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It's Monday, April 27, 2026. I'm Albert Moeller and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. History often records how close we have come to disaster. And that's exactly what happened on Saturday night. The scene at the Washington Hilton looked more like a motion picture, but it wasn't. It wasn't a motion picture. It was reality. And the reality was that someone intending to assassina federal officials, including probably the President of the United States, he forced his way running 60ft past a security barrier. That was all that was set in place basically to stop him from going into the dining room where there were large numbers of journalists and of course political leaders gathered in one place for the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner, often referred to as the Washington White House Press Dinner. And that's exactly what the affair was. And the press were all over the place. Very interesting development, by the way, in terms of how the press responds to covering a story in which they themselves have become a part of the story, certainly witnesses to the story. The big story leapt into the American attention nationwide because of the fact that this was being streamed live. This was a live broadcast and Americans were seeing unfolding basically in real time. Millions of course, saw it just a matter of moments later. They saw the President and the Vice President of the United States basically forced onto the ground and then taken out of the building. They saw Secret Service and other major security, Federal security personnel enter with guns pointed and clearly at maximum security deployment. And that's exactly what was called for on Saturday night. This man had entered into the convention center with where this vast banquet was being held there at the Washington Hilton. And you hear the echoes of history here because it was just outside this very same hotel, just after speaking at another event that President Ronald Reagan was shot. His would be assassin tried to kill him just as he was getting into his car leaving that hotel. I'll just say at this point I think it is rather doubtful that this kind of event is ever going to be held again on these terms because we are looking at very few facilities in Washington D.C. that can hold an event as large as what was planned here. And I have attended this event in 1995. I was a guest of Time magazine at this very event. I can tell you it is Washington on full display. Furthermore, it's not just Washington. It is also the media elite and others brought in just so they can basically congratulate themselves on, on what a good job they're all doing and you know, profession by profession, there is the tendency to have this kind of event. The White House Correspondence association goes back to the year 1921. And so we're looking at an association that's more than 100 years old. And by the way, the relationship between presidential administrations and the press is never, ever perfect. Even when you have something that looks almost picture perfect from a media perspective, such as the presidency of John F. Kennedy, at the time, they really didn't feel that way. That is, in the retrospect, it also became very clear that President Kennedy had been adept at basically manipulating the press. And it appeared that the press was quite eager to be manipulated. But going back to Saturday night, there was enormous attention to this particular dinner, precisely because this is the first dinner during any year in which Donald Trump has been president of the United States that he was going to attend. The dinner he made made much of the fact he was going to attend. He was going to speak. He clearly wanted to speak. He wanted the event to go on. He made a statement after he had left the platform that he had hoped the event could be put back on schedule, it could get back on track. But clearly it became more and more obvious this was a far larger issue than had been thought. At first. There were some in the room, including President Trump, who said they thought that the sound was something like the dropping of a tray. Having been in that situation, I can tell you the dropping of one of those trays filled with banquet food makes indeed a great deal of noise. But in this case, it wasn't someone dropping a tray. It was a man, now identified as Cole Thomas Allen, who had entered into the facility and was trying to get past security. He had all these weapons. He was able to fire one shot, hitting a federal official we now know was a Secret Service agent. He was wearing a vest, and thus he survived with only minor injuries. But it's another way of underlining what was at stake. By the time the situation was unfolding before our eyes and unfolding before the eyes of the press, at least many of them gathered there in that room and other political leaders, it became quite obvious that this was a man who had planned an attack upon the event and upon federal officials, and who had indicated, even as he referred to himself in a message to his family as friendly federal assassin, he indicated that he wanted to assassinate high figures in the Trump administration. And the press are trying to be very careful here. I think federal officials also trying to be very careful. More on that in just a moment by not stating that at this point, they're ready to Say he was there to assassinate the President or Vice President or the President and Vice President of the United States. The speaker of the House was also there. And that's another big issue of historical exposure here. There are very few events in which you have so many constitutional officers in one place. And it's because of the popularity of this event and the political, let's just say, energy of this event, the vast amount of media coverage, all this adds up to a huge Washington event in which Washington is at its most. Washington. Having attended the event, I can tell you it's very much an insider affair. If you're an outsider, you're just watching what is going on. It's a great deal of congratulations, a great deal of camaraderie, a great deal of, let's just say, beverage intake on the part of so many people who are there. And not only that, it's a constellation of other events. So you have major media. I mentioned Time, Time magazine had invited me to the event, and Time had its own event. And those who were featured in a special cover story called 40 Under 40, I was one of those. We were invited to a reception. We