On Sunday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faced off with host Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation." The exchange was, for the most part, focused on the ongoing investigation into the motivations of the attempted assassin. The conversation also wandered off into what was probably a predictable tangent. The transcript of the entire exchange may be found here.
First, on the investigation:
MARGARET BRENNAN: It was a harrowing night, I want to get straight to what we know now, in the light of day. The FBI, as I understand it, has gone to a home in Torrance, California, believed to belong to the alleged shooter, most likely into his DC hotel room as well. What have they discovered there? What do we know?
BLANCHE: Yes, that's right. So the FBI worked all night, working with local law enforcement, working with the Secret Service. They've executed various search warrants on locations, also on devices that were recovered from the suspect. This investigation is just over 12 hours old, so we still are actively looking at everything that happened, but as of now, we- we have- we have collected a fair amount of evidence, which we're now going through.
That's a pretty quick start on an investigation, but then, this appears to be the third attempt to assassinate President Trump, along with, presumably, as many Trump administration officials as the assassin could take out; this ended up being none, thankfully. But there are still a lot of questions remaining, such as this:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Any indication at this point that he was part of a group? Was there any foreign nexus to the inspiration for the violence he attempted last night?
BLANCHE: We're still looking into motivation, and that's something that hopefully we'll learn over the next couple of days. We do believe, based upon just a very preliminary start to understanding what happened, that he was targeting members of the administration. We don't- we don't have specifics beyond that kind of general statement from what we've learned so far, but we are- we're actively talking to witnesses that knew him, and talking to other individuals and going through the material that we've collected. So I expect that you will hear more, more about that in the coming days.
That's an interesting point. The preliminary information indicates that the attempted assassin, Cole Allen, traveled from California to Washington to carry out his attack, and as yet, it's not known where he obtained the weapons he had, how or if he moved them cross-country, or how he got them into the venue. Did he have help with any of this?
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We should note that, with utter predictability, Margaret Brennan tried to steer the conversation toward asking about more gun control laws.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So the alleged shooter, as we just said, had multiple weapons in his possession. Here in the District of Columbia, open carry is not permitted. You just said he traveled from California across the country by train. At this point, are you thinking at the federal level of changing security protocols in any way to, for example, match on trains what you are expected to go through when you fly where you do have to declare a weapon when you cross state lines. How did he travel by train without any challenge and arrive here in the nation's capital?
BLANCHE: Look, this isn't about, in my mind, changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms. It appears he purchased these firearms the past couple years. We don't know how those firearms ended up in his possession in DC. We can, we can make some assumptions based upon what I just said about how he got to DC, but I don't, I don't think the narrative here is about changing laws or changing- making. making our laws more restrictive. This is about law enforcement who are doing their jobs and a suspect who tried to do something and failed miserably.
Apparently, it's asking too much to let investigators find out what happened and how it happened before doing a lateral arabesque into asking for more gun laws. As Margaret Brennan notes, the suspect already violated several existing laws by bringing weapons into the venue, not to mention attempting the assassination of the President of the United States; it's not likely that those things being illegal-er would have prevented this attempt.
Also on Sunday, the House Minority Leader, Democrat Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), appeared on Fox News Sunday with host Shannon Bream to piously pronounce that "violence is never the answer."
WATCH: "Violence is never the answer" - @RepJeffries comments on the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting, supports the funding of Secret Service and other branches of DHS with the exception of ICE pic.twitter.com/4uEbmTdsui
— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) April 26, 2026
That's always the way for the left: Violence is never the answer, until it is - and in recent years, political violence in this country has been almost exclusively the province of the left. We don't yet know the motivations of the attempted assassin Cole Allen, yet, of course, or at least, not all of them. But we do know he has contributed money to Democratic candidates. That's something of an indicator.
Meanwhile, the investigation is still underway, and we will no doubt learn more about what happened and how it happened. Stay tuned.
Editor's Note: This article was updated post-publication for clarity.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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