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Investigation Into White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Underway; FBI Searching Home In California Tied To Suspected Gunman; President Trump Reacts To Shooting Incident; Interview With Representative Michael Rulli (R-OH); Former Secret Service Agent Talks About the Investigation; Source: Suspect Identified As 31-Year-Old California Man; WHCA Boart Meeting To Assess Shooting Incident And Next Steps; Trump: If Iran Wants To Talk, They Can Call Us. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired April 26, 2026 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:01:02]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean here in Washington.

And we are learning new details about those chaotic moments when a man charged through security and reportedly opened fire at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, D.C..

Tonight, investigators are trying to piece together why this happened. 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, seen here after he was brought down by Secret Service, worked as a part-time teacher and video game developer in California. We're learning he wrote to family members just before that attack, saying he planned to target members of the Trump administration. He also expressed his political anger and noted, quote, "I don't expect forgiveness."

Now, at the same time, we're learning more about the security response with so many government leaders gathered in that one place. President Trump speaking with "60 Minutes" explaining why it seemed to take longer to get him to safety than it did the vice president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wanted to see what was happening and I wasn't making it that easy for them. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem. Different kind of a problem, bad one.

And I was surrounded by great people, and I probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, let me see. Wait a minute. So, you know, I'm telling guys --

NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS "60 MINUTES": Just at that moment where it looks like you go sort of down with the service, you were telling them to wait?

TRUMP: Well, he has -- no, what happened is then I started walking with him. I turned, I started walking, and then they said, please go down. Please go down on the floor. So I went down and the first lady went down also. But we were asked to go down by the agents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN's Josh Campbell is joining us now.

Josh, what more can you tell us? Let's go back to these messages that the suspect wrote and then sent to his family members. Tell us about those.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Jessica, in these incidents where you have an attack, the question is always, well, what is the motive? And sometimes that takes quite a while to try to ascertain. Here this isn't taking long at all. Everything that we're learning about the suspect appears to be laying out what the suspected motive is here. And that's animus towards Donald Trump and administration officials.

In this manifesto that was obtained by our colleague Kristen Holmes, you see these number of grievances that the individual lays out. And as I've been saying today, I'm not going to amplify everything in that and do his work for him, but just looking at some of the writing, the style, what he's claiming as he's essentially trying to justify an attack, a lot of it is just simply delusional.

At one point, he even seemed to have like a Q&A almost, you know, people are going to object to what I'm about to do. Let me rebut what those objections are. And he lays them out. But quite clearly, he lays out that his target was administration officials. So under, you know, any definition of political violence, if it turns out this so-called manifesto is associated with him. Certainly appears just that.

DEAN: Yes. And what about the exchange of gunfire between the suspect and the Secret Service? What do we know about how that all transpired?

CAMPBELL: So I'm getting some new information from law enforcement sources familiar with this ongoing investigation. We know, based on what authorities said, that he had opened fire on them. And I want to show you an image that obtained from a source. Here you can actually see the shotgun that he had on him. Authorities say he had a shotgun. He had a pistol. He had several knives on him.

When I say knives, I don't want you to envision in your mind, for our viewers, a pocket knife. These are combat survival style knives that he had on him. But there you see the rifle. But I'm also told that he was engaged by the Secret Service and gunfire. One agent opened fire. Authorities are trying to determine how many times both sides actually shot, based on interviewing witnesses, based on assessing the multitude of videos that are now available.

Authorities currently believe, based on the preliminary investigation, that he fired one to two shots and then the Secret Service officer fired three to four times.

[19:05:00]

It doesn't appear that he was struck just amid this chaos. He was obviously running, you know, very fast. Authorities continue to finalize those numbers as far as the number shot. And the last thing I'll note is that we're learning a little bit about his route of travel. There's a question about how he actually showed up there. I'm told that the preliminary investigation has determined that it appears he came down from his hotel room that he had rented there in the hotel, came down via a stairwell to that terrorist level.

He had a bag on him containing a lot of those items, a lot of those weapons. And then on that video that we're now all familiar with, just bolted past that security checkpoint where he was then later engaged by officers from the Secret Service and taken into custody. We know one officer was shot. Thankfully the ballistic vest that that officer had prevented that from being fatal.

