captioning sponsored by cbs >> brennan: it's sunday, august 11th. i'm margaret brennan and this is "face the nation." a week after two masked shootings that killed 31 and wounded 54, anger over gun violence and the motivations behind it is at a boiling point across the country. >> enough is enough! >> brennan: and especially on the campaign trail. >> who in god's name needs a weapon that can handle 100 rounds? for god's sake. >> brennan: despite the accusations about who is to blame for inflaming the hate that prompted them -- >> people say to me, did donald trump cause those folks to be killed? well, no, of course he didn't pull the trigger, but he certainly has been tweeting out

the ammunition. >> brennan: -- there are sober reminders that gun t en fl daughter was struck by a stray bullarmyon, daughter's twin brother, witnessed what happened that day. she died two days later. >> i have a six and three year old boy. i'm imagining... i was imagining it was one of them that got shot and the other saw it. i'm so sorry. >> el paso wal-mart, el paso, texas. oregon historic district, dayton, ohio. these are less than half of the mass shootings in my lifetime. it is time to do something. failing to get gun control measures passed on a national level, what bill that's different could get through

congress and get signed by the president? >> we have to have meaningful background checks. "meaningful." >> brennan: we'll hear from all sides. former mayor michael bloomberg hosted a candidate forum saturday in iowa to push for gun control. we spoke with him there. red flag law, those are in place in connecticut before sandy hook. they didn't stop that massacre. >> no, but theystop -- >> brennan: background checks would not have stopped these two shooters from getting these guns. >> that is true. no one law is going to stop everything. >> brennan: we'll talk with a number-two republican in the house, louisiana's steve scalise. he was critically injured when a gunman attacked republican members of congress during a baseball practice in 2017. we'll also hear from three presidential candidates, ,as we' havenie political analysisn news of the week coming up on "face the nation."

good morning and welcome to "face the nation." we begin with the question on everyone's minds a week after mass shootings in texas and ohio: what can be done to prevent these in the future? former new york mayor michael bloomberg, who founded the gun control advocacy group "everytown for gun safety" hosted a candidate forum in des moines yesterday. we spoke with him there and began by asking if he thinks congress will pass a background check bill when they return in the fall. >> i'm optimistic. it still depends on mitch mcconnell bringing a bill to the floor in the senate, and it still depends on the president of the united states signing a bill. i think that the more you see things like this event where, if i had done this ten years ago, we wouldn't have gotten any democratic candidates for president to come, today almost all ar here.

they see the public has said enough is enough. here, and that's the impact -- the impact is not just on the democratic party. we know the democrats were cowed by the n.r.a. as well for a long time, although today in all fairness they're not. it's the time to say, we have to stop this. >> brennan: you've said that when you launched this group that just like the farr, we need to make them afraid of us. that is going out there and challenging politicians who don't support this kind of platform. >> what i did in the 2018 election was we supported 24 candidates for congress, the criteria were they had to be good on guns and good on the environment. >> brennan: you spent about $100 million. >> spent about $100 million.

24 of -- 21 of the 24 won. the n.r.a. takes no prisoners whatsoever, and they lost 21 seats in the house. it flipped the house. and so now is the time to start working and helping the republicans to see the light, because i don't think this is a partisan issue. >> brennan: what does this mean for 2020? are you going to go out there and fund candidates to challenge those who don't fund or vote for thing like background checks or red flag laws? >> it is very early. the best thing would be that we have action in congress on the republican senate side, as well as the democratic house side, so that you won't be able to ask that question, because we'll already be where we want to be. >> brennan: but is this a threat or warning from you? >> there is no question that i think this is one of the real key issues in our country. we cannot have a society where you go out in the street and you can get blown away. it just is not tolerable. ough.is

