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State of the Union

Interview With Wolf Blitzer; Interview With Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche; Interview With Oz Pearlman; Interview With Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired April 26, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Shots fired. President Trump is safe after the Secret Service apprehended a man who fired shots outside the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We were really whisked away.

BASH: What is law enforcement learning about the suspect and what prompted the attack? Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is next.

And close call. The president rushed out amid an attack again.

TRUMP: The most impactful people, they're the ones that they go after.

BASH: The entertainer who was shoulder to shoulder with Trump during the attack, Oz Pearlman, joins me ahead.

Plus: rising tide. This attack at the same hotel where Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 is the latest in the scourge of political violence in America. What, if anything, can be done to stop it? House Judiciary Committee Democrat Jamie Raskin was at the dinner. He's coming up.

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BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is shaken.

A shocking attack last night outside a dinner headlined by President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNSHOTS)

(SHOUTING) (END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And here's what was happening a few steps away. A man charged the security line and exchanged fire with law enforcement before being apprehended.

Authorities have identified him as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, a teacher and video game developer from California who was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives. D.C. police believe he was acting alone. He will be formally charged tomorrow after a third close call for the president by an armed gunman.

Here with me now is Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was also at the dinner last night.

Thank you so much for being here.

First question is, what has law enforcement learned so far from the gunman? Have you been able to determine a motive?

TODD BLANCHE, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Good morning.

So, we executed a number of search warrants last night. FBI worked through the night, along with state and local law enforcement at both coasts in Los Angeles and here in D.C. We executed search warrants on devices, electronic devices, that we found that we believe belong to the suspect.

And we're 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 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.

We know that he traveled from Los Angeles to Chicago and then Chicago to D.C. It appears he traveled by train during both those legs of his trip and checked into the Washington Hilton a couple days ago, on the 24th, and then obviously attempted to breach the perimeter last night and was quickly subdued.

BASH: Is he talking to law enforcement or is this information that you got through other means?

BLANCHE: It's information we primarily got from other means. So we have already started talking to folks who knew him. We have already started going through the evidence that we collected.

This has -- it's been 12 hours, so this is not something that is over. It's just starting. But that's where we are this morning.

BASH: Is he talking?

BLANCHE: He -- no, I mean, he's not -- I expect he will be charged tomorrow morning in federal court with two counts in a complaint. We are not viewing him as cooperating necessarily right now, although we will see what happens going forward.

[09:05:06]

But, as of now, he is -- I expect he's a defendant and he will be charged tomorrow morning with two counts, assault of a federal officer, and using a firearm during a crime of violence, which is underlying assaults.

Whether there will be more charges when he's indicted in the coming days and weeks is left to be seen, depending on what we learned from the evidence that we're -- that we gathered last night and that we'll continue to gather over the next couple days and weeks.

BASH: So it's possible that later he could be charged with trying to assassinate the president?

BLANCHE: Oh, absolutely.

The way that these charges work, a lot of the charges that he could be charged with depends on us understanding his motive, his premeditation, what he wanted to do. And that requires us to go through the evidence and develop a case, which the FBI is working on now.

BASH: The gunman was able to fire at least five to eight shots when he charged through a security checkpoint outside the dinner. Was this a massive security failure?

BLANCHE: Oh, I -- to the contrary, 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. And so when you have a perimeter of a situation like we had last night, where you had over 2,000 people in a room, including the leaders of this country and many other dignitaries, you have a perimeter where you have law enforcement willing to risk their lives to keep people who don't belong from getting in.

This man, from what we know from video surveillance and from witnesses who were there, barely got past the perimeter. He was immediately subdued. And, yes, he got off a couple shots. Our brave Secret Service agent who took one to the chest, although he was wearing a bulletproof vest, the president talked to him last night from the Oval Office.

He was in great spirits. He was very appreciative. The president expressed his appreciation, his gratitude. And so, yes. But, no, I do not think, to the contrary, this was a security failure. This is law enforcement doing exactly what they train their whole lives to do.

BASH: Is there any indication that the alleged gunman was on law enforcement's radar at all before this?