So we're learning quite a bit about him. We expect that he will appear in federal court tomorrow to face, as of right now, two charges, one involving the firearm, one involving an assault allegedly on a federal officer, that being the officer that sustained the wound. But one thing we can expect based on, especially that manifesto, if this appears that authorities can prove some type of political violence, and certainly if he was trying to target the president, we're likely to see many more charges.

DEAN: OK. More to come on that.

Josh Campbell, though, with the very latest. Thank you for that reporting.

CAMPBELL: You bet.

DEAN: And CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe is joining us now.

Thanks for being here with us to kind of break down some more of the details around all of this. So let's just start with what law enforcement is doing right now. We're about a little less than 24 hours away from when this first happened. What's their primary focus right now?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Sure. So what we saw last night after the events that took place at the Hilton, we saw that law enforcement beginning the investigation that they're deeply into now. And that starts with search warrants, executed search warrants at his home in Torrance, California. We think probably other places as well, family members that maybe live closer here.

We know they got electronics devices. We know that's where they got the -- they had a search warrant on his hotel room at the Hilton, which is likely where they recovered all the writings. So they're now going through all that material that they collect with those warrants. Several of the electronic devices will need their own individualized search warrants to -- in order to facilitate exploitation.

And they're also out doing interviews. So all the people that they find as referenced in that evidence, people who are family members or close friends or contacts on social media, people who are in frequent conversation with them, they'll be contacting all those folks, showing up at their houses, conducting interviews to get a better sense of not just who this guy is and what was motivating him, but also looking to see if there are any other people out there who might have been sharing his beliefs with him, being like-minded, maybe supporting him in some way with the planning and the execution of this attack. That's a high priority for investigators right now.

You've seen some of the other work on video coverage that we have of his home in Torrance. You see FBI agents going out throughout the neighborhood. That's referred to as a neighborhood canvass. You want to do the same thing there. Let's talk to the people who live near him and see what they know about him. But right now, 24 hours in, we already have a lot of evidence, and I would expect that's going to turn into additional charges eventually.

DEAN: Because I think so many people out there when you read about this, see this, it's immediately, why? What was the motive? Why did he do this? What causes someone to, in this case, allegedly travel across the country to try to storm a White House Correspondents' Dinner with the president and a number of high-ranking officials? And as you put those pieces together, that, I would imagine if you're FBI officials, you have to be open to where that's going to take you and how -- and be open to how it all fits together.

MCCABE: That's absolutely right, Jessica. So two things really, the FBI is and their partners today, they're collecting evidence to support the prosecution of this individual. Right? We need hard evidence that's going to support the charges, whatever charges are brought tomorrow and whatever comes after that. But they're also collecting intelligence. And the intelligence is to try to get at that why. This is what we need to know.

The reason it's important for us to know the why, it's not necessary for the prosecution, but it's crucially important for the FBI to build a greater understanding of the threat, in this case, the threat of political violence, the threat of political violence targeting this administration. Understanding this person's grievances, where they come from, how he was potentially radicalized, was he consuming propaganda of any particular type online or something like that.

Understanding that pathway that this person went down to radicalization, the pathway that brought him to walking into the Washington Hilton with a shotgun and a pistol and bladed weapons to try to kill some of our senior leaders, you know, that's -- that is an incredibly important question because it enables the bureau and their partners to be better at finding the threats in the future and mitigating those as well.

[19:10:18]

DEAN: Yes. And in a time and a world where political violence just continues to plague our society here in the United States.

Andrew McCabe, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

MCCABE: Thanks, Jess. DEAN: Our breaking coverage of the White House Correspondents' Dinner

shooting will continue after this break. We are live from the White House with President Trump's latest reaction to all of this. Plus, a former Secret Service agent joins us to talk about the connection and the work between local and federal agents in alerting this threat.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:15:29]

DEAN: President Trump tonight, in his own words, saying, quote, "He wasn't making it easy for the Secret Service," as they rushed him offstage at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Trump telling "60 Minutes" he wanted to see what was going on as shots were heard outside that ballroom.

Let's go now to CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes, who is there at the White House for us.

