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Conspiracy Theories Running Rampant After Press Gala Shooting; GOP Tries to Blame Dems for Inciting Violence Against Trump; Florida Republicans Push to Redraw Maps and Flip 4 House Seats; Trump Does Not Appear Open to Iran's Latest Proposal to End War; AI Can Cost More than Human Workers Now. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired April 28, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New details this morning about the man now charged with trying to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. A CNN analysis of his digital history found growing political rage in thousands of posts on Twitter and Blue Sky accounts that were linked to him. He also retweeted posts speculating that the first assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania was staged.

Now conspiracy theories about Saturday's attempted attack are running rampant online. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just because Trump and his filth have lied to you about everything, every day for 11 years, that's no reason for you to get cynical and think that was staged.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As soon as gunshots were heard at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night, conspiracy theories started spreading online. Posts like this one, with no evidence, claiming it was staged. A Fox News clip of the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also went viral.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, U.S. PRESS SECRETARY: It will be funny, it will be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room. So, everyone should tune in. It's going to be really great. I'm looking forward to hearing it.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This was to be President Trump's first time addressing the Correspondents' Dinner. Traditionally, at the event, presidents poke fun at themselves and at the press. These jokes and jabs are clearly what Leavitt was referring to when she said shots fired.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we're planning at the White House. We need the ballroom. That's why Secret Service, that's why the military are demanding it. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This statement from Trump, along with a bunch of posts online, had some people speculating that the whole thing had been a setup to justify the building of Trump's controversial ballroom on the White House complex. There is zero evidence to support this.

TIM DILLON, THE TIM DILLON SHOW: Just admit you staged it in Butler.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Saturday's attack came on the heels of renewed skepticism among some former Trump supporters about the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, I have obtained a copy of this so-called manifesto. It says administration officials are targets prioritized from highest ranking to lowest.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Marjorie Taylor Greene took to social media Sunday writing, "I want to know why the Trump admin released Cole Allen's manifesto immediately, but they still keep a tight lid on Thomas Crooks." The FBI, under both Biden and Trump, has repeatedly said Crooks has acted alone and has released information about Crooks, including his online search history. On Monday, Press Secretary Leavitt was asked about the widespread misinformation.

LEAVITT: It's very important to us that we get the truth and the facts about this case and any case out there as quickly as possible to dispel some of that crazy nonsense that you do see running rampant online.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Donie, thank you so much for that.

Joining me right now is Marc Short, former chief of staff to then-Vice President Mike Pence. It's good to see you.

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Kate, thanks for having me.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for being here. Seeing conspiracy theories take off after a major event is not new, sadly enough. And you have been around and in politics long enough that you've seen it and you've seen it very close up and firsthand.

Why does it? What, like, you can't make sense of a crazy conspiracy theory, right? No one should try to rationalize irrational.

But why does it? What is it about today?

[08:35:00]

SHORT: I think it's a couple of things, Kate. I think there's a lot of distrust for the media, to be honest with you. But I think there's also now people get their news from so many different sources.

It's not like it used to be where there's a handful of sources. You get so much information on your phone that there's going to be a proliferation of it. And so it's just easily accessible.

BOLDUAN: Sadly enough. After what happened over the weekend, Republicans and Democrats are definitely blaming each other for kind of laying out and pushing, fomenting the rhetoric that creates the environment for this kind of political violence. Republicans, the White House very clearly blaming Democrats, Democrats very clearly pushing back. Let me play just an example.

(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. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: This so-called White House press secretary wants to lecture America and lecture us about civility. Get lost. Clean up your own house before you have anything to say to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: A quick reminder, you worked for Mike Pence when there was the rhetoric got to the point where there people were calling for him to be hanged. So it's not like you don't know what heated political rhetoric looks like. But does anything cut through this noise?

SHORT: I think the reality is that our politics have become so coarse today that all of us in the public spirit need to do a better job. We all need to do a better job of toning it down. And we've lost a sort of a sense of community where we view our partisan opponents as the enemy.

