Footage shared by the ABC’s Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang showed her taking cover as a volley of shots could be heard across the North Lawn.
“We were told to sprint to the press briefing room where we are holding now,” Wang wrote on X.
Aaron Navarro, a CBS News reporter, told BBC news channel he was on the North Lawn when he could hear the gunshots, “at points sounding like they were coming from different guns, just outside the grounds”.
He said that “as soon as we heard it we ducked down and I started to see other reporters starting to run, and you shortly heard Secret Service officers saying get inside, get inside.”
Once inside, he said reporters were locked down in the press briefing room for around 30 minutes. Outside, they saw Secret Service officers and then, just beyond the grounds, they eventually saw images of ambulances.
Navarro said it’s unclear where exactly Trump was inside the White House when the shooting took place and “whether he even heard it, as it was a good distance”.
He said the shooting took place in a busy area with a cafe and restaurants, but it wasn’t as busy as it could have been since it was after the workday and on the weekend.
“It certainly is a tense moment generally when it comes to security and President Trump,” Navarro said.