met a lot of people. All the other major newspapers, news outlets, the television networks, all had their own private events. And those were events held before and after the dinner. So we're talking about an unbelievable expanse of time that, by the way, is at least in part how Washington works. At the dinner I attended, President Bill Clinton was very much informed and my position on the President was abundantly clear. But I have to say he really knew how to work that crowd. He knew exactly how to dominate that podium. Interestingly, there have been a few Republicans who have also known exactly how the game is played. Ronald Reagan, at the top of that list, you also had a figure such as George W. Bush, who as President of the United States went into this kind of event and with self deprecating humor, basically, at least for that night, at least for those hours, won over the crowd. But here's where that particular chronology is really important. Because I don't care what party you are, but particularly if you are Republican, if you're a conservative, you never have much support in that room except when they're laughing. The rest of the time they're doing gotcha journalism. Looking at the individual in this case, we need to make a couple of remarks about the legal context. First of all, you may have noted that even as of the this morning, federal officials, including officials at the Department of Justice, with the FBI, the Secret Service and others, have not indicated confirming positively the identity of the suspect. They have said that the suspect was taken into custody, that he's going to be charged this morning. There will be an official prosecutorial action that is taken. That means that the identity will be confirmed. And a lot of people are wondering, well, why is it happening this way? Why are federal authorities not making some of the announcements we would expect? Well, it is because this event happened late on Saturday night. And so Sunday's the next day, the next day in which legal proceedings can go forward. Obviously, investigations go forward. Secret Service, FBI work goes forward. A lot goes forward, just of necessity. But in terms of this kind of court action, it's going to have to wait until this morning. And there are other issues here. This is very, very important, and we need to pay attention to this. We as Christians understand the importance of the rule of law. And the rule of law means that it works both ways. It means that prosecutors in this case have the opportunity to build the case and then to go to court and seek an indictment and bring a prosecution against this individual, even as the defense has the right to make the contrary argument and to present a legal defense. But the prosecution in this case has to dot every I and cross every table. And all you have to remember here is what happens when prosecutors and legal authorities on the government side act in haste. And sometimes that leads to legal disaster. The last thing federal authorities want to do is to give this suspect any opportunity to get off or to get some kind of lesser charge on the basis of a legal technicality. They are going to do their best to make certain there is no such technicality. And everything goes exactly by the book. And by the book means you have to wait until this morning. Once again, if we weren't operating by the rule of law and it was simply by government action, the government could have acted. And that's what would happen in an autocracy, in a totalitarian government, but not in a government under the rule of law. And that's something we should admire, even as we would prefer to know a little earlier more about this case today. We're likely to learn a great deal more. At the same time, it's also important to recognize that we basically do know who the suspect is. Cole Thomas Allen, age 31, of Torrance, California. And we know this because in this kind of case, that kind of thing is going to get out. It's a distinction between federal authorities naming an individual before they are ready to take official action and others finding it out and basically communicating it. And thus you have unofficial confirmation and that's legally more or less where this stands. We do know who we're talking about here because there's plenty of evidence, including some coming from authorities there in California and some apparently from the suspect's own family. Again, it was to the family he identified himself as friendly federal assassin, basically telling them just shortly before he launched into his active attack, he at least informed some members of his family of what he intended to do. That's one of the reasons why we now know there were warnings that were working their way through law enforcement circles. A team of reporters to the Washington Post begins the story this way. Quote, he identified himself in a missive, that's a communication sent to family members moments before the attack as a friendly federal assassin and railed against the Trump administration policies. He booked a hotel room at the Washington Hilton weeks in advance, then traveled by train from his home outside Los Angeles to Chicago and then to D.C. the next sentence. And as he stormed the security perimeter at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday, exchanging gunfire with Secret Service agents, the 31 year old suspect shooter aimed to target top officials, including possibly the President himself. Law enforcement officials said, end quote. Okay, so we're going to know a whole lot more. But just imagine, just think about this for a moment. What if you had any anticipation something like this would happen? I want to put it the other way. It's clear that no one in the room, no one at the event expected anything like this to happen until it happened. Even when it did happen, they weren't sure what had happened. Then, rather quickly, it all began to fall into place. Now, from a law enforcement perspective, a Secret Service, a security, a protection assessment, this appears to have gone very well. And actually it's very interesting to see it was all there on camera. You could see the Secret Service go into action. You could see the President, the First lady and the Vice President of the United States, just among others. Even with fleeting images, you could see that they were quickly put on the ground and then it was determined it was safe to move them out of that platform area again. Still, they didn't know all that they were dealing with. But you also saw the unfolding energy, the