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White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Suspect to Appear in a U.S. Federal Court Soon; Officials Confirm 2 Dead in a Plane Crash in a Minnesota Neighborhood; President Trump Demands White House Ballroom Construction Approval After Shooting. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired April 27, 2026 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News!

AUDIE CORNISH, ANCHOR, CNN THIS MORNING: Breaking news on this Monday morning. The man accused of opening fire at the White House Correspondents' Dinner will face a federal judge in just a few hours.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He was fast. When you look at it on tape, it's almost like a blur.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right --

TRUMP: But it was amazing because as soon as they saw that, you could see them drawing their guns, they were so professional, aimed their guns and then they took him down immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Welcome back to CNN THIS MORNING, I'm Audie Cornish, and I want to show you the moment President Trump and some of his closest allies realized something was wrong. The Justice Department is saying Cole Tomas Allen dashed past a security checkpoint at the dinner on Saturday night, and then fired off, quote, "a couple shots".

One Secret Service agent was hit, saved by a bulletproof vest, and that agent is expected to be OK. A source now telling us U.S. agents also fired, but no one else was hit. Now, the 31-year-old suspect was taken down moments later without injury.

He is seen here without a shirt because officers had to take it off as they were searching him for wounds or other weapons. In the meantime, investigators are now poring over a manifesto the suspect reportedly sent to his family members just before the attack.

The White House claims he shared anti-Trump beliefs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Still looking to try to understand a motive from our preliminary investigation, it does appear the suspect was targeting members of the administration.

I don't -- I don't want to go beyond that because we don't have specifics yet about particular members of the administration, except that we do understand that, that was his goal and his target.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, joining me now, we've got Jillian Snider; a retired New York Police officer and Resident Senior Fellow for Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties at the R Street Institute. As we're learning more this morning about this suspect, we're hearing about his prior gun ownership.

We are hearing about this alleged manifesto. What do you think investigators are focusing on these many hours out?

JILLIAN SNIDER, RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW, CRIMINAL JUSTICE & CIVIL LIBERTIES, R STREET INSTITUTE: Good morning. I think that what the investigators are going to do from now, we have the manifesto. We've talked to his family, but I think it's going to be a real deep dive into other -- like political affiliations.

Whoever else he speaks to online. Obviously, he sent this to his family only minutes before the attack. That's notifying his family that he might not be coming home. But I think what they're going to do now is really look into everyone that he speaks with, everyone he has a close relationship with, to see how long he's been planning this.

Because obviously, he didn't just wake up and decide to do this. This is something he intended to do for some time.

CORNISH: And to speak to that, people are talking about how he was able to breach the security perimeters. Congressman Mike Lawler was asking the question of whether this is a security failure. I want you to hear what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): This should have been prevented from the start. The fact that he was able to get from the 10th floor down a stairwell into -- the area that was, you know, supposed to be secure, really raises a lot of questions about the entirety of the security apparatus at this event.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Do you agree with him? Are there questions you have here?

SNIDER: So, I've actually been in that hotel. My office in D.C. is not far from the Washington Hilton. And what I would call this is a soft perimeter. So, that was an operable hotel. They did have regular guests staying there.

That is a large hotel, over 1,000 rooms. So, I think that going forward, they would have to harden that perimeter, make it even more challenging to get in, make sure that all access and entry points were more secure, possibly metal detectors.

Obviously, they had the ballroom area very secure, as we saw in the video. That breach was quick. It was abrupt, but it was quickly ended as well. So, I do think that they would have to consider expanding that perimeter to make sure that no one from floors above or floors below have access to where that cabinet or anyone that's going to have a meeting there can get access to.

[05:05:00]

CORNISH: Before I let you go, there's this question of the gunman traveling potentially from California to Chicago to D.C. with weapons, in part because he traveled by train. Todd Blanche had this to say when he was asked about it on Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How did he travel by train without any challenge, and arrive here in the nation's capital?

BLANCHE: Look, this isn't about in my mind changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms. It appears he purchased these firearms in the past couple of years. We don't know how those firearms ended up in his possession in D.C.

We can -- we can make some assumptions based upon what I just said about how he got to D.C., but I don't -- I don't think the narrative here is about changing laws or changing -- making our laws more restrictive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I don't know if you see the trains as a security problem or the guns as an issue. Can you talk about Blanche's response there?

SNIDER: I agree, a lot of people that are going to or trying to carry out crimes like this, they will opt to travel by bus or travel by train or drive their own vehicle. And that is just because there's less security on those, and less metal detectors.

I don't think that -- I think the consideration here is, if we have someone who has a plan and intends to carry out that plan, they will do anything they can to carry out that plan. So, I don't really think it's a security failure on trains or busses or any means of transportation. If someone has intent and the will to do something, they will try and do it.

CORNISH: OK, that's Jillian Snider; retired officer, thank you so much for your time. And coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to talk about what it was like in the room. Confusion, fear, three people who were also in the room when it happened will be joining me.

