Transcripts For CNNW State Of The Union With Jake Tapper 20180225

Guns. Will bring that to you next along with democratic senator chris murphy who joins me in minutes. And, finally released. A redacted version of the Democratic House intelligence memo is out. Responding to republican claims of fbi surveillance abuses. The democrats are not only trying to cover this up but theyre also colluding with parts of the government to help cover this up. The memos writer adam schiff is here to respond coming up. Hello, im jake tapper in washington where the state of our union is still raw in the wake of the tragedy in florida. President trump and floridas republican governor have promised action including some proposals to change existing gun laws in a brandnew cnn poll shows support for stricter gun purchasing laws at its highest level of the last 25 years with 70 now saying that they back new more restrictive gun legislation. Nearly twothirds think government and society can take action that will effectively prevent future mass shootings. Thats much higher than cnn polls after the tragedies in las vegas, in orlando, charleston and sandy hook. There are also new questions about the numerous missed red flags about the shooter and the immediate response. Coral springs tell me in addition to the School Resource officer when Coral Springs arrived on the scene, they were surprised to find three other Broward County Sheriff Deputies who had not yet entered the school. Only one deputy was there during the time of the shooting, while the shooter was there. What about in its immediate aftermath . And victims were in desperate need of help. Joining me now to discuss all of this is Broward County sheriff scott israel. Thanks so much for joining us. I want you to take a listen to Marjory Stoneman douglas brandon huff talking about your deputy the School Resource officer Scot Peterson. The School Resource officer was behind a stairwell wall just standing there and he had his gun zraun and he was just pointing it at the building. And you could shots started going off inside. You can hear them going off over and over. He was just talking on the radio and he never did anything for four minutes. Hes the only one with a gun. Hes wearing a bulletproof vest and he has all that while School Security guards, you know, coaches, pretty much were running in shielding kids. Sheriff, how do you respond to this student . What the student said, our video and audio and all the witness statements we have taken corroborates that. Thats what i saw and when i saw that, i was disgusted, i was just demoralized with the performance of former Deputy Peterson and thats why i called him in and suspended him without pay as we were going to move towards termination and he resigned. Did he tell you why he didnt go in . He did not. Im also told by sources in Coral Springs that Coral Springs police who with arrived at the scene saw that three other broward deputies were standing behind cars not having gone into the building. What can you tell me about that . Let me perfectly clear, our investigation to this point shows that during this horrific attack while this killer was inside the school there was only one Law Enforcement person period and that was former deputy Scot Peterson. Carl springs arrived, a group of Coral Springs officers went in in about four minutes were projecting after the killer left the campus. I understand that theyre going to give statements to us regarding the other three, four, five deputies at this point we have no reason to believe that any one acted incorrectly or correctly. Thats what an investigation is. Everybodys entitled to their own opinion but nobodys entitled to their own set of facts. We do know, jake, that Deputy Peterson at the time uttered he disseminated information over the police radio. We dont know why those what those deputies heard. Perhaps they did something by what they heard from peterson and that will be, you know, outlined in interviews. Well get to the truth but at this point one deputy was remiss, dereliction of duty and hes now no longer with this agency and thats peterson. Youre saying that because during the time the shooter was in the school you say peterson was the only one there but thats not that wasnt known at the time. You know that now because of security cameras you saw when he left the school, this is after the fact, but when did your deputies, not peterson, but the others, when did they arrive on the scene because coral spring sources say when Coral Springs arrived there were broward deputies there in addition to peterson. I dont dispute that but that is an active investigation. We have not taken statements yet from the Coral Springs officers, we found out i believe five or six days ago from their police chief that he told one of our colonels about the information. Were going to be taking statements from those Coral Springs Police Officers, then well be speaking with our deputies, if any, deputies are alleged to have dereliction of duty. Well look into that. We dont know what the deputies heard on the radio. Coral springs and the broward Sheriffs Office. We have different radio systems. We dont know what one was hearing advice ahave i what the other was hearing. We will investigate every action of our deputies, of their supervisors and if they did things right well move forward