Overview
- An attempted assassination in April forced organizers to cancel the original White House Correspondents' Dinner and reschedule it at the Waldorf Astoria.
- Organizers sharply cut attendance from roughly 2,600 to about 700 and introduced layered screening that used QR codes, passcodes, repeated photo ID checks, TSA-style lines, and armed officers.
- The attending reporter who filed the recent firsthand account said guests reached the ballroom without a protective barrier around the head table where President Trump and senior officials sat.
- The report also flagged a technology risk because entry depended on digital passes that could fail if a phone battery died, a device was lost, or a QR code became inaccessible.
- The White House, the WHCA and the Secret Service kept many security details confidential, outlets say the agencies have not publicly responded to these specific allegations and some claims could not be independently verified.