this close to getting parole through the help of his fellow inmates is remarkable. >> certainly is. originally sentenced to death, commuted and now possibly going free. thank you very much, tom foreman. thanks very much for all of you. you can watch "outfront" any time on cnn go. in the meantime, it's time for "ac 360." good evening. we start with breaking news. a source tells cnn that capitol police are preparing for violence and armed individuals at a rally this saturday that's meant to protest the arrest of those responsible for the january 6th riot. today a temporary fence around the u.s. capitol was approved. it will be installed later this week. all of this an example of what former president bush spoke about this past saturday during his speech on september 11th at the ceremony outside shanksville, pennsylvania, honoring those aboard flight 93. bush warned about the dangers of extremism that today can be found within our own borders.

>> and we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. there is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. but in their disdainful pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit and it is our continuing duty to confront them. >> those who seek to maim and kill members of our duly elected government are children of the same foul spirit as those who try to destroy america's institutions 20 years ago. a stark message in how anyone feels about president george w. bush, you may think a message that condemns extremists abroad and at home is something

everybody can agree on. even though george w. bush mentioned no names, one person clearly heard something that sounded familiar in the phrase disdain for pluralism or maybe it was the foul spirit. because based on his response, the 45th president of the united states clearly felt, hey, that sounds like me. he responded today by saying bush isn't a winner and that he shouldn't be lecturing us about anything. or maybe trump just thinks someone has to stick up for domestic terrorists because they don't get enough love. to misquote shakespeare, the liar doth protest too much, me thinks. if you think that's unfair look at how he chose to spend september 11th. for trump it was about attacks, lies and self-aggrandizement. he made quick stops at a firehouse and police station in midtown manhattan and cut a video for a religious event at the mall in d.c. by the look and sound of them,

you would think they were political rallies because he was the center of attention. a big entrance, glad handing and of course attacking the current president. this time over the afghanistan pullout, one he of course shares the blame for. again, this was on september 11th. at the police station he claimed and i hate to talk about it on this day. well, you could have fooled anyone who watched because there he was at the police station, at the fire department, in that video at the religious event talking about it. and not just about afghanistan, but the big lie at the heart of the january 6th riot and that far right rally this coming weekend. >> we have a rigged election. you gave me great support. we win the election but what are you going to do? we are fighting like hell and we're going to keep fighting. the election was rigged. if they fought the war the way they fought the election where they stole it, i don't even say stole it, they rigged it. >> again, that was at a police station and then a fire station

in new york city on september 11th. while other presidents were attending solemn events dedicated to the memories of those whose lives were lost. later the former president provided commentary for a pay-per-view boxing match along with his eldest son. this is how he chose to remember 9/11. all in all, indecency at its most indecent. and the one-term former president, his relevance, though, cannot be easily dismissed. new polling from cnn shows that among republican voters, almost two-thirds believe he should be the republican party's leader. 63% said yes. only 37% said no. but republican voters are almost evenly split on whether he should run in 2024. 51% say yes but the difference is within the margin of error. what also can't be dismissed is that biden's predecessor attacked bush's message the same day the capitol police arrested a man who had multiple knives in his truck, a truck with a swastika and other white

supremacist symbols painted on it this morning near the democratic national committee. quoting former president bush again, children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them. i'm joined now by republican congressman adam kinzinger who serves ot foreign affairs committee and is also a member of the house select committee investigating the january 6th riots. congressman kinzinger, thank you for being with us. the fact that the former president, donald trump, was somehow offended by george w. bush's condemnation of domestic terrorists, what does that tell you? >> so it tells me two things, first off. he just -- i mean he proved george w.'s point as quickly and as amazingly as you can. i mean the fact that he's out there dividing on a day -- if we have to pick one day besides like christmas to be unified, probably september 11th is a good candidate for that. but the other thing, and as a quick aside to anybody that is still looking at donald trump as a standard bearer for the republican party, this is one of

the weakest men that i've ever seen. i mean if you think about it, you know, what is strength? strength isn't somebody that just gets their dander up every time because they have such a lack of self-esteem that they have to go attack. somebody with strength can take criticism, can go out on a day like september 11th and bring people together. folks on my side like to use the term snowflake when talking about people that get offended real easy, and that's donald trump. he just went out and proved george w. bush's point. there needs to be more people -- it was so great to hear president bush say this because there's just been a lack of people out there saying what needs to be said. >> you consider donald trump weak? >> oh, certainly. i mean i guess to the extent that strength is what people perceive you have and people look at him and the party and he's obviously the front-runner and of course he was a former president. i guess to the extent there,

