thank you for abouting with us. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi chuck. >> hello. good evening. and welcome to "mtp daily." we are following what's becoming a familiarly disturbing scene. a deadly school shooting. a disturbed high school student, access to guns this. one at high school outside of houston where a gunman entered a high school carrying a shut schott gun and a hand gun entered the school and opened fire. the suspected gunman, dimitrios pagourtzis, is under arrest. he is a 17-year-old who attended the school and he is being held on charges of capital mird. witnesses at the school described a chaotic scene. >> nobody thought it was a shooting. everybody just thought it was, you know, normal procedure, practice fire drill. and next thing you know, we just

hear so many -- three gunshots. loud explosion. >> we heard more shots and the teacher screamed at us to run. so everyone started taking off. >> people were running, screaming, people were crying in fear for their life. just like any regular human being would have done. >> authorities say in addition to the two guns used in the shooting the ptd issed gunman also had explosive devices including a molotov cocktail that were found in and around the school. now the police have warrants to search two residences connected to the suspected shooter. but they are also proceeding very slowly because there may be explosive devices in those homes as well. think booby traps and things like that. the flags a the white house are at half staff right now to honor the victims of the microsoft massacre. president trump himself addressed the shooting earlier today. >> we are with you in this tragic hour. and we will be with you forever. my administration is determined to do everything in our power to

protect our students, secure our schools, and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others. >> this is the deadliest school shooting since the massacre in parkland florida in february that killed 17 people and spurred a student-led campaign for gun control. this is also the deadliest attack in texas since a man attacked a church in rural sutherland springs late last year. as of today, more than 30 people have been killed in school shootings since the beginning of 2018. joining me now is no.'s gabe gutierrez. he's near the scene right now in santa fe, texas. i know you are been running around gathering what you can. tell me what you have seen, tell me what you have heard, tell me what happening next. >> hi chuck. good afternoon. as you can see behind me

authorities are keeping reporters a quarter or mile down from the school. as you mentioned it is still a active scene in the sense that investigators are trying to find out how many explosives there are and trying to keep safe distance as those explosives are secured. they are also looking at two homes connected to the suspect, as you mentioned to try to figure out more of a motive here. what they were able to find, authorities say, is several journals that the suspect had where he suggested that it was his intention to take his own life as he carried out this massacre. but they said that the authorities were able to arrest him before he did that. now, as you said, he not only brought explosives here to this school, but that he also brought two weapons, a .38-caliber revolver as well as a shotgun that police say he obtained from his father. right now police are trying to determine whether thinks father knew that his son had taken those weapons. the 17-year-old suspect is being held at the galveston county

jail. he has been denied bail. but we have been speaking with students and parents here who are devastated. we are 35 miles southeast of houston. they have never seen anything like this. they had a school shooting scare back in february but never thought it would come to this. several students said they knew of the 17-year-old suspected gunman that he wore a black trench coat and boots to school. that struck them as odd. they said he had been picked on what happens even by some coaches according to some students but none of them thought it would come to this. as you mentioned, ten people dead, ten other wounded. families trying to come to grips with what happened. >> gabe, i know you have got a lot to do to prepare for nightly. appreciate your time with us. joining me now pete williams. i have a couple of questions for you on parts of the suspected news that we have that we don't seem to be updates on, the issue

of explosives and the issue of did he have accomplices? >> on the explosives they have found some explosive devices at his house. i would describe them as unsophisticated. things like a molotov cocktail and something -- a pressure cooker device but i don't know that it was fully assembled. the devices at the school, we have been told for several hours, were two people -- pipe bombs but we don't believe any of the devices went off today. none of the injuries that we have heard of are all gun shot wounds. several students said they heard loud booms. remember, he had a shotgun. if you fire that inside a building it is going to make a loud. >> it will make an echo and reverberate. >> and sound different than someone firing a pistol or even a rifle. one thing that's unusual about this is that it doesn't have many of the hallmarks of previous school shootings in that it is not a person that

gave off obvious warning signs. the teachers say he did didn't turn in disturbing holework. he wasn't complaining. he didn't have a history of mental problems. the only thing is he told some students that he worried about being bullied. and he didn't come to cool with a semiautomatic weapon. what the governor and investigators have said is that most of the gunshot wound were from the shotgun. and he had a .38-caliber revolver like you see in the old westerns. not the street smart ones that hold clips that can be more aggressive. they can only hound six rounds. it is unusual in those two senses. taking a gun to school can still be very deadly. >> this idea that there may have been other people -- >> right. >> this is -- this frequently happens at the beginning of these scenes where people swear there may have been a second and sometimes you hear something and you think there had to be a second person.

