'This Week' Transcript 4-26-26: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche

A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, April 26, 2026 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.

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ANNOUNCER: “THIS WEEK” with George Stephanopoulos starts right now.

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GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC “THIS WEEK” ANCHOR: Chaos at the Correspondents’ Dinner. Shots fired. President Trump rushed from the stage as the gunman charged a security checkpoint.

JOHN CARROLL, METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPT. INTERIM POLICE CHIEF: He was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Agents jumped into action, subduing the man before he could enter the ballroom.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The man has been captured. And he’s a sick person. A very sick person.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But how did he get that close to the president and hundreds of officials? This morning, we’ll have the latest on the investigation with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Plus, full coverage from our ABC News team, who were in the room.

And, stalemate.

TRUMP: I don’t want to rush it. I want to take my time. We have plenty of time.

STEPHANOPOULOS: No war, no peace, no negotiations, as the Pentagon expands a naval blockade.

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. SECRETARY OF WAR: We seized their sanctioned ships. And we will seize more. Our blockade is growing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Iran maintains its grip on the Strait of Hormuz. What will it take to break the standoff? Will the war resume or peace talks take hold? How much will it cost? How long will this last? The latest from our correspondents and top experts who serve both parties.

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ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, a special edition of “THIS WEEK.” Here now, George Stephanopoulos.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to “THIS WEEK.”

It was the ultimate target. The president, the vice president, the speaker of the House, the presidential line of succession, all in the same room, surrounded by hundreds more members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, the Washington press corps. Then shots rang out. Everyone ducked for cover. The dramatic moments caught on camera as a gunman tried to rush the ballroom. Secret Service agents jumped into action, stopping the gunman, securing the president. Thank goodness no one was seriously injured, but it was a vivid reminder of the violent threats coursing through American society.

We’re going to address it all this morning with our ABC News team of correspondents who were in the ballroom, and we’ll get the latest on the investigation with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is also there.

Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce starts us off.

Good morning, Mary.

MARY BRUCE, ABC NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, George.

And this was a terrifying scene. The dinner had just begun. The first time Trump has ever attended the event as president.

I was sitting just about twenty feet away from him when we all heard that loud bang. The president said initially he thought it was a tray dropping in the room, but it became clear very quickly that that was not the case, as agents in full tactical gear swarmed into the ballroom, telling everyone to get down and duck as they raced to protect the president.

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BRUCE (voice over): A harrowing scene last night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The annual event just getting underway. The president and first lady, on stage, speaking with the evening’s entertainer Oz the Mentalist, when a loud bang was heard. Law enforcement swarming into the ballroom. The first lady, visibly shocked, appearing to mouth, "What happened?" The president immediately rushed off stage. Agents in full tactical gear, guns drawn, escorting key officials out of the room. Some 2,600 guests packed into the ballroom at the Washington Hilton, hitting the floor, ducking under tables. The president later describing the moment.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I heard a noise and sort of thought it was a tray. I thought it was a tray going down. I’ve heard that many times. And it was a pretty loud noise.

BRUCE (voice over): This video, released by the president, showing what happened just outside the ballroom doors. The attacker charging past the security checkpoint. Officials say he was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives. Agents racing to apprehend him, seen in this photo, also released by the president. This additional video appearing to show him being detained.

TRUMP: I mean, he was a -- a guy who looked pretty evil when he was down. You know, they had him down. He was fighting hard. He was a -- obviously, in my opinion, a sick person. Who would do that but a sick person?

BRUCE (voice over): One officer was shot and taken to the hospital.

CARROLL: We do know that a U.S. Secret Service uniform division officer was struck in his vest. He was transported to a local hospital for treatment. The suspect in this case, he was not struck by gunfire.

BRUCE (voice over): Back at the White House, the president, speaking to reporters in the Briefing Room, and vowing to hold the event in the coming weeks.

TRUMP: We very much wanted to continue it because I don’t like to let these sick people, these thugs, these horrible, horrible people change the fabric of our life, change the course of what we do.

BRUCE (voice over): The annual dinner, a night where journalists and politicians come together to celebrate the First Amendment.

TRUMP: This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech and was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press. And, in a certain way, it did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE (on camera): And, George, the president said last night that he desperately wanted the event to continue and go on but that security protocol simply wouldn’t allow it. The president was also pressed about his own security posture going forward. He said, this doesn’t make him reconsider doing these kinds of events. He said, this is a dangerous job and that, unfortunately, this is now a part of that job.

But, George, this event every year is intended to celebrate our constitutional freedoms. Last night, now a stark reminder of just how fragile those freedoms are.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, it was.

OK, Mary Bruce, thanks.

I want to bring in your White House colleague, Karen Travers.

Karen, you were up on -- at that head table with the president. Just give us a sense of what was going on.

