"deadline white house" picks up our coverage right now. ♪♪ ♪♪ >> hi there, everyone. 4:00 in new york. brand-new reporting and inquiries about the police response to tuesday's trajic and horrific school shooting in uvalde, texas, the rampage that took the lives of 21 people including 19 young children and two heroic teachers. after a press conference that left many with a whole lot more questions than answers. officials told reporters that the gunman was not confronted by anybody when he entered the elementary. that's after they initially said that an officer on site had engaged with the gunman. this official adds that the shooter was on the premises for an hour before he was shot dead by the police. sources are also telling nbc news that law enforcement which included a tactical team from customs and border patrol was unable to enter the classroom

until the school's principal provided them with a master key. the associated press is out with bombshell reporting today reporting that onlookers, parents and neighbors outside of robb elementary school where the shooting took place were fluft frustrated and upset by the lack of police including one parents raised the idea of charging the school with other people. from the a.p. report, go in there, go in there, nearby women shouted at officers soon after it began, car ansah what saw it from across the street in the close-knit town of uvalde. carranza said the officers did not go in. minutes earlier carranza had watched after the shooter crashed his car into a ditch near a school and grabbed his ar-15 and shot at two people outside a nearby funeral home who ran away uninjured. while it is unclear at this hour at precisely at what point on

tuesday this scene that you're looking at took place. the video appears to show desperate and anguished and terrified parents right outside the school. some of them urging police to take more action in that moment. but the police response in uvalde now under scrutiny. as we said, many more unanswered questions as we've been saying about what happened and conversely what did not happen while the shooter was inside robb elementary school. republicans including texas attorney general ken paxton and republican senator ted cruz calling for schools to arm teachers. cruz even suggested bizarrely that schools should have, quote, one door that goes in and out of the school. sky news caught up with ted cruz and pressed him on his opposition to gun safety legislation, a position that puts him according to a poll after poll after poll on the wrong side of large majorities of the american people. watch. >> is this the moment to reform gun laws? >> you know, it's easy to go to

politics. >> it's important. it's at the heart of the issue. >> i get that that's where the media likes to go. >> it's not, it's where many of the people we've talked to here like to go. the proposals from democrats and the media inevitably when some violent psychopath murders people. >> a violent psychopath who is able to get a weapon so easily. 18-year-old with two ar-15s. >> if you want to stop violent crime, the proposals the democrats have, none of them would have stopped this. >> why does this only happen in your country? i really think that's what many people around the world, just they cannot fathom, why only in america? why is this american exceptionalism so awful? >> you know, i'm sorry you think american exceptionalism is awful. >> i think this aspect of it. >> you've got your political agenda. god love you. senator, it's not. i just want to understand why you do not think that guns are the problem. >> why is this just an american problem? >> it is just an american problem, sir.

>> mr. cruz, why is america the only country that faces this kind of -- >> you know what? >> you can't answer that, can you, sir? you can't answer that. >> why is it that people come from all over the world from america because it's the freest, most prosperous and safest. >> it may be the freest -- >> why are kids -- >> that's where our coverage today begins and former fbi assistant director of counterintelligence now and msnbc national security analyst and joining us msnbc correspondent ken delaney who has been all over the tiktok of the law enforcement response. my colleague nbc news correspondent kerry sanders who has been all over this news conference today asking the most difficult questions i've heard ask so far, kerry about what

happened and what might have happened had the response been different. tell me what happened in that news conference today. >> i have a feeling that this news conference really did not answer questions. it just raised more questions. it's important to note that they were trying to provide a time line of what happened. at 11:28 the stolen pickup truck that the gunman had goes into a ditch. they get their first 911 call at 11:30. that may be because when the gunman exited the vehicle he had that long rifle, that ar-15 style weapon and a bag which was filled with ammunition we now know and began shooting and so the people who were out there who thought they were responding to a car accident skedaddled and got out of the way. the gunman then climbs a fence and there's a ten-minute period between that 11:30 911 call and the 11:40 that he enters into the building apparently finding

an unlocked door and goes in and that's when he goes down the hallway, makes a turn, another turn and goes into a room where the children are, locks the door somehow and it's one of these classrooms that had like a center divider and so it's open and so it's really two classrooms in one, but the most important thing is now we have -- when the officers arrive and the geography here is interesting because the police department is 1.2 miles away. if you were driving the speed limit it would take five minutes and certainly there would be sirens blaring as loud as they could with this person on the campus. they have this incredibly long period of one hour and i think what's critical is the officer who here, victor escalon from the dps said there was a negotiation going on. so i followed up to ask, when you say negotiation, was there a response? was there a back and forth conversation, and he said there was no response at all from the

gunman inside. so i'm not sure negotiation is the right word and nicole, the big question from every parent is in that one hour when the officers did not breach, did not attempt to go in and did nothing other than wait for the s.w.a.t. team, the team that has the specialized training from the border patrol to go in, whether in that one hour there may have been some children who would still be alive if they'd gone in immediately. we certainly know there was one child, with another child on top that was playing dead with the child underneath her was bleeding and that that child eernt ally died. so those parents are wondering in that golden hour would my child have been alive if they had somehow gone in or at least tried to go in. and at the end of the news conference, nicole, what hammered it home was there were repeated questions by folks here saying please explain that one hour and the dps spokesman decided that he was going to

wait and come back to that later, and i think that is not only raising a lot of questions, but i do know from the family members here it's also causing people just renewed anguish already with the understanding that they've lost one of their children and now this one-hour period. what was going on? >> kerry, you've been talking to the folks in the community and the parents. i've got some reporting in "the new york times" and "the wall street journal" that i want to share with the viewers, but what are the parents saying about this one hour? >> well, the parents are saying the same thing in terms of the questions. >> right. they want answers and they want to know. look, there were, as you know, there were parents outside -- you've got to really understand when we talk about a small community. they didn't need any kind of a lot of, like, broadcast on the radio or television to know something is going on about this. there was word of mouth. people were running here and they were running from blocks away and driving up in their arse and officers were here holding them back.

saying we want to get in. you go into the officers, they were looking for a way to get in and they were getting held back. in this one-hour period they were hearing some shots. it's just not -- as you can imagine, every family member right now, they're grief stricken. they're angry and now they're pointing that anger at the officers and that one-hour period in part because they did not get a clear answer from the news conference today. they just got more questions. >> we know from the time line you've laid out, kerry, that he crashes the car at 11:28. 911 is called on the crash, we believe, at 11:30 or the spectacle of a crash and an armed gunman enterses the school at 11:40 and we know that during the hour they were standing out there that shots were fired. so it is on eye want to read some of the reporting about some of the families. javier casarez, a father whose 9-year-old daughter said

officials have been misrepresenting the response of law enforcement during the shooting at robb elementary. quote, they said they rushed in and all that. we didn't see that said mr. casares who was outside the school during the attack and heard gunshots. he saw police officers evacuating children, but he said when he did not see officers enter the school immediately, quote, there were plenty of men out there armed to the teeth. they could have gone in faster. this could have been over in a couple of minutes. casares said he spoke with governor abbott at a news conference and told him the police responded more slowly than officials had told the news media. beto o'rourke running for governor was quickly escorted out. that swiftness at the school would have been awesome, he said. i mean, i guess, kerry, i just want to come back and i want to understand the eyewitnesses did not see anyone rushing into the school, but they heard gunshots. you heard the stories of 911

"let's roll." was there a sense among the parents that if they won't do it, we will? >> absolutely. in fact, that's what they were attempting to do and they were held back. their children were inside and they were willing to give their own lives to get in there, absolutely, but they were being held back by the officers who are now outside setting up a perimeter and there were hundreds of people out here at this points. it's easy for a lot of people to go back and want to start second guessing a lot of this, but there are certain things that have been learned in this country since -- since the school shooting really in columbine and one is that officers don't hold back and they go in. when you hear them talk about negotiations and there's no back and forth, i'm not sure negotiation is the right word. we know from park land when they had a gunman on the loose and had to apprehend them, they went to look at the camera system and rewind the video and look at it.

