Shots Fired; Ben Sasse; The Pigeon Mafia | 60 Minutes Full Episodes
In a Nutshell
A gunman breached security at the White House Correspondents Dinner, firing shots near President Trump and officials before being swiftly neutralized; Trump praised the Secret Service response and unity in the room, while decrying radicalization and political hate. Former Senator Ben Sasse, battling terminal pancreatic cancer extended by an experimental drug, critiques Washington's lack of vision on AI, work disruption, and community, urging focus on neighborhoods over tribal politics. Belgium's elite racing pigeons, worth millions and fueling a global market dominated by Chinese buyers, face thefts by the "pigeon mafia," countered by DNA tracking that recently recovered stolen birds like champion Finn.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Last night in Washington, a gunman stormed the security perimeter at the White House correspondents dinner. The president, the vice president, cabinet members, and more than 2,500 guests gathered to celebrate freedom of the press. President Trump was interviewed about the incident. Federal investigators are looking into the motive of the alleged gunman, a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California. He emailed a manifesto to his family minutes before the attack, stating he was targeting members of the Trump administration.
Mr. President, do you know if you were the target of the gunman? I don't know. It sounded to me I read a manifesto just he's radicalized. He was a Christian believer and then he became an anti-Christian and he had a lot of change. He's been going through a lot based on what he wrote. His brother complained about him and I think reported him to the police and his sister likewise complained about him. His family was very concerned. He was probably a pretty sick guy.
The incident occurred at the same hotel where President Ronald Reagan was nearly assassinated by John Hinckley 45 years ago. Interviewer was in the room not far from President Trump and could hear gunshots or commotion. People nearby smelled gunpowder. Everybody hit the floor.
The entertainer Oz Pearlman, known as the mentalist, was talking at the time. The first lady looked very alarmed. Security grabbed the vice president by his coat and lifted him out. Counter assault team flanked the president in 10 seconds and got him out in 20 seconds.
What happened is it was a little bit me. I wanted to see what was happening and I wasn't making it that easy for him. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time, we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of a problem, bad one and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom which you hear all the time. And I was surrounded by great people and I probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me see. Wait a minute."
President Trump started walking with agents, then dropped to the floor along with the first lady as instructed. He had been through similar situations before, but this was the first time to this extent for the first lady. She handled it great. They went to a hold room, and he tried to get them to continue the event.
You wanted to go back in. I did. I really did.
The gunman ran through metal detectors and fired one or two rounds. His speed was incredible, like a blur, running 45 yards. Security drew guns and took him down immediately. They were professional.
Two hours later, President Trump briefed reporters at the White House.
I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was in one way very beautiful.
The manifesto referenced "Administration officials, they are targets." and "I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."
President Trump denied the accusations, stating he was not a rapist or pedophile, was totally exonerated, and associated the claims with others like Epstein. The gunman had been staying at the hotel since Friday, cased the place, and criticized Secret Service incompetence: "What the hell is the Secret Service doing?" "I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got is nothing." "This level of incompetence is insane."
Well, he was pretty incompetent, too, because he got caught and he got caught pretty easily. So, I'd say he was pretty incompetent, too. Those guys did a good job last night. They did a really good job.
The gunman had social media with anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric, was part of a group called the Wide Awakes, attended a No Kings protest in California.
The reason you have people like that is you have people doing no kings. I'm not a king.
Attendees included Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his sister Kerry Kennedy, Erica Kirk, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Political violence has touched many in the room.
You know, you go back 20 years, 40 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years. It's always been there. People are assassinated. People are injured. People are hurt. And I'm not sure that it's any more now than there was. I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats, much more so, is very dangerous. I really think it's very dangerous to the country.
President Trump hopes to move such events to the new East Wing Ballroom, ahead of schedule but not ready until 2028. He wants the dinner rescheduled within 30 days with more security.
I want them because I don't want to see it be cancelled. I don't want to have a crazy person. I think it's really bad for a crazy person to be able to cancel something like this. There are great people in the press, too. ... It's a very liberal press. But I was really happy to see the relationship, the friendship, the spirit after a very bad event took place. Now, the event turned out to be much less bad because nobody was killed, nobody was hurt. The Secret Service agent had a bulletproof vest on. He's 100%. He didn't want to go to the hospital.
