hospital, we heard their commander requesting a list of their names over the police radio so their loved ones could be informed. again, the good news tonight, all of them have been released from the hospital. that is our broadcast for this wednesday night. thank you so much for being here with us, and good night from our headquarters here in new york. /s >> happy to have you here. i took a week's vacation earlier this summer, long planned. i took some days at the end of july. susan and i planned to spend some time at the beach. i was so looking forward to it. and then, of course, just before my vacation days rolled around, naturally, i fell down. i rolled over on my ankle and snapped ligaments, so this meant my beach vacation was now going to be a beach vacation on crutches. and there's nothing more efficient and more fun and more relaxing than crutching around

in the sand. what this meant, in practice, was that i spent what was supposed to be my beach vacation not on the beach because i couldn't get myself there. i instead spent most of my vacation on the couch. which meant that this was pretty much the view from my beach vacation. a fascinating new pentagon white paper that i read on my time off. it's called russian strategic intentions, a strategic multi layer assessment. happy vacation, honey. this is how i know susan loves me. it's okay, i'll walk the dog. you just read your pentagon white paper. that's cool. let me know how it ends. the washington post and time magazine have both in the past 24 hours published big new scoops about the republican leader of the senate, mitch mcconnell, and something that russia is now doing in his home

state. tom hamburger is the lead reporter of the washington post piece. he's going to be joining us live in just a moment. but there is something from my vacation, from my cozy couch time with my crutches and the pentagon's latest strategic multi year assessment on russian strategic intentions, there is something from that vacation reading that i did that has been really, like, pinging like an alarm clock in my head about this new reporting. in this new pentagon report that i just read, one of the main ideas is that russia is operating in a sort of gray zone in its efforts to try to get what it wants around the world. but also specifically to get what it wants against us, a mix of military and intelligence and seemingly private operations that are organized by the kremlin and that are designed to coerce us and to weaken us as an adversary and rival. quote, while the united states focused on executing the global war on terror, russia actively

pursued malign influence in all regions of the world to mitigate their inferior conventional capability. russia has a growing and demonstrated capacity and willingness to exercise maligned influence in europe and abroad including in the united states. quote, countering russian gray zone efforts are not specific to just the u.s. defense department, but must be part of a whole of u.s. government effort that leveraging all elements of u.s. national power. russia's gray zone tactics are most effective when the target of the tactics is deeply polarized or lacks the capacity to resist and respond effectively to russian aggression. conversely, countries that are resilient against attempts to divide their populous or apply economic coercion or to wield proxy forces, those entities can better handle sub-conventional threats from russia. meaning threats from russia short of actual old-fashioned traditional warfare.

again, this is a pentagon report. it is unsettling, right, to have the pentagon saying, when we look around the world, we see russia using all sorts of under handed tactics to undermine foreign democracies and compromise the leadership and values of other countries, to screw them up. but don't worry, there's a cure. don't worry, america. the only entity, the only countries that will really have any sort of significant problem fending that off from russia are countries that are deeply polarized. oh, oh, good, so we don't have to worry about that. also, the kinds of countries that will have a real problem with this stuff from russia are those who lack the capacity to respond effectively to russian aggression. also as a leadership factor, it might be a problem then if we don't have the capacity to respond to russian aggression. the fact is nobody much expects president trump himself to respond effectively to russian aggression, right? or to do anything to push back

or contain russia at all. one of the undisputed findings between what happened between the trump campaign and russia during the 2016 election is trump welcomed their help in trying to elect him. he welcomed their interference in their election that year because it would redo you understand to him. he's still trying to muddy the waters as to whether russia did anything at all, let alone punishing them for it. so nobody expects anything from the president himself in terms of the will to resist, let alone the will to respond, the will to harden us as a target, let alone retaliate against russia for coming after us. but it's interesting. as worrying as it is and as unpleasant as it is for us as a country to be so irredeemably polarized in our culture and our politics right now, there actually hasn't been a 100% partisan divide on this issue of russia coming after us. yeah, there's a partisan caste to how the two parties have responded, but even in this ram

shackle at times ridiculous u.s. congress, you have had some republican support. you have had some bipartisan supported legislation to, for example, up our election security efforts heading into the next presidential election, since the fbi says russia is definitely going to do the same thing to our 2020 elections that they did to 2016. not every republican admits that we need to shore up those defenses, but quite a few of them do. and so there have been actual bipartisan efforts to draft and push good legislation that would change our laws, that would up our capacity as a country to try and stop that in 2020. there's also been some significant bipartisan efforts on sanctions against russia, to retaliate against them for what they did in our election. sanctions on the individuals in the russian government, sanctions on kremlin connected figures who carried out or supported the 2016 attack. there has been some significant bipartisan support there. and, i mean, you know, i don't