and if they did things wrong, i will take care of business in a disciplinary matter like i did with peterson. Even after the shooter left the school, there was a period of time where nobody was going into the school, no Law Enforcement officers, people were bleeding out, the question nobody knew that the shooter had left the school so officers needed to go in. One of the things that weve heard and i dont know if this is true or not. I hope you shed light on it is that there might have been a stand down order. Somebody on the radio telling broward deputies not to enter this school until a s. W. A. T. Team arrived. What can you tell us about that . I cant tell you anything about that. I havent heard that. As i said we feverishly or dissecting its a voluminous investigation. Were taking hundreds and hundreds of statements. The focus of this agency is on the successful prosecution of the killer. So were doing that, our detectives have worked hirelessly. We will investigate all aspects of this case. We will look at all the actions or inactions of every single deputy and leader on our agency, sergeants, lieutenants, captains and well make some decisions but right now all i can tell you is during the killing, there was while the killer was on campus with this horrific killing, there was one deputy, one armed person within the proximity of that school and that was peterson. Everything else is fluid and as i said, we will get to the truth but right now people can have conjecture, act on rumors and people have everybody has the right to their own opinion, but nobody has the right to their own set of facts. The facts will come out. Have you listened to the radio recordings . Im not but the investigators are, of course. Okay. You havent you have not heard them . No. What theyre doing now is marrying up the audio with the visual and i was told that one of the one of petersons utterances on the radio, i think one or two with times he actually says shots fired. So you would have to assume at that time every person who heard that transmission is pushing as fast as they can code 3 as we call it to the school, to the school. Identify the threat. Neutralize the target, take the killer out. There comes a point in time later that peterson makes a transmission that would believe hes talking about parameters. So if i know my School Resource deputy is talking about perimeter positions its safe to assume incorrectly if thats what actually happened, its absolutely safe to assume that if a person there is talking about perimeter that perhaps he sees the killer leaving and youre going to a perimeter position to catch the killer but i dont know what was in the mind of the other deputies. I dont know what was in the mind of peterson. This is why we investigate. All i can tell you is that, from the time i heard about this, i did what needed to be done with the Deputy Peterson. The thursday, the day after the horrific incident at a vigil, the city manager confronted you in public and one of the things he confronted you about sources tell me is the idea that your deputies did not go into the school while children inside are bleeding out. Thats absolutely untrue. We had a conversation. We were out in public. The only two people who could have heard the conversation were myself and the city manager. It was a conversation. Im not going to share that conversation. It was very short. The city manager and i have spoken numerous times. Weve met. Hes a great city manager. He does a great job with Coral Springs. We got a great relationship and it was just two guys having a conversation. One of the questions about the response by broward is whether this was policy to set up a perimeter instead of going in. Earlier this week you seemed to suggest that your deputies are trained to arrival and not immediately go into the site of the shooting but to create a staging area. Listen to yourself a few days ago talking about what you learned about the ft. Lauderdale airport shooting. One of the things we learned was dispatching to just arrive haphazardly and we had staging areas and people who came, went to a staging area and they were inserted into the position in a common sense way and everybody had a job to do. That sounds to a lot of people like the opposite of what Police Forces learned after columbine which is when you arrive you run in. Im glad you asked that question. Jake, youre completely talking apples and oranges and im glad you brought that up. When we have a horrific incident of any magnitude and the incident is over and people are arriving to help and we know we have five, 10, 12 hours of work to do, we have our deputies, Police Officers, firefighters go to staging areas so we can insert them in a clear and concise matter into an event. An active shooter is different. As people were coming to the airport, we didnt have an active shooter. He was already in custody. 