KAREN TRAVERS, ABC NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, George, I was sitting two seats away from the president. He was in a really good mood. He was chatting at that point with the night’s entertainer, mentalist Oz Pearlman, and the first lady. You could see him showing him a magic trick at that point when the incident started unfolding. There was a loud noise from the center aisle, but it really wasn’t clear from the stage what was happening. It almost sounded like the program was starting. The president said later it sounded like a tray had fallen, but it was very clear, once Secret Service agents were on the stage, that something was wrong.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was sitting to my left. She told me, get down. We fell from our seats to the floor. And just a few feet away from me, the president was underneath Secret Service agents. George, he was quickly rushed off the stage. Some people on the stage then crawled off to get backstage as well. Secret Service told me, several of my colleagues on the board of the White House Correspondents’ Association, to stay as low as possible, not to move.

But after several minutes, they determined the situation was clear, and we got backstage. But at that point, we were really waiting for information from the Secret Service and an update from the president about what he wanted to do. He posted on social media, he wanted the show to go on, and he later told reporters that he fought like hell to stay at the event. But, George, he said that there was a protocol, and he was told he should leave. But now he says he wants to reschedule this event. He wants to see it done at some point in the next 30 days and will attend.

George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We’ll see if that happens. OK, Karen, thanks very much.

I also want to bring in our chief Washington correspondent, Jon Karl.

Jon, your phone rang early this morning.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, my phone rang shortly after 7:00 a.m. My landline, George, actually a number that few people call, and it was President Trump calling. He was -- he said at first he was calling to see if I was OK with what happened last night. Are you OK? And then he reiterated many of the things he said in his press conference last night, emphasizing the unity that he felt in that moment, that he felt at the dinner before the shooting and certainly after with the people who reached out to him. And he said, absolutely, and he was quite firm about this, that dinner must be rescheduled. It must be rescheduled. He knows that I was a former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association and had worked with him on a dinner that never actually happened back during covid. And he was saying, we’ve got to get this dinner back on. It has to happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Jon, you also spoke with Oz, the mentalist, who was actually speaking with the president right when those shots rang out.

KARL: I mean, George, this is so surreal. Oz, as you saw in those pictures, was doing one of his tricks on Karoline Leavitt sitting, you know, standing there between the first lady and the president when it happened. And he described to me the next several seconds. He said he went down, you know, when he heard the noise, heard the shots, and then a moment later the Secret Service came and brought Trump down. He said, very hard. And there he is behind that table, eye to eye with the president. And he said at that moment that the president looked stunned, almost like he was in a state of shock. And he said, he was really brought down quite hard.

And then, of course, the president was brought out of the room and Oz was still left behind at that table. But he said that the thought that went through his mind was that he thought that President Trump had been shot, because he had that look of shock in his eyes, and he was brought down so hard by the Secret Service. And the thought that went through his head beyond that was, we’re all going to die. He was absolutely terrified in that moment.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It is terrifying.

OK, Jon, thanks very much.

I want to bring in our chief justice correspondent, Pierre Thomas.

Pierre, we’re learning more about the gunman.

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PIERRE THOMAS, ABC NEWS CHIEF JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This was the chaotic scene as a man rushed past a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last night, with shots fired, before he was tackled to the ground by the Secret Service.

CARROLL: At approximately 8:36 tonight, an individual charged a U.S. Secret Service checkpoint here in the lobby area of the hotel. He was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives.

THOMAS (voice over): The suspect, identified by law enforcement sources as 31-year-old Cole Allen of Torrance, California, expected to be charged with using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.

CARROLL: At this point, it does appear he is a lone actor, a lone gunman that does not appear to be any sort of danger to the public at this time. However, we are continuing to investigate this matter.

THOMAS (voice-over): Officials said Allen was a guest at the Washington Hilton where the event took place, and, according to law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation, he is believed to have booked a room in early April.

JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: It is clear, based upon what we know so far, that this individual was intent on doing as much harm and as much damage as he could.

THOMAS (voice-over): Officials telling ABC News, Allen is declining to answer questions. He allegedly made some reference to targeting administration officials, but was not specific.

Allen is a trained mechanical engineer working as a tutor, according to a LinkedIn page connected to him. He graduated from Caltech in 2017 and from California State University-Dominguez Hills in 2025, according to representatives for both schools.

Overnight, the FBI and SWAT teams searching the suspect’s Southern California home.

Law enforcement officials are in the process of piecing together the suspect’s movement in recent days. And according to officials briefed on the investigation, preliminary information suggests he traveled from Los Angeles to Chicago, then to D.C., before checking into the Hilton on Saturday.

DARREN COX, FBI WASHINGTON FIELD OFFICE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN CHARGE:  The public should also rest assured that there will be no stone unturned during this investigation.

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THOMAS: Cole Allen is expected to make his first appearance in a D.C. courtroom as early as tomorrow -- George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thanks, Pierre.

We're joined now by the Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Mr. Blanche, thank you for joining us this morning.

You were in that room last night. What was going through your mind when you heard those shots?

