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Secret Service ‘needs to reconsider’ Trump-Vance joint appearances after WHCA gala shooting: McCaul

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by Max Rego - 04/26/26 2:33 PM ET

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by Max Rego - 04/26/26 2:33 PM ET

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Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Sunday that the Secret Service should “reconsider” whether President Trump and Vice President Vance attend the same events in the wake of Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner.

“The takeaway I got was that the line of succession,” McCaul, who attended the Washington event, told host Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“You had the president and the vice president at the head table, both of them together, and [House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La)]. Had an explosive device gone off, you would have knocked out the president, vice president, Speaker. The three in line of succession,” the Texas Republican noted.

When Bash asked McCaul whether he was saying that those three should not be in public together, he replied, “I think the Secret Service needs to reconsider having both the president and vice president together.”

If the president cannot carry out his duties, the vice president and House Speaker are next in the line of succession. Next would be the president pro tempore of the Senate, who McCaul noted is 92-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

The investigation into Saturday’s shooting is underway, and multiple outlets have identified the suspect as 31-year-old Cole Allen, from Torrance, Calif. The Hill has not independently verified the identity of the suspected gunman.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro told reporters Saturday that the suspect will be arraigned in federal court Monday on two charges — using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche also told Bash earlier Sunday that the man “absolutely” could be charged with attempting to assassinate Trump depending on his “motive, his premeditation [and] what he wanted to do.”

CBS News reported Sunday, citing law enforcement and White House officials, that the suspect wrote a manifesto in which he said he wanted to target Trump administration officials “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.” A White House official confirmed to The Hill that the suspect wrote such a manifesto.

Blanche also said he is “very comfortable” that Trump, Vance and Johnson were at the event and noted that the shooting “is not the kind of thing that will deter” the administration.

“This is not the kind of thing that will cause us to go down in a bunker and not come out. … We are going to continue to do our jobs,” the acting attorney general added.

“And our jobs include interacting with the press, which we do, which I’m doing now, which we did last night, and so very comfortable, because what you do when you have an environment like that, when you have the leaders of the free world in one room, is you make sure that you have security that will stop anybody from getting anywhere near any of those individuals,” he continued.

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