tv The Big Sunday Show FOX News July 17, 2022 2:00pm-3:00pm PDT
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afternoon to discuss its findings before publicly releasing the report. that report is shocking and heart breaking and showing what the police did and did not do. the quote chaos and confusion at that moment during that horrible incident. we will bring you that news conference when it starts here on fox news. >> arthel: yes, stay right here on fox. welcome to the big sunday show. we begin with a fox news alert. you are looking live in uvalde, texas, where state lawmakers who are investigating the shooting at robb elementary school are about to share details, startling details from their new 77-page report on the shooting. 19 students in all, two teachers, killed in may. and the report is alarming. it cites systematic failures of law enforcement in its response. surveillance video was obtained
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by the austin american statesman and [inaudible] ahead of the report. the graphic footage was edited into shorter clips with some audio removed. it shows police response that day or lack thereof which critics have slammed since its release. the new report reveals there were actually nearly 400 officers who all responded that fatal day from federal, state, and local agencies. about 90 of them were state police. nearly 150 border patrol were there. about two dozen uvalde city police officers and more than a dozen sheriff's deputies and five school district police officers. this was unprecedented for so many reasons. the number of law enforcement that arrive on that day and that police chief that made a fatal decision not to send them in. the police chief square one right there. the question is, should the law enforcement officers known better to storm the building and
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ignore their chief? >> the answer is yes. ever since columbine, we don't wait. i want to be clear to the american public. 98% of law enforcement do a great job 24/7. we can't excuse these mistakes the officers made. let's not forget that the person killed is the bad guy, but these officers' failure to charge, the videotape, it's inexcusable, and if we're going to make sure this doesn't happen again, we got to make sure there's policies and procedures many -- procedures in place where officers have a moral obligation to respond to a person who is basically killing innocent people. >> a lot of these border patrol agents had children in this school. their own children were in that building and they didn't even storm in. i mean, i can't imagine as a parent, not a law enforcement official, just as a parent, can you imagine the parents that were sitting out there? >> i mean i really couldn't.
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>> i have chills thinking about it every single time. it is so heart breaking. >> you understand why there's a chain of command. there's a chain of command in law enforcement. there's a chain of command in the military. but there's also something in psychology that's called the bystander effect. essentially it means when you are in large groups, people often assume that there is someone else that has taken control. when you have these different agencies, state, local, federal law enforcement all there, it appeared that unfortunately sadly and tragically possibly that's what happened here. somebody was waiting for another person to take charge and direct people as to what to do, but leo, you're right, you should never wait. if there are lives on the line, and you know you can make a difference, apparently one of these individuals, one of the law enforcement officers inside had the ability to take this guy out, the shooter in the school out and he hesitated and waited because he didn't get an answer from his superior. that is totally unacceptable, and i think the best we can hope here is that this is a learning experience that from this point
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forward, we never ever have to see something this tragic happen again. >> i mean, it is so tragic. it also is another reminder to schools all over the country because as you probably know in your school, i'm sure that they isn't out an e-mail, all parents across the country are saying what is the protocol? why aren't there armed officers at every single school in this country at this point? that's what i would like to know. >> very important question. what makes this all so horrifying -- we have to begin every conversation with this that 99% of cops are good cops. for that reason, i think every time you have a situation like this we need to start from the standpoint of giving them the benefit of the doubt and then follow the facts from there, as i think we're doing here. the facts are leading to a very very dark spot, obviously. you know, not only did they fail to do their job, and your analysis, laura, about why is i think probably a charitable one.