mean to down with fate praise here, you ought to be able to expect that. even back in 2016 when the attack was underway, president obama was willing as president to brush back putin, tell him to cut out what he was doing. but president obama and his administration thought the better way to shut putin up and honestly to make the american public less susceptible to what russia was doing, make the american public more resilient against the types of attacks putin was targeting the american people, the obama administration thought the best way to do that beyond what president obama doing what he did was there should be a whole of government response, a bipartisan bi-camera clap back from the united states that would not just be from the president. it would be from not just the executive branch, not just u.s. intelligence. it would be the whole of government. it would be the whole executive branch, law enforcement intelligence capability and the whole house and whole senate, both parties unanimously warning putin, back off. get out of our elections, or you will face serious consequence.

the obama administration fully expected they could get that from the u.s. congress when they gave congress information about what at that point was an ongoing russian attack on our election. i mean, why wouldn't they think they could get that kind of patriotic reaction? this is an attack on our country from abroad, from a hostile foreign power. that is the sort of thing that, if nothing else, that's supposed to bring us together, right? it didn't happen, though, for one very specific reason. famously, that request from president obama for a bipartisan punch back against putin when he was attacking the 2016 campaign, that request was blocked by one man, one republican, kentucky republican senator mitch mcconnell, the leader of the republicans in the senate and still today. mcconnell said he wasn't sure if he believed the russians were really doing what they were doing. and besides, basically implied, what's the big deal? so thanks to mitch mcconnell blocking what would have

otherwise been a whole of government response against russia during the campaign in the middle of their attack, that clap back from the u.s. government didn't happen. also, those bipartisan bills i just mentioned, the ones that are up right now, that would protect the 2020 election from the same kind of russian attack we had in 2016, those bills do have bipartisan support. they do have bipartisan sponsors. but they, too, are being blocked by one man in washington, one republican, senator mitch mcconnell, who will not let any of those bills come up for a vote, even though they are bipartisan sponsored and they have bipartisan support. also frankly, the sanctions for russia what they did in the election, there was a lot of republican support for sanctions against russia in response to that attack. but once again, it has been one man in washington who has blocked some of those efforts, or shall we say, reasons of his own. when russia attacked us it wasn't just russian military

intelligence. it was also their spy service. it was also kremlin-connected oligarchs who seemed to have been kind much deputized by the kremlin to run parts of that complex operation. it was, for example, kremlin-connected oligarchs who were running seemingly private businesses who, during the campaign, took it upon themselves to stove-pipe russian-made propaganda to u.s. voters. it was oligarchs running ostensibly private businesses who were creating fake american political groups and organizing provoking artificial online fights among american voters. they were even organizing real-world u.s. protests in american streets to try to wind up and screw with the american public as much as possible, all to help trump's campaign for the american presidency, as much as they could, while dividing and weakening the american polity as much as they could. one kremlin connected oligarch in particular had a whole bunch of odd and strange

contacts and connections with the highest reaches of trump's campaign. in a state department cable from way back in 2006, which was leaked by wikileaks years ago, this oligarch, guy named oleg deripaska, was described as among the two or three oligarchs putin turns to on a regular basis. u.s. diplomats described deripaska's favorable relationship with putin, they described him it a more or less permanent fixture on putin's trips a blobroad. the same year as the u.s. diplomatic cable in 2006, the associated press reports the same oligarch, deripaska, as close as he was to the kremlin, he entered into a strange contract with an american, with the american man who would ultimately become donald trump's campaign chairman, paul manafort. according to a memo written by manafort proposing this arrangement to deripaska in 2005-2006, manafort proposed that for the low, low price of