Kristen, what more are we hearing from the president tonight?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Jess, he's praising the First Lady Melania Trump profusely, saying that she handled it well, that she hasn't been through these kind of experiences to the extent that he has, saying that she listened to Secret Service, as did he. He also said that he wasn't worried about potential injuries when he saw what was going on, saying essentially that he's a realist, that he knows that we live in a crazy world.

And there have been a lot of questions about the timing of the withdrawal of President Trump versus the Vice President J.D. Vance from that dais. We saw Vice President J.D. Vance really being dragged out by the lapel almost immediately. It seemed to be a little bit slower for President Trump, although he had far more agents and officers on him.

President Trump answered a question about this, seemingly taking the blame for the slow movement of him off that dais.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: What happened is it was a little bit me. I wanted to see what was happening and I wasn't making it that easy for them. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem. Different kind of a problem, bad one, and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, which you hear all the time.

And I was surrounded by great people, and I probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, let me see. Wait a minute.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: So that's him there describing that moment where you see him kind of raising his head above in the pictures from that evening. And I do want to note, I have gotten a copy of this so-called manifesto from the suspect, and there is one part that we should note, which is he clearly lays out what his intention was last night at the dinner. And he says specifically that administration officials, they are targets prioritized from high ranking to lowest.

And then he goes through the various security that's going to be on the premise, talking about Secret Service, the hotel security, Capitol Police, essentially saying that none of them were targets, no law enforcement was going to be a target, but noting that if they got in the way, that he would engage with them. And of course, we know that is what happened. Luckily, that Secret Service officer was struck in his protective gear and is expected to be completely fine.

DEAN: All right. Kristen Holmes of the White House, thank you for that.

And we're joined now by Republican Congressman Michael Rulli.

Congressman, thank you so much for being here with us. I appreciate your time tonight. I know you told a local news outlet, you described it, you were about 30 feet away from the president at the time of all of this. And now here we are, again, almost 24 hours later.

How are you thinking about this moment now that you've had some time to kind of process what was such a surreal and scary moment for so many people?

REP. MICHAEL RULLI (R-OH): Well, thank you, Jessica. I think you're spot on. It was surreal. You know, the event started off with just a lot of mingling and it was really -- it was my first time at this dinner and it was really nice because you had press intermingling with Democrats and Republicans and the conversations were all lighthearted. It was a very uplifting mood throughout the whole crowd. You know, I think there's about 2500 to 3,000.

And, you know, we do the national anthem, and then we do the pledge, and the president comes out and we were only eight or nine minutes into it. And then through the lobby, you could just hear like all these, like chairs and these tables being thrown around. And then you heard like three or four huge thumps. Within seven or eight seconds after that, like every door in that circle room opened up.

And I don't know, you had to have 50 to 80 different Secret Service and SWAT guys, and they were everywhere. As far as J.D. Vance goes, I was right there. So I just turned and I actually stood up. I probably shouldn't have. And I was looking at it and I think J.D. Vance was just the first person they ran into because they came out through that door right behind him, and four or five guys just yanked him right out of his seat and whisked him away. And then they proceeded to go onto President Trump.

After that, Bobby Kennedy was right next to me, and Erika and Trump was behind me, and Pete Hegseth was probably two or three tables over. It seemed like they concentrated on Bobby Kennedy the most after they got the president and the vice president off the stage. And you heard some people, you know, doing some rumors already.

[19:20:04]

Once that happened, they said, oh, they thought that the shooter was there for Bobby. I don't know why the shooter was there, but it was like a night I've never seen before in my life.

DEAN: Yes. Again, as our colleague was just reporting, just in those writings that the shooter just was saying, Trump administration officials. The House Oversight Committee has asked for Secret Service briefing on this. I know it's not one of your committee assignments, but I am curious what questions you have about the security last night and how you see it.

RULLI: Well, Jessica, you know, you're around Washington like myself, and I've been there for two years. So when you go to the White House, the White House is about five or six blocks of a perimeter. Even the Capitol is close to a block and a half perimeter. It's really hard to get close to any of the buildings.