TODD BLANCHE, U.S. ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think the same thing that was going through everybody's mind. A lot of confusion. The president said he thought maybe a tray dropped. I think that's a fair description of what I thought as well.

And then just kind of surprise, and then obviously the night unfolded after that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We know a Secret Service officer was hit by gunfire. How's he doing this morning?

BLANCHE: I mean, he's doing great. The president called him last night from the Oval Office, and he was in great spirits even -- you know, even then.

And I expect that he is -- I'm not sure his status as far as whether he's been released or not, but he was very appreciative. The president thanked him and expressed his own appreciation, and he was in great spirits.

So I think he’s going to be -- he's going to be great, he's going to be fine, and thank God he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do we know if he was hit by shots from the gunman or from other agents?

BLANCHE: I believe it's from the gunman. Now, look, obviously, we're 12 hours in, so I don't -- I want to be careful making definitive statements, but from what we know right now, that was a discharge from the suspect.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And what more can you tell us about the gunman?

BLANCHE: Well, we're 12 hours into the investigation. The FBI and other law enforcement worked through the night. They executed search warrants on both coasts, both in D.C., at the hotel room where he was staying, which was inside the conference center where we had the dinner, and also in Los Angeles at the suspected home.

We know that he had two firearms on him, as -- as has been reported, along with some knives. We believe that he traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago, and then Chicago to Washington, D.C.

And we've executed search warrants on his devices as well. We started talking to folks that know him or -- and to try to just continue to gather information and evidence. This is -- I was on the phone with the director of the FBI after one o'clock last night and he -- they were working through the night, he was working through the night.

And I think that as the days go by, we'll certainly learn more. But that's what we know so far.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How was he able to get the guns into the hotel?

BLANCHE: It's a good question. Listen, I'm not sure. It appears that he checked in on the 24th to the hotel, and we're still looking at video surveillance and footage of where he walked and how he got in and how those firearms got in.

But at the end of the day, I expect we'll have a lot more about that in the coming days.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you confident he was acting alone?

BLANCHE: Look, it's 12 hours in. As President Trump said last night, it appears he did. We don't have evidence to the contrary, but that's not that surprising given the timing and when everything happened.

We are actively combing through all the evidence that we've collected and going to continue to do that today and in the coming days and weeks. And if he did not act alone or if folks knew what he was doing or helped him along the way, we will find that out. We don't have evidence to show that as of -- as of this morning.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you look at last night and you see the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, the speaker of the House. I'm not sure that the Senate president pro tem was there, but you've got the entire presidential line of succession right there all in the same room.

Is it safe to have an event like that at a hotel like the Washington Hilton?

BLANCHE: Well, listen, I have two responses to that, George.

One, the system worked. Law enforcement and the Secret Service protected all of us. The man barely got past the perimeter. And so, when you have a perimeter designed to keep people safe, like President Trump, and it works, that's something that should be applauded.

Secondly, as President Trump said, we are not going to stop doing what we're doing. We're not going to stop living. We're not going to stop being out there.

President Trump is going to continue communicating with the American people in public. And the fact that the vice president and other leadership were there last night in one room is why we had such a robust security surrounding the place, inside the place. And it's why we are all safe.

And so, this was tragic. It was a night that none of us will forget for a very long time. But do not forget that the system worked. The Secret Service kept us safe. And that man was quickly apprehended and subdued minutes, seconds after he tried to breach the perimeter.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Everything in place for the visit of King Charles this week?

BLANCHE: Sorry, can you repeat that, George?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is everything in place for the visit of King Charles this week?

BLANCHE: Yes. So, look, I think that we -- we expect that -- that he -- that the suspect will be charged tomorrow morning in federal court with two counts, assault from a federal officer and use of a firearm during a crime of violence. We're going to continue to investigate, and it'll just be a complaint tomorrow, an indictment will be -- will be coming in the coming days or weeks and go from there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, you know, this is the third attempt on President Trump in the last two years. We've seen members of Congress targeted. We've seen other government officials targeted.

How would you describe the threat environment right now, and what more needs to be done to keep us all safe?

BLANCHE: It's a great question.

There have been threats against leadership for a very long time, years and years and years. That's not new. There is something unique about the threats against President Trump and his cabinet that is disgusting and it shouldn't be happening.

On the other hand, that's why we have great law enforcement. That's why we have DHS and our intelligence community and the FBI and all of our other partners that are working every day to stop those threats before they happen.

And we've seen that exposed publicly a lot, like you just said. But you also have a lot of times when we foil attempts, whether it's terrorists or whether it's domestic terrorists or Iran or other nation states that are threatening us.

And so, it's a fight. It's something that has kept all of us busy for a long time, and we are at a crunch time right now with security and keeping all of us safe. And we will continue to do that and to work hard and identify threats and stop them.

And the rhetoric that is out there on social media is one of the reasons for it. And so, we monitor that very carefully, as you would expect us to, and we'll keep doing that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: General Blanche, thanks for your time this morning.

