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White House Correspondents Dinner Suspect Pleads Not Guilty; Redistricting Nightmare for Democrats; Lawsuit against ChatGPT; Aixa Diaz is Interviewed about Holiday Travel. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired May 11, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:35]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The man accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner just pleaded not guilty in court. Thirty-one-year-old Cole Tomas Allen is who we're talking about. And you'll recall he's facing multiple federal charges. His legal team, at the very same time as we have this guilty plea, his legal team is pushing right now for the U.S. attorney of D.C. and the acting attorney general be removed from touching any piece of this case. His legal team arguing that there is a potential conflict of interest here because both of them were at the dinner themselves.

CNN's Paula Reid is outside court with much more.

So, bring us up to speed, Paula.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kate.

Well, this is significant because this is the first time that Allen has been able to formally respond to the charges that he is facing. He's, of course, been charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump after he breached that security perimeter at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and actually got a shot off. He's also charged with discharging a firearm during a violent crime and the transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce.

Now, this was an arraignment. It was a pretty quick procedural hearing. He was read the charges that he's facing, advised of his rights, and then he entered that plea, not surprisingly, of not guilty.

So, going forward, really the biggest question over this case is, who will continue to oversee it. As you noted, defense attorneys are moving to try to remove U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from this case, arguing that they were potential victims of this alleged crime.

But remember, this is one of the most significant cases right now being overseen by the Justice Department. Todd Blanche is the acting attorney general, still arguably auditioning for the job. Jeanine Pirro, her name has also been mentioned as someone who could get a promotion as they change the top of that department. So, this is really a high stakes case for both of them. I think you can expect that they are going to vigorously fight against this move by defense attorneys. Publicly, Pirro has sort of dismissed any suggestion that she can't oversee this case. But it's really high stakes because, again, at the center of this case is an argument that Allen tried to assassinate their boss. So, they are likely going to want to stay on top of this case, but we'll see what happens over the coming weeks and months.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Paula, thank you so much for bringing us up to speed on that breaking news. Appreciate it.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, just ahead, a wild crash up in Canada ends with a motorcycle dangling -- well, you see it there. How did that actually happen?

That and more ahead.

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[09:37:38]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, I want to take a look at these faces here. House Speaker Mike Johnson smiling a little bit here. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries not smiling at all. The question is why? It has to do with these major decisions made over the last few weeks on redistricting, gerrymandering .The Supreme Court throwing out a lot of the Voting Rights Act, or really reducing some of its scope. And the Virginia Supreme Court simply tossing the Democrats effort to redistrict in that state. It has left Republicans and Mike Johnson in a much better position.

But where exactly do things stand? How close are they to being able to retain control of the House of Representatives?

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten is with us now.

I will say, he's smiling, but it's not like a huge, huge grin. So, why now? What are the prediction markets saying about Republican chances now?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: I never know what Johnny is going to say.

But look, you know, I have the question here, is it a redistricting nightmare for Democrats? No. But it's a bad dream that has become reality. And why is that? Because just take a look at the chance that Democrats have to take back the House according to the Kalshi prediction markets.

You know, the evening that that Virginia redistricting amendment passed, they had an 86 percent chance of taking down -- backing down -- taking back the House. That has fallen significantly. But it is still a majority chance. Look, it's about a three in four shot, 76 percent. Sometimes when I look at it, 75, 74, but 76 percent.

But either way you look at it, the chance that Democrats take back the House come November, it is very much down. They still have the majority chance to take it back. But you know what? Three in four things are not guarantees.

BERMAN: Very much down but still very big. And the reason it's still very big is how many seats do they need to gain?

ENTEN: Yes. OK. So, you know, you're talking about this and you're talking about, OK, Democrats, you don't have to win by a small margin, number of seats. But that has become more difficult. Why is that? Because let's take a look at the national House vote margin, you know, for control. You -- under the current lines, you know, the ones that were fought under in the 2024 election cycle, for example, they needed to win the national House vote by less than a point. They basically just needed to win the national House vote and they'd win a majority.

But look where it is now with redistricting. Now they have to win the national House vote by somewhere between three and four points based, of course, upon what the rest of the redistricting cycle looks like. But either way you crack this nut, what you're essentially looking at is Democrats have to climb a higher hill, have to go higher up on the ladder in order to take back the House versus where they were, let's just say, a few weeks ago.

[09:40:04]

BERMAN: OK. And where do things stand right now in the polling?

ENTEN: Yes, OK. So, you see this three to four points, right, that you have to win the national House vote by. Here is the good news for Democrats. The good news for Democrats is, look at their current lead. Their current lead in the national House vote polls is six points. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know that six points is higher than three to four.

Of course, this is not that big of a difference, right? And you would rather, if you were Democrats, have it to be zero, essentially, and then you would have a really big margin here. But the bottom line is this, their lead right now in the national House vote polls is higher than the margin that is necessary in order to take back the U.S. House of Representatives, even with redistricting.