And that's dangerous. I do think, though, when you've seen a series of events happen, whether or not it was three assassination attempts on Donald Trump in two years, of Brett Kavanaugh, Steve Scalise, Charlie Kirk, or even, frankly, some of the more recent school shootings when there were attacks on a Christian school in Tennessee or in Catholic school in Minnesota by trans people. I think the reality is that there is a political violence problem on the left.

And I think that right now, many on the left are saying, yes, but, yes, but Donald Trump's mean. Yes, but Donald Trump tweeted wrong. Again, both sides, all sides need to clean this up.

But I think right now there's not a sense from the Democrats of taking ownership of saying we need to clean this up.

BOLDUAN: You're saying in this moment.

SHORT: In this moment, not cleaning up on their side.

BOLDUAN: Weird transition, but let's transition to talk about some of the issues, if you will. Then there's the economy and the major issues of the midterm elections. Last week, there was a poll that came out. Since it came out, I wanted to ask you about it. It's a Fox News poll that found that for the first time since 2010, voters favor Democrats over Republicans on economic issues.

You saw that. And what's your take on that? I mean, something Democrats are doing right or something Republicans are doing wrong?

SHORT: Well, I think it's got to be alarming when you see markets hitting all-time highs. But the reality is that for the average American, they continue to see prices go up. And I think for a lot of Republicans, there's been a big shift in what our economic policies are.

While traditionally continuing to advance tax relief, you've had basically Republicans embracing state-owned enterprises again and again and again. Most recently with Spirit Airlines. You've had Republicans basically embracing credit card caps, fees on credit cards.

You've basically had Republicans tell people who can buy a house and who can't. These are policies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. And so if Republicans are basically going to offer the same thing as Democrats, then I think you're going to lose your advantage over Democrats on economic policy.

BOLDUAN: Real quick, then the redistricting battle now takes a new turn. You've got Florida. You've got Ron DeSantis. He's pushing a map. They're hoping to win advantage in four seats.

When Virginia approved its redistricting plan, you called it not a good look for Democrats in the Commonwealth, but also a big loss for Republicans and it hurts their midterm chances. What does Florida offer into this war?

SHORT: Look, I think that the campaign in Virginia was incredibly disingenuous by the governor, Governor Spanberger, who said this was not going to be something she would do when she ran just six months before this. And the promise that it would only be temporary, none of those people that if they get elected, Democrats are going to resign in 2030 when there's a new census.

But Kate, you know, I think I was on your show when they started this in Texas --

BOLDUAN: Yes.

SHORT: -- and I said that this was best going to be a wash for Republicans.

I think it's a miscalculation because, yes, there are a lot of districts along the border where Hispanics are overwhelmed of the border security during the Biden years who voted for Trump. That doesn't mean they're lifelong Republicans. So not all four of the seats are going to go for Republicans.

And now you've started this race to the bottom where you now have the White House going against Republican senators in Indiana because they didn't support redistricting. And so at best, this is going to be a wash for Republicans and it's going to cost a ton of money.

BOLDUAN: Ton of money. Like tons and tons of money. And they're going to be back in many cases.

SHORT: Money spent against Republicans like in Indiana.

BOLDUAN: How does it feel to be a Republican right now, Marc Short?

SHORT: Well, I'm still a conservative, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, you are. What is the definition of that?

SHORT: The definition is still the same.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see.

SHORT: Thanks.

BOLDUAN: John.

[08:40:00]

BERMAN: All right. In California this morning -- something I'm sure Marc Short does not like one little bit -- a measure that would impose a one time 5 percent tax on Californians who have at least $1.1 billion. It appears to be headed to the ballot.

Supporters of the so-called billionaire's tax say they now have enough signatures to put it before voters in November. CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten is here. Harry, I think if you're on social media and not from California, you're reading a lot about this.

There are a lot of people outside California arguing back and forth. What do people say inside California right now?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: You know, I just want to know. John has the hand signals and the arm movements. I think I'm rubbing off on him.

Look, the bottom line is this. If you look at the initial polling, it's very interesting for two reasons. Number one, you look here.

OK, the choice for the California billionaire tax measure. You see that the for is leading overall, but it's just at 50 percent. All right.

The opposition's at 28 percent. So that 50 percent mark, when there's a campaign that actually goes on, will it actually be able to rise or fall below that? Among Democrats, it's really popular.