72 seconds after the event. This is an active shooter. We push to the entry, to the killer. We get in and we take out the threat. Completely different set of circumstances. Okay. When did you find out that Deputy Peterson had not gone into the building . How soon after the shooting did you know that . Not for days. How many days . Im not sure. Because you spent much of the wednesday night town hall on cnn with the entire Marjory Stoneman douglas community, students and teachers and parents attacking the nra, saying the police need more powers, more money to prevent future tragedies. You didnt disclose any of this to the crowd then, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School community. Did you know it then . Did you know it wednesday night . It was spoken about during that earlier during that day. Im not on a time line for tv or any news show. We need to get it right. We need to get it accurate. Were talking about peoples lives. Were talking a community. We need to corroborate and verify and once we did, the next day and i looked at the tape and i was 100 certain that it happened the way i was told about the investigators initially told about. I didnt even release it you didnt look at the video one week after the shooting. You hadnt looked at the video yet. I looked at the video as soon as our investigators it wasnt my job to look at the videos. It was the investigators job to look at the video. Im still sheriffing this county. There were many things to do. We have investigators, homicide investigators, internal investigators investigators dissecting it and when they felt there was a video that ready for my view that i might take action on one of our deputies i looked at the video. And let me add this, jake, once i saw the video, the first order i gave was for our detectives to notify the families of those lost, the families yesterday, today and tomorrow, the families come first and i wanted to make sure the families knew what happened and what was about to happen the families were at the cnn town hall. They were at the cnn town hall and you couldve disclosed i couldnt disclose it then because there was no corroboration, jake. There was no confirmation. We needed to dot is and cross tees and i would not disclose it to a family at a town hall. Not every family was there. One of the families, mr. Pollack had gone to washington, d. C. Thats not the way you do things over a news camera. You do it individually. You meet privately with families. You have compassion. You dont do it at a public forum but your tone at the public forum was belligerent during the nra and needing more police protection, more police fund anxiety more Police Powers and yet you knew thats not that wasnt your testimony. Thats not true. Jake, thats not true at all. I was belligerent toward the nra. I took a passionate stance as i always have about common sense, gun reforming and expanding police ability throughout our country when we come in contact with mentally ill to take them to a facility to take guns away from them. There was no belligerence at all. Lets talk about the response. A medical First Responder told local news station the medical personnel were asking to go into the school but Law Enforcement wouldnt let them. He told, quote, everything i was trained on mass casualty event says they did the wrong thing. You dont want wait for the scene to be cleared. You go in armed, retrieve the victims. You cant leave the victims laying there. Whats your response to that, sir . I agree with that. Thats very accurate. That is what you do. Once the killer leaves the scene of a mass casualty, its still an active killer scene. There are people wounded, people that could lives could be saved. And let me say this, Coral Springs police, broward sheriffs deputies, we did carry people out there. These deputies and these and the Coral Springs Police Officers are credited with savings quite a few lives by getting people medical attention but did you prevent medical people from going inside . No. Once the scene once the scene medical people wouldnt go inside until youre sure that theyre not going to get killed inside. But this person told wsvn he wanted to go in, this medical personnel, emergency First Responder wanted to go in and wasnt allowed to . Jake im hearing that for the first time. If you know who the person is, please have him contact me or the Broward Sheriff Office and we will interview him, take statements from him and if thats true thats certainly something well look in to but im hearing this for the first time. Wsvn. Well get back to you im sure. Lets talked about the missed red flags. 18 calls were made to the Broward County Sheriffs Officer prior to the shooting. Lets talk about them in february 2016 your office received a call that the shooter made a threat on instagram to shoot up a school. One of your deputies responded and according to your records, the information was forwarded to Deputy Peterson at the school. What, if anything, was done with that information . Im not sure if anything was done with that information. I do know as far as notifying the person or notifying either Palm Beach Sheriffs Office or one of the local jurisdictions depending on where the killer was living at the time but peterson did i think report cruz to dcf if im not mistaken. He did get receive medicine and medical treatment. And as i said, of those 18 calls, two of those calls are being 16 of them we believe were handled exactly the way they should. Two of them were not sure if our deputies did everything they could have or should have. Thats not to say they didnt or did. Which of the two which of the two youre looking in to . One was the call from a woman in massachusetts and the other one escapes me right now, but were looking into those two calls. We will absolutely find out what