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Suspect Charged With Attempting To Assassinate Trump; Rep. Debbie Dingell, (D-MI), Is Interviewed About GOP Tries To Blame Dems For "Inciting Violence" Against Trump; Jimmy Kimmel Pushes Back After Trump Calls For Him To Be Fired. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 28, 2026 - 07:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[07:32:01]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have new details this morning about the man accused of opening fire at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The 31-year-old is now charged with attempting to assassinate the president. FBI Director Kash Patel says investigators have gained access to the man's phone and authorities are also tracking his travel and his digital trail. A CNN analysis of social media found nearly 5,000 posts on X and Bluesky accounts linked to him show a shift toward political rage in the last couple of years with some of that anger directed at the president. With us now is CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson.

I do want to start with the top charge here, attempted assassination --

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

BERMAN: -- what do you need to prove to establish that?

JACKSON: So this is a significant charge because it carries up to life in jail and defense attorneys are going to hone in on that. When you talk about an attempt, it means you failed. But in order to establish the attempt, you have to show under the law that a substantial step was taken towards completion. What does that mean? The jury will be given a jury instruction if it goes that far.

That talks about what substantial step means and it's something beyond mere preparation. Now, if you're prosecuted, you'll say, of course, ladies and gentlemen, there's more than mere preparation. This is a person who designed this. They checked into the hotel, right? Prior to that.

They made the reservations on April 6th. They traveled from California to Chicago, from Chicago to D.C. They went to the actual event. They passed and bypassed. They were almost there. That is much more than preparation.

Not so fast, the defense will say. It may have been preparation, however, was it enough? Certainly there were hundreds of agents in between the shooter and the completion of this act, certainly there was not a possibility for him to actually carry it out. Now, under the law, factual impossibility, the fact that you plan something and you try something and you step towards it and fail does not mean that you're exonerated from it. But they will focus in on whether it was substantial enough to the extent that he breached the perimeter to get him to the actual attempt to carry it out successfully.

And that's what they'll have to do.

BERMAN: It will be interesting to see and we keep on hearing some vague responses to whether this man actually fired his gun and at whom, if he did. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, mentioned that there was a spent shotgun shell in the gun, but they haven't proven yet that he fired that necessarily Saturday night. It seems likely maybe he did. But at whom, if he did? How important is that if he fired the gun or not?

JACKSON: So it's critical because obviously a couple of reasons, right? The first thing obviously is he's charged with carrying the gun interstate, that's a federal crime. But he's also charged on with the discharge of that weapon in a crime of violence. And so in order to establish the discharge in a crime of violence, you have to establish that it was discharged, the gun was fired.

I think it also goes to the issue, and when you look at that charge itself, it carries a 10-year mandatory minimum and that if convicted, gets tacked onto the time that you have. So that's very significant. But it also will be significant, which I believe in terms of the evaluation of upgrading any charges.

[07:35:08]

BERMAN: Sure.

JACKSON: If you're going to prove that he attempted to kill the agent that he shot at, if he shot him, are you going to charge assault to the agent if there was such an assault? Ballistics, very important.

BERMAN: Very quickly, the phone. What role will that play in this investigation?

JACKSON: I think, you know, everything. I think every piece of evidence is significant. You look at the manifesto, significant. You look at the fact that he set this up and made this apology was going to present, significant. You -- everything.

It's not one piece of evidence in isolation. It's all to establish what your intentions were. Motive doesn't have to be proven, but certainly your intent has to be proven. And so every piece of evidence can't be viewed in isolation, has to be looked at collectively and how it supports the whole.

BERMAN: Joey Jackson, great to see you, counselor. Thank you very much.

Kate. KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So it took mere moments for any talk of unity to evaporate after that scary attack at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The blame game between Democrats and Republicans once again reaching fever pitch. The White House and Republicans on the Hill saying that Democrats are to blame for the rhetoric that led to another attempted assassination of the president. This is just from yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party and even some in the media.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), HOUSE SPEAKER: They've incited violence, in my view. I mean, you have some of the most prominent figures in the House and the Senate on the Democrat side effectively, you know, calling for war. I mean, they use those kinds of metaphors and it incites violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now for some more perspective, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell from Michigan.

It's good to see you, Congresswoman. Thank you for being here. What is your view on this?

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): Look, I think we all have to take responsibility. Finger pointing right now doesn't help anything. We are normalizing political violence in this country. It is happening every single day in different ways and we have all got to take responsibility for it from leaders like us to institutions to every single individual in community.

What's happening, the deterioration of our cultures, the -- being able to scream, social media, it's got to stop. It just has to stop. I don't think the speaker helps by pointing that finger, but we have no place to not point fingers either. We all have to work together to dial it down.