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but the point is, not only did they fail to do their job, they prevented mothers and fathers in the crowd from doing that. they arrested them, detained them, and prevented them from going in. and this idea that they want to blame it on a chain of command, i get that, but at some point, you have to sort of ask yourself this really horrifying question right now, would more children have maybe survived if the cops had never responded? >> you know what? the thing that's sad in those videos, i want to be very clear, transparency is important. we learn from that. those videos are disturbing. one of the officers washing his hands. they are sitting back. this is very disappointing because they didn't show the leadership. i think it is important that all the facts are out. we make sure this never happens again. but we don't hide the facts from the parents who are suffering and grieving. >> this 77-page report by the way, it's basically being led by texas state representative, the
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chairman of the committee looking into this shooting. they are going to be holding a news conference shortly, and that's kind of what we're waiting for right now, to hear more, but this 77-page report, it's really the first time that we have actually seen facts to back up what we didn't want to report at the beginning because of course you never want to blame law enforcement until you know all the facts. but this 77-page report really is alarming. it's damming evidence. >> honestly it goes back to what charlie said, we want to give them the benefit of the doubt but we have to treat them like everybody else when it cams to fairness -- when it comes to fairness, equality and justice. if the facts go against them, they have to be held accountable, not for the actual killing but their failure to execute a plan that they should have known. >> that should be the case in every time we ask important questions about law enforcement action. we should begin from the standpoint of i think giving them the benefit of the doubt because they have an impossible job, but from that point on, everything has to be based on actual facts and studying --
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injecting political slogans into this stuff is horrifying, and it doesn't do anything to make police better. >> right. >> it doesn't solve any problems, and obviously it doesn't fix the horrifying tragedy that this is. >> yeah. >> as bad as this was, in the moment and on that day and forever changed the lives of obviously 21 families, who lost loved ones, 19 children and two adults obviously, they want closure. you know, these people are having to relive this i feel like every time we have a situation like this, and we want to get to the bottom of it, but i hope we can do that and allow these people to move on with their lives and have a little bit of closure. >> yeah, no, absolutely. 376 law enforcement, i mean, that is a big number. now the question is accountable. how do you hold -- it would be one thing if it was just police chief; right? we're talking about 376 different law enforcement. >> different agent agent sis. -- different ageagencies. >> how do you hold all of those
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responsible? >> you can't break the chain of command, but you see a situation -- one of the officers was getting a hair cut, he heard the situation from his wife who grabbed a shotgun and went in there. i mean, sometimes you have to make that decision, notwithstanding the chain of command as you pointed out, laura. >> yeah. >> i get a little worried about the discussion about protocol and obviously, you know, local cops are going to want to try to shift -- i don't know if they are or not, but there becomes this discussion about whether it is the local cops' fault or whatever. you don't need to protocol to rush a building. there are children. >> there are dying children in the building. there's a boy with a gun, a teenager with a gun. your children are being shot. what do you do? stand by and wait for somebody to tell you for your human instinct to finally kick in? >> think of that sniper that you just mentioned. this is before the dude goes into the building. he has him in his rifle scope. radios to people back home and
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they didn't even hear him or didn't respond or whatever. and, you know, i get why the cop didn't take him out, that's a pretty big deal, but that would have prevented all of this. >> the entire situation. >> i think this is the hardest thing about it is these officers were outside in the hallway. they heard gunfire, and that should have signalled to them to go in. they heard gunfire. >> the sound of the gunfire. >> that was just unbelievable, unacceptable. >> i want to talk about this 18-year-old whose name i will never repeat out of my mouth, the 18-year-old who went in there and decided to cowardly kill children, he had a past, and this is what brings up red flag laws, like, for example, here in new york state, but it's not bullet proof. you know this. >> trust me. >> red flag laws, you know, a lot of people want to -- it is -- it is obviously not working, so if there was a red flag law in place, and this guy had been flagged, he has to be considered mentally unfit to not be able to buy a gun; right? there were no red flags even
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though he threatened to shoot up and kill people -- >> red flag laws only work if family members are honest with each other. >> right. >> they're in denial of a kid who has a problem. they're in denial. they don't want their laundry out in public, but if they're going to work, it starts at home by being honest about a problem. >> then do the parents, do the parents -- >> everyone. >> should the parents be held liable? i'm not saying charge them with murder. i'm sorry, i'm a parent, if you don't know what the heck your kid is doing, and you don't realize your child has some serious issues, then you are not paying attention to your kids. talk to your kids. >> you can't say a parent doesn't have some culpability. >> i'm not a helicopter parent. you know what you are children are doing every minute of the day. >> yeah. >> you can see something's off when they're not in a good mood and you talk to them. >> yes, and i mean i think most people who have looked at not just this situation but others like it agree on that same thing. >> unnerving. all right, we're going to bring you that update on the uvalde
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school shooting report as soon as it happens. we will take you there live. plus the embarrassment and fallout of president biden's trip to saudi arabia. it's just getting worse. biden is lashing out at the media now. god forbid we ask questions. reporters asked him about that fist bump with the saudi crown prince. he didn't like it so much, next. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ "shake your thang" by salt n pepa ...by friday. now let's head over to the tower cam for a - hey! folks, we seem to have a visitor. it looks like... looks like you paid too much for your glasses.
