scalise and all the other victims and their families tonight. as always, thank you for being with us. we will see you back here from washington, d.c. stay tucker carlson is live next. see you tomorrow night. ♪ >> tucker: well, good evening. welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." we are live. 11:00 p.m. on the east coast to bring you details of the story of the day, week, month. we hope not the era. that is the terrible shooting that took place this morning in alexandria, virginia, across the river from washington, washington, d.c. in the 7:00 hour, politically motivated shooting, an act of political violence undertaken by a 66-year-old man from illinois with a profound grudge against the republican party and the trump administration. there was a witness who recorded the unfortunate moments of this on his cell phone. and you can hear the shots

ringing out in the distance. five people shot. one of them, the majority whip steve scalise of louisiana in the hospital tonight. gravely injured. the president of the united states and the first lady paid a visit to the hospital a short time ago. and i believe we have pictures of them visiting medstar hospital center in washington. the hospital released a statement just a short moment ago, a status report on the congressman's condition. here is what it says -- we are quoting this. from medstar washington hospital center. congressman steve scalise sustained a single rifle shot to the left hip. it fractured across his pelvis, fracturing bones, injuring internal organs causing severe bleeding. he underwent a surgery to stop the blooding and received blood transfusion. his position is critical and he will require additional operations." we will closely be following, of course, updates on congressman scalise's condition. as you know by now and as we

said a second ago the gunman responsible for all of this was james hodgkinson. an enthusiastic progressive, bernie sanders supporter. hodgkinson appears to have done this for ideological reasons. he asked a congressman, who we'll speak to, whether the congressmen on the field were democrats or republican. [gunfire] [gunfire continues] >> tucker: awful. now so far the only death is of the shooter himself. but as we said, five people were wounded.

two of them capitol hill police officers, a hill staffer, lobbyist from tyson food and house majority whip steve scalise. shortly after in a depressingly familiar ritual, journalists and politicians jumped in trying to score political points from the shooter. blogger and twitter buffoon david frum may have been the quickest to the scene. as the rest of the world was waking up to the news, david frum was busy writing his sermon -- but he said would be amusing if it wasn't so gross. concealed permit carry for a rifle? virginia does require a background check to buy a gun. frum was not alone. in a morning statement, virginia governor terry mcauliffe claimed 93 million people die every day in america, thanks to guns. 93 million. that is more than a third of the country murdered every day of the calendar year.

the governor said that multiple times. now, of course, this is what happens when ignorant liberals talk about firearms. but it misses the point entirely. what happened today isn't horrifying because it was gun violence, it's horrifying because it was political violence and it threatens the basic stability of our country. that is why shooting a congressman for party affiliation is worse than killing a man in a bar because he hit on your wife. they are both horrifying but only one could lead to civil war. only the hard left understand this. that is why they support it because it could lead to the disillusion of a country they despise. our country. jesse benn said, "the world would be a better place without him." end of story. benn's only criticism of the attack was the limited scale. "for violence resistance to work it needs to be organized. individual acts can be understandable but counterproductive or ineffective." on the other side of the

divide the one occupy, some look to blame the media or bernie sanders for the shooting. maybe an understandable temptation but it's best resisted because the only person directly responsible for the shootings today is the man who pulled the trigger. that said, there are maybe some lessons we can learn from this. one is that in this volatile moment people with megaphones ought to be responsible about what they say. that means never excusing political violence under any circumstances. that means condemning shootings like this, obviously, but also riots, assaults, occupations, threats, any other attempt to achieve political goals through force ought to be condemned swiftly and unequivocally. being responsible also means being intellecteddually honest. not im -- intellectually honest and not implying you know more than you do know. for example if you know that russia had improper involvement in last fall's election. fine. make your case. explain yourself. but don't accuse your political opponents of treason