there may be some strength. but i look at who he is as a person. and the amount of offended he gets on anything and how he has to go out and punch down. i mean he'll attack a radio host, for goodness sakes, when he was president of the united states. that to me, at least how i grew up as a kid born in central illinois, that to me was always weakness. like strength was kind of that steady, calm ability in a rough storm to maintain your steady focus. certainly that is not the former president. >> have you heard any upset or disquiet in republican leadership over how donald trump chose to spend september 11th? >> no. i mean i'm not really in the favor of republican leadership right now. that in and of itself is telling because i haven't changed an ounce in the last 11 years. i've been pretty consistent on who i am. but yet, you know, look at just a week ago he put out an entire

statement about robert e. lee and how general lee could have won in afghanistan even though robert e. lee lost the civil war. i mean and i didn't hear anything condemning that. so i guess i've run out of hope that leadership would try to distance itself. we've just gotten so tribal in this country. it really is a point, i think, we all need to self-reflect. i don't know if we will, i hope so, but we are so tribal that crazy stuff like this can be said and it just, you know, goes over our heads in many cases. >> when you say crazy stuff like this, look, a source tells cnn that preparations obviously are going on right now at the capitol for this event this saturday. law enforcement worry that some of the protesters could be armed. it's called justice for january 6th. that is the name of this rally. justice for january 6th. and i guess these are the people the president defended in a statement, the former president donald trump defended in a

statement today. >> yeah. and let's think about this. these are people that would identify as militia members. these are the ones that kind of lust after and fettishize this whole idea of overthrowing the federal government because now the federal government might bring you a vaccine conveniently, we have to overthrow it. and that's what you're dealing with. so i hope this rally obviously isn't violent. that's my hope. i guess that's my expectation. but the fact that we're sitting here and that this is now a common occurrence, this is where we have to take inventory of where we've come. you know, for instance, supporting the second amendment, as i do, doesn't mean you support that people should be able to walk with an ar-15 and occupy the michigan state capitol. i mean there's a point at which we have to just look around and go is this really what we want our kids and how are we ever going to get out of this such tribal divided moment we're in, you know, without people having to take tough decisions and get

past their own personal animosity because otherwise this is just going to grow to a really bad place. >> you say it's going to. look, the republican party to an extent has chosen, at least as of today, what direction they want to go in. the new cnn poll i mentioned earlier where you show a clear majority of republicans say that trump is the leader. how do you reconcile that. >> you're right. you're right. you know, it's slightly better than it was five months ago. but if you look, i mean there's a few of my colleagues that will occasionally speak out. i have one, liz cheney, that speaks out as much as i do. but, you know, if you're a republican base voter and you look at every leader that you know, that you trust that's a republican and none of them say anything. in fact there's this kind of quiet, you know, acquiescence to, yeah, the election was stolen because i don't want to have to stand up and tell you it wasn't, i guess maybe we should be impressed that a third of republicans still don't. but that's why leadership is so

important. you know, for some reason we've gone from when we were in high school thinking that when you get elected you actually lead people to now believing that when you get elected you just have to watch public opinion and become a dog chasing your tail into traffic. >> i guess one of the things i found striking in all of this is that the country has come to the point where a significant number of people are actually defending, publicly defending what happened on january 6th. i mean that was the thrust of trump's statement about george w. bush. that's the thrust of this event that's going to be at the capitol this saturday. it is now a defense, pride almost, in what took place. >> you're right. and this is why, you know, i have made the decision to be on the january 6th committee. i think why i can say liz cheney has as well is because we realize that without this nonpartisan investigation of what happened, you're going to have this retelling of history to where it almost becomes a heroic event.