we know this school has a camera system. we know they've had a chance now to review it, but in the crisis of the moment to review that tape to say okay, we know where he is. we know what he did. we see the hallways and they can start making decisions like that and then if we're looking at what happened in parkland and a playing it now with those lessons learned or lessons that weren't learned we know that the deputy there, scott peterson, did not go in and now faces some charges himself for his lack of action and now the officers here are being questioned about their lack of action. you know, in the crisis when a gun is pulled and there's bullets flying and it's an ar-15 style weapon, i think it's a point a 2.33 round. it can go through a door, if you held a desk up, yes, it does all of that, but the officers who were responding had a responsibility to do more and that's what we're hearing from the family members more that they expected more of the officers in this crisis to

figure something out and not just wait it out which is what they feel happened, that they had to wait it out until the border patrol team came with the proper gear, the shields and the training to get in there. >> ken delanian, you've been reporting on this and bring us up to speed on what your understanding is. >> nicole, kerry really hit on the exact main points here which is the two gaps in time. the ten-minute gap initially and the 60-minute gap. the ten-minute gap raises the question of why those police didn't arrive sooner when the station where kerry is standing is about a mile from the school. so there's a huge question there. but the one thing i would add to the time line here is according to the briefing that we got today, a few officers did

initially try to approach the school and stop the gunman as he was entering and what victor escalon said was that they took rounds. they heard gun fire and they take rounds and they move back and take cover. so essentially and then he says the initial officers they received gun fire. they don't make entry initially because of the gun fire they are receiving. so what that says to me is these officers presumably armed with handguns were outgunned by an 18-year-old with a weapon of war, an assault rifle and they couldn't -- they couldn't stand their ground in a gun fight with him and they backed off and then they waited for the tactical team 60 minutes and there are so many questions about that. one of them is, the uvalde police department has a s.w.a.t. team and there is a facebook post from two years ago with that s.w.a.t. team posting about how they visited schools and buildings in the area to get the lay of the land so that they can

better respond to emergency situations. where was that s.w.a.t. team in the hour while they were waiting for the border patrol tactical team to come? did anybody go around to the window of the classroom where this gunman was barricaded in? what efforts were made to find out what was going on in there? it's really just unfathomable, and law enforcement officials who are watching this across the country as tom winter said earlier on the air are aghast at what happened here. >> i want to bring frank in with a little bit more reporting from the families and the eyewitnesses. this is from "the wall street journal." mrs. gomez, a farm supervisor said was one of the numerous parents, please allow law enforcement to enter the school. federal marshals approached her and put her in handcuffs. telling her she was being

arrested for intervening in an active investigation. they have convinced local law enforcement who she knew to set her free. around her the scene was frantic. she saw a father tackled and thrown to the ground and the third pepper sprayed. ms. gomez jumped the school fence and ran inside to grab her two children and she sprinted out of the school with them. ms. gomez, frank, is every parents. every parent would put their body in front of a bullet and their kids' body. every parent would trade their life for their children's life. now i'm not questioning protocols, but i am questioning what happened in an hour when we know what happened, 19 babies were slaughtered and two of their teachers. >> i think we're all questioning that, nicole. the facts are so in conflict with each other right now that the only thing i can tell you with certainty is that the

communications coming out of law enforcement right now are horribly broken. we're all familiar with the physician's hippocratic oath, do no harm. that press conference today by that regional dps director did harm. it did harm because he can't answer the most basic, anticipated questions, and so the first rule they teach us about calling a press conference is don't call one unless you have some information that's accurate to convey, and if you don't know what you're doing say we don't know anything. we're not even going to have a press conference. that's the only thing i can say with certainty. now, we've all identified the key questions here. why did it take so long if even this is accurate. why did it take ten minutes to respond to a 911 call. this is a small town. it shouldn't take that long. it is also a small town meaning there's only a handful at best

of officers on duty at any given time on any given shift. if reports are accurate and again, i say it because we simply don't know and we should by now that two of those officers were wounded so that may have cut in half the officers available for that shift. i don't even know that for sure yet. the county sheriffs and i can see the insignia of sheriff's. you were just reporting is the first of u.s. marshals being on the scene and the other thing we can't even get straight, nicole is no one is getting straight of the name of the federal agency that showed up with the tactical gear. we're hearing. i'm familiar with bortac which is the elite team of border patrol as being border patrol and i hear people intermingling cbp, it's customs and border protection, a different agency. were they both there? was it a mixed tactical team?

and here's another question, where the heck is the sheriff tactical team and the local police tactical team? what if this happened in a non-border town? why does border patrol have to show up and save the day? thank god they did, but why? and i've worked all over the united states alongside police departments in my fbi career, and i've carried a badge and a gun for 25 years. yes, the training and policy changed after columbine. absolutely it was if you got two or three of you, don't care if you're working mortgage fraud or public corruption, you're going in and here's how to train to do it and we did it. i remember that distinctly. kept practicing and stacking up, going in for an active shooter. why that didn't happen? i can engage in conjecture. we've heard the word negotiation thrown around. kerry said maybe that was an attempt to talk and you're getting silence from there without maybe gunshots being heard, maybe you're keeping kids alive by not going in.

i can understand that. i can understand two officers are down, but we need the answers right now, and then we need answers also because we need to learn from this been in most police departments, nicole, that i have worked alongside, the sergeant on every shift possesses the master key to the schools. period. a squad car on every shift at least has breaching materials and tools in the trunk of his or her car. so what is the deal? why does the principal have to show up with the master key? where is the sergeant with the master key? so many questions, so few answers. >> kerry, if you have to go and do more reporting, just wave your arms and we'll let you go. do you have information or reporting, kerry sanders, on these questions about which federal agency in charge of the border actually did respond when the tactical team came in? >> no.

the questions that were just asked about the tactical team we do not have specifics on. look, i don't even have the names of the officers and the delineation of which departments were actually inside there on these initial stages of dealing with the situation. so much of the information that you would think that would have been released has not been released and the information that was release side only causing confusion. so it's likely there will have to be another press conference. i wouldn't even be surprised if one was called today to clean up the mess that was started with the news conference today because it's just too many questions and you've got to remember -- you may be sitting at home somewhere in another part of the country and you're disturbed by what you saw, but if you live in this town your stomach hurts, your heart is broken and your emotions is all over the place and the last thing they need to hear is something that doesn't make sense and so for that reason alone, it's likely some pressure

and some discussions probably going on right now about let's get back out there and deal with this and work towards answering some of the questions. the end of the news conference was perhaps the most compelling because there was a lot of reporters. there was one reporter over here that had the strongest voice, the eye contact with mr. escalon saying you have to explain this and he said we'll just get back to you. we're done. we're walking away and then as often happens because this is a bilingual community there were multiple requests for him to comment in spanish which normally would happen, but with that open question and no answer he didn't even go into spanish and just left. >> kerry, i can see how busy it is behind you. the story has moved at its epicenter, if you want to step away from the shot, please do. we're on the air -- >> i do. ma'am. can i talk to you for a second? i'll see if i can talk to somebody.