I thought this was very unusual. The exterior perimeter, which was just outside of the actual -- the foyer where President Reagan got shot, all you had to show them was your invitation on your phone. So that got you access to the hotel. So think about what I'm saying --

DEAN: That'll like lets you inside the hotel, which I think is important for people to realize. And then other hotel guests could just be in the hotel. Sorry to interrupt you. Yes.

RULLI: No, you're right on all of those. So you have regular hotel guests. You have people in the hotel that only showed an invitation. It wasn't until about 20 feet before the actual doors of the ballroom that you actually went through a metal detector and got, you know, got frisked. So you had such a close perimeter to the ballroom. It was really shocking.

DEAN: Yes. We have seen such an increase in political violence even just looking at President Trump who now, you know, we had Butler, Pennsylvania, we had what happened in Florida. We've now had this incident. We have had Charlie Kirk. We saw the lawmakers in Minnesota. I mean, unfortunately, there is a list we could go down and we wouldn't really even be able to get to all of them.

As someone who's in public service like yourself, you've got to do events with your constituents. You need to move around. How do you feel about this and how does it affect you as a human?

RULLI: You know, most members, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, I know Greg Landsman down in Cincinnati. He's a Democrat. He's had a handful of death threats. I think last year I had 14. A couple of them pretty serious. You know, unfortunately, now I live with the state trooper in my front driveway. I think that's really bad for the culture because a lot of great people aren't going to run for office because of that. However, I do think most of it is social media, and I don't think it

matters what political party you're on. I think mental illness in this country is rampant, and I think a lot of times, because politics is such a zinger sport that, you know, we're always trying to raise the temperature and some of these people that have mental illness, they just snap on either side of the party. So I think we need to be a little bit more careful going forward. We need to realize that some people are not stable and can't have an intelligent conversation about politics.

DEAN: Yes. I mean, you lay it out right there. You have a state trooper that sits in front of your driveway now. I mean, is this just -- is this something that Americans have to just accept?

RULLI: No, we don't have to accept it. You know, I think, you know, there's a desire on both sides of the political aisle. I know like, even like Jimmy Panetta in California, we all talk about political violence and nobody wants to see it. I don't care if you're President Trump or President Biden, nobody wants to see political violence.

You know, Margaret Thatcher said that when they start attacking your character is when they've lost the conversation. And so if you're going to like attack character and then move towards physical violence, you've lost the conversation. So you've done yourself no just by doing that. You're better off calling out, you know, getting your thoughts in order and trying to articulate your thoughts.

And whether it's, you know, writing online or whether it's voicing your opinion in different formats, I mean, that's what this country is about. It's about doing better. I know I have a lot of friends that are Democrats and independents. It doesn't really matter. We're Americans. And this is the greatest country ever, and you should be able to speak your opinion. The founding fathers knew what they were doing. The balance of power always switches from one party to the next, and that's what this country is about.

DEAN: All right, Congressman Michael Rulli, thanks for your time. We appreciate it.

RULLI: Thank you. Appreciate you.

DEAN: Reports show the Secret Service shot at but did not hit the suspect on Saturday night. After the break, we're going to talk with an agent about how the incident was handled.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:28:59]

DEAN: Investigators are looking to the suspected gunman's motives after last night's White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting. The suspect, who has been identified as Cole Tomas Allen, is accused of charging through a security checkpoint, firing a few shots before agents subdued him. And I do want to bring in former DHS senior adviser and former Secret

Service supervisory agent Charles Marino.

Charles, thanks so much for being here with us. I really appreciate it. Here we are. We have gotten obviously a lot more information than we had last night when this was unfolding. First, what sticks out to you?

CHARLES MARINO, FORMER SECRET SERVICE SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: Well, I think there's no mistake to say here that the administration, beginning with the president, were the primary target of this suspect based on the very nature of the event. The other thing is this was about a lot more than just the safety and security of the president and the vice president, based on the attendees there.

Of course, we know you also had Cabinet secretaries that needed to be relocated, high-ranking members of Congress, including speaker of the House and administration officials. So while we're talking about the safety and security of the president and vice president, this also was a continuity of government exercise that we really need to look at closely. Not much different than who we see assembled at the State of the Union or the Inauguration, for example, which are designated as National Special Security events, which the White House Correspondents' Dinner was not.

