“Staged”

Summary

Today, Explained — “Staged” (April 28, 2026)

Episode Overview

“Staged” dives deep into the fallout from the recent attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The hosts, Noel King and Sean Rameswaram, along with experts and reporters including Molly Olmstead (Slate) and Paula Reid (CNN), dissect not only the facts of the incident but—crucially—the explosion of conspiracy theories about it, the political optics, and how shifts in public trust and partisanship are redrawing the boundaries of “reality” in US political discourse. The episode also provides a profile of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and discusses the tough realities of the modern Justice Department.

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Main Themes

• The attempted assassination of President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and the quick pivot to accusations that it was staged.
• The intertwining of security policy with political ambition—especially Trump’s renewed call for a secure White House ballroom.
• The internet’s rapid skepticism and how conspiracy theories now cross party lines.
• The pressures and performance of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a challenging post-truth, hyper-partisan era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Incident: Quick Facts and Political Spin

• A shooter entered the Hilton during the White House Correspondents' Dinner but was stopped before reaching the president ([00:11]).
  • Reality check: “This man was a floor above the ballroom with hundreds of federal agents between him and the President of the United States.” – Todd Blanche [00:11]
• No casualties; shooter apprehended. Law enforcement officials quickly asserted the operation was successful ([00:20]).
• Rapidly, the story pivots to Trump’s long-standing desire to build a secure ballroom:
  • “Then late yesterday, Blanche filed a request asking a federal judge to overturn a previous ruling and allow President Trump to build a ballroom. Wait, what? How did this get to be about the ballroom?” – Noel King [00:26]
  • Several voices mock the sudden shift: “If you need more evidence of why this feels staged, everyone is talking about the ballroom.” – Molly Olmstead [01:07]

2. Online Reaction: Conspiracies and Suspicion

• Almost instantly online, suspicion about authenticity erupted (even with minimal facts). Skepticism was “instantaneous,” especially among left-leaning social media users ([02:41]).
• Repeated meme-like accusations:
  • “Trump is known to stage things for his benefit.” – Molly Olmstead [03:12]
  • “Don't believe in it. I think it's all staged.” – Todd Blanche (quoting conspiratorial sentiment) [03:15]
  • “Trump’s facial expression doesn't look like it reflects real fear. Trump clearly smirks when shots are fired.” – Guest Expert/Analyst [03:50]
  • “No panic, no fear. He knew it was coming.” – Paula Reid [04:02]
• Heightened scrutiny over minor details—e.g., lack of blood, question of gunman’s apprehension, medical specifics ([04:29]).

3. The Ballroom Conspiracy

• Central “evidence” for staged accusations: the timing and choreography of the renewed push for the White House ballroom.
• The MAGA influencer echo chamber and their role:
  • “Build the ballroom would be real nice if the White House had its own ballroom.” – Molly Olmstead [05:35–05:38]
  • Leftist users run engagement polls (“Do you think this was staged?”), more for attention, financial gain, or stirring engagement than deep ideological investment ([06:40]).
• Bots and “strivers” (those seeking to build social media influence) perpetuate engagement and suspicion. “[Strivers are] people who aspire to the kind of influence…really trying to get power and influence.” – Guest Expert/Analyst [07:22]

4. Broader Context: Conspiracy as the New Normal

• Conspiracies are now post-partisan. Long driven by right-wing accounts, such thinking is pronounced on the left in the wake of Trump’s second administration and recent events.
• “We have seen an explosion of this kind of thinking into the left, but also in a way that has escaped the normal boundaries of partisan thinking.” – Guest Expert/Analyst [09:40]
• Even anti-Trumpers are quick to forego evidence, drawing parallels between Trump administration lying on policy and assumptions about event falsification.
• Caution is urged: “There has to be something to base it on…this is based off of nothing but speculation. I think that jumping to that is ultimately harmful for our democracy.” – Guest Expert/Analyst [11:18–12:20]

5. Profile: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche

• Blanche was thrust forward during the event, acting as the public face of DOJ.
• Responded “textbook style” to the attempted assassination, signaling a shift from DOJ's previous self-inflicted controversies ([17:47–18:04]).
• Blanche’s background: Longtime federal prosecutor (SDNY), Trump legal team since 2023, worked prominent cases (Jan 6th, Mar-a-Lago, NY hush money). Trump’s trust: “In Trump's eyes, Todd Blanche is the guy who kept him out of jail.” – Paula Reid [21:37]
• Blanche faces ongoing pressure to “deliver on weaponization for the president”—i.e., charge Trump’s political adversaries, something DOJ has had limited success executing ([22:16–22:47]).
• MAGA skepticism remains about whether he is “MAGA enough,” especially after Obama-era files (Epstein) were fumbled, but many admit he’s performed capably given the constraints ([23:57–25:17]).
• Blanche’s future: “This job is Todd’s to lose…but every Trump attorney general has been fired, replaced, or resigned.” – Paula Reid [26:18]

