many more of the victims than we did yesterday. here are just a few we want to tell you about. there was 14-year-old jaime guttenberg. her father says his family is having, of course, a very hard time coming to grips with this devastating loss. there was the teacher, scott beigel we first told you about yesterday. he was killed while ushering students back into his classroom and shielding them when the killer opened fire. one of his students, kelsey friend, you may have heard her yesterday, giving such an emotional testament to him. she called him a hero and told us how he saved her life. john, it's story after story after story that we've heard here because one student affects so many hundreds of other lives, so many people who were in class with that student or loved him or her and hear there are 17 of those families and that ripple effect that they're trying to absorb. >> hearing how these victims live on in the voices of their

friends and their family, it is inspiring. wish we did not have to be inspired in this way this morning. so many of the students who survived this attack and their parents, they want to try to turn this grief, this anger into action. they're calling on the president, on congress, on society to do something. so far there has been nothing. after so many of these shootings, lawmakers advocated no real debate. president trump didn't mention the word gun. no mention of guns as he addressed the nation. all this as we learn how the confessed killer carried out this massacre, alisyn. >> hard to talk about gun violence without mentioning the word gun. i'm finding it hard to work around the word gun because it makes some politicians uncomfortable. that's like talking about plane crashes without saying the word plane. that's how one mother feels here. you probably herd story.

her 14-year-old daughter, alyssa alhadeff was killed. she'll be buried this morning. her grieving mother lori has made an emotional plea to president trump to talk about all this. she first said it in an interview with hln yesterday. listen to this. >> i just spent the last two hours putting the burial arrangements for my daughter's funeral who is 14! president trump, please do something! do something. action! we need it now. these kids need safety now! >> i spoke with that mom, lori, and her husband elon after alyssa's soccer team gathered for her own personal vigil. her teammates showed up, they were wearing their red uniforms. who can't relate to this, being

a soccer parent and having the soccer team have to deal with this kind of loss. here is what her parents told me. >> we were here, we saw the vigil for alyssa. she obviously has tons and tons of friends. can you tell us about your daughter? >> alyssa is a very loving, passionate, kind person. she's athletic, plays soccer since she was 3 years old, and now she's dead at age 14 from a shooter at a school. >> it wasn't supposed to go this way. she was a good student, loved soccer. she was supposed to have a long and bright future. how can you ever get your head around what happened? >> i just saw my daughter cold as can be shot in the heart, shot in the head, shot in the

hand, dead, cold as can be. she's gone. i don't think i can wrap my head around that, or no other person in the world could either. >> i know you say you're fighting for all these kids, all her friends, everybody's kids, everybody who has a 14-year-old girl who now goes to school who should never have this happen to them. what do you feel you're fighting for? >> my child is dead. i can't help her, but i can help all those other kids at stone man douglas high school and all the other kids around america and the world, we have to protect our children. we have to fight for them. it's our job as parents. we have to recognize that if something is wrong with our own child, if they are will, you need to get them help. if you have guns in the house and your child has access to these guns, that needs to stop. >> what could have changed this? >> there needs to be layers of

security. we need to get these semi-automatic weapons off the streets where these kids are able to buy them. >> off the streets and out of the internet. they can buy it on the internet. >> and when the fbi gets a tip that we have a youtuber that's mentally ill, do something about it! don't sit there and watch. >> what do you want to say for the politicians? >> stop fighting amongst yourselves. get something done. >> lori, what do you want to say to president trump? >> president trump, baron goes to school. let's protect baron and let's also protect all these other kids here in parkland, and in florida, everywhere else and in the united states of america. we earned it just like how you earned the right to protect baron.