i'll be right back. okay. great. we'll come right back to kerry sanders with anything he has. ken delaney, i want to bring you in, as well. do you have any clarity and this reporting is the first report i've seen about the federal marshals handcuffing one of the parents. that, i don't have clarity on and our colleague julia haynesly has great sources there has been reporting that, for example, the officer who fired the fatal shot was an off-duty bortac agent. so there is some kind of customs and border protection -- frank's right. those are two separate facilities right in that town and a lot of those officers live in that town and so they all rushed in e essentially. it's not even clear that this was a formal response by one particular team that works together because we also learned at this news conference that in that stack of officers that finally went in and breached the

door and killed the shooter included also some local police. so that was some real heroism. we shouldn't -- as we're questioning the law enforcement response initially, we should also point out that some very brave people went in and braved gun fire and eventually took the shooter down, but the other thing, i think, is very important to point out. the texas department of public safety completely revised their account of what they initially said was a school resource officer that supposedly encountered the gunman on the way in, and first they said that person fired their weapon, and there was almost this narrative of the good guy with the gun. and then yesterday, the director of the agency was with the governor and said flatly and with confidence in this tone that yes, was there in even counter and this school resource

officer engaged the gunman and none of that actually happened. this is 48 hours after the incident. it's just remarkable and there are surveillance video. there's all kinds of information that the texas department of public safety has at their disposal to make these kinds of judgments and they're just not getting the information. >> frank, what is your theory about why that's the case still? >> here's what i think. we're dealing with a small town police department and we have yet to see significant leadership presence from that district. there is the police department that may have played no role in this if their resource officer wasn't even on the scene. i don't even begin to understand how you can think that a resource officer was there even may have fired a round and said no, sorry. never mind. nobody was there, but i think

we're dealing with a town that isn't used to this need for communication, crisis management and control and you have the department of public safety for texas, huge professional organization coming in and dealing with this mess that's not really theirs, but now they own it because they've called a press conference. as ken said, their director of the entire organization made a statement that was factually inaccurate. it's garbage in and garbage out and they need to say step aside and quite frankly, we're getting close for the sake credibility, they need to ask the fbi and this may be a request for support to come in and do the actual inquiry. . it's not there be fbi jurisdiction, it's a total, independent investigations of what happened. >> frank is sticking around for

the hour and, frank, while i have you, i do want to thank you for being on the air with us as this was unfolding, as the horror became clear to us in our ears and we shared it with our viewers and i want to thank you for that and you're sticking around for the whole hour and we're staying on this together. our thanks to ken delanian is off to do more reporting on the investigation and something he's been looking at since the earliest days. still to come for us from seemingly every corner of american life, political, cultural, sports a weary and angry, a scared and fed up general public is almost shouting at the top of their lungs in unison. enough is enough. major figures have had it with inaction. a closer look at this surge in demand for lawmakers to do more than nothing. before we go to break, though. picking up where we left off yesterday in our effort to honor the lives of the innocent victims in this mass shooting.

this is jose flores jr. described as a very happy little boy by his uncle. in an interview with "the washington post." he loved his parents and he loved to laugh and loved to have fun. he was very smart. his uncle adds this, not a kid that went looking for any trouble. jose was in fourth grade. layla salazar was on field day. she loved running. she loved swimming, dancing, kid stuff. her dad posted on facebook that they used to jam to guns' n roses "sweet child of mine" on the way to school. layla, a sweet child indeed. we will be right back. d. we will be right back. a serious chair for a serious business woman! i'm always a mom-

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i'm a gun owner. all those caveats. i'm a second a end inment supporter. we just raised the age of purchasing cigarettes, for god's sakes to 21. the age to buy alcohol is 21. i think the age to buy a gun should be 21. i have to say to anybody that's in a position similar to mine that would take a vote on this, it's really hard to come out the first time and say we need universal background checks even though 90% of your fellow americans agree, to say we need to raise the age and do something about high-capacity magazines and the second you do it, you get the text messages that are angry and then you get over it, you feel liberated and then tell the truth. >> sad that that is noteworthy. it is a huge deal when someone in the republican party talks about how it's done and he's

urging his fellow republicans as he said there, tell the truth, resist the political pressure and do what large swaths of what the american people want them to do, pass common sense reform. jason johnson, journalism and politics professor at morgan state university. they're both msnbc contributors. frank is still with us. jason, here's what i don't understand. what the republican position is is that there's nothing legally problematic about an 18-year-old who turns 18 two days later and buys his first ar-15 style weapon. four days after his 18th birthday and buys enough ammunition to have a good day fighting in the donbas, and there's nothing -- that is who they are. the republicans are pro-18-year-old kid buying one ar-15-style gun one day after his birthday and a bleep ton of ammunition and nothing in the

law should prevent that and whoever needs to do that at 18 and where do the $2,500 comes from for a guy that works at a fast food restaurant. nothing should catch that guy? >> not only that, nicole, and oh, he was bullied because he was poor. who on this panel was not bullied? i'm sure someone on this panel grew up poor. it does not you go out and murder people and shoot people. by the way, the guns aren't cheap. the answer is basically, we're not going to do anything. you can go back to sandy hook. they're not going to do anything. they're going to stand in the way of attempting to do anything. the mayor of uvalde said oh, we have a public -- what was a mental health facility going to do? you were going to drag this kid off the street and tell him he needed therapy? no. you have to ban the weapons and you have to do something about body armor.

any other solution is people lying and what concerns me, nicole. i'm not surprised what ted cruz is, he's a lying weasel. i'm not surprised at what abbott said. cops lie, none of these things surprise me. i am concerned about the voters. i do not understand the voters for these republican candidates. i do not understand the voters in these communities that see those guys don't care and don't do anything about it. >> we'll talk about that over the course of the next two hours about the change and the pressure and the questions coming from all corners of american life and not just politics. as promised, my colleague kerry sanders has gone out in short order and has folks to talk to us about. >> joining us now is a family that's here to pay respects to the dead. we have sophia, 6 years old, mckenna, 4 years old, cynthia, inside the school, first of all, did you have relatives or know anybody there? >> uvalde, i have a lot of

family in uvalde and we have a lot of family and friends. my grandson travis and amayamariah jimenez. they got out safe and it was crazy. >> i know you're both sort of karching up on the news here, they talked about the officers who arrived and they went into the school and when the gunman was in the room, the officers remained outside for about an hour. what questions go through your mind? >> i -- i don't have any -- i don't know what to ask? i've been -- it's sur rile. it doesn't seem real. i don't even know. a part of me -- a lot of me was very scared because of my grandchildren and i had children all over except these three and my two grandchildren and my

niece. i was scared for them and i was scared for my daughter and her family and our family and friends and then i just got angry. a lot of different emotions. >> is any of that anger -- i don't want to put words in your mouth, how do you feel to hear that the officers were on scene, the gunman was in the classroom and there was an hour that passed before the additional officers from border patrol arrived and made entry? >> i'm -- it's heartbreaking. that's all i can say. it's heartbreaking. i don't know -- i mean, i'm upset. i don't want to say anything in a malice way or anything, so i know our officers -- we've never had anything like this happen in our small community, and so i don't know -- i've heard of all these things happening. i don't know how someone should react or how someone should feel. i can just tell you how i feel.

i was just maddened, i was scared and i was mad and you telling me this that they were out there for an hour -- it's -- it's -- i -- i don't know what to say on that. >> kasie, any thoughts? >> no. it was just very scary. very scary. >> is it something -- you seem a little scared even now. i see you holding your daughter. it seems like you're almost in tears. >> i got a call that my son went running out of the classroom and i rushed over here. thankfully his grandmother got a hold of him and they were in the funeral home and i was over there waiting to see if i could find my daughter. it took me a while. so tell me in that time that you were out here looking for your daughter, were there officers out here preventing you and others from going into the school? explain what was happening? >> they were having us move towards the field behind the school where the storage area is

at, and they wouldn't let anybody come. we parked -- i parked my car on the side where we exit the school where we drop off and they said it was an active crime scene so we couldn't get our vehicle. >> do you know approximately what time you got here? >> i can probably tell you if i go to my phone calls, maybe? maybe about 11:30? >> okay. so in other words, that one-hour period when the officers were waiting to go in was under way. so now that you hear that the gunman is locked in a room, you were here probably a little after 11:30 because the first 911 call came in at 11:30, but you came within that hour period. >> yes. >> now that you hear that the officers were outside and the gunman was inside and they were waiting for another team of officers to arrive, what goes through your mind? >> i'm just lost for words. i don't know what to think?

it was just really scary. >> they could have saved all these kids if they would have gone in, but i don't know if that's what their protocol is. i don't know what is protocol for something like this? i mean -- >> so since columbine which we all know in colorado sort of, unfortunately, became the beginning of what we see in the country, the decision has been that the officers do go in, that is the protocol and whether the officers here were following other protocol it is, i can't answer and the dps is here to explain. when you say that in your mind, you wonder about other lives that may have been saved, what would you ask if you could, to the officers directly? >> i can't even ask why. i don't know. i don't even know what to ask them. i can just -- i'm just grateful that a lot of other children were not hurt, you know?

