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The Situation Room
Soon: WH Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Suspect In Court; One- On-One With WH Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Witness; Today: King Charles And Queen Camilla Head To U.S. For State Visit. Aired 11- 11:30a ET
Aired April 27, 2026 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[11:00:36]
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, security questions, growing concerns this morning about the plan in place for the White House Correspondents' Dinner after authorities say an armed man tried to rush the event. And now sources say the White House is meeting with Secret Service this week to review the President's security protocols.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And Iran talks, stalling efforts to reach any kind of peace deal with Iran are slowing down as President Trump insists he holds all the cards and that Iran needs to come to him.
Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown and you're in The Situation Room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.
BLITZER: We begin with breaking news soon. The man accused of opening fire at the White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday night is set to appear in federal court. This morning, investigators are pouring over the writings of 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen. The White House says he clearly stated that he was targeting administration officials.
BROWN: And the Justice Department says this video right here shows the suspect charged past a security checkpoint. At that point, he was one floor away from the President. The suspect exchanged gunfire with Secret Service agents and was then tackled and arrested. President Trump is praising the quick response by the Secret Service and other law enforcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He was fast. When you look at it, 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 draw their guns. They were so professional, aimed their guns, and then they took them down immediately.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And here is the suspect under arrest just outside the hotel lobby. And here is that same view from the Washington Hilton's website. You can go down that staircase on this virtual tour. You will be at the ballroom. That's how close the suspect was to the President, Vice President, and many cabinet members.
CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is here with us in The Situation Room. Evan, walk us through the investigation and what the focus is on today.
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, one of the things that you know is happening, we know is happening at the Secret Service is a review of everything that happened, including in the days before this suspect checked into that hotel.
Now, according to the writings, as you just pointed out, some of his writings indicate not only a distaste for the administration, but also for the President. He calls the President a traitor and says he's essentially disgusted by the actions of the administration. And we heard from the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, in a letter related to a lawsuit on the ballroom that has been ongoing.
He says that this was clearly an assassination attempt of the President of the United States. So that gives you an indication of perhaps where the Justice Department is trying to go as part of this investigation.
Now, as far as the review that's going to be ongoing now of the event itself, what you just showed just now is an outline, essentially, or a video of where this suspect managed to get to. He managed to run through a group of Secret Service officers who appeared to have been completely caught off guard.
And they did tackle him just a few feet away from Wolf Blitzer and a few other guests there, just one floor above this ballroom. And so one of the questions that is now being looked at inside the Secret Service is perhaps whether there should be additional screening, additional security measures for this dinner and events like this.
One of the things that we know happens, for instance, at the United Nations General Assembly is that all hotel guests are screened. Their bags are put through magnetometers before you are able to check in or go into the property. That is something that perhaps would have made a difference in this case.
Kash Patel, the FBI director, talked a little bit about what was known about the suspect before this event. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: And so what we're going to do is continue to look at the interviews that we've conducted, the dozens and dozens of interviews we've conducted over the weekend, and put that in one place to show you what he did, how he got there, when he got there, when he arrived, how he got down to the area in question, how he was able to get through security undetected. We have all those questions answered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:05:16]
PEREZ: And, Pamela, one of the things that we know is also being looked at is whether the Secret Service could harden this event or events like this. For instance, you know, I talked to one law enforcement official who said this appeared to be more of a suicide mission and that an attacker who was intent on doing more damage perhaps could have been able to do a lot more than what this suspect was able to do allegedly as part of this attack.
Again, we're going to hear a lot more from the Secret Service and from the Justice Department later this afternoon when this suspect makes his first appearance in federal court here in Washington.
BROWN: All right. Evan Perez, thank you so much. Wolf?
BLITZER: And joining us now here in The Situation Room is Erin Thielman. Erin was a guest at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and she actually witnessed the shooting this morning. Good morning, Erin. Thanks very much for coming in. First of all, how are you doing this morning? I know it was pretty traumatic.
ERIN THIELMAN, WITNESSED SHOOTING: It was definitely very traumatic and very scary, but I'm doing OK and holding strong.
BLITZER: Well, walk us through that night, Saturday night. You're at the dinner, and what you were walking up the stairs where the shooter was, one little flight of stairs, as I had done earlier that night. Tell us what happened.