>> essentially the n.r.a. model of taking people directly on, if they are not supporting your platform, should be replicated. >> i think -- >> brennan: but if mitch mcconnell doesn't bring this to the floor in the fall, will you look at funding his opposition. >> mitch mcconnell is up for reelection. and he's running against somebody who i'm told is an attractive candidate. mitch mcconnell is going to look and say, what does the public want, as well. i am optimistic that even mitch will change his mind. i hope so. >> brennan: red flag laws, those were in place in connecticut before sandy hook. they didn't stop that massacre. background checks would not have stopped these two shooters from getting these guns, at least as currently written. >> that is true. no one law is going to stop everything, but there is just no question, when you put many background checks, suicides with guns and murder rates go down. when you get rhe mass murders. these are not public health things. this is too much of an access to

guns and particularly to assault weapons, which were designed to kill the maximum number of people as quickly as possibleann possibly do it. >> breas been having some internal disputes and problems. they were the largest donor to president trump. >> i noticed that. what a shame. >> brennan: will they be able to bankroll to the level they did in 2020? >> i think farr n.r.a. has been very badly hurt by this. 90% of n.r.a. members are in favor of background checks. so the n.r.a. is not in the place of most of its members. and, in fact, if you go back, you can see wayne law pierre, who runs the n.r.a., testifying in front of congress in favor of background checks 15 or 20 years ago. >> we think it's reasonable to provide for instant gun checks at shows just like at gun stores and pawnshops. >> they have changed their views. they went away from background checks. it's the time for them to come back. if they want to be an

organization representing gun owners, that's fine, nothing wrong with that, but they should not be somebody representing the view that everybody has a right to go kill everybody. >> brennan: i want to ask you about some of the choices the candidates are making. joe biden has said the president encourages white sue prem similar. bernie sanders said the president is a racist. elizabeth warren said he's stirring up racial conflict. beto o'rourke said he's making the risk for violence like this in el paso more real. do you think that's a mistake for democrats to tie the president's rhetoric to these mass kills? >> no. i think words matter. people look to their leadership for guidance, and to say that it doesn't have an effect is wrong. so what the president says is very important, and if he supports or says nice things about racist, it encourages racism. if he goes and says nice things about white sue premists, he encourages that kind of violence. i hope he understands this.

he cannot go and just shoot off his mouth and say anything. he's the president of the united states. >> brennan: you decided not run for president. is there anything that would make you reconsider? >> no, i don't think so. i thought about it a little bit when i was driving into des moines today, thinking, you know, i came here and i spent a good chunk of a month meeting the people of this great state. and in some senses i missed being on the campaign trail. i ran -- i had free elections. i won them all. i know how to put together a team. i know how the put together a team not just to win elections. i know how the put together a team to deliver the services you're promised. but i did that. now it's time to do something else. >> brennan: can democrats win if they bill themselves as progressives? >> i think if you are very progressive, no. i think the public wants evolutionary change, not revolutionary change. >> brennan: do you think democrats need a new generation?

>> i think there's an awful lot to be said for experience and accomplishment. there is a value to having been there, done that, and to understand that there are simple solutions to complex problems. if there were, we would have solved those problems. i'm in the a believer that there's a new generation coming along and they own the right to set the agenda. i think you earn your spurs and you earn the right to set an agenda by showing people that what you have been doing is working. >> brennan: you have business in china, and you know people for decades have been complaining about china not playing fair. >> that's correct. >> brennan: president trump has been really aggressive. >> correct. >> brennan: you don't like the tactic, but is he doing what is needed on this front, and how do democrats say that they're going to be stronger? >> people that think donald trump will -- that think he's

not reelectable are wrong. they look at he's doing what he's doing in china and saying, he's at least taking on the chinese, and they should be taken on is their belief. i would argue some of the things he says are right, that we really shouldn't have this asymmetrical tradeg/e but you don't do it by walking up and having public fights. you don't do it by changing your mind all the time. you don't do it by being a bully with tariffs. it's the president's methods of trying to deal with china that object to, not the fact that they have... the chinese have variances. we have ours. >> brennan: you think he may be reelected? >> i hope no. i will i'm sure support somebody who is rubbing against him in the end, but i think that anybody who thinks he does not have support is badly misinterpreting what the public believes. there is a revolution that has been taking place around the

world where the public thinks that the establishment has not recognized their needs, and you see that in donald trump getting elected. you see that in brexit. you see that in a lot of things where we're doing things differently and the old line stuff is being thrown out. and that's not necessarily good. >> brennan: our full interview with mayor bloomberg is available on our website, facethenation.com. we did invite the n.r.a.'s wayne lapierre to appear on the broadcast, but he declined our invitation. we now turn to the number-two republican in the house, steve scalise. he joins thus morning from new orleans. good morning, congressman. >> good morning, margaret. good to be with you. >> brennan: president trump says he wants meaningful background checks. why aren't you supporting him on that? >> first of all, i have supported him on that. in fact, we got a bill to president trump's desk last year