BOLDUAN: The fraying, the thinning of the fabric of community, I think is something that is so important that you're getting at here. I mean, you're so -- you -- I mean, if anyone knows you, they know that you are always in the community talking to your constituents left, right, and center, and you know exactly what this means.

Republicans are not just pointing to Democrats as a problem. There are also some Republicans, especially campaign committees, calling out and pointing to the Senate race in Michigan as epitomizing the rhetoric that they're speaking out against. The progressive candidate in the Senate race in particular, Abdul El-Sayed, Republicans have circulated video from last year of him saying something to the effect of, when they go low, we don't go high, we choke them out. Is this a problem? DINGELL: Look, my -- the Senate race in Michigan, I will not use what I call it some days on the air. But what I want to say is that, you know, we're a unique place in Michigan. We are a very culturally diverse state. We have a very significant Jewish community and a very significant Muslim community.

I sat down with people in both this weekend, and they're hurting, and they're hurting in different ways. I mean, if you talk to people in the Jewish community, they've never felt anti-Semitism like they do now. And it's real. They're feeling that hate. What you saw at the temple in Michigan was anti-Semitism, but in the Muslim community, they're watching their homes, of their families be absolutely destroyed, neighborhoods destroyed.

They think they're hated. What we've got to do is not dismiss it. Don't try to compare them. Everybody's hurting right now, and let's try to help each other. Let's make this space for people to talk about how they feel without judging them. And every one of us has to stand up when we see disrespect, booing, hate. When you see hate, wherever and whenever we need to stand up to it.

BOLDUAN: What I'm gathering when you say you don't want to say it on air is that you think that what you're hearing from the campaign trail in Michigan is not living up to that standard that you're trying to set right now.

DINGELL: I would encourage everybody to make sure that we are talking issues and being respectful. And, oh, I'll say it, and not turning it all into a shit show. So -- but -- and we should, we got good candidates. We're very lucky. But they're, you know, and they've got -- all have strong followers.

[07:40:08]

And we got to remember we can respect each other. Social media is part of the problem too. Let's be really honest about that, Kate. Social media just gives people an anomaly to say some of the most hateful, vile things. Think about it, if you're a 13-year-old getting bullied, I can't handle it and I'm supposed to be seasoned.

Think about if you're a 13-year-old boy or girl and being bullied.

BOLDUAN: Yes, no, it's, believe me, with an 11-year-old, I'm -- it is a terrifying prospect of what are -- what we are dealing with right now at this moment, Congresswoman.

Let's turn gears to another major issue that is at hand, which is President Trump. He is signaling -- he signaled -- started signaling yesterday, according to sources, that he's unlikely to accept Iran's latest proposal to that they sent over the weekend to end the war, open the Strait of Hormuz and essentially deal with the nuke, the question of the nuclear program later, which if that proposal is a no go, if he says he's unlikely to take it, it seems that this comes down to then at this moment, the question of can the United States or Iran endure more economic hardship from the Strait of Hormuz being shut down, the longer it's shut down, from the perspective of your district, what is the answer to that?

DINGELL: Well, it's very complicated when you come from Michigan. But first of all, gas prices are going up. I go -- I have three gas stations within a mile of my house in Michigan and they're all -- they all went up last week. You should gas shop, but people are hurting.

Go in the grocery store with me on Sunday morning. People come up and tell me how much they are hurting. So I'm hearing about the affordability issue. People want peace.

The president needs to bring this to Congress. Sixty days since the beginning of this war hits this week. There'll be another War Powers Act vote this week. The president needs to come to Congress. We do not need another endless war in the Mideast that is going to put our young men and women at risk.

And I also want to tell you these ceasefires are not ceasefires. If you are talking to people on the ground in the Mideast, the homes in -- the neighborhoods in Lebanon are -- they're still -- in southern Lebanon, homes are being destroyed, neighborhoods are being destroyed. It's a real mess. The president -- we've got to find -- I want peace in the Mideast. But -- and I don't want a nuclear Iran.

But what we're doing and not consulting with Congress is simply not acceptable. The law says Congress has the authority and Congress needs to be included.

BOLDUAN: Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, so good to have a conversation with you. Thank you.

John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning there is a court hearing for a double murder suspect in Florida charged with killing his roommate and his roommate's friend. Both the victims were doctoral students. Prosecutors revealed ChatGPT searches allegedly made by the suspect.

Let's get right to CNN's Isabel Rosales for the latest on all of this. Good morning to you.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. The brothers of these two USF doctoral students spoke -- just spoke to CNN together for the first time as newly revealed court documents paint a picture of disturbing ChatGPT searches and Amazon purchases. Now, eight days after Zamil Limon was last seen alive, investigators found a trash bag that had been dumped on a Tampa Bay area bridge and inside were his remains. The autopsy ruled that his death was by homicide and that he had been stabbed to death.