[19:30:27]

DEAN: Okay and that leads me to my second question for you, which is, why wasn't it designated that way?

MARINO: That's a good question and I think the Secret Service here and the Department of Homeland Security need to be their own toughest critics in the after-action review here, which, by the way, is a healthy process. Nothing goes entirely right in these situations and the Secret Service leadership and the Secretary of Homeland Security are going to see things that worked great and things that didn't. It's going to start first with the overall security plan. And are those protocols and plans appropriate and sufficient enough to deal with the myriad of threats that the country and this administration are facing?

And by the way, these threats cross party lines. While Republicans are dealing with it right now, we also see Democrats dealing with this myriad of threats coming in many forms. So, it's in everybody's best interest to get together, both sides of the aisle and figure out what's best for the Secret Service, for the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that they are successful each and every day and have the resources that they need to achieve their mission. That takes us to the DHS shutdown. I think it is totally irresponsible that we're seeing an agency like the Secret Service be impacted because of the policies related to immigration of the executive branch.

This wasn't dealt with, with a scalpel. This has been dealt with a small nuclear weapon. They blew up the entire Department of Homeland Security and many important agencies like the Secret Service are dealing with the repercussions right now.

DEAN: And so, you, in your mind, in your assessment, you would say that, that factors in to how this was handled last night.

MARINO: It sure does. Not only are we dealing with an agency that's under a great deal of stress, but they're also dealing with a shortage of administrative support, technological support, things that work behind-the-scenes that are now have now fallen victim to this funding freeze.

So, the Secret Service needs to be operating on all cylinders. Yes, they are primarily responsible for their own success regarding the protection of the people they protect. And that starts with the security plan. So, if there were shortcomings here, then those need to be dealt with and those need to be fixed right away. But ultimately, thank goodness, we saw the security plan work at that inner perimeter and stop this threat. But any time you have as many people evacuated as we did last night and an event of this magnitude that has to then be canceled, a lot of people are going to be paying attention to this and how this happened, and I think that's appropriate.

DEAN: Yes, and just for people watching at home, because I want to go back to what we were talking about, this National Special Security event designation, which is something like this, The State of the Union, other big events. What makes that different, the security set up for last night? What are some of the key things that would have been different?

MARINO: Yes, I think it begins with the assembly of certain people within government. I think when you've got people in one place at the same time again, that play an essential role in running the executive branch, the legislative branch, we've even seen the judicial branch represented there before.

Antonin Scalia was known to attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner as a Supreme Court Justice. So, there's a lot at stake here in terms of this making an immediate impact, not only to the holder of the presidency, but also that making sure the government is continuing to operate smoothly and can function in the event of a tragic incident against the President or the Vice President.

DEAN: All right, Charles Marino, thanks for your time. We appreciate it.

MARINO: Thank you.

DEAN: President Trump once again pushing forward on his efforts for a White House ballroom after last night's shooting incident. There are still questions, though, about whether it's worth it, if it's being handled the right way. We'll talk more about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:39:17]

DEAN: Back now with our breaking news coverage of the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner after gunshots at the Washington Hilton Hotel sent top Trump administration officials and hundreds, thousands of guests diving for cover. President Trump once again making the case for his sprawling White House ballroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We need the ballroom, that's why Secret Service. That's why the military are demanding it. They wanted the ballroom for 150 years for lots of different reasons. But today is a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody has ever seen before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: The President continued on social media this morning, writing the horrific shooting quote "... would have never happened with the military top-secret ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough."

Let's bring in former DNC communications director, Karen Finney and Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton. It's good to have both of you here. Thanks for joining us. I do want to talk about that ballroom in a second. But first, let's just talk about what happened last night. Shermichael, I just want to get your thoughts. Again, I've been asking people now we've had a little, little bit of time to start to begin to kind of process this. What are your thoughts about last night?

[19:40:28]

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think it's another reminder, Jessica, that civilization is fragile. And when you think about the perpetual violence that we have seen continuing to rise over the past couple of years now in our country, it is an indication that the practices, the norms of debate, the art of persuasion has changed to the art of coercion, where through force, we try to accomplish our political means.

