we're going to spend some time talking about that tonight. it is a story that i think everybody in this country is watching very, very closely. so thank you very much, my friend. enjoy the rest of your evening. and good evening and welcome to you at home. i'm ayman mohyeldin. tonight nearly 200,000 are without power this afternoon after a devastating outbreak of tornados swept through parts of the midwest and tennessee river valley parts. overnight in kentucky alone officials are estimating that the death toll could actually reach at least 100. we are going to bring you the very latest on that breaking news story throughout the next two hours as it continues to develop. meanwhile the january 6th insurrection failed to overturn the 2020 election, but next time democracy might not be so lucky. congressman ted liu, joins me to discuss that. then the very latest school shooting in michigan has reignited debates over the effectiveness of school shooter drills. we're going to take a look at whether they might actually be

doing more harm than good. i'm ayman mohyeldin. let's get started. all right, we begin this hour with that breaking news we were just talking about as we follow the developments after a devastating series of tornados that ripped across six states in the south and midwest. in kentucky alone a federal emergency has been declared there as search and rescue operations continue. tragically as many as 100 people are feared dead at this hour. initial reports suggesting one of the dozens of twisters that touched down could be the longest recorded in u.s. history. earlier this evening president biden expressed his condolences for those affected by this storm. >> i pray and i sincerely mean this pray for those who lost loved ones and for those uncertain of the fate of their

loved ones. and the debris that you see scattered all over the hurricane's path. they lost their homes. they lost their businesses. it's a tragedy. and its a tragedy. and we still don't know how many lives were lost or the full extent of the damage. but i want to emphasize what i told all the governors, the federal government will do everything -- everything it can possibly do to help. >> all right, so we're going to continue to update you with the very latest developments as they come in on those storms. but we are now going to turn to washington, d.c. where new details came to light this week about the january 6th committee's investigation into mark meadows. of course, meadows served as trump's final chief of staff in office. he has even turned over to the committee 36-page powerpoint presentations titled "election fraud," "foreign interference" and options for january 6th. that is the title of that document, blorpt. the document called for deploying u.s. marshals to

secure ballots which then would have been recounted by national guard troops around the country. now, meadows was far from the only republican official who seemed open to overthrowing our democracy. i've got a number for you. 147 to be exact, 8 senators and 139 representatives. that -- that's the number of elected republican lawmakers who actually voted to overturn the election results after -- after the riot at the capitol. 147 republicans who saw the violence at the capitol that day in realtime and then said, yeah, this is fine. you'll remember that event of -- you know, the events of january 6th only happened after former president trump fumbled his way through an attempt to overturn the election results. now, that was trump and his allies last ditch effort to prevent joe biden from becoming president. but make no mistake about it. it won't be their last. while trump failed in 2020, the

groundwork is being laid for 2024 and beyond right in front of our very eyes today. take georgia, for example. after biden won there, the republican-controlled state legislator passed strict new election and voting laws. the republicans are now using those laws to take control of county election boards, pushing democratic members off the committee and replacing them with republicans. just last november georgia's republican secretary of state, brad raffensperger, refused to back down when trump pressured him to find 11,000 votes. now raffensperger faces a primary challenge from a trump-backed candidate. so, too, does georgia governor brian kemp. both of the trump-backed candidates, guess what? they're proponents of the big lie. all the repetition of the big lie from trump, maga media, elected republicans has only gone onto solidify the misbelief

among trump's base and the majority of republicans that this election was stolen. we've said this before but according to polling from the prri, 68% of republicans mostly or completely agree that the election was stolen. 68%. that same poll also finding that among the group of people 39% believe, quote, true american patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save our country. so, yes, trump's coup failed in 2020. i mean, how could it not when these guys are running your legal team? but, what about the 2028 election, the 2032 election and on and on and on? think about it. how would 2020 have played with a smarter politician, someone savvier at the top. so it's likely the next

