this sunday after parkland, another mass school shooting. >> just chaos out here. >> another 17 people dead. and another chance for congress to do something or nothing about gun violence. president trump makes a healing statement without mentioning the word guns. >> to every parent, teacher, and child who is hurting so badly, we are here for you. >> not enough for some grieving parents. >> president trump, you say what can you do! you can stop the guns from getting into these children's hands! >> nor students. >> they say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. we call bs! >> we'll hear from some of those students this morning and from broward county, florida, schools

superintendent robert runcie. plus, special counsel robert mueller charges 13 russians with interfering in the 2016 presidential election to help donald trump defeat hillary clinton. >> the defendants allegedly conducted what they call information warfare against the united states. >> president trump has yet to condemn russia and insists the indictment proves there was no collusion between his campaign and russia. but does it? my guest this morning, republican senator james lankford of oklahoma and the progressive independent senator bernie sanders of vermont. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson, democratic pollster cornell belcher, nbc news national political reporter carol lee, and cnbc's rick santelli. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history. this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning.

if you can remember as far back as tuesday, the week's news cycle began with the nation's intelligence chiefs testifying that russia's continuing to interfere with our elections systems here in 2018 and that president trump hasn't asked them to do anything about it. well, the week ended with deputy attorney general rod rosenstein announcing the indictment of 13 russians, including an oligarch close to putin, and three companies for engineering an elaborate campaign to subvert the 2016 election and support the candidacy of donald trump using social media. but in between was the horror of another school shooting. 17 students and teachers dead at a high school in parkland, florida. this week's school shooting, and we have to say this week's, because there are so many, prompted this facebook post of a depressingly familiar cycle. mass shooting, followed by calls for thoughts and prayers, facebook debates, everyone forgts, congress does nothing, crickets chirping and then another mass shooting. perhaps, perhaps one reason this

tragedy may be different is the determination of students and survivors at marjory stoneman douglas high school and elsewhere to speak out. and we're going to hear from some of those students later this hour. president trump has seemed more obsessed with the russia story, tweeting 13 times, including 5 times this morning, that the indictments clear him of collusion. they don't. and even suggesting that the reason the fbi missed clues about the suspect, nikolas cruz, was because it was too focused on trying to prove russian collusion. so, here we are as a country, grieving again, and debating what to do about gun violence, again, and with no greagreed-up solution, again. >> thank you very much, everybody. >> do our gun laws need to be changed, mr. president? >> reporter: after another mass shooting -- [ gunshots ] >> oh, my god! >> so much screaming. i can hear it all over again, shots right by me. >> reporter: with 14 high school students, a coach, an athletic director, and a teacher dead -- >> i just spent the last two

hours putting the burial arrangements for my daughter's funeral, who's 14! president trump! you say what can you do! you can stop the guns from getting into these children's hands! >> reporter: broward county students are angry and demanding change. >> 17 too many! 17 too many! >> we want to send a message to these politicians that they cannot allow this to continue. >> they say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. we call bs! >> reporter: even the conservative "new york post," mr. trump's favorite paper, is urging the president to please act. the gun debate may be the purest representation of the political polarization infecting this country. 75% of republicans say they are more concerned about the government going too far in restricting gun rots. 73% of democrats say they're worried the government won't do enough to regulate access to guns. the country is divided by region and by gender.

there's an urban-rural split and an education divide. each side now views the other as not just wrong but immoral. >> if you are not working today to try to fix this, to try to stop these shootings, then you're an accomplice. >> of course, you're right that the reaction of democrats to any tragedy is to try to politicize it. >> reporter: on the right, guns have become a symbol of patriotism. >> the only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with a clinched fist of truth. i'm the national rifle association of america and i am freedom's safest place. >> reporter: on thursday, mr. trump refused to even utter the word gun in a seven-minute speech on the shooting, instead taking a swipe at demands for action. >> it is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. we must actually make that difference. >> reporter: after 58 people

were killed in las vegas in october, members of congress promised to address bump stocks. >> that's something i think that we'll take a look at. >> clearly, that's something we need to look into. >> reporter: but no bills have been passed. after after 26 were killed in november, the number two pledged legislation on the instant background check system. >> every day we let the current dysfunction in the background check system continue, lives are in jeopardy. >> reporter: that legislation has not been passed either. >> republican senator james lankford of oklahoma joins us now from oklahoma city. senator, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> thanks, chuck. good to be with you again. >> let me start with simply this, does what happened in parkland make you think congress does have something to do this time? we saw what senator cornyn proposed. we had the bump stock legislation that was proposed. nothing happened. what about now? >> yeah, i'm on the same