how much of that is this? or did they question a couple students. >> this is different than that, where people think more than one gunman was involved. >> right. >> that's not the situation here. they are trying to figure out the activities of two other people. one person who seemed to be doing strange disturbing things afterward which may suggest he had advance notice and another who was doing strange things before the shooting. what they want to know did anybody help him plan this? obviously it was planned well in advance. he had to build fwl the explosive devices, take them to school. get the guns -- apparently that wasn't difficult. he got them from his father. it was obviously well planned. did anyone else help him is the question. >> do we know much about his home situation. i say this because you have journals essentially saying i am going to do this and then i'm going to kill myself. the question i am going to have is where the parent. did they have a troubled family situation?

two homes? what do we know here. >> that's a question we don't know the answer. to there is no obvious answer to it so far. in terms of the warning signs that schools would look for or that police would look for -- he had no brushes with the law. >> it's not like parkland where after the upon everyone was saying oh, god, yeah. >> neighbors were saying he was killing small animals and that kind of thing. none of that here has come out so far. >> do you believe these guns were legal and they were for sure in the father's home. >> first of all, he, pagourtzis himself, could not have bought hess weapons legally. >> he is 17. >> right. you have to be 21 to buy a handgun. you have top 18 to buy a rifle or a shotgun. but it was not illegal for him to possess them if someone who bought them legally gave them to him. nor would it be illegal for him to buy it from somebody across

the street. you just can't buy from a licensed gun dealer. we don't know whether the father let him just shoot these guns, as i'm sure many people in texas do, let their children learn how to use guns or whether he took them without his father's knowledge or permission. >> use a shotgun to shoot as many people as he did, is that an indication of proficiency or not. >> no. a shotgun is one of the most commonly used weapons for self-defense. the reason is, unlike a conventional weapon, which shoots a single bullet to the target, a shotgun puts out a spray of little round pellets. so you don't have to be tearcally accurate in aiming a shotgun especially in a confined space like a classroom or a hallway to be legalities with it. >> pete williams with another story that while there are some different details, big picture feels like we have done this way too many times. >> oh, yeah. >> let me bring in jim

cavanaugh. he is on the phone. a retired atf special agent and msnbc law enforcement analyst. you have been gathering your own information, hearing the updates. in some ways, this is -- it feels like deja vu all over again even though we have different details about this gunman versus other ones. what do you see in all of this, sir? >> yeah, check, i think probably this shooter was operating by the columbine boilerplate. there are commonities, the tremplg coat, the explosives, maybe the fire alarm pull. the planning, the dark side of it. a lot of the shooters do obsess over things like columbine, especially school shooters, on columbine. and other murderous acts. the other actors might have been assisting him is possible, too. because columbine had two killers. that's one point. the second point is just all too

common everyday thing we see. where did the guns come from? from the home. 60 to 65% of the cases in school shootings the guns come from the home, parents, relatives, grandparents. so this is not really that hard to fix. >> right. >> we hear so much about responsible gun owners. but really, what you are seeing a lot of times is irresponsible gun owners. chuck, we just had a slaughter in nashville at the waffle house with an ar-15. >> right and the families are suing the father of the shooter who gave him the guns knowing that the illinois state police, the secret service and authorities have said we can't have -- he can have guns in illinois because he went to the white house and he was doing all of these kind of crazy things. so there is a lawsuit coming after that. >> okay, we lost you there for a

second, jim. now that we have got you back, let me ask you this -- at what point do we say to ourselves -- if you were at atf now would you be saying this is an epidemic? >> it's clearly an epidemic. it's absolutely crazy that we are as a country watching this happen time and time again. we have to take reasonable steps. you know, it was sad -- it was sad to hear that president's address today. it was empty rhetoric. there is no action behind it. he doesn't walk the talk. nothing is going to happen. we watch in in the face of parkland. it's upsetting to watch and tell those families you are going to doing? and then the next night or two the gun lobby pats him on the back, let's go, it's all done now. any intelligent thinking american can know what's going

