time to pray, the new york daily news ran a controversial cover noting that god wouldn't fix this. democrats again made calls for gun control. "the new york times" tried something different, putting an editorial on the front page of this morning's newspaper, the first time they have done that since 1920 calling for the out lawing of civilian ownership of weapons capable of mass killing. but will it make any difference? more telling is that my most popular tweet of the week by far was when i quoted a time's blogger wondering why the paper even has a comment section on such stories since it could just use quote the same ones each time there is a mass shooting in the usa. this morning news broke isis radio is claiming the season bern d be bu -- san bernardino attack, and a t letter to isis. yo u would think the

presidential candidacies but no. >> i would handle it -- you don't even want to hear. you don't want to hear how i would handle it. [ cheers ] >> instead, sound bytes get rewarded, especially that candidate whose deep thinking on isis consists of a platform to build a wall, create a muslim database and kill the families of isis members. look, when 9/11 happened, the country rose above partisan politics. now we're so polarized in the words of columnist ruben quote we may not have to worry about our enemies defeating us, we're doing a splendid job of that all by ourselves. now to talk about the impact of the latest shootings on the 2016 race, i'm joined by carl rove a senior advisor to president george w. bush and previously was involved in more than 75 campaigns for president, governor, senator and he's just

published a very relevant book, the triumph of william mcelderry kenley, why the election of 1986 still matters. i read and thoroughly enjoyed the book. react, if you would, to my commentary. >> i think you're right that we -- the initial response to this was to fall back into the old pattern but let's realize, this is not the old pattern. this is an internationally inspired agent of terrorism inside our borders, we had people who appear to have been radicalized over the internet. there may have been some seeds planted in ms. malik's background, up bringing in pakistan and it appears when she graduated from college in an area that is known to have sectarian strains that she destroyed her personal commuter telling family members that it contained person information on it. so maybe the seeds of radicalization were there. this is not an issue of gun

violence or workplace violence. this is an act of terrorism inside our borders and we should not freight this with discussions in my opinion about gun control or about the advocaf prayer. we have to realize america's future is at steak. if we do not resolve and fight them abroad, we'll see more instances like this here. these people associated themselfed with the islamic state, not because the islamic state is losing but because the islamic state looks like it's winning in the middle east and until we push them back and make it in essence unattractive to be associated with people losing strength being killed, people are losing power. people are being wiped out. we're going to see more of these, not less of them. >> let's talk about how it will impact the 2016 race. i've got data points i want to run through with you. a brand-new cnn orc survey released this week although

conducted before the attack in san bernardino, there you see it. donald trump at the top of the heap with 36% of the vote and carl, what i find of significant is that he wins all the internals, including when you ask the question regardless of who you're voting for, who is best equipped to handle isis. trump comes out with 46% of republicans support followed by ted cruz at 15. analyze that. why is he perceived to be best among republicans? >> because he looks the toughest. look, he has a sound byte and the people that are attracted to trump are not that interested in the policy statements, not really interested in the fact he's been all over the bored on this. remember, it was a matter of weeks ago in which he dismissed the isis threat and said leave it to the russians to take care of and said let isis takes a sad in syria and now he wants to bomb the expletive out of isis.

they really don't care the specifics of policies. as long as he's up there pounding the podium and saying i'm going to be so tough, there is an element inside the republican party that's attracted that strong man image. now, whether or not it's enough to win the nomination is really up in the air and i would be careful about reading too much into any one given poll. this is an out liar in terms of strength. 28, 29 but shown an inability. there is a poll or two that shows him higher than that and some lower but the average is high 20s and republican party and look, he has the worst, the highest and favorables and highest negatives of any of the major candidates. then you take him into the general election campaign and his m ma image gets worse.