$10 million a year, he would run a campaign to influence politics, business and news coverage in the united states to benefit the putin government. quote, we are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the putin government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success. in manafort's view, the appropriate commitment was reportedly $10 million a year as specified in the contract. the a.p. says they saw records of wire transfers of millions and millions of dollars to paul manafort in conjunction with that contract starting that year, 2006, and ending -- we don't know when. over the years, oleg deripaska and paul manafort would have a lot of political and business engagements together. manafort, of course, now sits in federal prison. he may ultimately be looking at a long state prison sentence that picks up after his federal sentence. as such, we may never fully know the extent of what was going on

in manafort's overseas career in those intervening years including his interactions with deripaska. we do know, though, by the time manafort took over as trump's campaign chair for 2016, for some reason he saw that gig on the trump campaign as a good reason and a good occasion to re-up his long-standing relationship with that kremlin connected oligarch, with oleg deripaska. one of deripaska's close aides told time magazine in an interview last year, when manafort became trump's campaign chair he owed us a lot of money and he was offering ways to pay it back. we know from the mueller investigation that for some reason trump campaign chair paul manafort offered this russian-connected oligarch oleg deripaska, he offered him private briefings on the trump campaign during the election, up to and including the still unexplained plot line from mueller's investigation in which manafort is known to have shipped deripaska a whole bunch

of internal trump campaign polling data. nonpublic proprietary information on the campaign's plans and strategy, particularly in key states in the industrial midwest that trump would go on to unexpectedly flip on his way to an election night victory in 2016. why did deripaska want that kind of granular information? manafort is known to have passed that data on to deripaska during the 2016 campaign through an intermediary who has himself now been charged by federal prosecutors, the intermediary manafort used to ship this stuff to deripaska is believed by the fbi to himself be linked to russian intelligence. so when it comes to what russia did and how russia messed with our election, deripaska is this key figure who is still a bit of a mystery. he definitely plugs into the manafort part of this scandal in a way that mueller's report essentially leaves as an open question. this is from mueller's report.

quote, the special counsel's office could not reliably determine manafort's purpose in sharing internal polling data during the campaign period. manafort, something, something, redacted, did not see a downside to sharing campaign information and told rick gates that his role in the campaign would be good for business and potentially a way to be made whole for the work he previously completed in ukraine. as to deripaska, manafort claimed that by sharing campaign information with him, deripaska might see value in their relationship. and resolve a disagreement, a reference to one or more outstanding lawsuits. remember deripaska's friend saying manafort owed them a ton of money. so deripaska is this intriguing figure when it comes to russia's attack on our election. deripaska is believed by the uss government to not just be highly connected to the kremlin and to putin's office in particular, he's believed by the u.s. government to have organized crime links as well. as such he has long been barred from getting a visa to visit the

united states. but deripaska is doing very well in russia. he's also the head of a huge russian aluminum conglomerate. when it came time to sanction deripaska for his role in russia's attack on our 2016 election, it made sense the sanctions wouldn't just apply to him personally. they'd also apply to his business, to his firm. seems exactly the way you might want to use sanctions if you really wanted them to have an impact on the country you were targeting and the people you most wanted to pinch. but again, if you were going to really go after them where it hurt, you'd want be to trust that your own country's leadership was going to stand behind it. you'd want the leader of the u.s. federal government to have, i mean, forgive me, like some stones on the issue, right? i mean, if you're going to take that route. this is a guy who is very close to putin and to the kremlin, linked to -- supposedly to

organized crime. in terms of his business interest, you know what? russia has a terrible economy. russia does not make that much stuff at all other than oil and gas. so it's totally dependent on oil and gas prices and its links with western oil companies for its economic future. but deripaska does have this big aluminum company and that's something. his big aluminum company is actually a substantial business interest for the whole country of russia. sanctioning that company would take a big bite out of the russian economy. sanctioning that company, i mean that might actually hit them where it hurts. therefore, perhaps inevitably with this leadership that we've got right now in our government, the trump administration decided to go wobbly on the sanctions on deripaska and his firm, second thoughts. just a few months after they announced the sanctions in the first place, that they were going to drop the sanctions on deripaska's firm. what was initially a really heartening bipartisan response to that was congress sort of revolted against that decision

by the trump administration. all of the democrats in the house and the senate, 70% of the republicans in the house, a whole bunch of republicans in the snooenate, they all got up their hind legs and told the trump administration, are you kidding? you can't drop the sanction. you just put them on. the sanctions were for attacks on our elections. congress got mad. there was a huge response to what the trump administration did. again, a bipartisan response. well, thanks to this new reporting out today from time magazine and the washington post, we now know what happened next. in january of this year, an executive from deripaska's firm, from his big aluminum company, sat down for dinner with an american entrepreneur. they met at a fancy restaurant in zurich, switzerland. the american guy was somebody who had had a little bit of experience dealing with the russians and russian oligarchs. in particular, he had previously