Ben Sasse, former US senator from Nebraska and college president, age 54, dying of pancreatic cancer but given extra time by a new drug. He appeals for reason in Washington and community at home. Conservative Republican with PhD in American history.
The people despise us all because we are not doing our job.
His cancer therapy leaves him looking sunburned.
I love America and I think there's a lot of big and meaty things that we should have been talking about and we still can talk about and having a terminal diagnosis isn't really that unique. We're all always on the clock. Some of us have the benefit of knowing our time is finite and defined and it becomes an opportunity to talk about bigger stuff. and you have focus from that.
Neither of these parties really have very big or good ideas about 2030 or 2050. The Congress is not wrestling with big or important questions right now.
Reflecting on rebuilding communities neighbor to neighbor, regulating artificial intelligence before it overwhelms us, mending broken politics.
We are living through a digital revolution which is both glorious and horrific at the same time. Because what the digital revolution does is it accelerates almost everything about the human experience. Anything that can be reduced to a series of steps, which is most economic activity, is going to be routinized and become really, really cheap, really fast, and really ubiquitous. We've never lived in a world where 22 year olds couldn't assume that the work they did they would be able to do until death or retirement. And we're never going to have that world again. And Congress doesn't talk about any of those kind of most fundamental issues. The disruption of work for good and for ill should be front and central. Congress doesn't even know how to have that conversation.
In 2014, recruited from college presidency in Nebraska to run for Senate, became one of the most popular politicians in state history. During Senate recesses, worked as garbage man and vendor at Cornhusker games to stay in touch with Nebraskans.
What makes you a Republican? I'm a Republican because I think the Lincoln Reagan continuum does the best job of building constraint on thinking Washington is our fundamental political community. I think your fundamental political community is your neighborhood and your city hall and maybe even your state legislature. And right now we are sacrificing a lot of our national politics to weird folks who want their main community to be their political tribe at a federal level. And that should be like the ninth thing or the 15th thing you care about, not the first or second thing.
On Trump administration: Wrestled on many issues but current politics are an echo of larger problems like thin, shallow community.
In 2020, reelected with more votes in Nebraska than Donald Trump. After January 6th:
You can't do big things together as Americans if you think other Americans are the enemy.
Voted to convict Trump in impeachment over January 6th, one of seven Republicans. Offended Nebraska Republican Committee:
Personality cults aren't conservative. Conspiracy theories aren't conservative. Lying that an election has been stolen, it's not conservative. Acting like politics is a religion, it isn't conservative.
In 2023, quit Senate with four years left to become president of University of Florida due to lack of substance and absence from wife and three children.
Many senators I know would not be able to breathe without that job. It would kill them to leave. ... We got a lot of people who serve in government who really do think the highest and greatest thing you can ever do is have the title senator or congressman. Bull. The best thing you can do is be called dad or mom, lover, neighbor, friend, governor, senator, house member. It's a great way to serve. It should be your 11th calling or maybe sixth, but never top.
Bipartisan praise: Democrat Mark Warner: "He never really thought about things as conservative liberal. He much more thought about issues as future past. Somebody who was fearless, passionate."
Republican John Thune, Senate majority leader: "Concern not just for today but for tomorrow and the future and someone who wasn't distracted by all the noise. An example of what the Senate should be."
The Senate needs to be less like Instagram. The Senate needs to be more deliberative and that means less smackdown nonsense. One of the fundamental mistakes we've made over the last 30 or 40 years is putting cameras everywhere in Washington DC. This is not an argument against transparency. We should have reporters around. We should have pen and pad. We should have people recording what's happening. But we should make the Senate less of an institution that is built as a backdrop platform for people to get sound bites. That's not what the Senate is for. The Senate should be plotting and steady and boring and trustworthy.
Given 3-4 month life expectancy in mid-December, now on extended time. Pancreatic origin cancer metastasized to lung, vascular, liver (pretty far along), other places—five cancers. In clinical trial for Durvalumab rasip (drug blocks defective gene signaling cells to grow nonstop).
I have much, much less pain than I had four months ago when I was diagnosed and I have a massive 76% reduction in tumor volume over the last 4 months.