>> nevernevertheless, 52% beliee has the strongest chance to win the general election. i think carl rove told me you don't agree with that. >> look, no, i agree that's what they think now. if you go to 2012 many thought hermann cane had the strongest chance and newt gingrich had the highest chance and in the aftermath of the new hampshire primary, people thought jon mccain had the best chance. so you need to differentiate between the questions in a poll that ask people to comment as spectators and pundits and those who say what do you believe you're going to do. >> what do you believe? do you believe he's the republican with the best shot to win the white house, yes or no? >> no. >> who is? >> i don't know. i think he has a high floor and low ceiling and you have to look at the candidates who have higher favorables and lower

negatives who a lot more people could see themselves voting for than trump. trump has -- trump has the strength that coals from being a strong definitive personality. he also has the weakness that that includes things like despairing latinos and calling opponents a clown, loser and moron. those things do not ignite the party. to win the nomination, you have to unite the candidates. you can't say everybody else running against me is a jerk and so were supporters in essence. calling people and mock k peoin party who are accomplished individuals and have supporters, the kind of things he calls them is not in my opinion a winning recipe for either uniting the party or winning the nomination with united party and carried it into the general election.

you mentioned my book, we have a candidate in the 1896 campaign who excoriates most -- a big chunk of the country. he announces he'll go accept the party's nomination in new york. he announces at the train station that i go into the enemy's country and he attacks his opponents as tools of the wall street blood suckers and money grubbers and the shy locks of the roth child. he uses language designed to divide the american people and helps divide them against himself particularly when his opponent uses language designed to draw the country together and he says we're all in this together. we're a common country no east, west, north, south quoting george washington. >> here is what i thought of as i read you book. i got a slide to show you on this. i thought of the fact in 1988 papa bush, bush 41 gets 59% of

the white vote and it earns him 426 electoral votes. 2014, mitt romney same percentage of the white vote, guess what, it's only worth 206 electoral votes due to a variety of factors. what i learned from your book is that william mckinley saw the need to build the tent. so who is the tent builder in this array of gop candidates? >> well, it's almost everybody except donald trump into a lesser extent ted cruz. ted cruz says the way we can win the election is getting a missing army of conservatives who have historically reliably voted republican and didn't do so in 2012. that's simply not true. you look at the exit polls. there are 580,000 more self-identified conservatives that turned out to vote in 2012 than the previous high in 2008 and 2.2 million more conservatives vote for mitt romney than voted for john mccain. we had the -- you're right, 59%

of the white vote went for mitt romney. 59% of it went for george w. bush and in 2004, 59% or there abouts but what mckinley looked at is changing country and increasing numbers of catholic industrial workers particularly in big cities in the midwest and people who were not from the historic places we got immigration before. we had for decades had immigration from england, scotland, wales, ireland and we had increasing amounts of immigration from new places, southern europe, from spain and portugal and mckinley said my party is only going to be able to win if i can draw the people into my coalition.

he got 37% more votes than his predecessor. >> respectfully, i don't see the out reach taking place today. mckinley as you document was the first candidate to openly go campaign for black vote. where is the out reach? you say everybody but trump and cruise, i don't see it happening with these other candidates. >> michael, first of all, remember, he does this out reach in the year of the general election after he's largely secured the nomination. so there is plenty of time left but look at the language. look at the people who acknowledged this is an issue and whether it is jeb bush, marco rubio, rand paul and others. you find plenty of republican candidates saying we need the confidence to carry to every community in america, young people, latinos, african americans, asian americans, people that have not voted for us before and it's been i thought a good sign. when you have rand paul saying i'm going to berkeley and jeb bush saying why don't we campaign more on the latino community and marco rubio

speaking spanish to spanish speaking audiences and candidates acknowledging to broaden our party and grab the demographic because we need confidence. i find that heartening and the question is going to be do they do it in the general election? right now they are focused on winning the nomination as mckinley was but as he secured the nomination thereafter was -- >> i lost carl rove. what a shame because i was so uger to say to him and it's almost fair to raise it, are you saying they can't make that case to expand the tent until after primary season? to be continued. what do you think? tweet me. i'll read some of the best at the program. coming up, in the wake of another shooting americans are on edge but is our fear unfounded? a guest of mine thinks our reaction is over blown but first, carl rove just mentioned senator land paul, well, he's