sold a u.s. steel business to russian oligarchs. but in january he was over in switzerland meeting with a guy from oleg deripaska's russian aluminum company. and the problem, of course, was at that moment that russian aluminum company was under u.s. sanctions. even though the trump administration had decided to drop those sanctions, they were under u.s. sanctions at that time. it was, therefore, illegal for any american to do any business with them whatsoever. as first reported in time magazine and the washington post today, we now know that the day after that dinner in switzerland is when mitch mcconnell killed the bill in the senate that would have maintained the sanctions on oleg deripaska and his firm. there was bipartisan support for keeping those sanctions in place. there was a good reason to keep those sanctions in place given what deripaska did, right? the trump administration said they wanted to drop those sanction, there was a bipartisan revolt in congress. congress stood up and said, no,

we're not going to drop the sanctions. you have to keep them. until mitch mcconnell stepped in and he allowed for them to be dropped. and now we know that within weeks that businessman from that switzerland dinner would announce that oleg deripaska's russian aluminum firm had suddenly dug into the couch cushions and found $200 million that they were now going to invest in a brand-new aluminum plant in mitch mcconnell's state. mitch mcconnell's home state of kentucky. the biggest aluminum plant of its kind built in this country in nearly 40 years. it never could have happened had the sanctions still been in place. mitch mcconnell is the one who made sure those sanctions were dropped and then deripaska's firm basically immediately wrote that $200 million check. and so, no, i am not happy that i spent my vacation on crutches and on the couch instead of on the beach. but i am glad that by virtue of

the fact that i was laid up, i had the chance to read that new pentagon white paper on russia's strategy and how they operate in the gray zone, because it is, i think, helpful to see this not just from the perspective of oh, my god, what is mitch mcconnell doing? but oh, my god, what has mitch mcconnell done? what is russia trying to do here that mitch mcconnell has just allowed to happen? here's that quote again from the section of the pentagon report that's called moscow's gray zone tool kit. quote, hybrid tactics are most effective when the target entity is deeply polarized or lacks the capacity to resist and respond effectively to russian aggression. conversely, countries that are resilient against attempts to divide their populous or apply economic coercion or yield proxy forces can better handle subconventional threats from russia. countries that are resilient against attempts to apply economic coercion will supply -- will survive these kinds of

attacks from russia better than countries that are not resilient in that way. well, in what way can russia with its crappy economy and its zero economic future -- in what way can russia ever economically coerce us? you can understand it in terms of like countries on their border, former soviet union, that sphere of influence they want to exert, cunanan tritz where they can use oil and gasz to really leverage the economies of those countries that serve the russian government. got it. but what can russia do to us to economically coerce us? well, skip to the end here. skip to the recommendations of this new pentagon report. quote, hybrid tactics are most effective when the target state has lost the will or capacity to resist. the most prevalent indicators or sign poifts they are vulnerable to russian hybrid actions include political and social turmoil, weak security

structures, and large russian investments in its key capabilities. the pentagon is telling us in this report from just a few weeks ago that one of the signs that russia is making progress in its efforts to undo your country is when you start to see not just weak security structures like, say, not taking any actions to harden your elections ahead of a planned russian attack on your next presidential campaign or increased political and social turmoil, not like we know anything about that in this country. hello, david ensenwie. the other thing to watch for here, the other big sign post russia is basically softening you up so they can leverage what they want out of you is large russian investments in key capabilities in your country. by which they mean specifically large economic russian investments in your country. that they can leverage. quoting from time magazine's new reporting on what mitch mcconnell did here, quote, critics of the deal -- the

aluminum deal in kentucky -- critics of the deal both democrat and republican say it gives moscow political influence that could undermine national security. pointing to moscow's use of economic leverage to sway european politics, they won this kentucky deal as a stalking horse for a new kind of russian meddling in america. shaping eastern policy in europe from the 1980s to 2017, that's what the russians do, insert themselves into a foreign economy and start to influence its politics from the inside. heather connelly who is a senior state department official under george w. bush describes what russo is doing here as, quote, a strategy from within. quote, you cannot go against them in a policy decision even though it's in our national interest when they have infiltrated you economically. one kremlin connected oligarch who is currently fighting extradition to the united states, he told time in an interview a couple years ago

