>> griff: fish in heels and hoops. >> have a great saturday, everybody. >> neil: welcome, everybody. i'm neil cavuto. we are learning more and more about nic nikolas cruz. this is the third warning that authorities had that he he had d troubles, deep troubles. the latest is a snapchat from last year in which he was showing cut arms and saying he wanted to buy a gun. this comes at the same time we're learning that the fbi might have dropped the ball on a call that was made in january of this year and that was a detailed warning, talking about his proclivity to harm animals, a concern that he was a danger to himself and the area and even

nearby schools. and of course, all of this at the same time a lot of authorities are going back to another announcement from cruz on youtube saying he wanted to grow up to be a school shooter. add it all up, and authorities now are countering allegations that they dropped the ball to stop this from happening. we're going to be talking to the attorney general from the state of florida, the fbi revelations are enough to have the florida governor saying the fbi director has to step down. first, we go to steve herigan in parkland with the latest. >> reporter: the president and the first lady were in the hospital here for 45 minutes last night. they visited wounded students and their family members. afterwards, the president went to broward county sheriff's headquarters and met with first responders and praised their quick work in apprehending the suspected shooter. the funerals here have h begun.

along with the sense of mourning is the growing sense of outrage that balls were dropped, red flags were missed. first on his social media profile, the suspected shooter had extremely disturbing posts over a period of years including snapchat images of him cutting himself on the arms and saying he wanted to buy a gun. add this to the fbi call to the tip line, january 5th, a caller close to cruz said this man, cruz, is disturbed. he's unstable. he has a gun. he wants to kill people. i'm worried he's going to shoot up a school. that is of course exactly what happened just six weeks later. the suspected shooter, 19 years old, made his first court appearance. the public defender said he is likely to plead guilty, this in order to avoid the death penalty. finally, the building behind me, that three-story building where most of the shootings took place, where it housed ninth graders as of wednesday, florida

lawmakers say it will be torn down and replaced. a lot of students and their families say they will never be able to walk into that building again. neil, back to you. >> neil: thank you very, very much. let's go to republican florida attorney general pam bondy. attorney general, very good to have you. what do you make of the latest revelations? this is the third piece of information we have that apparently authorities of various types had access to and this one a snapchat video showing the shooter harming himself and even talking about buying a gun. it's easy to play monday morning quarterback, i like to stress that, but we have a lot of such pieces of information. what do you think of that? >> well, neil, i mean, you can't even say dropping the ball. that's such an understatement. what a total lack of investigation occurred. and it's horrible what happened. i know the information never made it to rob lasky. he's the special agent in charge

in miami. he was on the scene. he was incredible. he brought 200 fbi agents in. i watched those great agents work for three days there. it's been incredible, the good agents. somewhere higher on the chain, never made it to south florida, but someone dropped the ball. and it's tragic. it's horrible. warning signs were everywhere. and being at that scene for three days and those 17 families, it's truly heart-breaking. >> neil: let me ask you. governor rick scott already said the revelations that are coming now out of the fbi and warranted an apology by director christopher wray, wra should go, he should leave. >> chris wray has been at the fbi at the helm. some of these happened prior. one did happen january, when he was here. let's see what he does and if he does a full investigation and the people who have that

information and did not do anything with it, they're the ones that need to go. chris wray needs to investigate it. i'm sure general sessions will too and rod rosenstein. you know, neil, if i could, please, that's why it's so important, don't let this deter you from reporting something. you must -- kids are all on snapchat, neil. if you and i could snapchat now, it's crazy what they do. they're snapchating things. and kids are seeing this. they have got to tell their parents and parents, you have got to call that in. i've been saying i'd rather you be wrong 100% of the time, so would the fbi, so was law enforcement. you've got to report it. we don't he know. nothing's a hoax anymore. >> neil: i know what you're saying. you're quite right, if you see something, say something. they did say something, whoever this person was who seemed to know nikolas cruz quite well and