insurrection and the one after that might involve a maga mob storming the capitol at all. in fact, in the future republicans might as well put together a powerpoint presentation called how to overturn an election without really trying. because with the groundwork that they are laying right now, they won't even need to. joining me now to discuss the insurrection attempts both in the past, present and future, josh gerstein, senior political reporter for politico. before we get into the developments in the january 6th committee's investigation, i wanted to get your thoughts on what could almost be called an insurrection in plain sight from trump and his allies nationwide. you know, as a legal expert, i'm just curious here, does it look to you like the stage is being set for republicans to mount stronger legal challenges in 2024 and beyond, that they're doing this in a way that doesn't require a mob storming the capitol because they are doing it behind the scenes in places

like georgia and elsewhere? >> yeah, ayman. i mean, i think some of it i would describe as setting up a situation that's almost extra legal or certainly extra judicial. by which i mean they're trying to put in boards and commissions in places like georgia where republican office holders, people who are loyal to the republican party, would essentially have control over the election results. and we saw almost an attempt to do this during the last election, but you can easily see those boards are sort of filled with people who are willing to take on any kind of ridiculous protest and cancel the election results. the chaos we could have in this country could really be unbelievable. it might not even be necessary for the republicans to turn to court action in order to try to pronounce themselves the winner. >> yeah, it seems like they're engaging in a preemptive strike on elections and election outcomes by making sure that at

any point in the process they have the ability to just toss out votes and determine the winner on their own even before it gets to the house of representatives for that certification process. let's talk a little bit about january 6th here and the committee, if we can. they're now in the possession of a powerpoint from former trump chief of staff mark meadows. and the document alleges china had compromised our election systems and even includes a plan to have trump declare a national emergency to delay the certification of election results. this is somewhat third-world authoritarianism play book stuff. and even had a snappy catchphrase, clear the air, count and compare. and now you have a lawyer for meadows basically saying that his client didn't write the document, someone else did. it was sent to him. what's your read on this document? it all seems pretty far-fetched until you think about what actually did happen the next day. >> right. i mean, it's not surprising that people were circulating these

kinds of plans. in fact, a version of this powerpoint, something very similar came out around january 5th publicly. and we know that republican members of the house had some kind of briefing on it i believe on january 5th. and so what's news here really is that it was also in the e-mail box of mark meadows, the white house chief of staff. and his lawyer says maybe he didn't do anything with it or he didn't seriously entertain it, but mark meadows' role in memos we've seen that have come out from the justice department looks like it was something would be brought to president trump, president trump would say, hey, send it to meadows, talk to meadows about it. and then meadows would get someone else in the government to pick up on it. you may remember, ayman, there was a similar kind of plan that was put forward, discussions of fraud and claims of fraud in various states that was sent over to the justice department, and one of the sort of loyal republican top aides in the justice department cept an e-mail to a colleague after

meadows sent this over describing it as, quote, pure insanity. so we don't exactly know what meadows is doing with all these things, and i wouldn't be surprised if he was, in fact, seriously entertaining some things that are perhaps asx treme as this powerpoint presentation even if he didn't advance this one. >> to play off of that for a moment, you have "the washington post" reporting today the person who actually circulated the powerpoint document is this retired army colonel who met with him eight times and even the night before the riots. we here at nbc news reached out for comment. what are the questions you still have about him, about this document, any connections he may have to the white house and perhaps even to those beyond the white house who showed up on that day the 6th? >> well, i think we know that the white house was engaged in a plan to try to delay that

electoral college meeting, the electoral college vote tabulation. remember we heard that voice mail that rudy giuliani left for senator tommy tupperville where he says we need to do anything to stall this. so there's no question they were trying to implement some plan, and it appears mike pence thwarted it. what's not totally clear is whether the violence that played out on january 6th had some direct connection to people that were working with the white house or it was sort of incidental and whipped up by the comments that president trump made that day. and that's the part where i really will be interested to see what the january 6th committee can come up with in terms of can they make that linkage? was it just public rhetoric, the stuff we've all seen on tv or behind the scenes was there actually some kind of exhortation or planning for violence? >> all right, josh gerstein, we're going to have to leave it there. we'll continue to follow this story closely. greatly appreciate your time. joining me now is congressman