legislation with senator cornyn on what they call the fix nix. that is the first thing of multiple things that need to be done. that is fixing our background check system to make sure that all the information is actually getting in there. as we've seen with the previous shooting, that we had an individual that had a criminal record that didn't get into the system, so they were able to legally purchase a weapon. in this case, we have a lot of warning signs that were out there, and people in parkland and all across the country have every reason to be grieved and incredibly furious. social services was in this home more than 20 times, expelled from school, posted online, going to do a school shooting, warned the fbi this person was dangerous and nothing was done. all the warning signs were there. the community did all the things the community should do to engage. they saw something, said something, and nothing was done. >> and yet, mr. cruz was able to legally buy an ar-15 because none of that information was in the background check system. so let me ask you -- >> right. >> should this be the way the background check system is used?

if broward county had to expel this student, should that information have been in the system so that if he went to purchase a gun, then maybe a more extensive background check is triggered? >> i have no issue with more extensive background checks. i have no issue with slowing down purchases for people that show all the basic warning signs. we have determined as a country that only a court can actually take away a constitutional right and the right to keep and bear arms is a constitutional right, so we have courts that step in on mental health and other things. there are ways to be able to do this to make sure that we keep the system clean and clear. it is a major issue in the country. making sure that we have background checks, but the background checks have all the information that's needed on it. >> and one of the other oddities in florida is the fact that the ar-15 was something that somebody under the age of 21 can legally purchase, but not a h d handgun. well, the ar-15 in this case was extraordinarily more destructive than any other weapon he could have bought at the age of 21.

>> yeah, that's an issue that's been determined a long time ago. an ar-15 is a rifle-handgun. obviously -- >> is that a mistake? should it be classified that way anymore? >> so, there are three or four, five times as many crimes committed with a handgun than there are with a rifle, so we can have that conversation, but when you look at the statistics, many, many, many more shootings occur with a pistol than they do with a rifle. i'm fully aware that you've got situations like this with a mass shooting with an ar-15, but the pistol has still been the the weapon of choice for murderers. >> i understand that, but going back to the ar-15, is this a hunting rifle, in your opinion? >> some actually do hunt with an ar-15 as well. >> okay, but should it be? >> well, i think it's up to the individual. the problem is not owning an ar-15 is the person that owns it. again, you're not going back to the how of what particular weapon is chosen, it's the why. i have individuals in my neighborhood that own an ar-15. that doesn't make it a dangerous

neighborhood or them dangerous individuals. it's the individual them self becomes the issue, not the weapon they're holding. >> well, i understand that, but the seems that the gap here is that it's too easy to purchase one. should it be much harder to purchase an ar-15? >> i actually don't think it should be. i think what should be is difficult for any person with any kind of criminal background history, domestic violence, mental instability, all those things, regardless. i don't care whether they're buying a .22 pistol or an ar-15. we have good, strong, clear background checks on each person. >> but obviously we don't. do you think this system really works in america? >> that's correct. >> i mean, we don't have a strong background check system. i think that's pretty clear at this point, is it not? >> and that's why i'm on the fix nix bill because i agree. that is not complete. we are not getting the information from some rural departments, from some federal entities, we're not getting the information into that background system. so, that absolutely needs to be fixed. that's why i think that legislation needs to be pushed, and i'm currently on it. >> all right. let me move to the russia situation.

you're on the senate intelligence committee, the one committee in washington that i think still is working in a bipartisan manner. your colleague on that committee, angus king, said the following. i want to get you to respond on the other side. >> my problem is, i talk to people in maine who say the whole thing is a witch hunt and it's a hoax because the president told me. we cannot confront this threat, which is a serious one, with a whole of government response when the leader of the government continues to deny that it exists. >> senator, that was on tuesday. we got the mueller indictments friday. the president has tweeted about the mueller indictments 13 times since friday, including five times this morning, and not once, sir, has he condemned russia. does that bother you? >> it does, because russia's clearly tried to advance their agenda into the united states. the president's been very adamant to say he didn't collude. he's very frustrated that people seem to accuse the fact that the only reason he's president is because of some sort of russian collusion, but i would say the clear message here is russia did

