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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
4/26/26: WHAT WE KNOW: WHCD Shooter NAMED, Security FAILURE
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News Reporter
Hello everybody. It is Sunday morning. Just going to come here to give you a little bit of a roundup of everything we know about that shooting that happened last night at the White House. Correspond dinner, lots of details. We've chosen to take a little bit of time so we can provide you a fulsome picture. And of course we're going to have more details for everybody tomorrow. Let's go ahead and start here with the video of what happened. This is by far I think the most close up video that we can all see. That was taken by a Getty photographer. So I'm going to go ahead and play a little bit of this and I know that some of the imaging here is a little bit chaotic. There we go. This is the video of the Vice President and the President being escorted it from the stage of the White House correspondence dinner. Let's take a watch. So that was the video. I'm sure many of you have seen many other angles There was the one that was taken, you know, from the head on shot, but I saw that, that one. You could both see the President who appears to have either stumbled or gone down on the floor. He was picked up and then taken across. The woman crawling behind him is Weijia Zhang. She's the President of the White House Correspondence Dinner. And then the first lady was in front of the President. The Vice President was ushered off of a different side of the stage in the background and appears to have been taken off first. So was the video, I'm sure. Again, there's so many different video angles. Cabinet officials, RFK Jr. Almost the entire Cabinet was there a full spectrum of the line of succession. From the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, almost the entire Cabinet was present and in attendance. Senior administration officials, the Vice President and the President all sharing the stage. And I think that's what sets the stage for what a shocking incident that this all is. Speaking personally, I've probably spent days of my life in Secret Service lines like trying to get into conventions, the dnc, many others. And so to see a shooting that's able to take place at an event with the President of the United States, in addition to a significant amount of the Cabinet, I think some Supreme Court Justices were there, members of the House of Representatives, in addition to the speaker of the House who is third in line for succession. I mean it's, it's genuinely shocking. And so again, just to stick to all of the things that we do know, we do have this video which was shared late last night by the President. This is the video surveillance photo of the President shared, which appears to show the gunman. And I will give you some details on him here in a little bit, actually charging the Secret Service cord. Obviously the video is very grainy, but we can take a look here. It looks like this is a Secret Service perimeter and you're about to see him come running through. So you can see him, he's sprinting through with a gun. And immediately these Secret Service agents spring into action. Now, a little bit of what we do know here is that the gunman appears to have popped some shots off with a makeshift shotgun. The shotgun did appear to hit a Secret Service agent in a bulletproof vest. He's been transported to the hospital and is fine. That's all what we know so far in terms of the weapon that was used actually in the course of the shooting. Now, witnesses describe some five to six different shots. It appears that some of those shots were initially fired by the gunman. Then Secret Service firing at Him. However, it is important to say and I think this will get a little bit later on here in a little bit about what exactly happened is that the suspect appears to have been taken in custody. This is a photo which was shared again by the President late last night. Is down on the ground in the lobby of the Washington Hilton. He does appear to be unharmed. So even though multiple shots were fired at him, it doesn't look like he was hit. And Wolf, Wolf Blitzer, the CNN anchor was actually in the lobby while all of this was going down. He said he didn't see any blood. Now, we haven't seen a full release or anything of his condition, but just wanted to share all of that with you. So that's what we know here about the initial details with the president runoff. We know that there were a couple shots fired in the Washington Hilton. And of course Washington Hilton is not only where the White House correspondence dinner is held every single year. It is also the site of President Reagan, President Reagan's attempted assassination attempt. Again, part of which make this so surreal and shocking is to the and you know, let me just take a little bit of time here. If you ever attended dnc, the RNC Trump rally or you know, anything, especially where there's going to be multiple VIPs, there are levels of security. So what we know about this event is that there were these metal detectors that are in that you need to pass through to get into the ballroom. But the security perimeter actually did not shut down the entire Washington Hilton. Which explains things because one of the things that we're learning about this gunman is that he apparently had made a reservation at this hotel in, in April. Right. So he made this hotel reservation in April. I can go ahead and share that right here. This is from Katherine Fders. Law enforcement officials said he is believed to have booked a room in the Hilton in early April. Declining to answer questions right now but allegedly made some reference to targeting administration officials was not specific. Okay. So he made this reservation in April and It appears the D.C. police telling us late last night that actually he was a guest at the hotel and had checked in earlier and appears to have brought some of his the weapons in in luggage. Now again, this is very, very shocking. I mean again to be DNC or an RNC or any event, even private events actually that the president or the vice president will enter. You have to go through multiple levels of security just to get near the building. I'm talking about if you're on your person, you'll, you know, you have to pass through the metal detectors. You may or may not, you know, X ray machines, for example, luggage, anything that you're trying to bring in and out of this type of building. None of that appeared to have been the case this time around. Now, the President did give a. Some remarks last night, so. And again, just to give everybody what part of what made this all sort of surreal was this shooting happens. The president, the vice president, the entire cabinet is rushed off. So then an announcement comes on and they say that the programming is going to resume. The President actually puts out a truth social post, it appears from some sort of holding room in the very same building where he is saying, I want the show to go on, but I'm going to defer to law enforcement officials. Eventually the Secret Service is just like, we have to cancel this entire thing. The President has to leave. So he leaves. He actually goes back to the White House, calls a press conference at some 10:30pm Eastern time. Many of the reporters you will see are in their, you know, regalia because they ran from the Washington Hilton back to the White House. I'm trying to think. I've. I've done that a couple of times. It's not. It's not that close. Maybe a mile and a half, like two miles, something. So anyway, so many of them were sweaty and some of them apparently took scooters. So here's some of the remarks. I'm going to play a little bit of them just so you can get a sense of what the initial statement from the President was.