i'm grateful that they weren't hurt because there could have been a lot more tragedy here with the way things went down. >> i know you came here to pay your respects. i thank you for sharing your thoughts. i know just by your tears and your emotion that -- and it's important to note how raw this is. this doesn't end. it's not as if because your children is safe it's over. >> no, it's not over. it's a community thing and even i was thinking of my grandkids because you know, the grade that they're in, my granddaughter is fixing to come to this school and it's scary. it's scary. i don't understand yet back door wasn't locked. i don't understand. i've been asking friends and family, you know, like, what have you heard? what's going on? and i hear different bits and pieces of many things and i'm -- i'm just saddened. i'm very heart broken. uvalde will never be the same. >> thank you both for talking with us -- hug sophia and

mckenna closer than ever. >> oh, i've got 16 grandkids and i want to make sure that i get a hold of each one of them. >> thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and i'll turn to the camera for a moment and that's kind of the most raw emotion you can get and the questions and you can hear, she wasn't even aware of the specifics of the news conference. she's getting filled in. her question is how many other babies' lives could have been saved if the officers had gone in and that's the question here. >> kerry sanders, i thank you so much for bringing their voices and i will be haunted forever and uvalde will never be the same and no community is. buffalo will never be the same and you've been to so many places and parkland will never be the same, sandy hook will never be the same and they're in it and that interview captured that so intensely. >> yeah. thank you. thank you. >> kerry sanders, thank you so much. >> thank you. frank, i want to come back

to you with some of what we learned about just from kerry talking to them about at the time it seems maybe normal to move parents away, but it also seems very consistent with the reporting in "the wall street journal" and "the new york times" that we read at the top of the hour and no new information about what was happening? >> well, let's be clear. you do of course, want to establish a controlled perimeter when some violence is ongoing. there's no question about that and i totally understand as a parent, the desire and the emotion to be a part of the solution and to demand answers and i get that, so i understand the perimeter. i don't necessarily understand hand cuffing, parents if that's accurate. i don't want quite get that, but the perimeter is a no-brainer. what we are all focused on, however, is whether or not we definitively understand that for

one hour there was zero police presence in that building and i am not clear on that and please tell me if i'm wrong on this, but i don't think we have an answer to that yet. so we need to be careful if we're saying that there was an hour with no police presence. we're hearing that there were a temps at negotiation and if you're talking, even if there's no response, if there's no shooting while you're talking, that's a good thing. there are so many questions here about why so long for any tactical response, why do we rely on a federal response that just because it happens to be a border or near the border town, we happen to have, thank goodness, border patrol there. great. where are the sheriffs? where is the s.w.a.t. team? where is the breaching material and tools? why don't we have a master key in the hands of the police department? this is going to be studied,

unfortunately, as how not to handle a school shooter because it goes against the training that certainly i've had and certainly what i know police departments train to do. it's chaotic. we need answers and we're not getting those answers. >> just to keep this really rooted in specificity. what specifically goes against the training that you have in terms of the facts as we understand them with the stipulation that they are changing and they are fast moving and they are unclear. >> well, the biggest thing that's contrary to training post-columbine is that the philosophy and practice and policy is you go in. you go with what you've got. i remember that phrase particularly being ingrained in our heads post-columbine. go with what you've got. if that means you, a local cop who showed up and some sheriff's

deputy who drove by, then the three of you are going in. the old days it was establish the perimeter, call the s.w.a.t. team. post-columbine, you go with what you've got. now what you've got, i think needs to be examined, right? in police departments, there are some long guns in most police cars, most police departments there are long guns. in many police cars you'll have a shotgun for various breaching and/ore use in certain situations and you'll have a machine gun, many times a call to end forward today. so was that not available? were they truly outgunned? we need answers to those questions. >> no one is going anywhere. we will sneak in a quick break. we will be right back. stay with us. break we will be right back. we will be right back. stay with us that's the one with the amazing camera?

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for 25 years, yiu worked as an executive at top financial firms. managed hundreds of audits. as mayor, she saved taxpayers over $55 million. finding waste. saving money. because... yiu is for you. yiu is for you. exactly. yvonne yiu. democrat for controller. this is koli. my foster fail (laughs). when i first started fostering koli i had been giving him kibble. it never looked or felt like real food. but with the farmer's dog you can see the pieces of turkey.

it smells like actual food. i saw a difference almost overnight. healthy poops, healthy dog, right? as he's aged, he's still quite energetic and youthful. i really attribute that to diet. you know, he's my buddy. my job is to keep my buddy safe and happy. ♪♪ get started at longlivedogs.com brand-new polling out this morning shows that as has been the case for many years large majority of americans support gun safety proposals. from "politico" and "morning consult" 88% of all americans support background checks. 67% of all americans support an assault weapons ban. 84% of americans support laws that support reporting people as dangerous to law enforcement providers. we are back with jason, tim and frank. tim, it used to be a liability

to be on the other side of all of these issues as it was a liability to be on the other side of abortion bans without exception for rape, incest and the life of the mother. why don't democrats declare a culture war on republicans over their extreme positions on gun possession? the republican position is no law should be pass it to prevent an 18 year old who works at a fast food restaurant and the wages they're paid is another story, but they're not good. he spent $3,500 on two weapons of war and enough ammunition for a day in a battlefield. >> yeah, hey, nicolle. the democrats should go on offense on this. the republican response, the republican attorney general in texas said his response was we should arm teachers. my mother-in-law is an elementary school teacher. she's going to be packing heat in home room? this is ridiculous. nobody is for this.

i just want to say there's a lot of times where people come on these shows and say, well, there's political reasons. it is because they're scared of the nra or they're scared of their own voters that republicans won't do common sense gun reform, and that is bs. here is now i know it is bs, because after parkland the republican legislature in florida and the republican governor, rick scott, signed laws to put in place red flag laws, which basically prevent people who get flagged by a family member as being dangerous from having weapons, and they raised the age from 18 to 21 in florida. they didn't suffer any political consequences for that. the nra didn't come after rick scott. no republicans lost their seat over that vote. it wasn't a courageous vote. so if republicans in texas, if greg abbott and ted cruz and republicans in dc don't pass red flag laws and raise the age to 21 to buy an assault rifle, the only reason they are not doing

it is because of apathy about the deaths of those kids and cowardice. >> right. >> that is it. it is not a political thing, politics preventing them from doing it. they're making a choice to be aapathetic. we saw in florida. it is not going to stop every mass shooting but it would have slowed down this one if the 18 year old had to steal, borrow or find some other way to get a gun other than order it online. that would have made a difference for the lives of those 19 little kids down in uvalde if they changed that law. that is a law that can change, that is within the political possibility. if they don't do it it is only apathy. >> it is worse than that though, jason. i can't buy two sudafed. i have a lot of allergies in my house. i couldn't buy two packages of sudafed. i couldn't adopt a dog from the

aspca without a home visit. the laws are so broken. why isn't the argument made it is harder to adopt a puppy than it is to arm yourself with a weapon of war? >> voting, adopting a puppy, getting a car, all of these things are made more difficult because of the cowardice. i'm going to say this, nicolle. i obviously do not wish harm on anyone. it is a tragedy that hurts. get off the air and you feel like you want to cry when something like this happens. i promise if something happened to philip exeter or sid well, you would see a change. a lot of adults don't think it will be them, it may be their community, their town, their district, but it is not their kids. i promise if it started affecting some of the republicans in the senate, in the house in these states they would make a difference one way or another. they don't care. every democrat should be screaming at them every single second for the remainder of this year. the republican organization, because it is not a party, does not care about your children and

