"Marcus and Abernathy on the deadly police beating in Memphis" PBS NewsHour 1/27/2023
Excerpt
SUMMARY: Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus and her Post colleague Gary Abernathy join Amna Nawaz to discuss the week in politics, including the deadly police beating in Memphis and mass shootings in California as America once again reckons with its chronic struggle to prevent violence and hold the powerful accountable.
#StopTheNRA an American Terrorist Organization
"Community seeks answers after deadly Lunar New Year shooting in California" PBS NewsHour 1/23/2023
Excerpt
SUMMARY: Authorities in California are trying to determine the motive behind the shooting in Monterey Park that killed 11 people celebrating the Lunar New Year. It's the deadliest shooting the U.S. has seen since 19 children and two teachers were killed last June in Uvalde, Texas. Amna Nawaz reports from Monterey Park and spoke with Rep. Judy Chu about the latest community affected by mass gun violence.
"Can gun safety laws make an impact on the frequency of mass shootings?" PBS NewsHour 1/23/2023
IMHO: Not as long as the NRA exists.
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The tragedy in Monterey Park was the second mass shooting in California in just under a week. To discuss the laws in that state and the challenges of stopping shootings given the wide availability of guns, Geoff Bennett spoke with Adam Winkler, a professor at the UCLA School of Law where he focuses on constitutional law and gun policy.
"Another community mourns after California’s 2nd mass shooting in 48 hours" PBS NewsHour 1/24/2023
Excerpt
SUMMARY: Less than 48 hours after a gunman’s rampage shook the sleepy Southern Californian city of Monterey Park, a mass shooting in Northern California left a second trail of devastation. Officials said the gunman opened fire at a farm and another agricultural business near Half Moon Bay, a small coastal city outside of San Francisco. Amna Nawaz reports.
"Latest wave of mass shootings sparks new debate over U.S. gun access" PBS NewsHour 1/25/2023
Excerpt
SUMMARY: As Vice President Harris meets with the families of those killed in the Monterey Park shooting, many are grappling with the toll it is taking on their community. For Asian Americans, this past week has been especially painful. All 11 victims in Monterey Park were of Asian descent. Gloria Pan of MomsRising and the AAPI Against Gun Violence Coalition joined John Yang to discuss gun access.
"How the trauma of mass shootings fundamentally change American communities" PBS NewsHour 1/26/2023
Excerpt
SUMMARY: This week's mass shootings in California, plus two others in just eight days, left 25 people dead and wounded 15 others. They also left many people to cope with the trauma of these attacks. Jennifer Carlson is studying the impact and aftermath of gun violence for the National Science Foundation. She joined Geoff Bennett to discuss how these shootings fundamentally change communities.
"Analyzing Kyle Rittenhouse’s self-defense claims as jury selection begins in his trial" PBS NewsHour 11/1/2021
Excerpt
SUMMARY: Jury selection began Monday in a highly watched murder trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The trial will revolve around questions over protests in 2020 that led to riots and whether the defendant, Kyle Rittenhouse, recklessly shot people or acted in self-defense. Stephanie Sy reports and gets the latest from Milwaukee-based criminal defense attorney Craig Mastantuono.
"Brooks and Capehart on Chauvin verdict, Biden climate plan and Capitol riot investigations" PBS NewsHour 4/23/2021
SUMMARY: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including the president's ambitious climate goals. policing in America, and investigations into the Capitol riot.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): It is a week marked by a moment of reckoning for racial justice, by new calls to hold accountable those behind the January 6 insurrection, and by President Biden's ambitious push to combat climate change.
To help make sense of it all, the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, columnist for The Washington Post.
Hello to both of you. It's so good to see you on this Friday night.
Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post: Hey, Judy.
Judy Woodruff: A lot to talk about.
Let's start with the climate summit.
David, President Biden laying out some really ambitious goals, saying the U.S. needs to deeply cut carbon emissions. Is it realistic, and is life going to have to change in this country to get there?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, it's noble and it's the right policy. I'm not sure how realistic it is.
It's a policy that it's going to introduce a lot of electric vehicles, as we just saw. We're going to have a new power grid. If all these things go through, will we really cut emissions by 50 percent? Well, at the height of COVID, when we were totally shut down, we cut emissions by 21 percent. So, I'm not totally optimistic.
I think the experts that I have read said you have to do more. There has to be a price on carbon. You have to pretty much get rid of natural gas, evolve that out as existence, well as oil-burning cars. So, that's pretty radical stuff.
But that doesn't make the perfect the enemy of the good, or whatever the expression I'm searching for is. So, it's definitely a step in the right direction. I think the really hard thing is China. China's just still burning coal plants. They're still producing more energy. John Kerry, our envoy, wants to keep our climate change policy toward China — with China independent of all of our other policies with China.
As our relations get a lot rockier, as I imagine they will, I don't think that'll be possible. And so how will we create a — really a global accord, when we're really in some sort of cold war with China?
