before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, marie could only imagine enjoying freshly squeezed orange juice. now no fruit is forbidden. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? welcome to "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd on a very busy thursday. at any moment we expect to hear from the leaders of the santa clara valley transportation authority, the northern california agency that was the site of yesterday's mass shooting that left nine people dead, including the shooter. we'll bring you that live when it happens. we're also expecting to hear this hour from the family of ronald greene, the louisiana man who died during an arrest in 2019. the disturbing bodycam footage

of that arrest was released only last week. boy, did it contradict what the family had been told about greene's death. we're going to keep a close watch on that event as well. we're also waiting for a possible vote in the senate that could determine whether there will be a bipartisan commission to examine the january 6th attack on the capitol. and all of that is happening as we are seeing, frankly, new terrifying poll numbers that suggest nearly one in five americans believe qanon conspiracy theories. we will bring you those numbers coming up. but we begin in san jose, california, where we're learning a lot more about yesterday's mass shooting and the lives lost. these are the nine victims, the youngest was just 29 years old. the oldest was 63. police say the gunman, a public transit employee himself, opened fire in rail yard just as workers were changing shifts. they say the shooter then took his own life. as investigators search for a motive, they're also focusing on the timeline of what transpired

because as police were responding to the shooting, firefighters were responding to fire at the gunman's home, about ten miles away. our own lindsey reiser is at the scene of the shooting. let me start with you. and i want to start with this clarification on a timeline of yesterday's events because even earlier this morning on the "today" show, it seemed as if authorities weren't fully convinced they knew for sure that he acted alone. what do we know? >> chuck, we have some developments here on scene. just a few seconds ago we saw the santa clara sheriff lori smith actually walk back towards the scene with several other deputies as well as public information officer. unclear exactly what the sheriff is maybe going to look at or who the sheriff is going to talk 20, but we will be working to find out those details. meanwhile, there are a lot of details trickling in about what

happened here yet at the vta facility. sheriff's officers kwon fronted the suspect and he turned the gun on himself, no shots exchanged between the sheriffs and suspect. and he knew where his co-workers would be, and this is a heartbreaking sound, because he went room to room and victims were found in two different rooms. we're learning more about the weapons used. he two semiautomatic handguns and also he had 11 magazine rounds. now, there are two different scenes here, and i know we're going to go into the second one in a little bit with jake ward. but here at the vta facility, bomb-sniffing dogs actually picked up on a locker that investigators now believed belong to the shooter and they found precursory materials for a bomb, like detonation cords. and unfortunately, a sign of the times here, we heard from the

sheriff's office that they trained in that facility before for active shooter scenarios just in the last year. so we would be remiss if we did not also talk about the victims who lost their lives. as you mentioned, they range from 29 to 63. some, if not all, vta employees. these are essential workers. they have been getting people to and from work this entire pandemic, to and from the doctor. you're looking at photos now. and you're hearing from family members, jumping into action, truly heroic efforts to try to save lives. and the sheriff credited law enforcement for running into danger as well while the shots were ringing out. the fact the sheriff's office is so close, police department is so close in this municipal complex area, and the sheriff said that definitely ended up saving lives as well. more details trickling in here throughout the day really about

what went on here yesterday. we're learning more about the shooter. we are hearing from neighbors that he was standoffish. we are hearing from an ex-wife who talked to the associated press and said that he had a bad temper. they divorced in 2005 and have not spoken in about 15 years, but also said that he had talked about sadly tragically killing people at work before, but she never thought he would go through with it. of course, this is going to be a very extensive scene here. we've got two different crime scenes. one here and then one about ten minutes away at a house, where our correspondent jake ward is. a fire was set there. investigators working on the belief either he detonated something at the same time of the shooting or had somebody else involved who said it or somehow set this fire because the shots fired call came in at 6:35 and house fire about 8 miles away about 6:37, only

about three minutes apart. obviously heart-wrenching details we're getting here at the scene. we heard from governor gavin newsom. he was incensed. he said he was determined to not make this meaningless and used frank words, of course, what is is wrong with this country? of course, the largest workplace shooting in san jose. we also know president biden ordered flags to be flown at half-staff and also urged congress to pass some kind of gun control legislation, some kind of gun reform. so really just the fact that this active shooter training happened here within the last year gives you a sense of where we are in this country right now, chuck. >> now, let's go over to our correspondent jacob ward who is at the gunman's home. jacob, what more are we learning there?