mean to interfere in our election, in whatever way that might be, starting as far back as 2014, where they were planning, organizing, coordinating among other russians to be able to make sure that they are trying to get out chaos into our elections system. >> but is senator king right, that if the president won't acknowledge russia's role here and won't condemn russia, we're sort of hamstrung in what we can do to both protect 18 and 20, but also confront russia? >> i would actually disagree on that, and i spoke about that in the same hearing on tuesday. the department of homeland security has been very aggressive working with states under this administration to be able to work on elections security. i have a bill with amy klobuchar that we are doing together along with kamala harris, to be able to work on elections security issues, but much of what we have in that piece of legislation that has not been passed yet that i hope is passed, this administration has already started doing already. that is, security clearances for individuals and states, getting information to them much faster,

and trying to be able to make sure that information is audible. >> does the mueller indictment, the 37-page indictment do anything to clear the president or his campaign? >> no, it's not necessarily focused on clearing the president. there are no accusations that anyone in the campaign was colluding. that's very true. when you read through the entire document, whoever is writing the document was trying to be very clear, these are russians that were working to be able to interfere in our election, but no american was aware of that. in fact, theyed in clear that these russians pretended to be americans, each in their online persona as they interacted with americans. americans were not colluding or operating with them, but it wasn't designed to clear everything on the investigation. it was designed to say, it was very clear, these 13 individuals and this set of companies were trying to interfere in our election. >> it's still an open question of whether more americans helped or not, is that correct, sir? >> it is an open question, and i hope that does get resolved quickly. that's something that we've worked on in a bipartisan way. we're working on a bipartisan report to be able to come out on

that, and we expect mueller to also come out with his final report in the coming days. >> senator lankford, unfortunately, that's all the time i have right now. appreciate you coming on and sharing your views, sir. >> thank you. >> you got it. joining me now for the other side of the aisle for his perspective, from burlington, vermont, the progressive independent senator bernie sanders. senator, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> good to be with you, chuck. >> let me start with russia, since i ended there, to keep sort of the flow of the conversation going here. your campaign, perhaps these russians were told to leave it alone, that the only people that they were not to criticize were donald trump and bernie sanders. i'm curious, did anybody in your campaign get interviewed by mueller to just make sure your campaign had nothing to do with this? >> no. to the best of my knowledge, nobody in our campaign was interviewed. mueller mentioned me twice, our

campaign twice in his report. and i think what he was talking about is kind of old news. it's what most americans know, is that at the end of my campaign, when it appeared that clinton was going to win, and certainly, after she won the nomination, what the russians were doing is flocking to bernie sanders facebook sites, and they were saying to bernie sanders supporters, as they were, by the way, to black lives matter supporters, people who are fighting for social justice, as they were saying to the muslim community, if you voted for sanders, you have to understand, hillary clinton is crazy, she's a murderer, she is terrible, all kinds of horrible, horrible things about hillary clinton. and it turns out that one of our social media guys in san diego actually went to the clinton campaign in september and said something weird is going on. bernie's not in the campaign. hundreds of these people are now coming on to his facebook site. so, i think we already knew that it was an effort to undermine

american democracy and to really say horrible things about secretary clinton. >> do you have an idea of how to prevent this going forward? i mean, this was a sophisticated social -- they basically used the divide of the democratic party, between you and secretary clinton at the time, to polarize things even more. >> right. look, first of all, the main point to be understood is that what everybody understands, except donald trump, is this was not just the 2016 campaign. they intend to do this in 2018. and i think one of the weirdest things in modern american history is you have every intelligence agency, you have the mueller report, you have trump's own administration saying the republicans want to sabotage the 2018 campaign. everybody knows this, except the president of the united states. and i think people are asking, what is going on with this president? what we have got to do, and i

think senator lankford touched on some of the issues. front end, what we have got to say to the russians is you are doing something to undermine american democracy, you are not going to get away with it. this is a major assault. if you do that, there will be severe, severe consequences. >> right. >> we've got to protect states and communities to make sure that their voting is not compromised. >> adam schiff, the lead democrat on the house intelligence investigation, had some tough words on the obama administration following the indictment. take a listen. >> while i respect the motive in terms of the obama administration, they didn't want to be seen as meddling, they should have defended being more public and aggressive at the time. >> it won't surprise you, senator, that the president has already picked up on that and has tweeted, saying even adam schiff is blaming the obama administration. he should have done more. in hindsight, did president obama worry too much about the