which truly does go after some of the real problems we saw where people were falling through the cracks and not getting into the background system, like so many shootings, like charleston and others. the president said he wants the make sure that people with mental illnesses don't get guns. in fact, there were a lot of people we were finding that weren't getting put into the system. we need to keep working on that and make the background check system work better. we passed a very bipartisan bill to do just that and donald trump signed it into law last year. let's focus on making that work better so a lot of these people that slip through the cracks don't slip through the cracks again in future attempts where they might try to do that. >> brennan: does that mean t& you do not expect republicans to support or vote for new legislation on background checks? >> well, first of all, let's see what bills are being brought forward. i know what nancy pelosi called for the senate to come back and vote on was a bill that they passed through the house or two bills that wouldn't have actually done anything to stop these shootings because the

shooters in both el paso and in dayton passed background checks. so her bill wouldn't apply to them, but her bill is very dangerous to a number of ways of how it stops law-abiding people of being able to transfer gun, including if you loan your gun to your neighbor because she's afraid that her ex-boyfriend is going to come and beat her up, you loaning your gun to her would put you in prison for up to a year. that's what pelosi's bill does. it wouldn't have stopped the shooting, but it makes it harder for law-abiding citizens to do things that are currently legal and frankly currently helping improve safety. >> brennan: do you think domestic terrorism should be a federal crime? >> i do. i applaud what's being done both at the f.b.i. and with our new acting homeland security secretary. his first week in office, he put many place a task force to go look at a lot of the online recruiting that's gone on to radicalize people. we're seeing a very alarming increase in domestic terrorism. f.b.i. has been focused on that last. month alone they saw, it was in

the hundreds, the number of domestic terrorism cases they're looking. a we need the make sure f.b.i. and the department of homeland security have the tools they need to go and root out whether it's white sue supremacist, wher it's radicals from the left that are committing some of these crimes. we need to make sure they have the tools they need the root it out. >> brennan: what tools will republicans vote to give law enforcement? what are you suggesting there? >> well, first of all, if you look at what the f.b.i. just set up recently and with the homeland security secretary just did recently, to put a renewed focus on this, to put a new focus on what's going on online, the recruiting we all know is going on online. they are focusing on that. they have asked for more resources. we have a budget process that's coming up when we return in september. let's make sure in the bullet process that is a very high priority, because right now it's in the a high enough priority. we need the make sure it is. >> brennan: we'll have the wait until the fall to see what comes up, but i do want the ask you, because you've voiced some concern about tone and conversation about these

killings in this country. in the case of el paso, it is the largest anti-latino attack this country has ever seen. the killer said that he went to a border town to kill mexicans. given this particular context, can you understand the sensitivity to language used by the president when he refers to migrants as invading this country? >> well, first of all, my heart breaks as everybody's does when you see what happened. there is no place for it, whether it's somebody that's racist, that hates a certain ethnic group, there is no place for those kind of attack and attacking people based on their ethnicity, but to try the assign blame to somebody else i think is a very slippery slope, because the president's no more responsible for that shooting, as your next guest, bernie sanders, is for my shooting. and he's not, by the way, responsible. the shooter is responsible. what we need to do is find out, those people that have slipped through cracks, and we've seen

it in shooting after shooting, sutherland springs, charleston, even in dayton, he had a hit list and rape list. none of that was in the is. let's make sure these background check systems work properly and are rooting out the people that shouldn't be able to legally purchase a gun and currently are because the system hasn't worked. >> brennan: so you have not advised the president to reconsider system of his words that many in the hispanic community consider inflammatory? >> well, first of all, the president was very clear just the other day that there is no place for this. he spoke out against racism. he spoke out against these kind of attacks. and so to try to assign blame, go look at some of these presidential candidates who made some of the most ridiculous statements. joe biden just said that he was vice president when the parkland kids came and met with him. he wasn't vice president. so some of these things that are being said are beyond ridiculous. i know they're running for president and they might not like donald trump's view, but

