♪♪ good afternoon, everybody, i'm yasmin vossoughian. there is a lot going on right now. we are watching dangerous weather, a tsunami bringing major waves to tonga, and the impact being felt here on the west coast of the united states.

also, a winter storm hits a major portion of our country, and it is just getting started. we're going to have the latest on both of those. and then in arizona, a voting rights march on martin luther king's birthday ahead of a donald trump rally tonight in the same state with a host of big lie supporters. plus, new information on the indictment of members of the oath keepers for seditious conspiracy. and we are just a couple of hours away from a make or break hearing for unvaxxed tennis superstar novak djokovic. we want to begin, though, with that breaking news from tonga where an underwater volcano triggered a tsunami and its effects are rippling across this country, specifically on the west coast. massive explosions, thunder, lightning were reported near the volcano as early as friday but an eruption did not occur until today, turning the sky black and raining ash upon the island

nation. it could even be seen from space as you see in these images here. tsunami advisories remain in place across this country, the west coast specifically. california, now the biggest threat, where authorities are still warning of dangerous currents and tidal surges. nbc's guad venegas is in los angeles with more on this. talk us through this. what can folks expect there? what have they experienced so far? >> reporter: yasmin, impressive images of that volcano eruption as we just saw. there was a tsunami that hit the highland of tonga. it flooded the capital. a lot of people had to go to higher ground and after this, this advisory was issued for the entire west coast, that's california, oregon, washington state, and even british columbia in canada, all of these areas remain under the advisory. now, what this means is that we could see one to two-foot waves in areas that usually don't have the waves. we did see a video that you were just showing that we shared on social media from santa cruz. as of now, most of the flooding

we have seen on the west coast has happened in northern california. this is in santa cruz, the santa cruz harbor, with the water reaching a lot of the lifeguard towers and impressive images that we have been seeing from this area. now, beaches across san diego county, orange county, l.a. county, half closed down, and they are asking people to stay away from the water, out of the water, and away from the shore, because of this type of flooding that you can see that can easily go from a few waves to maybe a foot of water, something that could be very dangerous, so they are asking people to stay away from the water and away from the shore just in case flooding does happen. we were hit with the first wave of waves earlier today, and the alert, the advisory does say that the next wave could be larger, so for now, the advisory is in place with some flooding already being seen in santa cruz. >> how large could the next wave be? what's the threat level at this moment?

>> reporter: so, specifically, what they have said is they expect one to two-foot waves and strong currents in all the beach areas on the west coast so there's no way of knowing how this might affect, as we mentioned, the flooding we have seen is in santa cruz in northern california, but this very well could happen in other parts of the state so that is all the information we've received. so, it's an advisory, just asking people to stay away. because when you think of something like a one to two-foot wave, you don't think it's very large. but for a person to be standing on one of these beaches, this could be very dangerous. these are currents that can drag a person inside and it's very difficult to escape. this is why they're asking people to just stay away from the beaches. >> all right, thank you, guad. i want to go now to arizona where a march for voting rights through downtown phoenix just wrapped up. the rally marks the birthday of dr. martin luther king jr. with his family in attendance as they called for eliminating the filibuster to pass federal

voting rights legislation. this is happening as democrats' hopes for a filibuster carveout were dealt a major setback on thursday after arizona senator kyrsten sinema declared she would not support undermining the filibuster to pass new voting laws. sinema's comments came just one day after a virtual meeting with civil rights leaders where according to participants who spoke with politico, said she did not inform them of her plans to publicly reject any change to the filibuster. and later tonight in florence, arizona, by the way, former president donald trump is set to take the stage for his first big rally of 2022. trump will be joined by multiple state republican leaders and is expected to reiterate his big lie, election falsehoods. joining me from phoenix, nbc's vaughn hillyard and senior national politics reporter for nbc news digital. talk to me about what you've

been seeing at the march so far, the message those that are attending the march want to be heard. >> reporter: right, yasmin, we're wrapping up here, what was a large rally and large march here through the streets of downtown phoenix here. the martin luther king iii, his family was here. congressman gallego was here. i talked to him earlier. potential that he could run against kyrsten sinema who took to the senate floor on thursday, essentially saying she is going to stand by the filibuster. but what you heard today was frustration because there are questions about what republican legislatures, the impact they could have at state levels this year but also into the future. and that's where i want to introduce everybody to marco lopez. you are running for the governor of arizona, the democratic nomination here. could you put into terms what implications the likely lack of federal protections will have here on the state and for voters here in arizona, the importance of the 2022 election. >> thank you, vaughn. you know, martin luther king jr.