it fell through the cracks. you disagree with the florida governor who says wray should go. you said we should look into this before we make a push like that? >> i'm not saying i disagree with governor scott. governor scott was on the ground with me nonstop. he he wa was with the families. he was in the hospital. he he is outraged. i think it's outraged by the response that christopher wray gave, saying we'll get to the bottom of it. i think he believes the families deserved more, deserved a stronger response, saying whoever did this will be fired. they will be held accountable. and i agree with him, that that needs to happen. let's see what christopher wray does next. >> neil: the offer that you made to pay, for the state to pay for the funerals, were you the genesis of that? the governor? was it a collective idea? >> it's our entire state. the state of florida does that. it runs through my office. so i'm the one with the victims'

advocates. it's our state that does this. we pay. we pick up any funeral expenses that aren't covered by other sources, such as insurance and other benefits. but it's horrible to have to do that. i had all my advocates on the scene, just lic like in pulse. we fl flew to nevada and we wern broward county for days. >> neil: did you do the same for that, pay for those funerals? >> not for nevada. we went out to help them. >> neil: what about the pulse nightclub in florida, that's the same deal? >> absolutely. >> neil: that's florida policy. >> that's florida policy. my advocates got in their cars and drove t from all over the state to broward, helping the families, having to inform 17 families that their child is never coming home is one of the worst things a human being can do. my heart wrenches for these families. it's horrible. it's gut-wrenching.

but there are many who survived and we've got to pray for them. we've got to pray for their families. i was in the hospital and saw three of thei the victims and tr amazing families yesterday. they're going to recover. but there are thousands of kids who are injured emotionally and that's not going to go away. we're going to help them as well. my advocates in my office, we do this, we help provide counseling directly to them. and the superintendent of the schools has been great. everyone's been amazing. one of the families is from out of the country. senator rubio was there right away to help us expedite visas for them and, again, rick scott, our governor, was on the ground nonstop, sheriff israel and his department, having to see such a horrific scene like that and help these families. you see a lot of bad but you see a lot of good during a horrible, horrible tragedy. >> neil: lead ilet me ask you at that. you saw the president of the

united states visiting those who were in the hospital. he referred to this, and i know he's still in florida, but as a mental health issue. he has so far not talked about the move that others have to find a way to get a crackdown on gun ownership. even conservatives have said we've got to get a handle on this. do you think he should say something about this? do you think this is bigger than just a mental health issue, that we've got to rein in the number of guns out there. >> i think mental health is at the root of it. i had a stalker for four years. and when i was in my early 20s i had to defend myself. i got a gun. i learned how to shoot a gun. my father gave me a gun. the law enforcement taught me how to shoot it. i had to defend myself for four years from someone who was after me. he ended up jumping off a bridge and killing himself. from personal experience, i

believe everyone should be able to defend themselves. as for sal assault rifles, this person had no business having one. i will continue to say our country is lacking in mental health for our citizens. we're lacking. we've got to do more. we've got to be able to ensure people to -- insure people to get them mental health help that they need. >> neil: you agree it's a mental health issue, not a guns issue. you don't believe there's too many guns out there, let alone that people with mental health issues should be getting them, that's not the issue for you? >> i believe no one with mental health issues should be having guns, of course. that's ridiculous. we're also seeing tragedies with people driving into people and you can make a bomb on the internet now. it's horrible. so we've got to focus on the person and doing everything we can to get these people help and get them off the streets and, again, parents have got to be voyagvigilant.

kids have been great. neil, we've had so many reports since this, because there are copy cats which are as big of a threat, that people have been flooding in. night before last i was on the phone with the police chief, the next morning the fbi, people were telling me, they were hearing me say -- people think well, it could be a hoax. i don't want to call something in that's not -- that might not come to fruition. we would rather you call it in -- >> neil: do you think someone regardless of mental health issues involved, were led to believe nick las cru nikolas crs gun when he was 18. should you raise the age for anyone to buy a firearm is 21? do you think that's something to discuss? >> you can fight for our country when you're 18. our military, 18 years old, you're in the military carrying guns. i don't think the age as much as the person, the individual themselves. we can look at him individually. but we have got to do something to crack down on mental health

