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Soon: WHCD Shooting Suspect Appears In Federal Court; Trump Demands White House Ballroom Approval After Shooting; King Charles Visit "Will Proceed As Planned" After WHCD Shooting. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 27, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN HOST: -- it's become a symbol of something and maybe not a symbol of something so good.

[06:30:06]

So do you think it's an inflection point?

MICHAEL SCHERER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: I think what will happen is the dinner will be held again. I don't know if it will be in 30 days or not. And the president will try and use it again.

I mean, the first time I've heard him celebrate the First Amendment sincerely, was right afterwards in the briefing room where he says, this wasn't about the press, this was about the First Amendment. This is about the right to free speech.

It's a tricky relationship. It is adversarial. But it's also true that our job is to build relationships with the people the American people elect. We build relationships of trust with these people so we can get information from them so that we can deliver it to the American people.

And so, the fact that we socialize with them or go to events with them, I mean, that is the job of reporting. Now, whether we should be wearing black tie or, you know, in the case of the gridiron white tie, I mean, that's a separate conversation, but I don't think there's anything wrong with reporters working in Washington covering the White House, socializing or talking with White House officials outside of work.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, USA TODAY: So just to add on to that, yes, exactly. It is our job, all of us at this table, to ask questions that are in the public interest of these administration officials and continue to hold them accountable.

CORNISH: Well, we'll see if the relationship changes. You guys, stay with me. Coming up on CNN this morning, we want to report at least two people have died after severe storms moved through the central U.S. Now a new round of storms is threatening. Already devastated communities.

Plus, there's a royal visit coming to Washington. It's going to go on as scheduled. Despite the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:07]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm Sara Sidner. Thank you so much for joining me on CNN this morning alongside Audie Cornish. It is 6:35 here on the East Coast.

The suspected gunman allegedly involved in Saturday's shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner is expected to make his first court appearance in Washington, D.C., in just a few hours. He's seen here on the ground shirtless as police searched him for weapons on Saturday.

Authorities say the suspect is 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, who they say sent a note to family members before this event. They say Allen's writings indicated he was upset with the president and intended to target members of the Trump administration.

President Trump claiming the correspondents' dinner shooting gives urgency to his White House ballroom plan. Sunday, the president pressed the case for his controversial ballroom and a social media post saying this event would never have happened with the military top secret ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough, he says.

Also, King Charles set to land in the United States today and will meet with President Trump. He's here on a four day visit marking the 250th anniversary of the United States independence from Britain. Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting raised a last minute security review, of course, but Buckingham Palace said the trip will proceed as planned -- Audie.

CORNISH: All right. We're learning new details based on that very preliminary investigation into Saturdays shooting. Authorities believe the 31-year-old suspected fired one to two times, and a Secret Service agent shot back he did not end up striking that suspect. And that's what we've learned from sources familiar with the investigation

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: It was a massive security success story. I mean, if you think about what happened as far as what we know right now, this suspect barely breached the perimeter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Our group chat is back and were bringing in Jamil Jaffer. He's founder and executive director of the national security institute at GMU Scalia Law School.

Can I ask you about that? At the end of the day, there were no deaths, right? This could have been a far more difficult day. Is it a success security wise?

JAMIL JAFFER, FORMER ASSOCIATE COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, look, it's a success in the sense that the shooter didn't get anywhere near the president. He was a floor away. He was taken down before he got to anybody. One Secret Service officer shot, but wearing a bulletproof vest. But that being said, the fact that he got around the mags, the fact that he got through the security perimeter, the only security perimeter between that and the ballroom entrance.

Now, obviously, there was security in the room and the like.

CORNISH: Yeah.

JAFFER: So a success in the sense that it didn't get to the president, didn't get to any members of the cabinet, but a failure in the sense that the guy got into the hotel, had firearms, got through the guest --

CORNISH: Well, he was a guest at the hotel. So there's a loophole, so to speak?

JAFFER: That's right. But look, it's hard to police against that. It's hard to prevent anybody from coming into the hotel. But you got to have a lot more security. You got to have defense in depth. Ideally, there would've been security perimeter behind that initial perimeter.

Ideally, that perimeter would have been blocked off completely. There were a lot of things that could have been done better at that security checkpoint. But at the end of the day, you saw multiple, multiple federal law enforcement officers and other law enforcement officers draw their firearms.

One took a shot at him. He didn't ultimately hit him, but he was taken down long before he got anywhere near the president. So, success? Yes. Not the way you want to run security at these national security special events like Danielle Harvin was talking about earlier at the end of the day.

Yes. Good. But not the way you want to run.

CORNISH: Earlier, before you came in, we were talking about the sort of symbolism of the event itself, but also the stakes. Like for Francesca, you were talking about the line of succession. Everybody is seeing those videos of J.D. Vance being pulled away, Trump being pulled away, Mike Johnson running in the video in photographs and saying, wait a second, should all these people have been in the same room?