worked tirelessly to expand voting rights, and access to our democracy, and what we see in arizona, extremists, right-wing individuals still deny who won the 2020 election. and so, our voting access is really under threat, and if we don't have leadership and a government, and we don't have a congress that is willing to stand up and push back and make sure that people do have access to those rights, the words that we say today or the words that we're going to hear from career politicians speak on monday are really meaningless. it's about action, and making sure that we are being true to the work and the legacy of martin luther king jr. that everyone deserves access to our democracy, and we should be making it easier, and sadly, to your point in arizona, that task is becoming more and more difficult to achieve. >> reporter: there is republican majority in the state legislature, and there's republican governor here as well. there's a lot of changes that could be made here in these months ahead.

and i actually want to introduce everybody to one other person here, mari, because i met her almost two years ago now, it was a 115-degree day, you were out knocking doors. you were out there for 2018, for kyrsten sinema. what is your message here today? >> yes, we worked really hard in 2018. our members from our union knocking on thousands of doors to get her elected, and we ask that she listen to her constituents. she listen to the people of arizona that are urging her to pass voting rights legislation to protect us voters here in arizona and across the country. >> reporter: mari, marco, appreciate the time. this is sort of what the conversation is going to be looking like here, yasmin, in these days ahead is now with kyrsten sinema standing by the filibuster here, where do these federal protections potentially go from here? >> so let's expand on that, thank you for that excellent reporting and that interview, my friend. jonathan, talk more about the big picture here as we take a look at this thing. we're talking about, obviously, kyrsten sinema, specifically,

also because of arizona. there could potentially be another holdout when it comes to a filibuster foldout. that is of course the other name that is often associated with kyrsten sinema these days and that is senator joe manchin. any other holdouts that you know of, or is it really these two, and what does it say about congress that they are dependent now on two individuals to get an integral piece of legislation, an important piece of legislation across the finish line? >> reporter: at least publicly, yasmin, these two senators, but there's a lot of expectation that they are representing the desires of some of the senate incumbents who are in tough re-election races who may voice support for changing the filibuster but would prefer not to have that vote on record. we saw senator schumer cancel that vote at the end of last week. in terms of what it says, it says that the senate is very closely divided and decimals need all 50 of their members to

get on board. >> we're having a bit of a connectivity problem, jonathan, but i'm going to stick with you so long as i have you. i want to read for you a tweet from the president that speaks to where his mind is today as we watch what's happening in the state of arizona. history has never been kind to those who have sided with voter suppression over voters' rights and it will be even less kind for those who side with election subversion. when you look at how democrats will eventually spin this thing, if, in fact, they cannot get voter rights legislation across the finish line, they have failed so far when it came to soft infrastructure with build back better, right? oftentimes, the conversation surrounding this is, the democrats could not do it. but what about shifting the conversation to, republicans would not step up when it comes to voter right across this country? >> reporter: well, absolutely, democrats are going to spend the next year talking about how republicans are standing in the

way of voter access, voting rights, including restoring the 1965 landmark voting rights act that has been gutted over the years by the court. that said, president biden's right. those who sided with voter suppression over access over the course of history have not been looked upon well by that history. at the same time, president biden, when he was a member of the united states senate for all those years, was a fierce advocate for, defender of and user of the filibuster for a variety of things. so, you know, the senate rules are something that he knows well, and he has decided as president of the united states, he's got a different seat now and he would like to see his agenda move forward and there's probably nothing more important to democratic voters in the policy here and there's nothing more important to the politics of democrats winning elections than getting these voting rights measures through. >> vaughn hillyard, jonathan allen, thank you very much. i want to bring in former democratic governor of

