Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino
X: HILLINOIS

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.

A Room in Crisis, A Chant That Fell Flat

The White House Correspondents' Dinner had devolved into pandemonium when Cole 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.'

The Online Backlash Was Swift and Unsparing

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.

Scavino's Statement: 'We're All in This Together'

After leaving the venue, Scavino took to his own X account to address the evening's events, without referencing the chant. He wrote: 'Never thought I'd be hitting the ground again after Butler, Pennsylvania, as a result of shots being fired. Brings back a lot of terrible memories, I am so thankful that everyone in attendance tonight is okay. We're all in this together, stay strong!'

The reference to Butler, Pennsylvania, alluded to the July 2024 assassination attempt against President Trump, which Scavino had witnessed in person. His post framed the evening through the lens of personal trauma and political solidarity, a markedly different tone from the chant that had just gone viral.

Scavino's role in the Trump orbit runs deep. A veteran of all three of Trump's presidential campaigns, Scavino first met Trump as a caddie at the Briar Hall Country Club in Westchester, New York, while still a student at Plattsburgh State University. He joined Trump's 2016 presidential campaign as an aide in June 2015, later becoming the campaign's director of social media, and was named White House Deputy Chief of Staff in November 2024. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt previously described him as 'one of President Trump's most trusted and longest-serving advisers.'

RFK Jr Also Caught in the Crossfire of Criticism

Scavino was not the only figure whose conduct that evening drew public scrutiny. Footage showed Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr being evacuated alongside his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, by Secret Service agents. Hines later described the evacuation on Instagram, saying 'agents literally had to lift me over chairs because I'm in heels and a gown.' Separately, Kerry Kennedy, RFK Jr's sister, was seen on the floor of the ballroom, shielded by Congressman Jamie Raskin, who held her and told her: 'You're okay, you're okay, you're okay.'

Meanwhile, Erika Kirk, widow of assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk, was seen in tears as she was escorted from the ballroom, while others in the crowd traded hugs as they were leaving the event site. The varied human reactions across the room, grief, fear, reflexive political performance, captured the surreal tenor of the night.

As investigators continued to piece together the events of 25 April, the image of Scavino standing atop a chair, chanting into a room of crouching, frightened guests, remained one of the most discussed, and most contested, moments of an already historic evening.

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