BLANCHE: Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Up next, we’re going to have more on the political threat environment with two top national security experts.

We're back in two minutes.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: We will be examining this individual's background thoroughly. That process has already started, and we are going to ensure that he was either a lone wolf actor or anyone else that was responsible. We will analyze all evidence immediately to make sure that we safeguard this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: FBI director Kash Patel right there.

We're joined now by two counterterror experts, former Homeland Security official John Cohen and Javed Ali, the former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

And John Cohen, let me begin with you. I want to pick up where I left off with the Attorney General Blanche right there. We're seeing this real, the threat environment is really robust right now with this political polarization leading to political violence.

JOHN COHEN, FORMER ACTING DHS UNDERSECRETARY FOR INTELLIGENCE: Yes, George, as you and I have discussed now for unfortunately several years, this is the most volatile, complex and dangerous threat environment I've experienced in the 42 plus years that I've been involved in law enforcement and Homeland Security.

We're an angry, polarized nation. We have a growing number of people, particularly young males, who believe that violence is the only way to express their sense of grievance or their opposition to the current political conditions in this country. They are inspired and increasingly informed by content that they consume online. That's placed there by terrorist groups, foreign intelligence services and others, specifically for the purposes of inspiring and inciting violence.

And increasingly, we're seeing them turn to artificial intelligence to help them develop attack plans that allow them even an unsophisticated attacker, to engage in a violent attack. So the threat environment is significantly dangerous.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Javed Ali, these are still generally lone wolves, not part of a broader coordinated conspiracy?

JAVED ALI, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM: So, George, nice to be with you. And yes, from what we know right now, now again, very early in the investigation, this appears to be yet another example of a lone offender or a lone wolf. And as John knows from his time in government and my time as well, these types of people are the hardest to find and sometimes the hardest to stop because they're operating on their own. They're not operating on behalf of a foreign group.

Almost always, most of the time they're not subjects of law enforcement investigation and they're basically flying under the radar screen until they then mobilize to violent action. And what happened last night appears to be just another example of that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And John Cohen, is General Blanche right that the system did work here?

COHEN: Well, the security protocols in place did prevent the attack from occurring, but they'll want to study what happened and whether there are adjustments. But yesterday's event is a good illustration of the challenges facing law enforcement across the country, particularly as we're in a year where we're going to be hosting the World Cup. We have an election coming up. You know, this was an event that was widely attended by government officials, by VIPs, by members of the media, by congressional representatives.

It was in a location that not only was accessible to the public, but being a hotel allowed people to enter the location without their bags being searched and without being vetted. So these are the types of locations that are really challenging for law enforcement to secure. But unfortunately, in the current environment, they have to do everything they can to secure those locations.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Javed Ali, we're also in the middle of a war right now. How does that add to the challenge?

ALI: So, George, this is another factor that the intelligence community and law enforcement here in the United States has to consider on a daily basis. Now, thankfully, we have not seen any Iranian directed or sponsored attacks here in the United States. And even after the beginning of the conflict on February 28th, I assessed that as a low probability. But at the same time, we still have this issue that we've been talking about with self-radicalized individuals who aren't connected to anything overseas or not being directed by anyone from overseas, and not even actually part of groups or networks here.

And it's that lone offender threat, even in a -- in a time where the United States is in conflict overseas, that just adds to the challenge. How do you find people like that with everything else going on in the environment?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you both very much for your time this morning.

Up next, we turn to the latest in the Iran war with the diplomatic stalemate overseas, more economic fallout here at home.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: There you see the Iranian foreign minister after his meetings with top Pakistani officials in Islamabad. There had been some hope he would be joined by U.S. negotiators, but President Trump called that off saying the sides are just too far apart right now.

So let's get the latest on the war as it enters its ninth week.

Here's White House correspondent Selina Wang.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SELINA WANG, ABC NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two weeks after peace talks came up empty, the war in Iran is no closer to ending. And this morning, even the next round of talks called off.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We canceled the trip. We have all the cards.

WANG (voice-over): President Trump abruptly canceling his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff's travel to Pakistan for peace talks.

TRUMP: We're not going to spend 15 hours in airplanes all the time going back and forth to be giving a document that was not good enough. And so, we'll deal by telephone, and they can call us anytime they want.

WANG (voice-over): But Iran never said there would be a direct meeting with the U.S., despite the White House press secretary's claim on Friday.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The Iranians reached out, as the president called on them to do, and asked for this in-person conversation. So the president is dispatching Steve and Jared to go hear what they have to say.

WANG (voice-over): Iran's foreign minister instead leaving Pakistan on Saturday after meeting with the Pakistani leaders. Trump now saying no one knows who is in charge in Iran.

TRUMP: I’ll deal with whoever runs the show. They don't know.

They’re -- they are fighting with each other. There’s tremendous infighting. They're probably fighting for leadership. In many cases, I think they're fighting not to be the leader because we knocked out two levels of leaders.