BLANCHE: Not any indication yet. We're still investigating what we knew, if anything, about this individual. We -- it appears that he purchased the two firearms that he had on him

within the past couple of years. He had knives on him as well. But this is -- it's very preliminary. I am confident that, in the coming days, we'll know a lot more information.

BASH: The police said that they believe he was staying at the hotel, which is the Hilton here in Washington. The Secret Service typically runs through guest names and they run them through databases of known threats prior to a dinner like that -- like this.

Do you know that that happened? Or do you know if that happened, I should ask?

BLANCHE: I am overly confident that the Secret Service did their job here, not only in the work last night, but in the days coming up to the event last night.

And the -- as President Trump said last night, and he said it many times, because it's true, if there's somebody who wants to do what happened last night, and you want it and you try hard enough, there's not -- the goal is not expected to stop every single thing. It's to create a very safe and very secure environment, which is what happened last night.

And I think that it's tragic and it's sad and we're going to learn from it, but make no mistake about it, the Secret Service did their jobs last night.

BASH: Yes, I mean, we definitely can all thank and applaud law enforcement. There's no question about it.

Are you comfortable with the fact that much of the line of succession was in the ballroom at the Hilton last night?

BLANCHE: Very comfortable.

President Trump said this last night, but it's worth repeating. We are not -- this is not the kind of thing that will deter us. This is not the kind of thing that will cause us to go down in a bunker and not come out. President Trump will continue to communicate with the American people.

We are going to continue to do our jobs. And our jobs include interacting with the press, which we do, which I'm doing now, which we did last night, and so very comfortable, because what you do when you have an environment like that, when you have the leaders of the free world in one room, is, you make sure that you have security that will stop anybody from getting anywhere near any of those individuals.

And that's exactly what happened last night.

BASH: The alleged gunman apparently had a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives. Do you know if he obtained the guns legally?

BLANCHE: I -- based on preliminary -- our preliminary work, it appears he bought those guns within the past couple of years, and presumably legally.

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But we're still looking into that, and we will know more about that in the coming days.

BASH: Does President Trump still have faith in Kash Patel enough to lead this investigation?

BLANCHE: Kash Patel was with the president last night, as everybody saw. He was up. I was on the phone with him after 1:00 in the morning. His men and women and he was on site with our U.S. attorney and the prosecutors the -- until late in the evening, if not all night, at the command center.

And so this is a testament to hard work. And Director Patel did a great job last night. I spoke with him this morning already about the investigation. He's leading this investigation, as you would expect. And I feel very confident and comforted in the work that the FBI is doing.

And it's not just me. Every American should feel comfort in the work that we have already done over the past 12 hours and that we're going to be doing in the coming days.

BASH: Before I let you go, sir, do you plan to vacate convictions of members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were involved in the January 6 attack on the Capitol?

BLANCHE: So, that's ongoing litigation that -- as you know, the Supreme Court recently sent the case back to the district court judge.

I expect you will hear from us in the coming days about how we're going to proceed, that they were -- their sentences were commuted by President Trump on January 20, and we will go from there.

BASH: You're not ruling it out?

BLANCHE: Pardon me. I didn't hear that. Say it again. Sorry.

BASH: So you're not ruling it out, vacating their convictions?

BLANCHE: No, we're not ruling anything out right now. I mean, there's a lot of factors that go into a decision like that, including the fact that the president commuted their sentences.

And so where -- my job as the acting attorney general is to make sure that we do the right thing, in light of all the facts and circumstances, and that is exactly what we're going to do.

BASH: And, just again, real quick on this, as the current top law enforcement official in the federal government, you're comfortable with even the notion of vacating sentences of people who were convicted of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, convicted through the court system? BLANCHE: Well, they were convicted. That is true. But President Trump, as is his right and as is his duty under our Constitution, commuted or pardoned those individuals.

And so my job is acting as attorney general...

BASH: Right, but that's separate from vacating, as you well know.

BLANCHE: Right, but my job as attorney general is to effectuate the -- whether they were pardoned, whether they're commuted. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

This isn't about my comfort level or anything like that. It's about me doing the right thing in light of what the president has directed.