It's 70 percent for, 12 percent against. So what you see here is the clear majority of Democrats are for it. The plurality overall are for it, too. But the question is, as the campaign goes on, will this for actually be able to rise above 50 percent? Because ballot measures are oftentimes difficult to poll. And I'll also note that Marc Short, once we heard about this, ran right out of the room.

BERMAN: He wanted nothing to do with this.

ENTEN: Nothing to do with it.

BERMAN: He ran away. OK, so maybe popular right now, certainly a plurality majority of Democrats. There's a big race for governor right now in California with a lot of Democrats running.

You have a measure here that's got 70 percent approval right now among Democrats. Where do the Democratic candidates land?

ENTEN: So, again, this is why it's one of the reasons it's so interesting to me. You've got the polls versus the people. The people here at that 70 percent.

But take a look here. OK, California Dems on the billionaire tax measure. The governor and leading gov candidates.

Look at those who are opposed on the Democratic side. You've got the incumbent governor. You've got one of the leading candidates.

You've got another leading candidate. You've got Katie Porter opposed. Only Tom Steyer is for.

And even then, his statements kind of go back and forth a little bit, exactly how you read them. But it appears that he is for this. So we have the clear majority of Democrats.

Democrats with a D. Their party is 70 percent for. But you look at the candidates and or the incumbent governor and Gavin Newsom.

They are opposed to it because they're afraid that, in fact, the tax base will go out of town. And you actually end up with less money than you actually had coming into it.

BERMAN: What, of course, is interesting about Tom Steyer being the one?

ENTEN: He is a billionaire. The billionaire is the one on the right side of the screen as opposed to the rest of them who are not quite billionaires, at least not quite yet. But, hey, we can hope for one day.

BERMAN: You can always strive. All right. So what are the prediction markets saying about this measure right now?

And there's a long way to go. I mean, there's months and months of campaigning to go.

ENTEN: Yes, OK. So you see this opposition among the Democrats here, right? And you see the 70 percent of Democrats currently for it here. But when you put it all together and there's an actual campaign that goes underway, what are the odds at this point? I mean, it's basically even, right? The chance, according to the Kalshi prediction market, that it passes is 48 percent.

The fails is 52 percent. That includes not even making the ballot. But this, for the sake of argument, is really a 50-50 race.

We're just shrugging our shoulders at this particular point because the polls say one thing. The polls say another. Let's see if we get a campaign and see actually where we end up on this one-time billionaire tax measure.

BERMAN: And ballot measures are really hard.

ENTEN: Oh, they are really, really hard. But we'll keep an eye on it, John.

BERMAN: Absolutely, Harry. And thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you very much.

Kate. Kate, do you want to get any arm movements in this morning?

BOLDUAN: No, I don't do arm movements.

More and more companies are cutting jobs and leaning into AI. But now some experts warn it could be a very costly investment. New data in. It's an interesting take you'll want to see.

And there's also new video of a hot air balloon crashing into a casino. What happened next? Be right back.

[08:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, breaking this morning, you can see it right there. Gas prices surging overnight, up more than six cents in one night. That's the biggest jump in more than a month. The average highest price since August 2022.

Oil prices up pretty big overnight as well, about 2 or 3 percent. There's also been breaking news just minutes ago that the United Arab Emirates is going to pull out of OPEC. That does not appear related necessarily to what's happening in Iran, but that could also roil the markets.

That's on top of the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. The president does not appear open to Iran's latest proposal to open the Strait but leave questions about its nuclear program for later.

With us now, CNN military analyst, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton, and CNN national security analyst, Beth Sanner.

And Beth, let's just talk about this, what this proposal from Iran is. It would be to open the Strait of Hormuz basically right now. U.S. is blockading Iranian ports. Iran is more or less not letting anything through. So there is very little traffic passing through this very narrow strait here. The Iranians say, OK, we'll open it, but we're not going to talk about the serious issues till later.

Why is it you think the president doesn't like that idea?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Because it basically gets us not even back to the status quo ante. It gets us back to a position that is suboptimal to where we were when we started this war. And so he just can't do it, right?

He needs to show something that he's making progress. And I and I think that the real problem here is that there's just no clear path forward to figuring out how we can do that. What do we do?