>> i am not hearing -- this morning we heard new details about the actions of the shooter yesterday. it begins with surveillance video caught at about 5:40 a.m. by a neighbor's camera that showed him putting a duff bag into his truck. about 40 minutes after that, his house was in flames. they think he rigged something to go off as he departed, kind of chilling to put things in his car and drive away knowing he would leave his house in flames, or perhaps having someone do it for him. when we spoke to neighbors here, they described him as a very unpleasant person to be around. someone who would yell at you if you tried to back into his driveway to turn around. and in sworn statements, we heard all sorts of dark details about him.

>> and now the press conference we told you about has gotten under way. let's get to it now. >> when this -- at the end of our remarks, i'll have some information about our operational impacts and about the transit agencies that are providing mutual aid. >> i'd like to introduce the chair of our board now. >> hello, i'm the which person of the vta board and we represent sunnyvale. we have chappie jones representing san jose, margaret representing mountain view, marie blankley representing gilroy, mag lena cosgrove representing l.a., rich

konstantin represents morgan hill, deb davis representing san jose. she's also the chairperson of caltrain. we have lisa moore representing santa clara. jimenez representing san jose. ato li represents the county, carmen maltan yoan represents millipedes, raul perez represents san jose, rob gene representing los gatos and two members who are not able to be here today is joe smidden, representing the county and lorette ying who represents loss altos. good morning. thank you for being here with us this morning as we represent the

members who lost their loved ones in yesterday's attack. we want to support those grieving, as we are all grieving. we know there's more to come about today's incident but today is more than about that, it is about people. many of you reported the names of those who are lost. for us at vta they're friends and family and we want to honor their memory. abdul almond ran worked for vta as a trainer. he started his employment as a bus vta bus operator trainee in 2014 and lately became a maintenance worker and light rail operator. jose de jesus hernandez iii, age 35, started employment in 2012 as transit mechanic, later becoming an electric mechanic and substation retainer.

lars kepler lane, age 63, started his employment with vta in 2001 as an electrical mechanic. later becoming an overheadline worker. michael joseph rut med kin. paul megia, age 42, started his employment in 2002 as bus operator employee, later becoming a light rail operator, transportation supervisor, transit division supervisor and ultimately assistant superintendent in service management. gentleman bieb singh, age 36, started his employment in 2014 as bus operator trainee, later becoming a light rail operator. timothy romo, age 49. started for vta over 20 years as an overheadline worker.

and we learned late last night that ninth employee died of his injuries during the attack, alex fritsch. age 49, he worked as a substation maintainer. i would like to ask that we all take a moment of silence for our fallen workers. thank you. last night after the identity of our fallen employees was confirmed, i spoke with family members and sheriff and left them know we are here to support them in any way we can. and i have spoken to the family of all of the nine families. i will not go into my details about the calls. all the families are in pain,

but we're here to help. we want all of our employees to know we're all grieving together and we want to do everything we possibly can to support each other. if today or in the coming days, you need to stop, talk with a co-worker, take quiet time, do it. whatever your emotions, the pain, sorrow, anger, love, questions, these are all normal, but please reach out to someone if you want help to process all of these things that are going on in your heart and in your head. i want to thank all of the uni groups and transit agencies across the country who have reach out to vta to offer their support and help. i also want to thank the nonprofits and other groups who reached out with offers of support. it's awesome to see the caring and concern people are showing. it helps the entire vta family to know we are not alone as we go through this journey. i have just one more thing to

add, in my family a while ago, we started writing haikus to show different things going on and i wrote this last night -- our friends will be missed. serving riders makes us smile. nine will inspire us. thank you. >> i would like to introduce our acting general manager and ceo, who is also the general counsel of vta, evelyn trat. >> we get up every morning safe

in the belief that when we go to work, we will come home to our family and our loved ones. that did not happen for adrian, alex, jose, lars, michael, paul, hajibab and timothy. some of us get training on what to do when there's an active shooter event but not about the aftermath. and yesterday i was at the family services center, and i saw that aftermath. and i saw the immense pain in the faces of the family and i heard their cries when they got the news, and it was utterly heart-wrenching. and i felt immensely helpless.