Judy Woodruff: What do you think, Jonathan? Are these things that can really happen?
Jonathan Capehart: I think I'm with David here that I'm not sure whether these goals are — the numbers that have been set are actually attainable.
What I take from the climate summit this week is President Biden, by holding this summit with the 40, 42 nations, is sending a couple of signals. One, the United States is back in a leadership role in doing something about climate and doing something about climate change, that it wants to lead the global effort, a recognition that, without the United States' participation, China and India will most definitely not participate in any action to do something about climate.
And so, if we're going to do anything, achieve any goal, we need to have the United States, China, India and the world united in at least doing something. And I think that's what this — that summit was about this week.
Judy Woodruff: Let me turn both of you to one of the, of course, big developments of the week, and that was the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, accused in the murder of George Floyd.
David, what do you take away from that? And what effect do you think — we talked about this some last week, but what effect do you think it could have on policing in this country and on relations between the races?
David Brooks: Well, the most important news event that happened this week is something that didn't happen.
We didn't get an acquittal. We didn't get civil unrest. We didn't get another occasion where people would lose faith in the system, and really be disgusted by the system. That didn't happen.
And so we can look with some satisfaction at a trial where I think most people agree justice was done. And we can look back on an episode in American life, from the time of George Floyd's killing until the conviction, when race was on the table in a way it hasn't been, in my view, since 19 — mid-1960s.
The problem, the disparities, the injustices have now become a topic of constant conversation and, in my view, a constant gradual truth-bearing. And this has been an awkward set of circumstances for a lot of people, a lot of hard conversations. But, to me, it's — in a rough year, it's been an overall positive, really positive development in American life.
Judy Woodruff: And, Jonathan, do you see these hard conversations leading to something meaningful?
Jonathan Capehart: I hope so, Judy.
The conviction of Chauvin, what's interesting is that, as wonderful as the conviction is, it is just a drop in the bucket in terms of solving the overall problem. Just moments, literally, before the verdict came down, there was the shooting in Columbus.
And while we can quibble over the details of that shooting, the main thing that animates African Americans is this question: Why is it that when law enforcement and African Americans interact, more often than not, African Americans are the ones who are injured, shot or killed?
And that is the overall question that needs to be answered. And I think these tough conversations that David is talking about that have been reignited over the last year, they must continue. This conversation cannot end.
The verdict, the Chauvin guilty verdict on all three counts cannot be the end of the conversation. It has to be the beginning or the continuation of a conversation that has been needed to be had in America for a very long time.
Judy Woodruff: And, David, do you see it continuing?
David Brooks: I do.
And I think there's going to be progress on policing. I'm optimistic that the United States Senate, Tim Scott the Republican, and Cory Booker the Democrat, will reach a deal and that we will actually have a major police reform.
I do think there has to be not just a change in procedures. There has to be a change in culture. African Americans need to feel safe. And that means the police cannot — have to be in the community, working with the community. And police officers have to feel safe. And that means the community has to be working with the police officers.
And so it's the relationship between people in the community and people in the police force. It's community policing in its real form that is the solution, more beyond changing some procedures or some immunities.
Judy Woodruff: And, Jonathan, again, I know we talked about it last week, but is your sense that, after this, we are going to see change?
Jonathan Capehart: I do think so.
And I think the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would be a very good step. I am very optimistic about the bill's chances today, more so than I was a week ago today.
The fact that Senators Cory Booker and Tim Scott and Congresswoman Karen Bass, who is the lead person in the House, are all talking about ways to get this bill done, including a conversation about qualified immunity that is making it possible for people to sue police departments or police officers individually, that's a huge sticking point for Republicans.
But the fact that Senator Scott put out a compromise — that is, well, maybe not the police officers individually, but police departments, let's have that conversation, that was a very good signal that the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act actually stands a chance of passing and becoming law.
Judy Woodruff: And, David, there was a development this week around the attempt to come up with an independent commission to investigate what happened on January 6, the insurrection at the Capitol.
Speaker Pelosi has now made at least two sets of proposals, concessions, if you will, compromises to Republicans. So far, there's no agreement. How important is it that there being an independent investigation of what happened?
David Brooks: Yes, this was a classic Republican moment. Nancy Pelosi said she made these two concessions, then sent a little over to the Republicans. And the Republicans said, we got no letter. Where's the letter? We — it was like, we're pretending to talk. We're not really talking.
I think we should have a commission. It was, (A) a major event in American life. But, (B) — and here, I side a little with the Republicans who want to broaden the scope — I think we should not just investigate this as a one-day crime that happened.
I think we have a problem, an ongoing problem and a growing problem of violent extremism in this country, mostly on the right, mostly characterized by things like January 6, but also a bit on the left. I think we need a commission that would say, what is the map of violent extremism in this country? How do these people communicate?
Is there outside help? There are all sorts of fundamental questions that, if you broaden the scope of the thing, would help us deal with whatever the — whatever future Charlottesville or Portland is coming down the road.
