this sunday after this sunday after parkland, another mass shooting. >> this is chaos out here. >> another 17 dead, 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 the end. >> we'll hear from some of those students this morning and from broward county school superintendent robert runci.

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 called 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. my guest, senator langford of oklahoma and bernie sanders from vermont. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news correspondent halle jackson. democratic poster kornell 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 chiefs testifying that russia is continuing to interfere with our election systems here in 2018 and president trump hasn't asked them to do anything about it. well the weakened with attorney general rod rosenstein announcing 12 russians and an ol gashing close to putin -- oligarch close to putin and support the candidacy of donald trump using social media. in between was the horror of another school shooting. 17 students and teachers dead in a high school in parkland, florida. this weeks, 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 forget, congress does nothing, crickets chirping, then another mass shooting. programs. programs one reason this tragedy may be different is the

determination of students and survivors at marjory stoneman high school to speak out. we will hear from some students later this hour. president trump seems more obsessed with the russian story, tweeting 13 times, and this morning, this indictments clear him of collusion. they don't. and suggesting the fbi missed clues about the suspect nicolas cruz is 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, aed with no agreed-upon solution, again. >> thank you very much. >> do gun laws need to be changed, mr. president? >> after another mass shooting. >> 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 teacher dead. >> i just spent the last two hours putting the burial reasons

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. >> we want to send a message to the politicians that they cannot allow this to con. >> they say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. we call bs. >> 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 polarization infecting this country. 75% of republicans say they are more concerned about the government going too far in restricting gun rights. 73% of democrats say they worry the government won't do enough to regulate access to guns the country is divided by region and gender. there is an urban royal split and education dwiechl gender di.

each is moral, but not wrong. >> if you are working today to try to fix this, to try to stop these shooting, then you are an accomplice. >> of course, you are right the reaction of democrats to any tragedy is to try to politicize it. >> on the right, gun versus become a symbol of patriotism. >> the only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with a clenched fist of truth. on the national rifle association of america and i'm freedom's safest place. >> on thursday, mr. trump refused to 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. >> after vague peel 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. >> but no bills were passed after 26 were killed in southerland springs in texas in november, the number two in the senate pledged legislation on the nation's instant background contractor check system. >> every day we've left the current dysfunction, the background checks continue, lives are in jeopardy. >> that legislation has not been passed either. republican senator james langford joins us from oklahoma city. welcome to "meet the press. request itse . >> nice, chuck, good to be with you again. >> does what happened in parkland, we had the bump stock legislation proposed, nothing hammond, what about now? >> yeah. i'm on the same legislation with senator cornyn on what they call the fix nics. that's the first multiple of things that need to be done.

that's fixing our background system to make sure everything is in there. we seen the individual that had a criminal record that didn't get into the nic system so they were able to illegally purchase a weapon. in this case, we have a lot of warning signs, and people in parkland have every reason to be grieved and furious. social services within this home more than 20 tiles. expelled from school, warned the fbi this person was dangerous. nothing was done, all the warning signs were will. the community did all that they should do, they saw something, said something, nothing was done. >> and yet, mr. cruz was able to legally buy an ar-15 because none of that information was in the back check system. so let me ask you, should this be the what i the back 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, for the people that show warning signs. we have determined in this country only a court can take away the constitutional right, keeping the right to bear arms, is a right. we have courts on mental health and other things. there are ways to make sure we keep the system clean and clear it is a major issue in the country, making sure we have background checks, but they have all the information that's needed on it. >> 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 handgun. 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 a handgun -- >> 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. when you look at the statistics, many, many, more shootings occur with a pistol than a rifle. i am fully aware you have a mass shooting with an ar-15. the pistol is the weapon of choice for murderers. >> i understand that, 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. should it be? >> i think it's up to the individual the problem is not owning an ar-15, the person that owns it. again you do not go back to the how of why the when weapon is chosen. i have people with ar-15s in my neighborhood. it's the individual, themselves, that becomes the issue. not the weapon they are holding. >> i understand. it seems the gap is it is still too easy to purchase one.