how this sort of strategy works from the perspective of kremlin-connected oligarchs. he told them, quote, what is a factory in a one-factory town? it's what all life revolves around. we don't just pay wages, we provide the safety net so people believe us. he explained when he and his factories put their support behind a political cause or political candidate, quote, that influences people. that's what ensures electoral support. so that's why we nmake sure we run the factories, especially in one-factory towns. the short story here about mitch mcconnell is that he more than anybody else in washington has blocked u.s. efforts to constrain or respond to russia's recent attacks. that's why they're calling him moscow mitch now, right? but in this particular instance, his state, an economically disadvantaged part of his state, got a $200 million investment from a kremlin-connected

oligarch immediately after mcconnell personally stepped in to make sure that sanctions on that oligarch were dropped, despite his role in what happened to our election in 2016 and despite bipartisan support even from his own party for those sanctions. but don't just look back at this. look forward, right? i mean, the fbi says russia is going to do to our election in 2020 what they did in 2016. they're saying it's happening right now. no reason to expect 2020 is going to be any different. if oleg deripaska is still one of the oligarchs putin looks to to do his work around the world and given we know what he did in 2016, should we expect that deripaska is going to be involved in russia's 2020 election operations as well? you have to say the odds of that are better now than before mitch mcconnell sold off his corner of the state in this vote. after all, before mcconnell did what he did, oleg deripaska might have felt a little worried about participating in any russian attack on us in 2020,

right? he might have worried about those crippling sanctions that the u.s. government put on him at least for a while after 2016. mcconnell made sure those were gone, but maybe he'd worry that if he did more in 2020, he would get those sanctions back or he'd be further sanctioned in his business activities. he might have had to worry about that before mitch mcconnell did what he did. but now oleg deripaska's business activities, the health of his business empire, that's part and parcel of the economy in one of kentucky's neediest counties. this is one of the biggest aluminum plants in the u.s. ever. 40% owned by this kremlin-connected oligarch. you're not going to be able to sanction him no matter what he does to our 2020 election or whatever else he does at all. it would strangle kentucky in the process. there would be hundreds, if not thousands of american jobs riding on anything you did to that russian guy's company. or frankly anything you did to bother him. he now holds all of those

american jobs in his hand. u.s. government does anything to bother him, he can take them away at will. so you can't do anything to his company, not without him exerting that leverage over kentucky in response. and that damage has already been done as the washington post reports, as democrats have been clamoring to review that deal given all its implications. he is now threatening if they come under too much scrutiny by the u.s. government they might yank all that financing for the plant right now. they might just make sure that plant never even opens. you're going to put all those american jobs, hundreds if not thousands of american jobs at risk just so you can review oleg's deal? no, oleg thinks that's a terrible idea. he says you shouldn't do that. i mean, it gives this kremlin-connected firm and this kremlin-connected oligarch that kind of leverage in our country already. and in the wake of what mitch mcconnell did for them, this same company run by this

kremlin-connected oligarch who used mitch mcconnell to get his nose under the tent and rescue himself from punishment of the election attack, and ennis lent future sanctions against him for anything he might do in the future, that same firm owned by that same kremlin connected oligarch in the wake of what they have done in kentucky, the same guy who signed paul manafort up to a $10 million a year contract to help the putin government around the world including in the united states, the same company where the leader inexplicably getting trump campaign data during the campaign -- that same company, deripaska's company, has now written to governors in eight other u.s. states offering that they'd like to build an aluminum plant in all those places, too. as soon as they're done in kentucky. why not? worked with mitch mcconnell. it worked with the republican who controls the united states senate. why not do it all over this country? imagine what else they can get that leverage on. stay with us. more ahead.

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a mcconnell-backed effort to lift russian sanctions boosted a kentucky project. i appreciate you making the time. >> thanks, good to be with you. >> i can't help but see your story in the political context in which it's breaking. the story is breaking at a time when senator mcconnell is already chafing at democrats teasing him with this nickname, moscow mitch. they have been accusing him of essentially effectively helping the russian government in a number of his actions. because of how pointed this reporting is and how many questions it raises about his actions, i have to ask about what his reaction has been and what he told you, his office told you in response to this reporting. >> rachel, the phrase that you used a moment ago, mitch mcconnell chaffing is an understatement. he is absolutely furious, livid at the complaints -- the complaint, the nickname that he's earned, moscow mitch, and the suggestions that he is