unless you have hard evidence they committed treason. that may seem obvious but there are big ratings in conspiracy theories. some can't resist. they should resist. above all don't dehumanize the political opponents. the people you disagree with are still people. politics is not a referendum on virtue, it's not a holy war. it's a debate how best to run the country. reasonable people can disagree on that as they have for hundreds of years. the other side isn't evil. they're just wrong. more than anything there are fellow americans, our kin, that means far more than the differing views on obamacare or marginal tax rates or even russia. keep that in mind and you won't lose your decency. you shouldn't. congressman des santo from florida left before the shooting began and had a run-in himself. thank you for joining us. you said they asked if there were republicans or democrats

on the field. he asked you? >> representative duncan and i. i would have been 30, 40 feet from the gunman if we stayed. jeff would have been 70 feet. but we wanted to beat the traffic so we looked at each other and said let's get on the road. as soon as we got in the car, an individual approached us and said -- it was kind of abrasive. "hey, are those republicans or democrats?" jeff was like, "they're republicans." the guy turned around and started to walk toward the field. it was kind of weird but it was the type of thing you pull out and shake your shoulders. as soon as we got back to the hill and we heard what had happened, jeff and i immediately talked to one another like we got to report this guy. we reported kind of what we remembered about him. then once he was identified and they found his picture, jeff and i were like that is definitely him. jeff had a staffer who was driving. and he said 100% that was him. >> tucker: that is amazing. so you left without knowing what had happened. you drove all the way from alexandria to capitol hill not knowing that the shooting took

place. >> that is right. we left i think probably about 7:08. we were trying to see how much quicker the commute would be if you leave then versus 7:30. by the time we got back to capitol hill, we started to get word. but i actually was in the gym. so i didn't have my phone on me. i showered, i get out and i see on tv scalise shot. it was stunning because i was just there 20 minutes ago. steve and i were turning double plays. i'm throwing balls from third to him and he's turning it and throwing it to first base. that happened five or ten minutes before he got shot. so it's just a really surreal -- i don't think i have still kind of come to terms with it yesterday. >> tucker: no. we are approaching midnight and you look wide awake. was the guy, you seem like you remember the exchange pretty well. did he seem agitated or weird? >> i don't know if he was agitated. it was a little weird because we get out there 6:15. we practice until 7:30.

people would be out there walking their dogs and stuff. but for a spectator it's not a normal thing to do. you have a lot of guys that are 50 or 60 years old. this isn't exactly the big leagues. so it's not great for spectate lores. but he clearly knew they were members of congress out there. he was interested in the party affiliation. so the way he acted was a little odd but definitely we had no indication that he had any arms on his person. i think what he did, he probably had them in the van that he was living in that was probably close by. and then just got it and started opening fire. >> tucker: is this something you think about when you are around with other members or by yourself in washington? >> well, when we are on the hill we have security at the capitol, the office building. people go through the magna tomer thes -- magnatometers. this is different. this is offcampus. the only reason there was security there is steve scalise as member of the leadership he has a detail. had steve not been there, you are probably looking at 10, 15

fatalities and many more injured. i think it's something we are thinking about manufacture. and i will tell you, tucker, we have now started talking amongst once another about the threats we get in the office since the election and since the trump inauguration. it's not just threats against me, other members. a lot of the families. we have people, i have a 6-month-old daughter. people say they hope she dies and things like that. so i think when something like this happens you take that invective more seriously than maybe you had in the past. >> tucker: i know the feeling, as it happens. what do you know about the condition of the man matt mika who works for tyson who was there? and aapparently shot a number of time. he hasn't got a lot of attention today. >> so his family put out a statement. they are asking for privacy. obviously, the statement identified significant wounds. he has been in surgery. we are really praying for him.