should it be much harder to purchase an ar-15? >> i don't think it should be. what it should be is difficult for any person with domestic violence, mental instable. all those things, regardless. i don't care whether buying an ar-15 or a pistol. we have good, strong background checks on each person. >> obviously. we don't. do you think this background system works in america? we don't have a strong background check system. i think that's pretty clear, is it not? >> that's why i'm on the fix nics bill. from rural departments, we're not getting information from federal entities into that system. >> that nodes to be fixed. that's why that legislation needs to be pushed. i'm currently on it. >> all right. let me move to the russia situation. you are on the senate intelligence committee the one committee in washington i think is work income a bipartisan manner. your colleague anything russ king said the following. i want to get you to respond it to on the other side. >> my problem is, i talked to

people in maine who say the whole thing is a witch hupts and a hoax because the president told me. we cannot confront this threat which is a serious one with the whole of the response when the leader of the government continues to deny it exists. >> senator, that was on tuesday. we got the mueller indictments on friday the president tweeted about the mueller indictments 13 times since friday, including five times in morning, not once, sir, has he condemned russia. does that bother you? >> it does, because russia is clearly trying to advance their agenda into the united states the president has been very adamant to say he didn't clued. he is frustrated, people accuse the only reason he is president is because of some sort of russian cluchlths i would say the clear message here is russia did mean to interfere in our election, whatever way that might be, starting back if 2014, that were planning, organizing with other russians to get chaos into our election system.

>> did mr. king right, if the president won't condemn russia, we're sort of hamstrung in what we can do to protect '18 and '20 and also confront russia? >> i would actually disagree on. that i came occupy and spoke about it not long after it in that same hearing on tuesday the department of homeland security ab very aggressive, working with states under this administration to be able to work on election security. i had a bill with amy klobuchar that she and i are doing along with pamela harris to work on election security issues. 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 in states, getting information to them much faster. trying to be able to make sure that information is audible. >> the mueller indictment, the 37-page indictment, did it 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 ka lewding. that's very true. when you read through the entire document. whoever was writing the document was very clear. these were russians working, no american was aware of. that in fact, they made it very clear these russians pretended to be americans even in your onlynn persona. americans were not colluding or operating with them. it wasn't designed to clear everything. it was designed to say it was very clear, these 13 individuals in 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. i hope it gets resolved quickly. it's something we worked on it in a bay partisan way. we are working on a bipartisan report. we expect mueller to come out with his final report in the coming days. >> senator lang fordford -- langford, thank you for that. from his perspective from

burlington, vermont, senator sanders. welcome back to "meet the press." >> good to be with you, chuck. >> let me start with russia to keep the flow of the conversation going here. you, 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 mule tore 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 was kind of old news. it was what most americans know, that at the end of my campaign, when it appears 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. they were saying to bernie sanders' supporters, as they were by the way to black lives matters supporters, people 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 horrible. all kind of horrible, horrible things about hillary clinton. it turns out 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 is not in the campaign. hundreds of these people are coming on to his facebook site. i think we already knew that. it was an effort to undermine american democracy and to really say horrible things about secretary clinton. >> do have you an idea of how to prevent this going forward? this was a sophisticated -- basically they bridged the divide 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 just not the 2016 campaign. they intend to do this in 2018. i think one of the weirdest things in modern american history is you have every intelligence agency, have you the mueller report, you have trumps own administration saying the republicans want to sabotage the 2018 campaign. everybody knows this. except the president of the united states. >> yes. >> i think people are asking what is going on with this president? what we have got to do and i think senator langford touched on some of the issues front ind, front end, what we have to say to the russian, are you doing something to undermine american democracy. you are not going to get away wit. this is a major assault. if you do it, there will be severe consequences. we have to protect states and

communities to make sure their voting is not compromised. >> adam schiff, the lead democrat on the house intelligence investigation had some tough words in the obama administration. take a listen. >> while i respect the motive in terms of the administration, they didn't want to be seen as meddling, they should have defended being more republican aggressive at the time. >> it when surprise you, senator, that the president has already picked up on and that has tweeted saying even adam schiff is becaming the obama administration. he should have done more. in hindsight, did president obama worry too often about the look? >> look, obama was in a very difficult position. he did not want to make it appear 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. russia interfered in 2016. they are interfere in 2018.

we have got to do etching we can to make sure they do not undermine american democracy. chuck, this is a huge deal. we don't have a president speaking out on this issue is a horror show. we have 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 in south florida. after new town, you said if you pass the strongest gun control legislation tomorrow, i don't think it will have a profound effect 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, 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 believe 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 go got to significantly tighten up the background checks. we have to ends the absurdity of the gun show loophole. 40% of the guns are sold in this country without any background checks. we have to deal with the strongman provision which allows people to legally buy guns and distribute it. we have to take on the nra. >> thank you. >> i will do everything i can to, the tragedy that we saw in parkland is unspeakable. all over this country, pa irnts are scar-- parents are scared t death of within they send their children to school. this problem won't be solved. nobody has the magic solution. we have to do everything we can to protect the children. >> does that mean raising the age when you purchase an ar-15? does that mean limiting the purchases of ar-15s? >> yes. >> what does it mean? >> i just told you for 30 years i believe 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 running around the united states of america. of course we have to do that. of course we have to make it harder for people 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 it's more important to the protect the children of this country to antagonize the nra. are they prepared to do that? i surely hope they rchl. >> i have to leave it there. out of time, unfortunately, thanks for coming on and sharing your views. much appreciated. when we come back. we should get into the future of the gun debate. throughout this morning's broadcast, we will show you the names and faces of the 17 people who lost their lives wednesday in parkland florida at marnljor

stoneman douglas high school. it pays [ music playing ]