yesterday i also received a tremendous outpouring of support and solidarity from the transit community throughout the country and from our sister and brother public agencies at all levels of government. on behalf of vta, i thank you all, and we will take you up on those offers. s as we start rebuilding and delivering on our services, because that's what we do. we are strong, we support each other, we're a family. but today, today i want to say the names of the nine people that we've lost, our vta family,

and i want to honor them and i want to mourn for them and with their families. thank you. >> next i would like to introduce carolyn, our incoming general manager and ceo. g-o-n-o-t, c-a-r-o-l-y-n. >> good morning. currently i'm executive director of the utah transit authority. so when i heard this horrific news yesterday, i was shocked and deeply saddened by the shooting at our rail maintenance facility. this is a tragic time for vta family and my fellow transit agencies and colleagues

nationwide are mourning with them. our hearts are with the victims, their families and friends, employees of vta, and all of those impacted by this event. i will be joining vta as the general manager/ceo in july but i previously spent 23 years here at vta, and they are considered my family. i was in touch with the vta leadership yesterday, and i was focused on the safety and well being of all of our employees. i appreciated the support of the law enforcement officials and santa clara county and city of san jose as we continue to learn more information about what happened yesterday. i support and echo the sentiment of the vta board chairperson ron hen zriks and appreciate his

rock-solid leadership during this time frame and the board that stands behind me in this trying time. i'm confident the vta employees will be strong to come together and take care of each other and the families of the victims in the wake of this horrific event. we have grief counselors stationed at every one of our divisions and we have each other to lean on. in the coming days, we will provide more information about how we can honor those victims and pay tribute, one of which is a vigil this evening at the san jose city hall. public transportation is a tight-knit community across the country and across the world, and tragedies like this deeply impact everyone. from one transit agency to another, we mourn in solidarity. my deepest sympathies go out to the victims and their families. the entire vta family, as we go through this difficult time

together. this will be a healing journey. i am very happy to be here to support this agency today and coming in, i took a flight out last night and i'm up to the task of doing this that i know will be much of a healing time for all of us. thank you. >> i would like to introduce now two employees who will be making remarks and will not be taking questions. nane singh is our light rail transportation superintendent and george sandoval is our light rail maintenance operations manager. >> n-a-u-n-i-h-l. good morning. i have been here 22 years.

i'm the superintendent of the lightrail yard. yes, i'm the unfortunate leader that lost my vta family members. words are not enough to justify the pain we all went through. i worked directly with paul megia. we shared the same office space. reporting directly to me. we all happened to have similar personalities and such a common effect on everybody else. sometimes my demands could be unreasonable, but paul always accepted it with a smile. always was willing to help his employees. they seemed to reach out to him for whatever their needs were.

he always had questions how he can help others. even if he disagrees with you, he would take it with a smile and accept it. adrian, what can i say? generous person, very kindhearted. he volunteered for stuff to make a child fund for his co-workers. and what i'm hearing from my peers, whatever happened yesterday, it shows the character of these guys, how they tried to save others while going through that chaotic situation. i don't know the kind of poker face i can put out as a leader

to support them. i'm going through a lot of, i would say confused emotions. i don't know. i'm angry, i'm sad, loss of words. at the same time trying to find out reasons why. none of our family members from vta or the extended family deserved this punishment. yes, all day i was there to support the families but i don't know how. even though there was an exceptional support from everybody level from state, county, union leadership, we were there to support but unfortunately we were helpless inside because we cannot provide what the family members were looking from us yesterday. i was able to hold them emotions with me the whole day yesterday until i went home until 7:00 p.m. last night. i saw my family heading towards

the box. when they hugged me, they were happy i was able to make home but i was sad inside that some of my family members were not able to feel the love that i felt yesterday. that's going to be missed forever. yes, i know as a leader i have to find a direction for my troops, and, yes, actually we will. but at the same time i wanted to send a message to my team members out there, vta family and everybody out there to continue to provide the support you guys are providing. i want the employees by being that support a shoulder for each other so we can lean and express yourself. i wish nobody have to be in a situation like this, to have a conference for this kind of situation. thank you. >> yes, my name is george

sandoval. i'm the maintenance of lay manager. all of the infrastructure you see out there, the staff that do all of the work, unfortunately, a number of them lost their lives yesterday. many of these folks worked here 20, 30 years. so, yes, we do become a family when we work in small groups and our staff responds to emergencies, you know, on the rail, what you have, and there's a bond that occurs and you really do become a family. and it's been difficult for everyone, particularly at the yard and, of course, families of the victims. and my heart goes out to all of them. i just want to say the support though throughout the agency, i have received numerous texts, emails and even beyond from the transit community overall have been heartfelt and when the

opportunity is there, we get back with our staff, i plan to share all of that with them. and reach out to them and try to make coming back to work as easy for them as possible. i see all of that effort being made for the victims' families and i'm very thankful that's occurring. i just want to let all of the vta family know the support that you're providing to the group that was directly impacted is very much appreciated, and that i get it, we've all -- we're a relatively small agency, so as was mentioned earlier, staff answer different positions so they work throughout the organization. so we kind of all know each other, and it's beyond just the facility you're in. it's agency wide, and it truly is a vta family.