doesn't care if they die. any democrat who doesn't take that particular stance isn't concerned about our kids either. >> frank, from a law enforcement perspective what should change in our laws? >> so i want to bring something up that popped out at the governor's press conference yesterday, governor abbott. he actually undermine it his own position when he said, hey, there are plenty of, quote, really good gun laws in new york and california and illinois, and they still have lots of gun crime. well, guess what? that's precisely the argument why a piecemeal state-by-state approach isn't working and why we need a national law solution to this because you can piecemeal this all you want, 50 different ways in 50 different states and, yes, it is not working. this notion that states that have strong gun laws still have gun crime, yes, because the guns are coming from across the state line, which is the best argument

he could make without realizing it that we need a national solution. what's the national solution look like that possibly gives any hope of a bipartisan approach? which i'm losing hope for. red flag laws work. 30 states have them. texas does not. it allows the police to temporarily seizure weapons with due process attachment that they need time to figure out the threat and then they will give your weapons back to you if it is not a threat. it works. the data is there. number two, we should be raising the minimum age requirement for possessing or purchasing an assault-type weapon to 21. that would have saved lives in buffalo and it would have saved lives in texas. let's make a distinction between a hunting rifle where you are going hunting with your dad and an assault weapon that's designed to murder people. let's make that distinction and raise it to 21 and save some lives. you can't get a commercial driver's license to drive a long-haul tractor trailer across state lines if you are 18. because why? it is unsafe and you could kill

somebody. the same thing should apply to an assault weapon. >> tim, jason, frank, thank you all so much for being part of our coverage today. i'm grateful to all of you. up next for us, the world of sports comedy music. how all aspects of american culture are saying enough is enough and demanding change. that's our next story. stay with us. next story. next story. stay with us because when you save money, you can live better. hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this. your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, like asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee. yeah i should've just led with that. with at&t business. you can pick the best plan for each employee

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the heat organization, the boston celtics and the nba family also mourn those who lost their lives in the senseless shooting that took place

yesterday at rob elementary school in uvalde, texas. our thoughts are with the victims, their families and friends and the entire rob elementary school and uvalde community. we now ask you to join us in a moment of silence for those no longer with us. thank you. the heat urges you to contact your state senators by calling 202-224-3121 to leave a message demanding their support for common sense gun laws. you can also make change at the ballot box. visit heat.com/vote to register and let your voice be heard this fall. god bless the miami heat. hi, everyone. it is 5:00 in new york. it was an important and powerful

moment at last night's nba game between the miami heat and the boston celtics, showing just how deeply this week's massacre of third and fourth graders and their teachers has rocked the entire nation. calls like that for action, for pressuring elected officials to enact gun safety laws heard not just in the halls of congress in our nation's capital, but transcending politics. it is a conversation most kids are having after drop-off when their kids walk into the building and in this case with a coveted ticket to an nba final game. calls are coming outside of sports -- or widely within sports. former nba player charles barkley and radio personal chris "mad dog" rousseau talking about their sadness and anger. listen. >> i never want to get numb to it. >> you never used to think when you send your kids to school something bad is going to happen. but you go back to sandy hook and now it is happening years later, man. it is just really heartbreaking. >> i can't look at every computer!

i can't look at every social media post! >> i can't look at every instagram thing to see what these kids are thinking about. what i can do? i can limit their ability to obtain weapons! that i can do. this does not happen in europe, japan, china. it does not -- israel. name the country. it happens here. the united states of america because you politicians, in this case most of them republicans, and the president go out there and do something! let's go! it can't be that hard! >> and in a heart wrenching address to his viewers, jimmy kimmel spoke at length about the tragedy and the need to change something. visibly in shock and upset by the news. watch. >> how does this make sense to anyone? these are our children, and our representatives are supposed to represent us.

we want limits on who can walk around with an ar-15 and it shouldn't be a teenager who works at a fast food restaurant. if we can't agree on that, forget it. this is not their fault anymore. this is now our fault because we get angry, we demand action, we don't get it, they wait it out. we go back to the lives that we should rightfully be able to go back to, but you know who doesn't forget it? the parents of the children at sandy hook and marjory stoneman douglas high school and now rob elementary school. they won't forget it. >> a growing chorus of calls to do something on gun safety legislation, taking on even more urgency as we learn that for the first time in the year 2020 firearms were the leading cause of death for kids age 1 and older. according to cdc data nearly

two-thirds of the 4,268 children in this country up to age 19 who were killed by guns in 2020 were victims of homicide. meanwhile, car crashes which had been the previous leading cause of death for kids killed less than that, 4,000 kids. of course, the victims of gun violence are not limited to children. 12 days ago ten adults, almost all of them black americans, were killed while they were shopping for groceries in buffalo. twin mass shootings in the past two weeks that have rocked the nation's conscience where the targets were our most vulnerable and innocent neighbors and friends and children. this is where we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friend. moderator of "washington week" on pbs. joining us today a.b. stoddard, associate editor and clom nist. miles taylor is here, former chief of staff with the department of homeland security as well as the co-founder and executive director of the remember new america moves.

james densley, criminal justice professor and author of the book "the violence project." i have to start with you, james. how do we stop a mass shooting epidemic? >> thank you. it has been such a difficult week for everybody as the opening just showed and there's this groundswell now of hopefully a chorus of voices to make the change. one of the things we tried to focus on in the book is that we often feel hopeless after this because time and time again this keeps happening. we call for change, nothing changes. so what we've done in the book is structure solutions to the mass shooting problem on three levels. one, on the individual level. what can we do as individuals right here, right now, without an act of congress that might save lives? that might include something as simple as safe storage. if you have a gun in the home, lock it up. secondly, what can we do as institutions? how can we be more attuned to

the warning signs that someone is on the pathway to violence? how can we build systems in our schools and our workplaces and our communities to divert them from that pathway to violence? but then, of course, there is that third level, which is the societal level, and that is where we are going to need to see some legislative change for the common sense types of restrictions that people are calling for. our evidence is very clear about this in the book. this is not about infringing upon people's second amendment rights. this is about gun safety and it is about sensible controls. an 18 year old does not need an ar-15. that's something i think a lot of people could agree on, and it is a place where we hopefully can find some common ground here. >> i mean respectfully it sounds so silly to even say that out loud, an 18 year old doesn't need an ar-15. of course they don't, nobody does. most former military don't think they need an ar-15 in their home. i want to ask you a blank

question. can we be fixed? . >> you know, this is a question i actually get asked a lot. you might tell from my accent i'm not from the united states originally. i am a u.s. citizen, i have lived here for about 15 years, but i'm originally from the united kingdom. i have friends and family all the time asking me what is wrong with america, what is going on over there? worse than that they'll ask me questions like, is it true that you run your children through active shooter drills in schools? and i would say, yes, it is. in fact, in some states it is mandated. they think it is insanity the things that we do, and we've put this on the backs of our children, of our teachers. this is a problem now that we're trying to deal with because of the failure of our politicians to actually address the root cause of the problem. but to go back to your question, can this be fixed, is it beyond the point of return? i'm hopeful that it can be. the last chapter in our book is actually titled "hope," and i am

hopeful to send a message. mass shootings are preventable. they're not inevitable. we just need to act, and that's really the key here, is let's use this momentum now for change. >> i guess the other part of the question, yamiche, is really are politics too broken. are we too broken culturally, are our politics too broken? in buffalo ten innocent americans were shopping last sunday. one was buying strawberries for a strawberry short cake, a dad was buying birthday cake for his 3 year old. there's something we can do about that, right, because this was a racist rampage and there was a domestic terrorism bill advanced or given renewed energy and senate republicans blocked the chamber from proceeding to a house-passed domestic terrorism bill that advanced earlier this

month after what was described as a racially motivated shooting in buffalo, new york, that left ten dead. it failed on a 47-47 vote, short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a republican filibuster. i ask you, yamiche, are we too broken to fix this? is this who we are? >> it is a great question, nicolle. in talking to people on the ground, in talking to people across our country, what i came away with because i was in minnesota for the two-year anniversary of george floyd when this broke, and i was talking to people about the fact that they feel failed by their government. republican, democrats, they feel failed on life-or-death issues by their government, whether it is policing reform, whether it is hate crime bills. of course, whether it is gun laws. i am talking to people and they're saying, we go to washington, we send these people to washington and they don't actually listen to us. they feel as though when it comes to the democrats, they understand that the democrats are the ones trying to push the