[06:40:01]

CHAMBERS: Yeah, I was saying, I don't believe that Chuck Grassley was there. And there were certainly other members of the cabinet who weren't there, but it may raise questions going forward about --

CORNISH: Grassley's lower on the list, right? What number?

CHAMBERS: He's number four.

CORNISH: Okay.

CHAMBERS: So the president, vice president, Mike Johnson, and then Chuck Grassley, then Marco Rubio, then Pete Hegseth. And so it may raise questions, I'm saying in the future, though, about the number of people in the cabinet who were in these -- these events, because when you do the joint session of Congress, there's always a so-called designated survivor, someone who's picked from the cabinet by the president not to attend something. That is not traditionally been something that's happened, as far as I'm aware, or other events.

CORNISH: It's interesting because when the sounds happen, I didn't hear the sort of bullet sounds, but what I saw was a rush of Secret Service all of a sudden coming like a wave. It was like a stadium wave. Only imagine its people running on chairs, tables, and the rest of us crouching down.

I was sitting next to behind Steve Scalise, who actually has been the victim of a political shooting, and he was they took him away pretty quickly. Trump gone. I look up the entire table gone.

And one by one, cabinet members are leaving. We're all sitting there like the Secret Service is there. And these private details are there for their clients, like the rest of us are collateral damage in that scenario.

SCHERER: Well, I think what you have to say for people who haven't been to the dinner is that there are long hallways leading into that ballroom, and those hallways when the dinner is going on before the dinner are filled with people with guns. They include the security details of the protectees who are inside the ballroom, but there's also uniformed Secret Service. There's the people who do the mags.

CORNISH: Snipers. Yeah.

SCHERER: Yeah, the CAT teams are behind the stage. But like, I think people have to understand that, you know, he did get whatever 40 yards past the mags, but he had a long way to go and, and to continue down that gantlet, he was passing people with guns. There's also a lot of people with guns. These are all trained security people in the arena.

So it wasn't like we were in a, you know, a high school with a -- with a -- you know, with a shooter outside the door. That was a protected room. And it ended up being protected. If that -- if the gunman had gotten closer, he would have had many, many more obstacles to get through to get to us.

CORNISH: As we hear more about the suspect, because he sent out a so- called manifesto, he sent a note out to friends and family. He talked about a lot of things. You know, what he was targeting. And we're hearing some reporting about even what he thought about security.

What do you think they're going to be looking for? Do those writings matter or are they going to be looking for other aspects of his life?

JAFFER: Well, certainly motive matters a lot, right? Why was he there? What was he doing? Why was he there to -- is he now self- admitted in his, this apparent writing that went to his family members, that he was targeting the president, he was targeting the entire cabinet, apparently, except for Kash Patel, but everybody in the cabinet, in order --

CORNISH: Like did he say that?

JAFFER: Yeah, he actually said that.

CORNISH: Okay.

JAFFER: In his -- in his in the writings we saw in "The New York Post", he laid out -- he laid out the sort of various people in the room. He talked about federal law enforcement. He said, I'm not targeting them unless they get in my way.

He said, look, I'm willing to go through anybody. I need to, though, to get to these people. And he said, I'm going after the people in the cabinet in order of importance, except for Kash Patel, so not clear why he left -- left Kash out of the -- out of the list. But he did.

And look, this guy obviously had something, you know, wrong with him. You don't -- you don't buy firearms, go to an event with the president of United States and a bunch of people and try to kill, you know, members of the cabinet unless there's something deeply wrong with you.

CORNISH: Can I stop you there? You were pointing out in your writing, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, obviously assassinated in the street. You have OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's home attack, the Pennsylvania governor, I think we're calling them lone wolves.

But it feels like there's a little bit of a message being sent here from the fringes of society and going after really symbolic figures.

SCHERER: I think there's emerging evidence that we are dealing with a new type of threat. If you remember back after 9/11, the discussion was online radicalization. That was basically videos from religious leaders in the Middle East who would indoctrinate people in other countries.

What we're dealing with here is basically a generation of lonely people who are being radicalized, not by individual imams, but by the basic algorithms that we all get our news from. In every one of those cases, these are people who are radicalized because they consume information that tells them every day, these people are the worst people ever. And you saw that in the manifesto, and they must be stopped.

And then they decide to take it into their own -- into their own hands. It's a totally different kind of challenge. And I think were beyond the point where we can just say, oh, these are crazy people. I mean, clearly --

CORNISH: Yeah. What we do is point fingers. We say, who did they vote for? Did they give $20 here? Did they give $50 here? And if it doesn't fit a political narrative, it kind of goes away. I think of that with the shooter, with Steve Scalise. I mean, to you, do you think um. Is the administration or even law

enforcement, maybe to you equipped for lone wolf attacks?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, I think what the point that Michael is, is saying is exactly correct. I mean, this is it is difficult to see how you kind of address and manage this type of situation because he was so kind of broad in his targets.