i just want them all to know that, yes, this is very difficult and i know i'm having a hard time of it, so i ask if you need any help or anything, please, use all of the services available. reach out to one another and show the support. i just want everyone to do as well as they can under the circumstances. thank you very much. >> our next speaker is santa clara supervisor cindy chavez. she's also a vta board member. >> i too want to share my great sympathy with the family and all of our vta family today as they miss and mourn the loss of others and also face the trauma

that they're experiencing themselves. as vta works to help the families of the victims navigate the process in accessing various resources, we want them to know there are two funds that have been set up. i will share this with the community. so many asked how you can help. one is through working partnerships usa resources program. can you go to act.wp.usa.org to contribute. and the other is through the ail ma ga mated transit union, which represents and of the victims of the tragedy yesterday and they helped set up a fund for the families called action network.org. there's an outpouring across the country and we're overwhelmed with the gracious offers to provide resources, staffing, and really whatever we need. we've received support from the federal transportation administration. as you know, many of you know our former general manager is

now the acting administrator of the fda. she reached out with her sympathy and support. we're so grateful for all of the love and good wishes from everyone. it really does mean a lot at this time. i want to especially acknowledge a few heroes and champions. in addition to the santa clara county sheriffs and san jose police that responded to quickly, the american red cross, who stepped up as they always do in emergencies, santa clara county behavioral health department and district attorney's victims advocates groups who have been supporting the families through this process. and finally the county behavioral services. and please, if you need help, reach out. there are so many ways to get services and we don't want a single person to go without the services they need. thank you. >> next i would like to introduce san jose mayor sam

liccardo, which is also a vta board member. >> good morning. as the numbness wears off for many of us and the dark reality has set in, i am heartened, emboldened by the incredible acts of courage, compassion, support seen from so many members of the vta family, all the way up to evelyn and glenn. it is something that i think gives us all reason to believe that we can together forge ahead on this difficult path of healing and do all that we must do to support the families of those who have lost loved ones, co-workers who lost their good friends. we will be holding a vigil at

san jose city hall this evening at 6:00 p.m. to give all of the members of our community an opportunity to gather together, to grieve together, perhaps to reconvene after far too long apart during this pandemic. and together embark on that critically important path. i want to thank all of those in the community who have stepped up and given to the fund that supervisor chavez referred to to support the families, volunteers of the red cross. i want to thank county behavioral health who came out in droves to support the families yesterday, and the district attorney's assistance of victims team, they're incredible champions and supporters at a time of such intense need. [ speaking spanish ] spanish ]

[ speaking spanish ] our next speaker is san jose city council member davis. she's also a board member and chair of south crane. >> this is a sad day. we have been visited by a terrible tragedy -- >> now, let me bring in lindsey reiser, who has been following this press conference with me now. and it's been in some ways tough to watch.

lindsey, sadly, it's very familiar. while this is new to san jose, it's not new to el paso, orlando, it's not new to ft. lauderdale, blacksburg, virginia, it's not new to aurora colorado. i will lose track of these various cities. it's not new to boulder, colorado. i guess the question in all of this is as we learn more about this specific incident, it looks very familiar and, of course, the question is going to be, can we do something collectively to stop to figure out how to not have these incidents happen again? >> not new to this region either. the gilroy garlic festival, there are so many of these tragedies that sometimes we forget about some of them. and this one, this was really the largest workplace shooting in san jose's history. nine people have lost their lives. and we just heard from not only city and county officials but also people from the vta, visibly and emotionally shaken.