ted liu, a democrat from california and obviously former impeachment manager during trump's second impeachment proceeding. congressman, thank you for joining us this evening. let's start with that last point i was talking to joshua about, your reaction to the last news that trump's former chief of staff met with mark wall drn as possibly as much as many as ten times. how do you see meadows here and waldron and this powerpoint document fitting into the efforts to overturn the election based on what you've seen and learned? >> thank you, ayman, for your question. that powerpoint presentation is a highly disturbing document. it is a road map to a coup. i'm a member of congress, and last term i didn't have access to the chief of staff of the president of the united states. i wouldn't have been able to meet with them, but somehow you had people who were planning a coup that had direct access to the chief of staff of a former president of the united states. and that is highly disturbing.

who knows what mark meadows was thinking, which is why he needs to testify before the january 6th committee, and because he stopped cooperating i believe the house is going to hold him in contempt. and we're at a very dangerous time in our democracy, where you had people who were planning a coup who are not being held accountable. >> do you feel, congressman, that we, right now, both our democracy and certainly this congress -- you know, we are on borrowed time? and i only ask that from the context of if we assume what some political analysts are saying that republicans will take back control of congress next year? and i'm not making that assumption, but there is that analysis based on the way they're redistricting and gerrymandering right now. it essentially is going to have an expiration date to get their work done. do you think they'll be able to finish with all the legal speed bumps that trump's people keep throwing down with denying their requests for interviews and

cooperation and that we know what might happen with another coup beyond next mid-term's elections and presidential elections? >> the goal of the january 6th committee is to finish before the mid-terms next year. now, because of delays in the federal judiciary and because of trump enablers figuring out how to take advantage of those delays, it's not clear they're going to be able to interview all the witnesses they want to interview, which is why i think we have to invoke the power of inherent contempt. this is a power the supreme court has upheld. it'll allow the house of representatives to enforce our own subpoenas. we could fine people. we could put people in confinement, and what we've learned is if you don't enforce congressional subpoenas, then at some point they become meaningless. >> congressman, as an impeachment manager during trump's second trial over the events of january 6th you not only know as much about the insurrection as anyone but also how difficult it can be to get to the bought of any scheme

involving the former president. congresswoman liz cheney, one of your colleagues, tweeted earlier this week that the committee has interviewed nearly 300 witnesses, said the investigation is firing on all cylinders. she's confident they're going to get the answers they're looking for, but what happens after that? is anyone actually going to be held accountable? should we be focusing not just -- i get it's important to be looking back on what happened january 6th to prevent it from happening again. but are we putting enough protections in place to prevent it from happening again? >> that's a great question. so congress doesn't enforce criminal laws. that is the job of the department of justice. it's a job of state and local prosecutors. it's my hope that prosecutors will look at what the january 6th committee turns up and what information the january 6th committee can provide to them. i'm a former prosecutor. i work with these various laws. in georgia it is a state crime to interfere in an election or

cause someone to interfere in an election. that's also a federal crime. what congress can do is we can pass laws to help prevent this in the future, which is why we have to pass the freedom to vote act. the house has passed that. it's before the senate right now, and we're working on legislation to also fix the electoral college act so that state legislators cannot nullify the popular vote in their state. >> are president biden and others who oppose authoritarianism taking these threats seriously? i know you talked about what maybe some of the legal challenges that are taking place right now, but, you know, we've talked about 700 cases at the department of justice. most of them so far have been about trespassing. we haven't seen any of them rise to the level of what has been described as an insurrection or

a coup on january 6th. >> i do believe the biden administration is taking these issues seriously as are members of the house of representatives. i also know we do have a 50-50 split in the u.s. senate. there is a filibuster, so we do need every single democratic u.s. senator plus ten republicans to agree on a number of these issues. that's really hard. the alternative is to have an exception to the filibuster for voting rights and other issues core and fundamental to our democracy. i hope the democrats in the senate will see their way to make that exception to the filibuster. >> all right, congressman ted lieu, sir, greatly appreciate your time this evening. thank you for joining us. and just a quick reminder on january 6th staying on that for a moment, the third episode of msnbc's newest original podcast series "american radical" drops tomorrow. i've been hosting that podcast series and a story that hits