look? >> look, obama was in a very difficult position. he did not want to make it appear that he was favoring hillary clinton. maybe he should have done more, but the real issue right now is how do we have a president of the united states not saying what everybody knows to be true? russian interfered in 2016. they're going to interfere in 2018. and we have got to do everything we can to make sure they do not undermine american democracy. chuck, this is a huge deal, and that we don't have a president speaking out on this issue is a horror show, and we have got to bring democrats and republicans together, despite the president, to go forward to protect the integrity of american democracy. >> all right. let me move to the tragedy down in south florida. after newtown, you said, "if you passed the strongest gun control legislation tomorrow, i don't think it will have a profound effect on on the tragedies we have seen." and senator, you ended up voting for some of those reforms, gun control measures that you weren't 100% sure would solve all the problems.

where are you today? do you think now -- >> hey, chuck. chuck, let's be very clear. hey, chuck, let's be very clear, i have a d-minus voting record from the nra. i lost an election probably for congress here in vermont back in 1988 because i believed that we should not be selling or distributing assault weapons in this country. i am on record and have been for a very long time in saying we have got to significantly tighten up the background checks. we have to end the absurdity of the gun show loophole. 40% of the guns in this country are sold without any background checks. we have to deal with the strongman provision, which allows people to legally buy guns and then distribute them. we've got to take on the nra, and that is my view, and i will do everything i can to -- the tragedy that we saw in parkland is unspeakable. and all over this country, parents are scared to death of what might happen when they send their kids to school. this problem is not going to be easily solved.

nobody has a magic solution, all right, but we have got to do everything we can to protect the children in the schools of this country. >> when you say everything you can, does that mean raising the age of when you purchase an ar-15? does that mean limiting the purchasing of ar-15s? >> yes! >> what's it mean? >> chuck, what i just told you is that for 30 years, i believed that we should not be selling assault weapons in this country. these weapons are not for hunting. they are for killing human beings. these are military weapons. i do not know why we have 5 million of them running around the united states of america. so, of course, we have to do that. of course, we have to make it harder for people to be able to purchase weapons. we have people now who are on terrorist watch lists who can purchase a weapon. does this make any sense to anybody? bottom line here, republicans are going to have to say that it's more important to protect the children of this country than to antagonize the nra. are they prepared to do that? i surely hope they are. >> senator bernie sanders, i have to leave it there. out of time, unfortunately.

but as always, sir, thank you for coming on and sharing your views. appreciate it. >> thank you. when we come back, we're going to get into the future of the gun violence debate and talk about those russia indictments with the panel. and throughout this morning's broadcast, we're going to show you the names and faces of the 17 people who lost their lives wednesday at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida. ♪ ♪ (music plays throughout) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ i'll stand by you. welcome back. panelists here. cnbc's rick santelli, nbc news' chief white house correspondent hallie jackson, one of our national political reporters here at nbc news, carol lee, and democratic pollst stester corne belcher. well, here we are, carol, and

another school shooting, another debate about whether we're even going to have a debate on guns. it does seem as if, if there is one difference here, it's the students. >> it is, and that's the wild card in all this. i think everything else follows a pattern that we've seen after every mass shooting in the country in recent years. but these kids, you know, it's really interesting to watch them, because they're basically saying to all members of congress, you're not protecting me. you're not looking out for me. and so, we're going to do this ourselves and we're going to take action. and the thing that's really propelling this is their ability to organize, and social media. they are calling outlaw makers on twitter and shaming them, and that's different, and that is new, and we don't know where it's going or if it will be sustained, but it's certainly a different element here. >> white house paying attention to this? >> they are. according to a source familiar with these conversations, the president spoke with senator john cornyn about the fix nix bill after the shooting. i'm told that the president seems open to that. they can't say right now given

the language that he would support it or not, but there are conversations that are happening around that. so i think when you heard from bernie sanders and senator lankford on the show just today shows that will be a place you might see some movement on capitol hill. the other issue is the bump stocks conversation, which the white house still -- i was in that briefing room, repeatedly pressing sarah sanders after the las vegas shooting about whether the president would support this. at that time, what we heard again and again was, well, it's not time for policy yet. we'll look at this down the road. then down the road when it came up again, there was no definitive answer from the president. the white house will have to answer to some of this because it will, i think, be a discussion on the hill. >> you know, rick and cornell, it is interesting. we can look at the specifics of what the policy debate should be, which is what gets into the background check system and all that stuff, but this is more of a cultural debate in this country. and until we sort of break that, i don't know, do we get to the specifics? >> well, it is cultural, but we need to get to the specifics, and i think we need to also think about local versus federal. federal's going to take time. if you banned every gun in the