you need to help us now. we need security now for all these children that have to go to school. we need action. action! action! action! >> when does it stop? these are our kids. how do we get some controls? who is in charge? i'll tell you it starts at the top. it always starts at the top. we need reform now. for all these kids here today for this vigil. >> what do you do next? what happens next? how do you harness all this anger? >> listen, my alyssa is gone. right now i'm fighting for the other children that still have to go to school. >> what do you want to say, lori, to politicians who say now is no time to talk about this? >> what i would say to you -- >> get out of office. >> one. and two, what if that was your child that was shot three times,

in the heart, in the head, in the hand. think about it and then speak. >> is now the time to talk about this and fixing this? >> it is the time to talk about it now and tomorrow and the next and the next day after that and every day after until all of this is resolved. we cannot continue in a civil society like this. we've got to do something different that hasn't been done before. we need some radical change. >> what do you want to say to alyssa's friends who are struggling? >> to alyssa's friends, breathe for alyssa. find your passion, achieve your goals. do it for alyssa. when you think you can't do something, think, no, i can. alyssa would want me to and be great. achieve all that you can do, and

please keep alyssa in your heart and your mind always. >> so john, listen. obviously that's an important reminder after tragedies like this, we have to live life to the fullest. the thing about this mom i find so striking, everybody processes grief in their own way. she's reaching through the camera and grabbing people by the collars and trying to get the attention of politicians and president trump, almost verbally shaking them and saying please, action, action. that is the message that i'm certainly taking away from parkland, so many people have said that to us. >> so glad you brought that up. none of us knows how we would handle something like this. god forbid that anyone has to be in the middle of something like this. so one wonders why, why is this mother choosing to talk. she told us right there at the

end, she was giving advice to the friends of alyssa. she's doing it for alyssa. she feels like this is important, not just for herself, but also for the memory of her daughter. it was remarkable, remashable to hear that. i'll be curious to see if people are willing to listen. >> yes. and obviously the action that people here, the parents do put into action after grief like this, because we have seen it before, in connecticut. we talked to andy parker, allison parker's dad, people do harness their anger and put it into action in their own lives. john, we'll be back with you in a minute. as the shooting inside marjory stoneman douglas high school unfolded, one junior was trapped along with classmates. the first thing she thought to do was text her sister. 17-year-old hannah was hiding under her teacher's desk as she texted her sister caitlin at

work. caitlin says there's a shooter on campus. i'm not joking. call 911 please. send them to douglas. >> hannah, what, are you serious right no? caitlyn, i'm not joking. they just shot through the walls. one in my class is injured. i am not joking. call mom and dad. i don't have service or i'd call. >> i'm calling 911 and then i'll call mom and dad. i am so scared, caitlin. tell them i love them so much. i know, hannah, you're going to be fine. >> i'm so scared. i know you are. daddy is on his way to the school. hannah keep texting me please. tell them i love them so much. kaitlin and hannah join me right now. it's so powerful to read the messages you were sending to

each other. hannah, tell us what was happening. >> i was inside the freshman bidding on the first floor when we heard the shooting, and it came in towards the right side of the building. we had been practicing drills for months since we got back from winter break and even before that. so when it first happened, we all thought it was a drill. as soon as i go closer and closer, we ran toward my teacher's desk for safety. i finally got under the desk after about a minute of shooting, and i was with another girl and my fellow classmate. as the shooting was going on, you can could hear the glass shattering and the bullet holes piercing the walls and everything. >> why was your first instinct, the first thing you wanted to do was text your sisser? >> i tried getting through to my parents first, but since we had no service in the building, but i was connected to the why why were iphone users and i knew my

sister would have her phone on. >> kaitlin, tell us what happened. at first you hoped she was joking. then what happened? >> i was at work and i received text messages, and thankfully i had been on my phone. normally i leave it to the side. i had it on ringer and i saw she texted, and i was hoping just her typical texting, please save me from this place, get me out of here, i want to go home. but it wasn't. she said there was an active shooter. i immediately just paused and i started shaking. i was hoping she was joking with me. i knew she wouldn't just have me prank call 911. i knew it was serious. i started shaking, started crying immediately. my co-worker came over and tried to console me. my main concern was to make sure she kept texting me so i knew she was okay. >> did she keep texting you? >> yes. she was going back and forth between me and my cousin. so sometimes i didn't get the notification right away. but she did keep texting me.