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>> welcome back to big sunday show. president biden is back at the white house tonight, but the embarrassment and fallout to his trip to saudi arabia is building. biden claimed on friday that he brought up the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi when he met with the leaders, but here's what a saudi foreign minister told fox news about that meeting. >> biden on his trip spoke to the crown prince saying that he holds him directly responsible. how did he respond to those comments? >> i didn't hear that particular phrase. the president mentioned that the u.s. is committed to human rights because since the founding fathers wrote the constitution. >> reporters asked him about that and the fist bump with the crown prince. biden didn't seem to like those
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questions. >> the saudi foreign minister say he didn't hear you talk to the crown prince about khashoggi's murder. is he telling the truth >> no. >> do you regret the fist bump, mr. president >> why don't you talk about something that matters? >> while everyone is still talking about the fist bump, a now poll shows americans aren't on board with biden's energy policy. more than a third of registered voters disapprove of his policies. we're still talking about the saudi arabia trip, charlie. look, there's no question that keeping a positive relationship with saudi arabia is good for america. it is good for the rest of the world. one person who would have rather done without the trip, though, is bernie sanders. take a listen to what he had to say. >> the leader of their country who was involved the murder of a washington post journalist, i don't think that that type of government should be rewarded with a visit by the president of
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the united states. >> well, i mean, you can't totally disagree with bernie sanders there; right? >> he's got a point. >> but the question is, could this trip have potentially done more harm than good for joe biden? there's so much embarrassment that has now come out of this trip. what did we really get from it? >> yeah, i guess that remains to be seen. i doubt we got much of anything out of it. obviously anything that the saudis say, you know, i don't believe anything that they say, but here's the real problem, joe biden has done such a spectacular job of eroding his own credibility with the american people that i think a lot of people probably believe the saudis over joe biden which is a real problem. that's not a good thing. but that statement from bernie sanders i think is so crucial because of course -- and i think his real problem is not about khashoggi. his real problem is because as bernie sanders is a lifelong devotee of the green new deal and the idea of playing footsie
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with the saudis. sanders wants everybody walking around barefoot and driving electric cars and smelling bad. [laughter] and joe biden has done an awful lot to sort of further that political agenda, but it goes to the heart of the problem that democrats have, and that is that is reason that they wound up with joe biden is because he was a compromise with all of the other little sects that they have fighting each other, and it spells the real problems that joe biden has going into the primary and then beyond. >> yeah, well, people are not too pleased with joe biden. check out this job performance fox news poll that we have. 40% approve of the job he's doing. 59% disapprove. you don't have to look that far back to see it is getting. june 43% approved. 57% disapproved. but take a look at this. these are key groups, women, moderates, and folks under the age of 30, but when you look at independents, he has a 72%
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disapproval among independents. what do you do if you're the democrats headed into a midterm election where you already know you've failed the american people? independents make-or-break elections. that is a bad sign. >> it is a bad sign, laura. they are going to take their lumps in november. they are going to get punished in november because joe biden sold his soul to the progressive left. that's all he wanted. he didn't care if he was a good or bad president. he just wanted to be president. he's taking his marching orders from the progressive left which represents 10 or 15 percent of america. those independents, laura, they don't want the green new deal right now. they don't want high gas prices. they don't want food shortages or shortages on baby formula. they want a country that stays in the center at least. they want to make sure traditional values are kept in place. they want school choice. they don't want critical race theory. they don't want this woke community. as far as joe biden, i don't
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know if he has a political future after 2022. >> that could be right. julie, joe biden is a little bit upset right now -- jill biden is a little bit upset right now. she was defending the president. she says the president has had so many hopes and plans for the things he wanted to do, but every time you turn around, he had to address the problems of the moment. he just had so many things thrown his way. i'm sorry, addressing a problem at the moment, isn't that what being president is about? >> you are the president of the united states, little hint, okay, and you're a man, economy know multitasking is a bit challenging for the male species -- >> i didn't say it. >> and she's thinking it, trust me. [laughter] >> we could talk about eric later if you want. >> i'm hurt by this. [laughter] >> in all seriousness, too many things going on. could you imagine melania trump had issued a statement like that to defend donald trump the president because he's got too many things going on? he has news conferences every single day and he just sliced and diced. here he is being asked a question, which was a very