BASH: OK. And you personally think that would be the right thing to do?

BLANCHE: When you say that would be the right thing to do, I don't know what you're speaking about directly.

But, look, there's a -- on January 20, on January 20, President Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of the individuals that were convicted or had cases pending from the events of January 6. The work that the Department of Justice has done since that time is to effectuate what President Trump did, what he is allowed to do, and what he had every right to do.

And so what we're going to continue to do is make sure that we effectuate his -- his -- what he directed on January 20 of last year.

BASH: All right, Todd Blanche, thank you so much for being here. We're glad that you and everybody else in that ballroom, including and especially the president, are OK. And we look forward to hearing how the investigation moves ahead.

Thank you.

BLANCHE: Thank you. It was good to be here.

BASH: My next guest was standing shoulder to shoulder with the president when the Secret Service rushed in. Entertainer and mentalist Oz Pearlman men will be here after a quick break.

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BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

There was no one physically closer to President Trump last night during the attack than my next guest. In fact, he was supposed to perform at the dinner. This is just moments before the president was rushed off stage.

Here with me now is mentalist Oz Pearlman. Thank you so much for being here. I know you got very little sleep

last night.

OZ PEARLMAN, MENTALIST: Yes.

BASH: But I just want to talk about that moment.

You are leaning down with a card, and you -- and we're playing it right now. You're talking to, looks like the first lady. The president is right next to you. And then, clearly, things got insane. Explain.

PEARLMAN: Yes, I was performing right then for the president, the press secretary and the first lady.

It's kind of like a pivotal moment in the trick where you're just about to do the reveal of, like, wow. And we hear commotion. And in the room, when there's commotion of that sort, you tend to think -- we have been to a lot of events -- is this a medical emergency? Is somebody having a heart attack?

Because you heard a noise. It wasn't gunshots. I wasn't sure if it was a tray. We're also higher than everyone. So we have a very good vantage point versus the thousands of people in the room. And I see everyone swarming one table.

And I'm looking and trying to understand and then you see people getting down. And I personally thought, like, before I went down, I didn't hear any shots or see what looked like a shooter. I thought there was about to be a bomb. Like, I really very much thought, oh, my God, it's about to explode, because of the way that it was being approached.

It wasn't like guns out. It was like to stop someone. So my first panic when you see in the videos looking, looking, and then I go down. One person next to me, I can't remember if it was Courtney (ph), went down quicker than me. And I'm like, I got to get down. Something's about to explode.

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It was incredibly surreal. I get down. I kind of get down on all fours facing left, stage left, and then I watch. It feels like slow motion because of the way the adrenaline is. So there's Weijia. She was blown away, and she's amazed.

And then they rush across to get POTUS. And the president gets taken down by Secret Service. And we don't know what's going on. And he came down. You can look at the video, I don't know the distance, but less than a foot away from me, I will never forget the image for my whole life, because I'm on all fours, turning like this.

They bring the president down directly in front of me. And we just look at each other for about two seconds. And my mind -- obviously, this is like a huge adrenaline. It's just like, oh, no, are we about to die? I thought it was about to explode. I thought -- that was really my instinct. Then I heard what sounded

like I thought were shots. So, at that point, my mind shifted. I also wasn't sure if he was hurt, because his face was not -- it wasn't like -- he went down really hard.

The Secret Service, it's not -- I thought, in the movies, I don't know if they take you down easy. It was a tackle like it was NFL. And that would hurt anyone. I don't care what age you are. So when we were looking at each other, he was just looking, but the expression in his face didn't show whether there was pain or what was going on.

And then one Mississippi, two Mississippi, it's like, oh, it's seared in my brain. They pick him up kind of and they go out. And then we're on all fours. And I see Courtney and I see one or two of the other people that are at the dais. And we're like, are they shooting?

Like, we don't know what's going on. So I don't want to get up. So we army-crawl. She went first. And the rest of us army-crawl out, because we didn't want to stand up, because I don't want to get hit. I thought there might be somebody still shooting.

BASH: I mean, wow, I'm just taking in the story that you just told us, as I'm sure all of our viewers are.