world from being manufactured starting five seconds from now, we're still going to have this problem. so, i think you need to go to village boards. the students should go to local, try to ramp up security, get more video coverage at these schools, maybe work with some veterans groups to see if we can get a volunteer program like neighborhood watch in areas. 20 years ago they had high crime. i think there's a lot of on on-the-ground solutions. you know, we have terrorist attacks with airplanes. there was immediately activity to bring it to something concrete that could be done tangibly, and i think we need to get to that point as well. >> you know, i'm going to get into the politics of it because i'm a political hack, right? and look, we've had this back-and-forth before and nothing seems to happen. i was interested to see the senator talk about wanting to work on this issue. this sounds like the same sort of language we heard going in after vegas, right, about the bump clips -- >> sounds like you're close to a solution. >> and then nothing happens, right?

this is a town run by lobbyists, for better or worse, right? and there's millions upon millions of dollars poured into this around the gun lobby, which explains a lot of why nothing happens. i'm going read you a couple numbers, chuck. and you know these numbers. 68% of americans, from pew, ban assault weapons. 71% support a government database to track sales, including a majority of, in fact, gun owners. there's widespread support for this. this is not a 50/50 sort of proposition where it's just the people on the coast or the urban areas. my last point on this. the problem has been suburban moms, right? this has not been a central voting issue for them the way it has been for a lot of our voters in the rural areas. for them, health care affordability, education issues have been front and center for their voting. i think this is changing, chuck. when suburban, white moms are as fearful and afraid of their kids coming home as urban moms are, they change congress. >> but isn't the difficulty here legislatively the constitution, which is bret stephens' point in

"the new york times," calling for the repeal of the second amendment. he says the united states is by far more hands and more guns than any other country in the world, it has the highest incidence of firearms-related homicides and suicides. since americans aren't dramatically crazier than other nationalities, what explanation is there? however, it is in our constitution, unlike any other democracy. >> and getting rid of the second amendment isn't realistic. it's a nice intellectual exercise people might want to have, but it's not realistic. i think there is some potential on the state -- the state and local piece of this seems much more ripe. congress is deadlocked. they can't even barely keep the government open. so, the idea that they're going to do something here, and they're loss to a certain extent owned by the nra. the nra spent $55 million in the 2016 elections. that's more than twice as much as they did in 2012. so you know, the idea that they're going to do something in this atmosphere -- history

doesn't show that that will happen. but also just the parties. the republicans are much stronger on this issue. this is a top-tier issue for them, and for democrats, it isn't really. >> not a voting issue. >> it's not a voting issue. >> that's my point. >> i can't name a politician, rick, that has lost due to not supporting gun control, but i have known politicians who have lost for their support of gun control. >> it's about rights. and i understand. maybe we need more of an independent process for background checks. you know, i come from a trading background. 30 years ago when i became a member of an exchange, they did an extensive search. >> sure. >> i had to pay for it. maybe if you want to get a gun, you should have choices of independent groups do background checks. maybe we should come up with a fica score. if you're a good citizen, if you get a good fica score, you get good credit. rate it on how many tickets you have and give it a score. instead of following the criminal side that doesn't follow the law.

try to assuage people who are worried that this is nibbling away at their freedoms, make them comfortable with the solution. nobody seems to want to take that approach. >> nobody seems to even want a hearing. >> but something has to be done. >> the bottom line is, this is a philosophical difference, because when you have conversations about the evolution of the second amendment, that is exactly what conservatives are terrified about. that is exactly the conversation that they don't want to be having because there is a philosophical difference on this. because this is, as you alluded to in your opening piece here, symbolic in a lot of ways. >> cornell, the nra, i think their great strength has been how they've remessaged gun ownership, and they've wrapped it in the flag. >> and by the way, democrats have been more afraid of the republican base than they have been of, quite frankly, the middle swath of america. but i think something is changing, chuck. when you look at the way those young people are mobilizing, you look at the way some of the gun organizations are raising money and they're mobilizing now. if this is a front-and-center issue for suburban moms in this coming election, it will change. >> all right. we shall see.

speaking of those new voices, we'll hear from some of them in a minute. coming up, not that there was any doubt, but we learned this week how wrong it is to call russia's interference in our elections a hoax. we'll get to that rater this hour, but first, we'll hear from some of the students of marjory stoneman douglas high school who are saying enough is enough and are trying to get washington to listen. ♪ us. ♪ it's what this country is made of. but right now, our bond is fraying. how do we get back to "us"? the y fills the gaps. and bridges our divides.