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perfectly honest question, why did you fist bump a terrorist and a murderer? and he says talk to me about something that matters. what does matter, joe biden? >> you bring up such a good point. i think about my father-in-law. had melania issued a statement like this -- >> it would be top of the news every day. >> but think about what was actually accomplished under the trump administration, regardless of the fact we had two years of the russia collusion hoax nonsense, impeachment, constant incoming, my father-in-law constantly out there answering every question possible, and every one attacking him, and yet he still got a lot done. that's what being president is all about. you have to deal with the problems going on in that moment. i do think that this trip maybe could have gone a little bit better, though, to saudi arabia. maybe we would be talking about it differently. >> i think he should not only regreat the fist bump. -- i think he should not only regret the fist bump, but also regret the trip and stop talking
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♪ ♪ >> welcome back to the big sunday show. it's july of 2022, but it feels more like march of 2020 now that los angeles is preparing to bring back its indoor mask mandate. and the biden administration's covid czar is giving the mandate the green light. >> my view on this has been very clear which is local jurisdictions, cities, counties, states, should make decisions about mask mandates because communities are different, and their patterns of transmission are different. people wearing masks indoors is really important and it will make a difference.
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>> leo, are you guys going to go back to mask mandates? >> i hope not. i find it insulting. that's dr. fauci 2.0. let me be clear about this. there's going to be a potential mask mandate in los angeles this week, why? because they claimed the hospitalizations are up. what's the basis for people going to the hospital? if they have a broken leg, oh, you have covid, put it down. they want to motivate and increase the hospitalization rate to justify it. why? because they want power and control, and, you know, the majority of people in los angeles, they get it. but there's 25, 30 percent of people that will buy that kool-aid and think we need the mask mandate. they are ineffective and useless. >> it is amazing to fly on an airplane today and think a couple of months ago everybody was masked. are the rest of us going to go along with this? >> to be honest, i still wear it on an airplane, because i don't know you can catch a cold which is basically covid.
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during the covid pandemic, my children didn't have colds because they were wearing masks. this is a cold now. we're going to wear masks and mandate them because you might get the sniffles and a fever? by the way, back in the pandemic, people were going into the hospital, the covid numbers were the way they were because like you said many people did go in there for other reasons. >> yes. >> it was mandated they be covid tested. they were positive and had no idea because they had no symptoms. let's look at the symptoms and not the numbers. >> it is a financial incentive to test for covid. in l.a. county, a mandate because the virus is there but orange county, no mandate. come on >> the hospitals are indemnified against getting sued by lawyers if they mishandle another case, if the patient had covid, they were like oh, had covid. i do think that -- maybe i'm going out on a limb here, i
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think maybe this has been politicized to some degree? [laughter] >> what are we talking about? haven't we suffered enough? this is so insane. i mean, people get it now. if you're not wearing an n 95 mask, if we are not all going to wear n 95 masks, what is the point of the cloth masks? they don't do anything. most people understand, julie, the newst strains of covid are not the first strain of covid. -- the newest strains of covid are not the first strain of covid. the symptoms are less severe, much lower risk of death, etc., with them, and most people have figured out how to deal with this. there are some people who always want to wear a mask, that's great. unless you are in whole foods where everyone is literally wearing a mask, what's going on in whole foods? >> and wearing the wrong mask. >> everyone else has figured out we can go on with our lives and we will be fine. it is so insane that anyone especially god bless you leo in l.a., i don't know what to say. >> has the hysterics button --
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obviously it has been politicized. i would argue the democrats were rewarded for politicizing it. >> big-time. >> which is the worst part of all of this. >> how much time do we have to talk about all of this? [laughter] >> has that hysterics button be broken? will american voters fall for it again? >> i think there are several things. first of all, no, i think people now get it. they realize they got played a bit in the first, you know, part of covid. >> even your friend you were just talking -- >> yes, i know. >> i have a friend that originally -- maybe she didn't vote for my father-in-law. that's okay, but she originally was a very -- a hard person on covid. she always wanted to be masked. she didn't want to be around other people. she even recently told me how crazy she thinks this is. people are not buying into it the same way. >> when i came to new york, there's a mask mandate at lax