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President
This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press. And in a certain way it did, because the fact that they just unified. I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was in one way very beautiful, a very beautiful thing to see. A man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons, and he was taken down by some very brave members of Secret Service. And they acted very quickly. And have just released, for purposes of transparency, clarity, I've ordered it to be put out. You probably have it by now. Put out on Truth and put out on many of the platforms a tape showing the violence of this thug that attacked our Constitution and also showing how quickly Secret Service and law enforcement acted on our country's behalf.
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News Reporter
Okay, so that was the initial statement. It was really, you know, not much, not too many questions, but basically detailing what happened. Kash Patel also was in attendance. He was rushed out. You can read some of the details of how all that went down, which perhaps, you know, we'll definitely have a lot more to say, but tomorrow I'm just trying to do a general news roundup now. Now, in terms of the suspect, some of the things that we know now so far, I'm going to go ahead and share this from the Wall Street Journal. The suspect's name is Cole Allen, who is now in custody after an attack outside of the White House correspondence dinner. He is a graduate of Caltech University. He was a teacher of the month and he has been named as the Washington shooting suspect. 31 years old, he was from Torrance, California. So what we know, as you can all see here, is that he was armed with a shotgun, handgun and KN and was a guest at the Washington Hilton where the dinner was taking place. They have not yet shared a motive as they said that Trump has called the shooter, quote, a lone wolf and a whack job. Allen graduated from Caltech, one of the most academically rigorous schools in America, in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Appears to have been an intern or a fellow, I think, at JPL with NASA. So very, very bright individual. He was registered with no party preference. Donated 25 to Act Blue in 2024 with a memo quote earmarked for Har for President. He worked as a teacher at C2 Education, a private tutoring and test prep company where he was named the Teacher of the Month in December of 2024. And he also pursued a master's degree in computer science from Cal State University. Posted a photo of himself in a cap and gown Last year on LinkedIn writing pretty sure my master's in CS is done. Lives in Torrance, 15 miles from Los Angeles in a middle class neighborhood primarily composed of single level ranch homes. A blue scooter was parked on his lawn and a neighbor said he had seen Al riding it around the neighborhood. So obviously big questions here. How did he even get from Torrance, California to the White House Correspondent's Dinner? We do know a little bit about that from the initial statement here which was released by the deputy attorney or I guess the acting attorney general now, Todd Blanch. He said in an interview this morning that the suspect, Cole Allen, traveled from LA to DC via train and passed through Chicago on the way. And so obviously a very, very long way of getting across likely, you know, per transporting weapons, the handgun, the shotgun and the knives that he had in his in in his luggage which he used and checked in the hotel. But obviously premeditated attack if you're booking a hotel long and before. We don't really know a lot about him. And he is not really cooperating with authorities. They're telling people that he was targeting, quote, administration officials. So obviously, huge question marks surrounding still this entire incident. I think the big story outside of, you know, not just the official details. And let me just, of course, say I'm just choosing to do an ENT news roundup for many of you who still have bigger questions about the assassination, don't. Or, sorry, the assassination attempt we will. Or perhaps even just a shooting. I shouldn't even necessarily say that we don't know any of that yet. We will do more of a deep dive tomorrow. You know, the team and I were all researching all of this, but I'm just sticking with what we know and what the official story is now so far from the government. So I just want to make that very, very clear. Here is a weird and frankly bizarre comment from the. From the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanch, who said that the gunman was able to fire five to eight shots when he charged through a security checkpoint outside the dinner. And she asked, was this a massive security failure? And he says, to the contrary, it was a massive security success story. Let's take a listen.