compliant with vladimir putin. he described him on the senate floor before the recess, putin as a thug and said his career is replete with his examples of his taking on russia and taking on the kremlin. so chafing to say the least at suggestions he does not have a strong record in combatting putin and the kremlin. on the other hand, there are these examples which you cited a moment ago that democrats and political foes in kentucky are listing to cite ways in which it does seem that he voted or pursued legislation in a way that was helpful to the kremlin. he resisted strongly and, by the way, insists that before the sanctions vote that we talked about in january, he had no knowledge that there was a potential russian investment in his home state. >> and that denial is interesting. i mean, i think we have to --

further reporting to test the credibility of that claim. as far as i can tell, the company that is partnering with this russian aluminum company to build the firm, they also say that they were not talking to mitch mcconnell about that. they're saying they don't think there was any link between the sanctions vote and the decision to build this. but, on the other hand, you line up -- you line up the time line here. the former u.s. ambassador to russia in your piece tells you this appears to have been a blatantly transactional thing. mcconnell arranged for the sanctions to be lifted, in effect, and his state got a $200 million investment. is it rubbing people the wrong way in kentucky? are there concerns about this in his home state? >> rachel, you can see in kentucky as in washington a sort of strange bipartisan agreement on both sides of this question. we did quote in our story, state

legislature -- state legislator katie flood who was outspoken in opposition saying accepting this money taints kentucky. it means kentucky is associated with russo and deripaska for whom she had unkind words. on the other hand, we have seen letters from prominent democrats in the state who are endorsing this plant and are not pleased with any word, including the word you spoke about that occurred on friday, that something could go awry in the russian-based company's financing for this plant. i talked with a former attorney general in kentucky, a democrat, prominent democrat, greg stembo who is also a leader in the kentucky state house, and he was around for -- decades ago when they brought in toyota, which was a much smoother foreign investment in the state. and he's worried about this one, but he also says, like so many in kentucky that we talk to,

democrats and republicans, i hope this works out. i hope this works. and, in part, it's what kentucky politicians are having to do, rachel. on the one hand, is consider the possibly pernicious effect of a russian investment. and on the other, the impact in an impoverished area of having, as you described it, one of the largest -- the largest new aluminum plant in 40 years. it will employ hundreds of people in an area that has felt economically bereft and that is really gets us to the nub of the sort of political decision people have to make. we asked craig bouchard, the c.e.o. of this company, how he felt about accepting russian money, knowing he needed capital. on the other hand, at the time that he was having these discussions, the mueller report was continuing to investigate. they were looking at oleg deripaska's role. they were looking at russia's malign influence in the 2016 election and his response was,

you can't be picky. meaning, when it comes to revitalizing a distressed area of our home state of our country, if we get financing from a company that is offering to put people back to work, who are on their heels, we welcome it and it's going to be what he called and what the governor of kentucky calls one of the greatest moves in the economic development of kentucky in the entire history of the state. >> it's amazing to kind of spin the telescope around both directions. look at it from the kentucky perspective, and the russian strategic perspective at the same time and see how with a smart move you can line them up. it's fascinating reporting. tom hamburger, reporter for the washington post. fascinating story. keep us apprised. i know you'll stay on the story and it will further develop. really appreciate you being here tonight. >> thank you. >> big night around here. senator cory booker is going to join us here live next. stay with us.

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senator cory booker is here in just a moment. but before i bring him in, i actually have to bring you an update on some breaking news we've been following out of philadelphia. hours ago an armed standoff erupted in a residential neighborhood in philadelphia. police were attempting to deliver an arrest warrant for a narcotics related offense in a residential neighborhood in north philly. shots were apparently fired from the house when police came to serve that warrant. since then there has been a standoff, sort of just a terrifying saga in philly. it started around 4:30 eastern time. it's still not over.

but six police officers have been hit by gunfire in the standoff already. the six officers who were all shot have been transported to local hospitals. we are told they are all in stable condition. one officer suffered a graze wound to the head. that officer described in stable condition as are others. the major update we got moments ago is two additional officers who had been described as trapped inside the house with the gunman, those two officers have now been taken out of that house with the help of a s.w.a.t. team. police say they did take one suspect into custody after the shooting started, but at this hour police say this is ongoing and there is still an armed suspect inside that house. we will be keeping an eye on this as it continues to unfold in philly. that's the latest we've got right now. stay with us. new dr. scholl's massaging gel advanced insoles with softer, bouncier gel waves, you'll move over 10% more than before. dr. scholl's. born to move.