we're looking at the nine victims. all men, all vta employees who we learned a little bit more about today. some of these people have been working here for 20, 30 years. they have become ingrained as a family. you can just hear the heartbreak as they talk about their beloved colleagues that they lost. we heard evelyn train who just spoke, she said she saw immense pain at the transportation center. she said she heard the cries when she heard the news and it was heartbreak ig and she felt immensely helpless. we heard the vta board chair say we're not alone as we go through this journey. they still have a job to do. this is a major transit hub in the region. they're still trying to resume service back to normal. but we did hear the vta chair say to any of the employees, if you need a minute to take alone by yourself, take it. if you need to talk to a

co-worker about this, do so if you can. they have grief counselors available for people but they're encouraging everyone to talk with their co-workers as they work through this. we heard from a light rail superintendent, who's been working there 20 years, he said he worked directly with some of the victims. for example, paul delacruz megia, he always had a smile on his face. sometimes quick with an argument but always had a smile on his face at the end of it. inside look into the personality we saw there. and light rail ops medicaler also discussed the fact that so many of these people worked here decades and they're day in, day out in it together. they really do become a family. one interesting thing, chuck, she said in this press conference, they prepare us for an active shooter situation but they don't prepare us for the

aftermath. that is so incredibly powerful. oftentimes we come out of these shootings talking about who is physically hurt, nine people who died as rightfully we should, but there's also such an emotional hurt component to this, chuck. >> it is. and this is sad. these are people -- none of us will ever get a chance to know and that is something we all have to face as we yet deal with another mass violent tragedy that looks awfully familiar and yet to many officials in office, throw up their hands and claim nothing more can be done. when we come back, we have startling new numbers that indicate that qanon may not be just franth conspiracy. it may actually be a constituency. we'll show you those numbers next. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant™.

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welcome back. we have some alarming findings from a new survey that's out today suggesting that the belief in qanon adjacent conspiracy

theories in this country is much more widespread than feared, especially inside the republican party. the public religion research institute conducted a survey of thousands of americans across all 50 states back in march and they released their findings today. and here they are. first, 15% of all americans say they agree with this statement, quote, the government, media and financial worlds in the united states are controlled by a group of satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation. again, that is more than one in every eight americans agree with that statement. and the number is notably higher among republicans, it's 23%. let me bring you the next question. 20% of americans say they agree with this statement. there's a storm coming soon that there sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders. that's right, one in five of all americans believe that statement. let that sink in a minute. again, the number, notably higher among republicans, 28%.

more than one in four. finally, here's the percentage of respondents who say they agree with this, because things have gotten so far offtrack, american patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country. based on these numbers, qanon isn't just a conspiracy, it's a constituency, and it's largely concentrated inside the republican party. they're not fringe groups anymore. they may feel like fringe ideas but when 25% or more agree with theories about pedophiles and violence might be necessary to save the country, we need to take notice. to be sure all of the caveats about polling methodologies apply here, but, please, it's not hard to draw a bright line from this poll to what we are seeing on capitol hill. as of today senate republicans appear to be ready to block a

bipartisan position to have an inquest against the siege on capitol hill. i say appear because there's meeting today with the mother of officer brian sicknick. joining me is leigh ann caldwell and jeh johnson and brian buck with me. the i will start with leigh ann to get the latest on capitol hill with this vote. i know we may be here all night voting on a china bill and maybe that pushes the january 6th vote tomorrow until later, but what are the chances this gets punted over the recess? >> it's unclear, chuck. and it's unclear because of this unrelated china bill that they're trying to figure out, a bipartisan bill that republicans are reluctant to vote for at this point. we can focus on another segment on that alone. but as far as the january 6th commission is concerned, we don't know when this vote is going to take place. as you mentioned, the mother of

brian sicknick, who died the day after january 6th because of january 6th is up here on capitol hill. she said she can no longer sit on the sidelines because republicans, one after another, came out and said we do not want to see a commission to investigate what happened and the poll numbers that you just showed at the top of this segment is a good insight into why republicans don't want to go down that route. there's a large section of the republican party who, you know, doesn't think -- doesn't even believe january 6th is what january 6th is. and i want to highlight one conversation i had with senator ron johnson earlier today. he is, of course, the senator who has said january 6th was mostly peaceful. he also met with gladys sicknick earlier today. i talked to him about that meeting. he said it was a good meeting. he met with her because he supports law enforcement. he said his previous comments