he is a really good guy. he was a former staffer. he is now downtown. but he still wants to come out and support the team. so, very, very tragic he was hurt in this. we are praying for him to pull through. >> tucker: yeah. people who don't live in washington i don't think understand what a big deal the games are. there are tons of softball leagues around town and one of the last traditions that brings people together. it's so sad to see this. >> $650,000 raised. we may be able to raise more now. steve scalise, of everybody, he loved this game. he really had a child sense of just excitement and it. so it's really tragic he gets shot on the field that he loved being out on so much. >> tucker: i know. and a good guy. son of jefferson parish. congressman, thank you for coming on tonight. >> thank you. >> tucker: the shooting occurred in the state of virginia but the shooter james hodgkinson hailed from illinois. what else do we know about him and why he did this? fox news chicago correspondent mica has been on it all day --

fox news chicago correspondent mike tobin has on it all day. hey, mike. >> there are many people saying they didn't see signs of trouble with hodgkinson but a neighbor told our producer that he was an angry little man, a pushy little bastard he said. he had run-ins with the law. in 2006 he was at the center of a big domestic disturbance according to a report from the sheriff's department he punched a woman in the face, dragged her daughter around by the hair and fired a shotgun in anger. in march of this year, a neighbor called the sheriff because hodgkinson was out in a field firing his rifle. >> i thought good grief, there are houses over there and everything. i yelled at him. "hey, stop shooting, there are houses over there and everything." i didn't get any kind of a notion from him that he heard me or that he even cared. >> he ranted about leftist politics and he wrote 18 letters to the ederitor of the

local newspaper about taxes and top income earners. his facebook page has been taken down but it claimed that president trump was a traitor. petitioned for the president and vice president to be impeached. hodgkinson campaigned to bernie sanders. sanders took time to denounce the actions. illinois policy institute dug up the voting records and determined that hodgkinson voted democratic in 2008, 2012 and 2016. tucker? >> tucker: mike, thanks a lot for that. after the shooting today, msnbc brought on counterterrorism expert malcolm nance who related the shooting to, of course, american government. >> i'm most curious about whether the type of attack he carried out was whether it was focused on steve scalise. the most important thing we need to understand from this is this is what happens when you have an overproliferation of guns. it's to be expected to a certain extent. >> tucker: yeah. to be expected. politicses have nothing to do with it.

neither did terrorism. weird a counterterrorism expert wasn't eager to make the attack about terrorism. not surprising. two months ago nance nominated a trump property in istanbul, turkey, to be the first, "isis suicide bombing of a trump property." he said that. mark steyn is an author and columnist and warning about the graduate emigres of the violent rhetoric on the left for some time and he joins us now. what do you make of that? >> well, that guy is a poser. i take it he is not really in the hotel bombing business. which i don't take lightly. i like to stay at the grand hyatt until it got blown up. a hollywood producer and his daughter were killed at the wedding at that hotel in the hotel bombings. that is a real thing. it's kind of a turn-on for the left to joke about this. in a sense one has to have more admiration for the isis

guys who actually slice off their heads than for someone like kathy griffin who just gets sort of a free turn of edginess doing a photoshopped photo shoot with a severed head. that is wanting all the glamour of violence without having to do it. and down on street level, i think if you actually normalize that kind of approacholitics, you do increase the likelihood that some loser somewhere halfway across the country on the other side of the map is going to get in the car and drive to washington and live in his van for a couple of months and actually do something. that is why i think this idea of this glamorizeed faux edgy political violence culture actually has to be done away back. >> tucker: it's funny, though. so much of the attacks you hear from the left strike me

as transference in the sense they accuse their opponents of which they are things they are personally guilty. you are violent! you are racist! it's things that are so obvious about them. they seem obsessed with violence. not all of them. there are a lot of good liberals out there. but the activist type who thinks about violence a lot. >> no, that is true. it was true eight years ago for example at the dawn of the obama era. there was a whole obama assassination pawn, not from the right but from the left fantasizing about how the right were itching to assassinate obama. some guy in the "ottawa sun" of all places wrote a 700-word column describing in detail how some lee harvey oswald was just itching to blow the first black president's head off. what i find most revoting

about this -- if we were to learn a lesson from what happened today, i think we should actually put our foot down about the kind of what orwell called "the pansy left," appropriation of real courage. the trump resistance. "resistance" is a term with a specific meaning. the french resistance, because their country was illegally occupied by the nazis. so frenchmen risked their lives to risk their country of a foreign occupier. my mom, god bless her, happened to be belgian. and lost her childhood growing up under the nazis. there was as ridiculous as it may sound a belgian resistance. there is no american resistance. and to put it in terms leftist can understand. you are guilty of cultural