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airport. i videotaped it. no one is wearing the mask. it is a joke. people have rejected this concept of the mask will prevent you from having covid. it is a joke. >> good luck getting people to try to mask up again. >> i hope you are right. i hope you are right. >> there it is. there's my video. proof, evidence. >> that's not to say that, you know, there aren't people that should be concerned about it, that it can be serious. >> correct. >> but that doesn't mean -- it actually makes it worse that people politicize it. are we going to get to shutdowns in california? >> we've got gavin newsom. >> if we don't get to shutdowns and we have all these cases, is that an admission that all the shutdowns didn't work or were useless and we ground the economy to a halt for no reason at all? >> power and control, power and control. by the way, our medical doctor in the county of l.a., she's not a medical doctor. not a medical doctor. >> wow, that's disturbing. >> all about politics. next, the biden administration admits that pain is the point of its energy
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policy, and it is at the expense of millions of americans. ♪ ♪ we got the house! you did! pods handles the driving. pack at your pace. store your things until you're ready. then we deliver to your new home - across town or across the country. pods, your personal moving and storage team. a pool floatie is like whooping cough, it's not just for kids. whooping cough is highly contagious for people of any age. and it can cause violent uncontrollable coughing fits. ask your doctor or pharmacist about whooping cough vaccination because it's not just for kids.
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♪ bum bum ♪ ♪♪ here goes nothing. hey greg? uhh, hello? it's me, your heart! really? yes, oh recording an ekg in 30 seconds! tada! wow that was fast. you know it! kardia offers the only personal ekgs that detect 6 of the most common arrhythmias in just 30 seconds. so you can manage your heart health from home or on the go. your heart rhythm is normal. no arrhythmias in sight. i wonder what my doctor would say? ooo, let's find out! with kardia you can email your ekg directly to them or sent to a cardiologist for review. kardia can do all that? all that and then some greg. kardia also gives you access to heart health reports and automatic ekg sharing. what next? let's get some fresh air. been cooped up for too long.
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♪ ♪ >> welcome back to the big sunday show. transportation secretary pete buttigieg now admitting that pain is the point of the biden administration energy policy. >> we're for cutting the cost of electric vehicles because when you have an electric vehicle, then you're also going to be able to save on gas, but you've got to be able to afford it in the first place; right? we're starting to see on some models the costs come to where even if your car payment is a little higher, your gas payment will be a little lower and you come out ahead. but the prices still need to come down for most americans to be able to get an ev. >> that's the word salad pete buttigieg impressing himself with those words. let me just mention, first of
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all, who does the american public blame for the rise in inflation? there's a recent poll that came out that talked about the increase in who we blame. currently 31% of the american public blame joe biden. 20% blames russia. and then 14% blame oil companies. let me go to you, lara, how can the american public, if we take pete buttigieg's comments, how can the american public afford at this time with the highest inflation rate in 40 years, how can they buy electric cars right now at this particular time? >> they can't. they cannot do it. most people are having a hard time get by day-to-day. these cars are far out of their price range. i don't think the problem is that most people are against electric vehicles. you know, if we had a system that would allow it, people would be more open to it if it was more affordable. let's just assume we all turn --
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today everybody in america got an electric vehicle. you got to plug it in; right? you have to have energy come from somewhere. it would shut down our power grid because we can't deal with that. the batteries i think that go into these cars, the disposal of the batteries are worse for the environment than the fossil fuel emissions of, you know, gas-run vehicles, so none of it makes any sense i think to so many people. we're all i think okay with it but we need to have a system that supports it. we don't have it right now, but they are shoving it down our throats and want it at all costs. it doesn't matter >> the white house economic advisor talked about this, the following statement, here he goes. >> -- the defense production act to significantly ramp up the production of clean energy. he has set the most rigorous emission standards yet to be set in this country, and he's helped
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to jump-start off the offshore wind energy. those are all measures he took by executive action, and he will continue to do that. >> let me go to you. i heard executive action. i heard that he's going to take aggressive action to circumvent congress, but bernie sanders is blaming joe manchin. let me play the clip from bernie sanders claiming that he's blaming joe manchin. here's bernie. >> manchin sabotaged the climate change. this is future generations, what's going on right now, in the west, all over the world, we're looking at significantly increased more and more heat waves. you're looking at more drought. this is an existential threat to humanity. >> how important is joe manchin in blocking the biden plan of this green climate deal? >> i would argue that joe manchin has actually saved democrats from being in far worst trouble than they are already in. but, you know, if pain is the