unfolding urgency as it became very clear this wasn't something dropped, this was multiple shots coming from someone who intended to enter into that room and to kill federal officials. And he told his own family and friends that's exactly what he intended to do. Now, what I wanted you to see, what I wanted us all to pay some attention to here in that report from the Washington Post is the level of premeditation and motive already known. So in terms of motive, it was clear he opposed the Trump administration. He intended by acts of violence and by shootings to attack senior members of the Trump administration, perhaps even the President himself. He expressed his frustration with what he identified as the policies of the Trump administration. So there's a political motivation here all the way to a radical act of terror. You also have the premeditation that is very evident here. Once again, we're going to know more even later today. We're going to know a whole lot more in days ahead. But here's what we already know. He had intended this for a long time. He booked the room at the Washington Hilton, knowing the dinner was going to be held and that the President had announced he intended to attend weeks in advance. He got the room. Then he didn't travel by airplane, he traveled by train. And one way or another, he was able to get to the hotel, check in, basically that rather ingeniously put him inside, at least partially inside something of a security perimeter. And now he didn't get inside the inner perimeter. And one of the interesting controversies that is certain to come out of this is whether or not there should have been an intermediate perimeter between the rest of the hotel and the area in which the guests and attendees at this dinner were going to have to go through security. It was at that point that this attack was launched. And to it, the suspect directed his attack intending to get through the security perimeter and get inside the room, storming in with multiple weapons in order to do homicidal damage. And that's his own declared intent, at least in terms of background. We know this. We're told that he had an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Caltech, the California Institute of Technology. It's not an easy school to get into, to say the very least. It's one of the leading universities in the nation, particularly when it comes to technology. This is Caltech, something of an analog on the west coast to mit, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology there in Boston. He also held a master's degree in computer science from California State University. One of the press reports had a very interesting statement from an 18 year old young man who had had this individual as an academic tutor. And he, along with several others in different contexts, just said they never saw anything like this coming. Now, in almost every one of these cases, you're going to hear people say, we never saw this coming. But then people are going to start to piece together things they hadn't connected before or things that they had heard or observed are going to take on a brand new significance. And you know, this happens over and over again. It just underlines how limited we are at connecting dots. Even when some of the dots are before us, we're not even sure in many cases what the dots are or what they mean until something happens and then we understand all too well. CNN's also reporting with a team of reporters telling us that the individual, and once again, that is Cole Thomas Allen, quote, had a tendency to make radical statements as he became involved in left wing activism in Los Angeles, acquired firearms and began regularly practicing at a firing range. This reported to law enforcement by the individual's sister, and that was sourced also to the White House. So here you can see how the story begins to knit together pretty quickly. You have the White House involved. You have Secret Service, FBI, massive federal law enforcement. When I say massive, I mean massive. You also have law enforcement authorities In California, in D.C. and elsewhere, all working together to fill in the blanks, to connect the dots, to see the bigger picture. What's amazing is how fast all of this has appeared. Now, here's another big thing to consider. Every time something like this happens, everybody has to learn new lessons. Everybody has to develop some new habits. There will be a new protocol for the security for the President and Vice President of the United States, perhaps for others also in the line of succession, perhaps for others just as major officials in the federal government. To state the obvious, and this really is obvious, it has been seen as odd for a very long time that that many people with that much power and that much responsibility and that much constitutional responsibility to be in one place in Washington D.C. that's not called either the Capitol or the White House. That has been considered odd for some time. This event basically had some kind of exception. It was seen as such an event of stature that you would have these people outside of federal facilities together in this way. Now they're together in other events such as the State of the Union Address. But even then, a member of the Cabinet is not there simply for the line of succession. But to have that many of the highest officials in the United States government in one place with that many other people who were either members or guests of the Correspondence Association. I think we can go out on a limb here and say this is not likely to happen again. And the reason for that is that when something like this happens, you have to prevent it from happening again. And given the vulnerabilities in this case, it's hard to imagine that you're going to have this kind of attendance by this rank of federal officials all together in one place. Again, that is not federal territory. It's not the White house or the U.S. capitol, where the security is, let's just say, quite different. Now, as we close this out for today. There'll be much more to think about and talk about in days to come. Just what we know now is enough to just offer us a very sober reminder of the fact that we live in a sinful world. We live in a very dangerous world. It was interesting to see what happened on Saturday night, because when life and death were hanging in the balance, it is interesting how many other issues, at least for a time, lost in terms of their ranking of significance. And, you know, there were some amazingly candid statements