i got a hold of my dad. i tried calling 911, but so many people were calling. i got a hold of my dad. he yeed immediately jumped in his truck and came down here. he called 911 and got through. he kept me updated and called me once he knew she was out of the building and she was on the phone with them. >> you guys exchanged 77 text messages during this. anna, did you think these were possibly the last messages you were going to be sending out? >> yeah. i really hoped it wouldn't be. but when you're in the moment, you're just praying to god that everyone knows you love them and you're okay. >> that was the message. if these were your last message, what did you feel so compelled to say? >> i wanted to make sure she knew i loved her, i wanted my brother to know that i loved him. i wanted my parents to know that i loved them and i wanted all my family to know i loved them so much and if anything were to

happen, that i would be okay. >> i'm so sorry that you at 17 have to think about this and have to send these messages. were there friends of yours who didn't make it? >> there was four to six people in my classroom that got shot. two of them, nick dworet and helena ramsay didn't make it. >> why were you able to walk out? >> i was able to walk out -- the way our classroom is set up, there's not much space behind the teacher's desk to hide. with the 30 kids in the class, only so many could fit behind the desk, a lot of them had to line up on the wall near where you could see through the window. they were the unlucky ones. he shot through the door. the door has a window, shattered the glass and was shooting through the walls and

everything. >> whou are you going to go back to your class without your school mates, your direct class? >> it will definitely be really hard knowing we're missing such a big part of our class. hey had such beautiful personalities and they were great people. it's going to be really difficult to go back and see the classroom and know what happened there. >> kaitlin, did you think these were possibly the last words you'd get from here? >> i did. i went here all four years of my life. you see this stuff around everywhere. you never think it's going to happen so close to home. i was so scared. i was there with her for two years. i was scared. why couldn't this happen at least when i was there without her being there. i would rather be in her shoes than her going through it. >> that is such a beautiful sentiment. we've heard so many family members say they would have taken bullets for their loved ones who ended up dying.

what messages were you sending to her if you thought these would be her last communications. >> she knows i love her. i wanted to make sure she knew i loved her and i wanted to keep her positive and calm, and i wanted her to know she was going to make it. she kept telling me to tell my parents that she loves them, but in my head i kept saying no, you're going to be able to tell them. you're going to make it out okay. >> did you believe that? >> i wanted to believe it. there was times when she wasn't answering right away, and i thought maybe she wouldn't be. i was really hoping she would make it out. >> thank god for modern technology, that you two were able to communicate sand reach out to get to the authorities. what happened when you saw each other after this was all over? >> i raced home from work when i knew my dad was on the way with her. as soon as i walked through the door, i just dropped everything in my hands and immediately hugged her for so long. we both started crying our eyes out. i was so happy to see her and i was glad she was okay. >> hannah, what was it like for

you when you saw your family again? >> when my dad picked me up, he picked me up about a mile that way down pine island road he was coming from work. he turned on his lights and work truck -- he works for bso. when he found me and picked me up, i was a mess. i was just so happy i could see my dad again. >> what was it like when you saw your sisser? >> when i saw my sister, i was thankful she kept me calm through everything. if it wasn't for her, i would have been a mess through the entire thing. i wouldn't have been able to reach any of my family. she was the only family member besides my cousin that was going to glades at the time that i had contact with. i knew i was really thankful to see her and i was thankful for her for the entire thing. >> while you were sending these 77 text exchanges, what were the other kids in your classroom doing? >> a lot of the other kids that were not fortunate enough to sit behind my teacher's desk, they were trying to hold the wounds and injuries of the kids who

were injured in our classroom. a lot of the kids, they were on their phones trying to text their families, but we had no service in there. a lot of them were not going through. my teacher, she was trying to call 911. she had no service. she was trying to get in contact with her husband. one of the kids, matthew walker, he was videotaping through it. that's where one of the videos comes from, in my classroom. he took a picture of the laptop at the end, and that laptop was at my desk, and it had three bullet holes through it. >> this is just all so chilling. we just pray for you, that you're going to be able to go back and function after all of this in high school. you should never have to have endured all of this. i'm so glad that you survived and your sister was the voice of calm throughout all this and that you guys were reunited. thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you. >> thank you. so there is a little bit of

positive news to share with you here in parkland. overnight two people who were injured in this shooting were released from the hospital, which is obviously good news. it means they'veover come their injuries and they can convalesce back at home. but the police say the killer who caused all this carnage has actually confessed to them to carrying out this attack. broward county sheriff is releasing a timeline now, detailing the moments that have forever changed this community. >> this suspect entered the east stairwell. that's building 12, with a rifle inside a black soft case. the suspect exited the stairwell, pulled the rifle out of the case. at 2:21:33, the suspect readied his rifle and began shooting into rooms 1215, 1216, 1214.