we did or what we didnt do and as i said in a press conference a few days ago and well handle that accordingly. One of them in september hold on one second, jake. Lets not forget the whole crux of this is, giving Law Enforcement, giving deputies, giving Police Officers, not only in Broward County but in florida and around the nation expanded power to be able to do something more than just write a report. Thats the whole reason i went on cnn for the town hall meeting. Isnt making a threat against a school a crime . Not if the person doesnt have the ability to carry it out. You could say nonspecific threat im going to go to a school, its not a crime. We need it to be a crime or at least we fwheed it to be able to say if a person makes a nonspecific threat, what an assault is, say threat coupled with the apparent ability to carry it out. If the person doesnt have the ability to carry it out its not a crime. Well, in september 2016 the shooter indicated he wanted to buy a gun. Dep till peterson knew about that. He initiated the report. The school launched a threat assessment. At this point you have somebody saying that theyre going to shoot up a school and somebody with a gun. Thats not enough . Thats not enough and thats what were trying to change. Were trying to change the law so we can either arrest that person, but more importantly, get that person to a medical facility because if you arrest the person theres going to be a time where they get out of jail any way. We want to get people medical help for Mental Illnesses and when they get out of the medical facility and a doctor says theyre better that doesnt mean theyre better, that means theyre rehabbing. We want to be able to take their guns away from them for a long, long period of time and thats what the governor is going Governor Scott is going to be introducing his proposal. I read it and its a giant, giant step in the right direction. How about this, in november the Palm Beach Sheriffs Office, not your office, a neighboring office responded to a call from a woman who had taken the shooter in and his brother after the death of their mother. She told police that the shooter had gotten into a physical fight with her son and threatened to go get his gun and come back. He had used guns to threaten people before and to put guns to others heads in the past. Thats a crime, were you aware of that incident . No, i wasnt aware of that incident but if a person had a gun put to their head and they were the victim of that type of incident, thats an aggravated assault, thats an absolute felony that is a crime and a person should be arrested for that. I dont know if the victim wanted to cooperate. It was in palm beach county. I dont know the nuance or the specifics of the case. That absolutely is a crime. On november 30th, your office received a call saying that cruz could be a quote, School Shooter in the making, according to notes released on that call. No report was even initiated. At this point, sir, do you understand how the public seeing red flag after red flag warning after warning after warning, they hear that your office didnt even initiate a report when they got a call saying that this guy could be a School Shooter in the making . How could there not even be a report on this one . If thats accurate, jake, their needed to be a report and thats what were looking in to, that a report needed to be completed, it needed to be forwarded to our Homeland Security or Violent Crimes unit and they wouldve followed up on it. Thats from your notes. Im not making this up. This is from broward no. And thats what thats what the officer who handled that is on restrictive duty and thats an active internal investigation and we are looking in to it. I cant tell you i cant predict how an investigations going but we have ive exercised my due diligence, ive led this county proudly as i always have. We have restricted that deputy as we look in to it. Deputies make mistakes, Police Officers make mistakes, we all make mistakes but its not the responsibility of the general or the president , if you have a deserter. You look into this. Were looking into this aggressively and well take care of it and justice will be served. Are you really not taking any responsibility for the multiple red flags that were brought to the attention of the broward Sheriffs Office about this shooter before this incident, whether it was people near him, close to him calling the police jake, jake jake, i can only take responsibility for what i knew about. I exercised my due diligence. Ive given amazing leadership to this Agency Amazing leadership . Yes, jake. Theres a lot of things weve done throughout this this is you dont measure a persons leadership by a deputy not going in to these deputies received the training they needed maybe you measure somebodys leadership by whether or not they protect the community. Youve listed 23 incidents before the shooting involving the shooter and still nothing was done to keep guns out of his hands, to make sure that the school was protected, to make sure you were keeping an eye on him i dont understand how you can sit there and claim amazing leadership . Jake, on 16 of those cases our deputies did everything right. Our deputies have done amazing things. Weve taken this the five years ive been sheriff, weve taken the broward Sheriffs Office to a new level. Ive