[08:50:00]

And so you get a choice of either doubling down on the pressure, which I think is kind of where they're at, restarting the military option, which they don't want to do, or, you know, trying to move this somewhere closer and maybe, you know, bringing the Russians in or something like that. I mean, but not a lot of good options here. True dilemma.

BERMAN: We'll get to the Russians in just a second here. Cedric, one question I wanted to ask you as the strait there is closed. You're getting all kinds of reports in the papers about what's happening inside Iran with their oil supply.

They have all their ports here. But the Iranians who aren't able to move oil out of the Strait are now being forced, according to this report, to store it in decrepit containers. They're nervous that they're going to, you know, top off at the various wells around the country.

Is there any way of knowing how long Iran can survive without moving oil through the Strait?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, that's a really great question, John. I think it's not something that we can know precisely at this particular point in time. The problem that the Iranians have is exactly as you pointed out.

There is a storage issue, and they're doing things like using containers that, you know, wouldn't pass muster with the EPA even these days. And it's one of those areas where what the Iranians have to do is they have to find a way to get the oil out, because if they don't get the oil out, it eventually impacts their production. It will also impact their ability to make money off of it, to provide money not only for normal governmental functions.

But since 40 percent of the Iranian economy is controlled by the IRGC, it also means that the IRGC doesn't get any money and can't really prosecute the war, at least using those kinds of funds. So those are certainly limitations that the Iranians have, and that could mean that they have an incentive to reach some kind of a deal because of this.

BERMAN: Yes, the issue is that some predictions, including the president's, is that the Iranians would crumble within days, like literally that their oil infrastructure could last only days like this. They appear to be able to last more than just those days. But we're waiting and seeing here.

Beth, I do want to ask you because you brought up Russia and the Iranian foreign minister did travel to Moscow, met with Vladimir Putin. So, Beth, Vladimir Putin, if he wants to help, I guess, help end the war peacefully, what would he do? And if he wants to cause mischief and wreak havoc on the United States, what could he do?

SANNER: Well, he's already done the mischief part in terms of providing targeting and information in order to help Iranians kill Americans. And in these talks, I noticed that the head of the GRU was a participant, which is the Russian military intelligence organization. So the very organization that provided this kind of intelligence to the Iranians participated in this.

Also, the Iranian deputy defense minister met with the Russian defense minister yesterday in a whole separate meeting. And so I think that there'll be quite a bit of back and forth on what Russia can provide. It's limited, but they will help.

And on the other hand, you know, Russia was a party to the JCPOA, the Obama era Iran nuclear agreement. And they have offered to take Iran's uranium, highly enriched uranium, as part of a deal. They, you know, they're limited in how much pressure they can put on Iran to do this deal.

And they're getting a lot of benefit also from it kind of continuing for a while. So I think they're also playing kind of cute the United States by trying to curry favor with us and leverage this, but without actually doing anything.

BERMAN: Beth Sanner, Cedric Leighton, thanks to both of you as we remain in this kind of status quo right now with the U.S. and Iran posturing around these talks more than anything -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Well, a baby, born mid flight aboard a Delta passenger jet. Take a look at that. The flight was going from Atlanta, Georgia, to Portland, Oregon.

Flight time is something over five hours and then just 20 minutes out from landing. That is when this all went down. Mom was obviously not expecting to deliver just yet.

But fortunately, there were two paramedics on board who helped deliver the little one safely. And both mom and baby are doing just fine. My goodness.

Also this, an emergency landing for a hot air balloon. Video shows the moment that the balloon slams into the side of a California casino. This happened Monday afternoon. At one point, the basket tips over with the pilot still inside. Police say the balloon made an unplanned launch due to unexpected strong winds and then also hit a power line before coming down. The pilot was not injured and probably very thankful.

[08:55:00]

And starting May 1st, American Airlines travelers will have to keep all portable charging devices visible and within reach while using them. A new policy allows each traveler to have two power banks at max. There's also wattage limits there as well.

In a statement, the airline says this will allow flight attendants to react more quickly should an issue with these things arise on board. They are also not allowing the battery packs to be stored in overhead bins or recharged during flight. Southwest Airlines already has a similar policy in place.

