A gunman rushed the White House Correspondents' Dinner with a shotgun, a handgun, and two knives.
Someone in that building decided the real outrage was Pete Hegseth.
A PBS reporter watched the Secretary of War get rushed out of an active shooting evacuation and decided to tweet about it.
What Liz Landers Tweeted During the White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting
Cole Tomas Allen had just rushed the security checkpoint outside the Washington, D.C. Hilton ballroom armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and two knives.
Donald Trump was at the head table, Pete Hegseth beside him, when the Secret Service swarmed the room and started moving people out.
Hegseth's detail pushed him fast through a back hallway toward a door.
PBS White House correspondent Liz Landers filmed it – then posted the clip noting that Hegseth "did not take questions from the press."
In the video, a reporter's voice asks: "Mr. Secretary, is the president going back to the dinner?"
That was the question.
Nobody asked about the shooter, or the officer who took a round to the vest, or whether the president was safe.
Pete Hegseth, being rushed out of an active shooting scene as Secretary of War, did not pause to answer whether Trump might return for dessert.
Newsbusters' Curtis Houck put it directly: "When an unpredictable, horrible news event takes place, can you be a normal human being for even a few moments, or is there an instinctual or purposeful decision to be a jerk?"
RedState's Buzz Patterson was blunter: "This is a real post from PBS. Journalism is dead."
Who Liz Landers Is and Why She Was at the WHCD
She covered Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign for CNN – calling it a "dream gig" – then spent four years at Vice News as chief political correspondent before landing at PBS NewsHour as White House correspondent in September 2025.
According to multiple conservative commentators, she's currently dating former CNN anchor Jim Acosta – a man who made his post-journalism career out of confrontational posturing toward this administration.
The community note on her tweet said it all: "This footage shows Defense Secretary Hegseth during a security evacuation at the White House Correspondents' Dinner after an armed suspect entered the venue with guns and knives, prompting shots fired and officials' rapid exit."
She knew that when she posted it.
She posted it anyway.
PBS Lost Its Federal Funding and Last Night Showed Why
Congress voted last July to claw back $1.1 billion in Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding.
Trump signed it, and PBS cut 15% of its staff.
Mike Johnson didn't mince words when the defunding passed: NPR and PBS had "consistently and knowingly betrayed the public trust."
Saturday night, a gunman tried to kill the President of the United States — and PBS's White House correspondent pulled out her phone to complain that Pete Hegseth walked past her.
Not a reporter asking what happened.
Not a journalist trying to find out if anyone was hurt.
A tweet about access.
That's the instinct that fires when the bullets start flying – not "is anyone safe," but "why won't he talk to us."
Landers wasn't alone.
Video circulating online showed other members of the press corps grabbing bottles of wine off the tables and stuffing them into bags and jacket pockets as they were ushered out of the ballroom.
Not filing reports, not checking on colleagues — pocketing the Chardonnay.
"Wine Gate" was trending within an hour.
Congress cut PBS funding last July.
Liz Landers just told you why.
Sources:
- Isaac Schorr, "PBS Reporter Complains About Pete Hegseth Not Taking Questions While Being Rushed Out of White House Correspondents' Dinner," Mediaite, April 26, 2026.
- "PBS WH Correspondent Bodied for Whining That Hegseth Wouldn't Answer Questions During Evac," Twitchy, April 26, 2026.
- "Suspect Cole Allen in Custody After Shots Fired at White House Correspondents' Dinner," Fox News Digital, April 26, 2026.
- "CPB to Shut Down After Public Media Loses Federal Funding," NPR, August 1, 2025.
- "PBS Cuts 15% of Jobs in Wake of Federal Funding Cut," NPR, September 4, 2025.