worked with some of the bravest people ive ever met. One person at this point, one person didnt do what he should have done. Its horrific. The victims here the families, i pray for them every night. It makes me sick to my stomach that we had a deputy that didnt go in because i know if i was there, if i was on the wall, i would have been the first in along with so many of the other people. I think there are a lot of people who think a lot of mistakes other than that one deputy. A lot of people in the community have noted that the Broward County school board entered into an agreement when you were sheriff in 2013 to pursue the quote, least punitive means of discipline against students. This new policy encouraged warnings, consultations with parents and programs on conflict resolution instead of arresting students for crimes. Were there not incidents committed by the shooter as a student had this new policy not been in place that otherwise he would have been arrested for and not able to legally buy a gun . What youre referring to is the Promise Program and its its giving the school the school has the ability under certain circumstances not to call the police, not to get the Police Involved on misdemeanor offenses and take care of it within the school. Its an excellent program. Its helping many, many people. What this program does is not put a person at 14, 15, 16 years old into the criminal Justice System what if he should be in the criminal Justice System . What if he does something violent to a student . What if he takes knives to schools, what if he threatens the lives of fellow students . Then he goes to jail. But thats not what happened with the shooter . If youre telling me that the shooter took knives to school or bullets to school and police knew about it . I dont know if police knew about it. No. Well the agreement you entered into with the school allowed the school to give this kid excuse after excuse while obviously not for bullets, not for pullets or guns, not for knives, not for felonies, not for anything like that. These are infractions within the school. Small amounts of marijuana, some misdemeanors. Youre absolutely exacerbating it. If you see cruz come on campus with a backpack let me know. Does that not indicate that there is something seriously awry with the Promise Program if these teachers are being told watch out for this kid and you dont know about it . We dont know that has anything to do with the Promise Program. I didnt hear about this until after the fact. I have heard about this information about a week ago. I do know about it. I dont know who the teacher was. It hasnt been corroborated but that has nothing to do with the Promise Program. I cant nor can any other broward sheriff deputy handle anything or act upon something you dont know about it. Theres no malfeasance or misfeisance if you dont know about something. He asked the question of town hall of you. I have one last quell for you, Florida State representative from boca sent a letter to the governor of florida asking him to remove you for negligence of duty and incompetence. An investigation by sheriff israel the unfathomable inaction of these deputies will do nothing to bring back the 17 victims. The sheriff was fully aware of the threat this individual presented to community and chose to ignore it. It was a shameful letter. I will not resign. I never met that man. He doesnt know anything about me and the letter was full of misinformation. I wrote a letter back to the governor. I talked about all the mistakes that were in his letter. It was a shamefully, politically motivated letter that had no facts and of course i wont resign. The last question, sir, do you think that if the broward Sheriffs Office had done things differently this shooting might not have happened . If ifs and butts and candy nights i dont know what that means. Theres a whole long list of things how listen, thats what afteraction reports are, thats for Lessons Learned reports are for. I have entered into conversation with chuck welchler of the Police Executive research forum. They will be coming to town. We understand everything wasnt done perfectly and if it happened in los angeles or chicago or any other city, every person wouldnt have perform perfectly. Thats not what happens. Yes, if Scot Peterson went into that building there was a chance he could have neutralized the killer and saved lives, yes, i believe that but as far as anything else done at this point. I cant say that. We hope you get to the bottom of it. I might say it has that . We hope you get to the bottom of it, sir. There are a lot of people wondering, a lot of questions. We will. We will. We will. And theres no time line on it other than we work as fast as we can. We want to get it right and accurate. When we come to the public we want Accurate Information and were not going to push forward to meet the time line of a show or a newscast. All right. I appreciate it. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of parkland and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Thank you for being here and answering my questions, sir. You bet. Thank you. A new push for change in gun laws after the Marjory Stoneman douglas shooting but shouldnt the shooti chris murphy is next. We didnt use it. Wish we got money back on gym memberships. Get money back hilarious. With claimfree rewards. Switching to allstate is worth it. Of being there for my sons winning shot. That was it for me. Thats why im quitting with nicorette. Only nicorette mini has a patented fast dissolving formula. It starts to relieve sudden cravings fast. Every great why needs a great how. Every great why thisat red lobsterest. With exciting new dishes like dueling lobster tails and lobster truffle mac cheese. 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Do not go gentle into that good night. My ci can worry about it,ine. Or do something about it. Garlique® helps maintain healthy cholesterol naturally. And its odor free. And pharmacist recommended. Garlique. ® welcome back to state of the union. Gun control activists are pushing for changes to gun laws after the Marjory Stoneman douglas tragedy, gun rights activists are pointing to the failure of Law Enforcement to do anything after repeated warnings about the florida killers violent history and threats of becoming a School Shooter. President trump is signaling his willingness to work on gun laws. Chris murphy joins me now. Senator murphy, thanks for being here. I know youre calling for more gun regulations, but do you see the argument of people who say, look, if Law Enforcement had just followed up or done their job the deputy at the school, then you dont wouldnt need gun laws, what you need is Law Enforcement looking at the multiple red flags that were there many more red flags than were there with the sandy hook shooter. Thats the point. There are clearly a lot of questions that need to be answered about why Law Enforcement didnt step in earlier in florida there are just as many of these shootings that look like sandy hook where there were no red flags. You cant suppose every single time that youre going to have the ability to intervene before the shooter walks into a school with a military style Assault Rifle and second, as much as we all would have liked this School Security officer to act differently, once youre in the position of hoping that a Security Officer or gym teacher decides to a pistol to an assault weapon, Public Policy has failed. You should be passing laws to stop that horrific incident from happening in the first place. I dont think you can just assume that better Law Enforcement response is going to quell the epidemic of gun violence in this country. One of the programs that the sandy hook encourages schools to Pay Attention to students who may likely become School Shooters, aggressive or violent behavior, fascination with firearms, selfharm all of which was exhibited by this shooter, shouldnt that Sandy Hook Promise lesson be instituted nationwide, youre calling for more gun laws, that if that sandy hook, that uncontroversial sand yoo hook Promise Program were in every school maybe this could be avoided . Theres this false contract created either you have to work on Mental Health or you have to focus on strengthening our gun laws. Thats not true. You need to do all of it. We need to be working to identify kids like adam lanzer earlier in getting them help, you need to acknowledge that those kids with that profile exist in every single country around the world. Its only here that those kids turn to a weapon of mass destruction in order to deal with their demons. So you have to do both. I understand that. One of them is very controversial and difficult and the other one doesnt seem to be very controversial or very difficult. You can fight for both but why not at the very least work very hard to get the one that probably everybody in the senate would support instituted nationwide . Right. Its a good question and why President Trump submitted a budget to congress that guts the funding that helps schools identify these kids, why he took 800 billion president ial budgets dont mean anything. Understood. Just because its controversial doesnt mean you shouldnt do it. Lets do the easy parts but that doesnt mean we should give up a quest to make sure that kids who are have these challenges dont have access to a military style assault weapon that can kill dozens of people in five minutes. Youre going to the white house this week. President trump has talked about focusing on Mental Health, improving background checks, maybe even increasing the age requirement to 21 for the pch of all firearms. I know you oppose President Trump. I know that you oppose Arming Teachers as hes proposed should be done in some instances but can you find Common Ground here . Can you work with President Trump to at least get that passed . Absolutely. Im looking forward to going over to the white house. Im glad for the invitation. I introduced a piece of legislation with john cornyn that would mildly strengthen our background check system. Im willing to work across the aisle and i was encouraged that President Trump said hes in favor of comprehensive background check. Im not sure he knows what that means. That means universal background checks but he has not backtracked on that tweet since he made it. He retweeted it yesterday. Im hopeful that the president may be willing to take on the nra. If he does, there may be a bunch of republicans that follow. Republicans are realizing that they are badly miss positioned on this issue. Senator marco rubio who participated in the town hall took very tough and emotional questions from members of the