Then there's this. The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that ChatGPT maker OpenAI has missed revenue targets recently, in part due to how expensive it is to secure faster AI computing power. And virtually all tech companies essentially have jumped into the AI race now.

But there is new data showing that the need for speed comes at a huge cost, a cost so high perhaps it's pushing some companies to look once again at the human aspect of the workforce.

Joining me right now is Madison Mills. She's a senior reporter for Axios who has new reporting on this.

It really is a fascinating look at what the data shows. Let's just say in this moment, I love this line from your report. Maybe human labor will be more cost efficient after all.

What are you learning?

MADISON MILLS, SENIOR AI REPORTER, AXIOS: We can only hope, right?

BOLDUAN: Exactly. We all say with a prayer.

MILLS: Exactly. But that's what we're really starting to see, especially at the big tech companies. I spoke with a VP at NVIDIA who first flagged this to me.

He said, oh yes, for months, our costs for my team have been more for AI than human. So that was the first flag. And then we started to hear this coming out in droves.

Uber's CTO said he already blew out his whole budget for 2026 just on AI related costs. And obviously that means he's spending more on that than he's spending on human workers. And now I'm starting to hear, especially from startup founders, they're bragging about their AI bills being high because it's kind of this sign of like, yes, I'm really ahead in the AI race.

BOLDUAN: It's like I'm blowing so much cash on this.

MILLS: Exactly, exactly. But the whole point of this was supposed to be that it cut down on costs, expanded profits, especially for public companies. But it's unclear if that's going to be tenable in the future.

BOLDUAN: When is that curve, I guess, is one big question. But you have some of the data you have in your report is kind of fascinating. Worldwide IT spending is expected to be up 13.5 percent this year compared to just last year, over $6 trillion. Where is all this money going to?

MILLS: Well, a lot of it is going towards token costs, which is basically like the currency of AI use. Also, of course, subscriptions. If you've got an enterprise contract with open AI, with Anthropic.

So a lot of it is going towards these AI labs. The thing is, though, the queries that I'm putting into AI, those don't cost very much. It's for the people who are coding or using an autonomous agent overnight.

But at some companies, especially the tech ones like Meta, they're encouraging that high token use because, again, they want to see and seem like they're really ahead in the AI race. And so those big tech companies are spending millions and millions of dollars just on their AI usage alone.

BOLDUAN: So from that, kind of your first inkling that you heard from that NVIDIA executive, what are you hearing then is the measure of this is worth it?

MILLS: Well, that is the trillion-dollar question, Kate.

BOLDUAN: The second trillion dollar.

MILLS: That hits it on the head because there's no clear ROI metric here. And I think part of it is that companies, again, they just want to signal that they are really ahead on this. But I'm talking to some tech companies that are working on individual metrics for every single project to prove that the money they spent on the AI is leading to some sort of return.

I talked to an executive at Salesforce who created an individual metric for every single project they were working on. That creates a lot more work. So that also goes into the conversation about whether or not AI is letting us work less.

But those kind of metrics are going to be increasingly popular, I think, especially as some of these AI companies go public. And there are bigger questions from investors about the ROI of all this investment.

BOLDUAN: It feels just very crunchy right now. Like everyone's got to do it, but everyone's creating more work than it's making more efficient right now. And then, OK, do you want to just add in really quickly what's going on between Elon Musk and Sam Altman?

The outcome of this messy court battle is what?

MILLS: What is the role of these AI companies in terms of turning into for-profit firms when they want to? That is the key question. That's what Elon Musk is upset about, is OpenAI becoming a for-profit company.

Of course, he has his own for-profit AI company through Grok. But that's going to be the key question is whether or not these AI companies, when they realize that AI is very expensive and they turn into for-profit companies to be able to increase their revenue, to pay for all of this compute capacity. What is the legality of that?

I got briefed from OpenAI's lead legal counsel, and they're very confident, of course, in their abilities in this trial. But it's definitely going to lead to a lot of headlines on these egos bashing together.

BOLDUAN: To say the least. It's good to see you. Thanks so much. Amazing moment we're in.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BERMAN: All right, the breaking news this morning, the average price for gas jumps to its highest.

[09:00:00]