BERMAN: All right, that's the good news for Democrats in this. But what's the bad news?

ENTEN: OK, here's the bad news. You see what we're talking about here, six minus, you know, three or four points. That's maybe two points, right? Or if I was actually drawing, and we could have our audience understand what I was saying, two points there. So, OK, two points. How big of a difference do we normally see from where the national House vote polls are at this point versus the final result? Well, average wise, it's significantly wider than two points. It's five points this century in midterm cycles. So, the idea that you have, you know, the two points to spare, that is really not a lot at this point. So, the bottom line is this with redistricting, it is Democrats are

still the favorite to take back the U.S. House of Representatives, but their margin of error has shrunk significantly. And now Republicans have a real shot. So, no, it's not a nightmare for Democrats, but it is a bad dream that has become reality. And now they'll have to climb that ladder ever higher, like Mario in "Super Mario World."

BERMAN: I will note, this swing we were talking about this, historically it's swung both ways. It could be that the Democrats do even better than they're showing right now, but we just don't know. The possibility is they could do much worse as well.

ENTEN: They could. They could win by ten points going away, and then they win a clear majority. But maybe they only win by one or two and that, my friends, at this point, simply put, not enough, at least with the current lines as we think they're going to be heading into November with redistricting.

BERMAN: Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, my dear friend.

BERMAN: A lot of news this morning. We'll be right back.

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[09:46:38]

SIDNER: All right, so on Friday's broadcast, during a discussion about so-called blue dot fever and concert tour cancellations, a guest on our air made several statements about Ticketmaster and Live Nation that we would like to correct.

First, Live Nation does not set ticket prices for venues. Ticket prices are set by multiple entities, including but not limited to event organizers and the artists themselves. Live Nation and Ticketmaster set the fees for fulfillment, not the actual prices for tickets.

Now, Live Nation does not own the Kia Forum also. L.A. Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is the owner of that arena. The Crypto.com Arena is a separate venue owned and operated by AEG. Additionally, Live Nation is not the promoter for the Crypto.com Arena, and we would like to correct the record there.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, tech giant OpenAI getting hit with a new lawsuit claiming that ChatGPT helped an alleged gunman carry out a mass shooting at Florida State University last year that left two people dead.

CNN's A.I. correspondent Hadas Gold is with us now on this.

What are you learning?

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so we know that there are now at least ten lawsuits against OpenAI alleging that people talked to ChatGPT and then either harmed themselves or harmed others as a result. So, we can call this definitely a growing trend.

This case in Florida, it builds on top of the Florida attorney general already launching the first ever criminal investigation into an A.I. company because the suspect in this case, Phoenix Ikner, he had a huge amount of conversations with ChatGPT and both the -- one of the victim's family and the Florida attorney general allege that ChatGPT essentially assisted Ikner in everything from how and when to go to Florida State University, how many people would need to be dead before the mass media would pay attention, and even specific instructions on how to use the weapons that he used in this case.

So, we have the criminal investigation by the Florida attorney general. Now we have this civil lawsuit that was filed by one of the victims in this case, Tiru Chabba, his widow, his two young children have filed this case against OpenAI and against Phoenix Ikner. And against OpenAI, they're asking not just for compensation, but they're asking for change. Some of the things that they're alleging here is not only wrongful death, negligence and gross negligence against OpenAI. They say there's a product liability issue here, defective design, and there's a failure to warn (ph) from ChatGPT.

And they're alleging a lot of the same things that the Florida attorney general alleged, that ChatGPT essentially assisted Ikner. And had ChatGPT been a person on the other end of that, they would have been charged as an accessory to these murders because they assisted in -- they assisted Ikner so much that essentially he may not have been able to carry out this crime without ChatGPT's assistance.

Now, I should say, OpenAI has responded. They say that, "last year's mass shooting at Florida State University," they say, "was a tragedy, but" that "ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime. In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity."

Obviously, the family feels very different, and this is a really big question for A.I. companies, how and when do they alert authorities when they have these conversations? We know from other cases, Tumbler Ridge in Canada, that they do have people involved that are watching these conversations, that can alert authorities if they think something dangerous can happen. And how will the courts see this, whether they will be held legally responsible or not? Is this a neutral tool that somebody is just using, or does this tool actually have a hand in whatever the users do?

[09:50:04]

BERMAN: A lot of case law is going to be written, I think, in the next 12 months in order to keep up with the really incredible changes that we're all seeing here because I think right now it's just the wild west. We just don't know.

Hadas Gold, thank you very much.

Kate. BOLDUAN: So, the one predictable thing in these very unpredictable

times appears to be gas prices right now. Specifically, the gas prices are high and staying there. But with the unofficial kickoff to summer just around the corner, something funny is also happening. Skyrocketing gas prices not stopping people from hitting the road. Overnight, AAA released its travel forecast for the coming holiday weekend, and they estimate that 45 million people will go at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend. Travel inside the U.S. expected to set a new record. More than 39 million people driving and more than 3.5 million people flying.

