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The Situation Room

Todd Blanche Grilled on Capitol Hill; Interview With Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter; Mosque Shooting Investigation. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired May 19, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is on assignment. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

And we begin this hour with breaking news, new details emerging about the victims of the deadly shooting on Monday at San Diego's largest mosque. The security guard who was killed has been identified as Amin Abdullah. He was a father of eight and is being hailed as a hero. Two other people also lost their lives.

The two suspects, two teens, ages 17 and 18, are also dead. Police say their bodies were found in the car near the scene with apparent self- inflicted gunshot wounds. Law enforcement sources tell CNN that hate speech was written on one of the weapons used in the attack. Police are now investigating the shooting as a hate crime.

And it all unfolded while a school on the mosque grounds was full of students. Incredibly, no children or teachers were hurt. But, this morning, we're hearing about the fear from a 9-year-old little boy who hid in a closet with his classmates as shots rang out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ODAI SHANAH, 9-YEAR-OLD ISLAMIC CENTER STUDENT: I heard like a bunch of bad stuff like gunshots.

And, plus, I went out -- I went inside the closet with my whole class. We heard like 12 or like 16 gunshots. And then the SWAT team said, "Open up." Then they opened the door. And they went inside. They told us to put our hands up and form a big line. And then we saw a bunch of bad stuff, people laying down and, yes, bad stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN senior investigative correspondent Kyung Lah is on the scene for us in San Diego.

Kyung, what's the latest on the investigation? KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If I could start first

with the children involved here, because I think it's really important for everyone to understand that we are talking about the religious center for Muslims here in San Diego.

This is the largest mosque in San Diego County. And this is a school, and this isn't just any school. This is a school where kids, young kids grade three and under, would come every day.

And so what you're starting to see here at this site is people in the community laying flowers. We saw the son of the security guard you were talking about, known here to his friends and family as Brother Amin.

And I want to just take a minute to have you listen to a friend who paid homage to what that security guard did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM HAMIDEH, FRIEND OF SECURITY GUARD KILLED IN MOSQUE SHOOTING: I know that he knew he was sacrificing his life for the kids, because, if he didn't take that bullet, they would have easily walked up stairs. And then there's just innocent 8 and younger and women and people that couldn't defend themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: And there is going to be a lot of questions from people like Sam, the man you just heard from, about, why? Why did this happen?

[11:05:04]

And so the emphasis is going to be on the two young suspects. Here's what we know so far. They're aged 17 and 18, in high school. Police say that they were found dead not far from this mosque where I'm standing from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

A source tells us that one has been identified as 17-year-old Cain Clark. The San Diego police chief said that Clark's mother reported him missing with her car. She also could not find three of her weapons and that there was, when the weapons were recovered, hate speech found on one of the weapons. The mother also recovered a suicide note that had writings that are being described to as reflecting racial pride.

How did all of this unfold? Well, the mother, when she found all of this, alerted police. It was just around 9:45, 9:42 in the morning. She called the police to say her son was missing and that the guns were gone, that the car was gone.

And between 9:42 and 11:40, police were on the hunt for the two suspects using license plate readers in this area. But then, three minutes later, an active shooter was reported at the mosque. It took only four minutes for officers to then respond, to find the three victims outside the mosque.

And at about the same time, there was a shooting just a short drive away. A landscaper was shot. He was shot at by -- from the vehi -- from a moving vehicle. And then, moments later, the suspects, those two suspects, the 17-year-old and 18-year-old, were found dead in the car of those self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

The big piece that is missing -- we know the timeline of events. We don't know what the trigger was or exactly why they would take such an extreme step -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Police say there was hate speech on the guns that they discovered. Do we know what that hate speech said?

LAH: We don't know the exact nature of it, but it was concerning enough and it was general enough that what police say is, in all of the sort of threatening rhetoric and alarming rhetoric they heard, there wasn't anything targeting a specific place or an institution.

So that's about as much as we have been able to learn. We do anticipate there's going to be further updates from the local police today.

BLITZER: We will have live coverage if they come out and speak to reporters.

All right, Kyung Lah, thank you very, very much.

Kyung is on the scene.

I want to continue the conversation right now with Yechiel Leiter. He's Israel's current ambassador to the United States.

Ambassador, thanks so much for joining us.