appropriation. when you are some pampered, stupid, middle class snowflake and you think you are part of some resistance, no you are not. you have no idea what people who grew up under real tyranny have to live through. the candidate you had was no good and she lost the election. tough. try again in 2018. try again in 2020. but don't culturally appropriate real courage, real heroism and real resistance. >> tucker: i could listen to this all night! and nod along as you speak. i agree completely. mark steyn as always, thank you. >> thanks, tucker. >> tucker: well, a handful of sick people defended today's hearings and even more people defended mock trump beheadings, campus riots and the like. we talk to a reporter from "federalist" about the rising enthusiasm for violence in political rhetoric. what is it about? what is it about? where is it did you know slow internet

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and add phone and tv for only $34.90 more a month. call today. comcast business. built for business. we heard a loud bang and i stopped and said, "what was that?" the next thing i heard was everybody said, "run, he's got a gun!" >> in a millisecond after the second shot, most people knew it was gunfire. we needed to start scrambling. that is what we did. >> return fire. pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. there were not to 50 shots i heard. >> i heard some of the players saying, "just shoot him." you know, they shot one of his buddies and they were shooting at them and they were shooting at all of us. >> tucker: most people on both sides the republicans and the democrats had the sense to condemn today's assassination

attempt on republican members of congress for the atrocity it was. of course. most people is not everybody. several people on the hard left praised today's shootings as an act of self-defense, river lution or something. many others balk at a literal shooting but defended mock violence. there seems to be a trend of rhetorical violence in any rate. some cases literal violence on the left. what is driving it? john daniel davidson is the senior correspondent for "federalist" and he has written on this and joins us tonight. you see this as a trend? >> yeah. we have been seeing this coming for a while. as i wrote last month it started for the most part on college campuses. the kind of intolerant violent protests that sought to shut down conservative speakers and charles murray, and professor that invited him to middlebury got attacked, sent the woman to the hospital.

we have seen this on college campuses. we know that most things that start on college campuses in america end up filtering out to the general public. >> tucker: what is the motive behind it exactly? where does the anger come from do you think? >> i think a lot of it comes from the fundamental difference between the way progressive views politics and the way conservatives view politics. for progressives, an issue like healthcare or immigration or gun control isn't just a matter of a policy difference or difference of opinion. it's an article of faith. if you disagree with them about that, you are not just ill-informed or wrong. you are a bad person. you a racist. you are a xenophobe and you need to be silenced. this is the rhetoric we see coming out of campuses. increasingly we see it in public life in america. >> tucker: you're an apostate. to them, the left is secular, aggressively secular in a lot

of cases but they transferred it to politics. they mean it in a way the right doesn't. is that what you are saying? >> exactly. it's not necessarily a new thing. you go back in 2009 when they were debating obamacare. e zra klein otherwise a reasonable guy said joe biden was willing to cause the death of hundreds of thousands of people because he wouldn't vote for an amendment on obamacare. that rhetoric and that way of thinking of the policy disagreements is how you talk yourself into feeling or needing to do something drastic to change the political situation. >> tucker: you can kind of see where this is going. you just wisely noted things that incubate on college campuses nower to larger society. where the adults on campuses? they are bought in institutions. they are drawing salaries and they haveand wrecking the socie?

>> you would think they would but the adults on the college campuses are the ones that inculcated this in the students not just through what they teach in the classroom but through how they respond. you see the president after president cowing to demands of the protesting from berkeley to middlebury. that encourages the behavior. it doesn't tamp it down. there is never a pushback. is there something that sent the professor to the hospital in middlebury? i didn't hear about it. >> tucker: in the end they are afraid of the mob. the leadership is starting feel that way, too. i thought you'd make me feel better. you made me feel more morose but i think you're right. thank you for coming on. >> thank you for having me. >> tucker: every left sees every mass shooting renewed calls for gun control. after the break we talk to a new york city councilman who

says it is time to roll back gun rights. whoooo.