Then there's Nahida Bristy, his friend. She is still missing but is presumed dead by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. On Sunday, human remains were found by investigators very nearby where Limon's body had been found. They are still working to identify them.

Now let's get into the ChatGPT searches. This is according to court documents that show that three days before the students were last seen alive that the suspect here, Hisham Abugharbieh, posted and asked the ChatGPD -- GPT the following, what happens if a human is put in a black garbage bag and thrown into a dumpster, which according to these documents, the ChatBot then responded, well, that sounds dangerous. And Hisham then wrote, how would they find out?

A warrant also shows that he made a few couple of questionable purchases on Amazon, including trash bags, duct tape, charcoal and a fake beard.

Now, I spoke just yesterday with Limon, the victim's brother, and he told me that the suspect and his brother had only lived together at this apartment complex off campus student housing for just two months. Here's what else he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZUBAER AHMED, BROTHER OF ZAMIL LIMON: I run to my mother and say that calmly and hugging her. My brother is no more. After hearing that my mother, my parents, their heart broken and they crying like a child.

[07:45:08]

ZAHID PRANTO, BROTHER OF NAHIDA BRISTY: She was the perfect. She used to sing. She used to love to cook. Those were amazing days, our amazing days, our memories, and they will always be there till our last breath.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And Zamil Limon's brother also told me that he recalled his brother telling him that that roommate, the suspect, was a, quote, "awful, unpleasant and unsocial person." So he had heard these complaints about the personality of that suspect directly from his brother.

Now the suspect is being held without bond. He does have a status hearing later today at 9:00 a.m. We're going to be monitoring that. It's not clear if he's going to show up in person or virtually. John.

BERMAN: Some pretty grim allegations here. Isabel Rosales, thank you for sharing your reporting on this. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And what has become a deadly storm outbreak is moving east now, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. We have the very latest forecast for you coming up.

And Cyndi Lauper shows that girls just want to call out hecklers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYNDI LAUPER, SINGER: If you're trying to shade me (BLEEP), I will come for you. I'm from Brooklyn.

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BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight, Jimmy Kimmel pushed back against new calls from the first lady and the president basically to get him fired, this time over a joke he made last week days before the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

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JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!": And of course, our first lady, Melania is here. Look at Melania. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Again, that was days before the incident Saturday night, the attempted shooting there. But now the first lady says his words, "Jimmy Kimmel's words are corrosive and they deepen the political sickness within the country." And she added, "It is time for ABC to take a stand."

President Trump also said that Kimmel should be fired and said the joke was a despicable call to violence. Kimmel pushed back during his monologue overnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIMMEL: It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am. It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that. I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do.

And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, with us this morning, CNN Media Analyst Sara Fischer from Axios and CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter.

Brian, let me just start with you. Jimmy Kimmel, to my eye, didn't look particularly nervous last night as he was delivering that monologue. And it was notable that he was there at all. ABC didn't step in to take him off the air as they --

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, they absolutely was.

BERMAN: Yes, they've done that before, kind of.

STELTER: My indication, you know, Disney's being tight lipped about this. So on the record, nobody there is saying anything about Kimmel. But my sense talking with sources, making calls overnight is that Disney is absolutely standing by Kimmel. And you can see that because he was on everyone's television sets last night. But more importantly, behind the scenes, there have also been signals to Kimmel and to his team that the company is with him, that the company is not wavering, that the company is not going to try to knuckle or maybe cower in the face of Trump's pressure.

And that is of course notable because of last fall, because of Kimmelgate last fall when he was yanked from the airwaves. The reason he was yanked from the airwaves back then was in part due to local stations with cozy ties to the Trump administration that yanked Kimmel's show locally. The big difference this case, John, is that those station group owners, Nexstar and Sinclair, they haven't done a thing. They haven't said a word. I think they learned last time that it was a mistake to pull Kimmel, and so they're not doing it this time.

So we're seeing a big difference in the power dynamics here. Frankly, John, Kimmel has all the power this time.

BERMAN: Sara, how do you see it? And I think just remind our viewers of the relationship between the federal government and a broadcast network like ABC.

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: I agree with Brian that the dynamic is very different with the local broadcasters, especially because one of those broadcasters, Nexstar, is currently trying to do a big merger and they're going through a lot of sort of court and litigation filings to be able to get that done. And so for them, they're not trying to put themselves in another position where they have to deal with another sort of legal battle when they're trying to get a big deal done. I think broadcasters are very vulnerable to these types of attacks from the president in this administration because the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, has jurisdiction over broadcast. They don't have jurisdiction over Internet properties or cable networks like CNN.

And so for ABC, which is just one subsidiary in this broader ecosystem that is owned by Disney, they make their parent company more vulnerable to any sort of deals being stopped or probed or evaluated simply by existing as a broadcaster. That's why, John, you saw ABC and CBS settle lawsuits with the president, but not print publications which aren't regulated as closely by the federal government like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal.