I want to talk about what President Trump just said about the war with Iran. There's a lot of news that he just made.

But let me quickly start with the attack on this Islamic mosque in San Diego. As we just heard, it's being investigated as a hate crime. What's your reaction?

YECHIEL LEITER, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: Well, of course, I'd like to express my deepest sympathies to the Muslim community of San Diego.

This is a good example of how hate speech and hate ideas that are promulgated through social media and otherwise can bring people to actually take murderous action. I just experienced this just about a year ago, when two of my employees here in the embassy in Washington, Israel's embassy, were gunned down by somebody screaming "Free, free Palestine."

He was filled with hate and he decided to act. We have to rein this in. We have to rein this hate speech in, whether it's directed against Jews or against Muslims or Christians. This hate speech is just intolerable, and it's going to take people's lives if we don't act on it. BLITZER: And recent reports -- I'm sure you know this, Ambassador --

show that the highest number of complaints about anti-Muslim incidents has occurred since the mid-1990s occurring now.

We saw a record number of antisemitic assaults here in the United States in 2025. What do you think is the root of this rise in hate and violence against religious groups? We have seen attacks against synagogues where there were schools, now against this mosque in San Diego, a Catholic Church recently where there was a school.

Why do you think so much hate is emerging right now?

LEITER: Well, I could speak with authority about the hate directed against the Jewish community and against Israel.

Look, we have been facing 2.5 years of a modern blood libel that we committed all sorts of crimes against people that were outright lies. We just saw last week, "The New York Times," of all media outlets, release a fictitious, a fantastical story about dogs raping men, the insanity of it all.

If they think that they can release a story like this, which is the imagination of a journalist, and have it not result in people getting injured, they're making a huge mistake. They're contributing to this violence that we're seeing on the streets and this dramatic rise in antisemitism, attacks on Jewish institutions around the country.

[11:10:05]

I have decided to go on the offensive regarding these blood libels. And I have just published actually a book called "Manufacturing of a Blood Libel," which documents very specifically, just with the facts, no feelings, just with facts, about what actually transpired in Gaza to prove that there was no such thing as genocide or starvation or ethnic cleansing.

This is a big, bold lie, no different than the lie that was told in the Middle Ages about Jews putting blood in their food or poisoning wells. This kind of blood libel has to stop. Otherwise, it's going to result in blood being spilled.

BLITZER: Yes, all right.

I want to quickly turn, while I have you, Ambassador, to the war with Iran. President Trump just saying he's holding off on a plan, at least for now, to strike Iran today. He said, and he said these words: "We may have to give them another big hit."

He said he was just an hour away from ordering that so-called big hit, but at the request of leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, he's -- he was speaking at the White House -- he said he's hold off -- held off, at least from now. He said the leaders of those countries called and asked him to hold off, wanted to give some reasonable peace talks a chance to get back off the ground.

What's your reaction to what's going on right now? LEITER: We're certainly there, Wolf.

If this could be achieved through talks, then we're there. I mean, we're with the president on this. We're the junior partner, whether it's with an agreement or with kinetic activity going back into Iran. We need to have Iran not be run by ayatollahs that are proceeding to try to achieve a nuclear weapon. We need that terminated. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.

They cannot have a ballistic missile program, which threatens not only Israel, but, of course, as you just said, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, our friends in the UAE. This can't be permitted to continue.

And I can tell you as well, I mean, I'm very involved now in leading the negotiations with Lebanon. And I can tell you that the Lebanese have repeated again and again throughout these talks that, if Iran is enabled to continue funding the proxies like Hezbollah, Lebanon will never have a future.

The Middle East will never have a future if Iran remains able to fund these proxies that are destabilizing the Middle East and, of course, threatening Israel every day with destruction.

BLITZER: Well, on the issue of Lebanon -- it's a sensitive subject. I know you have been directly involved in these negotiations that have been ongoing at the State Department with the Lebanese ambassador to the United States as well.

Those talks last week resulted in a cease-fire being extended by 45 days, an official source telling CNN that Hezbollah informed the president indirectly that they are prepared for a direct cease-fire with Israel, if Israel agrees to one. In your view, is that an option? Is Israel ready to consider another direct cease-fire?