And a small plane crash in a Minnesota neighborhood. We're going to give you the new details about the people on board when this plane went down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sounded like kaboom, boom, when the plane came down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[05:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a loud noise. There was a very loud bang. We're not sure what it is. Everyone is kind of hiding under the tables. The President has been -- I think he may be under the table, he's been taken out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, you can see there our own Sara Sidner, she was among the journalists that were there. I was there, forced to take cover at the correspondents' dinner Saturday night in just a few feet away from where President Trump was being whisked away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: 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 you guys --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just at that moment where it looks like you go sort of down with the service --

TRUMP: Well, yes --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You were telling them to wait --

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Stephen Collinson; CNN senior politics reporter, and some reporters who were also in the room with us, Andrew Solender; a congressional reporter at "Axios", and Mishal Husain; editor-at-large for "Bloomberg Weekend", she's also the host of the "Mishal Husain Show".

I'm glad you guys are here now. I'm glad we're all safe, frankly, because now we've had a taste of what many Americans have already experienced who have been in a mass shooting event, and the fear in the room was palpable.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, and I think it's that moment where you don't really know what's happening. You see -- the first thing I saw was all these security guys rushing in from outside, I didn't hear the shots that were fired.

And then suddenly, you look to the stage, and there were these two guys with helmets and long rifles rushing out to the President. So, immediately, you start to think, OK, this is something, you know, very serious. But as you say, this is something that is not just becoming an institutionalized part of political life, of campaigns.

We've seen a rising tide of political attacks, but everybody has in the back of their head when they're at one of these big events --

CORNISH: Yes --

COLLINSON: You know, the possibility of their own vulnerability, and you know, the specter of violence.

CORNISH: One thing that's interesting about this space is that it's not just close quarters. You're in a way kind of sealed in when you see all of these reporters like Sara ducking. I know I was trying to get low, but there's nowhere to lie down. You can't -- there's nowhere to hide.

COLLINSON: Yes --

CORNISH: There aren't really exits because of security. What were you hearing from lawmakers?

ANDREW SOLENDER, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yes, I mean, I think members are accustomed to a certain level of security at the capital, but they also expect that when the President is in the room, and this happens a lot at the capitol, the security environment gets hardened significantly.

And so, members were really surprised to discover that there were so many different little loopholes in this individual's ability to get so close to the ballroom --

CORNISH: Yes, and where were you sitting?

SOLENDER: And I was towards the back.

CORNISH: Yes --

SOLENDER: And I -- my experience of it was, I heard some thumps, I smelled what I now know to be gunpowder. I was like, is something on fire or something? I saw a big movement of people, and then saw people starting to duck under the table.

So, I just got down there until I -- we all sort of collectively decided there was nothing happening in the ballroom --

CORNISH: Yes --

[05:15:00] SOLENDER: Got up, started going around trying to figure out --

because members of Congress, as we all know, are often briefed much more quickly than the general public. So, asking members who I knew, who I recognized, you know, do you know what happened?

Do you have any idea like what's going on? And I think the going theory was, there were protests outside. They thought maybe somebody on -- armed had gotten in. And so, the revelation that it was somebody who had brought several firearms that close to the President --

CORNISH: Yes --

SOLENDER: Several top cabinet members --

CORNISH: And I think with the videos going around online, when you hear that popping sound, it's pretty clear what it is right at home. When you're in this cavernous space of clanking trays and chairs and all this stuff, it's actually pretty hard to know what's happening at any given moment. What was your experience? I don't know where you were in the room.

MISHAL HUSAIN, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, BLOOMBERG WEEKEND: I was at one of the "Bloomberg" tables towards the front of the room --

CORNISH: Right --

HUSAIN: So, it was the person I was deep in conversation with who suddenly said to me, those were shots. And he was looking in that direction towards the door. And he had also heard the shots despite them being quite a distance away from us.

I think it was such an uncanny atmosphere, and one that changed so quickly, because the nature of the President coming to the dinner for the first time, there was this sense of anticipation and this heightened atmosphere in this incredibly crowded room.

CORNISH: It was, yes --

HUSAIN: In retrospect, as you say --

CORNISH: I think upwards of 2,000 --

HUSAIN: Audie, you just wonder about the safety, because when the Secret Service ended up jumping from one chair to another in order to get across the room, and I saw them doing that, essentially. The room was like a -- you know, they were like hurdling through the room. It was because there was no space to run.

But that sense of anticipation, the President coming, how is he going to speak to us members of the press? How is he going to react if he's still there when the journalism awards are given out, some of which, concerning reporting that is -- has been problematic for the administration.

So, there's that kind of anticipation and heightened sense of excitement, if you like. And then it was really moments after we were standing for the national --

CORNISH: Yes --

HUSAIN: Anthem and hail for the chief that everything changed --

CORNISH: It did change --

HUSAIN: Yes --

CORNISH: The worst kind of anticipation, which is the silence before the fear of violence. I want you guys to stay with me, we're going to dig into sort of how this played out in the aftermath. Coming up, we're going to talk about what the President is now saying about his White House ballroom project after the Saturday night attack.

