Most guests ducked for cover. This man munched on his burrata salad.

“I wasn’t scared. There are hundreds of Secret Service agents hurtling themselves over tables and chairs, and I wanted to watch.”

By Tyler Pager, New York Times Service

updated on April 27, 2026 | 12:59 PM

1 minute to read

WASHINGTON — It was chaos inside the Washington Hilton ballroom Saturday night, but not for one man who stayed in his chair, picking at a burrata salad as the people around him ducked for cover.

Michael Glantz, a top agent at Creative Artists Agency and a guest at the White House correspondents’ dinner, said there was no way he was going to hit the deck like everybody else, even though he heard the gunfire from outside the ballroom.

In a brief interview Sunday, Glantz said he was unfazed by the commotion and that he wanted to see what was happening.

“I’m a New Yorker,” he said. “We live with sirens and activity happening all the time. I wasn’t scared. There are hundreds of Secret Service agents hurtling themselves over tables and chairs, and I wanted to watch.”

The split screen was captured on CNN, and footage of Glantz quickly went viral on social media, where he was dubbed “the salad man.”

“A lot of people said, ‘Why didn’t you get on the floor? Everybody else at your table and in the room was on the floor,’” Glantz said.

He was happy to explain: “First of all, I have a bad back. I couldn’t get on the floor, and if I did get on the floor, they’d have to bring in people to get me off the floor. And No. 2, I’m a hygiene freak. There was no freaking way I was getting in my new tux on the dirty Hilton floor. It was not happening.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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