close to home for me. just days after the january 6th riot at the capitol i learned that a woman who died there, you see on your screen roseanne boylen from my hometown. and in this episode roseanne's sister searches for answers after an autopsy. you can scan the qr code on your screen to catch up on the first two episodes now. definitely keep an eye out for tomorrow's new episode. it's currently the number one podcast on apple podcast, number 6 on spotify. still ahead, search and rescue missions are under way in the central u.s. after a string of deadly tornados that swept through six states overnight. hundreds of thousands of americans preparing for a night without power. we're going to bring you the very latest on all the breaking news on that story and more. plus, we shouldn't be surprised that trump's new media venture would be just as shady

as every other part of the trump organization. i'm going to explain that coming up. but first steam romo here with the headlines. the stories we're watching this hour as you mentioned that horrificstri of tornados, 30 of them reported ripping through late friday night. kentucky was particularly hard hit. more than 70 people were killed there including dozens who were crushed when a candle factory was toppled by those fierce winds. governor andy besheer declared a state of emergency early saturday morning describing the disaster as the deadliest tornado event in the common welt's history. the death toll is expected to rise as search and rescue crews continue their efforts over the next several days. president biden calling the storms an unbelievable tragedy and calling for support to the more impacted states. more "ayman" right after this. ds more "ayman" right after this.

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i remember setting up shipstation. one or two clicks and everything was up and running. i was printing out labels and saving money. shipstation saves us so much time. it makes it really easy and seamless. pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and it's ready to go. our costs for shipping were cut in half. just like that. shipstation. the #1 choice of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/try and get 2 months free. we are continuing to follow the breaking news surrounding a series of catastrophic tornados. a federal emergency has been declared in kentucky whereas many as 100 people are feared dead at this hour. the tornados swept across six states. as these terrifying images show, the winds destroyed everything -- everything in their path. and at least 36 tornados have been recorded across the south and midwest. parts of the country from friday night into saturday morning. a rescue and recovery mission is

ongoing. hundreds of thousands of people have been left without power across arkansas, illinois, kentucky, missouri, mississippi and tennessee. now, initial reports on one of the tornados suggests it has tracked as far as 250 miles, which would actually set the record for the longest tornado path in u.s. history. radar reports suggesting debris was thrown as far as 30,000 feet into the air. meteorologists are working to confirm it's at the top level of the scale for force described as causing incredible damage. if it is registered at that level it'll be only the second time since 1950 a tornado of such strength and magnitude has been recorded in the last two months of the year. it is important to note here, this is an extremely rare event for this time of year, for the month of december. it all comes at the end of one of the most devastating years on record for climate disasters in the united states.

and joining me now is michael mann, penn state university distinguished professor and director of the earth systems science center. also author of "the new climate war, the fight to take back our planet." michael, thank you so much for joining us. i hate it is about this tragic story we see playing out, but let's start with what we've learned so far in this instance. what more do we know about these types of storms? and were forecasters expecting it? >> yeah, it's good to be with you, ayman. and it is difficult to predict these very large outbreaks, but there is one basic factor here that we know is at work. these very warm conditions that we saw over the last week over essentially the southern half of this country with temperatures in the 70s and 80s in southern central states, parts of the east coast as well. those are very usually warm temperatures for this time of year. and the gulf of mexico is

extremely warm right now, and we know that moisture is streaming into the southern united states. so you have all this warmth. you have all this moisture. and that's one of the major ingredients for these huge outbreaks of tornados. you need a lot of turbulent energy in the atmosphere, and that's there in the form of this very warm, moist air. you can go into it a deeply and talk about the fact you also need twisting in the atmosphere and a big dip in the jetstream gives that to you. in a la nina year like this year when it's cold in the tropical pacific often leads to that jetstream pattern that gives you the twisting. so you've got that mois air in the atmosphere, the twisting, you put those together and you get these record outbreaks like we've seen in recent years and like we're seeing right now. >> yes, to that point when you look at this past year we've seen a staggering number of deadly weather events. what is the pattern telling you? because i think if we just look at a singular event people may