6. DOJ Internal Dynamics and Succession

• Internal discontent—firings, failed prosecutions, and looming rivals (e.g., Jeanine Pirro makes a show of “one-upsmanship” at press conferences).
• Realistically, Blanche’s job security is shaky: “There are certainly other people nipping at Todd's heels… It's a tough job under any administration, but this one really brings some unique challenges.” – Paula Reid [27:59]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the ballroom conspiracy:
  “If you need more evidence of why this feels staged, everyone is talking about the ballroom.”
  – Molly Olmstead [01:07]

• On instant conspiracy theorizing:
  “They didn't even wait for evidence, really. It just was kind of an almost gut reaction that people had…”
  – Guest Expert/Analyst [03:23]

• On trust and speculation:
  “We can't work in a system in which we all just treat each other as the most fantastical, extreme version of ourselves. So trust Donald Trump? Absolutely not. But jump to think that there's some sort of convoluted, strange thing going on...that's that's not healthy either.”
  – Guest Expert/Analyst [12:20]

• On DOJ performance:
  “So seeing how you respond to something that was not of your own doing, I mean that is a real test for the Attorney General. And so far it's been a textbook response from him.”
  – Paula Reid [18:04]

• On the DOJ’s internal reputation:
  Around the Epstein files: “That is, quote, the original sin of the Trump Justice Department.”
  – Paula Reid [23:57]

• On being ‘MAGA enough’:
  “Yeah, we feel that Todd is not MAGA enough. He doesn't do enough for the base. But even those people who…have been pretty tough on Todd said, when it comes to being the acting Attorney General, he's done the job. It's about as good as we're going to get.”
  – Paula Reid [24:02–24:14]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01–01:07: Opening — facts of the incident, instant pivot to ballroom
• 02:24–05:40: Molly Olmstead and guest expert break down online conspiracy explosion
• 07:19–09:40: Examination of online “strivers,” bot activity; new contours of conspiratorial thinking
• 09:40–12:20: Post-partisan conspiracy thinking; evaluating evidence versus healthy skepticism
• 17:19–18:14: Paula Reid on DOJ’s immediate response and Todd Blanche’s performance
• 20:01–22:11: Blanche’s background, rise to Acting AG, Trump relationship
• 22:14–23:17: DOJ’s internal struggles, political weaponization
• 23:57–25:17: MAGA’s assessment of Blanche, Epstein as “the original sin”
• 26:18–27:59: Succession and job security for AG role, DOJ challenges

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Episode Takeaways

• The instant turn to conspiracy after political violence, now present across the spectrum, skews public discourse, erodes shared reality, and fuels institutional distrust.
• Procedures and policy ambitions—like Trump’s White House ballroom—can rapidly become focal points of suspicion, especially in highly polarized environments.
• The Justice Department walks a tightrope internally and externally, with pressure from above (the President), the base (MAGA), media, and the general public—the AG’s job security is as precarious as ever.
• The normalization of skepticism without evidence represents a dangerous new baseline for American civic life.

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This summary covers all major points and notable exchanges from the episode, emphasizing both the facts and the rapidly shifting public/political reactions surrounding them.

Transcript

[Noel King]

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch offered a bit of a reality check about the shooting at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. The President, he said, was not really in danger.

[Todd Blanche]

This man was a floor above the ballroom with hundreds of federal agents between him and the President of the United States.

[Noel King]

The worst never came to pass.

[Todd Blanche]

Law enforcement did not fail. They did exactly what they are trained

[Noel King]

to do, solid Attorney Generaling. Then late yesterday, Blanche filed a request ask asking a federal judge to overturn a previous ruling and allow President Trump to build a ballroom. Wait, what? How did this get to be about the ballroom? Today on Today Explained from Vox fallout from this weekend's attempted assassination. The good, the bad, the weird, the conspiracies, all of it up ahead.

[Todd Blanche]

It's drone proof.