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tripadvisor. the latest reviews. the lowest prices. >> tucker: today's shooting swiftly provoked calls for gun control laws that allegedly would have prevented it. one of the calls cames from new york city councilman jumaane williams who issued a statement calling for common sense gun legislation. nothing more specific. and also for laws that account combat the leader -- "combat

the leadership of the n.r.a. as they try to deceive people they are simply working to protect second amendment rights." we spoke to him earlier tonight. what gun law would have prevented the shooting today? >> a combination of things. first, my prayers for representative scalise and his family. and he is in critical condition. >> tucker: amen. >> a confluence of things we need in preventing this type of supply. it's a supply side. the guns are going in the communities. we have to prevent it. this man had a criminal history. why did he have access to the guns so readily? we also need to prevent gun laws like the ones -- >> tucker: may i answer. i know the answer to this. he bought his gun legally. he had a federal background check. he was not convicted of any crime. so you can't punish people without convicting them under the system and he lived in a rural area. it's not like guns were flooding in his community. he went and bought it at a gun shoppe as he is allowed to do. so again, since you used this

shooting as a way to promote your political views on gun control, what gun law would have prevented this shooting? >> my answer to the question is the supply and demand. the supply side is all of the illegal guns that we talk were legal at some point. so there are too many points of purchase and too much ability to get unfettered access to guns. i believe in understanding he had two guns. i don't know necessarily that you need two, three, four guns. >> tucker: but he had a rifle. he shot a lot of people with a rifle. five people with the rifle. he got it legally. again, so i guess the point i'm making is there are hundreds of millions of firearms in the united states. the second amendment guarantees the right as translated by the supreme court for people to buy them. how do you stop gun crime or shootings like this short of confiscating every gun which is not going to happen? >> you don't have to confiscate them. >> tucker: how would you prevent this crime? >> laws could be put in place to minimize the access to guns

and access to semi-automatic weapons that people won't even entertain. research can be done with the c.d.c. to see where they are but the republicans and the n.r.a. block that. >> tucker: i don't know why you are waiting for the n.r.a. to do the work for you or the c.d.c. you are an elected official and you are using a tragedy, leveraging a tragedy -- >> no. >> tucker: of course you are. senting out a press release while people are still being carted to the hospital. the obvious question is how to prevent it? >> you are speaking to a councilmember who has had a voice to help new york city be one of the safest cities in the country. there should be people listening to what is happening. >> tucker: congratulations. but we are talking about a mass shooting that took place in alexandria at 7:00 a.m. this morning. you used that occasion to send out the press release. for fourth time, what law would have prevented this? >> we are talking the other mass shootings --

>> tucker: so you concede nothing in this -- >> no we are talking about the gun violence that is occurring because of a supply. there are combinations of gun laws we should put forth and discuss. i'm saying we should be allowed to even research -- >> tucker: you are allowed to say whatever you want on the show. any crazy idea you have. this is an open forum. i'm going to try for a fifth time then give up. you are steering the conversation general and i want to bring it back to a specific thing. >> it has to be brought to a general. this is not about one incident. >> tucker: because you don't have an answer. >> no, this is one incident you want to focus on. >> tucker: there are millions of high capacity so-called assault rifle, 556223, perhaps that kind of rifle, that kind of rifle. what do you do with that kind of gun? >> no one can say there is not too much access to guns in this country and the correlation to how many people die from gun violence in the country than to anyone else is huge. so we have to have a discussion about gun laws. >> tucker: i'm trying to

have a discussion right now and i'm not making headway. you are bringing it back -- i'm saying what do you about the rifles in this country? >> access to high capacity weapons. access to purchase weapons if you have a criminal history. >> tucker: you are not hearing me. they are already there. do you ban them to confiscate them? >> how about we stop first? get a stopgap and have a discussion. >> tucker: what does it mean? >> we can't have a discussion? we can have a discussion -- >> hold on. the c.d.c. can't do research to answer the question because the n.r.a. won't let them. how about we start there and allow the c.d.c. to do research? >> i invited you on hoping you had something interesting to say. the floor director says we are out of time. last question. we have all the rifles out there. should we confiscate them or not? >> that is not the question. how do we prevent the supply of guns in the communities? >> tucker: okay. mr. williams, i appreciate it. thank you for coming on. up next more eyewitness accounts of today's stunning

assassination attempt outside washington. stay tuned.