WANG (voice-over): But a regional policy source telling ABC News there may be differences in emphasis and approach within the Iranian system, but there is no clear evidence of fractures at the level of core decision making.

On Tuesday, the president extending the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely. After promising the war would only last four to six weeks, Trump now declaring he has all the time in the world.

TRUMP: I don't want to rush myself. I'm not under any pressure whatsoever.

WANG (voice-over): Comparing the current timeline to some of the nation's most contentious conflicts.

TRUMP: So we were in Vietnam like for 18 years. We were in Iraq for many, many years. And we were in the Korean War for seven years.

WANG (voice-over): Democratic efforts to rein in Trump's war powers failed again on Wednesday in the Senate. But all eyes are now on May 1st. That’s when Trump may need

congressional approval to continue the war past the 60-day mark under the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, (D-CT): The president literally deciding by the hour whether his son-in-law is in charge of the negotiations or whether the vice president is in charge of the negotiations. The president lying consistently about the nature of the negotiations, saying things have been agreed to, that clearly have not been agreed to.

WANG (voice-over): Meanwhile the U.S. enforcing its blockade of Iranian ports.

PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We seized their sanctioned ships and we will seize more. Our blockade is growing.

WANG (voice-over): Iran maintaining its hold over the Strait of Hormuz, seizing tankers near the critical waterway, where about 20 percent of the world's oil passes. Gas prices in the U.S. now averaging about $4 a gallon, up more than $1 since the war began.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you need more time, does that mean Americans should anticipate spending more on gasoline for the foreseeable future?

TRUMP: For a little while. And you know what they get for that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For how long?

TRUMP: You know what they get for that? Iran without a nuclear weapon that's going to try and blow up one of our cities or blow up the entire Middle East.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WANG (on camera): And George, Iran's foreign minister says Tehran has yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy. Iran has made it clear they won't even sit down with the U.S. until the U.S. ends its naval blockade on Iranian ports. So it's unclear when or if in-person negotiations will resume, George

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thanks, let's (inaudible) for what now Elizabeth Schulze also in Washington. We're really starting to see this cripple global energy markets.

ELIZABETH SCHULZE, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: George, across the board, we are seeing higher prices from these oil prices, up now nearly 50 percent since the start of the war. So when you look at that national average for a gallon of gas, $4.07, up $1.13 since the start of the war.

If we see oil around this level for a year, Moody's Analytics says it is going to cost a typical American household an extra $1,400 in gas and diesel costs, and these higher prices, George, really do disproportionately hit lower income families. They spend four times more on gas than the highest income households. We know that gas prices are really one of the biggest factors shaping people's perception of inflation and the overall economy.

When you look at Gallup's Economic Confidence Index, it was released this week. It dropped 11 points between March and April, so now, the lowest level in more than two years. We do know that consumers have been pretty resilient despite years of stubborn inflation. So the big question really is, how much do these higher costs including groceries, airfare, how much does that force households to ultimately cut back?

Analysts at Goldman, pretty bluntly, they said that what originally started as a very solid year for consumer spending has quickly become a lot more challenging, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Elizabeth, even if the war ended this week, it is going to take a long time to get the energy markets back up and running.

SCHULZE: Exactly right. The head of the International Energy Agency warned this week that this is the biggest energy security threat in history and the longer that this lasts, the longer time we need to get back to where we were before the war. So even if the Strait fully reopens tomorrow, it is expected to take months or even years to get global supply back to the pre-war level.

Critical energy facilities in the Middle East have been damaged. They can't just go back online overnight. So in total, we're talking about 13 million barrels of oil per day that are lost every day, right now, according to the IEA. That is more than both of the oil crises in the 1970s combined.

And George, right now, the U.S. is exporting a record amount of its own oil and that is still not enough to make up for that huge global shortfall.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Elizabeth Schulze, thanks. Let's bring in two top foreign policy experts right now, Richard Haass, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, served in multiple Republican administrations and Wendy Sherman, former Deputy Secretary of State, one of the top negotiators of the Iran nuclear deal during the Obama administration.

And Wendy, let me begin with you. You see both the president -- President Trump and the Iranian leaders claiming that they're winning this war. Now that we've finished eight weeks so far, heading into the ninth week, how do you see this? Where do things stand?

WENDY SHERMAN, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: I think, George, that we see a stalemate between the United States and Iran. We've just heard about the economic warfare that's going on. We have actually a military standoff and quite frankly, what this requires is really tough diplomacy.

There's no question that the United States has a credible threat of force, but the blockade really blockades ourselves as well as Iran. And the United States has to decide what it's willing to do to get back to these talks and really begin some true diplomacy. You can't do this in 20 hours, in one day. This is a very complex negotiation.