THIELMAN: I was trying to send a text message at the table to my son to check in on him and the kids, and I couldn't get a reception. So when there was a break in service, I walked up the stairs to the next level, just to the top of the stairs, and I remained right at the top of the stairs while I called my son. When he answered, that's when I heard a lot of -- it was gunshots.
BLITZER: Really loud gunshots.
THIELMAN: Really loud.
BLITZER: Coming from this alleged shooter.
THIELMAN: My ear is still ringing from the gunshots. They were very loud. And I saw him charging right at me. He had one hand on the butt of the gun, one hand on the barrel of the gun.
BLITZER: Was it a shotgun?
THIELMAN: It was a shotgun, yes, and he was running right in my directions, magazine clips around his body. BLITZER: Had you already climbed all the stairs?
THIELMAN: I had already climbed all the stairs.
BLITZER: So you were on the same level as him?
THIELMAN: He dropped right at my feet.
BLITZER: When you say he dropped right at your feet?
THIELMAN: He fell face first, and I knew the situation was somewhat safe when I saw that he had dropped his gun, and it was laying just to the left of his shoulder on the ground.
BLITZER: Yes, it was pretty traumatic.
THIELMAN: Yes.
BLITZER: That's pretty traumatic indeed. What was going through your head? I know you're an Air Force veteran.
THIELMAN: Correct. When I first saw him charging at me, immediately I thought, bad guy, enemy, terrorist. And I just had to get out of his way, and it was a split-second decision, and I just took a step back, trying to get out of the way.
And then he, something knocked him out, I don't know what, and he just, he fell down and dropped his gun.
BLITZER: And when you were on the top level over there, one flight above the ballroom, and he was right there, did you see me standing there too?
THIELMAN: I did see you there. I did see you over on the other side of the hallway.
BLITZER: Yes, and did you see a law enforcement officer tell me to get down, get down, get down, and then he jumped on top of me?
THIELMAN: I heard it.
BLITZER: You heard that, yes. So what did you say to your family when you got home?
THIELMAN: When we got home, I don't remember the words that were exchanged, but I hugged my kids for a really long time. And we didn't let go.
BLITZER: It was pretty frightening.
THIELMAN: Yes.
BLITZER: Because at one point, when you heard those gunshots going off, and you were getting to the top of that level where he was, what was going through your mind?
THIELMAN: Just that I had to get out of there and reunite with my husband and get back to my kids. That was my main concern.
BLITZER: It was pretty frightening that way. In an interview last night on "60 Minutes," "CBS 60 Minutes," President Trump said he wants the dinner to be rescheduled within 30 days. What do you think about that?
THIELMAN: I think it's a great idea. I took an oath a long time ago to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And that includes the First Amendment. And I think that if we do not have that dinner rescheduled and we don't all come back together, the bad guy wins.
BLITZER: Would you attend that next dinner if it happens within the next 30 days?
THIELMAN: Absolutely.
BLITZER: All right. Pamela has a question, too.
BROWN: Just a question for you. I mean, obviously, you were a key eyewitness, as Wolf was. So when you say he fell at your feet, did it seem like he felt something brought him down? He wasn't tackled at that moment by law enforcement?
THIELMAN: No. They started running in on him right as I ran down the stairs.
BROWN: OK. So he wasn't tackled and that's what brought him down to the ground?
THIELMAN: No, he was not. He was not.
BLITZER: It looked like he tripped.
THIELMAN: Maybe that's what happened. I have no idea.
BROWN: I mean, if he hadn't fallen, he could have just kept going.
THIELMAN: Absolutely.
BROWN: OK. Because I think there was an understanding before that he was tackled, you know, but he just fell.
THIELMAN: He just fell.
BLITZER: He could have easily gone down those stairs and gone right into the ballroom. There was nothing in between.
BROWN: All you had to do was go down the stairs and there was the ballroom.
THIELMAN: Right. Yes. So I ran down the stairs and I was very concerned because usually where there's one, there's two, that there was potentially another shooter. I didn't know that, but had to assume that for safety.
[11:10:03]
BROWN: Yes.
THIELMAN: And I was shocked that the ballroom doors were still wide open.
BROWN: Yes.
THIELMAN: So I started shutting them and somebody else helped me close the other doors. And then I was a little dazed when I got into the ballroom and saw that everybody was already under tables and Secret Service was swarming. Somebody grabbed me and threw me under the table with them.
BROWN: Yes.
THIELMAN: And at that time, that's when I realized my son had been on the phone the whole time. And I lost reception under the table.