You mentioned the president's face. And you were face-to-face with him for two very long seconds.

PEARLMAN: Yes, like, the craziest vision ever.

BASH: Yes.

PEARLMAN: It was, yes, very high. Like, you never expect that situation ever.

BASH: I mean, your job is reading people's faces. It's part of your craft.

PEARLMAN: Right. Yes.

BASH: What did you gather from that very quick reaction?

PEARLMAN: So I think they were well-trained. I got to -- you got to right away say the Secret Service did what they were supposed to do, which is, they are supposed to take charge and save lives. They sprang into action.

Obviously, I can't speak to what happened in the room, because we all took in at the same moment. When they had to, they went into action. I -- it was near impossible to read his face, because, again, I couldn't tell if he had been injured or hurt.

Just I think it was more of the way he was taken down. It's quite sudden and lightly violent. So I registered him where we weren't there for a minute. It was just boom, he's down. I was really surprised. I have never been that close to the president or, like, face-to-face in a very intimate moment. So we're, like, looking at each other. And I don't know what's going

on. But he was just -- it was just a stare and then out. But, yes, it was really shocking.

BASH: Oz, as you said that you were in the middle of doing a trick for him and for the first lady.

PEARLMAN: Yes, a trick. Well...

BASH: I mean, you could see you were holding up a card for the first lady. What were you doing?

PEARLMAN: So I was actually doing a trick for the press secretary, where she was thinking of a name. I have done this with you before on air, Dana. And I started guessing how many letters are in the name.

And right at that moment, if you see their expressions, the timing is so weird, because you see them be amazed because of the name. And they go, ah. And then right at that moment is when we all see what happened. So we were all taken in.

And you watch the moment, watch them react, you can see Weijia to the left, and the president gives a smile, because they just saw it, go, oh, my God. Then they saw what's going on in the audience. So the trick directly went into the sudden sense of tremendous danger.

BASH: What was the name that you asked her?

PEARLMAN: So I can't really say that right now. I need to get that -- that's not -- it's -- I can't tell you whose name it is or what it is yet.

BASH: OK.

PEARLMAN: I haven't really discussed that or said if it's a personal -- of a personal nature.

BASH: OK, OK. So, it was understood. Well, you will get back to us on that.

And before I let you go...

PEARLMAN: I haven't spoken to the people there yet.

BASH: Understood.

PEARLMAN: So it wasn't -- there's no real context, yes.

BASH: Yes, I totally understand.

Before I let you go, so that was -- you were on all fours. And then you went backstage. Were you then again with the president or other people? Can you just explain quickly what happened next?

PEARLMAN: No, so backstage was chaos. Like, you think that we got off and now we don't feel really danger. I don't really think anybody's going to kill us at this point.

But we heard someone's been killed. There's been shots fired. We heard that very quickly. And then we did not know if the president or first lady had been injured or hurt, because they were whisked away. There was no blood anywhere. But there are literally 50 or 60 people, assault rifles guns.

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Everyone's running through us, guns blazing. I saw the vice president at one point about five minutes later, and he looked very calm, and he actually was very assuring.

We didn't know. After that, we found out that POTUS is OK, that the first lady's OK. But that was like, again, I want to say five minutes later. It was chaos backstage. We didn't know if there was more than one shooter, just one shooter. Then we heard the shooter was killed.

Then we just -- it was -- no one really knew what had happened for an extended period, which was kind of jarring. We didn't know what to do.

BASH: Yes. Well, you said beforehand it would be a night to remember.

PEARLMAN: I unfortunately said that the clip with me and President Trump will be seen five years, 10 years and 20 years from now, and it was spot on, but for all the wrong reasons.

BASH: Well, thank goodness you and everybody else are OK and the preliminary reports that you were getting backstage that somebody was dead was not true. And that's also a very, very good thing.

PEARLMAN: Thankfully.

BASH: Yes, thankfully.

PEARLMAN: Thankfully.

BASH: Oz, thank you so much. You are remarkable to come on and recount what was going on in places that we could not see, but we all saw some of that video. And it's just remarkable.