he went back to 1216, back to 1215 and then to 1213. >> we want to bring in cnn law enforcement analyst charles ramsay and james galiano. thank you for standing by with us throughout all this or deal. the police there just laid out the amount of carnage that the gunman was able to do because he had a semi automatic rifle and was able to shoot into classrooms and cause all sorts of mayhem and destruction. when people feel so hopeless about how to stop these, chief, what do you say? what do you think the solution is? >> it may seem hopeless now, but there has to be some action. there has to be some leadership. right now we're not seeing either from the congress, from the white house. we keep talking about the same thing over and over again as if it's going to somehow change. they say it's not the time. in a sense, they're right.

it's past time for us to really do something, to think about what it is -- the problem we're trying to solve and what are all the moving pieces and what do we need to put in place to fill those gaps so we don't have to keep talking about the same thing and doing the same thing. it may not stop all of it, but you can certainly have an impact and stop a lot of it. >> without that, all you're asking parents to do is just keep their fingers crossed every day. we're just going to keep our fingers crossed as we send our kids off to they high schools or elementary schools and hope this doesn't happen. >> alisyn, it's tough to sit off camera and watch you go through those difficult, difficult interviews. i look at it from this perspective, too. it's also part of our culture. when you look at some of these clips that have come out of what was allegedly attributed to this gunman -- >> you mean the social media posts. >> the social media posts, and the violent video game culture that we live in, those things we've got to look at, too. the way we look at this, the

second amendment is sack sin kt. the planet is 4.5 billion years old. civilization for 6,000. only a country for 241 years. we look at it and go this is the way it should be. now, there are no laws currently on the books that would have pre vechted this shooting. we know that -- >> i don't know that. hold on a second. >> we looked at them. there are no laws. >> there's nothing that could have prevented this -- >> there are no laws currently on the book. >> in florida. >> unless you want to raise the age and say somebody can serve in the military and die for their country at 18 but can't buy a weapon until they're 21. assault weapons are broadly defined, that's what the ar-15. i will argue with hunters -- i'm a hunter -- try to tell me that a 223 round out of an ar-15 with a 30 or 20-round magazine has

utility in a hunting sense. it does not. >> about the laws, one of the laws that i'm thinking of is not national, you're right, but it is in connecticut and after newtown, it's called the erop, a temporary restraining order to take away a gun or prevent someone who is mentally unstable or has exhibited some of the very behaviors that this gunman exhibited from having access to their gun. it worked in connecticut. >> it goes back to you've now got to send law enforcement officers to somebody's house to pick it up. people aren't going to voluntarily turn their guns in. the school, that's a gun-free zone. that didn't stop a gunman who had been expelled and not allowed on that property from showing up. >> i understand that doesn't stop somebody. there are things that can happen, can stop them. we've seen it. this isn't just pie in the sky. we saw the most hideous thing we

ever thought could imagine happened in sandy hook, in newtown, connecticut. that state -- nationally the politicians wouldn't do anything. that state took things into their own hands and gun violence went down. >> you're right. it's not hopeless. there are solutions at the national level, some at the state level, some at the local level. it takes people getting off their butts to do something. we have to quit putting people in power that do nothing, exhibit no leadership. it's too complicated. that's why we put you there. if it's over your head, maybe you need to be replaced by somebody else. we have to quit accepting this. many schools got rid of school psychologists. my wife happens to be one. that could have been an indicator of behavior that would have really put a red flag because they would know these kids. >> definitely the first line of defense for sure. >> it shouldn't be a partisan