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with the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. they say that no lives could have been able to prevent the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. we call bs! that us kids don't know what we're talking about, that we're too young to understand how the government works. we call bs! >> welcome back. those are students at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida. one reason that there are some folks who hope that, quote, this time will be different, is that it's students themselves that are speaking out. there's a call for a national

school walkout on april 20th, which is the 19th anniversary of columbine, and students from parkland are announcing today a nationwide march, including a demonstration in washington for march 24th. five of those students from parkland, florida, join me now. emma gonzalez, you were the woman we heard, the young woman we heard in there chanting "no more bs." so, i'm going to give you the first crack at this. it's now four days after the shooting. tell me your feelings today. >> i want to say that this is our opportunity to talk to president trump, governor rick scott, and state senator marco rubio to make sure that they know we are talking directly to them and all other members of the united states government that are being funded by the nra to tell them now is the time to get on the right side of this. >> cameron, i want to ask you, are you going to feel safe walking into school when you eventually go back to school?

>> i think so. i think that the tragedy at stoneman douglas was not because of stoneman douglas. it was because people like nikolas cruz were able to buy these weapons. and i think stoneman douglas is one of the safest places you could possibly be, and parkland is such an amazing community. the attention is on us now. people are watching, and if anything, i'm very excited to get back to school and be with the community and be around everybody supporting each other, because one of the best things to come out of this horrible tragedy is the fact that parkland has stayed strong, and we're not going to let the 17 bullets we just took take us down. if anything, we're going to keep running and we're going to lead the rest of the nation behind us. >> david, i think i overheard you saying earlier that you're not ready to go back to school until at least you hear some talk of change, some talk. what is it that you're looking for? >> what i'm looking for is reasonable change with the

united states congress and bills that are passed before i get back to school, because this is not the time for inaction and debate. this is the time for discussion and for all people that are americans to come together as americans through love and compassion. this event happened on valentine's day. so many people lost loved ones. our community and our nation have taken too many bullets to the heart, and now is the time for us to stand up. so i will not feel safe going back to school myself until reasonable mental health care legislation and gun control legislation is passed, because at this point, it's unacceptable. how many more students are going to have to die and have their blood spilt in american classrooms trying to make the world a better place just because politicians refuse to take action? >> david, i'll let you have the last word there. thank you all. cameron, david, emma, alex and jacquelin, thank you for coming on. i know it's not easy to do this, but it's appreciated. >> thank you for having us. >> you got it. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> let me bring in the the superintendent of broward county

public schools, robert runcie. mr. superintendent, first, you've heard from these students, you've spent time with them. these are very determined, young folks. >> chuck, i am so proud of our students in broward county. they are intelligent, they are articulate, they are passionate, and they are committed to securing a safe future for themselves. and this is their moment. this is their generation. and they're stepping up and doing what needs to happen. and so, i feel so encouraged that this time will be different. >> now, you heard one of the students say they're not going to feel safe going back to school when the doors eventually open at douglas high because they want to see some change, they want to see some action. what do you think? is there anything within your power that you think you can do to make students feel safer before waiting to see what politicians might do? >> well, we're going to do

everything that we can to enhance law enforcement presence at the school. they will absolutely see that. our focus is on our students, our families, and our staff, and looking to reopen school, provided appropriate counseling and support for them and the resources that they need. so, we will do what we can to make sure our students are safe. this is a school that has a single point of entry. we have a school resource officer there. we're going to add more to it. safety is a communitywide responsibility, and we're working collectively with other agencies to ensure that this happens. >> you know, we've been learning a lot about how the system dealt with nikolas cruz. there's times i'm reading about interventions and think, oh, the system was trying to work, right? interventions were attempted multiple times. the community saw something, so