[06:45:09]

And he said he was, you know, to our conversation earlier, he was going after not necessarily Trump, but administration officials writ large who don't have the type of security that the president of the United States had or nor even cabinet officials. So it's just -- it's a -- it's a really, you know, stark challenge for, you know, yeah, politicians and law enforcement.

CHAMBERS: But I think this goes back to the way security might be handled at these events in the future, because for all of us who were there, you know, you get you got dropped off a couple blocks away, but its not as if bags are being checked for firearms or anything like that. And I understand if the suspect was staying in the hotel that that's a -- that's another issue. As you were raising before, Audie, and whether or not going forward, you'll see the magnetometers right at the entrances of these events, because here they were further into.

CORNISH: The solution seems to be to harden the shell in any areas of public expression. You can already see that if you're an activist or a protester, you cant get near anything. And after a while, it just feels like anything. But dealing with these other issues, you know, are we going to be looking at real, very serious security on top of what we all experience?

JAFFER: Well, this is the hard part, right? If you're going to stop attacks like this, you first of all, you can't stop attacks like this, right? It is very difficult. It's difficult to identify these individuals. It's difficult to trace them. It's difficult to identify.

Even if you got on a plane, there's much being made about the fact that you could train, but you can lawfully transfer a firearm. You can put it in checked baggage. You can check it on a plane. There's nothing illegal about that. You might get noticed. You might, you might get flagged. But you know?

So the real challenge here is how do you identify these folks? But we don't want -- we don't want to live in the kind of society where you're surveilling everyone's emails, everyone's phones, trying to find these people in our domestic audiences.

We already have enough controversy over 702, that's surveilling foreigners outside the United States. It doesn't even have anything to do with Americans in the United States except for, you know, tangential communications.

And so, you know, this is a big debate that's going to have to happen in our society. We don't want to live like people in Israel do, where they're under constant surveillance, constant security precautions at airports, everywhere they go, right? That's not society Americans want to live in. So there's going to have to be a tradeoff between protecting against threats like this.

And of course, the president himself, he wants to get out in the crowds. He wants to walk the rope line. He loves the adulation. He's not going to stop doing that. He set himself at the press conference. I'm -- I have to continue forward. We're going to do the White House correspondents event. We're not going to let it shut us down. That's a -- that's a very American attitude towards these things.

CORNISH: Yeah.

JAFFER: And while we will lock things down more, no doubt at events, the right of speech, the president said it himself at the -- after the event, right. The right of free speech is important. We want people to be able to protest. We want people to have political expression. We don't want that to turn into political violence. How do you police that line is the really hard part.

CORNISH: All right. Jamil, I'm glad you're here. Unfortunately, I'm sure you'll be back, frankly, because this investigation is now moving forward with the suspect appearing to be charged.

Next on CNN this morning, were going to talk about this person. He called himself a friendly federal assassin. Sources are saying that that's what he referred to himself as in his so-called manifesto.

We're going to talk about what more we have learned about him in his alleged own words.

Plus, from the president on "60 Minutes" to Wolf Blitzer, we've been hearing from so many people who are inside that ballroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:52:42]

CORNISH: So is the central question for investigators this morning, how does a 31-year-old mechanical engineer and teacher of the month pivot to becoming the alleged gunman who nearly turned the correspondents dinner into a battlefield? Authorities say they are diving into the writings of the alleged shooter that he left behind for his family just moments before he reportedly opened fire.

Now, in those writings, he dubbed himself the friendly federal assassin, and he stated he was targeting Trump administration officials. That's according to a source.

So joining me now is CNN senior law enforcement analyst, Andrew McCabe.

So, Andy, to start, can you talk about the value of a manifesto? I have to admit, when there are mass shootings, we tend not to quote from them what's going to be significant in this? ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yeah. Audie, so

the primary thing that investigators are looking for right off the bat is to see -- make sure that there's no evidence of additional plotting. Are there other people connected to this person who might be like minded, who are thinking about doing the same thing, or who may have helped him execute his plan?

And so the manifesto can be enormously helpful with that. Once you've resolved that question in your mind, you're fairly confident that there's no one else involved here. There's still a real high priority on mining as much intelligence as you possibly can about why this person did what they did. And let's be clear, investigators are collecting evidence to be able to help prove the prosecution. That's one -- that's going on in one channel.

But alongside that is a broader scope of intelligence that you're looking for, to answer that why question. And the reason is the more we learn about why people resort to political violence or arm themselves with weapons and go into events like this, the better we can get at spotting threats and, and mitigating these sort of threats before they happen. So it's -- it's a constant thing that law enforcement is always doing.