massachusetts, duval patrick. he is also former assistant u.s. attorney general for the civil rights division. governor, thanks for joining us. >> pleasure to be here, yasmin. thank you. you bet. >> talk to me about the convergence of today's events as we take a look at what's happening in the state of arizona right now. you have a fight for voting rights. you have dr. king's birthday. you also have the first of, i'm sure, many former president trump rallies happening in the same state. >> yes indeed. quite a juxtaposition. you know, we are, sooner or later, going to have to decide whether we believe in a participatory democracy, whether we believe citizens should get the right conveniently to cast a vote and determine their own political and civic destiny or whether we're going to have partisans rig the vote by excluding or obstructing some citizens or just throwing out outcomes that they don't like. and both of those views are

represented in the examples you talked about today. we need these reforms because of the excesses in some 19 states and counting right now in the wake of the 2020 election that is making it harder, less convenient, less secure, and less certain in terms of the outcomes to cast a vote in this country, and that is fundamentally anti-democratic. >> i want to read for our viewers part of your op-ed that you wrote in the "boston globe" earlier this week. basically talking about the sacred nature of voting, and you say this. "making it easy to vote and to have that vote count is about giving everybody a chance to participate in their own civic destiny. that was a radical idea in the 1770s when the founders came up with it, but it was the right way and the only way to make freedom possible, and it still is." talk to me about the tie between voting and freedom in this country and why it is so

integral to get this voting rights legislation across the finish line. >> you know, we have what we describe as a representative government. what's supposed to be, meaning, each of us has an opportunity to choose the people who speak for us, who cast votes for us, who hear from us and our petitions in our congress, in our state houses, in our city halls. and town halls. that was a radical idea when the founders put it into place at the start of our republic. before then, it was a few powerful people, often one powerful family, that simply decided what was going to happen in the life of everybody else. so, we've gotten more than accustomed to this idea of a participatory democracy, but we've been perfecting it from the beginning, right? at the beginning, it was just rich white landowners, and then it was non-rich or not so rich

white landowners and then ultimately, it was former slaves and ultimately, women. naturalized immigrants, young people who were old enough when i was coming up to join the military but not to vote. and so we extended the vote to 18-year-olds. all of this has been about honoring this idea of a participatory democracy and the notion, if i may say, yasmin, that we're arguing about a procedural rule, the filibuster, that appears nowhere in the constitution, that is completely antithetical to these ideals of participatory democracy, that was invented in the 1930s for the purpose of making it harder to pass civil rights laws, would now be defended as some institutional, you know, kind of

rubric that can't be undone, can't be reconsidered, when, in fact, it is undone and reconsidered all the time. for the budgets, for the debt ceiling just recently, for the defense bill. all the time when the senate wants to, they look the other way from this rule so they can get to the merits and the question here is whether they will even get to debate the merits without making a change in the filibuster. >> and you juxtapose your op-ed to that of former vice president mike pence and his op-ed in the "washington post," issued on friday, justifying the voter restrictions put in place by states like texas who said, in the year since the fateful day, states across the country have enacted measures to restore confidence in the integrity of our elections while ensuring access to voting for every american. what he doesn't address is confidence should not have been lost since it's the freest and fairest election we have had in the nation's history, in spite of the fact he did call out

those -- >> you're quoting his own administration. >> certainly i am. >> you are quoting his own administration, saying it was the freest and fairest election in a long, long while. >> former massachusetts governor deval patrick, thank you so much. great to talk to you this afternoon. we appreciate it. coming up, by the way, at 4:00 p.m., arizona secretary of state and candidate for governor, katie hobbs, weighs in on the future of her state as the former president rallies in her backyard. also, michigan attorney general dana necessariesal on the investigation to false election certificates in her state. two conversations, by the way, you don't want to miss. we are following some breaking news, everybody, outside of fort worth, texas. a potential hostage situation, according to the fort worth "star-telegram," authorities are negotiating with a man who has allegedly taken people hostage at a synagogue in the town of colleyville. we are learning the service was being livestreamed on facebook. the recording is continuing to capture muffled audio of what

sounds like talks between police and the suspect. right now, it is unclear how many congregants are in the building. much more on this story as we get it. we'll be right back. much more on this story as we get it we'll be right back.