>> tucker: we heard a lot of harrowing accounts, amazing accounts earlier tonight from my witnesses who were there in alexandria when the shooting began, members of congress. here is some of what they said to us. >> the first thing i heard was simultaneous with the first half dozen shots taking two or three seconds. was "active shooter, active shooter." bam, bam, steve scalise yelled something. i don't know if it was "shooter" or "i'm hit." i recognized his voice in the chaos. as i'm running around the batting cage i see steve on the ground in the second base position on the infield dirt trying to pull himself on the ground toward right field. of course there is not much we can do when all we have are baseball bats and gloves and baseballs. >> i said, "zack, you're hit. you've been young, 19, 20s.

we think we are immortal. he said, "oh, it's no big deal." i said dude, you have been shot. it's a big deal! >> tucker: where was he shot? >> in the calf. the bullet went all the way through and he was bleeding. i took off my belt and i said, "look you have to have a tourniquet." >> we were in the outfield, the coach mike doyle, congressman from pennsylvania. he called us in. we hadn't finished batting practice yet. we ran in thinking why is he calling us in already. he told us there were shots fired at the republican practice and they wanted to us huddle up by the dugout to be safe. then someone on the team pulled their cell phone out and was on twitter and said, "oh, my god, they are saying steve scalise has been shot." >> knowing we needed to get to steve, he had dragged himself off of the infield, 10 or 15 feet in the outfield to be further away from the shooter. but we couldn't leave the dugout because bullets were going overhead the whole time.

finally, when somebody yelled "the shooter's down," i ran out. then another member followed, who happens to be a surgeon from ohio. brad and i administered first aid for another ten or 15 minutes. >> i just dove into the concrete dugout. i tore my leg up but when i landed, i was there with flake and i was there with mo. then all of sudden zack comes in from the outfield. i'm hamming him all of a sudden. we are holding each other. he's bleeding. that is when mo and we gave the, he gave the belt to us to make a turn it -- tourniquet to keep the blood on. it was a moment that we already said without the capitol police, without the bravery of the capitol police i think that probably it would have been a good chance all of

us would have been killed. >> tucker: james hodgkinson's shooting is horrifying to most. at least one individual out there has been inspired by it. up ahead we talk to a congressman after the shooting received a warning that she was ..

>> tucker: today's shooting was bad enough. it's being made worse by others who see it as a chance to make further threats. terrifying all of us. in this case, congressman representing new york. after the shooting today he is received a threat by e-mail that said, "one down, 216 to go. our own lives are forfeit," the threat continues. "good riddance."

do you receive threats like this regularly? >> i received them all year. i was newly elected and i have been getting them since the healthcare plans have come up and the .. he things we need in new york state. i received them regularly but until now, most of the media, i have to say the main stream media responded with, "when are you doing your town hall and when do we get a chance to ambush you at a town hall at jerry springer atmosphere?" >> tucker: right. >> so now everyone is concerned and they are not asking when are you going to stand up and put yourself on the line at a town hall? it's interesting. >> tucker: you have been around politics for a while in new york state. has it changed? the level of threats you are getting and your colleagues are getting, is it accelerated? >> when i was a member of the state assembly i got death threats because i called on resignation of powerful people, like the governor and sheldon silver. >> tucker: you were vindicated with history on that one.