And while we have seen this in bits and parts of our history in the past as a society, one would have imagined in the 21st century, with all of the advancements we have, with many opportunities that lay bare, that we would have gone far and beyond that place. And so, I'm saddened by this, but what I am happy about is the responses from political leaders across the aisle, Republicans and Democrats alike, calling for unity, calling this out and calling for the country to come together during another tragic time.

DEAN: Yes, Karen, what about you?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, it's just sad, I mean, you know, I was at home last night getting ready. I wasn't at the dinner, but I live very close by. I was getting ready to go to one of the after parties when I heard what happened.

And obviously, first concern for everyone in the room, so thank God, everyone, no one was gravely injured and that the Secret Service agent who was harmed seems to be doing well. And it's just sad because, you know, it is one of the few Washington traditions that has survived for such a long time as a time for people to come together and look, it is, we probably have to face this, we're in a new political reality in terms of what that means in terms of the threat assessments and the security.

But I just thought it was underlying it all. I just thought it was sad that, you know, something that is, you know, treasured and again, one of the few traditions that remains where we have folks coming together from different parts of the political spectrum coming together with journalists that now may not be able to happen in the way that it traditionally has going forward.

DEAN: Yes, and Karen, acting Attorney General Tom Blanche shared a letter that the DOJ has now sent to the preservationist group that's suing to halt, this ballroom construction. I do want to talk about the ballroom for a second. In a post caption, it's time to rebuild the ballroom. One of the key lines is, "Put simply, your lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and his staff at grave risk." What do you think about that?

FINNEY: You know, I don't agree, I have to say, I don't like using this tragedy for political end. We can have a conversation about the ballroom and whether or not there is a need for that and what that should look like. But let's have that conversation apart from understanding exactly what happened last night, I don't think it's healthy that immediately some in the administration, you know, and some of the President's supporters are talking about crazy radical leftists. That's not constructive when we're trying to understand what happened.

With regard to the ballroom, what would concern me about trying to do something like the White House Correspondents' Dinner there is, of course, this is an event that is not about the President. It is about the Constitution. It is about different parts of our government and the media coming together. And would you want it to be in a place where then the White House would control who gets to come and who doesn't, the way they're trying to control media access, for example.

So, I think that gets thorny. And again, we should have the security conversation separate and apart from a conversation about the ballroom. Let's not use a tragedy as part of a political talking point, particularly when there are serious questions about the funding of this ballroom, the way in which they've gone about this construction. There are a number of concerns about the size and the scope and the way it's being done. You know, it should be, let's have it go through the real process.

Make your case to the American people. It's the people's house. It's not your house. It's the people's house. So, make your case. Tell us the plans, tell us who's paying for it. You know, if we're going to have that conversation, then let's talk about it on the merits, but not in conjunction with a, you know, a potential tragedy.

DEAN: Yes, and you're getting at the private funding that's been taken from individuals to fund that ballroom. Shermichael, I'm curious what your thoughts are on that about the connecting of the ballroom to the incident last night. And also, just the thought that it is it as simple as, you know, this isn't a White House hosted event, to Karen's point. It's not that all events can be hosted there. Some of them are off site. This is hosted by the White House Correspondents' Association. What do you think?

[19:45:15]

SINGLETON: I mean, look, first, I don't think it's a bad idea to have a ballroom where you can keep our political leaders safe, as well as members of the press. And while this is not an event hosted by the executive, I do think that the press has an important role in covering our government, covering the executive, members of Congress, the judiciary. And, you know, I have to tell you, it would be great to just see more partnership between the two.

And if future Presidents can extend that invitation to the White House Correspondents' Dinner for whenever they want to host their event every single year, then I would be in support of that. I think many of the American people would love to sort of see these two different entities sort of come together again.

Yes, they're different in their roles but at the end of the day, I think they both serve the American people despite all of the politics. And so, I don't think it's a bad idea at all.

DEAN: Yes, and do you think that it is that it truly is a security issue to the degree that Todd Blanche is saying that it is?

SINGLETON: Oh, I think it is. I mean, I've looked at a number of posts on social media. I've texted with friends who are actually in attendance and listening to some of their accounts of how lax they thought the security actually was. That was very, very concerning to me. Now, look, the guy didn't get up to the second floor. Thank God for that. But what if, what if shouldn't even be a possibility that shouldn't even be a part of the conversation.