community. He tweeted that a ban of all semiautomatic weapons is a quote, position well outside the mainstream. I know that there is this differentiation that gun control supporters believe in. Theres assault weapons and then theres all the other semiautomatic weapons but rubios point and its not incorrect is that just a few changes and one is legal and one is not legal, do you support a ban on all semiautomatic weapons . I support a ban on assault weapons and assault weapons are defined by state law. Not a law semiautomatic weapons. There are particularly characteristics of these assault weapons, things that look like automatic weapons but are actually semiautomatic that make these killings much more easily. The bullets coming out of these guns travel at three times the speed of the handgun and as doctors have described they do something to your insides that a bullet coming out of a revolver doesnt. I dont think were talking about a ban on all semiautomatic weapons. Very tightly defined assault weapons that make the semiautomatic weapons turn into weapons of mass destruction. Its always good to have you on the show. Come back and let us know how your meeting with President Trump goes. I will. The newly released memo from democrats. Countering claims from republicans that the fbi abused its surveillance power by targeting carter page in 2016. The democratic memo released last night argues that the surveillance warrant used to monitor page was appropriate. It also reveals the fbi first met with page back in march 2016 before the controversial steele dossier on donald trump and russia was written. The memo also asserts that the Justice Department specifically disclosed to the fisa court that steele was hired by politically motivated sources although the memo doesnt mention the Clinton Campaign or dnc by name. This is a rebuttal to the republican devin nunes memo. After its release President Trump said that republican memo totally vindicated him in the russia probe. As for the democratic memo . A totally political and legal bust and hes calling the man who wrote it, adam schiff, quote, a bad guy. Joining me now to respond in an exclusive interview is adam schiff. Congressman, good to see you as always. Your new memo from the democrats released yesterday. Take a listen to what President Trump said in response during an interview last night. All you do is you see this adam schiff, he has a meeting and he leaves the meeting and he calls up reporters and then all of a sudden they have news and youre not supposed to do that. Its probably illegal to do it, you know. Hell have a Committee Meeting and hell leak all sorts of information. Hes a bad guy, but its certainly the memo was a nothing your response, sir. Well, im proud to be one of the bad hombres. What the president is referring to is what really aggravated him is when his son came to testify before committee, i asked him about conversations he had with the president where the president was on that aircraft and they concocted this false statement about that meeting in trump tower with the russians and he refused to answer the questions, claiming attorneyclient privilege, which clearly doesnt apply to a situation where neither he nor his father are attorney nor client. Our position is and the republicans have adopted it as well, if witnesses refuse to answer questions and make bogus claims of privilege as he did, as steve bannon did, we call them out on it. The president doesnt like that but thats not a leak. Thats a fact and it did disclose testimony he gave, it disclosed a privilege that he assert that had doesnt apply. So im not surprised the president doesnt like it. Im not surprised, frankly, that the white house tried to bury this memo response as long as they could but its important for the public to see the facts that the fbi acted appropriately in seeking a warrant to carter page. Theyre not part of deep state as the president apparently would like the public to believe. Your counterer patriarchy the republican chairman, devin nunes also took a jab at your memo yesterday at cpac. Take a listen. What you basically will read in the democratic memo is they are advocating that its okay for the fbi and doj to use political dirt paid for by one campaign and use it against the other campaign. Your response. My response is that the information that was used in part in the fisa application came from a trusted source, Christopher Steele, someone whos a respected member of British Intelligence and it was part of a full package that was presented to the fisa court and it would have been negligent, frankly, given what the fbi knew about carter page, the history that he had, the fact that he had been a target of russian recruitment even prior to this, the fact that they went out and interviewed him in march even before Christopher Steele reported any part of the dossier, that they were acting in good faith and disclosed to the fisa court that those who were funding Christopher Steeles work likely had a motivation they didnt disclose that it was from the Clinton Campaign and the dnc for our listeners who arent familiar with the fisa court, its a closed, private secret process where the Justice Department and fbi are supposed to present all information they can to get the warrant but there isnt a defense attorney there. Wouldnt it have been better in