BLITZER: He was hearing what was going on.
THIELMAN: He was hearing everything that was going on.
BROWN: And then you lost reception, so he must have been so worried.
THIELMAN: He was very worried.
BLITZER: How old is your son?
THIELMAN: Fifteen and a half, almost 16.
BLITZER: Yes.
THIELMAN: He was very worried, yes.
BROWN: Yes. I was under the table, obviously, I was still in the ballroom and I was under the table. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't know if there was a coordinated attack, what was going on, because, you know, there's a heightened threat level we're under, right? And then someone starts yelling, God bless America. And I'm thinking, is this like the bad guys with machine guns walking around or what's going on? I mean, you're -- you sort of catastrophize in that moment, right?
BLITZER: But you heard the gunshots, even though you were inside the ballroom.
BROWN: I heard a lot of commotion. We were just sitting there, minding our own business. I was talking to Jake Tapper to my right. And suddenly there was all this commotion and you just heard, get down, get down. My colleague, Kasie Hunt, apparently heard the gunshots. I just heard lots of commotion and I dove under that table so fast because my survival instincts was, get under the table, you have three kids, you have to stay alive for them. Like, I have so many amazing colleagues who were in reporting mode. I was very much in survival mode, but I think for my kids. BLITZER: Yes, which is totally understandable. How are you doing now?
THIELMAN: I'm doing OK. Very tired, nursing a sprained ankle from the events of the night, but still doing OK.
BROWN: Have you been able to process everything going on?
THIELMAN: I'm trying to.
BROWN: Yes.
THIELMAN: I think my war training from a very long time ago really kicked in. I'm shocked and thankful that it kicked in because I was in the service over 20 years ago.
BLITZER: In the U.S. Air Force?
THIELMAN: Correct.
BLITZER: All 20 years?
THIELMAN: No, just over 20 years when I got out.
BLITZER: It was 20 years ago. Yes.
BROWN: And Wolf, you've been in war zones and you said this was the scariest situation you've ever been in.
BLITZER: I've had scud missiles flying over my head, and those are loud and pretty dangerous, and they were landing behind me, but this was even more frightening because I literally was what, three or four feet away from someone who had a shotgun, and boom, boom, you heard how loud those bangs were, and it scared the hell out of me at the time.
BROWN: And your shoe came off because when you were tackled by an officer.
BLITZER: When I was tackled by a law enforcement officer, I was just standing there and I heard him screaming, get down, get down, and I didn't get down. I was watching this, and then he comes over to me and he tackles me and throws me down, but my shoe came off.
BROWN: Are you sore at all?
BLITZER: It was a little bit sore, so it's fine now, because I was walking around for a while without a shoe.
BROWN: Oh my gosh.
BLITZER: It was just a sock.
BROWN: But you got it back. Were you doing live shots with just one shoe?
BLITZER: I was doing live shots with one shoe. BROWN: Wow. That's amazing that you were able to pull it together, but you two, sadly, are bonded forever through what you experienced and witnessed, and thank you for coming on.
THIELMAN: From something that was from this civil warzone.
BLITZER: Yes.
BROWN: Yes.
BLITZER: Erin --
BROWN: Thank you so much, Erin.
BLITZER: -- we will stay in touch.
THIELMAN: Thank you, sir.
BLITZER: Thank you very much. Be strong.
THIELMAN: Thank you.
BLITZER: And you are.
THIELMAN: Thank you.
BLITZER: Thank you very much.
BROWN: All right. Thank you so much, Erin. Still ahead here in The Situation Room, we'll ask the former number two of the FBI about the Trump administration's renewed push to build a White House ballroom after the shooting. Would it have made a difference?
[11:13:18]
BLITZER: And President Trump once sung the praises of the U.S. relationship with Britain, but he's singing a different tune these days, and now King Charles will face the very tough mission of amending those relations during a multi-day visit here to Washington. Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.
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BROWN: Well, Britain's King Charles III and Queen Camilla are on their way to Washington today for a state visit with President Trump. The palace confirmed the plans would proceed after Saturday night's shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The British royal's four-day trip will mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, including an address to Congress.
BLITZER: CNN anchor and royal correspondent Max Foster is joining us now live from the British Embassy. Max, the royals will arrive this afternoon. Tell us what we can expect once they are here.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they're very busy preparing here in this spectacular house, of course, in Washington, D.C. It is confirmed the king is on the plane. He's on the way over. He's on time. And he is looking at his speech that he'll deliver to Congress tomorrow, which is really the highlight of this whole four days.