[Molly Olmstead]

It's bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom. If you need more evidence of why this feels staged, everyone is talking about the ballroom.

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[Todd Blanche]

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[Molly Olmstead]

this is today Explained.

[Noel King]

Molly Olmsted is a staff writer at Slate. She writes about the Right. Okay, so this weekend we White House Correspondent's dinner is underway. Shooter enters the Hilton, doesn't make it past security. No one is killed. Shooter's apprehended, the Internet reacts. And what's the reaction?

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

It was instantaneously. I would say skeptical in a way that was actually kind of remarkable. I mean, I know that I was fielding text messages from people asking me if it Was staged within minutes of it happening. You know, if you look, it was happening on the parts of the Internet, the parts social media that. That are dominated by liberal voices. A lot of people are not buying that this assassination attempt was legit.

[Molly Olmstead]

I mean, Trump is known to stage things for his benefit.

[Todd Blanche]

I don't believe in that whole White House correspondent shooting event going on. Don't believe in it. I think it's all staged.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

They didn't even wait for evidence, really. It just was kind of an almost gut reaction that people had based on the idea that there was an attack against the president and that there had been several of them before.

[Noel King]

It's not entirely unexpected, but it does make you wonder about the people who say it was staged. Okay, gotcha. Why? Why do they think it was staged?

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

Well, there is what they'll tell you, which is that, you know, Trump's facial expression doesn't look like it reflects real fear. Trump clearly smirks when shots are fired.

[Paula Reid]

No panic, no fear. He knew it was coming.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

Or that there was something odd to how Caroline Levitt was saying there were gonna be shots fired tonight, which she meant in a purely rhetorical way. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room. Then there were people who sort of couldn't believe that a gunman would be able to get into the hotel.

[Todd Blanche]

All right, I'll be that guy. Where did the agents shoot him? What stopped him?

[Molly Olmstead]

Where's the blood?

[Todd Blanche]

Why is his supratrochlear vein not indicating that he is in any pain or distress? Is this another staged event?

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

All of these things sort of reflect, I think, a lack of understanding, maybe about how security operations work or about how just humans react to times of crises and just sort of the randomness of life.

[Noel King]

Why would President Trump stage this? What are people saying to that question?

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

The dominant answer was that President Trump was using this to get support for his White House ballroom. There were two real reasons for this. One was that the President himself made the argument afterwards that this showed why they needed a secure ballroom.

[Paula Reid]

It's not a safe ballroom. I'm building a safe ballroom.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

And the second reason was that a bunch of MAGA influencers all said essentially the same thing. After last night, I think it's safe

[Paula Reid]

to say that building the ballroom at the White House is an absolute must.

[Molly Olmstead]

Build the ballroom would be real nice

[Todd Blanche]

if the White House had its own ballroom. Huh?

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

It's actually not remarkable. It's how the system MAGA influencer system works. But to anyone who is less familiar with it, it seemed really Suspicious. That's why Trump wanting the ballroom and staging his own assassination attempt to get the ballroom became the dominant narrative. One interesting thing, and one thing that makes right wing conspiracy different from left wing conspiracy theories is that the accounts that are doing it are, for the most part, not actually that big. They'll have lots of followers, but they won't be personalities that are really known into themselves. So with the right, you have these, you know, mega influencers, huge people who have huge podcasts who will be saying these things. With the left, it's sort of these like, lib accounts and they will post either to try and provoke some sort of anti Trump outrage or as a sort of engagement bait, something to put encourage discussion. So before saying like, I believe this was staged, they would poll their followers to be like, do you think this was staged? Which was so clearly an attempt to get their own engagement for their own financial gain. And I also have to say here that I don't know, I don't really have a way of knowing of how many of these are bots, because again, they are not really known people. But there are a lot of just strivers in this space that are clearly pushing this.

[Noel King]

What do you mean by strivers? That's a great word, I think.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

I mean, people who aspire to the kind of influence that the right wing influencers have, the people who want to take up their own space within the movement and they are really trying to get power influence and are really just not able to carve out their own space with quite the success that a lot of these, like, big name conservatives are able to do.

[Noel King]

You noted that it was like minutes after the shooting happened that the online conversation becomes conspiratorial. Were you surprised it happened that fast?

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

I mean, this may be a little naive of me, but I was, I was a little surprised. I did expect it to happen because, I mean, we live in this world where this is how people are thinking. I mean, especially after the shooting in Butler, there was something very dramatic about that assassination attempt.