issue either. >> it's not a partisan issue -- it shouldn't be, but it is. >> you guys are in law enforcement, come from a long experience with law enforcement. and so police hate when -- they hate this. they hate when somebody has access to a semi-automatic weapon. is it possible for police to lobby congress, to go to washington and share how they feel about this? >> i think the international association of chiefs of police, i know a number of fraternal organizations of police, organizations out there saying we respect the second amendment. it has utility, but we have to draw the line. when you say we need weapons commensurate with pushing back on a tehryrannical government, need automatic weapons. the government has nukes. that's a specious argument. when folks like us come out and say, we have concealed carry privileges as retired law enforcement. we're hunters, we believe in the second amendment, but thing has

to be done. we can't wait to talk about it. >> it falls on deaf ears. i was president of the major city chiefs association for five years. we did lobby, we've talked to people about this issue. >> and what happened? >> it goes nowhere. it goes absolutely nowhere. you get a lot of noise. you get a lot of talk. but you get absolutely no action. that's what we're seeing here. there won't be any action after this. it's unfortunate, but it's reality. there will not be until people stand up -- the real power is with the people, not with our elected officials and say, listen, you're not doing anything, you're out of here. >> that's a message we've heard over and over again. james galiano, charles ramsey, thank you for all your expertise. >> john, as you talked about, you hear everybody calling for action and hear everybody calling for action at the ballot box now. >> we will see where this is an election issue and how much of an election issue it is. it's been kryptonite for so many candidates in so many places.

a former trump nominee issued a warning last november about ar-15 rifles. that comment ultimately cost him his job at the pentagon. his job at the pentagon. dr. dean winslow joins us next. but we can always find me to listen to great thinkers and explorers whose stories take us places our hamstrings can't. all we have to do is listen. download audible to start listening. this is the story of green mountain coffee roasters dark magic told in the time it takes to brew your cup. first, we head to vermont. and go to our coffee shop. and meet dave. hey. why is dark magic so spell-bindingly good, he asks? let me show you. let's go. so we climb. hike. see a bear. woah. reach the top. dave says dark magic is a bold blend of coffee with rich flavors of uganda, sumatra, colombia and other parts of south america. like these mountains, each amazing on their own. but together? magical. all, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee roasters packed with goodness.

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ar-15 style rifles under new scrutiny after the florida massacre. a former trump administration nominee was sounding the alarm

of these weapons back in november. >> i got in trouble with other members of the committee, just say how insane it is that united states of america civilian can go out and buy a fully -- a semi-automatic assault rifle like an ar-15. >> dr. dean winslow was the president's pick for the top health official. that comment derailed his nomination. he joins us now. doctor, thank you for being with us. first i want to get your reaction to the school shooting in florida which wednesday carried out using an ar-15 style weapon. >> first of all, thanks for having me on your show. as a parent and as a teacher, obviously this is an incredibly sad day. unfortunately it's also sadly predictable. >> predictable because? >> well, because we have unrestricted access to assault

weapons and other very lethal semi-automatic weapons in the u.s. again, as your previous guests have pointed out, there really seems to be no national will to make the types of changes that are needed in order to reduce or hopefully eliminate some day these types of terrible tragedies. >> you know how popular ar-15s are, the most popular semi-automatic rifle. 61% of all u.s. civilian rifle sales in 2016. it doesn't seem you can just erase their existence by snapping your fingers. >> no, it certain would be difficult, but again, i think there are ways that the problem could be tackled. again, i think the most important thing for people to remember is that these rifles were designed specifically as military weapons. eugene stoner i believe was the name of the colt engineer who designed this weapon.

he has always been very clear these are battlefield weapons, should never have been put in the hands of weapons. >> the arm ma light 15. it's not assault rifle. that was how they were designed way back when. i think there's wide agreement there needs to be some focus on the issue of mental health, and the connections to guns and who should be able to buy a gun and under what standards. however, you say that the republican focus surely on mental illness is something of a kennard. >> i do. for several reasons. there are comparable rates of mental illness in other developed countries. i believe our gun death rate is 25 times higher, a per capita figure, than the next largest

