An NBC News correspondent’s wide-eyed reaction to gunfire erupting near the White House has taken on a life of its own online, with social media users transforming her stunned expression into one of the most-shared memes of the week.
Julie Tsirkin was preparing to tape a segment outside the White House on Saturday, May 24, 2026, when a burst of gunfire suddenly rang out behind her. Footage of the moment shows Tsirkin snapping her head toward the sound, visibly confused, asking twice, “What is that?” before she and her crew scrambled for cover as an armed Secret Service agent moved into position nearby.
The clip rocketed across social media within hours, drawing comparisons to Cardi B’s famous “Oh my God, what is that?!” meme GIF and the long-running “Side Eying Chloe” meme, in which a young girl looks skeptically into the camera from a car seat.
A Terrifying Saturday Evening at the White House
According to authorities, Nasire Best, a 21-year-old Maryland resident, approached a White House security checkpoint on Saturday evening and opened fire after pulling a gun from a bag. Secret Service agents returned fire and killed Best at the scene. One bystander was hospitalized with injuries.
It marked the third shooting near President Trump in recent weeks. On April 25, a California man opened fire near a magnetometer at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — an incident that, for Tsirkin, made the latest gunfire all the more chilling. It was the second time in a month she had encountered a similar scare.
“My cameraman, John, and I were getting ready to tape something on Iran for Nightly News when what sounded like 20 to 30 loud booms rang out very close by,” Tsirkin recounted, recalling that her cameraman initially wondered aloud whether the sounds were fireworks before the gravity of the moment set in.
She wasn’t the only journalist caught in the chaos. ABC News correspondent Selina Wang was filming on her iPhone from the White House North Lawn when the shots erupted. Wang said she and others were told to sprint to the press briefing room, where reporters were held as the situation unfolded.
The Internet Does What the Internet Does
By Sunday, Tsirkin’s bewildered expression had been edited into a dizzying array of disaster footage and absurdist clips. Her likeness was spliced into footage of the Hindenburg explosion, a nuclear blast, President Trump mimicking a transgender weightlifter, and Stephen Colbert dancing alongside performers dressed as Covid vaccines.
One AI-generated clip placed a giant Barron Trump roaming the White House grounds behind her, his footsteps shaking the earth as she looked on in confusion. Another AI-generated video — which racked up over 600,000 views — depicted the reporter reluctantly joining Secretary of State Marco Rubio on an Oval Office couch, a setting that has itself become a frequent meme target.
The Rutgers University graduate and former MSNBC producer addressed the viral wave with good humor on Tuesday, May 26, telling readers in a first-person account shared with The Independent: “Thanks for the memes, internet. Hope you’ll stick around for the reporting.”
Journalists in the Line of Fire
The lighthearted meme treatment has masked, for some viewers, just how dangerous the moment was. Tsirkin has been candid about the fact that the April 25 shooting at the Correspondents’ dinner gave her and her colleagues an unfortunate frame of reference. She noted that she and her crew recognized the sound of gunfire almost immediately, even as her cameraman’s first instinct was to suggest fireworks.
“I immediately was looking around to see what the Secret Service agents were doing because, of course, we are journalists; our job is to report,” Tsirkin said of her instinct to scan her surroundings even as the gunfire continued.
That instinct — to keep reporting in the middle of a crisis — is precisely what produced the now-iconic footage. Tsirkin didn’t drop her microphone, didn’t bolt out of frame, and didn’t lose composure. She froze just long enough for the camera to capture an expression that, intentionally or not, mirrored the disbelief many Americans felt watching yet another shooting unfold near the seat of executive power.
What Comes Next
The investigation into Best’s actions is ongoing, with officials examining his background and his decision to draw a weapon at one of the most heavily secured checkpoints in the country. For the White House press corps, the incident is the latest reminder that covering the Trump administration increasingly means working under conditions where the sound of gunfire is no longer hypothetical.
For Tsirkin, the experience has produced an unexpected silver lining — a moment of viral recognition that, in her telling, she hopes will channel new eyes toward the substance of her work rather than just the snapshot of her startled face. Whether the meme machine obliges is another question entirely, but for now, her stunned look has become one of the defining images of a turbulent month in Washington, D.C.