and mental health issues with people who own guns. that has got to stop. we have got to secure our schools. because people could come in with a bomb, with something else. he we'velse. we've got to protect our schools. >> neil: this school has an armed guard. >> this high school is huge. it's one of the biggest high schools i've seen. we know that the defendant had been to the high school. so he knew how to get in and out of the high school. i think we need more armed guards at our bigger schools. i firmly believe in that and giving -- making our students safe while they're at school, from many different things. somebody could have a knife at a school. we have to have multiple sources to keep our kids safe at school. it's got to be multifaceted. the president deeply cares about that he spent a very long time with us last night, asking lots of questions. >> neil: do you know what his

plans are today? >> i don't. >> neil: thank you very much. thangreat to see you again. >> pray for the families. >> neil: an update on that. how were the warning signs missed and what does that say about any other future problems that are out there? getting ready, after this. tomorrow, it's a day filled with promise and new beginnings, challenges and opportunities. at ameriprise financial, we can't predict what tomorrow will bring. but our comprehensive approach to financial planning can help make sure you're prepared for what's expected and even what's not. and that kind of financial confidence can help you sleep better at night. with the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant.

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i think republicans will act if they are faced with the prospect of mass losses in these elections and in answer to your question, what can be done, in a word, election. >> neil: all right. don't waste a moment trying to politically capitalize on it. that seems a little extreme. south carolina republican senator tim scott on that with me right now. senator, what do you think of what your democratic colleague from connecticut was saying, elections will have consequences and they may change the makeup here in the senate, get

democrats, who would support legislative changes, gun control, that sort of thing? >> neil, you said a little extreme? that is incredibly extreme and unfortunately, it is capitalizing on a heinous crime. we ought not find ways to win elections off terrible tragedies in this country. we should find ways to solve the problem and prevent these tragedies. if we were focusing on preventing the tragedies, the first thing we would do is six nicks. we've seen atrocities that could have been prevented if we believed that the weapon is the challenge we face. charleston church shooting, em ma,emmanuel ame, the cause of t, the cul culprit, the background check. think about sutherland, texas, sutherland springs.

the domestic violence incidents that were not reported to the authorities, that could have prevented the individual from having a weapon. now we know in the nikolas cruz incident that the fact was that 20 calls to the sheriff's department, a credible tip to the fbi, if we would have been able to he see all th he see alt were left by nikolas cruz, i believe the highest probability of us preventing that crime is not another gun law that would have been broken, but actually having put the pieces together like a puzzle and solved that problem before the crime was committed. >> neil: in other words, enforce a lot of laws that are on the books. you know, senator, a former republican florida congressman david jolly was chastising both parties in an interview in the washington post, saying republicans are not going to do anything on gun control.

he went on to say democratic leadership are among the loudest voices on gun control but are unwilling to consider come he pro mice so a pox on both parties, that each side is too stubborn to bend and children are getting killed. what do you think of that? >> here we are trying to find a way to solve the problem from washington. frankly, i don't think we can solve the problem from washington. we should do everything in our power from a panoramic perspective on these atrocity to understand the core components that allowed it to happen. the reat of i reality of it is,y states have far more restrictive gun laws than the nation as a whole, yet in connecticut 30 plus gun laws were broken. in charleston, we he had several gun laws that were broken. every school i know of in the country exists or resides within a gun-free zone. the reality of it is that the mental instability of the

culprit should be the primary target that we look at. because it is the most pervasive fact in the pattern that we're looking at. >> neil: you talked a lot in the past, this type of activity is more frequent in areas that are either poor or under-served. you've been pushing investments in poorer communities than the rest. the intent wasn't to just to cut off violence but to improve the communities, period. could you explain that? >> certainly. i consider part of my responsibility of being a per ar perveyor of hope. it's not simply mass shooting. in this nation, 18,000 of the gun related violence incidents are suicides. 12,000 gun related violence incidents are typically handguns. if you see the things they have in common, mental health is