not understand the trend or what is happening over a prolong time, but when you look at the devastating weather events over the past year or so, how much is climate change affecting these weather catastrophes we are seeing play out? >> there are surprises in store when it comes to the impacts of climate change, and one of the surprises we're seeing is this very dramatic increase in extreme weather events, the unprecedented heat waves and droughts and wildfires and super floods, that northwest heat dome that we saw this summer by some estimates was a 1 in 20,000-year event. we shouldn't be seeing things like this. even accounting for climate change it was estimated to be a 1 in a 1,000-year event. what that tells you is the climate models we're using to diagnose the impacts of climate change on these extreme weather events if anything are underestimating the impact

climate change is having. you make the planet warmer you're going to get longer and intense heat waves, you're going to evaporate more moisture into the atmosphere so there's more moisture to turn into record rainfall events and flooding epvents. and you take the heat and the summer drought as the warm air bakes the earth, you get these unprecedented droughts like we've seen. that's all pretty easy to explain. but we're seeing an increase in the persistence and frequency of these events that can't simply be explained by those factors. it requires something more, and it seems to have to do with the way climate change is changing the jetstream, giving us more of these stalled weather patterns and these very large undulations in the jetstream that give us big high pressures, big low pressures and extreme weather events. the climate models are actually underestimating that climate

change seems to have. if anything we've underestimated some of the more detrimental impacts of climate change. >> i always appreciate your insights. i always learn quite a lot when i get a chance to talk to you about all of this. we certainly don't cover it enough. i greatly appreciate your time this evening, michael. >> thank you, ayman. we're going to continue to bring you the very latest updates throughout this show on those deadly tornados including the devastating video the damage left in the wake of the storms. plus, if you can't beat them, join them. trump champion calls to stop the steal, but now he's the one stealing from americans. we'll explain. stealing from americans. we'll explain. i don't just play someone brainy on tv - i'm an actual neuroscientist. and i love the science behind neuriva plus. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance. more brain performance? yes, please! neuriva. think bigger. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: just stop. go for a run. go for 10 runs! run a marathon.

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of a number of priorities. the states attorney general letitia james is seeking to depose trump under oath early next month. now, donald trump under oath you've got to imagine that's got to be interesting. >> i have a really good memory. no, i have a very good memory. i have a good memory like a great memory. i have a great memory. i'm blessed with a great memory. one of the great memories of all-time. >> all right, remember that deposition from the trump university case? trump had claimed that his instructors were, quote, hand picked by him. but in december 2015 after thousands of students sued him over what they called worthless courses, we got this gem. >> james webb. >> i don't remember the names. i don't remember the name. >> white casper. >> some of the names sound familiar. >> this week we also learned the financial dealings of the new trump media technology group are

already under investigation by the sec. this is before his long promised social media network even launched. reports suggest the venture has already raised around a billion dollars from a list of unnamed investors. for more we're joined by david corn. david, it's good to see you. i guess we shouldn't be surprised trump's media venture would be just as shady as every other part of the trump organization, but any doubts about its legitimacy you've got to say went out the window once we learned who would lead the trump media and technology group. of course it's none other than congressman devin nunes who spent much of the past five years to be frank peddling conspiracy theories. you had at one point nunes saying he's leaving congress for

this company despite having zero experience. the guy who tried to sue a fake twitter cow is going to lead trump's media company. david, how do you expect this one to go? >> well, you know, he entered congress when he was 29 years old, devin nunes, and he'd been a farmer before that. now this is a supposedly a $1 billion company. it's going to create a competitor to twitter and facebook. it's going to create a competitor to fox news and oan with its own news network. it's going to create a competitor to netflix and amazon with its own streaming service, and it's going to create a competitor to amazon in terms of web hosting. and you're going to put a guy in charge who has never done any of this, and of course trump himself has no experience running a company of this nature. it's a long way from selling steaks and vodka and the