And I think it's pretty clear that he's going to be adding some sort of reference there into what happened on Saturday night, because there was a point the king's visit was on hold yesterday, because they weren't sure he'd still be able to come. But they worked through all of the security arrangements. He is on his way over.
And his big job, really, from the government's point of view, the British government's point of view, is to fix that very fractured transatlantic alliance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The U.K. has been very, very uncooperative.
FOSTER (voice-over): The U.K.-U.S. special relationship isn't feeling that special right now.
TRUMP: The U.K., which we sort of considered the Rolls-Royce of allies, right? When you say --
FOSTER (voice-over): Terse words from the U.S. President aimed at the British government. It's military.
TRUMP: I said, you have two old, broken-down aircraft carriers. You think you could send them over? Oh, I'll have to ask my team.
FOSTER (voice-over): And especially the prime minister.
TRUMP: You know, unfortunately, Keir is not Winston Churchill.
FOSTER (voice-over): In contrast to the warm words for the King.
TRUMP: In fact, the king is coming over here in two weeks. He's a nice guy, King Charles.
FOSTER (voice-over): What's mainly in the king's favor is that Trump has an affinity with the U.K. and the royals, something the U.K. government seems ready to leverage to emphasize historic links between traditional allies. Having met Trump several times on the president's trips to the U.K., the king knows how careful words and thoughtful actions can diffuse wide attentions.
[11:20:18]
In 2025, Charles presented the President with a bespoke copy of the Declaration of Independence. While Elizabeth II enjoyed largely smooth relations during her seven visits as queen to the United States, welcomed by presidents from Eisenhower to Bush, Charles is stepping into a far more complicated landscape.
Charles has been playing the diplomatic game for decades now, and what he really takes to Washington is the monarchy's greatest diplomatic asset, soft power. CNN understands he will reach out directly to the American people, showing the special relationship transcends any single occupant of the White House.
PETER WESTMACOTT, FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: The king will not be having the kind of conversation with the president or with senior senators and so on that the prime minister would, but he's extremely well-informed, and it provides an opportunity for private conversations on some really important issues.
And on top of that, there is the celebration of the relationship between the two countries, great deal of trade, of investment, a defence relationship, which is extraordinarily important, intelligence, which is cooperation, second to none.
FOSTER (voice-over): The king knows that the greatest rupture between the U.S. and U.K. happened 250 years ago, when America walked away from British rule. Now he'll be determined to show the world, by making sure he meets a cross-section of American society, that the relationship goes far deeper than the current dip in government relations.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: So in a few hours, we should see the King and Queen landing. They'll be welcomed at an airport by the British delegation, then head straight to the White House for an informal welcome by the President and First Lady. We should get some pictures of that.
Then they head here to meet Americans and Brits. But I think the big day will be tomorrow, where you'll have the formal welcome ceremony and the state banquet and that address to Congress, Pam and Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Max Foster, good to have you here in Washington. Thank you very, very much.
I want to continue this conversation right now. Joining us here in the Situation Room, CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe. He's the former deputy director of the FBI. Andy, thanks very much for coming in. Would you expect that there have been some major security adjustments in this visit by the King and the Queen, given what happened here in Washington Saturday night?
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYS: No question. No question. You know, law enforcement and security is not a business where profit and loss tells you how you performed at the end of the day or at the end of the year. The only way for us to improve is to constantly look back in the immediate aftermath of major operations or major incidents.
You have to look back honestly and fully at, you know, question all of your plans, question your assumptions, always be prepared to kind of make adjustments on the fly. So I'm sure they're going through that process right now.
BLITZER: A few minutes ago, I don't know if you heard, we were speaking to a woman who had left the ballroom, went up one small flight of stairs to the corridor when the suspect, the shooter, actually approached her. He was running, but he fell to the ground. They somehow fell. Maybe he tripped, whatever.
The shotgun that he had and was firing these loud bangs. I was not very far away. I was right there as well. It was so scary. This was after he ran past a security checkpoint. Was there any element of luck that this attack was not so much worse? It could have been a lot worse if he had run down those stairs and gotten into the ballroom. There were about 2,000 people, including the top leadership of the U.S. government.