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welcome back, everybody. we are following breaking news outside of fort worth, texas. a possible hostage situation at a synagogue in the town of colleyville. police will only say right now that a s.w.a.t. team has been deployed to the situation. the fort worth "star-telegram" reports that authorities are negotiating with a man who has taken people hostage. we are learning the service was being live-streamed on facebook. the recording is continuing to capture muffled audio of what sounds like talks between police and the suspect. joining me now is msnbc law enforcement analyst cedric alexander. cedric, thanks for jumping on with us. we appreciate it. listen, talk to me about the

situation. we don't know a lot here, so we should be completely frank with our audience as this thing is developing. it just popped up as i cam but this is a fairly precarious situation, considering the fact that this is a religious institution. this is a synagogue, and we have a possible hostage situation in which police are currently negotiating with those hostages with congregants inside. how does something like this go down? how do they work through this, law enforcement? >> well, as far as law enforcement is concerned, it's going to be one of these situations where, yes, there's going to be a hostage negotiator, maybe a number of negotiators with different areas of expertise who very much are going to contribute to this process. the fact that we don't know very much at this time is certainly very anxiety feeling for people in the community and those who have families and friends that are inside that synagogue but i

think police are going to slow everything down as much as they can. certainly, maintain a relationship with the hostage taker in this case and try to build a relationship with him so everybody can come out of there safe, but i think at this point, for all of us, all we can do is really just kind of wait, monitor, and allow police to be able to do the things they've trained to do under these type of circumstances. and certainly, they have seen hostage -- such type situations in the past, but all of them in their own way, and many ways, are very, very different. and we certainly have seen tragedies that have taken place in our churches and synagogues across this country. but what we know right now, no one has been hurt, prayerfully, and hopefully as time goes on, we'll hear more and we'll be updated by police there in the

community and i'm quite sure as well that a great number of supports are being lended to that scene both at the local, state, and federal level. but certainly this is going to be a situation where everything has to slow down, and continue to talk to the hostage taker and learn more of -- and as we learn more of this, it may begin to paint some type of picture for us, but let's just all be hopeful and prayerful that everyone inside is safe and that is coming to an end pretty soon. it's going to require patience. >> cedric, let me read a tweet from the american jewish community saying, we are deeply concerned of reports of a hostage situation at congregation beth israel. we will continue to monitor the situation as it develops. cedric, talk to me about the advantage law enforcement has right now, considering this thing was being live-streamed and i believe is still continuing to be live-streamed, though we personally cannot

access it. they are able to see what's happening inside that synagogue as they are negotiating with, i believe, this hostage taker. >> well, it certainly allows police to kind of be inside, to get a sense of as much as they can, the mood of the hostage taker, the mood of the people who are being held hostage, and if they were able to have and hopefully they will be able to have or have some eyes on inside of that synagogue, because that certainly can be helpful to them in many ways. look, we got to remember that these men and women who do this hostage negotiating, they're very well trained, and they know the importance of patience and time in order to get this to where we want it to be. but for the people inside the community there, in the metroplex and across the country, i think the most important thing that all of us

can do, as we just heard from the leadership in the jewish community, is that we all continue to pray and hope for the very best in this and that the outcome, no one is hurt. but certainly will have some advantage if they see -- if they're able to see inside of that synagogue. it will give them some ideas of what is taking place and more importantly, how they need to proceed in an event such as this too. >> we have seen uptick in domestic terrorism in this country and i'm not saying that this is terrorism to any respect. we have no confirmation of that. but nonetheless, we have seen an uptick in that here in this country. there has been violence at religious institutions like synagogues as we have seen as well. is there a different approach when it comes to law enforcement and dealing with a situation specifically at a religious institution like a synagogue?