the number of people i talk to that tell me that there was no violence there or they tell me that this was still antifa or the fbi drove this, or even if they admit that it was, you know, trump supporters, that that was okay because in this moment, when an election is stolen, that is our duty. well, look, if an election really was stolen and the government was shutting down elections, that's different. but that's not what happened. but the problem is leaders won't stand up and tell people the truth because for whatever reason, this job that pays $174,000 a year and you can put a title in front of your name is worth more than your integrity in some cases. i don't get it. >> it's the parking space. listen, congressman, i want to shift gears here because secretary of state antony blinken was part of this congressional hearing on the withdrawal of afghanistan. this was something you were a part of today. how satisfied were you with what he had to say? >> completely unsatisfied. i think there were a couple of points that stood out to me. i asked the secretary

specifically, there's discussion about recognizing the taliban now. i said tell me at what point did the taliban in essence become the governing group of afghanistan, or was this an armed coup? he just said, well, by default they're now in charge. well, that's us acquiescing to a coup d'etat. we still don't have answers on how many afghan sivs have been pulled out. the thing that concerns me a lot is what i hear on the ground on who is not allowed to get out of afghanistan versus what we're being told by state are two totally different things. one person, one of the entities is not telling the full truth. history will show that. i give him credit for coming in front of the committee and he'll be in front of the senate later this week or tomorrow. i'm certainly not satisfied, though. >> congressman adam kinzinger, i do appreciate your time tonight. thank you very much. >> you bet. still to come, the california recall election, a long time in the making.

it finally finishes up tomorrow. a preview of what to watch for from cnn's john king at the magic wall. also someone who has campaigned for the california governor, senator amy klobuchar. later, it is the stuff of legal thrillers but this case is real and involves a prominent, well connected south carolina family. a double murder and a new investigation. the details when "360" continues. ♪ ♪ ♪ oooooooo ♪ ♪ yeah eh eh ♪ ♪ land and sea, that's mine ♪ ♪ and pardon when i shine ♪ ♪ hands to the sky, all mine ♪ ♪ ♪

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afternoon in california touring the damage left behind from the recent wildfires. in a few hours he will appear with governor gavin newsom, the final campaign rally before the state's gubernatorial recall election wraps up tomorrow. the recall has drawn a slew of big-name democrats to the state to support the governor, including our next guest, senator amy klobuchar. before we go to her, cnn's john king at the magic wall to break it all down for us. >> john, it's the final night of the quirky california recall campaign and tomorrow we fill in the map and count the votes. this is a yes or no election. yes, recall your democratic governor. no, keep gavin newsom and his policies in place, let him finish the term that he was elected in 2018. democrats enter this race confident and here's one of the reasons why. if you look at the data, ballots returned so far, a lot of this election is early voting, people sending these back by mail. political data is a tracking firm that works with democrats and nonprofit groups. more than half of the ballots returned by democrats. they have a 2-1 registration

advantage. right now 52% from democrats, 25% from republicans. democrats think they're even exceeding their registration advantage in the returns. now we have to count the votes but democrats are happy. here's another reason democrats are happy. just the history of california. yes, 13 years ago gray davis was recalled and arnold schwarzenegger won. california is even more democratic now than it was then. when governor newsom won in 2018, 62% of the vote. look at all that blue. remember where the red is. joe biden in the presidential election last year won by even more, 63% plus of the vote. again, look at all that blue. this is the republican part of california. let's come back to this governor's race because the people who want to recall gavin newsom are the same people who did not vote for him in the first place. let's look at how the recall campaign came about. you have to sign signatures, petitions to get it on the ballot. the deeper the purple, the higher the percentage of where the signatures came from in those counties. in the republican places that didn't like newsom to begin

with, those are the people trying to push him out. republicans need an overwhelming turnout. overwhelming election day turnout but more than that. if the republicans are going to have a prayer here, the big surprise, can they retake orange county? in ronald reagan's days this was the bedrock of the california republican party. a lot has changed since then but watch orange county tomorrow night. you see it was close for gavin newsom in 2018. this would have to be a yes tomorrow night for gavin newsom to be recalled. also look down here in san diego county. again, is there a republican resurgence in this part of the state? used to be a strong state republican party here. not so much anymore but we'll watch this as it plays out as well. again, this is an overwhelmingly democratic state. the governor was the mayor of san francisco. watch the bay area. san francisco, oakland, the counties around there. if turnout is up, is decent, he's likely safe. watch los angeles county down here, the largest, most populous area. is the latino vote turning out for democrats or at least not voting yes, that's what we'll see down here. on the final night of the