did come up. he said they were misconstrued. there were violent parts but a lot of peaceful people that day is how he explained it. he said the former president also came up. they agreed to disagree on what to do about it. he's not going to change his mind about the commission and most notably, chuck, still, five months after inauguration, after january 6th, i asked him if he thinks president biden was legitimately elected on election day, and he said, he is the legitimate president because he was inaugurated but that is a much different question, chuck, than believing the election results. so you still have people within the republican party serving up here in congress, not just the house but in the senate, who still think that the president is not legitimately elected. >> right. leigh ann, that's become the standard answer now when a reporter asks the question, they say he's legitimately president now. they want to avoid the actual

specific there anyway. leigh ann, i appreciate that update. i want to chew over these results, jeh johnson, former head of homeland security, because this is clearly a security threat. clint watts, former fbi agent and brentia buck, longtime republican aid to speakers ryan boehner, among others. one in three, jeh johnson, believe a storm is coming. i can get into it with the republican party, we will in a minute, but how much do you look at this poll and see a security risk for this country? >> yes, chuck, i see a public health risk in this country because of the anti-vaccine sentiment that is expressed here. i see a homeland security, national security risk. think about this, one in six americans believe that the government is controlled by satan-worshipping pedophiles.

and i see a threat to our very democracy if one in every five or six americans believe these things, it makes it awful hard to try to reach a compromise on the most basic of issues, like the one you were just talking about, january 6th commission. so in many ways this is not surprising. i think we all knew this kind of poll was coming given the state of our politics, given the state of public sentiment right now and it is very, very troubling. i hope all americans take the time to understand this poll. >> you know, clint watts in the control room, if you can put up full screen number seven. the pollsters noted and separated out those who get their news primarily from broadcast and then they did fox and then they did farther right than fox. they separated out fox from the far right. as you can see here, it is really the far right sources,

40% that get their news from very far right sources, oan, newsmax and other social media sites, 40% believe in this satan-worshipping pedophile business. 18% among fox news viewers and 8% that get it from traditional broadcast networks. clint, we noted for a long time social media is sort of the accelerant here but we're now seeing this sort of impact. >> that's right, chuck. without social media, there's no qanon. it is social media phenomenon. right along with the far right sources, those far right sources, the next question really was how much of it comes from television. a large chunk of those don't even get their news from television. this means the online space, they have to be getting it from social media. i think that's what we find, this polarization like secretary johnson was talking about, if we can't identify what facts are, if we don't have common ground, there's no middle, there's no

democracy. we have to govern for a back centered reality like qanon and it's just not real. the other part that's deeply frightening about this survey and what we saw january 6th, when we are talking about influences in social media, we want to see is it just noise or does it result in behavior change ? we know it results in behavior change because we saw he things like jn 6th, people not showing up to get their vaccines. that is a behavior change for things like qanon, something that is completely fictitious and made up by unknown people. literally, we don't know who they are. if people are committed to that belief system, it quickly breaks down the gears of democracy. it's hard to move forward as a country, and it's very hard to govern. >> brendan bach, i know you saw some number. this is greater among republicans.

it feels like a bigger problem inside the republican party than nation as a whole. but what do you do about this virus? this is like a quarter of the party. >> yeah, it's really hard. i think it flows out of for many years the republican orthodoxy was the media is against them so a lot of people went out and sort of created their own media ecosystem. some of it, i think, is human nature, confirmation bias. you want 20 believe what you want to believe. but at some point people stop acting in good faith and there became outlets where anything goes, so people are drawn to that. it's completely corrupted our ability to govern. let's look at the commission bill, for example, that leigh ann was talking about. there's a poll out this week that shows a clear majority of republicans believe that that riot was led by left wing activists trying to make donald trump look bad. they're not just making that up. that's a conversation taking place and none of us are seeing,

unless you are watching, those far right networks. look, how do we get out of this? i don't know. i used to think that you needed something truly catastrophic to happen, and that would fix it. well, that 6th and things haven't gotten better. you know, perhaps politically the best thing we can hope for is that people perhaps like marjorie taylor green who tend to subscribe this stuff lose their reelection because this becomes so toxic, but right now there's no evidence that that is happening. >> so jeh johnson, if you were at dhs today, what would you be doing to deal with what is -- the way clint described it, we have -- we have this social media influence operation that may be able to spark violence. what would you be doing right now at dhs? >> my last year in office 2016 we got funding from congress for grants to local organizations