>> well, in these types of situation, we don't know what the motive is. we don't know whether it's domestic terrorism or what. it's too early to tell, certainly, but here's what we do know. people inside that synagogue certainly do feel very fearful, very scared, scared, and that in and of itself is a concern to all of us because certainly, as you just mentioned, we certainly have seen an uptick in domestic situations such as this, this type of domestic violence, and this type of terrorism. but here again, i think as we continue through the afternoon, and this may go into the evening, but as this continues and more and more information is gathered, i think we might be able to make some better assumptions around what may be going on, but at this point, we also have to respect the fact that law enforcement's certainly

going to limit to any of us where they are and how they're going to proceed in this, because we don't want to move too far ahead of ourselves. >> all right, cedric alexander, i hope you'll stick with us as this develops. we're going to continue to stay on this story for now. just want to remind folks, we are following some breaking news out of fort worth, texas, where authorities are reportedly negotiating with a man who has allegedly taken people hostage at a synagogue in the town of colleyville, texas. we are learning that the service was being live-streamed on facebook. the recording is continuing to be captured, and there are sounds, muffled audio, of what sounds like talks between the police and the suspect that they are actually engaging currently as we speak in negotiations. we're going to have more for you live on the scene when we come back from the break. you live on the scene when we come back from the break.

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we are following breaking news out of the fort worth, texas, where officials in the town of colleyville have confirmed the agency is conducting s.w.a.t. operations outside a synagogue there. the fort worth "star-telegram" reports that authorities are negotiating with a man who has taken people hostage. we are learning the service was being livestreamed on facebook. the recording is continuing to capture muffled audio of what sounds like talks between police and the suspect. we are also learning now the white house is currently monitoring the situation around these ongoing hostage situation happening in colleyville, texas. want to bring in a reporter from the ground in colleyville, jamie landers for the dallas news. jamie, i have you? >> yes, hi. it's pretty difficult right now to get any details, and i do think it's important to note that right now, no one has confirmed whether or not the suspect inside has a gun. we've also seen reports that he

was threatening people inside with a bomb. that hasn't been confirmed either, but yes, like you said, really, the information that we have been able to gather so far is from that live stream where the audio was muffled but we were hearing certain sentences like, there's going to be two bodies coming out of here, me and my sister. we did hear that he was trying to get police not to come inside and basically just alluding to the fact that that would not end well if they were to enter the building. but that's really all that we've been able to pick up so far. >> do we know how long this service was being livestreamed to connected with authorities, how they came to learn that this hostage situation was undergoing? >> yes, yeah, that's how everybody was alerted. we started to see word about it on social media. and the last time that we as reporters were able to speak with police about 45 minutes ago, they said that they were also, of course, aware that it was being livestreamed and they

were in communication with someone inside trying to cut that off. about 2:00 p.m., it was turned off, but like you said, yeah, it seems to be back up and running, just muffled and kind of static-y. it goes in and out. we're not sure who's running it. >> talk to me about the area there. does it seem like there are a lot of congregants inside the synagogue right now? is it a full parking lot? is this a synagogue that has undergone threats before? has been a target at all in the past? >> as far as we know, at this moment, there's not a history of threats at this synagogue. it's extremely hard to get details at the moment because they're not letting us anywhere near. we're all stationed in a parking lot at a catholic church across the street, but we can see that there are armored vehicles. there's a lot of cop cars, ambulances, all sorts of personnel. we're hoping to meet up with police pretty soon here at a

staging area at a nearby middle school. but they are keeping everybody incredibly far away, even when you try to get near the crossroads here where the synagogue is across the street, police have been ushering us away to the back end of this parking lot. >> how far are you away from the synagogue then? are you on the other end of the parking lot at this point? >> yeah. yeah. we're a couple blocks away at this point. so it's been a lot easier to look at aerial footage and live streams from up ahead from some local television outlets but yeah, they're keeping us pretty far away. >> do you know if this synagogue has any security in place in general on a normal day? >> we do not know, but we have definitely not heard there was any form of security inside with whoever may be indoors at the moment. >> and you talked about possibly getting an update from local police. are they holding a press conference or just giving a kind of press update, press avail in a little bit? >> yeah, just a press update in a little bit. the last time that we spoke with them, they wouldn't even confirm yet if this could be classified