And I think that is the core problem we're facing here.
Judy Woodruff: Jonathan, do you think the scope should be broadened, as Republicans are saying they want?
Jonathan Capehart: Absolutely not.
There is no comparison between the people, the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol to subvert the will of the American people, there's no comparison between them and the loosely affiliated folks who are under the umbrella of so-called Antifa.
What happened on January 6 needs to be investigated. The people who were involved in the planning, the people who just unleashed violence on the U.S. Capitol, but on American democracy, we need to know what happened, why it happened, and how we can prevent that from happening.
And what happened on the 6th is part of a larger problem in the country of the rise of far right extremism. And we should spend our time focused on that.
Judy Woodruff: Well, someone in connection with all this, David, your column today in The New York Times, you carry, frankly, a sobering warning about what's happened to Republicans since President Trump left office.
Spell out a little of what you're seeing and what your concern is.
David Brooks: Yes, well, some of us had hopes that, when Trump was not spewing hate from the Oval Office, life would calm down.
In fact, the Republican Party has grown more radical, more radical in a specific way. It's become more catastrophically pessimistic. In one poll, people were asked, do you think politics is for policies or do you think it's for national survival? More than 50 percent of Trump voters think it's about national survival. Only 19 percent think government is about policies.
In another survey question, people said, which of these two comments do more agree with, [1] it's a big beautiful world filled with people who are mostly good, or [2] our lives are threatened by criminals, terrorists and illegal aliens, immigrants? Seventy-five percent of Biden voters supported big beautiful world, 66 percent of Trump voters supported our lives are at threat.
And so here's a group of people who feel the very existence of the country they know is threatened and they have to armor up. They have to get violent. They have to prepare for the coming conflagration.
And that's just a horribly pessimistic mentality in a country where democracy depends on us having faith in each other and having some sense of psychic security. And so that deep, deep pessimism is, I'm afraid, radicalizing the party, and ongoing.
Judy Woodruff: Jonathan, thoughts on that?
Jonathan Capehart: Well, I read David's column, and I thought it was terrific.
And it is a sobering warning for the rest of the country. What has happened to the Republican Party, it's terrible for governance, but it's also terrible for the direction that the country is going in, especially a country that is changing demographically as quickly as the United States.
We are not going to be able to hold the enterprise that is America together as long as one of the two major parties in this country, (one) doesn't govern, and, (two) gives voice to and gives cover for domestic terrorists, racism, and the perpetuation of white supremacy.
We will not survive if that is the way the Republican Party will remain.
Judy Woodruff: Sobering ending to this conversation.
David, we thank you. And, Jonathan, we thank you.
Jonathan Capehart: Thanks, Judy.
David Brooks: Thank you, too, Judy.
SUMMARY: A day after a deadly shootout with police left six people dead in northern New Jersey, law enforcement and city officials are trying to understand what happened. Among the possible motives being considered: anti-Semitism. John Yang speaks to Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop about being “aggressive and deliberate” in calling out violent hate and how the community is reacting to the tragedy.
SUMMARY: In the aftermath of recent mass shootings, calls for expanding gun safety regulations have increased. Although some of these ideas are popular among Americans overall, how do gun owners specifically feel about them? William Brangham talks to gun owners in Odessa, Texas, site of an August mass shooting, about what legislation they would support and how else they think we can reduce gun violence.
SUMMARY: In Texas, seven people were killed and 22 wounded in Odessa during a mass shooting Saturday. After state troopers stopped the alleged gunman for driving his car erratically, he shot one of them and then sped away, firing at people randomly. The massacre comes less than a month after one in El Paso left 22 dead. William Brangham talks to Mitch Borden of Marfa Public Radio for the latest updates.
SUMMARY: A gunman firing indiscriminately from his car on Saturday in Odessa, Texas, killed seven people and wounded 22 more. Many of the victims were sent to Odessa's Medical Center Hospital. William Brangham talks to Russell Tippin, the Medical Center Health System’s CEO, about the harrowing experience of becoming a trauma center for a mass shooting and how the community and first responders are coping.
SUMMARY: The seven people killed in a mass shooting in Odessa, Texas, over the Labor Day weekend ranged in age from 15 to 57. They were parents and siblings, a truck driver, a mail carrier and an Army veteran, and they were going about their lives when they became victims of a random deadly episode of violence. Judy Woodruff remembers them, in the words of their families and friends.
SUMMARY: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart join Amna Nawaz to discuss the week’s political news, including whether there will be real momentum in Congress to enact stronger gun legislation, how President Trump conducted himself visiting shooting victims in El Paso and Dayton and what white supremacy means for our American national identity.
Amna Nawaz (NewsHour): We're now nearly a week on from the two tragedies in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. But the grave questions that have been raised in the aftermath remain, and likely will remain for some time.
How, if at all, will American politics and American society respond?
That brings us to Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart. Mark Shields is away this week.
Welcome to you both. Thanks for being here.