Thank you, Oz.

PEARLMAN: Well, thank you for having me. I'm glad everyone's OK.

BASH: And my next guest was thrown to the ground last night for safety. He was comforting a frightened woman next to him.

Congressman Jamie Raskin joins me on that and rising political violence next.

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BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. There were many different types of fears during the terrifying attack

last night. Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Bobby Kennedy who was assassinated in a hotel ballroom in 1968, was there and wrote this: "A loud bang of gunshots, then: 'Get down, get down, get down.' I hit the floor at the White House Correspondents' Dinner mid-conversation with Jamie Raskin, who heroically protected me, whispering: 'You're OK, you're OK, you're OK.'

"Then the doors burst open and scores of Secret Service agents rushed into the room, many with hands on holsters."

Well, here with me now is Jamie Raskin, who is a member of Congress from Maryland and top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Wow. What a story. Tell me what happened.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, I had just come in the room a few minutes before.

Unlike most of the people there, I was not dressed in black tie. I'd been at a memorial service for Virginia Roberts Giuffre. It was one year since her passing. And I came from that in another event in Annapolis at the home of Iris Crasnell (ph).

And I arrived, and I had just been there for a few moments. I had not even gotten to the table where I was going to be. I had a table of 36 with the people from NBC. That people at "The Boston Globe" table saw me, got up. They wanted to greet me and say hello.

And they said: "Your old friend Kerry Kennedy is here." We go back to law school in the 20th century, you know?

(LAUGHTER)

RASKIN: And so Kerry came over. We were talking. There was -- also to my right was a former student of mine, Paul Strauss, who's the statehood senator of Washington, D.C.

When they came up, I started telling Kerry a story because I'd been speaking at the Kennedys-King Dinner the night before. And I was talking about how they weren't honoring all kings, just Dr. King, and they weren't honoring all Kennedys, but JFK and RFK, but also Kerry.

But anyway, and, suddenly, there's loud booms, crashing sounds, plates, silverware, everything flying all over the place. And people started yelling: "Get down, get down."

Somebody kind of grabbed me and pushed me from behind. I landed on Kerry and a couple other people, and then people were panicked. And I thought immediately about Kerry's situation, having lost her father in gun violence assassination and her uncle. And we were down on the ground for about two or three minutes before people were saying it's safe to get back up.

They got him. We got up. And the first thing that Kerry said to me was: "This is happening in schools across the country, and the kids have no resources to process their trauma."

And so she was talking about gun violence and thinking about other people. And she's a great human rights activist. And nobody wants to be in a situation like that. But I was glad to have been with her.

BASH: Yes, I mean, it's the first thing that you thought of. You thought about the trauma, obviously, that she had when she was a baby...

RASKIN: Yes.

BASH: ... or she certainly has known about, because it's not only American history. It's obviously how she lost her father.

RASKIN: Family history.

But we have not dealt with the problem. And we're losing thousands of people a year to gun violence. There are 100 people shot every day. So, yesterday, while that nightmare was going on at the White House Correspondents' ball, dozens of people had been shot across the country.

And we just accept that as the normal course of business. So I think, before we get back to all the political divisions and fighting about stuff, maybe this could be a moment of unity for trying to focus on the things that the vast majority of the American people want, like a universal violent criminal background check.

BASH: Right.

I mean, obviously, there are lots of different aspects to this. One is a question of a gun. And Todd Blanche told me that they believe that he purchased -- the alleged shooter purchased the guns legally within the last year. So there's that.

[09:35:02]

And then there's the political rhetoric that we have seen just get -- just become kind of off the rails and how that has perhaps gone hand in hand with the political violence that we have seen in this fight.

RASKIN: Well, that's why I was so happy that President Trump went to that, because he had called the press the enemy of the people. There have been so many attacks on reporters.

You know, there have been lawsuits brought against media entities. And so there's been this terrible assault on the First Amendment and freedom of press and speech. So I thought last night would be a wonderful opportunity to try to reclaim the basic values of the country.

BASH: Yes. And you have, and as many of your fellow Democrats have used some heated rhetoric against the president. And do you think twice about that when something like this happens?