stop this ridiculous assessment of blame to somebody other than the person who is responsible. again, just... you talk to other people who were motivators, look at the dayton shooter and what his motivations were. is anybody asking about that? is anybody from the left who he was inspired by? there is no place for it. the shooters are responsible. let's try to identify these shoot centers a bet better way, which right now we're working on doing. let's put more emphasis there. >> brennan: i want to give you chance to respond to what mayor bloomberg said about the n.r.a. he said, "it should be a group allowed to represent the gun lobby but not to represent the view that everybody has the right to go kill everybody. do you think the n.r.a. is out of touch with some of its members who do support background checks? and that it's been weakened? >> well, first of all, the n.r.a. has millions of supporters and people that are actual members, just like any other group that can advocate for an issue. they're advocating for something that's in the united states constitution, the settlement.

-- the second amendment. let's look at what michael bloomberg has talked about. he says he wants a better background check system, yet last yr, tha he spent abofeated $1lion of his money tosh so ws his realotlly s miion foers of congress who voted yes to fix the background system and close the background check system and close these loopholes. so again, i'm sure he says certain things, but what is his real motivation when he's spent that much money to defeat people who voted to fix the system. by the way, margaret, name one single bill that nancy pelosi put on barack obama's desk when they had the house, senate, and the white house to address any of these issues. there was not one bill she put on his desk. we put a bill on donald trump's desk last year to fix the background check system and he signed it into law and was working the make it address those loopholes, the people that fell through the cracks, and he banned bump stocks, which were used in the las vegas shooting.

those were legalized when barack obama was president. donald trump is the one who said this sre >> brennan: congressman scalise, thank you for joining us. we'll be back in one minute with senator bernie sanders. he's standing by live in iowa. (burke) a "rock and wreck." seen it. covered it. at farmers insurance, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

too many pe a les slp.n settle f there's a betteresafe sle strength of aleve. that dares to last into the morning. so you feel refreshed. aleve pm. there's a better choice. >> brennan: moving 207b campaign 2020, senator bernie sanders joins us from the campaign trail in greenfield, iowa. senator, good morning. >> good morning, margaret. >> brennan: i want to give you chance to respond to congressman scalise who brought up the fact that the man who shot him back in 2017 had been a volunteer for your campaign. he said he doesn't blame you, and therefore by the same token, no one should blame president trump for the shootings that we have seen in the past few days. how do you respond? >> look, as soon as i possibly could, i was on the floor of the

senate condemning that action. what we are is a non-violent political movement. i condemn all forms of violence. we had 13 million people voting for us, and i'm afraid of people kind of person who i would like, but we must bring about the fundamental changes that this country requires in health care and education and climate change. we do it in an absolutely non-violent way. >> brennan: but do you believe, and in some of your language in recent days, you've said president trump is a racist. you've called him a xenophobe. >> yes. >> brennan: do you believe he is directly or indirectory responsible for what happened in el paso? >> look, president trump, din nobody else wants to see people mowed down and killed. he does not want the see that. but i think what he has created in this country with his incredible rhetoric or his racist rhetoric where he calls

mexicans rapists and criminals, where he almost condones in a rally when somebody was attacking somebody, he says, "i'll pay the legal bills," the violence, i think he creates a climate where we are seeing a significant increase in hate crimes in this country, hate crimes against muslims, against mexican, against jews, he's creating the kind of divisiveness in this nation that is the last thing that we should be doing some he creates the climate, but do i think that he wants to see somebody get shot?. >> brennan: do you expect that republican leadership when they come back in the fall will bring any kind of gun control legislation to the floor? >> margaret, i certainly hope, so because this is what the american people want. the american people are sick and tired of powerful corporate interests determining what goes on in washington. you know, whether it's the health care industry, whether it

is the fossil fuel industry, whether it is the n.r.a., poll after poll shows that overwhelmingly the american people want to expand background checks. they want to do away with the gun show loom hole, they want to do away with the straw man provision, and more and more people agree with something i have been saying for 30 years. assault weapons are weapons of war. they are military-style weapons designed to kill people as rapidly as possible. they should not be sold and distributed in this country. >> brennan: nor, we'll take a quick break and continue our conversation on the other side of it. don't go away. we have a lot more to talk about.