You have to do it with experts. You have to be ready to be in for a long haul to get a very complicated job done. The last point I want to make, as others have said, we are creating a situation which is really superpower suicide. We have effectively given Russia a way forward to get money for its war against Ukraine. We’ve put ourselves in a weaker position vis a vis the president’s trip to China, and we’ve put our allies and partners, both in the gulf and in Europe, in difficult positions because of the decisions we have made.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, I want to get more on that in a moment.

First, Richard, which side has the clock working for them at this point?

RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: I think it probably favors Iran a little bit more. We’ve seen their resilience, George. You know, they’re under some pressure given how bad their economy is. But we feel the time pressure, of what you just talked about, the energy, the fact that the Strait is closed has growing effects. And so far we haven’t seen them. Stock markets are relatively sanguine. Even energy prices. OK, gasoline is up $1. But the last tankers to have left the region have now arrived at their ports. That means now the supply shortages are going to kick in big time. And over the next few weeks, you could see gas go up another $1. The idea of $5 a gallon gasoline is not -- is not far-fetched. So, I actually think we feel the pressure slightly more than Iran.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And pick up on Wendy’s point right there. If you look at the global map right now, it appears that China is gaining from this. Russia may be gaining from this. NATO may be weakening.

HAASS: Absolutely. And when historians write about this, they’re going to say this was an ill-advised war of choice. Yes, Iran is conventionally weaker. Its military forces are somewhat weaker. But the cost, the economic cost, the cost to alliances, the cost to U.S. standing, American guarantees, the local partners in the Gulf, they’ve been -- they’ve been hurt by this war.

So, I think history is going to properly be extremely critical about this war, about the assumptions we made going into it, that Iran couldn’t stand up, that it wasn’t going to attack its neighbors, it wasn’t going to close the Strait of Hormuz. Every one of these assumptions has been proven wrong. So, we’re winning. If you -- it almost reminds me of Vietnam, George. The body counts. We’re winning in terms of the narrow military calculation, but in the larger, strategic sense, we’re losing this war.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Wendy, you spent a lot of time negotiating with the Iranians. What’s your sense of who is in charge right now? We’ve heard President Trump talk about the divisions there. It’s unclear who is leading the negotiations and who they’re answering to.

SHERMAN: So, there’s always been debate inside of Iran. We tend to think, because there’s a supreme leader, that it’s iron clad, but it’s not. It has politics. But right now what has happened is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is in full control. The folks that I call the hard hard-liners are really dictating how we go forward. Mojtaba Khamenei is probably alive, but Vahidi, who is head of -- the commander of the IRGC is probably calling the shots. Abbas Araghchi, who was my counterpart during the 2015 negotiations, now the foreign minister, is very smart, very tough, knows every detail of this constant problem that we’re facing to make sure Iran never has a nuclear weapon and he has bona fides out of the revolution in 1979. So, he knows how to deal with this.

And Richard is quite right, all the assumptions have been wrong here. We have always gamed out that the Strait of Hormuz was a problem. We have always gamed out that Iran could hit our partners in the Gulf. The administration has not understood that this is a culture of resistance, and Iran is not about to give up ever the things that it says is part of its national identity.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, and then if -- and that means the right to enrich nuclear materials. The president -- and I wonder what you think about this. President Trump keeps saying the objective is that Iran will not have nuclear weapon. They forswear that that’s their goal. They say it’s not their goal. Do you think the president understands that and is he looking for some wiggle room in the negotiations?

SHERMAN: I hope he’s looking for some wiggle room because we’re not going to get anywhere if we say that they don’t have a right. The United States has never believed that the nonproliferation treaty gives that right. But President Obama was willing to allow Iran to have a very small civil enrichment program under very intrusive monitoring and verification.

There is a way forward here. I could even imagine that we suspend the blockade. Iran suspends its closing the Strait of Hormuz during a negotiation for some agreed period to see if progress can be made. But, quite frankly, unless we are about to try to really engage in tough diplomacy, we’re not going to get anywhere any time soon.

Bill Burns has laid out in a “New York Times” editorial -- op-ed piece that, in fact, we could get Iran to suspend perhaps enrichment for a period of time and then maintain a very small program, again under that intrusive monitoring. There are solutions here, George, but they have to be negotiated. Richard, you this week laid out three possible courses -- either escalation, drift, or some kind of negotiations leading to deal. Which is most likely right now?

HAASS: Right now, in the short run, probably drift.

I think we're going to be stuck with some version of the status quo where the straits are closed, formal talks aren't happening. I think, George, though, since escalation makes no sense, neither side would benefit from it. We're running out of targets.

The last thing we want to see is Iran resume its attacks against the energy infrastructure of its neighbors. I think at some point, the logic economically, neither side benefits from drift from the status quo. I think that pushes us towards negotiations.

And the sort of thing Wendy talked about is the basics of a deal. The blockade, which I argued for, what, five, six weeks ago, was always a means to an end. It was to get Iran to lift, or at least temporarily, its control of that strait.