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point of this administration, then they are doing a hell of a job of it because people are in a lot of pain right now. this is a problem where you have a government that's trying to shove these solutions on people or shove these mandates on people. you know, most normal americans, they like the idea of a government that protects them from corporations that take advantage of them. this is a situation where you actually have the government taking advantage of people to press a political agenda, and it's a horrifying way to get things done. i think you are right. i think most people like the idea of -- i mean, it is kind of neat getting an electric vehicle. you know, it would be a lot of fun to have one. there's a little bit -- they are really quiet which is a problem. the other problem is you saw the video last week where the pickup truck, i think it went 80 miles on one charge or something like that, hauling something, hauling a trailer. if you are a farmer, a construction worker, and you have a pickup truck and it only
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goes 80 miles, that's not going to work. >> do you think joe manchin indirectly is saving the democrats? >> i think so. >> is he helping the democrats for the midterms? >> i think he is because he's the only sane one that's coming forward and trying to stop them from making bad decisions. absolutely. when is manchin going to switch parties? >> i know. i don't get it. >> i don't understand why he does this. i want to go back to the poll where you talked about overwhelming percentage of people that are disapproving. you forgot one percent. 100% of the biden administration also blames russia. they are going to continue to blame russia. >> always. all right. we have a fox news alert. >> yeah. let's get to that right now. we're going to check in on the press conference at the uvalde school shooting underway right now. let's listen in. >> representative burrows. >> here. >> representative moody. >> here. >> justice guzman. >> here. quorum is present. first let me say this, if you are going to ask a question
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today, and you were not able to fill out a witness affirmation -- you can still ask your question. send an e-mail to page, and she will get it to you. that should not be a reason why you can't answer. what i would like to do today is start with this, if there's only one thing that i can tell you is there were multiple systemic failures. i would invite everybody to read the entire report. you cannot cherry pick one sentence and use it to say everything without reading it all together and with context. but if we need a simple phrase to describe what the report says, again, i would tell you multiple systemic failures. i want to first thank the mayor of uvalde for hosting a meeting today with several of the families and asking for us to
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come by and attend, and i thought that was the respectful thing to do. i thought it was respectful to at least let them hear from me before we open this up to a broader public discussion. i look forward to the questions here at the press conference. one of the things that i said in there to the families is we want to show them as much respect as possible. the entire time this committee has been together, we have wanted to show them the most respect possible, and we've tried to do that. i asked them if there was something we have ever done not respectful to let us know what it is. i told them the most we can do to be respectful at this point is not to just blame one person or one thing. and i hope that the report when people read all of it together, they understand that we look and take a broad approach to what happened that day. my biggest fear, and i also shared this with them at the
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meeting, is that we will look for simple solutions to these complex answers. and we will all look and say well, you know, that's the way it was in uvalde. it is different here. let me tell you, the people of uvalde before this, they felt it couldn't happen here. they felt that. that's the false sense of security i worry about. i think some of the same systems that we found here that failed that day are across the entire state and country. i do not want to say because of one thing or one person here, it could not happen elsewhere. i think that's a disservice and not the respectful thing to do. this committee was created by the speaker. i'm so appreciative that he did this. he formed this committee just 44 days ago, and i believe this committee has driven things to the forefront. i believe that because of this committee's work, some of the records have already been changed. hopefully with this report, a lot of the record is set straight. this committee is a fact-finding
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committee. our job was essentially to figure out what the facts were and report it. it's a bipartisan committee. the reasons it is bipartisan is because the problems are not republican problems. they are not democrat problems. they're all of our problems. so i'm very proud the speaker made this a bipartisan committee. there are other committees in the texas house and texas senate that will look at this report, look at facts that we found here, and discuss and debate the policy that needs to be changed to try to make texas children safer going forward in the future. i'm a policymaker, my colleagues up here are policymakers or have strong opinions about changes to policy that need to be done. today is not the day that we're going to share what our strong feelings and convictions are about that. that was not the task at finding the facts.