[Molly Olmstead]

The gunshots erupting during his rally in

[Todd Blanche]

Butler, Pennsylvania,

[Molly Olmstead]

the microphone picking up the cries of people yelling to get down.

[Paula Reid]

It was

[Todd Blanche]

a crazy moment.

[Paula Reid]

You know, I went on to win the presidency.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

I don't know if that had anything

[Paula Reid]

to do with it, to be honest.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

There was just such drama to it that it lent itself to people sort of going to the most fantastical place.

[Molly Olmstead]

Just admit you staged it in Butler.

[Paula Reid]

So right after there are gunshots fired at a campaign event, Trump's team's first reaction is to go get the photographers. Basically.

[Noel King]

It all looks really suspicious and really bizarre.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

So they're primed to see another assassination attempt as a hoax. This is just the waters we're in now. Everyone's a conspiracy theorist.

[Noel King]

The US Fell victim to conspiracy mindedness. I don't know. Sometime in the last 10 years is what I would say is where I would place. Doesn't feel like this is anything new. It feels like this is a continuation. But that's me. I don't cover this and you do it. Is something new happening this week in the last 72 hours?

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

I do feel like there is something that's new here. These conspiracy theories used to be largely the purview of the right. I think in the second Trump administration, really, we have seen an explosion of this kind of thinking into the left, but also in a way that has escaped the normal boundaries of partisan thinking. So you've seen offshoots within the MAGA movement of people who are thinking in this conspiracy theory way in a way that does not actually benefit President Trump, in a way that is actually puts them at odds with other parts of the conservative movement, the annals of history.

[Paula Reid]

I think within them, you will be relegated to a philosophical discussion, the madness of President Trump. A lot of people who really like Trump are very disappointed in Trump. More than disappointed, feel betrayed.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

And you see this with people on the left who previously felt that they were in opposition to the conspiracy thinking that drove, say, QAnon, but now they are actively engaging in this themselves.

[Noel King]

If I were defending the conspiracy theorizing from the left, here's what I might say. Tell me what you think. President Trump and members of his administration lie constantly. Why should we believe their recounting of events? Why shouldn't we be convinced that if they're gonna lie to us about, I don't know, immigration and tariffs, they wouldn't also lie about an assassination attempt.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

I totally do think that if we're talking about something like war crimes or, you know, financial shenanigans or anything really, that should be met with suspicion. And I think this is also a reporter's obligation to do so as well. I do think, though, that when it comes to these sort of complex conspiracy theories, there has to be something to base it on. And when it comes to Butler, Pennsylvania's assassination attempt, when it comes to this incident, there's really nothing. I mean, there were so many journalists who were in that room, not where the incident occurred, because that was outside of the White House correspondent's dinner, but they were around. If there was some sort of indication that there was some sort of malfeasance. I mean, I think we should absolutely pursue it, but this is based off of nothing but speculation. I think that jumping to that is ultimately harmful for our democracy. We would not be working off of a shared reality in any way that lets us get to any sort of practical solutions for any of the myriad problems our country faces. We can't work in a system in which we all just treat each other as the most fantastical, extreme version of ourselves. So trust Donald Trump? Absolutely not. But jump to think that there's some sort of convoluted, strange thing going on. That's that's not healthy either.

[Noel King]

Molly Olmstead is a staff writer at Slate. When we return, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, acts.

[Molly Olmstead]

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[Guest Expert/Analyst]

This is Today Explained.

[Noel King]

Paula Reid is the chief legal affairs correspondent for cnn. She was at the White House Correspondent's Dinner and was also watching the aftermath, in part to see how the acting head of the DOJ would conduct himself.

[Paula Reid]

It was interesting when the President addressed the nation late Saturday, he was flanked by his top two Justice Department officials, Todd Bl and Cash Patel. Todd is the acting Attorney General, and he came out and did what you would expect the nation's top law enforcement official to do. Tell us what they know about what's

[Todd Blanche]

going on there will be multiple charges surrounding the shooting around the possession of firearms and anything else that we can get get on this guy detail exactly

[Paula Reid]

what steps they were taking and what we can expect next.

[Todd Blanche]

Justice will be served.

[Paula Reid]

Todd Blanche has actually I think really met the moment perfectly, especially in the larger context of my reporting on for Attorney General because what happened Saturday night, this is the first thing that has sort of happened to the Blanch Justice Department as opposed to being, you know, something they've done or what we've seen throughout the Trump Justice Department which has been a lot of self inflicted controversies, the handling of the Epstein files.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

Please raise your hands if you have still not been able to meet with this Department of Justice. Please know for the record that every single survivor has raised their hand the controversial firings.

