dinner for White House correspondents after there were loud noises sounding like gunfire.
Chapter 2: What happened during the evacuation of President Trump from the dinner?
And that's where I heard the noise come from. And to me, it sounded like that booming noise that assault rifles make. The president is safe. He posted on social media that a shooter had been apprehended. We'll hear from BBC reporters who were at the scene.
Also in this podcast, a few hours before the dinner, President Trump announced that he would not be sending his two special envoys to Pakistan for talks about the war with Iran.
Chapter 3: How did the Secret Service respond to the gunfire incident?
And we hear about a deadly explosion on a bus in Colombia just weeks before a presidential election. There were extraordinary events in Washington on Saturday night when President Trump had to be evacuated from a prestigious dinner for White House journalists at the Hilton Hotel right after this happened.
It wasn't clear at first if the loud bangs were gunshots, but the First Lady, Melania Trump, and the White House Press Secretary, Caroline Leavitt, were seen saying what happened as they, along with President Trump, were quickly taken out of the building by security personnel. There were cries of stay down and get down. This is how Carl Nasman of BBC TV reported the events immediately afterwards.
We are getting reports from that White House correspondents dinner here in Washington that there are suspected gunshots within the building. Let's take you there now live. This is the scene there. And you can see many of those journalists that have gathered for that gala here in Washington still there at the event. We understand that President Trump has been evacuated from the building tonight.
Minutes later, Catriona Perry, who presents and reports for the BBC in Washington, spoke on her phone about what she'd seen at the event.
We were seated here. We were finishing off the starter course. And the next thing, there was a kerfuffle of a sound of breaking glass and tables being knocked over right by the entrance to the room here. And a large law enforcement armed presence rushed through, rushed straight to the president, rushed he and the First Lady all above the stage.
Everyone was ordered to dive for cover, which we all did. Everyone dived. under the dining tables here, and there was a noise that sounded like shots. I cannot say that they were shots. I was speaking to an individual here who was outside of the bathroom, outside of the dining room at the time, and he said there were shots fired outside the dining room, so not inside the dining room.
Also with Mr Trump was the US Vice President J.D. Vance, the Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the FBI Director Kash Patel and other members of the President's Cabinet. As we record this podcast, President Trump is giving a press briefing at the White House. Here's what he told us. Men charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons.
And he was taken down by some very brave members of Secret Service, and they acted very quickly and have just released, for purposes of transparency, clarity, I've ordered it to be put out. You probably have it by now. Put out on Truth and put out on many other platforms.
A tape showing the violence of this thug that attacked our Constitution and also showing how quickly Secret Service and law enforcement acted on our country's behalf. Really did a great job. One officer was shot but saved by the fact that he was wearing, obviously, a very good bulletproof vest. He was shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun. And the vest did the job.
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Chapter 4: What were the details surrounding Trump's cancellation of peace talks with Iran?
And then we were all on the deck for, I don't know, about 20, 25 minutes after that. They've locked the main doors, the ballroom. I think we may try and find if there's a way out down the side here.
there's no the cell service is very patchy in here so i'm hoping you can hear me reasonably clearly but there must be 2 000 people in this room it's a huge forum and to give you an idea when i was on table 95 i'll give you an idea of the sort of scale of this event and the first time of course the president had come to the white house correspondence dinner he'd shunned it in years before um as president and he came tonight and um
I mean, our goodness knows, we'll find out what the actual details are, but the ramifications of this could be huge as well. Gary O'Donoghue. Still to come in this podcast. A lot of media in the West were saying there were hundreds and thousands of people who were dead. It was a big unknown because these were the days before the internet, social media.
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Chapter 5: How did the Colombian bombing impact the upcoming presidential elections?
Shortly after boarding a flight on Air Force One, Mr Trump explained his new line of thinking. We'll deal by telephone and they can call us any time they want. Again, we have all the cards. They have no military left, practically. They have no leaders left. We don't know who the leaders are. Nobody knows who the leaders are. I don't think they know who the leaders are, very importantly.
So we're not going to be traveling 15, 16 hours to have a meeting with people that nobody ever heard of before. What changed to make you make that decision? Too much travel. When they say the meeting's scheduled for Tuesday, I said, Tuesday? That's a long time from now. Too much traveling takes too long, too expensive. I'm a very cost-conscious person.
Mr Trump said that his decision didn't mean there would be a return to fighting. So where does all this leave the negotiations? I heard more from our North America correspondent, Peter Bowes. Donald Trump was quite abrupt in his intervention, telling his team of negotiators that they were not going to make an 18-hour flight to Pakistan.
He said, we have all the cards, they can call us any time they want, referring to Iran. But essentially, he is implying that he considers a long flight to Islamabad to, as he said, sit around and talk about nothing isn't worth the time and money.
I think it's probably fair to say that expectations were quite low to start with when this wasn't necessarily going to be the top team from the United States. J.D. Vance, the vice president who led negotiations two weeks ago, was always going to stay in Washington, but there were to be no talks.
And we know that Iran had been saying for at least a day or two that they were not inclined to take part in direct negotiations with the Americans anywhere. So the day has achieved nothing.
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Chapter 6: What was the reaction of the White House correspondents during the incident?
So why is he doing this? Because it appeared that the American team were set to go. Well, Donald Trump seems to be taking a somewhat different attitude to the one that we've been hearing from him, let's say, a week or so ago, where he was talking in terms of the bombing starting again if Iran didn't agree to a deal. There was a sense of urgency in what he was saying.
The attitude now, not just from the president, but from the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, appears to be, let's just stand back a little bit, suggest that we have some time and not be rushed into a deal. But this is a country where people are becoming increasingly frustrated, are being affected increasingly by the high fuel prices and how it's affecting people's everyday lives.
So there is the potential to put President Trump under greater political pressure. President Trump says that time is on his side and that the clock is ticking for the Iranians. But next Saturday, of course, is 60 days since the start of the war and he has to go to Congress for approval. Yes, there is a new deadline there.
And I think as the days and weeks go by, this is one reason why the pressure is increasing on this president, not just congressional approval. but the mood in the country. Remember, this is a president who promised that he wouldn't get into these protracted overseas wars situations, which is what this is beginning to look like with no end in sight.
So I think as far as Mr. Trump is concerned, there is pressure all around. And to say that all the cards are on his side might be somewhat simplistic when you consider the complex issues that are at stake here. Peter Bowes.
Soon after President Trump announced that his envoys wouldn't fly to Pakistan, the other crucial player in all of this, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered the Israeli army to vigorously attack what he said were Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Attacks followed almost immediately. Buildings that Israel said were used by the Iranian-backed armed group came under fire.
All this just days after Israeli and Lebanese diplomats in Washington agreed a three-week extension to a ceasefire. I asked our Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher if Mr Netanyahu had put the ceasefire in jeopardy.
Well, he's up the ante again. I mean, it's clear that he isn't really happy with there being the kind of ceasefire that there is in Lebanon at the moment. It's unfinished business as far as he's concerned. And as far as many Israelis are concerned, I mean, when the ceasefire was announced, there was a sense that he had been kind of forced into it by the Americans.
And that it was unfinished business, not just from him, but also from opposition politicians and parties. So he has now, in a very brief statement, ordered the Israeli military to vigorously attack Hezbollah targets.
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