on here. i'm not a political person, i am an old agent. and i am an independent radical moderate as a voter. but to watch somebody tell you that and then to watch what they do, that is not walking the talk. and the country knows that. unless you are a special interest with a special reason, the country knows that that's not true. so they are going to have to go to the voters and decide who they want representing them. it's not just guns. it's not. it's certainly mental health and depression issues. >> of course. >> and it also is school security, which is decidedly weak, chuck. look at this, this is horrible. i could walk in with a trench coat carrying a duffel bag and a shotgun in the classroom? that's going to be devastating. >> my guess is, jim, the only thing they will tackle is that

issue. they are not going to tack teleother issues that you brought up there. jim i'm going to let you know. our connection has been tough. as always, sir, thanks for coming on and sharing your views on this one. we are going to be keeping our eyes on this story. if we got any updates or live press conferences we will of course bring them to you. ahead, after the break, president trump claims there was a government spy inside his campaign. and he wants to know who it was. is he right? ♪ i just want you close, where you can stay forever. ♪ ♪ you and me together ♪ through the days and nights. ♪ i don't worry ♪ 'cause everything's ♪ gonna be all right. ♪ no one, no one, no one ♪ can get in the way ♪ of what i feel for you. overwhelming air fresheners can send you running... so try febreze one.

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firestorm. there are allegations and claims being thrown around about this mystery person or people, many by the president himself and a political war is being waged by his allies to expose who he might be or what they might know, custom the justice department is refusing to do. they are citing reports to claim there is at least one fbi representative implanted for political purposes in his claims, ostensibly he claims to frame him. it could be the biggest all-time political scandal. here's the president's lawyer on what they have been told. >> first of all, i don't know for sure, nor does the president if there was one. we are told that, we are told there were two infiltrations two embedded people in the campaign. >> it's unclear where giuliani and the president are getting their information, and we told. where does that come from? often is. here's what we do know and what we think how they know it. both the both and "new york

times" have had bombshell stories about this. both reporting at least one informant gave information to the fbi early in its investigation into the trump campaign and russia. summerish 2016. at least two campaign aides carter page and papadopoulos met several times with this intelligence source or sources according to the "new york times" and right now the president's justice department is engaged in a fierce battle with the president's allies in the house who are threatening to impeach the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein unless he gives them more information. at the same time the fbi director insists that they are not outing any sources. >> human sources in particular who put themselves at great risk to work with us and with our foreign partners have to be able to trust that we are going to protect their identities, and in many cases their lives and the lives of their families. and the day that we can't protect human sources is the day

the american people start becoming less safe. >> pretty strong words there from the fbi director that was appointed by president trump, christopher wray. joining me now, frank fagl au f. i have got to ask you, walk us through the process, the impetus by which the fbi would feel that they might need to -- if the president's allegation is true, infiltrate a campaign. >> first, it's important, as you said, to say if the president's allegation is true. and that key word that he keeps using or the white house keeps using is embedded, which is getting my -- kind of the hair on the back of my neck standing up. because it's highly unlikely. here's why. that would be incredibly intrusive. it would go against perot call

and policy. it would require the highest level of approvals to actually place an operative inside the campaign. there may have been a government operative inside the campaign but i don't think he was working for the u.s. government. he may have been working for another government. what would have been far more likely chuck was a couple of aroaches to either george papadopoulos and or carter page to determine the veracity of earlier reporting, including reporter from the australian ambassador to london that we have a guy talking about the russians having e-mails, the russians having hillary clinton's e-mails, and testing the veracity of that, and even, chuck, as the fbi does in stolen property cases, stollen artwork cases, stolen data cases trying to buy or get those e-mails back and see if they are out there. >> so the more likely scenario would have been somebody working for the -- would this be a person that would be working for

the fbi or working on behalf of the fbi? do you get the difference. >> yeah, highly unlikely that we are talking about a full-blown undercover agent with gun and badge. >> okay. >> rather what we are seeing in the reporting is references to someone who worked for the intelligence community for years. right? we see that happening. we see confirmation there is a human source out there. we see reporting that high level and intel officials went to the white house and convinced even chief of staff kelly that this was going to cause grave damage the reveal a human intelligence source here. and then i'm really intrigued by the possibility that some of these approaches and even references from director chris wray involved other allies, may have occurred overseas. that would put maybe the uk government -- maybe the australian government hooked up with cia if it's happening overseas and fbi, all believing that there is enough suspicious here to do something operationally together. that fascinates me.