. welcome back, panel is here. cnbc's rick santelli and chief correspondent white house halle jackson and one of our national political reporters, carol lee and democratic pollster kornell 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 there is one difference here, it's the students. >> it is. that's the wild part in all of this. i think everything else follows the pattern we have seen after every mass shooting in the country in recent years and but these kids, you know, it's really interesting to watch them. they are basically saying to all members of congress, are you fought protecting me. are you not looking out for me. so we will do this ourselves. we will take action. the thing that's really

propelling this is their ability to organize and social media. they are calling out lawmakers on twitter and shaming them and that's different and that is new. and we don't know if it will be sustained. it's certainly a different almost here. >> is the white house paying attention to this? >> they are. the president spoke with for john cornyn about the fix nics bill you were talking about after the shooting. i am told the president is open to. that they can't tell whether he will support it. there are conversations about that. you show that is a place where you might see movement on capitol hill the other issue is the bump stock conversation, which the white house still, i was in that briefing room repeatedly pushing sarah sanders whether the president would support this. at that time what we heard again and again, it's not time for policy, down the road when it came up again, there was no definitive answer. the twhouts will have to answer to this, the white house will

have to answer to this. it will be a discussion on the hill. >> we can look at the specifics of what the policy debate should be. which is what gets into the background system check and all that stuff. but this is more of a cultural debate in this country. until we sort of break that, i don't know, do we get to the specs? >> well, it is culture. we need to get to the specifics. i think we also need to think about local versus federal. federal will take time. if you ban every gun in the world from being manufactured starting five seconds from now, will you still have this problem. i think you need to go to ginl boar -- to village boards, maybe work with veterans groups to see if we can get a neighborhood watch program in areas, 20 years ago they had high crime i think there the a lot of on the ground solutions. we have terrorist attacks. there was immediately activity to bring it to something concrete that can be done tangibly. 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. nothing seems to happen. i was interested to see the senator talk about wanting to work on this issue. this sound like the same sort of language going in after vegas, right. >> it sounds like a wonderful solution. >> then nothing happens. this is a town run by lobbyists for better or worse. right. there is millions upon millions of dollars poured into this gun lobby. which is a lot of why nothing hams. i will read you a couple numbers. 68% of americans from puig ban assault weapons. 71% support a government da databa database, including the majority of in fact gun owners. there is widespread support for this. this is not a 50-50 proposition where it's the people on coastal urban areas. my last problem is 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 urban areas, educational issues have been front and center for their voting. this is changing, chuck, when suburban white moms are as fearful and afraid of their kids coming home ast urban moms, are they change congress. >> isn't the difficulty here legislatively the constitution, with i is brett stephens point in the "new york times," he's calling for the repeal of the second aemtd. he says -- 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 hover, it is in our kouns substitution, unlike other western democracies. >> yeah, getting around the second amendment is not realistic. it's a nice intellectual exercise people might want to have. i do think there is some potential on the state and local piece of this, it seems much more ripe. congress is deadlocked.

they can't even barely keep the government opened. right. so the idea that they're going to do something here. they're also to a certain extent owned be i the nra the nra spent $55 million in the 2016 election. it's more than twice as much as they did in 2012. the idea that they're going to do something in this atmosphere is -- history doesn't show that will happen. also just the parties. the republicans are much strong on this issue. this is a top tier. for the democrats, it's not. >> nobody has lost, i can't name a politician, rick, that has lost due to not supporting gun control. but i have named politicians who have lost for their support of fun control. >> it's about right. and i understand, maybe we need more independent process for background checks? you know, i come from a training back ground. 30 years ago when i became a member of an exchange. they did an extemperaturesive search. 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 one a fica score if are you a good citizen. rate citizenship based on age, how many tickets you've had, if you get in trouble. instead of looking at the criminal side that doesn't follow law anyway, try to assuage people, this is nibbling away at their freedoms, nobody seems to take that approach. >> nobody seems to want to have a hearing. >> it's crazy, something has to be done. >> the bottom line is a philosophical difference here, have you the abolition of the second amendment, that is exactly what conservatives are terrified about. >> that is exactly the conversation they don't want to be having. there is a philosophical issue on this as you alluded to in your opening piece symbolic in a long way. >> corn emthe nra, i think her to great strength is how they remessaged gun ownership and wrapped it in the flag. >> be i the way, democrats have been more afraid of the