gun legislation through and gun reforms, but they also say there are some democrats like joe manchin, like kyrsten sinema who want do what it takes to muscle it through. and the president who has done things to try to restrict guns, but they feel he could be more aggressive in pushing for this. that's what i heard from people on the ground. of course, there's real disgust i would have to say for republicans when i talk to people about this specific issue. not take of to say people are disgusted overall with the republican party, but on this issue of gun rights, on this issue of keeping little children safe people that i talked to were simply disgusted. i have to tell you as a reporter who covered a number of mass shootings, i am still wrecked by newtown, connecticut. i am still like so many of us wrecked by the idea we had to see at that time many coffins, small coffins, 6 year olds in suits going to funerals, the

most unnatural thing i have ever witnessed. i don't understand how we're back here a decade later having these same conversations. i remember as a reporter, i was younger, i was ten years younger thinking the world is going to change because these children, these children who represent the best in america, has the future of america, these children's lives will matter enough that the government and all of politics will change. nothing happened then. i don't want to say nothing will happen now, but we already see that both sides are in their corners. democrats are pushing as hard as they can, but you have people like ted cruz who are just going off and saying that america is the best place to live and that we're the place where everybody wants to come. of course, that's true, but it is also true that we are exceptional in the fact that we are the country that has mass shootings at schools regularly. that is not something that people come here for. so i think when i think about all of the reporting, i don't know if we're too broken but i know that people absolutely feel broken in this country. >> a.b., newtown broke me.

my son turned one on the day newtown happened and i unplugged the cable boxes for three months. i think if you watch the arc of president obama's presidency, the way he talks about nothing happening after newtown is different from the way he talks about everything else he confronted as a president because it seems to be the thing that makes him understand not just a party who is wholly committed to obstructing and damaging and undermining his presidency at every level, but to undermining the country. 85% of americans support universal background checks. numbers go up to like 95% when you look at some of the -- and they include a vast majority of lawful gun owners. all of the republicans are feeding, even in the wake as the facts are so murky, so murky in this tragedy, everything they're suggesting seems to have been in place, right? guards. you know, everything they think

will stop this was there and an 18 year old bought two weapons of war within four days of his 18th birthday that cost $3,500. no republicans are asking where it came from and no republicans have suggested a single law to make the shooter incapable of buying two weapons of war within four days and enough ammunition to prevail on a battlefield. where are we? >> well, i'm offended by the rhetoric from lieutenant governor of texas and ted cruz and others who talk about hardening schools, because while we might be -- at our most vulnerable at schools, in terms of the number of mass shootings we are not safe at synagogue or church or safeway or a movie theater or anywhere, a concert in las vegas. no one is safe in this country from being in a massacre, and it is offensive to ask teachers who

are teaching or rabbis who are -- and pastors who are ministering to the flock in houses of worship to be ready and prepared like they're in the military to fend off an active shooter with a weapon of war that can kill multiple people in seconds. something the founders clearly never, ever imagined. so that is ridiculous, whatever they're talking about in terms of one back door -- one door that is an entry way and that will be great. it is insane. what is interesting as they talk about mental health being the problem and psychopaths is that they are not willing to say there's a mental health crisis because of lockdowns during the pandemic. they're not talking about how to take care of kids in their formative years, who are 18 or 17 or whatever, and acknowledge that they are hoovering poison

on the internet that radicalizes them and that they should not drink until 21, that they have not formed their prefrontal cortex for judgment. i tell my two 20 year olds and my one 18 year old this all the time, and that those 18-year-old males that are responsible for the recent shootings and most of them are not fit to buy any weapon let alone the worst one. so i would like the media who get in front of greg abbott and ted cruz and everyone else to ask do you believe that 18-year-old boys are fit to make these purchases? really? why? then suggest what they're doing to improve the state of the mental health crisis in this country, because we have 60 million more guns than we have people and we have social media that's not going away. everyone can agree that a universal background check will put in the restrictions required

to make people wait and to examine the background, the family life, the education record, everything of these teenagers who are applying -- that are wanting to purchase these guns. they have to answer why that's unreasonable. i don't hear anything from them about why an 18 year old is just not fit to make these purchases. that's the end of it. but they really want kindergarten teachers who a few weeks ago were -- to strap on weapons of war to fight back let alone a rabbi of 70. it is totally insane. >> i want to show you something else, miles taylor, that jimmy kimmel said. i urge people to go and watch the whole thing. it is really powerful. it is incredible. it is about eight minutes and 12 seconds. the headline to this clip is he does not believe ted cruz is a monster. watch. >> i don't believe ted cruz doesn't care about children. i don't.

i refuse to believe he's unaffected by this. he's a father. i bet he went to bed sick to his stomach last night. it is easy to call someone a monster, but he's not a monster. he is a human being, and some people might not like hearing me say that but it is true. so here is the thing i would like to say to ted cruz, the human being, and governor abbott and everyone. it is okay to admit you made a mistake. in fact, it is not just okay, it is necessary to admit you made a mistake when your mistake is killing the children in your state. it takes a big person to do something like that. it takes a brave person to do something like that. and do i think these men are brave people? no, i don't. i don't. but, man, i would love it if they surprise me. >> do you think those men will surprise jimmy kimmel, miles? >> i don't think they will. i do have a note of optimism on this, and i will get to that in

a second. but i have been with these guys, i have been with these guys like ted cruz and others before they go on the sunday shows after a mass shooting, before they go do a press conference. i have had those conversations with senators and congressmen trying to figure out how to respond on the republican side. i'm no longer a republican, but when i was the primary concern they would have was their voters that were gun owners. they were worried about being seen as weak. and so after a mass tragedy the response typically behind the scenes was less personal disgust and more political inconvenience, this feeling that, oh, man, i'm going to have to lay low for a little bit and not talk about these issues because i can't go out there and -- off gun owners. very nakedly transactional. actually, multiple times because we have so many mass shootings

in this country that when i was a staffer on capitol hill i had to witness a lot of hand wringing with congress persons on both side had to stay to themselves because they would be questioned. when i was at the department of homeland security after the october 2017 mass shooting in las vegas, we undertook a whole process to figure out how we could leverage federal resources to respond. you know what one of the biggest problems was on the front end? figuring out what to call the report because these mass shootings are happening in so many places. it wasn't just the, you know, the music festival mass shooter prevention plan because it had been a music festival. it couldn't just be schools, like a.b. noted. we called it the soft-target and crowded places security plan. soft targets and crowded places? that's like everything.

that was a tacit admission these mat shootings are happening everywhere, the schools, the sin dogs and the grocery stores. it is so frustrating we don't even know what to call it when we are trying to respond. that worries me, and the numbers show it. we have seen a 50% spike as you have noted previously, nicolle, in active shooter events just this year, year over year. what is my one note of optimism on this? this feels different. after buffalo, after rob elementary, this feels different. at the top of the segment you showed what the nba is doing. you showed what people are doing on shows like "jimmy kimmel." the reaction used to be after a mass shooting, don't politicize it. now the reaction i think importantly is different. it is politicized the hell out of this. why? because it is a political solution that is needed. politicians coming together to pass a law. so the response should not be, let's not politicize this.

it should be, let's make this political now, and if the politicians can't fix it throw them out. the numbers do show, even though 95% of incumbents get reelected, well, now, 50% of americans say they're neither a democrat or a republican. 50% of americans say they're a political independent. there's an increasing movement in this country to go fire the people who aren't doing their jobs, and i hope that's the solution here. if we don't get an answer before the mid terms, we have to go fire some of these guys and gals who aren't doing their job. >> thank you for starting us off this hour. we will continue to call on you. yamiche, a.b. and miles, stick around. when we come back, the president of the american federation of teachers on why those republican plans for stopping school shootings by arming teachers will make schools more dangerous. first, keeping our focus on the victims. meet rojelio torres, 10 years old. his mom tells abc news her son was very, very smart, very loving.

of course, we are thinking about his family, lifting them up as they confront unimaginable pain today. and then there's eliahana garcia. he was a lover of dancing, fun and ramen noodles. she was so close to her 10th birthday party. she was planning on reading scripture in church this weekend. the sweetest, sweetest girl that you ever had the chance to meet is what her dad told my colleague, savannah guthrie. he said he had the honor of calling eli his daughter. we will be right back. calling eli his daughter calling eli his daughter we will be right back. vacation hi! book with priceline. 'cause when you save more, you can “no way!” more. no wayyyy. no waaayyy! no way! [phone ringing] hm. no way!