CORNISH: And sadly, something that's not so unusual. He actually sent his messages to his brother, to family members. They actually contacted the police department, I think it was in new London, Connecticut, to talk about their concern.

Can you talk about what that means? Like, is the family going to be part of this investigation now, and how can families be helpful in these incidents?

[06:55:04]

MCCABE: There's no question that they will approach each one of these family members, those who receive the manifestos and possibly others, and to request that they sit down and subject themselves to interviews. Not anything that could result in them getting in trouble. That's not the focus here.

But you want to really know about that communication, about how it was received and really about the relationship preceding that communication. How did we get to this point? The family members can be of enormous significance to an investigation.

Probably the most famous example of that is, of course, the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, who wrote that monstrous manifesto that he sent to "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post", and which was ultimately identified by his brother, his family member, who was able to kind of unravel the mystery of who the Unabomber was for us. That's obviously not the situation here, but nevertheless, getting to that answering that question of why those family members could be really helpful in that.

CORNISH: Before I let you go, can you tell us what the next steps are? Does he appear in court like what happens? MCCABE: Yeah. So he'll appear in court today. He'll be arraigned or

officially charged in public with the offenses. We should hear some additional details from the prosecutors about what's been uncovered in the investigation so far. I'm quite confident he'll be detained. He'll be held in jail pending the remainder of the investigation and his prosecution.

And ultimately, if he decides to contest these charges, he'll go to trial. That wouldn't happen for quite some time. Although I should also add, I expect these charges to be added to with additional charges as the investigation continues.

CORNISH: Okay. It will be interesting to see what those are. Andrew McCabe, formerly of the FBI, thank you. I want to bring back our panel because this, it's very rare that we have a story that has touched us. So specifically, we've now had an experience. Many Americans have had of being in a threat situation.

What is your takeaway from this moment and what are you going to be, in a way, reporting on in the next couple of days?

SCHERER: Well, I think we have a lot more to find out about who this guy was and where he was coming from. I think the question that I'm hoping we begin to struggle with is what I mentioned earlier. If you if you watched, if you found out about this on social media, if you're watching TikTok or on X, there's a very good chance what you were consuming was people telling you this was a planned event, this was a conspiracy. Don't believe the truth.

CORNISH: Yeah.

SCHERER: The fact is, like our information systems are totally broken right now. And it's -- and it's creating a kind of radicalism that is fundamentally un-American. We have a democracy because we don't kill each other. We actually vote people in and out of office, and then we honor that vote even if we don't like it. And then we find ways to be active and to change power.

CORNISH: And how that happens. I mean, if we can just put up again the photo of the suspect and his background, you know, this is a person with a college degree in a graduate degree, and he is making bootleg video games and is a part time tutor.

KIM: I think that's why we were so --

CORNISH: Storing weapons, possibly at his parents' house.

KIM: I think we're starting to learn about him and his background, where we were thinking, this doesn't fit the typical sort of what we imagined to be a suspect in something like this, which is why those interviews with his family members, people who are who were, you know, talking to him beforehand will be so critical.

CORNISH: And they came forward.

KIM: Yeah. And they did. CHAMBERS: And from a White House perspective, we'll continue to ask

questions about the security, like I was saying before, and how it could potentially change not just for these types of events, but there is a state visit that's beginning today. There is a state dinner that's taking place tomorrow night, understandably, that will be at the White House. Some of these events will be taking place at the British embassy as well, too. So there are lots of questions about security this week in Washington.

CORNISH: Does the ballroom conversation change -- properly change now that this has happened?

SCHERER: I think it -- it'll adjust slightly. I mean, honestly, the ballroom was going to happen barring a judge stopping it. And I don't know if it's going to change how a judge is going to intervene here, but it probably will increase public support for the ballroom. I think that --

CORNISH: Yeah, yeah. Though the flip side, I want to show you a quote from Michael Ian Black, who's a comedian, does a show here actually with CNN where he jokes about this response about like, yeah, we need ballrooms. Somehow that's going to solve this, right? Ballrooms in every school, every house of worship, every movie theater, ballrooms and malls, ballrooms and waffle houses and 7-Elevens.

It sounds really silly, but he's making a point.

KIM: Right, and it's also, to be clear, I mean, this is not a White House event. The president is our invited guest. We would, even if there had been a ballroom in place, the White House Correspondents Association would not have had their event there for security reasons.

We host it. We plan it. And so that -- I understand why he why they're making this rationale now. But just we kind of need to keep that in the press.

CHAMBERS: Which is an independent journalism.

CORNISH: But it also raises questions is, can you secure anything in this era where we have seen the threat of violence touch so many aspects of American life and a kind of threat that we haven't learned how to grapple with?

Michael, Francesca, Seung Min, it's good to be here with you. I'm glad we all made it through that night.

And I want you guys to stay with us.

We're learning more about that gunman, and the headlines are next.