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News Reporter
least five to eight shots when he charged through a security checkpoint outside the dinner. Was this a massive security failure?
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Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch
Oh, 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. 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. 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 association.
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News Reporter
Okay, so you can see there that the deputy attorney general is calling this a massive, secure security success story. I can just say, as an independent person, I. I don't think that that is in any way true. So the Washington Hilton, As I said, I've been to that hotel many times. I used to live right next to it. And that Washington Hilton, apparently so there's the ballroom, which is inside of the hotel, but the rest of the hotel was not locked down, not just for guests. And obviously he was a guest at the hotel. And the security. No, there was no X ray luggage. I have attended events in as a reporter where I had a suitcase or something like that. Let's say I had to bring it to an event that had to be passed through an X ray machine. And I'm talking about hours before any sort of VIP were even going to get there. So that's what kind of makes this a little weird. Right. So there was no standard security protocol. So there's that number two is again, for anybody who's attended some of these events. It's. The entire building is usually locked down. You're not. You can't even go in and out. We also have a lot of testimony from guests who were shocked at the lack of security at the event. I'm not going to play all of this, but this was Simone Sander Sanders, who's recounting how poor the security was at the White House Correspondent Center. She says, I actually showed up to the Hilton Shortly after 8pm I took a scooter right up to the front of the driveway. Crazy. Again, there's usually barricades, multiple different checkpoints at this bit matters because, you know, because there's a lot of protesters outside a lot of those barricades before you actually enter into the driveway. This year, there were no protesters. I came to find out people were milling about in the lobby when I got off the scooter and into the front of the barricade. Usually you have to show ID and a ticket. The folks, the security at the gate who are not agents, they were identified as Secret Service. They were not identified as Secret Service agents. They did not ask me to show id. They did not ask me to show a ticket. They said, oh, you're good. I'm sure you're going to your room. She said she wasn't even saying there. As I entered into the driveway, I saw the vehicle. The beast was driving around in a circle of the Hilton driveway, people walking around near it, taking photos. Again, you're not like, I, I'm not just a layman. I cover the White House. I've been in the motorcade. I've attended dozens of these events. As a professional, I'm telling you, like, this is not normal. When I entered into the Hilton, I asked Secret Service agents, which I saw, they were identified as Secret Service agents, which way the ballroom was. They said they didn't Know, when I finally got to the elevator, no one asked me to show my id. No one asked me to show a ticket. I got all the way down to the red carpet area without ever showing a ticket to anyone in the Hilton. I'm saying it like this because this is unusual. So I went to the dnc, right, with the whole team, me and Ryan, we passed through probably four barricades before you're even allowed to get into the convention as a journalist, even with the press cornet credentials, hard press credentials which have your photo, your name, that means you've been pre cleared and all of that by Secret Service. The amount of rigmarole that you often have to go through if you're not traveling in the President's motorcade just to be able to get to this event. I mean, again, literally days of my life. The Beast. Yeah. The only time that you're generally like allowed around the Beast normally is if you're in the motorcade and then you can't get out of your vehicle and go like up to the President's. I mean, it look, you know, words barely begin to describe. And some members of Congress are also highlighting this. Here's Mike Lawler, the Congressman. He's saying while the security perimeter outside of the ballroom worked, the Secret Service and federal law enforcement acted swiftly to secure the ballroom and move the President and high level officials out of harm's way. The fact is, numerous glaring security issues. There was no photo id, no verified list of attendees, which is very common for a White House event. Not just common is, that's the standard. There were no magnetometers before the ballroom prior to the event. There were numerous receptions that someone could have easily gotten into with limited security. The building was still open to the general public. Without getting into details, I will just say there was not a good handle on how many members of this Congress were at the event and where they were in the room. There needs to be a complete, thorough after action report as to how the gunman got from his hotel room into a secure area with numerous guns. I will also note we'll go much more into detail this tomorrow. There is a reported, you know, shooting that happened a couple of weeks ago apparently near the White House, which no details that the Secret Service has been able to run down. The trail has gone completely cold. There have been numerous of these types of incidents. There's a report out there that Trump has apparently been subject to more assassination or like public assassination plots, I think, than any modern president. And to see the breakdown in the security perimeter, I