Joining us right now is Aixa Diaz, the national spokesperson for AAA, on this.

So, you have your new estimate out for the year -- for this unofficial kickoff to summer for Memorial Day. With the national average, when you're talking about a gallon of gas, at $4.52, that's over $1.30 more than this time last year. And that's just the average. But it does not seem to be stopping people.

AIXA DIAZ, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, AAA: Kate, travelers are going to travel. And we keep seeing this over the holiday breaks. A lot of people like to take advantage of these holiday periods because they get a day off from work and kids are off from school.

Gas prices right now are getting close to what they were Memorial Day in 2022, and that was the year when we saw the record for the national average at $5 in June of that year. We may not get there. And it's too unpredictable to give a forecast on that. But what we do know is that the vast majority of Memorial Day holiday weekend travelers are going to drive because even with gas prices being what they are, it's still, for most people, the cheaper alternative than flying.

But still, if you've been to any airport recently, they're packed. People are still flying, even though airfare is going up. Now, I will say that people who booked early for Memorial Day weekend, according to our AAA data, shows that they actually paid less than they did last Memorial Day weekend, but that's for people who booked their trips early.

BOLDUAN: Yes, critical piece there, booked early, because prices, they are not low now.

Are you seeing, just in general, Aixa, are you seeing impacts on Americans driving habits, not only because of gas prices, because of airline prices?

DIAZ: People definitely adjust their daily errands when gas prices reach a certain level. And we saw this in 2022. Maybe they're combining errands. Maybe they're not driving as much and saying, OK, if I'm going to go pick up my kid, I'm going to pick up my kid, then I'm going to go to the grocery store and then I'm going to head home.

People also want to take advantage of a saving. So, for example, AAA members save with Shell fuel rewards. You actually get cents off the gallon, which is something that you can tangibly see. But I think for people who travel, I mean, think about it, 45 million

Americans. That's not even 15 percent of the U.S. population. Most people are not going to travel. But the people who are, we tend to see this same group over and over. And gen Z is really driving this trend as well. Gen Z grew up traveling. Their families took them places. So, it's really baked into their lives. And they're going to do it, whether it's just driving an hour away to the beach or actually flying to a more exotic destination, people want to get away and the holidays just give you a break to do that because of the fact that you have a built in day off.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And with -- when gas prices go up, especially when -- in a crisis, there is a conversation on the federal gas tax that does come back up again. And that's where we are in this moment. The energy secretary said this weekend that the administration is open to suspending or pausing the federal gas tax. What's AAA's view on the impact that would have?

DIAZ: You know, people are still going to be paying at the gas pump because this is the time of year when gas prices are high anyway. Demand for gasoline goes up in the spring and summer. And these are the seasons when we see high gas prices anyway. We've come to know this.

Also, gasoline for the summertime. Summer blend gasoline is more expensive to produce, and that's why gas prices go up.

I think, at the end of the day, people are still budgeting around what they're paying at the gas pump, understanding that it's probably still going to be cheaper for them to drive to the destination than it is to fly. And they may, again, pull back on how much they're driving during the week, but they're still going to go on their trips.

BOLDUAN: Very interesting. It's good to see you. Thank you so much for coming in.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, speaking of driving, in Vancouver, a motorcycle was left hanging from a traffic light after a crash with a car. Police said speed is believed to be a contributing factor. The motorcycle rider was transported to the hospital with several injuries. The driver of the car didn't get hurt somehow.

[09:55:00]

All right, a new bipartisan bill passed by the House is taking aim at what some lawmakers are calling banana regulations in childcare. The measure would roll back certain food prep rules that daycare providers say make it harder to serve fresh fruits and vegetables that have a low risk for foodborne illnesses. Supporters say two strict kitchen requirements make it easier to pass out packaged and less healthy snacks like chips. But critics warn food safety standards are still needed to protect children.

All right, a little league umpire in California going viral for his energetic game calling skills. Look at him go. A video showing Sawyer Sparks (ph), great name by the way, sliding across the field and running with the players has more than a 100,000 views so far. About to be more. Sparks says his energetic style helps him make the most accurate calls possible. Perhaps you need him for your team. Maybe? No? No good?

BERMAN: What are you saying? I don't really understand what you're saying. I don't think it's going to turn things around. All I --

SIDNER: Maybe.

BOLDUAN: I just want to know what the kids think of this. Like, right? Like, that would be so funny.

BERMAN: Right. Like, who's this random guy running around and sliding because -- I will say, maybe it keeps parents from yelling at him more, which is really when things happen.

SIDNER: That's good. Yes.

BOLDUAN: Yes, exactly. You can yell at me if you can do a slide, whatever that is, like I can.

SIDNER: Like, I'm paying attention.

BOLDUAN: J.B.

BERMAN: Thanks for joining us. This has been CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM" is up next.

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