Let's jump into the big topic for this week. Obviously, gun violence was a big topic of conversation.
I want to go right to a poll. We heard President Trump mention earlier today that Leader McConnell is totally on board with background checks. That would bring him in line with the rest of the country. This is broken down by party support for universal background checks.
The floor there, David Brooks, is 84 percent for Republicans.
Do you see this as the moment that this legislation passes?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, of course, logically, you want to say yes, but we have been here so many times since Newtown and all — Parkland and all the shootings, that we haven't quite got there.
And so how can something with that kind of support even among Republicans not pass?
First, the NRA has a zero compromise policy, that we won't accept any compromise at all. We're just holding the line.
And so far, for 20 or 30 years, that has sort of been working for them. Second, it's low salient issue. People care about guns on the week after something like this happens. And then you ask them, rank the issues you care about, guns start dropping down.
And then the third, it's turned into a culture war, where, for a lot of people, it's not about guns at all. It's about my culture vs. your culture. And if you want to control my guns, which are part of my gun clubs, part of my community, you're just a bunch of coastal elites coming after me.
And so I hope this is a week when that changes, but we have a right to be a little skeptical.
And the one opportunity — and this is a perverse way to put it — is that we might not have — we might have the same gun debate over and over again, but what's become new this week is, it's a terrorism issue as well, in that the people, especially in El Paso, but in a lot of these other shootings, they are killing on behalf of an ideology that is a little like the ISIS ideology in some ways.
And we could — if we had a discussion, what do we do to combat domestic terrorism, that, we might be able to have a different kind of conversation and pass some of the things we couldn't pass any other way.
Amna Nawaz: The threat might be different there, you think.
David Brooks: You might rearrange the political alliances, because the gun issue, people are pretty baked in.
Amna Nawaz: Jonathan, what do you think?
I mean, we do have this conversation again and again. It's usually right after one of these mass public events. You remember, back in 2012, after kindergartners were murdered…
Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post: Yes.
Amna Nawaz: … we thought, OK, this is the moment. And then it wasn't.
Jonathan Capehart: Right.
If the slaughter of 20 children in their elementary school wasn't enough to move the Senate, to move the U.S. Congress to pass even just background checks — it failed by six votes — then nothing will move them.
To David's point about, a week we will be talking about, we will move on, but I think the momentum in this case will dissipate greatly because the President just left for vacation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is already on vacation. He's already said the Senate's not coming back.
And so by the time they come back in September, God forbid we're not talking about another mass shooting, but it might not be until another mass shooting that you get the kind of energy and momentum that's needed to push such a heavy rock up the hill.
Amna Nawaz: Do you think if they face — members of Congress are in their home districts. If they're getting questions about it, that could help add to some momentum?
Jonathan Capehart: I mean, look, again, going back to Newtown, the national outrage over what happened wasn't enough to blunt the power of the NRA.
So I don't know how much a town hall is going to — or successive town halls will be to change the momentum.
David Brooks: The cultural issue cannot be underestimated.
I have always loved Mayor Bloomberg, but it wasn't good for the gun issue that the guy spending all the money around the country and becoming a spokesperson for the movement was the mayor of New York City.
This has to be led by a group of red state people who are rock-ribbed Republicans who say, I'm very Republican, I love to shoot, guns are part of my culture, but we got to change.
And until you can get red state leaders doing that, it's going to be a tougher issue.
Amna Nawaz: Let me ask you about something else.
The President did, obviously, make a visit to those affected communities. And his team put out what's basically a highly produced edited video of his visit on the ground in El Paso. You're watching a clip of it right there.
There was a contrast there between some of the reports we heard on the ground from journalists and then another video. It was cell phone video that emerged after the visit. It showed the President on the ground in El Paso talking about his crowd size at a rally back in February and comparing it to Beto O'Rourke's.
Take a quick listen to what he said.
Donald Trump: That was some crowd.
Woman: Thank you.
Donald Trump: And we had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot. They said his crowd was wonderful.
Amna Nawaz: Jonathan, there is kind of a tale of two narratives there. In the moment, you don't really know which one to pay attention to.
Jonathan Capehart: Well, the narrative here is consistent.
President Trump is at the center of that narrative, whether it's that highly produced campaign-style-like video of his visits to El Paso Dayton, or it's that cell phone video where he's talking about one of the things that is part of his greatest hits, crowd size.
He has talked about crowd size since the day of his inauguration. And, for him, that is a marker of popularity.
But, in that moment, what I would expect the people of El Paso and Dayton, the people in Ohio, the American people who are grieving — and also Texas — people who are grieving, what they want to see from a President is comfort. They want to see someone consoling them.
I was in New York on 9/11. And President George W. Bush was President of the United States, and I had lots of disagreements with the policies of President George W. Bush. But when he stood on that rubble at ground zero and talked to those workers, and talked to the city, and talked to the nation, that's exactly what we needed to hear then.