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mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. >> brennan: welcome back to "face the nation." we're back now with senator bernie sanders who joins us from greenfield, iowa. senator, i want to pickup we left off on the issue of gun control. you said now you do support more efforts to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. but you have in the past been sceptical of federal gun control. you voted against the brady bill in '03 and '05. i voted for a law to shield gun manufacturers, and i'm wondering how you explain your change of heart. >> well, i think first of all, for 30 years i've been advocating for the ban on assault weapons year after year. i have an f voting record from

the n.r.a. i think the last one was a d minus. as president i'm confident i'll have an f minus. the world has changed in 30 years, and even in rural states like my state of vermont, which until last year had virtually no gun control. the people of this country are sick and tired of seeing the horrific mass murders that we have been seeing year after year, most recently in dayton and el paso. and the american people want us to stand up to the n.r.a. the american people want strong gun control legislation. i have demanded that mitch mcconnell do the right thing do, what the american people want. bring us back the washington right now. let's pass what was passed in the house. let us go further. so to answer your question, margaret, over the last 30 years, the world has changed. it has changed in rural states like mine and it has changed all over this country. >> brennan: how do you protect civil liberties and do things like congressman scalise advocated, which is giving law enforcement more tools to root out those who might carry out

these killings? >> well, it's not only giving law enforcement more tools. we have got to do a lot better job than we are doing right now in fighting the rise of white nationalism in this country. we need to understand that in el paso, what was committed was an act of domestic violence. and we need to be much more aggressive than the trump administration has in going after those people. so i am a strong civil libertarian. but on the other hand, i want to make sure that we do not see the rise of neo-fascism in this country and that we understand that those white nationalists are, in fact, when they get involved in violence, they are terrorists and they should be treated as terrorists. >> brennan: and you support red flag laws? >> yes, i do. i do. >> brennan: all right. senator, thank you for joining us from the trail. >> thank you. >> brennan: we turn nowlorador .

he ue fair goodlos like a lot of fun there right behind you. >> good morning. it is unbelievably fun. we actually just finished the star-spangled banner. everybody stopped and put their hand on their heart and sang it together. >> brennan: well, you tweeted this week that if you are elected you promise voters they won't have to think about you for at least two weeks. is that hard strategy to try to get people to be passionate about being moderate? >> i think people are so sick and tired of waking up to donald trump's reality tv show. i think they're sick of a president who is dividing us. it's very clear what he is trying to do. he acquired power by dividing the american people against themselves. he's trying to hold on to the power by doing the same thing. and every day he just tries to keep the reality tv show alive. americans want to go on with their lives.

they want to build their businesses. they want to raise their children. they don't want to wake up feeling like we're on the cusp of some crazy new thing with north korea or iran or that, you know, the president is tweeting out conspiracy theories about somebody who killed themselves in new york. they want a president who is actually doing their job so they can do their job confident that we leave the country in a better place for our kids and grandkids and confident that we have situated america's leadership in this world again. so that's what i meant by that. i think that people can check in every two weeks and see how i'm doing. >> brennan: colorado, where you're from, is a state that has a lot of gun owners, but it's also experienced horrific gun violence. and they've made some changes at the state level. is that essentially what the country should be talking about, because it doesn't seem that anything gets through congress right now? >> i think that is what we should be talking about.

you know, my oldest daughter is 19. she was born the year after the columbine massacre happened in my state. and my state, which is a western state, is a second amendment state, we passed the background checks that are waiting for mitch mcconnell to put on the floor this summer. and over that course of that almost 20 years, about every year about two or three percent of the people who try to buy a gun in colorado can't buy a gun. they are murderers and domestic abusers and they're convicted felons of violent crimes. there is nobody who can defend any of those people having a firearm. if we can do it i3 colorado, certainly we can do it nationally. we have -- >> brennan: but you don't expect that to happen in september? you don't expect that to happen? >> i hope that it will happen. i hope it will happen. but i believe with -- i believe what michael bloomberg said earlier on your show, the politics of this issue are

changing in part because the tragedies are mounting up, which is a terrible way for us to deal with it. but also because the public is being galvanized by organizations like the kids from parkland and the moms against guns. that's making a difference. if it does not come to the floor, we need to make sure that every week between now and november we're making this a voting issue. i'm not saying just the politicians, i mean all of us are making this a voting issue. let the american people have a vote on the floor. they are churned out and replaced with people. mcconnell can vote however he wants, but why doesn't he just put it on the floor so that every senator could be held accountable for their vote. >> brennan: you have been talking about ending hyperpartnership. do you think it's helpful for democrats and your fellow candidates to be linking the president to these mass murders?