And the nuclear -- we're not going to get Iran zero in the nuclear business. What we want to do is have a ceiling on what it's able to do, and we want to be able to inspect that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess the question is, is President Trump ready to accept that?

HAASS: I don't think -- well, the answer is if he doesn't accept that, then we have drift, which means the straits remain closed, which is an economic disaster for the world and the United States.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you both for your time this morning.

Roundtable's up next. We're back in a moment.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, (D) VIRGINIA: Virginians understood the stakes of this referendum election. Virginians understood that it all began when President Trump said that he was entitled to additional congressional seats, and when Republican legislature after Republican legislature obliged him.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R-LA) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We are confident in calling upon the Virginia Supreme Court to do the obvious and right result, and that is to strike this thing down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Battle for the midterms is in full swing right now. We’ll discuss it on the roundtable when we come back.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: And we are back with our Roundtable, joined by former DNC Chair, Donna Brazile; former New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie; and Wall Street Journal Columnist, Jason Riley. Thank you for coming in.

Chris, let's begin with last night and the fallout from last night. The president seemed to be striking a different tone after the dinner. Do you think this has any serious repercussions for our politics?

CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: No. Look, I think this is -- the event that happened last night, I agree with the Attorney General. The protocols worked. I mean, that's why you set up a perimeter like that. I watched that guy, as we all saw, running through there.

I mean, where did he really think he was going? I mean, this shows you how nuts he is, because there's no way you're going to get through all of that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: He was still a floor away.

CHRISTIE: Yeah, he was a floor away. I mean, so I think, look, we're fortunate that nobody, no law enforcement folks got seriously injured or killed. And I think that what it'll be is something that will dominate our conversation for the next 48 to 72 hours.

But then beyond that, I don't think it has any long-term political ramifications for the midterms, or even for what we're going to try to get done in Congress over the course of the next month or so.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What you have seen, though, Donna, is members of Congress, judges, political officials all across the country seized by this fear of getting attacked.

DONNA BRAZILE, FORMER DNC CHAIR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Right. George, we're living in a culture right now, where we've normalized some of this hatred, loss of trust in institutions. We don't know really the intent of the so-called shooter, but we do know this, is that right now we're faced with a crisis.

Maybe it's mental health, maybe it's a lack of community, maybe it's social isolation. We don't know until we hear more about this guy and his motives. But I can tell you this, as someone who've attended plenty of those dinners over the years, I've always felt safe in that room. Why? Because there's a perimeter that extends up and down Connecticut Avenue, across Florida Avenue, all the way into four or five different communities.

Everyone knows you have to walk to that dinner, and to think that somebody could get into that hotel and cause that much, maybe, damage, it's scary.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is this an opportunity for the president to strike a different tone?

JASON RILEY, WALL STREET JOURNAL OPINION COLUMNIST & MANHATTAN INSTITUTE SENIOR FELLOW: Oh, of course, but he's had many such opportunities. I think he did strike the right tone last night, but as the governor was saying, I'm not sure how long that will last. We know after the Butler, Pennsylvania attempt on his life, there was a bump in his approval rating for some time, but it didn't last.

And I don't think that this will last very long either. These are simply hyper-partisan times that we're living in. It is disturbing that we've seen these attempts, judges and DNC offices and RNC offices and the like. So it's a sign of the times, and I think it's an indication that we kind of need to tone down the rhetoric, whether it's the politicians themselves, whether it's the media, because there are people out there taking this stuff seriously and perhaps taking it too far.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And repeating it on social media as well. The president entered the dinner last night, Chris Christie, really facing -- after coming out of the most challenging political weeks of his presidency. We saw the redistricting, the war now stretching in to its ninth week, and he got the lowest poll numbers of his presidency.

CHRISTIE: And I think, you know, the way to figure out what's going on with the president is just watch him and listen. And he knows that he's in trouble politically, and he's thrashing around for a way to change the subject and kind of get out of it. But the problem for him, right now, is the war.

And the fact that, you know, we heard Richard Haass and Wendy talking. Look, if all that happens, George, is that we wind up with Iran in the same place that we were in from a nuclear perspective, and the Straits of Hormuz is reopened, and that's what is a result of what's happened. That's a problem politically for the president, because that's essentially where we were before all this started.

And so I think the problem for the president is, he didn't do what people need to do as leaders, which is you need to sell the American people on military action before it happens. He didn't do that. They're not seeing immediate results. In fact, what they're seeing is harm to them economically.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That kind of a compromise may be the best the president can do right now, Jason Reily, but do you think he'll take it? Does he want the off-ramp, or do you think we're headed towards escalation?

RILEY: Well, he certainly wants the off-ramp, which I think is why he keeps prematurely

declaring victory. He's under pressure from financial markets. He's under pressure from the political calendar. Republicans in Congress want this over. But there's a difference between ending the war and winning the war. And if he ends it prematurely and doesn't see it through, I think Iran will be in a stronger position.