campaign, republicans look at this history and they think when we're filling in the map tomorrow night on question 1, the answer will be blue, no, but we'll count them. >> we will count them. we will be there all night long counting ballots. thank you, john, for that. perspective on the race from democratic senator amy klobuchar from minnesota who went to california to campaign for governor gavin newsom. senator, thanks for being with us. why? why was it so important for you to go to california? why is it important to you as a national democrat and why is it important to you in the senate? >> look at what's happening here, john. this is a governor that basically has gotten one of the highest vaccination rates in the country. minnesota has done pretty well too with our governor. the fires are still raging across california. he's been willing to take on climate change. and one of his leading opponents actually called climate change a crock. then you have what happened in texas, and i think that matters, where you had a republican

governor and i don't think california even moderate republicans, independents, of course democrats, don't want to see this. a bill passed signed into law by a trump republican that basically makes the citizens of that state into bounty hunters to basically get paid $10,000 if they turn in a woman for simply exercising her constitutional right to access abortion services. all of those things matter right now in california. and i actually was in orange county. that's where i campaigned to vote no on the recall and campaigned with the governor because i was listening to john and, you know, we have a lot of democratic victories in that county. >> so larry elder, who's the leading republican right now and the former president, donald trump, have both already -- they haven't done voting yet but they're both already saying if they lose, if the republicans lose on the recall, then the election may have been rigged. how much of a problem is it that now we do have one side -- no,

no, you have one side that basically is going to say any election they lose was somehow stolen. >> by the way, that is the argument for for the people and having some federal standards in place for elections because this is just ridiculous. they're making this up, sadly, and we hope it goes better this time. a lot of this was spread across social media. and that's why we want to pass our federal election bill. it's going to be so important. you can't have after every election donald trump and his cronies claiming, oh, it's a lie, i actually won. we are feeling so good about tomorrow because the people of california, as you noted, are turning out. they have until 8:00 p.m. tomorrow to vote. they can vote in person, they can drop off their ballots in a dropoff box, they are mail them in. i just believe the night before an election is where you talk about the truth. and the truth is this recall is bad for california. it's set up by donald trump and his cronies and i believe that's why we're going to win and they're going to vote and they're going to vote strong.

>> how much is the pandemic response on the ballot? there are republicans who said -- who say that gavin newsom's, the way he reacted was too many regulations, too many rules. is that something you're looking for? >> look at what happened last year before joe biden came in where this pandemic was running out of control and there wasn't really a good plan to distribute the vaccines. what has happened since joe biden and kamala harris came into office, they put in a competent team. we know this is hard, there's been variants of this virus, we're in the middle of one right now, that they got that vaccine distributed. they got the facts out. they didn't hide from the facts and that exactly what governor newsom has done in the state of california. getting the vaccine out for people, encouraging them to take it, give them the facts, get it out to the rural areas in every corner of california, every corner of minnesota, and it has made a difference. that's why so many people are doing better now, starting to go

back to work. we know we still aren't completely done with this, but there is a, as we say in duluth, minnesota, a lighthouse on the horizon. we're going to get through this together. >> i just want to close, you recently disclosed that you were diagnosed and treated for stage 11a breast answer. you call it cancer that all of us fear. how are you feeling now and what message do you have for others who may be hearing that word too? >> well, i'm feeling good, john. for me it got caught early. they did a lumpectomy. i got the radiation. now i want people to know that i waited a year when i should have had that mammogram because of the pandemic. and a lot of people are waiting. they think thousands of women have undetected breast cancer right now. one in three americans have put off just regular exams. and so one of the most rewarding things about the last few days for me is so many people have told me that they scheduled their appointment and they know they're going to be safe and

they have got to go in there and do what they should have done maybe a year ago or two years ago. it saved my life and it can save many others. >> we're thrilled that you are doing well. so glad that is happening. glad that it may be doing good for others as well. senator klobuchar, thanks so much for being with us. >> thanks, john. still ahead, just days after texas passed the most restrictive abortion law in the country, its governor promised to eliminate rape from his state. randi kaye shows us why this is much easier said than done. her investigation, next. then i discovered sofi. completely changed my life. lower interest rate. my principal is going down. sofi is a place where you can start to tackle those money goals today. compared to where i was three years ago, i'm kinda killing it. ♪ discover card i just got my cashback match is this for real? yup!