>> the other part of this is that -- sit -- the "new york times" report indicated that outing the informan would cause problems with other investigations. so -- >> right. >> so that means -- give me a profile the type of person that might be involved in multiple investigations. >> again, when -- so a couple of things. we already heard the reference to a long-time source. right? a reference that this person has been working for the government for a long time. this is somebody who is well positioned.then when i her the director of the fbi and others saying this could cause grave damage that puts new the top secret category. who are we talking about? someone who is likely in contact with or even inside a foreign intelligence service or has access to a foreign government regularly who is life could be endangered. you don't want to give that person up. and the congressmembers who say they want that person given up are looking out for their own interests and not national

security interests. >> i have to say the way you have described it, my antenna -- i'm thinking, is this a russian double agent? >> could very well be. and no one wants that exposed. unless of course they care only about their political interests. >> all right. thank you for the explanation of all of this. very important that people understand the specific facts that we know versus what we don't know. anyway, sir, thanks for coming on and making that clear. >> you are welcome. >> folks, the outrage from the president and his allies over this alleged fbi informant is part of a multiprong defense that at times seems like it turns the raul of law on its head. if you follow the recent logic of the president's attorney rudy giuliani for instance saying campaigns can clued -- in fact he seemingly argues the trump campaign should. >> if there was collusion with the russians, they would have used it. >> which means campaigns and even should take opposition info

from a has tile government trying to meddle in our election? >> that's what you do. maybe you shouldn't. but you do it. even if it comes from a russian or a german or an american. doesn't matter. >> and following that, the argued now goes that it is a crime when law enforcement, like the fbi, investigates a campaign suspected of conspiring with a hostile power like trump's. >> i hope that this is turned over for criminal referral. and i hope for once the justice department wakes up and investigates something other than, you know, empowering mueller to do an illegal legitimate investigation.illegi. >> turning to david french who we turn to to cut through some of the noise sometimes that comes from some of our friend in the conservative echo chamber there. mr. french welcome back to the show. >> thanks for having me back. appreciate it. >> i want to ask about the

impact of this political fight now. that's what we are in -- it feels like we are in more of a political fight than a legal fight where you have the president and his allies now essentially arguing no big deal. even if everything that's being alleged is true, is it really that big of a deal? >> yeah, this is the part that's starting to be -- well, it's continuing to be truly disingenuous. anyone who looks at this issue with any level of seriousness knows for a fact that it is a problem to receive opo research from a hostile foreign power. there are two easy reasons for that. reason number one, a hostile foreign power is going to feed you information that advances its interests, which are opposed to u.s. interests. if you are taking what they are giving you, you are feeding into what they want from you. the second thing is, the vast majority of americans don't share the view that it's totally okay to take intel from hostile foreign powers to use in a

presidential campaign. so if you do receive information from that power, what they then have over you is information and knowledge that could compromise you. they could disclose that you have worked with them. and that could taint your decision making. so this is just all common sense stuff, but it's sort of being passed off as ridiculous, absurd. you get opposition research from wherever you want to. no. that's not true. that's not what prudent people do. that, yes, okay, i think we agree. common sense. b but as you know, it is amazing how the large percentage of folks in this country -- white? we are not talking about a small fringe. a large percentage of folks here that are believing that there has been just an amazing number of coincidences. >> well, you know, what's really disingenuous about it is the president by his actions is feeding the conspiracy theory right in a way that i think is

extremely deceptive and extremely dangerous. here's what i mean. the president is doing -- what is president is doing is essentially casting himself as the victim of a deep state when he's in fact charge of the department of justice. he can declassify what he wants to declassify. he can order disclosed what he wants ordered disclosed. but instead what he is doing is people are saying to him, mr. president this would endanger national security if it's disclosed. he is not disclosing it and then using the fact it's not being disclosed as somehow evidence of a conspiracy fence him. ridiculous. >> we would be laughing at it if putin would be pulling the wool he have our eyes using rt. this is all of this stuff on of the head. david, i would argue it's