fraudulent trump university classes to running a massive company. but yet again we see that his business dealings are creating all sorts of potential conflicts of interest. they raised a billion dollars, but we don't know where the company is coming from. and if he -- he says he's thinking of running. a lot in the republican party thinks he may be the next nominee. so we have a guy who has -- has investors who could be anyone. they could be mob bosses. they could be foreign leaders from saudi arabia, china. they could be fine, but we just don't know because of now they've structured this deal so that people who invest in the show company that's going to merge with his media company do not have to be identified. he had conflicts of interest going into the presidency out of the last campaign, but this is far greater than that. >> and the funny thing is nunes

was the former chair of the house intelligence committee. in fact, remember back in 2017 he made the secret visit to the trump white house so he could apparently view classified material the trump team wanted him to see regarding the bogus claims trump tower had been wiretapped in the run up to the 2016 election. this seems to play fast and loose with government secrets just for president trump and he's now going to be leading his media organization. is this real life or is this the onion? >> is it fantasy? he through all the impeachment stuff particularly in the first impeachment with ukraine, he was out there every day with a different conspiracy theory. that the ukrainians had intervened in the 2016 election, not the russians, something happened to the servers. it was really coo coo for

cocopuffs type of crazy. i want to know that the guy in charge or the gal in charge knew what they were doing and had some experience here. so right now i'm kind of amazed at anyone putting their money into this unless they think it's kind of a pump and dump situation. they can invest early, the stock price will go up because trump has this base of people who will buy the stock, and they can sort of make a bundle on this vast turn around on their investment. but anybody who's in this for the long haul who wants to see this alternative media empire under trump's vestiges, they have to look at the devin nunes pick and say -- >> i was going to say you can't look at this and be like this is a serious organization. listen, you touched on this in your first question but help us connect the dots here. trump is reportedly a billion dollars in debt, and he just so happens to get a billion dollars from a group of unnamed

investors. what are the national security implications of this if this guy decides to run again? >> well, they're tremendous because we don't -- right now we don't know who these investors are. and if that stays the case when he's running for president or if he should actually get back in the white house, who knows who will have their hooks in him, who he will be literally indebted to. we knew before 2016 he owed $300 million to deutsche bank that was being prosecuted by the u.s. justice department. and that caused all sorts of issues. we also -- what we didn't know -- he kept this a secret in 2016. while running for president he was trying to score this gigantic deal with the moskow tower that would have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for him personally. so we saw throughout the campaign he was very nice to vladimir putin, said some very positive things about vladimir putin, but he didn't tell us he

had asked vladimir putin to help him get this project through. so when you have these business deals with politics and foreign policy it is a recipe for very, you know, significant conflicts of interest that could go to compromising national security should he ever be in that position again. >> i've got to ask you really quickly about some of the president's associates because interestingly enough congresswoman marjorie taylor greene reportedly invested $50,000 in this trump media venture. she's almost certainly lost thousands of it already. many of the biggest players in the trump world have learned this play book. they raise millions of dollars by claiming they're being attacked by the radical left, they need money to defend themselves, and then the maga faithful keep sending those checks and small donations. you've got trump lawyers like rudy giuliani, sydney powell. they've been using this play book. and steve bannon is the master author of it all. do you expect anyone to face

consequences, sore is this just how maga world operates? the top continue to grift with the fund-raising and taking money from the people who donate to their cause for legal defense funds, venture capitalist opportunities. who knows what they're doing with all that money. >> trump is the gift that keeps on giving. i'm on the mailing list because i'm a journalist and i get 10, 20, 30 solicitations a day from trump and other republicans all -- you know, most of them highly misleading. steve scalise, a house republican i got a solicitation from his campaign today basically saying if i want to support the new trump media epty, enterprise i should donate money here. and it's to his campaign. what does that have to do with trump's media enterprise? absolutely nothing. they have a couple million maga

types who just keep giving money to trump and these associated deals. and it is just kaching, kaching, kaching. the money keeps pouring in. so all these folks whether it's steve bannon, sydney powell raised $14 million for her so-called efforts on election integrity and now people don't know where the money went. it is -- i mean trump's been doing this his whole life, and now there's this sort of slip stream behind him of all these folks out there capitalizing on this. and i mind say i feel bad for the marks out there, but if you give money to donald trump at this point in time you're going to get what you deserve. it does prove the old p.t. barnum saying, right, there is