even as a hostage situation, and they said they would have an update within the hour, so hopefully we can get a little bit more clarification. of course, there are a lot of assumptions, of course, already as to what this is online, but we're hoping to get confirmed from authorities about what they're seeing right now. >> i'm going to let you go, jamie, i know you got a lot of work to do for your own paper. so, i do appreciate you jumping on with us, but just one last question to you and that is, just give me a sense of what the community of colleyville is like for folks that don't necessarily know. how far are you away from a major city? what the community is made up of, the types of folks living there. >> it's definitely a smaller community. everybody that i have been able to talk with so far has just really described it as a tight-knit place. everybody knows everybody. and i mean, clearly, especially in the area where we're at right now where there's the catholic church, the synagogue across the street, this is a very community-centric place, and i know that a lot of them are

worried about their community members, people that they see on a weekly basis at these places. anxiety is pretty high right now. so, hoping that we can get some more information to all of them soon. >> all right. jamie landers for us. we thank you very much for jumping on with us. hopefully you'll check back in as you get some more information on how this thing develops. for now, jamie, thank you. >> yes, of course. thank you for having me. >> yeah, of course. so, we are following breaking news, everybody, if you're just joining us, i'll update you. officials in the town of colleyville in texas, they've confirmed that the agency there is conducting a s.w.a.t. operation outside of a synagogue. th's where you see some of those police vehicles now and these live images that we're getting from the scene as jamie was just telling us, there are an incredible amount of police vehicles there along with emergency vehicles in response to what's happening inside that synagogue. the "star-telegram," the fort worth "star-telegram" telling us authorities are negotiating with a man. there are unconfirmed reports of the man being armed. we have not confirmed those

reports at all. we are learning the service was, in fact, being live-streamed on facebook. the recording is continuing to capture sort of this muffled audio of what sounds like talks between the police and the suspect as they are negotiating currently with the hostage taker inside. we're going to stay on this for a bit and bring you up to date as we get more details on it because as you well know, this thing is developing as we bring it to you. so, with that, we'll see you on the other side of the break. to. so, with that, we'll see you on so, with that, we'll see you on the other side of the break.rch. from coupons to lower costs options. plus, earn up to $50 extra bucks rewards each year just for filling at cvs pharmacy. nothing like a weekend in the woods. it's a good choice all around, like screening for colon cancer... when caught in early stages it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive... and i detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers... even in early stages. early stages. yep.

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welcome back, everybody. we are following breaking news out of fort worth, texas. officials in the town of colleyville have confirmed the agency is conducting s.w.a.t. operations outside of a synagogue, currently a hostage situation, it seems. the "star-telegram" reporting that authorities are negotiating with a man who has taken people hostage. colleyville police sergeant darren nelson saying negotiators have, in fact, made contact with somebody inside of the synagogue, who they believe, in fact, is a suspect. the man could be heard having a one-sided conversation in what appeared to be a phone call during a live stream of the reform jewish synagogue's shabbat service. this was being live streamed on facebook while this was going down and we have been following this thing for the last several minutes or so. this was a congregation established in 1999, again, in the town of colleyville, which

is a dallas-fort worth suburb. i want to bring in american university professor and author of "hate in the homeland: the new global far right." cynthia, welcome. i want to be transparent about the fact that we were going have you on to talk about something different, of course, what was happening and going on in washington, d.c., in the investigation into january 6th. you joined us last week as well to talk about the very same thing, but instead, we are now following this breaking news situation out of texas, so, we appreciate you switching gears for us, but of course this is your expertise, situations like this one. the fact is, we don't know a lot about what is happening there. we know it's a synagogue. we know this is a suburb of fort worth. we know there are congregants inside this synagogue. we currently know there is a negotiation happening with the hostage taker, between the hostage taker and police. on the scene. we have seen an uptick, as i was talking about with cedric a

little bit earlier, in incidents not unlike this one in this country over the last year or so. what do you make of what's happening right now? >> well, first of all, you know, my phone was blowing up just as i sat down in this chair as well. i mean, i think it's all very new. there's a lot still to be figured out, and you know, really, my heart goes out to everyone in that synagogue and everyone in that community, and in fact, one of the thing we know in this situation is that this has a real ripple effect nationally and globally across the jewish community, across religious communities who feel anxious and fearful regardless of what the outcome is here. so, you know, we know that this has -- even though we don't know a lot about what's happening at this moment, we know the impact that it's going to have and that it's already having, and i think we should all be heading those victims close in our hearts for the trauma that they're enduring. >> talk more -- >> go ahead. >> no, please, go ahead.