effective right now who need rt when you have got sean hannity? there are an awful lot of people who are desperate to believe all of this is a bunch of non-sense. look, i don't know what's true is what's not. all of us have very partial information right now. >> correct. >> here's what i do know. here's what i do know. if the son of a presidential candidate gets a message from -- that is purporting to say, or that actually says, i have information to share with you from the government of russia about a plan to help mr. trump and to help facilitate his election, that it is not right to respond to that with, i love it. if somebody does respond with i love it, what that indicates is at the very least they were enthusiastic about potentially clueding with the russians. enthusiastic about it. in the face of evidence like that among many other thing we could go into to then say all this is is a witch-hunt, all this is is non-sense i think

strains credulity. >> i think this hypothetical is too much of a stretch maybe we shouldn't go there but i think there is a fear among many that mueller may have an airtight case but politically the president has so successfully sort of soiled the political playing field here that he can survive it. what does that do to the rule of law in the future in that scenario? >> i'll press the panic button on that after i see what mueller's case is. we don't know what it is. because i do think that if mueller has an airtight case in the way some people speculate that he does. again, i don't know. >> fair enough. >> but if he does have an airtight case, that is going to blow up so many narratives and discredit so many people that what you are going to be left with, i would surmise -- maybe i'm willedly optimistic is just the tiny hard core few kind of like what nixon was left with at

the end of his time. again that's all rampant speculation because we just don't know. >> david french, thank you sir. appreciate you coming on. there is a ton more news out of washington today including out of nowhere the president has his pick to lead the v.a. and it's, surprise -- that pick. that's next. this is bill's yard. and bill has a "no-weeds, not in my yard" policy. but with scotts turf builder weed & feed, bill has nothing to worry about. it kills weeds and greens grass, guaranteed.

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washington today that we know got sort of overshadowed by the tragedy down in texas. first we do have a nominee for the secretary of veterans affairs. president trump unexpectedly announced the current acting vekt robert wilkey is now his pick to lead the agency. >> i will be informing him in a little while. he doesn't know this yet, that we are going to be putting his name up for nomination to be second of the veterans administration. [ applause ] >> president noted he may have quote ruined the surprise. anyway, also today the trump administration moved to restrict access to abortion. the white house announced it will effectively ban planned parenthood from similar services from position abortions under the same roof as other procedures that are funded by federal grants. the move is long awaited by conservative groups and is likely simply an attempt to

curry favor with evangelicals in an election year. could end up firing up both sides of the debate for the november mid terms. finally, infighting among house republicans caused the farm bill to go up in flames this afternoon. immigration hardliners torpedoed the bill in part as a protest for how democrats are handling immigration bills. the president yesterday was pushing the house to pass the farm bill. that didn't work either. this is just the latest battle in an increasingly public fight between the house freedom caucus, moderate republicans, and outgoing speaker paul ryan.

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welcome back. let's get to our panel, carol lee, ram herb peru rue. and howard feynman.

all right. the informant, the fbi help here. the president's aggressive. this the president flailing at the end out of desperation? or is this just the continuation of what he thinks is a successful campaign against mueller. >> it seems like the continuation of a political campaign, with the opponent being the mueller investigation. this is mueller playing by the rules and trump not playing by the rules. i mean mueller is not responding, he is not clarifying anything. and all the while, trump and his team are defining him and his investigation. that dynamic politically speaking has played well for the president in the past. the reason that's important is this could wind of being a political decision if there is no indictment of the president and it goes to congress. all of this matters in terms of how the public views this investigation. the only wild card is if mueller were to come down with something that was so definitive, smoking

gun, very clear wrongdoing. >> you set this up exactly the way i hoped you would. we didn't clued here in that. >> you are welcome. >> the setup is just that, which is is it possible mueller, who is being such a boy scout here, is going to in hindsight have made a mistake by essentially playing by the rules because trump is using mueller's integrity to basically handcuff him? >> i'm not surprised by any of this. donald trump fromming has viewed all law as fungible and as politically movable. >> he learned that from roy kohn. >> i was told by somebody three weeks ago we are going to end up prosecuting robert mutualer. >> then we are a banana republic. if that actually happens. >> this person close to donald