When President Obama went to Charleston and impromptu sang "Amazing Grace" at the eulogy for Clementa Pinckney, a state senator who was murdered with eight other people in Mother Emanuel Church, in that moment, he channeled the grief of a church, of a city, of a community, and of a nation.
We didn't get that with President Trump.
Amna Nawaz: David, how do you look at this, really? He's such a divisive figure anyway. There is the standard of the consoler in chief. He hasn't done it yet. It's not who he is. Right?
David Brooks: Yes.
Well, there's a photo, a still from that visit where he's with the orphan baby and two family members, with his wife. And Melania is holding the child. And he's got this grin and the thumb up.
And when I looked at that photo, I thought, the Democrats are having a debate: Is he a racist? Is he a white supremacist?
And I look at that photo, I think, well, he's a sociopath. He's incapable of experiencing or showing empathy.
And, politically, it's helpful for him to target that lack of empathy and fellow feeling toward people of color. But how much have we seen him show empathy for anybody?
And so I look at that as someone who is unloved and made himself unlovable and whose subject is himself, is his own competitive greatness. And so he doesn't do the consoler in chief just because he doesn't do that emotional range.
And that's a burden and a cost for any of us.
Amna Nawaz: You mentioned the white supremacy line there. We have obviously been talking about that a lot in 2019 now.
And Lisa Desjardins was reporting earlier too on the ground in Iowa there. Candidates are being asked about that: Do you think this President is a white supremacist?
Is that sort of a litmus test now for candidates moving forward?
David Brooks: It's an easy emotional inflation, it seems to me.
I thought Biden's answer and Kamala Harris' was pretty good, which is, I don't know, but he's certainly enabling them. And he's certainly speaking the language. He uses the language of invasion when talking about immigration.
Now, I read a lot of the manifestos this week and those who have actually killed in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso. They start with invasion. They go many more steps. They believe that racial mixing really is a cancer. And they have this deep separatism.
I don't know if Trump has that. But he has certainly set an atmosphere where it's easier to talk about human beings as an invasion.
Amna Nawaz: What do you make of all this right now, Jonathan? It's a big topic. This is nothing new in America. And yet it's new in terms of how prevalent it is.
Jonathan Capehart: Right, because — and it pains me to say this, but we're talking about it because the President of the United States is a racist with a white supremacist policy agenda.
He began his political career questioning the legitimacy of the first African-American President. He started his campaign within the first two minutes saying that Mexicans were — quote — "rapists."
He called for a complete and total ban on Muslims entering the United States after the San Bernardino attack during the campaign in December 2016. He's used words on the campaign trail from the midterm elections and continued, invasion, caravans, infestation, animals, to what David was talking about.
In policy and in rhetoric, he is feeding into this environment, this atmosphere, where people such as the shooter in El Paso who has — we have seen the affidavit. He's confessed in doing what he's done, and confessed to targeting — quote — "Mexicans."
That — these things don't happen in a vacuum. Did the President order this person to do this? No. But that person heard in that rhetoric — and we have seen it from New Zealand, around the world, but particularly here, where we are dealing with a domestic terrorism problem, where the primary people committing these terrorist acts are white supremacists.
We're dealing with a situation here where the President of the United States is feeding into it with the rhetoric that's coming out of his mouth, whether it's from a podium at the White House or from a podium at a campaign rally somewhere in the country.
David Brooks: Yes.
I hear you talking, and I think I basically agree with it. Then I — my next question is, well, how do we then do democracy for the next 16 months? Like, there is a presumption that we're all Americans together. There's a presumption of goodwill, that we can have a conversation.
And maybe Donald Trump — but how do we address ourselves to Donald Trump supporters, many of whom are very realistic and are supporters of him for good reasons having to do with their own lives and the dissolution of their own communities.
It's going to be hard to have a conversation once the President has been declared sort of really beneath contempt. And I'm not saying I disagree with you. I'm just saying this is a problem we have to deal with as we try to have a national conversation over this election.
SUMMARY: Mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, left more than 30 people dead over the weekend. What can be done to prevent incidents like these? Amna Nawaz talks to Larry Ward, chief marketing officer of Gun Dynamics, and Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, for two different perspectives on potential solutions to the problem of rampant gun violence in the U.S.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): Back now to our look at guns in America.
Excluding El Paso and Dayton, just since yesterday, at least 88 people were shot and at least 28 people were killed by guns in 27 states. That's according to the Gun Violence Archive.
In fact, we rarely report on these events: gang warfare, domestic violence, robbery. And that excludes suicide, the largest factor for gun deaths.
Amna Nawaz reports that the number of guns in America, some 393 million of them, more than one per person, is greater than in any other country and that, even on days of relative calm, guns kill roughly 100 people in this country every day.
SUMMARY: The weekend mass shooting in El Paso appears to have been motivated by white supremacist and anti-immigrant sentiment. In response, President Trump said Monday the FBI has been tasked with disrupting “domestic terrorism.” What is the nature of this movement, and how can we address it? Amna Nawaz talks to the University of Chicago’s Kathleen Belew and George Washington University’s Seamus Hughes.