>> well, i... here's what i think. i think donald trump, as i said, has a strategy that is to divide the country so he can win. he believes there are enough people out there, hes 38 or 39 or 40% that can keep him in office if the rest of us are not paying attention and not as strategic. and i don't think we can play into that. we have to unify this country. that is what the people ofouin w hampshire. we have to unify this country to close ov broken washington and the close over a president who is a guy who is, you know, goes to our worst impulses rather than our best impulses every single day of the year. we have both in our country. we have best impulses and at times we have our worst impulses. i think we should have a president who asks us to do our best. i think we have to have a president who asks us to come

together. >> brennan: all right. senator, thank you. i think i hear a child behind you, so nice focus. it's a fair. >> it's not my child, though, so... >> brennan: all right. well, good luck to the parents. all right. thank you very money, senator. >> thanks so much. >> brennan: we'll be right back with another 2020 candidate. ♪ stand up to chronic migraine with botox®. what if you had fewer headaches and migraines a month? botox® prevents headaches and migraines before they even start. botox® is for adults

with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. botox® injections take about 15 minutes in your doctor's office and are covered by most insurance. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life- threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection.y, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. with the botox® savings program, most people with commercial insurance pay nothing out of pocket. talk to your doctor and visit botoxchronicmigraine.com to enroll. >> brennan: we're back with new york senator kirsten gilibrand. she joins us this morning from the campaign trail in west des moines. good morning to you, senator.

>> good morning. >> brennan: you support universal background checks, a ban on large magazine and assault weapons and an anti-gun trafficking law. you need republican votes to get all those things through congress. what can actually pass now? >> you know, i think things are changing since kids have been marching out of their schools and marching on washington and are really demanding action. you have seen a level of advocacy that i have never seen before. and i think if mitch mcconnell would have the courage to call us back into washington to vote, we would pass the universal background checks bill that's already passed the house and we would pass the bill that i wrote, which is anti-gun trafficking, which the last time we voted on it got 58 votes. we only needed 60. so we're only two votes shy. i believe we have the momentum and the advocacy behind us today to passes that, as well. >> brennan: what about red flag laws? your colleague in new york, chuck schumer, has said they are ineffective cop-outs.

>> i think you can passes a red flag law, but it is insufficient. what we really need to do is also pass a ban on assault weapons, particularly the military-style weapons that have resulted in people losing their lives within seconds and then large magazines. >> brennan: many of your republican colleagues would agree on regular flags being insufficient. they also don't think background checks necessarily would be. the argument is for more tools for law enforcement. so do you support making domestic terrorism a federal crime and would you sign on the dick durbin's bill to increase resources to combat it? >> absolutely. as president i would direct my department of justice to investigate white supremacy and other domestic terrorist groups to infiltrate them, to make sure we know if they're planning attacks, and to absolutely combat white supremacy in society. because these groups are doe

midwest, terrorists. in talking about white supremacy, you and some of your colleagues and your competitors have been linking the president's rhetoric to emboldning white supremacists. you said he's embolding white sue supremacists his entire presidency and campaign are. you saying president trump is responsible for the killings in el paso and ohio? >> what i'm saying is that his words have consequences. and the words he has been using have been hateful and divisive and racist. and he has truly emboldened white supremacy and hate crimes across this country. since president trump's been elect, hate crimes have increased certainly across my state and across the country. against all groups. more racism, more anti-selltism, more white supremacy, more anti-muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, and it's changing who we are as a nation, and that's one of the reason i'm