BERMAN: And Sara, changing subjects here to another area that deals with big personalities like some of the biggest. There's a court battle between Elon Musk and Sam Altman over OpenAI, ChatGPT, which Elon Musk was involved in at the beginning. The details of this lawsuit, I'm not saying they're not important, but they may not be what I think is are the biggest headlines that come out of this case. I mean, this is a case where there will be discovery, there will be arguments, what are you looking for in this trial, Sara?

[07:55:19]

FISCHER: No, legal experts think that Elon Musk has a strong case here. I think what's most damaging for Elon Musk is anything that comes out potential text messages between him and other executives like Mark Zuckerberg during the discovery phase of this trial. And the same thing goes for OpenAI. Nobody believes that OpenAI is going to lose to Elon Musk in court. I think most people think that Elon Musk is waging this battle because he can afford to pay lawyers to do a losing argument.

Now, the worst case scenario probably would be honestly for both if OpenAI was forced to pay huge sums of money to Elon Musk. Again, we don't think that's the case. That can sort of slow down the entire AI economy and sort of dampen the optimism around the AI economy ahead of some big IPOs. Remember, OpenAI is looking to possibly go public, and so is SpaceX, which has rolled underneath it XI and X.

So again, this is really about embarrassing Sam Altman more than anything else. But other people, again, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, folks at Microsoft that work with these executives day in and day out, their correspondence could come out in discovery and that could be possibly embarrassing.

BERMAN: Yes, Brian, very quickly, I mean, this is a pretty public, you know, forum here for two people very much in the public eye.

STELTER: It's a little bit like a billionaires are just like us. Like at the end of the day, it is about personal relationships, personal grievances. Very much a case of bitterness and hostility between these men. And it's a reminder, you know, no matter how big they get, no matter how these companies get, no matter how important these companies get, it all comes down to the personalities behind them. In this case, personalities at war with each other.

BERMAN: It's all about the friends you make along the way. Sara Fischer, Brian Stelter, great to see you both this morning. Thank you so much for being here.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And how well you do in keeping those friends all along the way. New video shows the moment a slingshot style carnival ride breaks midair, oh my God, at a fair in Spain. The ride shot into the air, then a cable snapped, then sends it crashing down into the steels support structure on the side. Four people were hurt. Two of them were children, but everyone is expected to be OK.

Spanish police are now investigating.

And Grammy winner Cyndi Lauper, she is not taking it, guys. Calling out a heckler from stage during the opening night of her Las Vegas residency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAUPER: If you're trying to shade me, (BLEEP) I'm going to come for you. I'm from Brooklyn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Yes. I wouldn't take on Cyndi Lauper, like no. The clip -- she's now 72 years old. She -- it has gone viral. The crowd cheering her on before she then continued the show.

JB's (ph) loving this. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is headlining her first residency at the Coliseum at Caesars until May 2.

And two Florida teenagers are facing charges now for what police say started out as a social media stunt. Video shows them, well, you can see it, taking a lawnmower on a joyride. You can see one of them driving the lawnmower into a Target store, slamming into the doors as he tries to get inside or outside. Police say the stunt resulted in property damage, arrests and criminal charges.

I mean just taking a wrong turn there clearly did not have the employ as a teenager like I did of actually mowing lawn.

BERMAN: It's not easy. Lawn care is nothing to joke about. As someone who owned a lot of lawns as a youth and now as an adult, I think you need to take lawn care very serious.

BOLDUAN: I take it very seriously to me.

BERMAN: Very seriously.

BOLDUAN: Yes, but do you mow in a overall shirtless?

BERMAN: Sometimes. Sometimes. That's a good look.

All right.

BOLDUAN: You're welcome -- you're welcome America.

BERMAN: Severe weather threatening more than 40 million people. The National Weather Service says a tornado ripped through Germantown, Illinois. No one was hurt. Question now is where is that system moving today? Let's get right to see any meteorologist Derek Van Dam.

Derek, this system's caused so many issues for so many people peaking today.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good question, John. We're weather weary, right? This is day six. We're talking about almost an entire week of having to be weather aware, getting multiple rounds of severe weather moving through.

If you're in St. Louis, you know what it was all about. Yesterday you had a tornado warren storm move through the city. Look at this dark ominous sky. Just one of the many examples of how frightening yesterday was with nearly 275 reports of severe weather.

So yesterday really was the peak. But we're managing to squeeze out one additional day, one last day before finally we start to relax and calm things down in the weather world in terms of at least severe storms in the U.S. Very large hail, damaging winds, a few tornadoes. The areas you need to be weather aware today, the lower Mississippi Valley into the Tennessee Valley, anywhere from Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Shreveport to Dallas. This is the area we're highlighting. Right now we have bands.