CBS News97%
National security expert says Secret Service handled correspondents' dinner shooting well 92%
4/28/2026, 12:19:31 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Hasty Generalization, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 34.5% saturation with 193 hits. Analysis detected 1,347 faulty-reasoning hits from 559 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 86.9% and a BS Rank of 92% (1,450 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 91.40% of the video peer group.
Cole Allen is charged with using a firearm during a violent crime, assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon, and attempting to assassinate the president.
So, the shooting brings up questions about Secret Service's security protocols and calls to tone down violent political rhetoric.
So, I want to bring in Professor Philip Bobbitt.
He is the director of the Center for National Security at Columbia Law School.
Thanks for being here.
I first and foremost want to get your reaction to the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting.
Um primarily, how Secret Service handled the security measures that night, what you saw.
I think they handled it well.
It's a difficult venue. It's quite large, and they've been criticized for not having greater perimeter control.
I I'm inclined to think they did a good job.
What they did was they had much tighter concentric circles more or less around the protected area, so that the killer, the alleged killer, had to go through all of these different levels of security before then going down to the actual venue of the of the dinner.
So, although they've been criticized, I think that I think actually they handled it well.
That's a good viewpoint. I mean, we're hearing about this 10 seconds before the president was actually taken to safety and also the others at that dinner.
Um I want to ask you about these threats, not just against the president, but also threats against members of Congress, um up by 50% last year, the highest ever recorded.
Why the rise, and what can turn things around?
Well, I think the rise reflects a general disenchantment with our political process.
I think that people feel that the process is hopeless, and they're resorting to violence.
Now, there are many other causes.
The rhetoric has escalated in a disgraceful way.
Uh otherwise responsible officials use terms like treason, uh or punishment by death, and things like that.
But fundamentally, I I think there's a general disenchantment with our political process.
And you see that in an extreme case with this uh suspected killer.
That he just becomes progressively more desperate, nothing can be done, everything is failing, and he decides to take it on himself to change the dynamic.
With that said, what can turn things around to change the vitriol and the violence?
Well, I think at a rhetorical level, a little um self-restraint might help.
I think at a social level, we need to be a little more critical, a little firmer in our moral code about what we'll listen to and what we'll put up with, and what we'll stand to hear from officials, people in the media, even people online.
But at the end of the day, the constitutional process itself has to function.
You have to have all three branches of government uh a functioning fully for the system to work.
And if there's a sense that perhaps the Congress uh is not fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities,
if there's a sense the president is overreaching, uh or that the judges somehow too much power, or in some cases they're alleged to have not exercised enough power.
This general disenchantment I see even among my students.
Professor Philip Bobbitt, Professor, thank you so much.
Thank you.
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