RASKIN: What rhetoric do you have in mind? I... BASH: Well, just talking about some of the fact that he is terrible for this country and so on and so forth. I understand that that's your democratic right.

But, overall...

RASKIN: Right.

BASH: ... do you have a responsibility?

RASKIN: I have no personal problem with Donald Trump at all. I mean, I talk about the policies of this administration, the authoritarianism, like we saw on display in Minneapolis, where two of our citizens were gunned down in the streets simply for exercising their First Amendment rights, Renee Good, Alex Pretti.

And others have died in custody. I'm talking about policies. I don't personalize it. And I certainly have never called the press the enemy of the people. I think the press are the people's best friend, and that's why it's written right there into the First Amendment.

We need the press to be a vigilant watchdog against every level of government, federal, state, local, all of it.

BASH: You're not going to get an argument from me on that.

RASKIN: Yes.

BASH: Before I let you go, do you have faith in Todd Blanche and Kash Patel to carry out this investigation? You are the top Democrat on the juice list.

RASKIN: Well, I mean, I don't know anything about the investigation so far. I don't know that it exists yet. I'm happy to talk about other things.

Obviously, we have had problems with Kash Patel on the Epstein files, where we believe that they're in the middle of a huge cover-up. There's a federal law mandating the disclosure to the public of every document in the file, and they have withheld half of them. So, three million of them have been held back. Three million were released.

And thousands and thousands of pages are completely blacked out. And there's been, of course, the abuse of public resources for personal purposes, for travel with buddies, shepherding the girlfriend around.

And then when a "New York Times" reporter wrote an article about that, Kash Patel then launched an investigation or started searching the FBI databases about the reporter.

Again, that crosses a line that I think should be impermissible in terms of a First Amendment-respectful society. So we have got a lot of problems there. Again, I hope that this investigation is done with complete openness and transparency and integrity. And I certainly will give them the benefit of the doubt. But we have other issues with those guys. BASH: Yes.

Well, Congressman, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here. Glad you're OK, and everybody else at that dinner.

RASKIN: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: So, what does this mean for President Trump moving forward? I will ask a man who's close to the president and a few top former White House advisers. One will join my panel next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:58]

BASH: And we are back with our political panel.

David Urban, you were pretty close to the front near the dais.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I got to say, Dana, I have been through some stressful situations in my life, right?

I did first Gulf War. I was here in 1998, you may remember, when the gunman rush passed the Capitol Police officer, killing Officer Chestnut in a very similar kind of situation, anthrax, 9/11.

Last night was very stressful, I will say, in that you heard the shooting going on and you didn't really know what was happening. I heard a couple of pops. I looked up and kind of a wave of a crowd kind of went down. Cabinet secretaries were kind of around me, so Secretary Hegseth and Secretary of DHS Markwayne Mullin behind me and Sean Duffy and others, senior members of the Cabinet, Dan Scavino and...

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Did you see them all get whisked away?

URBAN: Well, the Cabinet secretaries immediately kind of got whisked away, right? And, interestingly, I was just sharing with Kate Sean Duffy's wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, was kind of left standing there, right?

And people were climbing over chairs. And so they got whisked away very quickly. Everybody kind of went under my table. I pushed some people under the table. When I saw that the president -- they had the counterassault team, which is the gentlemen with the battle rattle, long weapons up on the stage.

BASH: Yes. Yes.

URBAN: When I saw those folks, I was a little bit more relaxed, because no one was getting through those doors.

But my immediate concern, like Oz was saying to you earlier, I thought there could have been a device in the room. That was a big concern of mine, that something was going to explode and that we were going to be left very, very in peril there. But there was a lot of chaos, a lot of moving around.

I will say this. Secret Service did an incredible job of protecting everybody. Credit to them. Credit to Markwayne Mullin and the folks at DHS. I heard Scott say that we need to fund these folks. They're not getting paid right now, kind of thing. And they were heroes last night. They did a great job protecting everybody in that room.

I thought the president's speech last night was right on point, bringing everybody -- everyone was very united in that room. And the press, the president, and administration all went through something very traumatic. And I think hopefully it will bring people together.