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after some period of time, we will put our policymaker hats back on and share those opinions with the committee and others about what we think needs to change and what's done, but right now, we're going to let the report speak for itself and focus on the facts that were found in there. the committee met with more than 35 witnesses. those were done in executive session. we believe this allowed us to get their testimony quick and also more candid and more conversational allowing to us do our job more accurately. other committees in the state of texas do have subpoena power and will have the opportunity to subpoena those witnesses for you all to hear what they have to say for themselves. but that is the precedent of the house for the investigative
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committee to do this in executive session this is what we did. in addition to the 35 witnesses we interviewed, there were 39 independent interviews that our investigators who did a phenomenal job held to help us. we reviewed crime scene photos, audio and video from the incidents, 911 calls. all of that went into trying to get this report compiled in 44 days so that we could deliver this to uvalde and hopefully you will find this reflective of the facts that we basically could get to. let me tell you a little bit about the reports. we talk about the uvalde consolidated independent school districts. let me say this, with hindsight, we can say the robb elementary was not adequately prepared for the risk of a school shooter. the school's five foot fence was inadequate, despite a policy of locked doors, there was a regrettable culture of noncompliance. in fact, all three exterior doors to the building were unlocked that day, and multiple
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interior doors were not secure the day of the shooting. when i talk about the false sense of security, i do not believe that uvalde consolidated or robb elementary is the only school with these issues in it. i've talked to enough other educators around the state to believe this is a wider problem that we need to continue to look at. we discussed the attacker. you will first notice we did not use his name. when we wanted to release the hallway video to the members of the families and the public, we were not going to show his image. he wanted that, and he did not deserve it. he did not deserve to be -- have that recognition of his face or his name shown because it is what he wanted. also, there are [inaudible] online who look and believe that when they see these videos, there's something to be inspired by. we did not want others to look at these videos and to watch and
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be inspired by it. we only wanted to show the law enforcement response. however, we did give you a more comprehensive look at the background of the attacker. [inaudible]. he fits the profile of many. he came from a broken home with little to no interaction with his father. he struggled in school, both academically and socially. he struggled to fit in and eventually became isolated. he networked through his peers -- with his peers through social media and violent video games. ultimately had a fixation on school shootings and even developed the nickname school shooter. we also talk in this report about the failures of law enforcement. there's really two categories to think about when we talk about this. there is an early decision to
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treat this as an active shooter versus a barricaded subject situation. if you know and the training and standards we set for officers is if you know there's active shooting, active killing going on or somebody is dying, the standard is you have to continue to do something to stop that killing or stop that dying. that day several officers in the hallway or in that building knew or should have known there was dying in that classroom, and they should have done more, acted with urgency, tried the door handles, tried to go in through the windows, try to distract him, try to do something to address the situation. in fairness, there were many officers at that scene who were either denied access to the building, were told misinformation. some were even told false information. some were told that the police chief of the consolidated
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independent school district was actually inside the room actively negotiating with the shooter, such that, they did not know what was happening. they did not have the opportunity to do that. but that's not where the analysis stops. everyone who came on the scene talked about this being chaotic. the training suggests that chaos should not happen. inside the school there should be a tactical commander, someone who is taking lead on dealing with the [inaudible] in the hallway, but there should also be an overall commander, somebody who is in overall command, deploying the information, making sure everybody knows what is going on. the fact that there was no overall commander outside the building, where there should have been one, should have been known by many, at a minimum, there was multiple opportunities depending on the relative training and experience of law
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enforcement officers to at least ask more questions or offer their guidance to try to remedy the chaotic situation and make sure there was effective overall command. there was a lack of effective overall command that day. i'm going to recognize my colleagues for some brief statements, and then we will answer the questions here today. representative moody. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm joe moody, democrat from el paso. i'm a former prosecutor. i worked on issues like criminal law and mental health for my entire legislative career, and most importantly, i'm a father of three. sadly, i've dealt with mass shootings. in just two weeks, it will be the third anniversary of a day a young man with a rife murdered 23 people in -- with a rifle murdered 23 people in el paso. after that, we all kept asking why. why did this happen to us?