[Todd Blanche]

Well, the Justice Department issued a wave

[Molly Olmstead]

of firings late last week and into the weekend.

[Todd Blanche]

In fact, more than 20 of those

[Molly Olmstead]

employees were people who worked on former

[Todd Blanche]

special counsel Jack Smith's cases against President Donald Trump.

[Noel King]

They are gone, they've been let go.

[Paula Reid]

Decisions they've made around cases trying to charge people, that's all self inflicted. But when you're the Attorney General, you're going to deal with a Boston Marathon bombing or a San Bernardino shooting. This is not quite of that level, but it is certainly a massive event that they have to respond to. So seeing how you respond to something that was not of your own doing, I mean that is a real test for the Attorney General. And so far it's been a textbook response from him. He certainly can't afford to mess this up given the significance. But we heard from him immediately after the event with the President. He did the Sunday shows, he took questions.

[Noel King]

Was it safe to have the President, cabinet officials, members of Congress, the first

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

lady, the Vice President, such high ranking

[Noel King]

officials all in the same room at the same time?

[Todd Blanche]

Yes, of course we're not gonna stop living, we're not gonna start doing our jobs, we're not gonna start stop all the work that we're doing every day.

[Paula Reid]

And then we heard from him again after Monday's arraignment.

[Noel King]

So Todd Blanche is new to this job. Pam Bondi of course was fired earlier this month.

[Paula Reid]

The dow is over 50,000 thousand right now.

[Noel King]

Tell me about how Todd Blanche ended up in this job. Where does he come from?

[Paula Reid]

So I'm gonna push back on the idea that he's new to the job because he is officially, yes, the Acting Attorney General. Now prior he was the Deputy Attorney General. Usually the difference there is the Deputy Attorney General runs this sprawling agency in all the different U.S. attorney's offices and components, the FBI and the marshals, it's the boss running the day to day. Behind the scenes, the Attorney General is usually more the front facing figurehead. But with Pam Bondi and her repeated stumbles, public stumbles over the Epstein files and other matters, Todd took on a more public facing role. He was also sort of a bigger presence behind the scenes. It was constantly in contact with the White House, with Stephen Miller, with the President. Pam Bondi talked to the President as well. But Todd really, in many ways was doing a lot of this job. So he started out, he was actually a federal prosecutor at the Southern District of New York for a long time. Then he went into white collar practice and then he joined the Trump leg around 2023, when Trump was in the middle of those four major legal cases. And Todd worked on the two federal cases brought by Jack Smith.

[Molly Olmstead]

The attack on our Nation's Capitol on

[Paula Reid]

January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault

[Molly Olmstead]

on the seat of American democracy.

[Noel King]

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had been indicted, quote, over what he called the boxes hoax. That is a reference to the boxes found at his Mar A Lago estate by the FBI last August, which contained classified.

[Paula Reid]

They also represented him in New York on the hush money case. But what really distinguished Todd Blanche is that Trump lawyers come and go. I mean, I've probably talked to like 40 of them over the past decade, right? They come, they go. They have trouble with the client, they have trouble with some of the people behind the scenes, the spotlight, the cases. Todd flourished. Yes, his client was convicted in New York, but he kept him out of jail. And ultimately their legal strategy on the federal cases resulted in Trump never facing trial on either one of those. In Trump's eyes, Todd Blanche is the guy who kept him out of jail.

[Noel King]

What, what has he been up to since he ended up in the acting role?

[Paula Reid]

He's been a busy beat.

[Molly Olmstead]

Ah.

[Paula Reid]

In my reporting, I talked to over a dozen people inside doj, high level people. Some people I know don't particularly care for Todd as a person. They're rivals, whatever. There was a general consensus, though, this is his job to lose, but in order to keep this, he's going to have to deliver on weaponization for the president. And that means Trump wants his political adversaries to be prosecuted. And that is something that they have not been able to do yet. Judges and grand juries have to sign off on this. They are largely been reluctant.

[Noel King]

A US District judge ruled the appointment of Attorney Lindsey Halligan is unlawful.

[Paula Reid]

We have learned that the Justice Department's case against former FBI Director Jim Comey and the New York Attorney General have both been dismissed. And so they're getting tripped up by the checks in the system. It's nearly impossible in some cases, the things that Trump has wanted, but he's made it clear this is what he wants. So that's ultimately, in order to get this job and to keep it, he needs to bring a case against the political adversary.