developed country where any gun violence occurs at all. you can't just say it's because we have more mentally ill people. that's absolutely not true. it's the availability of these extremely lethal weapons and the fact that we have not done anything meaningful to control the access, the widespread availability of these weapons to our civilian population. >> so you're raising questions about guns and gun control which is something that people are calling for right now, a national dialogue. but you also have firsthand experience about how toxic trying to have a dialogue can be. what happened to you after you said what we just showed you saying inside that hearing? >> first of all, i said when i went into that hearing, i had absolutely no idea i would become a poster boy for gun control. again, the job i was essentially interviewing to do has nothing to do with gun control. so it was a little surprising

that i was asked about basically the availability of consult weapons to the sutherland springs, texas, shooter. that terrible incident had happened just a day and a half or so before my hearing. i was, frankly, very surprised at the extreme reaction by senator mccain and apparently the other republican senators that were very offended by my remarks. if you talk to people around the world, what i said about the availability of assault weapons being insane, i think 99% of people would agree with, at least outside of the united states. >> dr. dean winslow out of stanford, thank you for joining us this morning. we appreciate your time. >> thanks for having me on your show. >> alisyn, you're looking at proof right there of how toxic this discussion is. one 15-second answer to a question that had nothing to do with his job, he says he doesn't

believe ar-15 weapons should be so readily available, that was enough to keep him from serving in a republican administration. they would no longer have him there. again, you want to have that debate, have the debate over ar-15s. there should be no debate about where politically people stand right now. >> that's really telling, john. that was a really telling illustration. you can just see why it's perilous, some politicians think, to talk about it. that's not how the kids down here feel. they think we need to talk about it. will the outcry here in parkland, florida, lead to any action. we'll speak with democratic senator chris coons about what his thoughts are and what happens next. how do you win at business?

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i am here in parkland, florida, the scene of the latest horrific school shooting. there is one striking difference. at this school from the other mass shootings, the students here who survived and their families have been speaking out already. they are turning their grief and anger into action. they've been very vocal. they are calling on congress to do something. we hear it time and again from every guest that we have had

here. joining us now, democratic senator chris coons of delaware. we want to put the question to him about what congress can do. senator, thank you so much for being here. people are fed up, people are fed up, the idea that parents have to endure school shooting after school shooting, not knowing if their kids will be safe when they send them off to school. what can congress do? >> alisyn, thank you for your coverage, it's been riveting and heartbreaking. i'm grateful for the young people who have spoken up so forcefully. this has been a very hard week for me in the senate. i'm angry and disappointed in our senate, our president and the refusal to step forward and act in response to very real and heart-wrenching pleas from high school students in park land and their families and from dreamers across the country. first to the park land shooting, going back to the vegas shooting

on october 1st, i thought we would promptly move to ban bump stocks. that's what made it possible for the shooter in vegas to massacre more than 50 people in a few minutes with this illegal appendage that takes a semi-automatic and makes it fully automatic. i was hopeful we'd take action against that. i co-sponsored legislation. it was never brought up for a vo vote. >> how is that possible, senator? i'm sorry to stop you. just because we remember the bump stock, everybody after that incident said that's wuft one small incremental step. we should ban this little device you can get on the internet that allows you to turn your semi-automatic gun into a killing machine that mows down people even more quickly. so what went wrong? why didn't the leader bring that up for a vote? >> alisyn, i'll be blunt. the power of the nra in the

united states congress, it's very, very strong. i heard lots of speeches about how we should do more to address mental health. i agree with that. yet we have not come forward with stronger background check bills, mental health funding and programming for schools and communities. this individual in parkland who carried out this horrible mass shooting, there were lots of signs and warnings, just like there were lots of signs and warnings with the sandy hook shooter. we have not fully funded the support that local law enforcement needs, mental health agencies need, school districts need to take action when someone posts and publicizes such clear signs, torturing animals, threatening neighbors, buying an ar-15 and then doing things on social media that make it clear they intend to carry out a mass shooting. we should do right by our children. i have three teenagers myself.