is a sunken barn almost every month. >> good to see you, my friend. enjoy the rest of the evening. before we go to break as we've been throughout the course of this hour, we're continuing to follow the news out of the central u.s. this evening where an outbreak of tornados has left an unimaginable path of destruction in its wake. these before and after pictures of homes and businesses throughout arkansas and kentucky showcase the extensive damage seen across the state. we're going to continue to bring you all the developments and news as we get them into our newsroom. plus, in tonight's edition of "that's what they said," one sandy hook shooting survivor is speaking about the trauma she still experiences nine years later. ♪ ♪ when the chapstick goes on. it's on. get yours on at chapstick.com

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bye mom. my helpers abound, i'll need you today. our sleigh is now ready, let's get on our way. a mountain of toys to fulfill many wishes. must be carried across all roads and all bridges. and when everyone is smiling and having their fun i can turn my sleigh north because my job here is done. it's not magic that makes more holiday deliveries to homes in the us than anyone else, it's the hardworking people of the united states postal service. it's the hardworking people of the when our daughter and her kids moved in with us... our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. [daughter] slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. we are continuing to bring you the very latest developments following those catastrophic tornados that tore through six

states overnectomy. a federal emergency is in place in kentucky. as many as 100 people feared dead at this hour. kentucky governor andy beshear says they're putting all available resources into the ongoing search and rescue operations. watch. >> the devastation is -- is unlike anything i have seen in my life, and i have trouble putting it into words. when it was safe to travel this morning i flew to mayfield. my first stop was that candle factory. 110 people working in it at the time the storm hit. they rescued 40. it was at least 15 feet of metal with cars on top of it, barrels of corrosive chemicals that are there. it'll be a miracle if anybody else is found alive. >> of course, we're going to continue to update you with the very latest on those devastating storms. but in the meantime we do want to turn to tonight's edition of "that's what they said."

it has been nearly nine years since the sandy hook elementary school mass shooting, but as one survivor explains the trauma still haunts many to this day. >> is it terrifying? how? i don't think so. it's the way it is, you know? everything must come to an end. the drip finally stops. see you on the other side. no, there is no other side. this is it. >> all right, so some powerful words there. students across the country who survived massacres like sandy hook and parkland are left with a myriad of mental health problems. the fear that it could happen again continues to haunt them every day. take last week when a 15-year-old sophomore opened fire at his michigan high school killing four of his fellow students and injuring several others. soon after that this video went viral. it shows a group of students

huddled up in a darkened classroom refusing to open the door for someone they believed to be the shooter. it was later revealed the man on the other side of the door was an officer. what is clear from this video is just how ready those children were for that moment. and that's because like so many kids now, before the pandemic, 95% of american schools practiced some form of lockdown or active shooting drills, but is this school safety strategy actually doing more harm than good? research has shown these drills can have a severe impact on a student's mental health, including increased feelings stress, anxiety and depress. here to discuss, dr. david schoenfield and carey kauffman, a survivor of the parkland school shooting. it's great to have both of you with us. i'm always uncomfortable having

these conversations but we do need to have them in this country given our new reality. doctor, let me start with you. drills, they're not a new addition to school life. unfortunately students have had to prepare for fires and tornadoes for a long time. in the 1950s we remember children had to duck and cover in case of a nuclear attack during the cold war. what makes these drills so different and so mentally difficult for our children? >> first off, we have widespread media coverage of active shooter events. so we may have had duck and cover drills during the cold war because of concerns that there might be a nuclear attack, but we didn't have repeated news conference that they were occurring. so i think for a lot of children right now this seems very real and that's part of the reason it's so difficult for them. there also are drills that are being conducted in ways that i think add to the emotional

distress. in some situations there's deception used so that the children and the staff are actually made to believe they're real events and then there's simulations where they use high-intensity mechanisms where they simulate it realistically, sounds of gunfire, predatory acting, and raising it to that level is causing unnecessary emotional distress to children. these drills can be distressing for some children even in the absence of all of those simulations. >> i was going to say i can't even imagine as a parent what that must be like to know that your child is going through that. but, sari, you've had the tragic experience of having to use some of skills learned in these drills. did you feel more prepared because of that training or is there anything that -- and i hate to even ask this -- that can prepare you for a real life, active shooter situation.