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...you can get comfortable doing the same with yours. ♪ want to freshen your home without using heavy, overwhelming scents? introducing febreze one. it eliminates odors with no heavy perfumes, so you can feel good about using it in your home. for a light, natural-smelling freshness, try new febreze one. this is jamie. you're going to be seeing a lot more of him now. -i'm not calling him "dad." -oh, n-no. -look, [sighs] i get it. some new guy comes in helping your mom bundle and save with progressive, but hey, we're all in this together. right, champ? -i'm getting more nuggets. -how about some carrots? you don't want to ruin your dinner. -you're not my dad! -that's fair. overstepped. joining us now for the interview is senator cory booker, candidate, of course, for the democratic nomination for president. he's senator from the great state of new jersey. sir, it's great to have you

here. thanks for coming by. glad you could come in. >> thank you. >> i had a lot of things set up and talk about the elaborate storytelling. i want to squu about task you a breaking news in philadelphia. this is an ongoing standoff, hours and hours, more than five hours at this point. six police officers have been shot. it appears they all have non-life threatening wounds. i want to ask your reaction. you've been talking so much about gun violence and criminal justice. >> what's interesting is the guy who ran the police department. to see my officers put themselves in the line of fire quite literally, have situations like this where you're going to a house, you don't know what's going on inside, i've seen some of the most courageous officers when i was mayor run into buildings where they have no situational awareness, encounter weapons that have no business being in the hands of the people who should never have had them. the voices here calling for the gun safety that i put in my very

bold plan are police officers wanting it to happen because their lives are getting increasingly dangerous, and we're seeing a prayer should go out to the officers who are recovering. the standoff is still ongoing. but unfortunately in our cities all across america, we see officers in situations in danger they should not be in and would not be in if we were a nation that had sensible gun safety laws. >> i feel like in gun reform discussions past, i'm old enough to remember the discussions around the first assault weapons ban. i'm also old enough to remember the discussion about cop-killing bullets, hollow point bullets. other sorts of bullets designed to pierce body armour. it felt like such an important part of that discussion, sort of part of the way that argument in the political sphere educated the public about these weapons was when law enforcement spoke out and said, listen, whatever you think about the second amendment, practically what's going on here is that we're being outgunned and we need reasonable restrictions on what civilians have access to so that we can be the monopolists of

force in our society. that's part of our constitutional inheritance. i don't feel i hear those voices from law enforcement in the gun reform debate. >> i'm hoping you're going to see increasingly voices from all over our society. because the insanity of this all, especially with the massive rise in white supremacist attacks now. the guy was a mayor in a city that had too many shootings. we lowered it, but lowering it, still too many, what i saw which gave me chills, when we got tips to do gun raids and found these gun storehouses, these were all illegal weapons that flow into communities like my city and many others, and you just look at these stashes of weapons and you wonder how can we have a society where this is so easy for criminals intent on doing dangerous things can so easily get weapons that do not belong -- that only belong in theaters of war frankly. that puts officers at risk. community members. and the thing i see is people having these weapons just

shooting them indiscriminately. this is where you see in communities like mine and other cities, bystanders, people showing you bullet holes in their windows, and it creates an environment so crippled by fear and trauma that on 4th of july in communities like mine across this country, you have people who hear fireworks and parents will tell you, their children dive for cover. they cower, they hide. we've created such a culture of fear it's penetrating all types of communities where we say the best we can do to our children now when they go to school in september, we can't protect you, but so we'll teach you how to duck for cover. that is a society that has surrendered basic freedoms. freedom from violence, freedom from gunfire, freedom to live without this kind of constant correspondent so in t cortizol in the back of your brain being released. so many of these guns are on our streets, so easily gotten by people who intend to do massive

amounts of harm. >> because there are so many out there already, i'm thinking about it tonight in philly. we don't know what kind of arsenal this gunman has, but he's been able to hold off a police department five hours and shoot cops. >> i don't think people understand what that means. >> yeah. >> and that there are people right now -- and we see this now. we see the horrible results like we saw in el paso. we also hear stories since el paso of people intervening to stop people plotting these kind of attacks. this is why we've released and i hope people will go to cory booker.com, a far more comprehensive way to stop what has been the majority of our terrorist attacks since 9/11 have been right wing extremist groups, majority white supremacist groups. we have a massive problem because of these guns on our streets that enable people who want to do sinister things in a way people in inner city communities that make so many of us -- i've had shootings on my block. as the only senator who lives in a low income inner city