made by very liberal journalists and very conservative members of the Trump administration about how much they appreciated each other at that moment and how they basically looked out for each other at that moment. And that's exactly how we should expect human beings to act. And I'll also say it isn't false. That's not false. I'm not suggesting they were hypocrites in acting that way. I think they were human in acting that way. And I think that underlines the fact that we as human beings are made in God's image. And there's an immediate connection between human beings at the deepest moral level when something like this is happening. It's also true that the political differences are going to remain, and some of those are going to be played out in very big ways in coming days, even when we think about this event and its meaning. But at least in terms of declaring that this is fundamentally wrong, that this attack and this attacker were motivated by what can only be described as evil, I'll just say I'll take it as a bipartisan win that Saturday night. No one was questioning that. But again, I'll just underline the fact that when most of us were waiting to watch and see what the President would say at the 2026 White House Correspondents association dinner, understanding that so much was staked upon what the President would say, and we're still interested in what President Trump would have said and still says he intends to say, the fact is that at that moment, in just a split second of time, everything changed from what's he going to say to is he okay? And are all those in the room safe? Instantly, that's how a question can turn. And once it turns, you really can't turn it off. There are so many huge issues for us to discuss. I would say, frankly, an unusual barrage of issues we need to discuss. But for the remaining minutes, I just want to go to the other huge political story from Washington, D.C. over the weekend. And that was the fact that, as the New York Times reports, quote, the Justice Department, in a stunning reversal, announced on Friday, Friday that it was dropping its criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome H. Powell. The decision could clear the way for Kevin M. Warsh, President Trump's pick to lead the central bank to win confirmation. And this comes just days after you had the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, say that she would continue the investigation, even though a federal judge basically put a hiatus on progress at this point. And this is political, this is legal, it's all mixed together. And when you talk about this kind of prosecution, this kind of case, in the context of a situation where you have the White House and the Fed, or in particular the President of the United States and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve directly at odds, this is the kind of situation in which politics and legality can become quite confusing. But the politics in a larger context instantly got clarified. And that is because one senator in this case, now, retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, he indicated that he would not vote for the President's nominee to succeed Jerome Powell. And remember, his name is Kevin M. Warsh. Senator Tillis said that he would not, under any circumstances, vote for any nominee sent by the President of the United States for for this position unless there was a dropping of the prosecution and investigation of Jerome Powell in his capacity as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, in particular, with questions about the massive building program. And here we're Talking about a $2.5 billion renovation and construction project. Let's just point out that President Trump, I think, is just being rational, just being reasonable, and saying there has to be some detailed explanation of how any kind of renovation for any kind of facility, even an expansion, even new construction, can add up to $2.5 billion. It defies imagination. It requires some investigation. What was complicating the factor here is the political conflict, which has been going on for years now between President Trump and Chairman Powell in terms of their face off over policies directly governed by the Fed. Remember, the Federal Reserve has existed since the year 1913. It is known as a central bank. It is supposed to be an independent federal agency. Now, constitutionally, I'm going to argue that's actually quite a problem for conservatives. Its responsibility is monetary policy. It is supposed to have the goals of maximum employment and stable pricing, a stable economy. That means limited inflation, and that means the Fed sets certain discount rates in lending. And President Trump and the chairman of the Federal Reserve bank have been radically at odds in terms of what policy the Fed should follow. And Jerome Powell, who was his nominee, by the way, during his first term, Jerome Powell disappointed him very quickly. And it's been a face off in a classic Western, you might say a shootout at the OK Corral. But Jerome Powell's term is coming to an end. He's going to be continuing as one of the members of the board, we are told. I guess that remains to be seen. But in any event, he will not be chairman. And now the door is open for the President's choice as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin M. Warsh, to move forward. It appears he's likely to have pretty significant bipartisan support, particularly at this point under these economic circumstances and with the war in Iran still very much a focus of attention and of concern about the economy. Now, in something like this, one dimension of the Christian worldview is to understand how power works, how constitutions work, how governments work, and to understand that when someone claims, claims the word independent in a constitutional system in which you have a tripartite division of powers, the legislative, the executive and the judicial, when you have something declared to be independent, when it comes to a situation so saturated in politics, independent is going to have to be very carefully defined and probably continually argued with you. We will be watching and observing the events in Washington, D.C. today. It's going to be very interesting and you already know it's extremely important. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmohler.com you can follow me on X or Twitter by going to x.comalbertmohler for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to spts.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.