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a judge in harris county, texas, announced she would present a resolution against the state's anti-abortion bill saying it is harmful to women. it is considered one of the most restrictive abortion laws because it essentially bans abortions at six weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest. when texas governor greg abbott was asked how the law will affect rape and incest survivors, he said he intends to eliminate rape in his state. >> rape is a crime. and texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets. so goal number one in the state of texas is to eliminate rape so

that no woman, no person will be a victim of rape. >> he will have his work cut out for him. there have been as many as 18,000 rapes in a single year in texas. and right now there's a backlog of at least 5,000 rape kits in the state, meaning many rapists have not been caught. cnn's randi kaye has been investigating the backlog for several years and is in dallas with the latest. >> that would be a beautiful thing to see but it's not going to happen. it's not realistic. >> reporter: lavinia masters isn't buying it. she has little hope texas governor greg abbott can deliver on his promise to eliminate all rapists from the streets of texas. >> how can the governor eliminate all rapists from the street when the governor and the state hasn't been able to eliminate the backlog of rape kits? >> exactly. that's the million dollar question. when you say things like that, it's like it's outlandish to say things in that manner.

>> house bill 8 is now law. >> reporter: when texas governor greg abbott signed into law the lavinia masters act in 2019, she was there. the act was designed to audit untested rape kits across the state and set strict testing requirements. the texas department of public safety tells cnn as of august there are still 5,298 untested rape kits. but we've learned that number doesn't include the untested rape kits from 231 law enforcement agencies who did not report their numbers to the state. so the number could be much higher, which means thousands of rapists could be on the run possibly raping others. >> how frustrated are you that thousands of rape kits are still setting unprocessed on the shelf? >> i'm very frustrated. >> reporter: lavinia was raped at knife point back in 1985, she

was just 13. her own rape kit with her attacker's dna, sat untested on a shelf for more than 20 years. by the time her attacker was identified, the statute of limitations had run out and the man was already in prison. he had been caught after raping two other women while lavinia's kit sat on the shelf. >> we still have a lot of work to do. it's not an easy task. it's a heavy lift. >> reporter: texas state representative victoria niave has been working alongside lavinia for years to clear the rape kit backlog. at one point there were 19,000 untested kits. >> each box is not just a box sitting on a shelf, it represents a survivor's story, it represents an individual, a family who has been impacted by this. it represents women who are waiting for justice. and so we know that there's still more work to do. >> reporter: she says the state is making it a priority and has approved $50 million to help

test these kits. but with thousands of rape kits still on the shelf, that leaves a lot of women wondering who raped them and a lot of rapists on the street. >> that's the big reason why many reason do not report that they have been raped because they don't think that their case is going to be prosecuted. >> reporter: beyond the backlog, the new texas law banning abortions after six weeks even in the case of rape and incest infuriated lavinia. >> that makes absolutely no sense at all. no sense at all. >> because you may not even know you're pregnant at six weeks. >> exactly. we've lost our control, we've lost our power and you're continuing to strip us by saying by six weeks if you don't get rid of that baby, you have to keep it. no, sir. that's ludicrous. >> reporter: she knows if she had gotten pregnant and that law had had been in place, she would have had to carry and deliver her rapists child at 13. >> i didn't know who he was.

a child wants to know their father. they don't know their background, they don't know their history. i don't know about their illnesses or anything. but i would be forced to carry that baby. that's not -- that's not common -- that's not even common sense. >> randi kaye joins us now. randi, this is so important and so timely. why are all these rape kits still on the shelf untested? >> reporter: a couple of reasons, john. one of those reasons is manpower. the state representative told me they just don't have enough forensic analysts here in the state of texas. also if you look at the law enforcement agencies, the police and sheriff's department, i'm told that they are just not processing those kits as quickly as they are supposed to be so now they have actually updated the lavinia masters act so if now those agencies don't comply with processing and reporting in a timely manner as laid out in that act, they can lose some grant funding, john. >> randi kaye, terrific work.

thanks so much for doing this tonight. up next, why investigators have a lot of questions about money and murder and the patriarch of a prominent south carolina family. es deep inside the exposed dentin to help repair sensitive teeth. my patients are able to have that quality of life back. i recommend sensodyne repair and protect with deep repair.