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the gun epidemic in america, the front page of "the new york times", the first time an editorial was on the front page and calling politicians for inaction after so many mass shootings occurring more than once a day. america's elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and callously and without fear of consequence reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing. presidential candidate land paul is one of the politicians criticized for calling for prayer instead of gun control. perfect timing. he joins me now unfortunately from outside in iowa to respond to the new york times.

senator, what did you make of what they said on the front page? >> well, i think people disparaging prayer are out of line but whether you talk about the need for gun control. you might want to discuss the fact california has the most stringent gun control in the country and make a point this is less about gun control and more about terrorism. i think the fact that the president and other partisans immediately jump on tragedy. you know, our response was that we were praying for the victims. sometimes you do have prayer when you're at a loss for things that can be done and i'm not sure gun control is the answer. i think if you have very strict gun control what will happen is the people who are law abiding citizens can't get guns. we need to stop terrorism. we need to, i think, talk about who comes into this country and that's what i've been talking about is having some rules about who comes to visit us and who comes to live here. >> are you a second amendment

purest? in other words, are there any weapons that rand paul would say now that's not for civilian use? >> if people want to change the second amendment, you know, there is a process for changing the constitution. our founding fathers made it difficult because freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to bear arms, they didn't want to make it easy for the government to change things. the government ruled there can be restrictions but people need to understand the most strict restrictions are in california and yet, these weapons were still purchased legally. and really the question is are we going to continue to have unlimited immigration from the middle east? i think we have to talk about whether there needs to be some limits on those coming from the middle east since we don't know really who is already here and how many people who have come want to attack and kill us. >> senator paul, carl rove was just here at the outset, i don't know if you get to hear the interview. it sounded to me like he was advocating going overseas and

confronting isis and you know there's a lot of tough talk among your colleagues this week you said that senator rubio much like hillary clinton is a supporter of regime change. what were you referring to? >> well, you know, hillary clinton and both marco rubio were for regime change in libya but that lead to a disaster when we toppled gaddafi we got chaos. the regime change i think made us less save. it's the same in syria. the goal is to topple assad, my fear is isis will take over. rubio'sed a ed a ved is a dis. both marco rubio and hillary clinton seemed to have the same foreign policy and also

advocated for a new fly zone so the question to marco rubio has to be are you prepared and advocating shooting down russian jets. it appears he was advocating and that's worry some to get a commander in chief so eager for war and reckless. >> is there room for you mindful of you're standing in the cnn poll which is not too strong and when we ask who is best to handle foreign policy, you certainly don't rate anywhere near the top. i know, i think your argument, your argument is opening bases overseas in response to attacks like we have seen doesn't necessarily make us safer and might in fact make us less safe. can you get traction with that kind of a message in this republican party. >> i think it's interesting when you poll the question was the original iraq war a good idea? did it make us safer? even close to a majority of republicans are concerned that the first iraq war didn't

accomplish the purpose and made us less safe and the argument can be made and there is a significant amount of republicans but actually i think there is a majority of americans that aren't for sending half a million sons and daughters of america back into iraq. i think the ultimate victory and piece or long-lasting piece will come when sunni muslims actually defeat this coming from within their ranks. i don't think they are going to accept a victory from shiites or accept a victory from americans or europeans. i think what will happen is we have political and military might to do it but what happens? is there another generation and reincarnation of this ideology. you stamp it out when islam rises up and says we've had enough of this bar barty. >> donald trump says we should bomb the crap out of them. donald trump says we should contemplate taking out isis family members. >> i've also supported arming

the kurds but arms those in syria, arming the allies of al qaeda and letting a billion-dollars of u.s. humvees falling into the hands of isis a mistake. >> my yes is does it frustrate you the tough talk is selling so well within your party? >> i think we lost our connection. >> lost our connection, all right. i'm 2 for 2 today. i lost with carl rove and rand paul. at least i'm in good company. thank you senator, paul. up next, more than ever before americans are looking over their shoulders but is our fear of terror an over reaction? next is a man that says yes, it is. it's easy to buy insurance and forget about it. but the more you learn about your coverage, the more gaps you might find. like how you thought you were covered for all this... when you're really only covered for this. hot dog? or how you may think you're covered for this... but not for this... whoa! no, no, oh , oh! ...or this... ...or this. ...or that...

