It had the makings of a career night for Oz Pearlman, a mentalist and social media sensation, who was an atypical choice to serve as the featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association dinner.<\/p>\n
The role has been filled by some of the country\u2019s best known comedians or late night hosts, such as Trevor Noah, Conan O\u2019Brien or Jimmy Kimmel. Musicians have also been featured, including Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles.<\/p>\n
But there had never been a mentalist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had such a big show planned,\u201d said Mr. Pearlman, during an interview shortly after the crowd at the Washington Hilton was sent home by authorities. \u201cIt was going to be a huge night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Pearlman did not wait for the show to start his mind-reading tricks. He said that while dinner was being served, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, challenged him to read her mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m with Karoline and the first lady, guessing the name of someone Karoline is thinking of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI figure out how many letters it is, and Melania goes, \u2018Let\u2019s get the president involved.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
President Trump turned to see Mr. Pearlman work the name out on a pad of paper. \u201cIt\u2019s a peak moment,\u201d said Mr. Pearlman. He asked Ms. Leavitt to tell everyone the name, which he had already written down. And as she said it, he ripped the page off and showed them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then we hear the noise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It sounded like a tray of dishes had crashed to the floor, he said, and first he thought that someone had suffered a heart attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we see all the Secret Service people storming in,\u201d Mr. Pearlman said.<\/p>\n
He heard shots fired and hit the floor. He said that he wondered if someone had a bomb.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that moment, I truly believe the room is about to explode,\u201d Mr. Pearlman said. His wife was in the main room, but he couldn\u2019t get to her. Then, the Secret Service officers brought Mr. Trump to the ground right next to Mr. Pearlman.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s facing stage right, I\u2019m facing stage left \u2014 we\u2019re right next to each other,\u201d Mr. Pearlman said. \u201cI turn and look. He turns and looks right in my eyes. Then they rush him out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Pearlman said he stayed on the ground a bit longer, along with others on the dais. He said that no one knew what was happening. \u201cIt was pure fear in everybody\u2019s eyes,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought, standing up I might get shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Pearlman started out as a teenager performing card tricks for diners at an Italian restaurant in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he grew up. Mr. Pearlman makes his living by doing high-dollar corporate events and first surfaced on the pop-culture radar when he competed on \u201cAmerica\u2019s Got Talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a disappointment,\u201d Mr. Pearlman said about what occurred at the dinner. But, he added, \u201cpeople could have lost their lives tonight, and from what I understand, an officer acted very bravely, took a bullet and survived. Thank God he\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It had the makings of a career night for Oz Pearlman, a mentalist and social media sensation, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,12880,9,11262,11261,7,11259,11260],"class_list":{"0":"post-21218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-magic-and-magicians","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-oz","12":"tag-pearlman","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-united-states-politics-and-government","15":"tag-white-house-correspondents-assn"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116473422341779870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}