a deadly boating accident, a double murder and now a new mysterious shooting reported and allegations of misappropriated

funds at a law firm. it sounds like a plot in a pat conroy novel but this is real life and swirls around a south carolina family. tonight the patriarch of that legal dynasty, alex mar urdaughs facing an investigation and investigators are digging into the other twists and turns involving the family. with more, here's cnn's martin savidge. >> reporter: this is a story with more turns than a south carolina country road. it begins in the small town of hampton just over 100 years ago when residents like randolph murdaugh, was the 14th solicitor, most called district attorneys. murdaughs with the supreme law for more than 3200 square miles of lowcountry. >> it's pretty well recognized in law that in criminal justice there is no figure more powerful than the prosecutor. >> reporter: keeping residents on the legal straight and narrow across five counties kept the

murdaugh family well connected to law enforcement. >> and probably know each other pretty well socially too. >> that's very often the case here, yes. >> reporter: the grip on the solicitor's office ended in 2005 when randolph murdaugh iii retired. but the family also has a very successful law firm with offices in three counties, known for winning big settlements for their clients. for 53-year-old alex mar urdaug known as big red, working at the family firm offered plenty of reward. he would head home to his 1700-acre estate and his beautiful family. he seemed to have everything everyone could want until one terrible night this past june. >> it's bad. >> reporter: murdaugh returned home to find his wife and son shot to death out near the dog kennels on the vast property. >> and are they breathing? >> no, ma'am. >> you said it's your wife and

your son? >> my wife and my son. >> reporter: 52-year-old maggie murdaugh was shot multiple times, sources say, with a semiautomatic rifle while 22-year-old paul murdaugh had been shot at least twice with a shotgun. the gruesome scene suggested two shooters, leaving many wondering if the family's long legal history had played a role. seth stoughton is a former police officer turned attorney and professor. >> two weapons, two people possibly would suggest maybe this had been planned carefully. >> it certainly is not something that i would expect an investigator to rule out based on the evidence that i'm aware of that's been publicly available. >> reporter: alex murdaugh and his surviving son put up their own money for $100,000 reward for information. but at the bottom of the notice was an odd catch. the tip must be submitted to law enforcement on or before september 30th. >> have you ever heard of an expiration date on a reward? >> i have not. >> south carolina's son and

mother who were gunned down roe. >> reporter: it wasn't the only strange thing. in an interview on "good morning america" murdaugh family members said their nephew, paul, had been getting threatening messages online before he was killed. >> i didn't think it was a credible threat. if it was, i would have tried to do something or notified someone. but i guess maybe i made a mistake. >> reporter: the family says the threat started after a fatal boating accident. >> what bridge is this? >> 911, what is your emergency. >> we're in a boat crash on artis creek. we have someone missing. >> reporter: february 2019, beaufort, south carolina, paul murdaugh and five friends all underage out for a night of partying. images from investigation files obtained by cnn show paul murdaugh buying beer and buying more drinks at a bar. everyone gets into a boat. witnesses told investigators paul was driving. investigators say the 17-foot boat struck a bridge at high speed.

19-year-old valerie beach was thrown into the water. >> please sent someone. there's six of us and one is missing. >> reporter: it would take a week to find beach's body. paul murdaugh was charged with boating under the influence resulting in death facing up to 25 years in prison. he pleaded not guilty. despite the serious charges, still pending at the time of his killing, the night of the crash a dash cam recording obtained by the post and cure yur captured the voice of a passenger on the boat suggesting paul wasn't likely to face serious consequences. >> you all know alex murdaugh? that's his son. >> that's driving the boat? >> good luck. >> reporter: it wouldn't be the first time someone suggested the murdaugh name could influence the outcome of an investigation. in the aftermath of the mother and son murders, s.l.e.d. made a stunning announcement.

during their investigation they said they found something. they wouldn't say what. but as a result they were going to reopen an investigation into another unsolved death from 2015. >> what is your emergency? >> i just went down the road and seen somebody laying out. >> we'll get an officer headed out that way to see what's going on. >> i didn't move it or nothing like that, but somebody is going to hit it. somebody is going to hit it. >> reporter: 19-year-old steven smith was found dead in the middle of the road in the middle of the night just outside hampton. there were no witnesses, but among classmates and friends there was a lot of talk police files show. one family name kept surfacing, a name many were reluctant to talk about to police leaving investigators obviously frustrated as interview recordings suggest. >> a lot of people seem a little nervous to say the name murdaugh. you know, i understand that they're pretty big down there in