Drug maker Revolution Medicines reported patients who had 6 months survived a median 13 months.
Devoted to reformed Christianity or Calvinism.
Death is wicked. Death is evil. Death is not how it's supposed to be. And me getting a cancer diagnosis again is pretty small on the grand scheme of things, but it's a touch of grace because it forces me to tell the truth. ... I hate cancer, but I'm also grateful for it. I tell a lot more truth to myself than I used to do it when I thought I was super omnimpetent and interesting.
Married to Melissa 31 years. Daughters 24 and 22, son 14 (providential surprise, decade younger). Wants to walk daughters down the aisle, be there for son's teens, but math doesn't allow.
There are no maverick molecules in the universe.
More with Ben Sasse in CBS News Things That Matter conversation on 60 Minutes YouTube channel, brought by Bank of America.
60 Minutes reported on foul play involving Columba livia domestica—elite racing pigeons stolen. Finest compete in international events, released far from home to find way back. Prizes risen to millions, birds targets for pigeon mafia.
Flemish region of Belgium home to most sought-after birds. What Kentucky is to thoroughbred horses, Belgium to racing pigeons. Tom Van Gaver breeds champions.
What makes this pigeon a great racer? He has everything a good racer need to have. But of course, we
A very smart pigeon needs a strong body; otherwise, the head wants to go home, but the body cannot follow.
Van Gover breeds, sells, and races his pigeons at events around the world. His dominance is evident in his modest home, but his real prizes are in the pigeon loft out back: pigeons that can fly hundreds of miles at highway speeds, fathered Ferraris worth a fortune.
How much could you get for all the pigeons out there? I think around 10 million dollars. $10 million in pigeons. Yeah. For these 300 sitting here.
His greatest pigeon was named Finn. In a sport where pedigree is everything, Finn was the Secretariat of the sky. Pigeon breeders known as fanciers traveled across oceans to take a picture with Finn.
People all recognize him because of his color, but of course he was a very good racer and of course a very good breeder.
Finn was not for sale but a priceless stud. Fanciers paid up to $100,000 for Finn's offspring. One night in 2024, as Von Gover slept, surveillance video captured an intruder snatching Finn from his favorite spot. Six other pigeons were also abducted.
It's like the Mona Lisa from the pigeon sport they stole. Why the Mona Lisa? Yeah, because it's famous. Maybe it's old and it's not for sale, but everybody want to see it.
This was among 35 pigeon robberies across Belgium over the last 3 years. High-value racing pigeons have also been stolen in Great Britain, South Africa, and the United States. Surveillance tape from an unsolved caper in 2023 was outside Philadelphia.
Ryan Zonakin, a Canadian fancier who calls himself the pigeon boss, now lives in Belgium.
So, what is different about this pigeon than the pigeon I'm going to see in New York defacing a statue? They're bred for the performance, for their racing abilities.
When you're holding a pigeon in your hand, what is it you're looking for? It's got to be like a steel bar, but then it has to be as light as an empty soda can. And the feathers have to be like the most beautiful woman's hair. Soft and silky. That's how it's got to be. And then the eye has to look like you're at Tiffany's. Look like you're at Tiffany's. The pigeon eye. The eye of the pigeon. Yeah.
Pigeon eyes look like a panic button to the uninitiated. Pigeons glitch when they walk, their coloring resembles concrete tinged with a parking lot oil slick broken rainbow, and in flight they can make you look like a Disney princess hit rock bottom.
Look, they fixed your hair for you. See?
Zonakin loves pigeons deeply.
If this was a room of hens, of women, pigeons, females, hens, and you came in here every day and I said, "Hello. Hi girls. Hi." And I look at her and she sits up here and I talk to her a little bit. Look at her. And you make eye contact with her just like a girl at the bar.
Europe's love affair with pigeon racing began in the 1800s as a working-class sport.
There's not a feeling like when you sit there on a weekend and wait for your pigeons and you see them come home. It's like, "Wow, I did this." You're the coach, you're the nutritionist, you're the scout. It's the best.
Purists note the sport has changed as prize money soared, starting 20 years ago with OneLoft Racing, where fanciers from around the world battle for millions.
It's a beautiful idea, but when there's money involved, it's not the same.