And so, moving it to a far more secure location to me is not a bad idea for the political individuals in attendance, but also for many, many journalists who work very hard to bring news and information and facts to the American people. We want to keep them safe, too.

DEAN: And Karen, just your last thought, but I'm going back to how you started it, which is just like how sad this is that this is what this has come to. And I asked another guest, is this just kind of what happens now? Just this political violence like this.

FINNEY: No, it shouldn't be. And that's, I guess the other thing, Jessica, I'm so glad you asked that because that's the other part of this conversation. Instead of just going straight to, well, this is why we need a ballroom on the premises of The White House grounds. How about this is why we need to take the temperature down, and we need to decide right here and now as a country, we if we want it to stop, then we the people, have the power to say we're going to make it stop.

It means we don't fuel the conspiracy theories and the social media rhetoric. And by the way, a lot of the people posting on social media, even people who are saying, I've been to the dinner many times, they actually don't know all the facts. And so, that's part of law enforcement stay with the facts, let's keep the temperature down and let's decide, we don't want political violence to be mainstreamed the way it has become. And let's instead say we're going to work harder to make it so that it can be in other locations. I think that should be part of this conversation as well. What can we do to create a safer climate?

DEAN: Yes, all right, Karen and Shermichael, great to see both of you. I appreciate your time.

SINGLETON: Thanks, Jessica.

FINNEY: Thanks.

DEAN: We have much more news ahead, including Iran's top diplomat now expected to meet with a key ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin as talks to end the war with the U.S. have stalled. The latest on where things stand, that's next.

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DEAN: We're going to return to our top story in just a moment. But first, President Trump is insisting the war with Iran will come to an end quote, very soon despite pulling his top negotiators from having a second meeting with mediators in Pakistan, Trump now saying talks will continue by phone. CNN's International Diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson has more on these stalled peace efforts -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, on the one hand, you really seem to have that sort of face-to-face track of the diplomacy. President Trump not sending Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner saying he's waiting for a phone call. That kind of signals that things have slowed down on that sort of diplomatic U.S.-Iran front. You have the security in this city that was keeping the talks venue sort of under a tight security lock that has now been lifted.

Yet, on the other hand, what we're seeing with the Iranian foreign minister is really some intense movement that we haven't seen since the war ended. He flew in here, Islamabad, Friday night into Saturday, four hours of meetings through the night, laid out Iran's points. One of those points, we understand to be that Iran wants to have a new sort of legal status around the Strait of Hormuz creates the impression that they feel as a result of the war, they should somehow get more control over the Strait of Hormuz.

They also want war reparations; they also want the U.S. to lift its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. A number of issues there. But that was what President Trump said No, that's not going far enough. He left here, the Iranian foreign minister left here yesterday, flew to Muscat. Again, this momentum of talks. He met with the sultan there in Muscat.

We understand as well there were likely, some other key leaders from the region, potentially meeting in the margins there. Then he flies back in here to Islamabad again from Muscat. The Iranian foreign minister, landing around about 6:00 P.M., gets into another four hours of meeting, creates the impression when his meeting with the Pakistani mediators that is bringing in whatever discussions he's had there in Muscat. Is this an update? Is it tweaks? Is it new ideas? Not clear. He took off a few hours ago, and right now the Iranian foreign minister is headed for Russia, where he's expected to meet with President Putin.

So, a real sort of diplomatic whirlwind for the Iranian foreign minister. And it's not really clear what his discussing where and when and how that's going to shift things forward. But of course, President Putin in Russia, widely believe potentially Russia can play a role on the enriched uranium issue. If you go back to the last nuclear deal with Iran, 2015, it was the Russians who were given the extra enriched uranium that the Iranians had for safekeeping. Is that possibly an off ramp with the highly enriched uranium right now?

We don't know. But on the face of it, the U.S.-Iran side is slowing down. But on the ground, the Iranian foreign minister is making a lot of diplomatic movements.

[29:55:59]

DEAN: Right, Nic Robertson for us with the latest. Thank you for that.

Still ahead here in the CNN Newsroom, the new image of the suspect in last night's shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. We will share that with you next.

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