hampton, but i'm out of charleston and that name doesn't mean anything to me. so i want you to feel, you know, like you don't have anything to worry about. >> reporter: no one has been arrested and no publicly linked evi links anyone in the murdaugh family to smith's death. in september of this year the law firm discovered alex murdaugh had allegedly stolen significant funds from the company. sources tell cnn it was millions of dollars. murdaugh had his own stunning admission, saying the murders of my wife and son have caused an incredibly difficult time in my life. i've made a lot of decisions that i truly regret. i'm resigning from my law firm and entering rehab after a long battle that has been exacerbated by these murders. his lawyer confirming an opioid addiction. but the biggest shock was still to come. >> he was shot in the head while changing a tire. >> reporter: the very next day, alex murdaugh says as he stopped

on the side of the road looking at a leaky tire, a man in a pickup truck drove past, then turned around in a church parking lot and returned. after a brief conversation, murdaugh told investigators the man shot him in the head. he was out of the hospital two days later. somebody wondered if the shooting had been staged. murdaugh's spokesperson put out a statement denying it was self-inflicted. but the church where the truck turned around might just be the answer to investigators' prayers. the church has a number of security cameras, a few that look in the general direction of where the shooting occurred down that way and another that looks directly into the parking lot where murdaugh says the pickup truck turned around. if there's video, it could provide clues about a suspect and alex murdaugh. >> what do you make of the shooting of alex murdaugh? >> i think it's going to tremendously complicate the investigators' job both for that shooting and also for the shooting of his wife and son. it introduces a set of

possibilities and facts that investigators are going to have to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort winnowing through to figure out whether they're connected, whether they're not connected. >> reporter: with so many new questions and so few answers from investigators, many who thought they knew the friendly, wealthy, successful lawyer, big red, now wonder if they ever really knew him at all. we reecached out to every entit and everyone who is connected to this case. we're talking family, friends, law enforcement, lawyers. we even tried to reach political aquaintances. no one would sit down for an on-camera interview. it just goes to show you how people here have been so shocked by recent events. in fact some people told us had we showed up ten days earlier before the allegations of embezzlement, before the admission of a drug addiction, before the shooting on the side of the road, they would have talked to us. now no one wants to talk because

no one knows what to think, but just about everyone believes there is a lot more to know. john. >> i'm exhausted by all the twists and turns, one after another after another. martin savidge, what a story. thanks so much for that. still ahead, more on our breaking news as the nation's capitol prepares for potential violence this weekend at a rally protesting the arrest of rioters who took part in the january 6 insurrection. we'll take a look at the fury behind the country's deep divide. small tr emors would be et . i was diagnosed with parkinson's. i had to retire from law enforcement. it was devastating. one of my medications is three thousand dollars per month. prescription drugs do not work if you cannot afford them. aarp is fighting for americans like larry, and we won't stop. that's why we're calling on congress to let medicare negotiate lower prescription drug prices. when we found out our son had autism,

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more now on our breaking new. capitol police preparing for the possibility protesters could be archled and violent this saturday. they'll be protesting the arrest of the january 6th rioters who couldn't accept the results of the 2020 election. how did we get here? evan osnos decided to find out. he writes about it in his new book, wildland, the making of america's fury, and joining us now. this is a terrific book and it's really framed between september 11th and january 6th. a period in which you say the

united states lost its sense of unity. its ability to come together. so what happened? how did it get to that point? >> the way i think of it, john, we sort of lost the ability to think of ourselves as larger than the sum of its parts in a way. you have to go back to remember that period after 9/11. we were obviously for good reason, we were afraid. there were people at the time who took advantage of it, let's be blunt. political opportunists. leaders of government who said this is my chance to make a name for myself. you began to see people talk about the threat from islam in ways that were out of accord with reality, and to the point that people began to get a distorted sense of what life was like in america. there's a telling statistic, a survey done not too long ago in which americans were asked to estimate what share of the population they thought were muslim. americans estimated 1 in 6. the real number is 1 in 100. americans had been in a sense systematically misled, and it

had begun to draw these lines which we saw on january 6th. >> we had adam kinzinger on earlier, and he said there's such a sense of tribalism that we won't get out of it unless politicians are willing to stand up and do things that may not be popular in their own self-interest. what would that take? >> it was such an important point he made. one of the things we heard from former president george w. bush over the weekend, one of the things he called out was a disdain for pluralism. what i thought when i heard that, that didn't happen overnight. donald trump is the center of the phenomenon, but you have to connect the dots that go back a few years. as i write in the book, the first day i came back to work in the united states was the day in october of 2013 when the government shut down and it shut down in effect because of a kind of political pageant on the part of some leaders like senator ted cruz who decided he was going to advance his personal interests at the cost of the united states. the government was shut down for