that would address violent extremism back then given the current threat environment we were focused principally on foreign-inspired terrorist acts, but we also put money aside for domestic-based violent extremism. i would much more focus on that. there are groups in this country devoted to deradicalization, domestic-based type, and i would want to highlight those groups and fund their efforts. that would be priority number one, as well as ensuring that our law enforcement and our intelligence communities are focused on this threat stream because it is a big one. >> clint watts, i'm curious. qanon has actually gone silent ever since ron -- the gentleman ron watkins who is the moderator was sort of fingered in that hbo documentary, he's clearly gone silent, whether he is definitely

qanon or not it certainly -- it doesn't look like it's more than a coincident that he has stopped or qanon has stopped giving -- giving these clues or whatever you want to call them, but it hasn't stopped the movement, which is really scary. >> the most understudied part is the demand for disinformation. it's what i -- you know, my own personal process, you know, many years now going back to about 2014 watching russian disinformation become overwhelmed by american disinformation and these conspiracy theories. what i realize is that people because of social media can manufacture, they can find, they can create and share, they can find their own belief system if they want to and social media is the connective tissue that allows them to do that. the other part of it is why do people demand this? you know, why are they speaking this out? and the tendency is if they believe one conspiracy they will

believe many. it's almost a play on where we go one we go all qanon motto which is it is more about community, it's about the demand for disinformation and the quest to create a real i have that conforms to what they want. i think there is deep psychological research we have to look at in terms of how that plays out with confirmation bias and implicit bias on social media. >> let me put up full scene number 8. among these folks nearly 40% believe a covid vaccine contains a microchip. 85% believe covid was manufactured in a lab. you know, brendan buck, there's always a debate about whether donald trump is the cause or he's just the inevitable result of what was festering for years. where do you come down on that? >> a bit of both, but i definitely think that he is a symptom of something bigger that was going on, but you still

would expect that someone who is elected president of the united states would try to be part of the solution and he clearly wasn't. he certainly fed into these crazy notions. look, i don't want -- i would not suggest that qanon is any part of republican orthodoxy or leaders believe it or anything like that, but the challenge that republicans have is that there's no real incentive to try to purge it out, to try to fight it and one of those things i think stems from the political calculation that donald trump made which is to bank everything on a demographic that is shrinking and we call it white working class voters. when you are building everything around white working class voters you don't have a lot of margin to throw people overboard. so there is not a lot of incentive, not a lot of room for error for republican leaders to try to purge people out and i think one of the ways you would fight this is to see leaders pushing them out but they just don't have the incentive to do that. >> clint, who would be effective here? i mean, you know, look, brendan

buck's former -- i will joke once and future and former boss paul ryan, he is at the reagan library, he's certainly denouncing this form, wants the republican party to move in another direction, but at the end of the day no matter what mcconnell or ryan, i mean, if donald trump is the one sort of saying, well, i know the qanon people don't like pedophiles, i don't like pedophiles, either, i mean, until he denounces it, does this not go away? >> there's two ways to look at it, chuck, i think the easiest way and the most significant way is to have donald trump really either come out and say, hey, this is nonsense and i don't believe in it, or the other way is to really try and take truth on offense. we still are in a very traditional way of putting out official messages and official statements from the government, but the whole impetus around this crowd source crazy of qanon is that it is socially constructed to repel elites, to

repel the establishment. which means you really have to think about unwinding social media which means you need to get there quickly and you need to get there in their local communities from people that look like them and talk like them in their audience space. i think that's critical particularly in the -- >> right. >> where you're seeing success it is from doctors local going out and doing the messaging or election officials like in georgia going out and doing that fight and resisting. >> right. well, look, we rarely spend 20 minutes on a single topic like this, but clint watts, jeh johnson, brendan buck, i think we could have gone another ten at least. thanks for your time with this and thank you all for spending the hour with us. again, i implore folks, take these numbers seriously, we have all got to figure out how to do something like this. it may be you can't get rid of the pollution but you can dilute it and figure out how to get these messages from being mainstream. we will be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." "m"

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♪♪ it's great to see you, i'm geoff bennett in for katy tur. we're expecting the president to speak at a community college in ohio. he will address the economy but these will be his first public remarks since the latest mass shooting in america. the death toll in that attack at a rail yard in san jose, california, now stands at nine. the victims gunned down during the busy change between shifts yesterday range in age from 29 to 63. last hour we heard from officials at the valley transportation authority about those who were killed. >> many of you have reported the names of the employees who were lost. to us here at vta they are friends and our family. and we want to honor their memory. we want all of our employees to know we are all grieving together and we want to do everything we possibly