>> yeah, i do not think there is anything that can prepare you for a real life active shooter. especially in those moments, you're not thinking about what the teacher said in case something happens. and the students are under pressure and anxiety from continuing to go through these drills. it's a real fear a shooter can walk in and these drills just reinforce that fear instead of focusing on reactive, we should be focusing on pro active policies that can prevent the shootings. >> there's no doubt about that. there was a report released by the advocacy group every town for gun safety. i want to go back to what you were talking about, long-term effects of this. they they found active shooting drills in schools have been linked to 39% increase in

depression, 42% increase in stress and anxiety and 23% increase in physiological stress overall. this includes not just the students but the parents and the teachers that have to go through this. what is the lasting trauma drills like this can cause? >> one thing we're concern about, i cringe every time i hear somebody say this is the new normal. i agree, there's nothing normal about children murdering other children. we can't simply accept it as being inevitable and wait and prepare people for when it does occur. we have to put much more effort into prevention. that's part of the concern, by constantly focusing on these events and the high potential of these events, we may actually start to convince children that this is inevitable and that leads to the distress that they saw on that study. so i think we have to be focusing more on prevention efforts, creating safe school

environments, you know, having more behavioral health services doing more on threat assessment. but i do agree that we can do drills in ways that are not as emotionally upsetting and safer. what kind of drills would be less emotionally upsetting and safer? the truth of the matter is we are dealing with this reality. our politicians have failed us in preventive policies, in trying to prevent mass shootings at schools. schools and officials are trying to take matters into their own hands, and even law enforcement trying to harden schools and try and protect the children but it's a lose-lose situation. what is the safer way to do it in the absence of our politicians doing what they're supposed to be doing in keeping us safe? >> sure. i think we can do it the same way we do fire drills. when we're doing fire drills, we tell children that fires are unlikely to occur and we're

taking many steps to prevent fires. we tell them what to do if there is a fire or fire drill. we have them practicing safe exiting. we don't raise the temperature in the hallway, we don't put in realistic sound of fire, we don't have people screaming, we don't make it frightening. we tell them it's an unlikely occurrence but a reasonable step we can take. we shouldn't probably call this many active shooter drills. we should use another name that's not as frightening to kids and more about safety. we wouldn't start with a live exercise. we would simply say in a situation that we are doing this drill, what we expect to you do is we're going to turn off the lights, we're going to close the blinds, we're going to ask you to stand in part of the classroom that can't be seen as easily from the window or door and you can just tell them that to begin with and maybe later you have them walk to that part of the classroom.

but you never have to go through a drill where there's gunshot or people running through the hall pretending to be shooters. we don't do that because the only reason you use the high intensity drills is to try and simulate the event, and that we know will cause distress. so we consider that unethical to do to be honest. >> i want to get your final thoughts on this, sari. we're talking a lot about hardening our schools. some have talked about bullet-proof back packs and all kinds of oh steph. it bothers me to talk about it but are we focusing too much on hardening our schools and not the preventive measures that need to be taken? what are your thoughts? what is the best way to make our students safer? >> i think especially with the politicians not listening to us, you know, you see students and adults especially coming out and going to school meetings and speaking to school board officials talking about policies

on the state level about red flag laws and enhanced background checks and i think that's really going to be how we stop these school shootings and the reactive measures of wearing bullet proof vests or back packs or arming teachers. we need to focus on policies that talk about firearms and not just what happens once the shooter enters the school. >> sari kauffman and, dr. schoenfeld, thank you very much. a story we've been following throughout the night, 70 people killed in those deadly tornadoes that struck kentucky. that could rise to more than 100. governor sandy beshear calling the tragedy the most devastating tornado event in their state's history. also president biden approving

the governor's federal request for federal assistance after declaring a state of emergency throughout kentucky. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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