[09:45:08]

We might have a better day today and tomorrow because of it. So...

BASH: Kate.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It is always -- in these scary moments, which are unfortunately so frequent in this country, you do -- the one sort of positive that you take away from it are these stories of people helping each other, a moment of unity, people sort of under pressure and under fear and potentially fear for their own lives coming together to protect each other.

As you said, the administration officials get whisked out by the Secret Service. Many, many people, including their family members, are left behind in chaos, trying to understand what happened. So I think the thing is, as we were out last night talking to people who had been in the room, that was the thing that really struck me.

There was just an enormous amount of care and attention paid. And that's the one positive that you can take away from something like this, which happens all too frequently across this country.

BASH: And, Xochitl, you worked at DOJ for several years under the Biden administration.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

And I think that, as you're looking at the investigation, obviously, the fact that the shooter is alive is significant, because not only are they looking at his home, but they have him detained. And they're going to try to talk to him and they're going to try to figure out motive, whether or not there is an imminent threat to anybody else, whether he had planned any other attack, and whether he worked with anyone else.

At this point, it sounds like the investigation, and according to what Todd Blanche said, they don't believe that he worked with anyone else, but it's still a preliminary investigation. Last night, I think the biggest question that was happening around the dinner is whether the dinner was going to proceed.

And that's what a lot of folks were talking. The president wanted to proceed, because, of course, I think he wanted to address the press and everybody in the room. But from a law enforcement national security perspective, if you are Secret Service and the FBI, you have no idea whether someone in that room has some sort of weapon, whether people who entered the coat check, whether they had a weapon, whether there was a bomb.

BASH: Right.

HINOJOSA: And so from a national security perspective, they had to evacuate that room as soon as possible.

Moving forward, the charges that are coming Monday will likely be significant for the reason that it's an attempted assassination, not only on the president, but on the staff. And so I think that you will see the fullest extent of law come this guy's way.

He can be prosecuted. I wouldn't be surprised if they seek life in prison. And so we will see what happens there.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I have been in this room, on the air live twice now when somebody tried to come in and kill the president. I mean, it's pretty obvious that's what this guy wanted to do, cause maximum damage with the president in the room.

I worry about him every day. And I worry about these events, I mean, all those people. I mean, think about it. The president, vice president, most of the line of succession was in the same room and somebody was able to get that close. It's scary, frankly.

I will be honest with you. Conservatives feel under attack. I mean, we have had Charlie. We have had two, three assassination attempts on the president. I'm hearing a lot of that this morning. I thought the president was amazing last night.

The guy is unflappable. He goes to the White House podium and struck the exact right tone. His rapport with Weijia Jiang, the head of the White House Correspondents' Association, was excellent. I think they had all gone through something together. And the way he handled it, was right on, in my opinion.

Final issue for me, law enforcement. These guys are heroes. The guy who took a bullet is a Secret Service agent. He's going to be OK. We're not paying these guys. It's outrageous, 70 days, the Department of Homeland Security, with the Secret Service tucked under there, unfunded. It's outrageous.

And the people who've got it shut down right now to think long and hard about that night last night and what that means to a cop who has to show up and take a bullet. Every American ought to be outraged by it.

(CROSSTALK)

BEDINGFIELD: And I would just say the Senate Republicans have put forward a bill that will fund DHS, and House Republicans could come to the table and get that bill passed and funded. So...

JENNINGS: With all due respect, we know why it's closed. We know why the department...

(CROSSTALK)

URBAN: I would just say something about the president again last night. So we were in the room.

The president wanted to come back out.

BASH: Yes. Yes.

URBAN: He wanted to come back out. He did not want to leave. He wanted to come back out and show strong a face. Service obviously didn't let him out for all the reasons that everyone knows.

BASH: Yes.

URBAN: But, to Scott's point about being unflappable, this man has now been...

JENNINGS: Yes.

BASH: Yes.

URBAN: People come at him over and over again, and he still wants to come back out and show America that he's going to fight for them.