>> i was going to say, you know, one of the things we're looking for now on the law enforcement side will be eventually looking to find out, is there an ideological motive here? is there a political motive here? we don't know whether this is any kind of political or domestic or international terrorism. we don't know if this is a personal grievance. you know, the focus right now is on ensuring the safety and the security of everyone in that building and then afterwards, there will be a lot of unpacking about what the motive is and whether any red flags got missed and whether anything could have been done to prevent this. >> are we better prepared in this country, local jurisdictions like this, local law enforcement agencies like this, better prepared for situations like this today than we were even a decade ago? >> we are as a country getting better prepared in one sense, which is that we have done -- increasingly invested in equipping law enforcement, intelligence, security analysts, and even security guards with

the tools, and bystanders with the tools to recognize sort of red flags and warning signs and be better at barricading the doors, essentially, against a violent threat. what we haven't done very well, and in fact, i would say we're failing miserably at, is the longer term, what we call secondary prevention or primary prevention, rather, the prevention of radicalization to begin with, so we're seeing just an increasing number of people take violence into their own hands and that's why americans are seeing this again and again, these kinds of incidents. and we can't really arrest and ban our way out of this. we need to be investing more in the earlier prevention so that's one of the heartbreaking things at this moment is realizing that these types of incidents are, you know, always the end game, the end point of something that really had a lot longer lead time in terms of possible interruptions. >> and i want to be clear with folks as we are talking about this. we literally do not know much about who this suspect may, in fact, be, what their intentions

are, what their motives are, so be clear about that and having this conversation. but when you talk about an investment and an intervention, we should say, in kind of the radicalization of americans and keeping them from doing that, what does that investment look like? >> well, when we're talking about that kind of prevention, really, the type of prevention we're talking about is a public health style intervention or prevention that is really rooted in communities where people are trained to recognize very early warning signs, parents and caregivers and teachers and coaches, mental health counselors so that there's a better net of people who are equipped to recognize and then feel empowered to respond and intervene in meaningful ways. where they have resources that they can connect to. you know, we have this -- we have that kind of solution for addiction, for sexual assault, for depression and anxiety, for

mental health concerns or suicide. parents or others who are worried about a person in their lives would know where to get help. we really don't have that for any kind of mass violence or violence, particularly on the extremist fringe, again, we don't know if this is a domestic terrorism or international terrorism incident, but those kinds of red flags, even when people are worried, they don't really know what to do except call the police, who often determine there's nothing illegal happening yet and nothing can be done. so, we need an earlier level of intervention that's at the counseling and therapeutic and educational side that can stop some of this in its tracks, stop people from believing in conspiracy theories, help them recognize propaganda for what it is. if we're talking about, again, the ideological side, which is still unknown, and i think has to be really clearly stated, we don't know the motive here. >> so, let me expand on that a little bit, because you and i actually talked about kind of the healthcare aspect of all this last week as we were

talking about incidents of domestic terrorism in this country. but nonetheless, do you know if, in fact, for instance, on these law enforcement teams, when in fact negotiating in a situation with a hostage taker, there are folks that are trained not just to deal with the law enforcement aspect of this but the psychological aspect of all of this in dealing with a hostage taker, their mental state? >> for sure on the -- in the emergency and crisis situation, we have very well-trained law enforcement across the country. and i think we have people right now who are very well-equipped to be handling the hostage negotiation and the hostage -- and any hostage situation from the standpoint of real expertise about the mental and psychological state of the person on the other end of that phone line. but where we are not doing as well, and it's not across the board, but it's investing in an earlier community-based sort of social work type approach that is outside of the realm of the security and intelligence and