trump. it's crazy. >> amazing. >> i think robert mueller has statutes. may i say that soliciting or accepting anything of value from a foreign government or power to influence an american election is a violation of federal law. donald trump has said i did not clued, no collusion with me. which i take to mean -- >> me, the individual donald trump. >> me the individual. donald trump jr. is in serious legal jeopardy. >> yes. >> and that's one of the cards. but as you said, politically, it is a whole different calculus. the notion that rudy giuliani should be relieved that donald trump might not be indicted there is long standing transition that you don't indict a sitting president. that was no achieve men on their part. >> that's just messaging. >> of course. >> in hindsight is mueller going the say geez, if i was going the

take him to a courtroom i would have won that fight? the problem is the fight is not in a courtroom. >> i think there is a little bit of a catch 22 here, where the mueller holds things close to the vest and we don't find out about them until there is an indictment or something like that, then we hear a lot from the president's defenders about how well he hasn't presented evidence that the president has done anything wrong. of course if the he were leaking left and right then that would be the accusation. >> he is using his integrity against him. weaponized his integrity. >> exactly. >> i think we should remember how unusual this is. usually when we have got a scandal that's consuming washington, iran contra, watergate, the lewinsky scandal or whatever it was. it is a one set of scandals now we have got counter-narratives.

>> it is the mirage of it is not a real scandal but they are trying to make it one. >> that's the allegation. that we need investigations of the investigation. >> on the political side of the ledger -- you have the legal side and the political side. >> yeah. >> i don't think this stormy daniels thing is politically necessarily helpful to those who would like to see donald trump held to account. >> i think that is -- right now, it has turned the corner to almost potentially helping the president create fog. >> doettle totally. >> on russia. >> part of the fog machine right now. >> it is a complete distraction. the question you are asking to me is the central question right now, which is is robert mueller making the same mistake that every political opponent that donald trump has had has made, which is can't figure out how to fight him everyone says mueller is not looking at the clock and he is focused on the investigation. to me the clock actually matters. this is the game that the rest is going to play. because the lasting effect on the justice system, if it were to -- if the president were to

win this debate ultimately, this political debate could be really damaging. he has shown he is willing to do anything for his political survival. >> this is my sense of why i think that mueller has to be self aware of how damaging it would be if he doesn't have anything. if he doesn't have it, he should have stopped this months ago. because now if the president wins this fight, ram herb, in the face of what many people might say is like pretty solid evidence let's say, the consequences of that? >> assuming that mueller is in the right here. >> yeah. >> he is trying to vindicate the rule of law and the norms we have all had against a president who doesn't feel bound by them. if he breaks those norms himself in a way you have already lost that fight. >> right, which is probably why he is not breaking them. but what if that loses. >> anyway. all right. guys. stick around. up ahead, impeachment proceedings are about to begin. but not where you think. we'll be right back. in these turbulent times, do you focus on today's headwinds?

or plan for tomorrow? at kpmg, we believe success requires both. with our broad range of services and industry expertise, kpmg can help you anticipate tomorrow and deliver today. kpmg. welcome back. tonight in meet the mid terms, impeachment proceedings that could have an impact on control of the united states senate are about to get underway. but they are not here in washington. they are in springfield missouri. a special month long legislative session is kicking off to weigh impeachment for the missouri republican governor who is facing accusations of sexual misconducted during what he

describe as a consendual affair. he is also use accused of using a donor's list from his veteran's charity for his 2016 gubernatorial campaign. if you are mitch mcconnell and you want this whole thing in the rearview mirror as soon as possible you know the outcome you want. the republican candidate josh holly pursued the allegations against his fellow republican by the book. but voters may see the r next to his name on the fwalt and tie him to the embattled governor. it should be interesting primetime proceedings in missouri today. back with more "mtp daily" after this.