it is just heartbreaking watching parents talk about their dead children and challenging us in congress to take action. we have filed bills, we have held hearings. yet the republican majority refuses to move forward in any meaningful way on background checks. there are a few republicans willing to take action on background checks and bump stocks. the majority leader has not brought them to the floor. we have not been able to get a vote. >> senator, one of the most maddening things about hearing that is that all of the public polling suggests if there's one thing, one consensus that americans feel, it's to have stricter background checks. everybody can get their arms around it. i think the polling is like 85% of the country would go along with that. so the idea that politicians can't even do that one is what just scrambles the brain of so many people. >> it's hard to accept, alisyn, that we are this frozen. let me move to one other thing

that happened on the floor of the senate yesterday. president trump said that he wanted to address dreamers. he created this crisis in september by taking away their legal protection and setting a deadline of march 5th. he said he would welcome a pathway to citizenship for dreamers. i worked hard to get a bipartisan bill introduced in the senate with my friend john mccain, a republican who represents a border state. we introduced a bipartisan bill written by a republican from texas and a democrat from california that has 54 co-sponsored in the house, but can't get a vote in the house. we got 52 votes, but because of the president's active lobbying against our bipartisan bill, we did not get 60. the only thing that got 60 votes in the senate yesterday, alisyn, was the rejection of the president's endorsed bill by senators grassley and cotton, 39

votes. 60 senators and only one of the border state senators, 60 senators voted against it. only 39 supported it. of the four states on the mexico border, only one of those eight senators supported that bill where six of them supported my bill. just like with background checks and guns, the overwhelming majority of americans want us to invest in border security and provide a pathway to citizenship for dreamers who were brought here through no fault of their own, in school, serving in the military or currently employed. why we can't get this done is clear. it was active lobbying by the president and the department of homeland security that spread falsehoods and misleading statements against the compromise bill that two dozen of us worked very hard to get to the floor yesterday. that compromise bill which gave the president what he wanted on border security got 54 votes. without his active opposition, it would have gotten 60 yesterday.

>> senator, that is stunning. the president who has always said he wants to protect dreamers, he was the impediment, not even the impediment, the active foil against getting the bipartisan agreement you were a part of. that is important to know for all of our viewers. obviously we will follow up on reporting everything that's happening on capitol hill. senator, thank you very much for being here to talk with us about guns and the general paralysis in washington. john, listen, you just heard it spelled out there, they are completely riddled with paralysis. it feels, at least in parkland, that it is time to break some of that and rely on action. >> we'll see if they feel that way. inside the halls of capitol hill. we have breaking news. "the new yorker" detailing newly discovered evidence of an extramarital affair between

donald trump and a former playboy playmate. what's really important, they detail a payoff scheme to keep the story from going public just before the 2016 election. i want to discuss this with more with cnn political analyst and "new york times" reporter maggie haberman. the story here isn't the extramarital affair between donald trump and someone else. >> it is, but net the big takeaway. >> the takeaway is the "national enquirer" and the publisher, a close friend of the president, paying to keep this quiet. what we now have here is a pattern. michael kohn, the president's personal lawyer paid stormy daniel to keep quiet of an alleged affair she had with the president as well. >> stormy daniels has been coy about what happened. gave an interview to "intouch" in 2011. michael kohn when he had done this, he insisted it was false,

the president says this didn't happen. false information doesn't mean it's not damaging. this story in "the new yorker" is really detailed. it lays out some i think realtime notes or letter that ms. mcdoogle had written about her relationship with president trump. the key is that there was an effort to squash this put forward by ami which is very friendly toward president trump. it's going to raise a lot of questions about, in addition to the campaign finance questions that came up around michael kohn which he has rejected there's an issue. you'll see the same questions come up here and you'll also see the question of were there others? how many others could there have been? how did this take place? what was the methodology? that is where i think this goes. >> these two cases are strikingly similar when you read "the new yorker" article. not just in the payoffs but the

type of relationship that donald trump, candidate donald trump had, then private citizen trump had. and the way the white house is addressing this, let me read this to you. this jumped out to anyone who has been issued a denial. a white house spokesperson said in a statement, trump denies having the affair, this is an old story. the president says he never had a relationship with mcdougal. why does this jump out to you? >> for a variety of reasons. let me give you a comparison. in 2011 when anthony weiner's twitter scandal first erupted, there was a day when the denials from his spokeswoman went from, the congressman did not do this to, the congressman says he did not do this. it was incredibly notable. it was right before he said he would step out of his seat. that indicates to anybody, as you know, any reporter, any political observer, that the people speaking for the