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in the days following the horrific mass shootings in buffalo and uvalde, texas, president joe biden and the democrats are trying to renew efforts to pass common sense gun reform. things like background checks, which as we've talked about for the last three days a majority of americans, 85% of them, approve of. something to make acts of violence either never happen again or become much less likely to happen again. but republican in texas have used every moment since the shooting took place to insist that guns are not the problem. texas governor greg abbott has blamed mental health while others revived the idea that arming teachers and having more armed guards are the answer. here is what ted cruz and attorney general ken paxton said in the days following the shooting. >> there's no doubt we need to do more to keep children in schools safe. we know from past experience the

most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus. >> we can't harden the schools, we can potentially arm and train teachers and other administrators. >> joining our coverage, randi weingarten. they don't want you in mask but they want you packing. >> they want to arm us with guns but ban books. they don't want us using books. yes, guns. >> no books, no mask goes, no vaccine goes. >> no masks, no, haves. and when we really pushed for wrap-around services and guidance counsellors and nurses and mental health professionals, they don't want that either. >> in texas the budget for mental health beds and services has been cut, but i mean what is -- let me ask you. what do teachers want? do feel teachers feel scared today in the classroom? >> so this is -- so as you know i talk to teachers all the time.

i have been in over 100 schools this year, kind of walking the walk with them. today is different. people are both reeling and they're realing but they want to act. i was on the phone with -- the zoom with all of our leaders in texas, and i'm like, what do you want to do? we want to act. >> wow. >> we need sensible gun laws. teachers are there to -- >> and in texas. >> in texas. in new york you would accept it, except my members in new york, where can we go, what can we do? how do we make things safe? i think what you are hearing is that within the last ten days -- and i saw it in your last panel. a grocery store, a school, 18 year olds, not just with ar-15s but body armor so they couldn't be stopped. so what is ted cruz saying? >> what is an armed teacher going to do if the shooter has -- he had bought two

ar-15-style weapons. >> two weapons and body armor. so does the -- sorry. i'm stammering. but the security guard who is a former cop in buffalo couldn't stop the shooter. >> right. >> the people who tried to stop the shooter at robb couldn't stop the shooter. you are seeing copy cat, you are seeing anger, you are seeing halt. there's one thing we could do and that's what they did in australia in 1996 after a massacre. that's what they did in britain after a massacre. we could do some sensible gun laws that actually reduce this scourge. it worked in australia. it worked in great britain. why can't we just try that? try it for a few years. let's see what we can do, and i'm feeling a difference. i am feeling a level of anger

from parents and from teachers and from kids, saying, the united states is better than this. stop it already. let's make sure grocery store goers, congregation goers and kids, let them be the priority. >> i don't want to rain on anyone's optimism or hope because it sustains me, but what do you say to the parents of the kids in newtown when nothing happened? >> well, look, we are going down to houston tonight. i'm going with a survivor from newtown. i'm going with a survivor from parkland. several of the teacher survivors have formed something called teacher unify, teachers united. they have to have hope. they have to hope and fight to make things better, and the fact is we know that these laws work. >> right. >> we know that, you know, the

red flag laws have worked. we know that storage laws work. getting ar-15s off the streets, you know, and so i think that we just have to get to regular folks who are republican or democrat or independent and really put it on the line with these folks who are in washington or other states. and if they don't, we got to vote them out and vote in somebody who is courageous and who believes in kids first. >> i don't know if you saw chris murphy's speech on the floor. >> i did. >> hours after -- do we have that? he talked about the survivors of the massacre but who are traumatized by what they've seen. let me play some of that for you. >> in sandy hook elementary school after those kids came back into those classrooms, they had to adopt a practice in which there would be a safe word that the kids would say. if they started to get thoughts in their brain about what they

saw that day, if they started to get nightmares during the day reliving stepping over their classmates' bodies as they tried to flee the school. in one classroom that word was monkey. over and over through the day kids would stand up and yell monkey. and a teacher or a paraprofessional would have to go over to that kid, take them out of the classroom, talk to them about what they had seen, work them through their issues. sandy hook will never, ever be the same. this community in texas will never, ever be the same. >> my colleague kerry sanders did a live interview on our air, and that's what the resident, the grandmother -- she has 16 grandkids in uvalde and she said uvalde will never be the same. >> never. >> what are we asking our teachers to do exactly in the wake of a two year -- going on the third year of a pandemic and now dealing with this fear that you don't drop off your kids and you can't promise them they will be safe there? >> we are asking our teachers to

basically be the aspiration agents of america. we are basically asking them to take whatever is broke and try to make it better. we ask them to be the priest, the guidance counsellor, the teacher, the critical facilitator, the soul analyzer. you know something? let me just say teachers want to make a difference in the lives of kids. what teachers have asked for, whether it was the culture wars, whether it was, you know -- and i love what a.b. stoddard said. last week they were saying that we were, you know, grooming people. this week they want us to be armed soldiers. but the point is that that is in america, it is the public schools that are the center of communities, and the teachers who are there supporting kids. people rely on that. they hope for that. in fact, that's part of what was so problematic about two years

of covid disruptions. >> right. >> because we didn't have that in that kind of way. so what teachers are asking for is listen to them and give them the support to do their jobs, not have these stupid culture wars, not try to rip them down. let's actually support them so they can do their jobs, and part of their job is that they are fighting for safe gun laws so that we can assure parents that when they drop their kids off for school during the day that they will have them home at night. >> two teachers lost their lives protecting their kids in this classroom. what do you say to their families? >> they're angels. they're just angels. i'm sorry. they're angels. every teacher that has died in this kind of way, there was parkland, whether it was sandy hook, whether it is uvalde, they're angels. of course no one should expect

to do that, but that's why we have to change this. no one who goes to church should expect to get gunned down. no one who goes to a grocery store should expect to get gunned down. we can change this, but we have to move the middle, the heart of the country to say enough. no more deflections, enough. sorry. >> took my breath away. thank you for being here. it is amazing. teachers are viewed by republicans as not having the scruples to select their own curriculum or books but they should be the line to protect between life and death. it is incredible. >> if you think about the culture wars, they don't want us to teach about slavery. we want to make sure kids who are gay or trans, that they can be in a school.

they don't want us to do that. but instead of giving -- instead of trying to do common ense gun laws, not take guns away from hunters, just common sense gun laws, now they want us to solve this problem too. >> it is insane. let us know how it goes tomorrow in houston if you want to come back on and give us a report from there. >> of course. >> thank you so much for being here today. >> thank you. when we come back texas congresswoman veronica escobar on how her state became so extreme and it is politics as pertains to guns. first focusing on the beautiful victims, angels in the words of randi. alithia ramirez turned 10, so recently that when beto o'rourke met with her families there were still balloons in the house. they want the world to know what a beautiful, happy girl shelves. now we all do. this is jacklyn ka czarres.

her father describes her as a fire cracker. so full of life and love. jacklyn celebrated her first communion. it bears repeating all of these families are in our thoughts today and every day. we will be right back. we will be right back. it's time to get outdoorsy. it's hot. and wayfair's got just what you need. we need a rug. that's the one, yeah. yeah, we were feeling outdoorsy. i know... now through may 31st shop wayfair's