SUMMARY: Deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton prompted immediate outcry among candidates for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination. Several of the contenders denounced President Trump for rhetoric they said foments violence and hatred. One of them, Rep. Tim Ryan [D-Oh], represents Ohio in Congress. He joins Judy Woodruff to discuss “weapons of war” and whether there is hope for gun reform in Congress.
SUMMARY: After mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, we examine the threat of domestic terrorism and the nation's gun policy debate. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, one of the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss the El Paso and Dayton tragedies, the “horrible reality” of the white supremacist movement and why he thinks strict gun laws have decreased homicides in New York.
SUMMARY: Mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton have pushed gun safety back into the forefront of national politics. On Capitol Hill, how are lawmakers responding? Lisa Desjardins joins Judy Woodruff to discuss an unusual move from Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the current landscape of proposed gun legislation and whether there is a realistic chance for any expansion of background checks to pass.
SUMMARY: How do we explain and stop mass shootings like those in El Paso and Dayton? Some Americans point to guns, saying they're too common and easy to obtain, while others emphasize the mental and emotional conditions that could drive perpetrators to inflict such horror. Amna Nawaz talks to Dr. Garen Wintemute of UC Davis Medical Center and Duke University's Jeffrey Swanson for analysis of both theories.
SUMMARY: And now we turn back to guns in America. And we look at the politics.
Joining me is former U.S. Representative Carlos Curbelo. He's a Republican who represented Florida for four years, until 2018.
SUMMARY: At least 22 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso on Saturday. The alleged shooter referenced white supremacist ideology in a manifesto posted online shortly before the massacre. Judy Woodruff talks to William Brangham, reporting from El Paso on why the violence is so “jarring” in a largely welcoming and harmonious community adjacent to the U.S. border with Mexico.
SUMMARY: Less than 24 hours after a shooting massacre in El Paso, another nine people were gunned down in a busy nightlife area of Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday morning. Police quickly killed the alleged gunman. Judy Woodruff talks to Yamiche Alcindor, reporting from Dayton on how stunned residents are coping with the tragedy, what they think is causing the violence and the political change they want to see.
SUMMARY: On Wednesday, President Trump traveled to Dayton, Ohio, where a gunman killed nine people and wounded 26 early Sunday morning. Ahead of his visit, Mayor Nan Whaley expressed concerns about the President’s previous rhetoric and said she hoped his visit would “add value” to the grieving community. Whaley joins William Brangham to discuss what she told Trump about her stricken city and gun safety.
SUMMARY: President Trump visited grieving El Paso Wednesday. An “El Paso Strong” rally was held to coincide with his arrival -- and protest his rhetoric on race and immigration. Judy Woodruff talks to Dan Bush, reporting from El Paso, about the mood in the “deeply divided” city, how residents felt about the President’s visit, Trump’s agenda while in town and what Sen. Ted Cruz [R-Tx] said on the somber occasion.
SUMMARY: Authorities in El Paso, Texas, said a gunman opened fire Saturday morning inside a local Walmart, killing multiple people. A suspect is now in custody, and at least 22 people were injured during the attack. For more on the shooting, Dennis Woo, operations director at NPR affiliate KTEP, joins Hari Sreenivasan from El Paso.
SUMMARY: Investigators of the El Paso mass shooting, which left 20 people dead and wounded at least 26 others, are treating the massacre as a case of domestic terrorism and will file capital murder charges against the suspect, now in custody. They are also trying to determine if an anti-immigrant “manifesto” posted online was penned by the alleged 21-year-old white male shooter. Megan Thompson reports.
SUMMARY: A gunman, now in custody, opened fire at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas on Saturday, killing 20, and wounding dozens of others. Texas Tribune reporter Julian Aguilar joins Hari Sreenivasan via Skype from El Paso for more on how the community is coping with the loss.
SUMMARY: Less than 13 hours after the massacre in El Paso, Texas, a gunman killed nine people, including his own sister, in downtown Dayton. Police said the carnage lasted less than a minute before they arrived on the scene and killed the shooter. NewsHour Weekend’s Megan Thompson reports on the latest.
SUMMARY: A gunman in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people and injured 27 in under a minute early Sunday morning, before he was fatally shot by police. Among the dead was the shooter’s sister, making family dynamics a main focus for investigators. Jim Bebbington, editor of the Dayton Daily News, joins Hari Sreenivasan with the latest.
SUMMARY: Nine people were killed and 27 were wounded in a mass shooting in the downtown entertainment district of Dayton, Ohio. The police patrolling the area fatally shot the gunman within a minute of the attack. The shooting took place less than 24 hours after the killing in El Paso, Texas, of at least 20 people. Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, joins Hari Sreenivasan via Skype.