16 days. it cost $24 billion. john, i looked up what that could have done for us. you could have sent a rover to the moon and back eight times over. you know, the cost to us as a country because of the vanities and the self-promotion of some of our political leaders has begun to exact a toll we can't deny anymore. >> we have about 30 seconds left, evan. you were at the capitol on january 6th writing for the new yorker. you said it was like an inferno powered by the cynicism, unreason, and deception in u.s. politics. what does it say that we have a rally in support of the insurrectionists happening this saturday? >> it tells you i'm afraid that apparatus of delusion that so many people who were there on that day participating in, it still exists. i think it's deepened in some quarters. the encouraging news and i think you see that in some of the data cnn has is there are some people who are beginning to say donald trump is not the future of the party, but that's not yet the majority in his party. and it's going to take a while. and it's going to take leadership, and it's not frankly something we see very much from the top of the republican party.

>> we'll continue this discuss. the book is wildland, on sale tomorrow. thank you very much. up next, an update on the afghan military pilots who were stranded after the u.s. pull-out of afghanistan. hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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earlier, we spoke with congressman adam kinzinger about the testimony on capitol hill today on afghanistan. there's been a lot of questions about the u.s. pull-out from the country. recently, we told you about some afghan military pilots who were stranded. tonight, we have an update and there is good news. here's alex marquardt. >> they're among the most highly trained afghan forces. pilots and crew members of the afghan air force. for the past month, they have been stranded after fleeing the taliban advance with their valuable planes and helicopters across the border into neighboring uzbekistan and tajikistan. they feared they would be sent back where the taliban is hunting for them. >> there were so many rumors that they were going to send us back to afghanistan. that's why everyone was afraid, and everyone was worried about that. >> we have spoken with afghan pilots themselves and american veterans working to get them to the united states. including retired general david

hicks, who led the training of afghan pilots in the u.s. and has criticized the state department for moving too slowly. >> the problem was there started to become members who wanted to go back to afghanistan because they were worried about their wives or their families and so you know, they were headed back or were going to go back for that reason. >> we brought you their story last week. then over the weekend, word game they were finally on the move after four weeks. more than 460 pilots, maintainers, and family members loaded onto buses and charter planes, flyingu uzbekistan airways for further processing. one step closer to making it to the u.s. where many want to end up, but fears remain. how worried are you that the remaining afghan air force personnel, family members are targets of the taliban now and won't be able to get out of the country? >> we know air force members or family members have been either detained or killed by the taliban, so it's not like it's

something that may happen. it is something that is happening right now. so time is of the essence. >> those concerns weighing on the pilots. >> if taliban understand that our families, parents, are in afghanistan, they will catch them until we show up. >> since many have already been to the u.s. for training and fought so closely with american forces, the visa process is expected to go smoothly. which would be a huge relief for the men who are forced to dramatically flee their native country and start life in a new one. >> i can't explain how happy i am. and it's a big pleasure not only for me but for all that were in uzbekistan. >> on top of the air force personnel who have gotten out of uzbekistan, there are still around 140 more in neighboring tajikistan. general hicks has been tracking their cases as well and has told us that processing on them has started. john, between those two

countries, around 60 planes and helicopters were flown out of afghanistan. what will happen to them remains unclear, but thanks to those pilots, the taliban will not get their hands on them. >> nice to get some good news. thank you so much for that report. >> so the news continues. let's hand it over to chris for cuomo primetime. >> i'm chris cuomo, and welcome to primetime. now, 9/11 is heavy. 20-year anniversary is heavy. and there were many of you saying the right things. i appreciate what you said to me and about the occasion. but there were still too many that were wearing never forget shirts and yet i was listening. i'm seeing people fighting about stupid things, about lies, and about misinformation. and it reminded me of a quote because we're in a bad place. and i say that because i'm desperate for us to get to a better place. our chief want i