republican base than they have been the middle sloth of america. but i think something is changing, chuck, when you look at the way those young people are mobilizing the way the gun organizations are raising money, they're mobilizing now, if this is a front and center issue for moms in this coming election, it will change. >> all right. we shall see. speaking of those new voices, we will hear from some of them in a minute. coming up, not that it was a doubt. we learned how long it was to call russian interference to our election in the hoax. we will break that down, as i alluded to, we want to hear from students at marjory stoneman high school who are saying enough is enough and trying to get washington to listen. ♪

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>> > this is a no law that shod have been able prevent the senseless tragedies that occur. 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 were students at marjory

stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida. some hope this time will be different is that it's students, themself, speaking out. there is a call for a national cool walkout on the 19th nifls anniversary of columbine. five of the students from parkland, florida joins i join -- join me now. emma gonzalez, you were chanting no more bs. i will give you the first crack at this. it is now four days after the shooting, tell me your feelings today. >> i want to say 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 of people like nicolas cruz were able to buy these weapons and i think stoneman douglas is one of the safest places you could possibly be. parkland is such an amazing community. the attention is on us now. people are watching and, if anything, i'm very excited to go back to school and be with the community and 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. we're not going to let the 17 bullets take us down. if anything, we're going to keep running and leave the rest of the nation behind us. >> david, i think i heard you say earlier,ure not ready to go back to school until at least you hear some talk of change,

some talk. what is it that you are 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 for all feel 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. now is the time to stands up. so i will not feel safe going back to school until reasonable mental health care legislation and gun control legislation is passed. because at this point it's unacceptable him how many more students are going to have to die and have their blood spilled in american classrooms trying to make the world a better place just because politicians refuse to take action? >> david,ly let you have the last word there. thank you all, cameron, david, alex, jacqueline, thank you for coming on. i know it's not easy to do this.

we appreciate it. >> thank you for having us. let me bring in the superintendent of broward county schools. mr. superintendent, first, you heard from the 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, passionate and committed to securing a safe future for themselves. and this is their moment. this is their generation. and they are stepping up and doing what needs to happen and so i feel so encouraged that this time will be different. >> now, you've 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, 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, provide 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 entry. we have a school resource officer there. we will add more to it. safety is a community-wide responsibility. and we're working collectively with other agencies to ensure that this happens. >> you know, we have been learning a lot about how the system worked, dealt with nicolas cruz. there's times when i am reading about what the intervention and think, oh, the system was trying to work. right. intervention 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 work income 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 will 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 the school this week? 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 back on monday the 26ing. we will actually make a decision on that within the next 24 hours or so and we'll put an announcement out.

that's our plan now. >> i am out of time. i know you've had quite the week. we all appreciate the leadership you've shouldn't in decideing your students and your community through this. so thank you for coming on, sir. >> thank you, chuck. i'd like to just thank our responders the 1st responders, law enforcement, teachers and administrators for the immediacy of their response and the courage they have displayed through the moment. i want to thank everyone across the country for their prayers, their donation, acts of kindness, we sincerely appreciate it. we inspire our students. i will do all i can to support them and give them the platform, so we can hear their voice. thank you. >> thank you, sir. much appreciate it. when we come back, conditioning used to act after episodes of gun violence, what's changed? that's next. ♪ come on dad!

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>> announcer: "data download" is brought to you by lyrica. and we are back. day to time off the question after tragedies like the mass shooting in parkland is, will congress step in? answers in recent years, of course, have been no but it always wasn't like this. three of the 11 mass shootings

have taken place in just the last five months. contemplate that a minute. there was a time when incidents or crime trends will lead to major legislative action from washington. for example, in 1934, the rise of gangster culture congress passed what was known as the national firearms act. it heavily taxed machine guns among other things. in 1968, after a decade that assassinations of john f. kennedy, bobby kennedy and martin luther king jr. congress passed the list of those people who could not purchase guns to most convicted fem lons 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 armored piercing bullets. in 1983 and 1984 after a decade that included the attempted assassination of ronald reagan and outburst of work place

shootings, which give us the expression of going post am, we passed the brady handgun act, which implemented a waiting period for handguns and instand background check and also temporarily at the time banned assault weapons. these laws were not perfect. they didn't solve america. they were an attempt by washington to do something in the wake of dangerous trends. so what about now? since 1995, there have been 96 mass shootings in the united states, according to a tally from the washington post. >> that includes seven 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 are wondering, when congress will act, it may very well not be until politicians start losing elections for their lack of support for fun control. when we come back. what we now know and what we

don't yet know about the russian interference in our 2016 election. coming up, ends game brought to you by -- boeing, continuing our mission to protect and explore and inspire. there's a vacation at the end of every week with hilton. whatever type of weekender you are, don't let another weekend pass you by. get the lowest price when you book at hilton.com the markets change...