It's mostly with the Iranian-backed proxy group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

LEITER: Well, absolutely. We'd like to see a cease-fire in fact take place, not just a formal one.

But the problem is, every time that a time is announced for the beginning of a cease-fire, Hezbollah continues to fire missiles, rockets, and these horrific fiber-optic drones, attack drones, that have killed so many of our troops.

So, when Hezbollah stops firing, Israel will respond in kind. We want to see a complete peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon. There's no reason we can't be living in peace. We're actually on the same side of this equation. We both want peace with each other. The problem is, Hezbollah is standing in the way.

So, we need to operate together, together with the United States, see to it that Hezbollah is disarmed, and we embark on peaceful relations between our two countries. That's what we're all waiting for.

BLITZER: It was interesting. On the CBS program "60 Minutes" last week. Prime Minister Netanyahu

said he wants Israel to eventually to stop relying on U.S. economic military aid. His goal is to phase out U.S. military financial support to zero, he says, over the next 10 years.

I'm curious if this is a position you agree with him on, and if you feel like Israel would be able to be more self-reliant, would be able to defend itself if the United States stopped providing financial support to pay for military equipment that Israel needs?

LEITER: Well, first of all, I certainly agree with my prime minister. I represent him.

But taking a deeper dive into the question, first of all, it's very important to understand the money that the United States supports Israel with is spent here in the United States; $3.3 billion is spent here in the 50 states. It is absolutely itemized by the U.S. government where that money is spent.

So it's American companies, which comprises about a million jobs. So if aid to Israel, military aid, was to be unilaterally cut off, there would be a million American jobs that will be lost and companies that would close. So that's number one. That's why we want to do it gradually, over time.

[11:15:00]

Israel is not the same country it was 20, 30 years ago, where we had a very minimal GDP, a mid-level GDP per capita. We now have a GDP per capita that's surpassing many European countries. We're a strong country. Our economy is growing, one of the few growing economies in the world today.

And we believe that we can change the nature of our relationship from aid to full partnership. The United States wants this partnership, needs this partnership, and we need this partnership. We need to develop the next generation of defensive weapons together, particularly defensive missile systems.

So, we're going to work on changing the nature of our relationship from aid to partnership. And that's going to be to the betterment of both our countries looking into the future.

BLITZER: All right, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, thank you very much for joining us.

LEITER: Good to be with you, Wolf. Thank you.

BLITZER: And still ahead, happening now, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, facing tough questions upon Capitol Hill. We're live with all the latest developments on this fiery hearing.

And President Trump is weighing in on a House race in Kentucky. He wants Republican Congressman Thomas Massie out. Will voters deliver his wish on primary day?

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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[11:20:47]

BLITZER: Happening now, the acting attorney general of the United States, Todd Blanche, facing tough questioning testifying before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee.

He's being pressed on a number of key issues, including the nearly $1.8 billion fund for Trump allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by the Department of Justice during the previous Biden administration. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Because there's also an individual who, after being pardoned by the president, went on to molest two children.

And that person actually tried to buy the silence of these children by saying that he would pay them some of the funds that he was hoping to get from your slush fund. Can you commit to making the rule so that that person is not eligible for a payout under this fund?

TODD BLANCHE, U.S. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, you're obviously lying in your question, because there's no way that this person committed to that.

The slush fund, as you call it, which it's not, didn't exist.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: But I can commit...

VAN HOLLEN: Mr. Attorney General, don't ever do that again.

BLANCHE: Do what again?

VAN HOLLEN: I am reporting what he said. He said, on the expectation that he hoped to get some of the funds from a payout. He's been...

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: But you said from the slush fund, Senator. And that didn't exist when he said that.

VAN HOLLEN: This is the fund that the president and all of you have been telegraphing all along that you're going to use to help the president's friends.

BLANCHE: Can you point to...

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: ... telegraph I made? What telegraph did I make?

VAN HOLLEN: Mr. Attorney General, I have a last question. I have a last question for you.

BLANCHE: OK.

VAN HOLLEN: Do you know that it is a criminal offense to lie to Congress?

BLANCHE: I am very well aware of that.

VAN HOLLEN: I'm glad to hear that. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's bring in our chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid. She's been watching all of this up on Capitol Hill.