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fear matters in politics. that's the take away from this year's attack. the execution of 14 took place against the backdrop of a contentious presidential campaign. a cnn orc poll released yesterday but conducted before the attack showed donald trump firmly in the lead with 36% of the vote. trump led on each of the issues. when is the candidate best able to handle isis? 46% of republicans said trump followed by ted cruz with 15% of the vote. trump's words have been calibrated to address the concerns of many americans. he famously wants to build a wall along our southern border

presumably to prevent the continued migration of rapists and called for a database of refugees and won't rule out a database for all muslims. donald trump said to fight isis, we should quote take out family members of terrorists. pretty extreme measures that tap into many emotions but are they warranted? or just stoking irrational fears. joining me is a professor for political science at ohio state university and a fellow at the institute and author of chasing ghosts, the policing of terrorism. professor, i thought of you there was a front page story with this headline fear in the air americans look over their shoulders, should we not be looking over our shoulders? >> the fear is really important emotion if you're walking through a judge and will you approach a saber tooth tiger, fear is the appropriate emotion,

and that's one of the reasons the human race is here but what's really important is to get the fears in context and not fear things that are of relatively little probability and what seems to be making the cases of your chance of being killed by a terrorist is about 1 in 4 million per year in the united states. >> you're in california right now, earlier this week in california 14 people were executed in a presumed act of terror and i don't want you to be misunderstood. you believe we face a real adversary but in many respects, it's an adversary not worth the chase in which we're currently engaged. is that a fairway of saying it? >> yeah, you want to keep the chase in preportion. what is the risk? in other words, terrorism or none terrorists and your chance is like 1 in 9 million per year. that doesn't make you'll say

okay, i'll forget about it. it means i start from the basis and consider if i want to make that risk lower, how much do i want to spend on it when there are a lot of other things that kill people, as well, for example automobiles, your chance of being and 1 in 9 million. >> i want to read a paragraph from your book and for people to follow along. you wrote president george w. bush says for me the lesson of 9/11, he's certainly right about the simplicity of the lesson he managed to come up however in applying it to rae response of 200 billion in direct and indirect costs he created tragedies that were far greater increases in domestic counterterrorism expenditures of over 1 trillion and two wars that thus far have cost several trillion and led to over 100,000 deaths including twice as many

who died on september 1 1. if there that is the over approach, what is the right approach? you don't want to overreact with those wars in the incredibly increased expenditures and people have died in the process was very excessive from that stand point even though that was incredibly horrible. you want to go after the terrorist and do it in a judicious effective manner and you don't want to throw huge amounts of money at it phonetically. is it waisting time to search, take our shoes off and go through the metal detectors forget it. if we lose an airplane, we lose an airplane but it will be worth it. >> you want the airplanes to be equally safe.

what you want to do and see if they can be reduced without increasing the risk substanti substantially or at all. with many measures and air marshals and sort of determine the amount of safety they give you is extremely small and extremely. and spend the same money or less money and reduction. you're not going to get every terrorist and you're not going to be able to have seat belts everywhere. are you spending the money that justifies that reduces risk enough to justify the money you're ex pending. >> professor john muler, thank you for being here. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> what do you think? do we overreact?

tweet me at smerconish. up next, how could she do it? how could a mother drop off her 6 month old daughter and go commit a massacre? i'll talk to a top psychiatrist about what could possibly be going on inside her head. you had some blocks and you had major thoroughfares and corridors that were just totally pitch black. those things had to change. we wanted to restore our lighting system in the city. you can have the greatest dreams in the world, but unless you can finance those dreams, it doesn't happen. at the time that the bankruptcy filing was done, the public lighting authority had a hard time of finding a bank. citi did not run away from the table like some other bankers did. citi had the strength to help us go to the credit markets and raise the money. it's a brighter day in detroit. people can see better when they're out doing their tasks, young people are moving back in town, the kids are feeling safer while they walk to school.