Plus, the latest developments in the war with Iran. The U.S. delegation was supposed to be headed overseas for talks. It is not anymore.

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[05:20:00]

CORNISH: All right, so what we were hearing is that a $400 million ballroom is now what's needed to keep the President safe. That's what he and his space were claiming after the White House Correspondents' Dinner security breach.

So, the Justice Department is now calling for the National Trust for Historic Preservation to drop its pending lawsuit, because they have been seeking to prevent the President from building this ballroom. And in a letter, the Justice Department's Civil Division head said that, put simply, "your lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family and his staff at grave risk.

I hope yesterday's narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose, except to stop President Trump, no matter the cost." So, the group chat is back. I wanted to talk about this because it is called the White House Correspondents' Association, but it is not run by the White House.

The dinner isn't run by the White House. There's not actually a scenario where this would have been hosted by the White House. But we know that the President has moved from this, an esthetic thing. This is a thing I need to entertain, to talking about security.

COLLINSON: Right, and politics doesn't take very long to break out even in the minutes after this, the President was quick to -- Trump to say -- quick to pivot to say, this is why we need the ballroom. There are a number of issues here.

Obviously, it's up to Congress if the money -- public money at least, is appropriated to build a ballroom for the federal government. If this dinner was at the White House, even Trump's most ambitious plans for about a thousand seats in a formal dinner, this would not have been able to accommodate -- CORNISH: Yes --

COLLINSON: This massive dinner. And of course, if you hold an event like this at the White House, therefore, the President, the press is visiting the President rather than the other way around on an official premises, that changes the complete character of what this is supposed to be about. So, in some ways, it's a red herring, but obviously officials going to use this --

CORNISH: Obviously important, yes --

COLLINSON: For what they can get --

CORNISH: I mean, there were -- on the left, there were people sort of posting screen grabs of all of the right-leaning influencers who were making this exact same point in the exact same way. And that it weirdly sort of -- what's the word?

It sort of had the conspiracy theorists so wild up of like, why are they talking about this when there's a million other questions that could be asked after this event?

HUSAIN: I think even if the venue does end up changing, I think it's worth remembering, and I hope that there's a sense that we can hang on to just what a unique gathering this is. I mean, obviously, President Trump hadn't been there before.

But in those moments where we were gathered all together, looking out, I thought in this climate in particular, there is something special and something to celebrate. And the fact that you did have all those members of the cabinet who were not all on the top table --

CORNISH: Yes --

HUSAIN: Who were dotted around the room, the guests of various news organizations. So, there was a sense of coming together, even though it's a -- it's an inflamed time. And even though, what we now know, the room descended into afterwards.

[05:25:00]

I think there is something unique, perhaps internationally unique about it. And it would be a real shame if after all the history of this event, it became something that was, you know, fully under the control and in the setting of the White House and the serving administration, rather than some semblance of neutral ground.

CORNISH: It's interesting. The acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, was tweeting: "This lawsuit on behalf of a single person who walks in the vicinity of the White House once a month and expects to dislike the East Wing's new design.

The passing esthetic gripe of a single person cannot possibly justify delaying the construction of a secure facility for the President to do his job." Now, lots of complaints have actually poured in to the historic commission about this. So, it's not just one person. But what do you see and how the White House is now saying, look,

imperative, moral imperative, security imperative, and will lawmakers follow?

SOLENDER: Yes, I mean, I definitely think Republicans now, you hear them starting to say there need to be some serious policy changes in terms of security after this. An important thing to point out, I was talking to Republican Congressman Andy Ogles, who was present at the dinner a few hours after the incident.

And he noted that there were about a half dozen to a dozen members of Congress, mostly Republicans there. Congress, currently divided by just a handful of seats. And so, in the event of a mass casualty situation, there could have been a change in the balance of power in Congress.

CORNISH: Yes --

SOLENDER: And so that -- and by the way, a handful of leadership members, Steve Scalise, Mike Johnson, and a few other members of Congress who were near them were whisked off to a secure area. But I caught several on the ballroom floor. Most of them did not have their personal security with them.

I talked to one Congresswoman who said her person had to stay upstairs, outside without their firearm. So, members were in just as vulnerable position as the rest of us. And this could have had serious implications for federal government institutions --

CORNISH: Yes, I was actually sitting behind Steve Scalise, so I could see him crouched next to the table as the security came to get him, and one of the first people to be taken out of the room. And there's going to be a lot of questions, because this dinner has been held there for ages despite all the questions people have had about the facility itself.

We're going to turn to this when we come back, the money running out because this Saturday shooting has sparked renewed calls on the Hill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. And we're going to talk about the battle over redrawing the voting maps in Virginia, because that's back in court later today.

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