Welcome to Next Up. I'm Mark Kaupron, the editor-in-chief of the live interactive video platform two-way, the host of this program, the leader of the next person to the next bold future that we had together.

Grateful to you for being here. We're going to talk about the aftermath of the shooting at attempted assassination at the Washington Hilton over the weekend at the White House Correspondents Association dinner and about Iran.

Dan Sina will be here, one of the great Middle East experts we have,

as someone who understands both the United States and Israel, also the Middle East we're going to talk through where we stand right now.

And the excruciating choices that President Trump faces about how to proceed, Dan,

as the host of the Call Me Back podcast and a regular guest here and a good friend of the show.

And then we're going to talk about the Democratic Party and the choices that they face as they grapple with the war and with President Trump,

Democratic strategist, Melissa DeRosa will be here and we talk through where things stand

with her party right now at as we head towards the midterms and they grapple with the

complexities of the Iran conflict. But before that, my reported monologue on the aftermath of what happened on Saturday night. I was at the

dinner and, you know, I have to say, I don't, I always think when I'm at, when I'm at any

presidential event or with a big presidential candidate, I always brace myself for something

to happen like what happened. Just the nature of my professional preparation and how I approach it.

And I've been at some events where there have been, you know, scares.

This was a pretty big one.

And it was a scare that the paradox and the irony was I was sitting at a table in the ballroom when the shooting occurred.

At my table was the FBI director, one of the officials most responsible for dealing with it.

And I was in a room with hundreds, thousands of journalists.

And we were kind of powerless in there to cover the story.

First of all, a lot of people went under the table.

I didn't. I'm not asking for a medal, but I just wasn't inclined to go under the table.

I was inclined to look around and shoot some video and figure out what was going on.

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