they said something, but yet, the system didn't work. what broke down here? what broke down that ended up somebody, a troubled kid that everybody identified as troubled, and still ended up doing the worst possible imaginable thing? >> well, given what i have seen so far, i believe that we need a smarter system, we need a smarter infrastructure where various agencies, departments, school systems, they're working g in a more integrated and collaborative fashion to ensure that we can share data, we can share information to enhance our level of effectiveness. i think folks are working as hard as they can, but we're working in silos. better integration in support of that would be helpful. >> do you think that a student's record in school should be used in a background check to

determine whether they should be able to purchase a gun? >> yes. again, i believe that we have good, quality information that's out there, and it's not being used to ensure that we can provide the best public safety services that we can. so, whatever information is available, it needs to be done, while at the same time respecting the privacy rights of the individual. >> are you going to be able to open school this week, or are students going to be coming back probably next week? >> our goal is to bring teachers back by the end of this week, and then, hopefully, have the students come whack on monday the 26th. we will actually make a decision on that within the next 24 hours or so, and we'll put an announcement out. but that's our plan right now. >> all right. well, robert runcie,

unfortunately, i'm out of time. i know you've had quite the week. we all appreciate the leadership you've shown in guiding your students and your community through this, so thank you for coming on, sir. >> thank you, chuck. and i'd like to just thank our responders, our first responders, law enforcement, teachers and administrators for the the immediacy of their response and the courage they have displayed through this moment, and i want to thank everyone across the country for their prayers, their donations, their acts of kindness. we sincerely appreciate it, and i'm really inspired by our students and i'm going to do all i can to support them and give them the platform so we can hear their voice. thank you, sir. much appreciated. when we come back, congress used to act after episodes of gun violence, but they don't anymore. what's changed? that's next. ♪

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and we are back. "data download" time. often the question after tragedies like the mass shooting in parkland is, will congress step in? and the answer in recent years, of course, has been no. but it wasn't always like this. 3 of the 11 biggest mass shootings in american history have taken place in just the last five months. contemplate that for a minute. and there was a time when incidents or crime trends would actually lead to major legislative action from washington. for instance, in 1934, as a response to the rise of organized crime and gangster culture, congress passed what was known as the national firearms act, and it heavily taxed machine guns, among other things. in 1968, after a decade that saw the assassinations of john f. kennedy, martin luther king jr., and bobby kennedy, congress passed the gun control act, which in part grew the list of those people who could not purchase guns to most convicted felons and mentally ill people. in 1986, with the rise of gang

and drug violence on city streets, we had the law enforcement officers protection act, which outlawed armor-piercing bullets. and in 1993 and 1994, after a decade that included the attempted assassination of ront reagan and an outburst of workplace shootings which gave us the unfortunate expression of going postal, we passed the brady handgun violence protection act, which installed a waiting period for handguns and background check and at the time banned assault weapons. these laws were not perfect and they didn't solve gun violence in america. the point is that they were attempts by washington to try to do something in the wake of tragic events or dangerous trends. so what about now? well, since 1995, there have been 96 mass shootings in the united states, according to a tally from the "washington post." that includes 7 of the 11 deadliest. but get this, even if there were no more mass shootings for the rest of this decade, we would

still have had more mass shooting incidents and more deaths connected to mass shootings than in the decade before. so, if you're wondering when congress will act, it may very well not be until politicians start losing elections for their lack of support for gun control. when we come back, what we now know and what we don't yet know about the russian interference in our 2016 election. >> announcer: coming up, "end game," brought to you by boeing. continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore, and inspire. stay with me, mr. parker. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most. stay with me, mrs. parker. that's the power of and.

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>> announcer: "end game" brought to you by boeing, continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore, and inspire. i call it the russian hoax. hoax. hoax. hoax. might be russia. could be china. it also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? it could be north korea. it could be a lot of places. it is one great hoax. >> back now with "end game." well, robert mueller put an end to the idea, hallie jackson, that russian interference was a hoax. it was quite the indictment, quite the detail in the indictment. a putin oligarch is charged with this. and the president's response has been all about the president.