running for president. we need a president who will bring us bag together again. >> in terms of name-calling and putting it in the political context, don't you think that is ratcheting up the rhetoric rather than having cooler heads prevail? >> what president trump has done is ratchet up the rent rig. when he's at a rally in florida and someone says, "what are you going to do with immigrants?" and someone shouts, "kill them, shoot them," president trump laughed. so he is not leading us in the right direction. he has used words like "infestation." he's used words like "invasion." that is creating a climate where people are literally today fueled by anger and hate, they are hunting down other people using weapons of war. president trump will not stand up to the n.r.a., will not stand

up to the gun manufacturers to get these guns off the streets. >> brennan: what about what joaquin castro, the congressman did this week, of publishing some of the names of president trump's top donors. it's publicly available information, but some would say he was targeting these individuals. is that helpful or is that dangerous given what you're describing? choices, not mine. i will call out racism when i see it. i will call out white supremacy when i see it. i will call out hate and i will stand up against it in every form. >> brennan: i want to ask you about new york financier jeffrey epstein. he's an accused child molester, pedophile, sex trafficker, he committed suicide while in federal custody. the f.b.i. is investigating. do you think the u.s. government has failed his victims? >> well, i am concerned these survivors deserved a day in court. they deserved justice.

they deserved to speak out against this perpetrator and it is ahame that he committed suicide. i do think that there needs to be a full investigation about why he was taken offe suicide watch list. i think it's a strange decision given that he attempted suicide once already. i want to know why he was left in a circumstance where suicide was even possible. i think it need a full investigation. >> brennan: senator gilibrand, thank you. we'll be back in a moment. the weather's perfect...

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how could it get any better than this? dad, i just caught a goldfish! there's no goldfish in this lake. we're gonna be rich... we're gonna be rich! swit and save with geico. >> brennan: we're back now with our political panel. the executive washington editor for the "wall street journal" and shawna thomas is the washington bureau chief for vice news. out in the field this morning are cbs news political correspondent ed o'keefe, who is still out at the iowa state fair. ed, tell me, you have been listening to all the candidates out there speak about promising some kind of gun control, either now or if they're elected.

is there any chance any of it gets through? >> you know, margaret, i have been covering this issue in one way or another for six our seven years, since sandy hook essentially. we go true a week of this, we hit a weekend, and then it s ry curious to watch in the next few days is can this issue get into its second week since a big mass shooting and sustain itself? there is some evidence that at least here in iowa, a critical early caucus state, it might. a little why ago juliaán castro, a candidate who spends a lot of time here, said this wednesday he'll be holding a forum with members of that organization that held the larger forum yesterday in des moines to talk specifically about his gun violence plan and ways to somehow curb violence across the country. it will happen in a small bedroom community that is popular with younger families, young couples out in eastern iowa. if that organization can continue to hold those kinds of events with candidates over the course of the next six months

here and in new hampshire and in south carolina and other states, maybe it does sustain itself. but when that congressional debate happens in september, if it happens at all, i suspect it is going the look very similar to what's happened before. promises of action that fall apart over the details and the concerns from either party that they may be giving away too much. >> breanhaw our data to back up what the candidates are saying in terms of shifting public sentiment. six out of ten democrats polled by cbs say they want things like background checks. the majority of republicans and democrats are open to more action on this front. what difference this time is always the question? >> that's the big question. it's hard not to be cynical. sandy hook, 20 kids died. they weren't able to this that much. one, the n.r.a. doesn't have as much money as they used. to and two, there are republicans who are trying to engage in this conversation. there are only so many times people can die. and i do think the president

saying, okay, let's talk about background checks, now, we don't know if he's going to actually follow through with that, always hard to till with this president, and then hearing mcconnell say on the radio, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell say on the radio, okay, we can maybe have this conversation when we come back, at least that's happening, but remember, when manchin and toomey had their bill that was a smaller bill about background checks about sandy hook, four republicans voted for it in the senate, two of those republicans are not in the senate anymore. the question is: how much money does the n.r.a. raise out of this and how scared are republicans to actually have this conversation? >> brennan: we didn't hear from congressman scalise, who is the whip, really any promise of anything that would be voted for. he seemed to say there are a lot of tools already there that just need to be used better by law enforcement. >> i think the question is very much open. will attention stay on this issue as it suggested or does the circus move on to the next town. one of the things that might be different is that for years and years and years, the passion on