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we're here today to provide some of those answers in uvalde. and while this information will never make up for the unspeakable loss this community has endured, el pasoans know how important it is to know. i also know the report we've given points to something very complex. it's hard to hear that there were multiple systemic failures because we want to tell ourselves that systems work. we want to tell ourselves there's one person we can point our fingers at. we want to tell ourselves that this won't happen again. that's just not true. what happened here is complicated. but there's also a call to action in this report because systems are something that we can and must improve. i see the report as a baseline of information that we can all
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work from. so often these days politics starts with the answer and doesn't even care about the facts. here we're starting with the facts, the most thorough reliable report that's been done on what happened at robb elementary. there's more to do, but this report is a shared platform for us to work from together. the shootings in uvalde and el paso have important differences so did odessa and souther land springs and santa fe and on and on, but they also have important similarities that we can understand and address as a state. although today isn't the day for that discussion, that's what this report can and must lead to. i made a promise to the people of el paso that i haven't forgotten and that i will never
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forget to do everything in my power to make sure the legislature understands what happened and why and to fight for the solutions that we deserve. i make that same promise here today in uvalde. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, representative moody. justice guzman? >> good afternoon. i'm a former texas supreme court judge, and i'm the public member of this committee. for the past several weeks, we have traveled to uvalde to take testimony, to hear first-hand what took place and in pursuit of the truth. we did so at the request of texas house speaker who charged us with delivering answers to the families who lost their loved ones and to seek to understand what happened that
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day. how could there be so many multiple systemic failures? as our state and our country mourn the tragic deaths at robb elementary, our committee unpacked the evidence to discover and report the facts. as a former judge, i spent much of my professional life ensuring that the facts i relied on to make decisions were accurate. i brought to this process that same determination. after all, accurate facts have to provide the backdrop for any policy changes that will come out of this. throughout the investigative process, our only agenda was to follow the facts and the evidence. as john adams famously said, whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter
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the state of the facts and the evidence. that's where we place our focus. there we found the truth about what really happened at robb elementary that day. but we also found the reality of the breakdowns and procedures and protocols and processes, of the breakdowns and failures in judgment and decision making that occurred before and during the tragedy. that truth is heavy and is hard because it lays bare human failures and it makes us confront collapses in our systems. they were supposed to work. they were supposed to protect the innocent who now lie in their grave.
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today we stand before a community that's still gripped in grief. with this report, families who are crushed by sorrow and pain will now have desperately needed an deserved answers. but no report can heal the broken heart. only god can do that. knowing the truth we hope will equip texas lawmakers and leaders with information and knowledge that will guide them in deciding next steps. we hope the truth about this tragedy will also give this community the resolve to forge a path forward. i come here with humility and respect, and i'm here for you, for the people of uvalde. >> thank you. pursuant to the house rules
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before a question is asked, we will have to have a witness affirmation -- as i said, you can e-mail to committee clerk. >> are we ready for questions at this time? >> when you ask your question, could you tell us your name and what news affiliate you represent? so with that, we'll start with the media with questions. >> mr. chairman -- >> did you state your name and affiliation? >> [inaudible]. >> what i'm telling you is we
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have substantive committees that have already been formed. the governor formed those early on. the speak e of the house formed -- the speaker of the house formed them at the same time. they have been working on this. we have baseline information we can report to the legislature, help them basically make decisions about systemic failures. i think each community can look at the things we have laid out in this report and make some determinations on how to prevent that from happening. i will tell you not -- >> i am brian and for john scott. a tax -- texas committee on the horrific may 24 the elementary school at uvalde. let's listen in. [inaudible]
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