president are not certain they can trust his word anymore. and so they are caveating it with he says, not i'm saying. there's no name attached. >> not categorically denying it happened, saying the president be nyes it happened. >> you are hearing increasingly from people at the white house who i speak with and others speak for him as well, the rob porter issue, they are all caveating things with, what i'm told is. there's a real recognition -- many of them believe, i'm not naming names. many of them believe they may not be being told the truth. >> it's extraordinary for white house officials to say, what i'm telling you might not be true. >> especially for a white house that has dug a line in the sand about fake news, it's striking. >> these are, in fact, pictures of donald trump with karen mcdougal.

no denying they knew each other here. as we said, the issue for the presidency might be the pattern of payoffs. but there is an issue now with the president, two alleged extramarital affairs that happened around the same time after the birth of baron. what does this mean? we've been watching this marriage inside the white house. there were those days when melania was in florida here or there. do we know how she feels about all this? >> no. she's incredibly private. people who know her say she doesn't enjoy being treated as a vic stim. i think we don't actually know what goes on inside their marriage. i understand -- she is now the first lady. that's what changes it. we don't know what could have gone on around these declared affairs. we have no idea. it's also not a surprise -- i think it's baked in for people who like or don't like donald trump, it's baked into the stock

price, he's been married three times. he had a very, very public affair with the woman who became his second wife. sure, there is that. i think the larger issue is the ami piece. >> the evangelical say it's a mulligan. the payoff aspect of it -- >> that's different. >> where does this go next then? >> i don't know if it has leg, but it could have legs. the question will be were there others? how did this work? how much did the president know i think is going to be an ongoing question. that was a question around the stormy daniels money as well. >> what could not be a bigger contrast, the last republican nominee, former governor mitt romney of massachusetts who as of just a few minutes ago is the current republican senate candidate from the state of utah. listen to part of the announcement here. >> utah has a lot to teach the politicians in washington.

y utah has blnsed its budgets. washington is buried in debt. utah exports more than it imports. washington has that backwards. utah welcomes legal immigrants from around the world. washington sends immigrants a message of exclusion. on utah's capitol hill, people treat one another with respect. >> so within the span of ten seconds, two not so settle messages of how governor romney is distancing himself from the white house. how do you think romney will sort of deal with the white house going forward? >> i think you saw two versions of mitt romney in the past, long before this senate race came up. >> more than two. >> i saw a few, also, in 2012. in terms of the 2016 as it relates to trump, you saw him both be a huge critic. he set himself as the moral exemplar, a beacon for the party, go with me in saying this is enough and drawing a bright line in terms of the president's

rhetoric and so forth. then you saw him very publicly entertain the idea of being secretary of state. he dined with the president. there was that incredibly uncomfortable looking picture of them at one of trump's restaurants. ultimately trump didn't choose him which a lot of romney supporters felt it was a needless human illation that romney put himself through. there will be voters in utah supportive of some of the president's policies. i think he's watching a smart line in disavowing the behavior. >> maggie haberman, thanks for being with me. let's go to alisyn doing remarkable work in florida. >> john, you were down here with me yesterday. you spoke to the kids who survived. you spoke to their families. we keep hearing the same message over and over again. it's a passionate appeal from these parents, from these kids. they want something to be done. they want some action to be taken so no other school

district ever has to deal with this again. this is parkland, florida. they were voted the safest place in florida to live last year. if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere, and it will, it will happen again unless something changes. so we want to close our show by honoring the 17 students and teachers who were killed at that massacre here. we want to pay tribute to them by showing their names, their ages and their faces and how they will never be forgotten by all their loved ones here.

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. welcome back to our continuing coverage of the florida school massacre. i'm anderson cooper in parkland. alyssa alhadeff, her funeral will be taking place today, the first of 17 funerals that will be taking place here, grim reminder of the horror that occurred here just two days ago. i want to go to our rosa flores who is standing by. with each passing hour, we're learning more about the shooter who did this, how he was able to get a weapon and what may have led him to walk into the doors of that school.