an issue, poor education, poverty, all these core components can be placed together and we have a better picture of how to solve the problem. my legislation, investing in opportunities allows us to start beating our -- running against the root, finding way to excavate from the roots the challenges that we face. >> neil: senator, thank you very much for taking the time. >> thank you, neil. >> neil: senator scott. all right, fbi has been busy lately. now, reports that 13 russians and at least three russian companies were involved, it says, in trying to monkey around in our last election. how successful were they? that's next. mike and i are both veterans, both served in the navy. i do outrank my husband, not just being in the military, but at home. she thinks she's the boss. she only had me by one grade. we bought our first home together in 2010. his family had used another insurance product but i was like well i've had usaa for a while, why don't we call and check the rates? it was an instant savings

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>> neil: ain case you think the

trump administration never says boo to the russians and totally disclaims any incidents involving their participation in trying to screw up the 2016 presidential election, i want to share these comments from national security advisor h.r. mcmaster, just a few moments ago at a conference in munich, germany to some of his russian counterparts. take a look. >> i'm surprised there are any russian cyber experts available, based on how active most of them have been in undermining our democracies in the west. so i would just say that we would love to have a cyber dialogue when russia is sincere about curtailing its sophisticated form of espionage, what you might call this modern day sort of form of moskarofka. >> neil: whether that represents a shift in thinking on the part of the white house or they acknowledged that this is more than a hoax in their

participation in the 2016 election, this right after we heard from bob mueller's office, rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, that they're cracking down on this and 13 russian entities, to say nothing of three russian companies that were actively involved in trying to do just that in the last election. this does seem to be the administration's first s alvo response to that, that they recognize the russians were involved. the question is, how much are they going to police this for 2018? retired special agent, john natarelli. what do you make of the significance of mcmaster's comments in munich a short time ago? >> no surprise at all. anybody who works cyber investigations in any sector knows the russians are a problem. actively engaged, looking at everything they can get into, not just the government, but our private sector as well, we're at risk. >> neil: john, now the message is what do we do?

apparently the fear seems to be that the russians will try to do the exact same thing in this election year and in the next election year. and apparently they came up with all sorts of smart methods if you believe this report, this indictment, to do just that. they worked with democratic crowds, republican crowds, all types of crowds. what do you do? >> the way the voting system is set up, they can't manipulate votes. that's the good news. the bad news is, all the social media and all the different algorithms that can be used to influence the public. we need to take a closer look at how that's being secured. >> neil: how do you know that doesn't influence votes among some? i don't think it changed the outcome in any way. there is the potential that in key states it could. >> what i'm implying is that if you have social media sending out messages, certainly people are going to listen to that and

there may be those who are influenced. >> neil: on both sides. >> absolutely. but what we need to look at is the problem in private sector companies, they're more concerned who would is paying the bills, not looking at the bigger picture. there has to be social responsibility in the business to recognize who is trying to do something for nepharious purposes. the 13 people that are indicted that are russian citizens, it will go beyond there. it will look at who knew they were russian citizens trying to get into the election system. >> neil: don't you have to get them to come to the united states to tell their story? that's not going to happen. >> i don't see anybody jumping on a flight to the united states any day soon so they can spend time in a prison cell. but i think we have to worry about what's going to happen in the future. we've identified through the work of former director mueller what's taken place. let's make sure the next election and every election after that is being protected. >> neil: do you think with the

latest attack line that's we're getting a sense from maybe the mueller investigation where it might go or is this apples and oranges? it doesn't necessarily mean that this will be something that doesn't put any fingerprints on trump campaign officials or the like? >> i think at this point you're looking at the surface of who is directly involved. they're certainly going to continue the investigation to see if there's any peripheries. if there had been people that were politically connected involved, that's a high profile. one would think they would lead with that, rather than just announcing indictments of low level people. >> neil: thank you very much. for parents who have seen these horrific events in florida this week, the issue always becomes oh, my god, their but by the grace of god. what do you do to counsel your

own kids to deal with this yourself in your own community. some thoughts, ahead.