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safety, there are some signs this afternoon that maybe, just maybe something could get done in congress. just within the last hour nbc news is now reporting that informal bipartisan talks are ongoing and senator chris murphy's office in the basement of the senate spearheaded by murphy who made the impassioned speech hours after the massacre and fellow connecticut senator richard blume that will. the group includes democrats joe manchin and kyrsten sinema, pat toomey, susan collins and bill cassidy by phone. they were approved by mitch mcconnell, and said this weekend top republicans including the twice-disgraced former president will head to houston to bow down to the nra where 14 acres of the latest guns and gear will be displayed, all of this happening days after a shooting just miles away that killed 19 children and two teachers. this combined with the

suggestion of several lawmakers in texas who are advocating for more guns illustrates just how extreme the gop has become in the last decade. joining our coverage congresswoman veronica escobar out of texas, also a former el paso county judge. first, i want to ask you how you are doing and how your constituents are doing. has the location this week of our country's scourge of mass shootings. >> nicolle, thank you so much for asking. yesterday and the night before last i was on the receiving end of lots of texts from parents here in el paso who just were beside themselves, at not just parents. lots of folks in the community just beside themselves with anger, with pain, with frustration. the next morning i received a number of texts from moms who

said they dropped their kids off at school here in el paso and wept in the car. you know, i will tell you, i know that this has been triggering for a lot of el pasoans because of what happened in our community on august 3rd, 2019. i was yesterday in the middle of the day talking to a young man and he burst out into tears, and he kept apologizing. but it is clear that this is having a real triggering affect on communities like el paso. i think about other communities that have lived through these kind of gun-violence attacks. i worry about those folks. i worry for uvalde and what is ahead for them in terms of the pain and the trauma that they are going to have to deal with. and one more thing, nicolle, in an economically disadvantaged community, probably there are many of those families who probably don't have health

insurance, in the same way that my community, a quarter of my population doesn't have health insurance because we live in a state that blocks access to health insurance. so they are going to need support because they're going to have medical bills. the survivors will have medical bills. funeral bills for the families. the mental health bills that won't be covered by any kind of insurance. >> your anecdote about drop-off, i mean i have cried the last two days after drop-off. it is this ritual in america that is different in the wake of something that happens at a school because we think of it as a place, the only other place where our kids are safe when they're not with us. i wonder if you can speak from your experience in el paso and just tell our viewers what this community needs, how people can help. >> well, we have reached out to leadership there to find out how

we can help. i have had folks ping me about, you know, whether they should go and help and offer support. we really need direction from the community as to what they need, but i can guarantee you they're going to need mental health support. they will need personnel and experts to help those little babies, nicolle, deal with the trauma of what they witnessed, the sounds that they heard, the screams that they heard, the blood that they saw, the carnage that they saw. that will be engrained in those babies' brains for the rest of their lives. the same thing with all of those teachers, the same thing for those parents who were desperate to get inside to save their children. so the mental health support will be first and foremost. unfortunately, we live in a state that absolutely neglects mental health funding. in fact, governor greg abbott diverted funds from the

department of health and human services just recently in order to continue to bolster his political stunt of operation lone star. so we live in a state where the way that texas deals with mental health really is largely through the county jail system. we jail our mentally ill. so we've got underpaid, overstressed mental health professionals. my hope is that we can get some help from outside of the state as well because there's been trauma after trauma after trauma in our state. i think blood donations. check in if there are blood drives in your community. they may still -- i don't know the state of the survivors, but it is always good to do that. i know that there will be foundations that will work to help those families because those families will need help not just today or in the days to come, but in the years to come. i still have families in el paso

dealing with medical bills, with surgeries, with physical therapy almost three years later. >> yeah, years after the camera crews leave. it is amazing, it is forever as you said. congresswoman veronica escobar, thank you so much for being part of our coverage. we're grateful to you. >> that. a quick break for us. just consider what jaliah nicole silguero's family is going through. not only was she killed but so was her cousin, jayce carmelo luevanos. a member of their family called them nothing but loving baby angels. always had a smile on their faces, just full of life. that's how we'll remember them. we will be right back. back. that's why we build technology that helps everyone come to the table and do more incredible things.

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president joe biden visited buffalo, new york, a city reeling with grief in a mass shooting there. today we learned the president referred to as the consoler in geneva with dr. jill biden will visit another community reeling with grief. biden will travel to uvalde on sunday. the president plans to join religious leaders. i always come back to the language of grief and grieving the loss of a child, of

children. but also his role after new town on the legislative front for president obama in trying to get something done there. he does know where the levers are. and i wonder if you have any sense of how this white house is trying to aid any legislative efforts that we heard about earlier today. >> given what we've heard from the white house, the president's obviously trying to really get a accepts of what this bipartisan group of lawmakers might be capable of doing. president biden as you said is someone both familiar with what it's like. it feels like your soul is ripped out of you by losing children. ultimately, understands the gridlock and the realities of washington and the last time so many parents, plenty watched children and teachers when it came to sandy hook that nothing changed. so i think this is going to be a trip where the president, of course, is going to be familiar with the sort of solemn duty

that he has as the commander-in-chief. he also has in the back of his mind going to be relying on aid to really understand sort of what can possibly happen, possibly after this recess that congress is just going on, that they are going to be back on june 6th. i want to say one other quick thing. we heard them talk about -- i want to say i was just reading about irma garcia, who was a teacher killed. a part, of course, of what president biden will be doing. he is going to a family like irma lost not only irma, but her husband had a hart attack today. one of her family members told the "new york times" today, she was found embracing her children, empraising her students. her last breath was taken in taking those little kids and give them comfort as this shooter was massacring people. i think that is the community and that is the reality that we are facing. that's what president biden is going to be walking into. when we think about angels, i'm

thinking of irma garcia and so many in that town welcoming the president, who will be welcoming the president outside of their bodies. these are people physically not losing the children that were murdered. we are also losing family members to broken hearts. it to me it's incomprehensible. as you said, the consoler in chief president who is very, very familiar with what it's like to be a trauma and depress the garcia family, my heart is on the garcia family as it has taken the final moments she was embracing her students. >> it is something we don't spends enough time on here. but what has been asked? the contortions that one of the two political parties, the republicans have over teachers that their safety concerns were overstated, that their ability to wield a firearm is

understated, that at the end of the day, there is no politician in any of their minds as they stare down a guy with an ar-15. for reasons we don't know, no law enforcement official that was at the school stared them down. that's what teachers do. that's what these teachers do. >> are you for anyone that is struggling today to think about what you ask the congresswoman veteran can help. if you are not in el paso and you don't know what the local community services that could change your contribution and are you not there to donate blood, i think people have to realize on the republican side, my comb, as you know so well, there are single-issue voters on the issues of guns and abortion. there always have been. on the democratic side, that doesn't exist. people feel powerless, they have to find a way to mobilize and register voters on the issue of guns and guns alone. it has to be matched on the

democratic side. it is a driving force on the republican side. it's not the corrupt nra. it's why republicans answer to these base voters because the issue is so powerful with that. >> thank you so much for spending the hour with us today. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. k brea so you can have more success tomorrow. ♪ one thing leads to another, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ ♪k for us we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ entresto is the number one heart failure brand prescribed by cardiologists and has helped over one million people. it was proven superior at helping people stay alive and out of the hospital.

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attorney's office to pursue justice for everyone. but like so many of my colleagues, i resigned in protest because chesa boudin interfered in every single case and failed to do his job. the office is absolutely in disarray right now. chesa dissolved my unit prosecuting car break-ins. now criminals flock to san francisco because there are no consequences. we can't wait. recall chesa boudin now.

a special thanks from me for letting us into your ropes during these truly extraordinary last two days. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> thank you very much. welcome to "the beat." tonight this story takes turns that are significant as the nation continues to reel and grieve. there is scrutiny on the police response, itself, to this shooter that murdered 19 children and two teachers. the gunman was inside the school for nearly an hour before being fully confronted and killed.