President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is using the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday to try to pressure preservationists to drop their lawsuit over his planned $400 million ballroom on the site of the former East Wing of the White House.

In an interview after the shooting, President Trump says: "I wasn’t worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world."

A Secret Service agent who was wearing an armored vest was struck in the chest, President Trump said at a press briefing following the incident. The Secret Service agent suffered non life-threatening injuries, according to the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department. No one else was injured in the incident.

The meetings come as Wiles and the Secret Service have been condemned for the breach, which allowed a gunman to storm through a checkpoint before the black-tie event at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night apparently intent on attacking Trump and members of his Cabinet.

Oz Pearlman says he thought they were "about to die" as he and the US president lay half-a-metre apart on the ground during the incident.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says the accused gunman who tried to breach the ballroom at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is believed to have been targeting members of the Trump administration.

The president made the remark after a reporter bluntly asked him, “Why do you think this keeps happening to you?”

Cole Thomas Allen, suspected in the Correspondents’ Dinner attack, allegedly wrote a manifesto stating he wanted to target Trump officials.