community where unfortunately these guns are too often easily obtained by people who have no right to buy them in the first place. people like me who live in communities where we see shootings live in a nation where we're afraid to go to the mall, to a concert, to a house of worship. so there has to be an urgency to deal with this. the fact that we're saying things -- god, we used to be a nation where people died, four girls in our church in birmingham pushed us to change laws. king said you can't legislate people to stop loving me but you can legislate them to stop lynching me. the factory fire, we changed laws. we used to have this common empathy we could do what's necessary to give us the freedom from these types of fears. but now we see a moral impotency from too many leaders who are preventing common sense things from happening and creating a culture now where no other developed nation talks the way we do about the commonplace of what's seeing done today, putting law enforcement at risk, children at risk, families,

neighbors, communities, this must stop. that's why i'm demanding really everyone in this democratic party don't let the corporate gun lobby frame this debate. let's frame what is common sense and that's why i hope people will find out more about my plan at cory booker.com. >> i have more to ask you if you'll stay with us. cory booker is our guest. we'll be back with him after this. ♪ applebee's handcrafted burgers now with endless fries starting at $7.99. and get more bites for your buck with late night half-priced apps. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood.

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you see that transformation firsthand knowing that she had options that she could choose, helped restore hope. my team made me feel like a whole person again. cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. back with us now is cory booker. he is the democratic senator from the state of new jersey. he's also a leading presidential candidate. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> you have your day job in the senate while pursuing this presidential campaign. from that perspective i wanted to ask you about the leadership on guns and the national feeling about domestic terrorism, white nationalism, the threat of those sorts of organized hate movements movements, but also the weaponry that's out there in the world. do you feel like there is anything that's going to pass through the senate? i know the house can pass not only background checks, but more with the democratic control. can anything pass the senate, will anything?

>> so, i'll never limit the realm of possibility as a prisoner of hope, but let's be clear. the same actor is on the stage right now have denied time and time again what the majority of their own constituents want, what the majority of the republican party wants. there is overwhelming agreement among gun owners to say we should not live in a country where someone who is guilty of spousal abuse can then go out and buy a weapon. on the terrorist no fly list and go buy a weapon. we have a poor system right now. but again, nothing has changed. kids shot on their desks, shot in a night club, nothing has changed. my hope is we see this rising outrage in the country that begins to move the needles. i'm telling you, the 2020 election, people under estimate it, this is going to be one of the issues and i think it's going to see a lot of people backed by the corporate gun lobby booted out of office be held accountable. you saw that in the 2018 election, people openly backed

by moms, nra candidates and all the cases losing. so i think that this is a moment, a moral moment in our country, and the moral bankruptcy of those people who are representing corporate gun lobbies and not common sense. their days are coming to the end. if i have my way, we're going to bring a fight to the nra over the next months and years like they've never seen before with the will and the force, not in a partisan nature, but the will and force of american people who want freedom again. freedom from fear, freedom from this kind of level of carnage. >> i don't mean to get too tactical or ask you to be a pundit here. if that's your analysis of the politics heading into 2020, it sounds to me like the differences of opinion among the democratic candidates about what exactly is possible or what's the right exact policy to aim at in gun reform. might be less important when it comes to the general election and just the idea that the american public knows that the democratic party, if you elect a democratic president you are going to get meaningful gun reform. if you keep the republican party

in power, you're not. obviously you candidates, the 20 of you who are all running right now are fighting amongst yourselves who has the best and most progressive policies. are those fine points going to make the difference? >> i love what your question is because i try to remind the debate stage, we have common cause here. differences don't matter as much. for me i want to be very blunt. i've lived this nightmare. young kid sha had smith, we should keep saying young people's names, shot with an assault rifle at the top of my block. i've seen shrines of kids who were shot. the kind of fight i'm going to bring because this is very personal to me. i have seen the death and carnage up close and personal. it goes on every day in america. i know mass shootings capture a lot of attention, but every day hundreds of people are dying by gun violence. the victims are black men. this is something i've been witnessing for 20 years living in inner city. i will bring a fight to this

fight like the nra and the corporate alliance has never seen with a personal passion toe solve this crisis once and for all. i know we as democrats all agree, but we have to understand change does not just happen. it's not inevitable. >> good evening, rachel. all the candidates have different strengths but a range of strengths but i don't think there is another candidate who can speak with more authority on what we ju