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after the landlord invited in the media we saw images from inside their home including toys and a baby's crib presumably in the same place they made bombs and prepared weapons. a noted columnist and author, what do you think of the videotape and see kids' toys and looks like my house in a buy gone area and know the weaponry was being prepared there? >> to most women and men that would be shocking. it doesn't fit with family values but that's because you're thinking with your mind-set and not the mind set of someone who has been radicalized, who has entered essentially in a way a colt mentality and in many ways, she fits the profile of the female terrorist, which is a person who is highly educated but not necessarily working with no criminal background, coming out of the original religion in which she was raised and these

things actually looking, a person looking for some power for inclusion to be revered in someway and if that enters the picture before having children the draw to the idea would supersede potentially mother hood. >> how about dropping off the 6 month old with the mother-in-law, the grandmother, and then committing these heinous acts? do you draw any significance of the 6 month age of the child? you know what i'm thinking. >> i do. up to a year, a woman can suffer postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, so whether that was involved in altering the mind set of this woman, you have to consider that possibility. you also have to consider the possibility that having a baby was part of being involved with this man and part of maintaining the marriage, the relationship and therefore the radicalization

of him if that's the direction things went in. >> as a layperson, lacking your credentials i look at this and say why have the child if the planning exceeds the 6 month time period and seems like a lot of planning went into this, how twisted is it to bring someone into the world and do what you did to take others out? >> two different possibilities you have to consider. one is that the baby was simply a tool, you know, in other words -- >> for cover? >> i'm bringing him in, i need cover, i need to bond myself to this man and this is what he wants so this is the road i'm going and the baby doesn't matter in that sense, or the possibility that you believe you're going to a better place, you're doing the right thing, you're making a better world for your child and that ultimately, you'll be reunited. in other words, female terrorists often do have a belief they are having a maternal instinct in the sense that they are making the world

better for the children because they are committing jihad. >> final subject, important subject, here we are together again talking about guns, talking about terror, talking about mental health. >> yes. >> i say tongue in cheek, the good news is professionals like yourself are studying this issue, no? >> sadly, no. in 1996, it was decided in congress that this was not a public health issue, which clearly it is and therefore the cdc would not be funded and not be allowed as a government organization to do research on gun violence, so we have minimal, minimal data from which to pull, old data only because it was starting to be done at that time and really, we need current data to look at who and what and when and what is the profile. we can't, we can't stop things if we don't have any information about it. >> so where the country is now experiencing a mass killing to find as four people or more, at least every day this year,

you're telling me that it's left to, you know, the pundit class like me instead of experts like you to figure it out. >> correct. >> that may be part of the problem. >> big part of the problem. we need to change that so we at least have information, real information, science-based information on which to base our decision-making. >> respectfully, i hope it's a long time until you come back. >> i do, too. >> and we have this conversation. >> but sadly, i fear not. >> thank you, appreciate it. keep the tweets coming to me at smerconish. up next, is political correctness hindering our ability to win the war on terror? patient... christine... living her life... loving her family. moments made possible in part by the breakthrough science of advanced genomic testing. after christine exhausted the standard treatment options for her disease, doctors working with the center for advanced individual medicine at cancer treatment centers of america suggested advanced genomic testing.

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you know the saying if you see something, say something. how is it that the san bernardino shooters were able to a mass 12 pipe bombs and weaponry without anyone noticing. there are reports in local media that a man working in the area noticed a half dozen middle east earn men recently but was hesitant to make any report for fear of being accused of racial profiling. that fits in with donald trump's narrative here is what he said last night. >> how about the person that knew what was going on said they didn't want to report them because they think it might be racial profiling. did you see that? no, did you see that? i'm not sure do i believe the person? can anybody be that dumb? but they didn't want to report because they didn't want to be involved with racial profiling. we have become so politically

correct, we don't know what the hell we're doing. >> is he right? has political correctness become dangerous? joining me is carol swane, law professor and wrote a controversial article about political correctness and muslims. is donald right, is donald right in this particular case, professor? >> he's absolutely correct that political correctness is preventing people from using their common sense and the racial profiling, the fear that many whites have, as well as, i believe, many minorities is causing people to be reluctant to report things they see in front of them and it's not just and it's not just that they don't want to be involved directly with the police. i think they fear the government, the backlash from the government if they step out and report what they see. >> you know, a decade ago i wrote a book on this subject. and i argued that the mind-set