BASH: We have to end this conversation here. We're going to come back at 11:00 a.m. Eastern in a couple of hours. We're going to have a lot more to talk about.

But our own Wolf Blitzer is here. And he saw the exchange of fire, was thrown to the ground last night by law enforcement. Wolf is going to be here next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:54:25]

BASH: We're learning more about what happened in the chaos of last night. And that is in large part because of our own Wolf Blitzer. He saw the confrontation between the suspect and law enforcement.

And he is here now in the studio.

Wolf, first of all, you are an international treasure.

(LAUGHTER)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Thank you.

BASH: So, thank goodness you are OK.

What did you witness and what happened?

BLITZER: It was really, really scary. And I have been in war situations, and I have had Scud missiles flying over me. But this was -- I was so close to this shooter. I was in the ballroom with 2,000 others, journalists, members of Congress, members of the Cabinet. The president was up there.

[09:55:02]

But after the first course, which was a good salad, I had to go to the men's room. So I walked out. You walk out the back door, as you know, of this huge ballroom. You walk up one flight of stairs, and you go to the men's room.

As I'm leaving the men's room to come back to the ballroom, all of a sudden, to my left, I hear gunshots, boom, boom, really loud. I mean, it was so loud. It was awful. I was only a few feet away, maybe three, four or five feet away from the gunman.

And I see a guy on the ground shooting. And the next thing I know is a police officer saying: "Get down, get down, get down." He's saying that to me. And then he jumps on top of me and -- to protect me. He's on top of me, as if there could be an air and bullet or something flying around.

And he saved me, basically. I don't know if anything would have happened.

BASH: Yes.

BLITZER: I have no idea who this shooter was aiming at. But I saw the weapons. I heard the guns.

The next thing I knew, this police officer takes me and a bunch of others who had just happened to be there at the time into the men's room, which was a secure area, to protect us. We go in there for about 15 minutes, won't let us out.

And then we come back. And, basically, the whole thing is over by then.

BASH: Yes.

BLITZER: So, it was just a scary, scary moment.

BASH: Yes, and just as we saw in that video, and we can play it again -- this was released by the president of the surveillance video of that moment.

This was -- this is the area that, as you said, is a floor up from the ballroom, and it was one of the checkpoints. It is where the restroom is. But, as you can see, there aren't a lot of people there, because they're all in the ballroom. But that is where it is packed usually going into the ballroom.

And the fact that there weren't more people like you who were standing there is...

BLITZER: Just a coincidence that I was there.

But -- and you know this area. I have been to about 30 White House Correspondents' Association Dinners...

BASH: Yes.

BLITZER: ... over these 30-plus years for CNN.

But you go through the metal detectors, not when you come in and you go to the red carpet or whatever in the main lobby. When you go down towards the ballroom, one level above the ballroom is the -- are the metal detectors.

And I had gone through the metal detectors, obviously. This guy who was shooting was on the safe side of the metal detectors. I don't know if he went through the metal detectors or he had been there hours earlier with his guns preparing for this. I have no idea.

But I'm sure the police and the FBI will find out fairly soon what was going on. I know he was a registered guest at the hotel.

BASH: Right.

BLITZER: He had a lot of guns, a lot of bullets, a lot of knives too, which, presumably, when he checked into the hotel, he took it all up to his room. I'm just assuming that.

BASH: Yes. Yes.

BLITZER: But it was just a very, very frightening moment.

BASH: Well, Wolf, I -- as I said, thank goodness you are OK.

BLITZER: Yes, I'm fine.

BASH: And even from being tackled, you're OK?

BLITZER: He threw me to the ground.

BASH: Yes. Yes.

BLITZER: It reminded me when I was a linebacker at Kenmore West Senior High School in Buffalo, New York, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: Thank goodness for those days.

BLITZER: I know.

BASH: You had that training.

Wolf, you're the best.

BLITZER: Thank you.

BASH: Thank you for coming in.

And we will see you back here at 1:00...

BLITZER: Yes.

BASH: ... in a few hours, because you're going to be anchoring our coverage this afternoon.

And thank you for spending your Sunday morning with us. Fareed Zakaria picks it up next.