So what have we -- what else have we learned from this hearing, at least so far, Paula?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, this was, of course, Blanche's first appearance before Congress since taking over as acting attorney general. And he faced a lot of tough questions from members of both parties about this use of $2 billion in taxpayer funds for anyone who believes they have been wrongly targeted by federal investigators.

Now, Blanche conceded this is an unusual fund. And he insisted, though, that anyone, not just Trump allies, not just people investigated by the Biden Justice Department, can apply for relief.

But when he was pressed about specifics, for example, whether someone who was convicted of assaulting a police officer could get money, he really kind of dodged and weaved on that question, and also more specific questions about exactly who would qualify, how claims would be assessed.

And lawmakers really weren't buying his attempts to defer to the as- of-yet-unnamed people who oversee this fund, because he's the one who's going to select those individuals. He's the only one who will have audit authority over this fund.

Now, for the most part, Wolf, I was a little bit surprised about how overall this was a pretty civil hearing, because the last time we saw an attorney general, Pam Bondi, before lawmakers, the hearing was so combative, it gained nationwide attention and really became a meme.

And, remember, Todd Blanche is currently auditioning to become the president's permanent attorney general, and we know the boss likes his officials to take a combative stance.

I want to take a listen to an exchange, though, between Senator Murray and Todd Blanche. This was about as heated as this hearing got. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): But instead of helping Americans get by, President Trump is literally using their tax dollars to set up a slush fund to enrich his own friends.

On Monday, your department settled the president's lawsuit by setting up a fund with $1.8 billion, and you and the president will pick the handful of people who decide how that money gets doled out.

So let's be clear. What we're talking about is nothing short of the sitting president of the United States looting from the Treasury for his own gain. Do you seriously think this arrangement is appropriate, the president telling the federal government to settle a case and let him pay billions to the people that he chooses?

[11:25:02]

BLANCHE: What you just described wouldn't be appropriate. And that's absolutely not what happened. And that's not what's happening now.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: So you just set up a series of facts, most of which were not true.

MURRAY: No, they were.

BLANCHE: To say, is it -- no, it's not. I mean, I...

MURRAY: The president has set up a slush fund, however you want to say that it got set up, and he literally will get to choose, through his handpicked appointees, who gets paid that fund. That is absurd.

BLANCHE: The president did not set up this fund. It's not a slush fund. It's been done many times. We have lots of funds.

(CROSSTALK)

MURRAY: Oh, I heard your response earlier to Senator Van Hollen. This is not comparable to the case that you cited.

A judge was not involved. This is the president versus himself setting up a fund. And...

BLANCHE: The judge wasn't involved in the distribution in the Keepseagle case at all. It just wasn't....

MURRAY: Well, I...

BLANCHE: There was a single commissioner that was set up, not five. And so when I...

(CROSSTALK)

MURRAY: The judge signed off on that case.

BLANCHE: Yes, it was at a much later point in the litigation. That's right.

MURRAY: Right. That's my point. That is all of our point. And it just -- I just have to tell you, this is corruption that has never been more blatant or more widespread.

What you -- is happening is, you write the check. Trump and his cronies cash it. American taxpayers, who are already being whacked with high prices, are going to foot the bill. That's what we are seeing today. And that is what many of us are really, really angry about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: So, there the senator accusing the acting attorney general and the president of corruption with this fund.

Now, she did also misspeak about exactly who chooses the people to oversee this. It is the acting attorney general who is going to select the people who will vet these claims. One of the members will be selected in cooperation with Congress.

We also heard the lawmaker there swatting away Blanche's attempts to compare this fund to anything that has happened before. The one fund that he keeps comparing it to had to do with claims of racial discrimination connected to the Department of Agriculture.

And that also stemmed from a judge's ruling, sort of a formal move by a judge, which you really didn't have here, except for, of course, the dismissing the president's unprecedented $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.

So, a lot of scrutiny on this deal. But, again, given the outrage about this fund, I think we expected this hearing to be even more fiery. But, again, on one side, you have the acting attorney general. He needs money to run his department. And you have lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee who want to make sure money goes to their districts -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Paula Reid, reporting for us, thank you very, very much.

Up next: A line of severe weather stretching across the Midwest right now, it's heading into Oklahoma and Texas. We're tracking the threat in the CNN Weather Center.

We will be right back.

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