>> that's exactly right. his response that came out, belatedly, by the way, via this formal statement, via twitter, was looking at what this means for him, making this claim that this had nothing to do -- >> let me put up the white house statement, because what was amazing is not what was said, president trump has been briefed on the matter and is glad to see that special counsel investigation further indicates there was no collusion." >> that's the president putting out, write this all in capital letters. >> what's not in there is -- >> punishment or prevention. that's critical. steven mnuchin was on capitol hill talking about them actively working for sanctions against russia. the signals we've gotten from the white house is something's going to happen, but what? how tough will it be? what kind of teeth will it have? and what are you doing in seven months from now, in 2018, to make sure this does not happen again? there's a lot of discussion about it, but right now the president at a time when he needs to be on offense is defensive. >> 13 tweets since the mueller indictments, 5 of them this

morning, rick. none of them condemn russia. all of them defensive in nature. >> so, if he starts talking about russia, you think that that would be a good thing? do you think people would believe him? >> i don't know. you tell me. >> this guy's been hit with a newspaper so many times on this topic, it's like a dog. all you have to do is touch the paper and he shocks back. i can totally understand why he doesn't want to weigh in on this and -- >> buthe weighs in all the time. >> and what do you think would be the perfect antonym for collusion, if you had to pick one word? >> what is it? >> unwittingly. where have i heard that word before? >> you know, i don't want to be partisan here, right? if you read the indictment, it is stunning the sophistication and breadth of what the russians were doing here, and no president should be so derelict in duty in protecting our country, right? you can't imagine any president, bush, reagan, any president seeing what russia did to us and just saying, you know, no big deal. i'm not surprised by him being derelict. i'm surprised -- >> north korea -- i'm surprised --

[ everyone talking at once ] that's different. i'm surprised by ryan and mitch mcconnell, because they're complicit here and they should know better, because they have to do something to stop this. >> you know who the president's talking to today down in florida, paul ryan, about legislative priorities. the question is, is this going to come up? what does paul ryan tell him to do? >> even by donald trump standards, he is seeming really defensive in the wake of this. and you know, the idea that he's not -- the president of the united states has not mentioned russia and what they did when that indictment clearly outlines a russian intelligence infiltration of the american tradition of political activism is stunning for people, and you can say whatever you want about it, but he does it because he can't legitimize this in his mind investigation in any way. and if you were to criticize russia or, you know, talk about the investigation in a way that everybody else is talking about it, in his mind, it does legitimize it somewhat. and the thing that, the other

point here is that the thing about this indictment is that it is only the beginning. it was very detailed, but it was a very narrow piece of this investigation. >> narrow. >> it is very specific on social media. it's not wikileaks, it's not collusion, and it isn't obstruction of justice. >> when you heard james lankford at the senate intel say it isn't exculpatory yet. it just said, as you said, rick, everybody connected in that part of the investigation was unwitting. >> correct, and that is the point rod rosenstein made when he was delivering this. lankford also said, when you asked if it bothered you that the president wasn't going after russia, he said it does. so, i think it's noting to on the white house side the public silence from donald trump. he's tweeting about it, delivered a statement. he had a chance to talk to us on the south lawn before leaving to florida to say what russia did was messed up! >> can go from facebook executives saying 56% of the funds that we're discussing here came in after the election. i find that highly disturbing. >> right. >> and i find it highly

disturbing that senator sanders, his people and his campaign were alluded to in this synopsis, and they didn't talk to any of those folks. that's worrisome. and listen, the president's whole eligibility as potus is being questioned on an hourly basis and all roads lead to russia. i just can't understand it. nobody will give him a little room to think that this is a topic, tha he won't want to just jump into. >> is his own behavior here, though, not enforcing the sanctions, for instance -- >> i think whether you like this president or not, he's damned if he doesn't, he's damned if he doesn't. [ everyone talking at once ] shut up with russia. >> that's just amazing to me, right? because again, you do have all our intelligence committee, and republicans said america was attacked by the russians, right? and it's damned if you do, damned if you don't, no, your job is to ekt from the united states of america, not protect yourself. the russians tried to change --

>> but he said things about china and north korea that he hasn't said about russia, right? >> well, what he's saying aand what he does are two different things. i don't know any policies he's implemented that go easy on russia. >> and he's tried to cover this up and block it every way. >> give me one example. >> again, i'm going to double down on tim ryan. there's no house hearings on this right now and denim ranking members are saying why aren't we using our executive powers? >> i'm going to pause it here. i have a feeling rick will be taking more incoming here in a few minutes anyway. >> that's all right. i'm sitting here. >> that's all we have for you. thanks to for watching. happy presidents' day weekend. we'll be back next week, because it it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

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