>> i have had them against me but to many point i remember being a college student and i remember being horrified at way they treated ronald reagan, who was the first president i ever voted for and thinking everything was bush's fault. now i have seen, i have never seen anything like this in my life and i have been around a while. the level of violence, the normalization of this violence and this rhetoric as if it's okay. my district is a beautiful, bucolic upstate new york. but i also have 11 colleges in my district. one of them being a place where some people who are involved with violent pasts are there. so susan rosenburg, former weather underground. she was invited to speak at hamilton college, where my law practice was located. recently, bill ayres and bernadine doran were invited in to speak at the resist movement and the indivisible

movement. >> tucker: at hamilton? >> not in hamilton but the neighboring town. these people are reearthed from the '60s. people from the violent movement are back. i don't think they are democrats. they are from another realm. >> tucker: the last two points are smart. this whole moment feels like the '60s reduct. thank you for that. >> i appreciate it. thank you. >> tucker: with so many members of congress gathered for today's practice should there have been electronicer security around them -- been stronger security around them? what should security be for congress henceforth? we are joined by a secret service agent who has thought about this. dan, 435 members of congress. it's probably not feasible to assign each one a bodyguard. what do you do? >> yeah, tucker. you factor in the senate, you have 535. when i was a secret service agent, one of the acetyls we

had -- one of the assets we had was the limited portfolio protectees. it only really got busy in the general assembly when the foreign heads of state came in. the 525 members, 24-hour coverage is a logistics nightmare now. you would talk about expanding the capitol police force by a factor of 20. i don't see it being logistically possible now. >> tucker: i don't think it is. and the budget for that would be stupendous. it's not physically large enough to handle all the people. so how do you protect people from a job that seems more hazardous than it used to be? >> good question. i'm glad you asked. there is a solution here. one of the assets we have in contrast with the secret service of the president who is located in the white house is member of congress works out of the districtswork out of. roughly half and half

depending what the work skull looks like. there will be better coordination coming up and they are doing a good job now. but given this incident between the local sheriff department and police department in an effort to provide more coverage, especially if people like the representative you just had on get viable threats. you may have the new york state police, the local sheriffs who will cover them. that seems to make a lot of sense. a more balanced approach. >> tucker: the sad irony of this is they were only capitol hill police there because a member of leadership, steve scalise, was there and he was the only member shot. >> having been an agent where we never travel with the president with anything less than a cadre of agents, five and six times as large as what you saw today, you know, god bless the two capitol police officers. they were up against a person intend on doing severe damage who -- intent on doing severe damage who didn't care about losing his own life.

he was intent on killing others. i'm really stunned and happily stunned that there was no, there wasn't a more serious loss of life here. this could have been -- when rand paul said today, "this could have been a massacre" that was not a hyperbolic statement. this could have been the worst political massacre in u.s. history if the capitol police officers hadn't stopped the maniac when they did. >> tucker: one of them injured in the process. >> yeah, one shot in the process and returned fire. i think what they have to look at is a more polistic approach here -- a more holistic approach there. if there are a group of leaders out there, they need a more robust security presence. i'm not blaming them. there are limited resources. not their fault but going forward they may have to look at a more umbrella approach to this than dedicating the asset simply to leadership. it may not be the most effective approach anymore. >> tucker: you hate to think it's necessary but maybe it is.

thank you. otto warmbier finally returned to america yesterday to ohio. tragically he was in a coma when he got here. he went to the state to speak to his father. the full interview airs tomorrow. we'll show you a preview of it ..

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>> american citizen and university of virginia student otto warmbier returned home from north korea last night sadly not in good health. north korea blames it on botulism. we talked to his father, fred warmbier. that interview going to air tonight. we did not want to deny this case the attention it deserves, so we will be airing that interview tomorrow night. here's a preview of that. so you said this process is over in the next couple of days, you hope to get back to doing family things and living a conventional life.

what you think the lessons of this are? your son captivity in korea? why did this happen? >> being in the wrong place. the lessons of his activities in north korea, that's going to be for others to decide. these been living with the situation for 17 months. there is no meaning here. this is a rogue, parietal regime. they are terrorist. they are brutal. there is no sense to anything here. they have crossed the line with my son, so, it would be very difficult to look for a lesson here among this insanity.

the rest of that is tomorrow. that's it for us right now. [gunshots] rob: fox news alert, congressman steve scalise in critical condition after being shot by a trump hating gunmen who opened fire on republican that baseball practice. heather: donald trump and first lady melania visit his bedside as we learn about the