at home of giving every kid participation trophy that ultimately reign in our ability to win the war on on terror. many people thought i was crazy when i advanced that theory. but it sounds like i was correct. >> i believe that you were correct and that we are following a very dangerous pattern in the u.s. and that trajectory, when it comes to being able to protect our citizens and to have an effective society is being diminished. a lot of it is connected to islam and muslims and the fact that any criticisms of islam is called islam phobia. you will be labeled a racist, big on on the causes people not to do the right thing. that is dangerous for our society. >> you have caused a stir on the vandy campus. let me put up something you

published in "the tennesseean." what would it take to make us see we're wrong about islam. islam is not like other religions in the united states, that it poses an absolute danger to us and our children unless it is monitored better than it has been under the obama administration? what was the result on campus after those words were in print. >> the dean of students took an unusual act of sending an e-mail encouraging students to get counseling oren gauge in expressive action or dialogue. so the students organized and denounced me for my bigotry and hatred. it was stunning the reaction. because i have never seen a university respond the way they did over an opinion piece in a local newspaper.

everything that happened since january 15th when it was first run online vindicated my position. more and more americans with waking up and seeing unless we begin to deal with the threat that is in our land, that the future is going to be grim for us. we will have more terrorist attacks because we are not doing anything to prevent it. >> the vice chancellor said we are in no way condoning the views in your editorial and they are offensive to our community, muslim and nonmuslim alike. there have been a recent amount of recent articles that draw on the same themes of political correctness. at a time when this terror threat continues to be pervasive. what's the big picture? >> well, first of all, that's viewpoint discrimination.

if a liberal professor writes an article that's controversial, students may be offended, the community may be offended, the university immediately protects their academic freedom. so i was treated very differently. i think what has taken place on college campuses is we are coddling students in such a way that they will not be able to function in the real world. where they have all these safe spaces. we don't have safe spaces in the world. and i believe administrative are failing students. we the adults ought to be teaching the students to respect the institution, respect the first amendment, to respect religious freedom, and freedom of association. we're not doing that. we're letting the young people that have no experience run the organizations. and that's a mistake. we should not change the names and not dealing with the students in the way they are. we need to help them become

adults. >> i think you can have it both ways. i'm for civility and fair and open exchange of ideas on controversial subjects. otherwise, how do we get anywhere. >> you're right. >> i appreciate you being here. up next, my favorite political cartoon of the week. and your best twee tweets @smerconish. phil! oh no... (under his breath) hey man! hey peter. (unenthusiastic) oh... ha ha ha! joanne? is that you? it's me... you don't look a day over 70. am i right? jingle jingle. if you're peter pan, you stay young forever. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. ♪ you make me feel so young... it's what you do. ♪ you make me feel ♪ so spring has sprung.

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frustrations that political cartoonist of the atlanta journal constitution. now a couple tweets from the past hour. mark says chasing ghosts author john mueller has too many facts and common accepts. politicians are not interested in facts. look, fear selves. keep it all in perspective. there is a real threat but keep it in perspective. christopher says, i think we lost our connection is the new no comment along with the mysterious ac plug malfunction. i don't know what went wrong with my conversations of karl rove. i think this is my favorite tweet of the week. lucy says you worry too much about trump. stop. the higher his ratings get the stupider he gets. soon americans will wake up. lucy, it's the reverse that concerns me. the stupider he gets the higher his ratings.

and that i think poses a real threat for the country. keep tweeting me @smerconish. i'll see you next week. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> it is 7:00 here in new york. i'm poppy harlow. we begin this hour with breaking news out of our nation's capital. we have just heard that something extraordinary will happen tomorrow. a an event so rare and so history making that president obama has only done it twice in his entire time in office. he will address the nation from inside the oval office. it will happen at 8:00 eastern time. of course cnn will carry this presidential address live. let's go straight to cnn's chris who joins me live in washington this evening. we just learned about this in the last few moments. do we know what the president is say and what he is focusing on tomorrow night. in poppy, we are getting some