Think it is very valid for all of us to ask a lot of questions about how all of this happens happen and the fact that the administration, frankly, I mean, look, I, I, I, I can only speculate but you know, them praising the Secret Service and of course we can praise the individual agents, but at an overall planning level, this is not normal. As I said here just about the Hilton Hotel, the Hilton Ballroom, about how the fact that public people were allowed in, the fact that there was apparently no scrutiny of guests, the fact, I mean I could go on forever like the, the, the beast detail there that was shared. There have been multiple guests now, not just that one person, I'm not cherry picking, who talked about the lack of security and how the fact going into the ballroom itself and not securing the entire hotel, the fact, you know, look, who, who is this guy? Caltech University, not currently cooperating, we know, took for a train from California to Washington D.C. booked a room sometime in April. That's you know, more sophisticated level of planning necessarily than some sort of opportune style moment. Maybe akin, I would say to the Vegas, the Vegas shooting that happened, I think that was in 2017, which remains, you know, totally basically unsolved in terms of like why that any of that even happened today. Still tons of questions around all of that. So everybody, you know, be, be very scrutinous I think of a lot of statements and it's not like, you know, you have good reason not to have total faith in Cash Patel, who is said to be leading the investigation. So yeah, we're going to spend a decent amount of time going through even more of what we know, don't know some of the statements made by the president, by the press secretary before any of this and all happened. But I did just to give a full rundown of everything that we know right now with also the appropriate level of skepticism, as we have seen. Look, it's a breaking situation. Things are always wrong. Don't forget that initially CNN said that the shooter was dead. Now they said he's not even hurt. You know, initially there was, oh, somebody might have been shot and yes, it was a Secret Service agent, but you know, he wasn't shot and hurt. So I guess it is technically true. But there's a lot of details like that that were very chaotic. Also the Secret Service, you know, in security details of all these cabinet officials running in and escorting these people out and then what happened, you know, in the hours after that and what exactly the detail and decision to cancel the event, what that all kind of broke down into. So there will be quite a bit, I think of talking about this now in the coming days. And last thing, just to give you a little bit of a preview of what the main takeaway from the president and some of his supporters are, here is Trump this morning. What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great military, secret service, law enforcement and for different reasons. Every president for the last 150 years years have been demanding a large, safe and secure ballroom be built on the grounds of the White House. This event would never have happened with a militarily top secret ballroom currently under construction of the White House. It cannot be built fast enough. While beautiful, it has every highest level security feature. There is a plus there are no rooms sitting on top for unsecured people to pour in as inside the gates of the most secure building in the world, White House. The ridiculous ballroom lawsuit brought by a woman walking her dog. I don't know what this is about. Who has absolutely no standing must be dropped. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with its construction, which is on budget and substantially ahead of schedule. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Trump. So that's been echoed by the president at the podium yesterday in his most recent truth social post and I believe even John Fetterman another saying now it's enough to drop the TDS to support the construction of the ballroom which appears to be I guess you know, outside of not just Secret Service take away what which is kind of what I think it should be and or questions you know about the official story is also about the ballroom. Right. So apparently, you know this is now the reason, the reason why it absolutely must and has to be built. We could talk about that at a later time. You know, don't usually want to immediately pile on with obviously which is not the most important story of this. So I hope this is helpful for kind of understanding everything that we from shooting what we know suspect Caltech grad Cole Allen currently in custody. The fact that the president, the initial statements and all that about how and what this all went down from law enforcement. Then we got to the ballroom which seems to be like a bigger thing and bigger, much bigger question to me. United States Secret Service. I don't know why I've been wasting all my time in all these lines if this continue to keep happening something like this. So that's just my own personal takeaway. It really is just, you know, can't understate enough. And I'm sure you've heard this from from every person who's quote in the know but you know, if you've ever had to been through so many dozens of these types of thing, it's crazy. It's that was my first takeaway. I could not believe the security failure just in terms of the perimeter and how it all went down. I've. I've never seen anything like it and I have been to multiple of these types of events over the years. So that's, that's what we got and we will see you all tomorrow as we said with some some bigger questions if we need to about some of the information that's coming out, the fallout and any potential investigation and new details. Thank you all very much. We'll see you later.
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