MCCABE: There's a lot of elements that brought ultimately a good resolution to that crisis. The performance of the Secret Service folks and the other law enforcement folks on site in reacting in the moment was flawless. But yes, was luck involved? No question. I was a bit surprised to hear the deputy attorney general describe yesterday in an interview here at CNN as a barely breached the perimeter at all.
Well, any breach of a perimeter is a very serious thing. He's clearly a very determined offender. He's somebody who had planned out exactly what he was going to do. And so sure, you know, we got lucky that this person didn't get any further into that safety zone and certainly didn't get any closer to the ballroom.
BLITZER: The day before the whole thing, he checked into the hotel with his suitcase, which had guns and knives and bullets. So he was already in the hotel.
BROWN: He was in the hotel. And before we reached the magnetometers, we were at pre-dinner parties and so forth, where presumably some of the notable guests like the cabinet members and others may have been, you know, milling around. And there was no other than -- it was hard to get into the hotel, but once you were there before you reached the magnetometers, it was sort of a free for all. And so I think that raises a lot of questions.
[11:25:04]
And then also going back to the woman that we just interviewed, as Wolf noted, he -- she says he fell at her feet. He wasn't tackled. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said yesterday that he was immediately subdued. What does that tell you?
MCCABE: You know, subdued clearly implies that he was taken to the ground by someone else, security forces, somebody else there. You now have a witness that contradicts that version of events. To be fair, it can be very hard in the aftermath of a rapidly developing situation for, you know, getting perfectly clear information, particularly to somebody like the deputy attorney general. So he may simply have been mistaken.
But what appeared to me to be a highly credible, formerly trained, former military officer who was standing within inches of this offender sees him go to the ground. I would put a lot of credibility into her version of events.
BLITZER: Me, too. Looked like he tripped.
BROWN: Yes.
BLITZER: I was standing a few feet away, too.
BROWN: Right. You were you were right there, unfortunately for you. I mean, thank God you're OK, Wolf. I was so worried about you. And then, you know, those of us that were in the ballroom, we sort of felt like city ducks. You know, no one came out to say all clear. It was just sort of the look of shock on everyone's faces, right?
What do you make of that? Because you had Representative McCaul on earlier say that that strategically was not a very safe approach to keep us there in case there was follow on attacks or other people involved.
MCCABE: Absolutely. So there are a lot of elements to that. And let's remember that the kind of primary driver of security for that space was the Secret Service. And they are there for the protection of the President and the Vice President and their other protectees. I expect that they were probably, I don't want to say keeping the crowd in the ballroom, but with but releasing the crowd in that moment would have further complicated their efforts to get the President out of and away from the building. So that may have been one of the factors that they were considering.
However, I did think even just watching the events unfold, as everyone else did on television, there was really kind of a lack of organized communication to those folks in the building. Even if you had been told, you know, the threat has been mitigated. Please stay where you are until we clear you to leave something like that.
That sort of guidance can be very effective and to kind of calm down folks who are caught up. No one really sort of knew what was going on. And I keep thinking about the fact that we had Secret Service and other law enforcement there. And, you know, unfortunately, mass shootings have become somewhat of the norm in America. And most people involved in mass shootings, little school kids or people at a movie theater don't have that kind of protection.
BLITZER: They don't have Secret Service.
BROWN: They don't have a Secret Service agent jumping on you to protect you like you had, Wolf.
BLITZER: Yes. One of my first thoughts when I was hearing the gunshots going off in that little corridor upstairs from the ballroom where I happened to have been, by coincidence, was, God forbid, could there have been a bomb placed inside that could have killed a lot of people.
MCCABE: Absolutely. I mean, that's I think that -- I've several people I've talked to since Saturday night who were there have said that that they thought there might have been some sort of device in the room. And, you know, we've all seen this many times. Certainly we have reported on these things many times in the last few years, the mass shootings, political violence, which by any account seems to be on the rise in this country. You can't help but worry about the absolute worst case scenario. So it's very troubling. BLITZER: That's what I was worried about.
BROWN: For sure. Definitely catastrophizing. All right. Andy McCabe, thank you so much for bringing your insight to us.
[11:28:46]
BLITZER: And up next, the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon now facing very intense pressure. Israel and Hezbollah are still trading attacks despite the U.S. broker truce. CNN's Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond, just back from the region. He's now here in Washington. He'll join us in The Situation Room right after the break.
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