[Noel King]

All right, so we know that President Trump likes Todd Blanche. We know that MAGA has been disappointed by the job that the Justice Department has done investigating the Epstein files.

[Molly Olmstead]

How many of you are satisfied?

[Noel King]

You can you clap?

[Molly Olmstead]

Satisfied with the results of the Epstein investigation?

[Noel King]

Clap.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

I think it's a huge miscalculation, and I truly just stand with the women, and I think they deserve to be the ones that we're fighting for.

[Molly Olmstead]

When will we see justice?

[Noel King]

Does maga, which was very unfriendly at the end toward Pam Bondi, does MAGA like Todd Blanche?

[Paula Reid]

So the two knocks on Todd Blanche are that, quote, he's not MAGA enough and that he doesn't get the Trump do from the, quote, original sin of how they've handled the Epstein files. Let's start with, are you MAGA enough? So I have talked to officials inside the administration, including this one White House official who said, yeah, we feel that Todd is not MAGA enough. He doesn't do enough for the base. But even those people who in past stories have been pretty tough on Todd said, when it comes to being the acting Attorney General, he's done the job. It's about as good as we're going to get. Were not opposed to him having this job. So when it comes to the Epstein files, one one administration official told me that is, quote, the original sin of the Trump Justice Department. And by that, they mean just Pam Bondi's repeated bungling of the rollout of those files, promising there was new information. And those binders that she handed out that really had just a rehash of things that was already, already in the public domain. Her saying that she had the client list on her desk when really there's no client list. Eventually they just had Todd take over the messaging. Right?

[Todd Blanche]

To the extent that there frustration, I understand where that comes from. Just from what we know about Mr. Epstein, I hope that the work that the men and women within this department have done over the past two months hopefully is able to bring closure.

[Paula Reid]

He was also the one who went down and met with Ghislaine Maxwell, he was the one who oversaw the release of the documents. He has been front and center on this. So when he becomes the acting attorney general, the concern from some administration officials is while putting him in charge isn't going to get us past our biggest embarrassment, which is Epstein. But I don't think in Trump's eyes that's going to be disqualifying because I think many people say that Todd had to go and pick up the mess that Pam Bondi had made. And he or some of the staffers might argue that Congress put him in a bad position because they had so little time to do those redactions. No intelligent minds could argue the Justice Department has actually had like a decade to release all this stuff. But that's a matter for another day. He's just talking about the tight timeline that he had to do that review process. And that is part of why they say it was so messy as opposed to a grand conspiracy to protect people.

[Noel King]

He is acting ag. Is this job his? If he wants it. Are there any other serious contenders?

[Paula Reid]

My sources say this job is Todd's to lose. Now, even if you get it, every Trump attorney general has been fired, replaced, or resigned. So we'll see. Maybe he's found his Merrick Garland, who wants to stay through the end. But there are certainly other people nipping at Todd's heels. But in the eyes of the president and everyone I've talked to, this is his job to lose. But there are also some people in the wings. One is the US Attorney, Jeanine Pirro.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you or anyone else.

[Paula Reid]

It was funny. On the night of the dinner and the shooting, Todd was at the White House. He did the press conference to the President, said there will be charges, there'll be a gun charge, maybe a law enforcement related charge. 30, 45 minutes later, I don't remember how much time passed, but the U.S. attorney, Pirro, she did a press conference and man, she was, she was yelling the specific statues into that microphone.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

Right now the defendant is being charged with two counts 9 24C, using a firearm during a crime of violence and a second crime under 111, which is assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.

[Paula Reid]

It felt a little like one upsmanship. Maybe it was just her enthusiasm and I'm reading something into it, but her name has certainly been mentioned. We got two and a half more years. I mean, there's probably time for everyone to be attorney general if Todd can't or won't stay on the job for two and a half years. It's a tough job under any administration, but this one really brings some unique challenges.

[Noel King]

Paula reid is cnn's chief legal correspondent. Danielle hewitt and kelly wesinger produced today's show and jolie meyers edited. David tadashore is our engineer and gabriel duntov checked the facts. I'm noel king. It's today explained.

[Guest Expert/Analyst]

Foreign.

[Todd Blanche]

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[Molly Olmstead]

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[Todd Blanche]

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[Guest Expert/Analyst]

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[Sponsor Voice]

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