At a one-loft race in Portugal, fanciers ship best young prospects months earlier to learn the loft as home. Entry cost per bird: $500. More pigeons mean larger prize pot.
All racing pigeons are identified by leg bands. Before the race, each of 3,300 birds is scanned into a database, driven 300 miles away, and released. First back wins.
6 hours later, a spotter blew a whistle as leaders circled. First into loft got biggest cut of $1.2 million purse.
It's crazy. You only see the last 30 seconds of a pigeon race. Isn't it something? People refer to it as a sport. It's a sport. Is it a sport? Sure it is. Is horse racing a sport? It's a sport.
As prizes climbed, demand for fastest pigeons grew. One-loft winners are blue chip assets; their DNA produces descendants selling for hundreds of thousands.
Ryan Zonakin auctions Belgian birds online with an infomercial feel.
She's buoyant. She has it all and she's got the look. You can actually see the brains right in them. Just take a good look.
Highest bids that night topped $3,000, chicken feed compared to Pigeon Paradise (Pipa), Belgium's largest auction house.
How many pigeons do you sell a year? And about how much total sales are we talking about? I think about $40 million euro. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Which is like 46 million dollars in pigeon sales a year. Yeah. I mean, there is still a big potential.
Nicholas Hazelbrick started Pipa at 18. About half of sales go to Chinese buyers, more obsessed than Belgians. In 2020, a Chinese tycoon paid a record $1.8 million for one bird. China has over 400,000 registered pigeon fancers with five-star luxury lofts and races offering up to $16 million in prizes.
If we don't have China, it would be very hard to run the business. Because why? Because they make the price.
Big spenders from the Middle East followed, sparking a global arms race for wings.
With money at stake, criminals began stealing superstars.
They'll have the people come in and look at the pigeons, somebody who's orchestrating it, and then they send other people maybe a week later, a month later, a year later, take them. And normally the time when breeding starts in the end of November, December, January, that's when all the key birds will be paired together. Easy stealing, right?
We've heard people talking about a pigeon mafia. Is that a thing? Yeah, I think there is. Again, it's money involved.
International gangs run smuggling networks breeding stolen pigeons for black market sales to supercharge bloodlines. In December, batch stuffed in socks and hidden in briefcase stopped at Latvia's border with Russia.
Security now includes multiple cameras, laser beams.
Panicked fanciers turn to veterinarian Ruben Lret, pioneer in genetic testing on pigeons. He maintains database of over 70,000 birds over 10 generations for proving parentage in sales.
He plucks genetic samples from feathers. Genetic library protects against pigeon mafia: stolen pigeon or offspring identifiable by DNA, too risky to sell or race.
For Tom Von Gover's theft including Finn, Belgian Federal Police investigated but declined interview under their conditions.
Sources close to investigation: police combed security video, license plate readers, cell records from dozen robberies including Von Gover's. Led to March 2025 raid in Brussels suburb on yellow house and a Romanian national, plus relatives' homes 1,200 miles away in Romania. Found 87 pigeons appearing stolen from Belgium; identity rings removed.
Ruben Lret's DNA identified 20, including two of Finn's grandchildren.
Pigeon thefts have been happening. But now you can solve them, right, with with DNA? Yes, that's a that's a very good uh now we can close the case.
Eight co-conspirators convicted; mastermind sentenced to 30 months in jail, but won't reveal fate of rest of Von Gover's pigeons including Finn.
Where are the pigeons? Give them back. This isn't about the money for you. This is about the pigeon. I want my pigeon back.
Retired Admiral William McRaven had 37-year career commanding U.S. special operations and Osama bin Laden mission.
I've been all over the world and seen men and women from every country exhibit a sense of honor. I witnessed an Iraqi judge who refused to be intimidated by al-Qaeda and an Afghan father who stood up to the Taliban. I see honor everywhere I look. This idea that we must do the right thing even when it's hard. Honor is what makes humanity so very, very worthwhile.
In American context, honor upholds values in national DNA: liberty, equality, individualism, rule of law, religious freedom.
Every military officer swears oath to protect and defend the Constitution; must do right by it even if career ends.
Doing the right thing, even when it's hard, will always put you on the right side of history.
I'm Leslie Stahl.
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