law enforcement side that would prevent more of those people from ending up in the pipeline. i mean, one of the things that, you know, is often said is that, you know, a violent extremist or a terrorist or a violent mass shooter, for example, only has to execute their plans correctly one time, but law enforcement has to get it right every time. and it's an unfair expectation in many ways, and so the investments really need to be done at a much earlier stage, both for the wellbeing of communities and to turn the resource strain away from the far end of the spectrum. and that is actually what other countries do quite a lot of is invest in those earlier community-based investments in parents to recognize, to be equipped, to be trained, to be counseled, teachers, social workers, coaches, mental health counselors, that's a true kind of public health approach to preventing, whether it's terrorism or extremism or mass violent outcomes here so that's,

again, we don't really know exactly what's happening here, but we know that we're at a crisis point in this country in term of people turning to violence, and we know that there's rising domestic terrorism, which we were originally going to talk about today, and so we know that those -- some of those investments have to be made at an earlier level. >> can you talk about as to why you think this country has not necessarily invested in those measures to keep things like this from happening as other countries have? >> i think part of it is a failure of imagination. i think we have a very difficult time thinking about the role of government, whether that's federal governments or local governments, as not just being ones of enforcement and security and protection but also of building resilience and reducing risk in a different way. so, after 9/11, you know, about 14 months later, we created an entire new agency. we really can mobilize when it comes to threats. we created an agency devoted to

security and risk. the department of homeland security. but we can't seem to wrap our heads around the same level of energy, and investment, whether it's -- not a whole new agency but just that level of threat around, what does it mean to help people be less willing to use violence, less likely to believe disinformation, less compelled around conspiracy theories? i mean, those kinds of investments, i think, part of it is a lack of imagination. part of it is just a desire to see this as solvable, you know, on the end of the spectrum that is about security, and i think by the time we're getting into the security end of things, we're already pretty late. >> do you think the efforts by the justice department now in law firming a new unit focused on domestic terrorism, that that is kind of a step in the direction that you're talking about? >> i think it's a perfect example of enhancing the security end of this. so, it's a welcome step because we need those investments

because we have ballooning arrests and prosecutions and cases and the case loads are there, so it is a welcome signal, i think, but it is another example of -- i mean, we'll never arrest and ban our way out of this. this situation that we're in, without recognizing that we need more resilience-based investments so i would like to see the national institutes of health and the department of education and, you know, other kinds of agencies in a multisectoral way being engaged in some of those prevention and not only the time devoted to -- the resources and time devoted on the justice and intelligence side, although, of course, we need those now because we're in a tough spot and we need the accountability. we need the resources. but it's like the frog in the water, you know, that the more you boil -- the water's rising slowly and you don't realize it's boiling. before you know it, we have military checkpoints on the bridges. i mean, as we did before the inauguration last year. you just start accepting ever

more of a securitized way of living. >> as the norm. >> instead of trying to prevent. >> right. right. cynthia miller-idriss, we appreciate you pivoting for us today with this breaking news. thank you so much for sticking with us through it. we are following, if you're just joining us, everybody, some breaking news out of fort worth, texas. those are the images that you're seeing in a suburb of fort worth, actually, a town called colleyville, we have reports of an ongoing hostage situation happening there, s.w.a.t. operations happening outside of a synagogue. the "star-telegram" reporting that authorities are negotiating with a man who has taken people hostage. we don't know how many congregants were inside. we do know the service was being live-streamed on facebook at the time. the recording is continuing to capture audio so the negotiations between the suspect and police are on going. we'll be frank, we don't know a lot, but a lot is coming in so

we're going to have a heck of a lot more hopefully for you soon. with that, we're going to take a quick break. you soon. with that, we're going to take a with that, we're going to take a quick break. it's so much new there's no time for serena! wait, what?! sorry, we don't even have time to say they were created by world class bakers! oh, guess we did! seriously?! my bad.

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for the foster kids who need it most— at helpfosterchildren.com welcome back, everybody. it is the top of the hour. i'm yasmin vossoughian. i want to get right to breaking news that we're following out of the state of texas. officials in the town of colleyville, a suburb of fort worth, have confirmed the agency there is conducting s.w.a.t. operations outside of a synagogue. those are the live pictures you're seeing right now outside