SUMMARY: Hate-filled online posts or “manifestos” have often been purposely left behind by shooters for the public and authorities to find. New York Times opinion writer-at-large Charlie Warzel, who covers information technology, joins to Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the ‘gamification’ and radicalization of white supremacy on online forums.
SUMMARY: While reporting on the white supremacist ideology behind mass shootings, are journalists inadvertently magnifying the message? Joan Donovan, director of the Technology and Social Change Research project at Harvard University, joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss how reporters should -- and should not -- cover mass shootings.
SUMMARY: In Virginia Beach, thousands of city employees gathered Monday to mourn friends and colleagues killed in Friday’s mass shooting at a government building. Police haven’t yet shared a motive for the attack but have revealed details about the shooter's weapon. Amna Nawaz talks to former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem about what made this shooting different and how the law should react.
SUMMARY: An Army veteran and Red Sox fan. A soccer coach. A “prankster” who entertained his colleagues. A city veteran preparing to retire. Parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends. The 12 people killed in Friday’s shooting at a Virginia Beach government building were all these things, and so much more. We take a moment now to honor the victims, with memories and tributes from those who knew them best.
SUMMARY: As authorities continue searching for clues into Friday's mass shooting inside the Virginia Beach Municipal Center that killed 12 people, many in the community are trying to make sense of the rampage. NPR correspondent Sarah McCammon joins Megan Thompson from Virginia Beach to discuss how residents are coping.
SUMMARY: The deadly California synagogue shooting is the latest in a series of attacks that raise profound questions about keeping sacred spaces safe. Judy Woodruff talks to the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati's Shakila Ahmad, Rabbi Devorah Marcus from Temple Emanu-El of San Diego, Ted Elmore of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, and Bishop Eugene Sutton of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.
SUMMARY: A wave of suicide bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday has the country grieving, on edge and under a national emergency. At least 290 people died in the attack, which the government blamed on a little-known Jihadist group. Police arrested multiple suspects and worked to disarm additional bombs, as officials admitted they had ignored warnings of an attack weeks before. Judy Woodruff reports.
SUMMARY: The death toll from Sri Lanka's Easter massacre has risen to 321, as the country observed a national day of mourning Tuesday. Although the Islamic State made an unconfirmed claim of responsibility for the bombings, officials in Colombo blamed a local group and suggested the attacks might have been retaliation for the recent mass killing of Muslims in New Zealand. ITN's Debi Edward reports.
SUMMARY: In Sri Lanka, investigators have learned more about the Islamist militants they blame for a series of Easter Sunday bombings. At least 58 people have been arrested, many of them from well-off Sri Lankan families whose neighbors expressed shock at their apparent involvement. The death toll from the attacks now stands at 359. Debi Edward of Independent Television News reports from Colombo.
SUMMARY: It has been nearly 20 years since the first mass school shooting in the U.S. -- the shocking tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. As a “credible” threat closed Columbine and hundreds of other Denver schools Wednesday, John Ferrugia of Rocky Mountain PBS shares part of an upcoming documentary [video link] featuring survivors of the massacre in their own words.
SUMMARY: How are those closest to the Columbine school shooting observing its 20th anniversary? Coni Sanders’ father, David, was a teacher and coach at Columbine and the only adult killed -- but not before he warned hundreds of students to safety. David Cullen is a journalist who was at the scene. Lisa Desjardins talks to both of them about their memories of horror and how life has moved forward since.
SUMMARY: Today marks 20 years since the Columbine High School shooting near Denver, Colorado, where two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves. As members of the community gathered Saturday for a day of remembrance, Dave Cullen who wrote a book about the massacre, joined Hari Sreenivasan to talk about what’s changed, and what hasn’t, since Columbine.
SUMMARY: The shocking massacre of 50 people attending Friday prayers at mosques in Christchurch has rocked New Zealand and the world. Authorities have revealed that the suspected shooter purchased four of his five guns online from the country’s biggest gun supplier. In response, New Zealand’s government is vowing stricter gun laws right away. John Ray of Independent Television News reports.
SUMMARY: Amid the many questions swirling around the New Zealand mosque shootings is whether Facebook and other digital platforms acted swiftly enough to stop video footage of the attacks from circulating. These social media giants are already facing scrutiny for enabling users to perpetuate false stories and hate speech. Judy Woodruff talks to The Washington Post’s Elizabeth Dwoskin for more.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to analyze the week's news, including hate and tragedy in New Zealand, President Trump’s aggressive and “reckless” rhetoric and the latest updates from the field of 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And with that, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
We're going to get to politic in just a moment.
But, David, I want to start with this terrible massacre at two mosques in New Zealand. We just talked to our guests it.
What does it say about — I was going to say about where we are in terms of tone. What does it say about us as a human race right now?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, we're seeing a culture cry in pain and rage and alienation, a culture that's divided, that is isolated, where people are lonely, committing suicide at high rates.
And one of the things some lonely people with existential angst do is, they turn into fanatics. And that's been the case all through history. And we're just at a moment of just cultural pain. And you get these horrific outbreaks.