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end game brought to you by boeing. continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore and inspire. >> i call it the russian hoax. >> a hoax. >> hoax. >> hoax. >> might be russia.

could be china. >> 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. >> this 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, but belatedly, by the way, the 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, halle. what was amazing not what was said, president donald j. trump was been fully briefed on this matter. in all caps, no collusion. >> that's donald trump dictating that. that's him telling whoever put that out, write this in all capital letters. >> what's not in there is punishment. >> punishment nor prevention, neither of those things is in

there. that is critical. steven man uccellini steven mnuchin was talking about the signals from the white house, something is going to happen. but what's it going to be? how tough will it be? the other part is what are you doing in seven months from now in 2018 to make sure this does not happen again. there is a lot of discussion about it. right now the president at a time when he needs to be on offense is defensive. >> 13 tweets since the mueller indictments, five of them this morning. rick, none of them condemn russia. all of them defensive in nature. >> so, if he starts talking about russia do you think that would be a good thing? would people believe me? >> you tell me. >> hit with the newspaper so many times. he touches the paper and he shocks back. i can totally understand why he doesn't want to weigh in on it. >> he weighs in all the time. >> what would be the perfect

antonym? >> if you read parts of the indictment, it is stunning, the sophistication of what the russians were doing here. and no president should be so derelict in duty of protecting our country, right? you can't imagine any president being bush, reagan, saying what russia did to us and just saying, you know, no big deal. i'm not surprised by him being derelict. i'm surprised -- i'm surprised -- i'm surprised by ryan and mitch mcconnell because they're complicit here and they should know better because they have to do something. >> you know who the president is talking to today in florida, paul ryan. legislative authority, this is going to cuome up. what is he going to do? >> he's defensive in the wake of this. 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 intelligent 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 legitimatize this in his mind, investigation in any way. and if he were to criticize russia or, you know, talk about the investigation in a way that everybody else is talking about it in, in his mind it does legitimize it somewhat. one other point here is that the thing about this indictment is that it is only the beginning. this is one -- it was very detailed but it was a very narrow piece of this investigation. it is very specific on social media. it's not wikileaks, it's not collusion, and it is obstruction of jugs advertise. >> you heard langford at the senate intel. it isn't exculpatory yet. it just said, as you pointed out, rick, everybody connected in that part of the investigation was unwitting. >> that was the point rod rosenstein made repeatedly when he was talking, delivering this. the other part is when you ask does it bother you the president hasn't gone after russia, it does. what is capitol hill going to do?

it's worth noting in the white house the public silence from donald trump, he's tweeting about it, he's delivered a statement. he had a chance to talk to us on the south lawn before he left for florida to come out and say what russia did was messed up. he didn't say anything. >> facebook executives saying 56% of the funds that we're discussing here came in after the election. i find that highly disturbing. 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. listen, the president's whole eligibility as potus is being questioned on an hourly basis in all roads lead to russia. i can't understand it. nobody will give him a little room to think that this is a topic -- >> rick, let me ask you this. his own behavior here, not enforcing the sanctions. how does that not -- >> doesn't matter if you like him or not. he's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

why he should shut up with russia. >> you know what, that's just amazing to me. again, you do have all intelligence committee -- look, republicans actually said america was attacked by the russians, right? this damned if you do, damned if you don't, no, your job is to protect the united states of america. not protect yourself. the russians have the same -- >> he said things about north korea and china he hasn't said about russia. >> what he says and what he does are two different things. i don't know any policies he's implemented on russia. >> he's tried to cover it up and block it. again, i'm going to double down on tim ryan. there is no house hearings on this right now. dem ranking members are saying with why aren't we using our investigative powers. >> i'm going to pause it here. i have a feeling rick will be taking more incoming here. >> i'm sitting here. >> that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. happy president's day weekend. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

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i think it's safe to say there's been a disappointing week. >> understatement of the year from senator mitch mcconnell. this is "kasie d.c." ♪ ♪ welcome to "kasie d.c." we are live every sunday from washington 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. eastern. tonight conflating tragedy and political expediency. plus, reports just in tonight of a new plea deal in the mueller investigation. and later on, he was secretary of education under president obama. we'll get arne duncan's