If Iran has a veto on oil going through the Strait of Hormuz, if that's what they end up with, if they keep their enriched uranium, if they keep their missile program in place, you don't want a world in which Iran is the dominant power in the Middle East and China is the dominant power in Asia. And Russia is the dominant power in Europe. That is a much more dangerous world. And that's what we're at risk of having if we prematurely end this war.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But what does victory look like, Donna Brazile, and what are the risks of escalation?

BRAZILE: Well, first of all, we've got to reopen the strait. People are suffering. Gas prices, diesel prices, farmers can't get the commodities they need to plant their seeds. You're seeing the American people now really afraid of the rising cost, not just at the grocery store. The gas, but health insurance. So the president had political problems before he started this war. And it doesn't appear that he has any solutions to really ease the economic pain on the American.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Consumer sentiment on Friday the lowest we've ever seen.

CHRISTIE: Yes. And it is. And for a reason. Prices are up, and people feel it, and they're nervous. But I have to agree with Jason on the point on the war. Look, if you're going to do it, get it done. He told us a number of different reasons as to why he was getting in. The two biggest ones he talked about was regime change and the nuclear program.

If we end this war with the regime still in place and arguably, I agree with Jason, stronger than it was before from a political perspective.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But their economy decimated.

CHRISTIE: Yes. But, George, their economy wasn't good going into the war. I mean, so slightly worse. But in the end, all we did was kind of degrade their conventional military capability. But with drones and others, they've shown they can be really effective in creating chaos in the region. And the nuclear thing is still there? Well, then what did we accomplish? And so I think the president is at a real key point here.

He says the nuclear thing is the most important thing to him. If it is, then he's got to finish the job.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But what does finish the job look like? That's what I don't understand.

CHRISTIE: It doesn't look pretty, George. But to not --

BRAZILE: Because there was never a strategy in the first place.

CHRISTIE: But to not be able to anticipate that going in, this is what I said with you a few weeks ago. He's playing checkers, not chess. Not to understand that the Iranians are survivors and they're going to do whatever they need to do, like close the strait and attack their neighbors to survive. That's what they did. So before you launched the first attack, I think the president thought this was going to be Venezuela.

Iran is not Venezuela, and that's what he's learned. But now, as Jason said, he's gotten us into this. If we were -- if we got this with a stronger Iran, George, this is a geopolitical failure of enormous proportions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Then I guess it gets to the question, Jason, can the president sell something that looks like what Wendy Sherman was talking about, a deal not unlike what President Obama negotiated, maybe a little bit better with a shorter timeline --

RILEY: It needs to go further than that, George. I think we need not only to decimate the nuclear program, to get the enriched uranium, they have to be open to inspections. That is what this will look like. They will have to be transparent about not pursuing nuclear weapons, not sponsoring terrorism in other countries through proxies, not threatening their neighbors and our allies.

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: They were open for inspections before.

RILEY: Transparent inspections when we want them on our terms and not on their terms. We are so far apart on these negotiations. I mean, we are so far from achieving the aims that I think the president laid out at the beginning. And I think it may take more military force to reach that. But if Iran can veto traffic through the strait on 20%, if they know that that's all they need to do to close the strait and wait out the West, they're going to be in a much more powerful position than they were going in. And we can't have that.

BRAZILE: That's true. And part of the problem, Jason, as you well know, is that we don't have any real serious diplomats who can engage to help even put together a framework that can allow the United States and others to take a victory lap.

George, the problem is, from day one, the president never had a strategy. We're about to hit the May 1st deadline. And hopefully Congress can come back and say we need to have a conversation and some oversight on this war.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I wanted to ask Chris about that May 1st deadline. Do you think you're going to start to see Republicans on May 1st vote with the Democrats on restricting the president's war powers?

CHRISTIE: I think they'll vote with the Democrats on May 1st, but they'll start to speak out a little bit more. And Jason and I were talking about this in the green room that the absence of congressional action and congressional rhetoric on this has been disturbing. And I think that, you know, part of this problem too is if what we wanted to do was buy real estate in Tehran, then Witkoff and Kushner were the right people to send.

If we wanted to try to get a serious negotiation going, their background, their experience is not what's necessary to really understand the depths and the intricacies of these problems. They've been going on for 50 years, George, and to send two real estate negotiators over there was a bad move by the president because he wants people he's comfortable with and that he can control.

BRAZILE: That's correct.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How quickly do you think -- how long is it going to take to get some kind of deal the president can sell?

RILEY: I don't know how long it's going to take, but it's got to -- he's got to pursue it as long as he needs to. If we're negotiating, Iran is winning. That's what they do. They negotiate, they stretch this out. Their goal is to wait us out.

And the president needs to make it clear that they won't be able to do that this time. And that will probably take more military force, not more negotiating.

CHRISTIE: It will.

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you all for your time this morning. We'll be right back.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: That is all for us today. Check out "World News Tonight," and I'll see you tomorrow on GMA.

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