Some of it is gentle, relatively gentle, screaming at each about politics. Some of it is really bad, the suicide and the murder rate, the opioid rate. And some of it is horrific, which is these mass shootings that we see across Western society.
And it's just the definition of our cultural moment. And the thing that Kathleen Belew said, I think, is worth repeating, that it's a movement.
Judy Woodruff: Right.
David Brooks: And it used to be a movement or even a terror army was a group of people who had some internal structure and internal structure and institutions.
But now they're radically decentralized webs organized by the Internet. And so, just because they have never met anybody — each other doesn't mean they're all part of one thing. And they are part of one series of fanatical ideas.
And what's interesting is how they wink and nod to each other through their statements in their Internet or through their statements in their manifestos. And so they're quoting — this guy was quoting somebody — the guy in the Pittsburgh synagogue. And that's just a scary form of movement.
Judy Woodruff: For them, it's all of a piece, Mark, even though they don't have a leader.
As David said, Kathleen Belew was saying a moment ago, this is — they're all about eliminating everybody who isn't white.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Yes. No, I agree, and I was struck by Kathleen Belew's remark that it's a white power movement and a social groundswell.
And I can't help but think that the amplification and strengthening of this institution or this movement has occurred through the Internet. The idea that if somebody held those beliefs in the past, there was almost a sense of isolation, because they were so widely unacceptable to most people.
But now you get ratification, you get validation, because you can talk to people, whether it's somebody who is going after Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston or the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh or in New Zealand yesterday going after Muslims at prayer.
And it truly is — it's worldwide in its movement. And it's obviously not based on anything other than that sense of anger, resentment, alienation, and hostility.
David Brooks: It should be pointed out the tendency to go after houses of worship is not an accident.
Mark Shields: No.
David Brooks: It is a form of anti-religion. It's faith or a movement of hatred.
And this has not been the first time in history that we have had this, and so you get these war — moral wars. Somebody pointed out that, when the printing press was first created, people thought it would herald in an age of peace, because we could all talk to each other through the written word. And we got hundreds of years of religious war.
And so open communication can have these horrifically negative effects. And Ryan O'Lieber (ph) said back in the '50s that existential anxiety, if you don't know what your moral purpose is, you turn into a fanatic, because this sort of white or black or any kind of racial power movement gives you a very clean moral logic. You know what your purpose is in the universe. And you have a clear enemy you can go kill who are inhuman.
And so it cures all your existential anxiety, because suddenly everything is literally black and white.
Judy Woodruff: But you don't really right now, Mark, have an effort to condemn it, to say this is wrong.
I mean, it's on the margins.
Mark Shields: No, we all know it's wrong. I mean, it is.
I mean, but how do you confront something that is almost subterranean? I mean, it's not something that we run into, most of us, in our carpool or daily.
There was just one moment yesterday on Capitol Hill, when the most powerful Democrat in the country quoted the most popular Republican President of the last century.
And I would just like to read it. And it just said, thanks to the — quoting this President: "Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, always leading the world to the next frontier. If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world will soon be lost" — Ronald Reagan's last speech to the American people.
(CROSSTALK)
Judy Woodruff: Nancy Pelosi.
Mark Shields: And it was quoted by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, at the luncheon for the Irish Prime Minister yesterday, Donald Trump sitting there as she said this.
But, I mean, wow. I mean, it's just one of those moments you say, we are not who we were.
David Brooks: Yes.
And it's an assertion that what joins us across race is more important than what divides us.
Mark Shields: Yes, exactly.
Judy Woodruff: Well, we're talking about — you made the segue to President Trump.
And I was going to ask this in the context, David, of the 12 Republicans yesterday in the Senate who went against the President on his emergency declaration on the border.
But what has come up in the last day or so is a comment the President made in an interview with Breitbart News, the right-wing Web site. And he said — and he was condemning Democrats and saying they were the left. He said it's tough.
But he went on to say: "I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, support of the Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people. But they don't play it tough, until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."
I'm contrasting that with what President Reagan said.
David Brooks: Yes, again, he left out the Brownshirts. It is classic authoritarianism. It's almost Mussolini-like.
I happen to think it's compensation. As a friend told me, a friend of Donald Trump's told me that he's terribly afraid of confrontation in person. He will do it over the Internet, but he won't do it in person. And so he needs to project toughness.
And he admires toughness in the Saudis and Putin, in the North Koreans. And that's his highest virtue, but it's something of a blustery front, which is typical of bullies.
Mark Shields: Reckless beyond belief. I just — I can't believe it. Words matter, especially the words of a President.
And he's not talking to Breitbart or any particular group. Whenever the President speaks, he's speaking to all of us and for all of us. And this was criminally reckless. It was almost sanctioning, if not condoning, any act of violence by one of his supporters, armed supporters, against a political critic, a political opponent, saying, I understand it.
I contrast — I just contrast it with the words of a Reagan or a Kennedy or any other President.