the gun issue was on the pro gun side, not the people who favored gun control. people who wanted guns were more passionate about that issue than e her t.t in we'llfind o now fo sure whether that's the case or not. this is not really a complicated equation. this comes down to two men, president trump and to mitch mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate. he says he will not bring up a bill on the senate that the president won't sign. so will the president convince people he wants a background bill that he will sign? that's the only question that really matters in a sense. >> brennan: ed, i wanted to ask you, one of the things that is different is this overlay of racial politics, as well, the fact that the killer in el paso said he specifically went to target mexicans and that this was the largest attack of the latino community this country has ever seen. does that overlay of the hate crime change things? >> i think it does to some extent, especially because it happened in such a border

community that's defined by its latino heritage. you know, and the fact frankly that one of the presidential candidates is from there. beto o'rourke was able to help draw even more this just as have tos been a l, be a conversation about the fact that this was the largest anti-latino attack essentially in modern history. and i have talked to some colleagues, and i asked julian castro the other day when he was here whether or not he thought the nation's response was proper. he thought to some extent it had. but i got a sense from him that perhaps it could have been a little stronger or there could have been more conversation about that. but i think it absolutely helps fuel the conversation, because race is, will be, and probably should continue to be part of the conversation in this campaign given the fact that you have so many historic candidates running, given that the

democratic party continues to have this debate over where exactly it should be campaignink the white house. do you focus on southern states with younger and more minority populations? do you come back here to the midwest and try to drive up the numbers among white working-class voters. if you were to come to iowa, you would find a growing percentage of latino people here some it's an argument that has a double relevance certainly over the past week and candidates knew that. >> brennan: shawnback joe biden has hadn't a few missteps this week. steve scalise in this interview on our show hit him on those things. one is he seemed to say something to the effect of poor kids are just as good as white kids. the right jumped on him for that. >> yeah, and, you know, here's the deal, joe biden is an older person, and sometimes he is going to say things that sound like mistakes. that is something that he and his campaign are going to have to deal with, because in the world we currently live in with social media, 24-hour cable

news, everything else, every little thing you do is going to be under a microscope. republicans are going to jump on him for that. i think it's clear what he was trying to say. i don't think he was trying to in any way in this type of commentary be racist or anything like, that but this is a problem they're going to have to continue to deal with. and it's going to happen in debates. he -- he's just going to have to figure out how the speak a little bit more carefully. >> brennan: when you look at what happened this week, and the escalation of the trade war, there are some republicans who are nervous that the president is hurting his chances at1l'úñ reelection if his bet does not pay off. >> this is an interesting issue, the president has bipartisan support. chuck schumer's warning to the president was, don't go soft on china. he has a lot of republican support, fair amount of business community support, and some democratic support. but a lot of that support is that the trade wars will be temporary and that they will be

contained. this is week where i think it started to look as if, wait,ing this might get out of controlng ti. i think some people who are with the president now on trade didn't sign up for a long trade war. they signed up for a short tariff fight. if that's not what it is, i think it becomes very problematic for the president or at least potentially so. >> and those farmers in iowa want to know what the future holds for them. we have talked to farmers in iowa who are saying, i'm willing to go with the president because i think we need to stand up to china, but if i don't have some consistency soon, i don't know how the make decisions about my business and i'm going to lose money. that's scary. >> if you look at numbers, the trade deficit went up in the first six months of this year. it's bigger now, 8% bigger than it was a year ago, so you have to ask the question, is this working? is this trade war working? it was supposed to bring the trade deficit down. i think it's a trick year time. we may be at a tipping point with president trump on the trade issue. >> brennan: that's something we'll watch. thanks to all of you, and thanks

to ed out in iowa. to ed out in iowa. we'll be right back. with turning ideas into action. putting your business on the map, connecting with customers, and getting the skills to use new tools. so, in case you're looking, we've put all the ways we can help in one place. free training, tools, and small business resources are now available at google.com/grow

>> brennan: that's it for us today. thank you all for watching. until next week. for "face the nation," i'm margaret brennan. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org (announcer) who can you always rely on to be there

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