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time for the lid. the panel is back. you heard earlier president trump responding to the shooting in texas. i thought we put together his responses. unfortunately, like his predecessors, he's had to do this already quite a bit. i want to play the responses

that president trump has given after the vegas shooting, sutherland springs, texas, and parkland, florida. take a listen. >> our bonds cannot be broken by violence. and though we feel such great anger at the senseless murder of our fellow citizens, it is our love that defines us today. my administration will provide its full support to the great state of texas and all local authorities investigating this horrible crime. it is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. we must actually make that difference. >> so, howard, what's interesting there is you actually saw, if you want to call it a progression, but you can see the first couple of times it was sort of -- distance, like not promising action himself. after parkland there is a we've

got to try to do something. today you sort of hear it again. but where does this go? this is texas. this isn't florida. so it's a different political environment potentially in this reaction. >> i think politically where it goes is more police and security people in schools. >> yeah, this high school didn't seem to have any of that. >> no. and the president has a set response -- policy response here, which is -- >> i'm told they did have some police officers. >> all right. but his response is going to be we need more people with more guns to protect schools. that's going to be his sole answer. and by the way, small point perhaps, but the fact this was a shotgun complicates the politics of it in trump country and elsewhere, because if there's a gun that people, especially in rural areas have that they consider part of their life, it's their shotgun. and that doesn't help the politics because it's not an ak-47 or ar-15. >> there is this sense of, i

think, everybody is -- these are just becoming more frequent. it feels more frequent. this isn't a case you can say, oh, we're covering it more. no, we've had these multiple mass shootings now. we're two giant ones just in the state of texas in the last seven months and that doesn't count parkland. >> it has the feeling of a contagion. it has the feeling of a communicable disease where people are taking encouragement from these incidents to do it themselves and it's spreading that way. i do think, and i think the media is getting better at this. unfortunately, we've had to talk about this before on this show. i do think the media is doing a better job of not sensationalizing and publicizing the names and identities of these shooters in the fear that that's one of the things they're going for. >> right. >> one thing that seems to have changed a little bit in the last several of these types of shootings is the idea that it's too soon to talk about politics. it's almost immediate that you're talking about politics or the politics or guns --

>> because it was all familiar. on one hand while pete was outlining some things that were different, the larger narrative is the same. troubled young man, decides to get firearms and cause mass killing. i mean it -- >> the question is what is the solution. i think the risk the president has is that he comes out and he says we need to do something. we're going to do everything we can and he doesn't do anything. he goes to speak to the nra, backtracks and then comes out and says we're going to do something, we're going to do everything we can. is he going to do something this time? >> that would suggest that perhaps the people who want stronger measures and want to go after him politically on whether he is going to have a massive federal program to give money to schools to put people everywhere. that's not the grounds that the anti-gun lobby is going to want to fight on but that's the one that trump is going to try to draw them into. >> maybe the one that gets bipartisan support. no one will say no to more security at school to protect their kids. >> after parkland in february

and after columbine in april of 1999, there was a lot of talk about the politics of guns changing in the direction of more regulation, more gun control. i just don't see it myself. i don't see the numbers on intensity changing. since parkland where we were told all of this is changing, republicans have done better than they were doing back before then. i just don't see that the fundamental stalemate we have on the gun regulation thing changing. >> look, i'm going to go to connor lamb in pennsylvania, your old neck of the woods there outside of pittsburgh. there were some democrats that thought maybe -- remember, it was in the wake of parkland and you had the march that would even convince a democrat like him to embrace the gun control and he didn't embrace it at all. >> they have redrawn the districts there. >> now he's okay. in that district he's still got to be pro gun? >> it's got rural counties, everybody has a shotgun and he's not going to say much. >> no, because it's just -- for democrats it's not a voting issue.

it's still not a voting issue in the way that it is for republicans. in that dynamic, you can't get any change in the terms of tighter restrictions. >> almost two months to that day in march and it feels like forgotten progress. we'll be right back. ♪[upbeat music]

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that's all for tonight. we'll be back monday, of course, with more "mtp daily." of course this sunday, if it's sunday, it's "meet the press" on

nbc. we'll be delving into the mueller probe at year one, but of course breaking news coverage of the texas school shooting continues now. "the beat with ari melber" starts right now. ari, i know we're headed down to a texas courtroom i think in a few minutes. >> that's right. thank you, chuck. as you mentioned, we'll continue the covering of this horrific event. we also have reports later in the hour on some other stories. there's a new subpoena from robert mueller on one of robert stone's top aides and we'll also discuss gun control issues later in the hour. as you probably know by now, the top story tonight is one that no one wants to live through. it is happening again. it is another mass shooting. it is another school traumatized. it's families consoling each other. a community ripped apart. here are the facts at this hour, 6:00 p.m. on the east coast. a shooter opening fire today at a high school in santa fe, texas. that is a town near houston, texas. the