retrospect if they had disclosed everything, not just that it was political opponents of the president or of then candidate donald trump but that it was Hillary Clintons campaign and the dnc, wouldnt that have been better . Two points, jake. First its ironic that the republicans would attack the fbi for following their procedures which require that they minimize the names of u. S. Persons and u. S. Entities that are not the subject of a warrant. So even Hillary Clinton and donald trump are referred to as candidate one and candidate two. Theyre supposed to mask the identities of people. The second point, jake, its very important for people to know. The issue is what did Christopher Steele know, what did he know that might influence him that might bias him . Christopher steele did not who was paying, who was paying the freight. What the fbi properly reported was, what they suspected, what steele may have suspected, thats what theyre supposed to do and to suggest otherwise, to take issue ive been on the committee now for ten years, this is the first time the republicans have ever taken an issue with any fisa application. I dont think its a coincidence that it serves the president s interests to do so here but the fbi acted appropriately. Would there have been a warrant, a fisa warrant granted with the inclusion of the steele dossier . I think and the only testimony we have on this is the was a part of the complete whole of the application and all the parts born. I dont know that i can answer that. It was important. Theres been a lot made about the fact that some of the steele reporting at the time it was included was uncorroborated. Thats true of almost every warrant application. If search warrant applications and criminal wiretap applications and fisa Court Applications could only rely on things that were proven and verified, youd have very few of them. You need to get probable cause that a crime is committed or that someone is acting as an agent of a foreign power. Your memo also says it represents steele dossier information about carter page being offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton while he was in moscow in july 2016. Had that information been independently corroborated by the fbi when they applied for the warrant . Jake, i cant go beyond what the fbi said that we can release to the public, but i can tell you this, the republicans have taken issue with the fact that we or that the fbi included information about George Papadopoulos in the warrant. That information did disclose that the russians had communicated with papadopoulos, occupied the same position, a Foreign Policy adviser in the Trump Campaign that they had dirt on Hillary Clinton, that they wanted a relationship and they previewed the dissemination of that information which the court can see was taken place in realtime at the time that the fbi appeared before the fisa court. That was directly relevant to whether they were doing the same thing with carter page. All right. Thank you so much. Always good to have you. Thanks, jake. The president seems poised to take on the nra over at least one of his proposals to prevent gun violence but is that a battle hell really have a stomach on . Next. Ke dueling lobster tails and lobster truffle mac cheese. Classics like lobster lovers dream are here too. So enjoy these 10 lobsterlicious dishes while you can because lobsterfest wont last. You wouldnt accept from any one else. Why accept it from your allergy pills . 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This man standing outside of the school the other day doesnt love the children. Probably doesnt know the children. Actually the guy standing outside the school that days with a deputy sheriff, a School Resource officer had been there for several years, new the students and you still hear a lot of the children defending him. New polling out from cnn just now seemed to show a stunning shift in the Public Attitudes towards gun. Take a look at those who support stricter gun laws compared to the las vegas shooting. Now 70 favor, 27 oppose. There does seem to be a shift here, and maybe its a femoral, fwlu does seem to be a shift. First off, that poll only had 23 republicans in the poll. So what percentage should it be . Certainly more than 23 republicans in this country. I mean, the numbers should be more reflective of the 35 to 40 of it that is republican in this country and its obviously higher democrat. You had a tenpoint margin between republicans and democrats, overwhelming number of democrats. You dont believe the poll. I think its an outlier poll. I believe theres sent mint right now. This was a horrific event thats sunk deep in the conscience of the country. Certainly in my opinion gun control is a did he bait we need to have. But another debate we need is that these kids come from broken homes without dads, and thats not shg were talking about and thats the commonality and thats something you talked with chris murphy about. We want to talk about things we can Work Together on, how about, would together to see what we can do to get more dads involved in the lives of the kids. I take your point, its not irrelevant, but for this shooter his dad had died, it wasnt a broken home. I understand that. But over 75 of the shooters these School Shooters since columbine did not have dads in the home. This is a serious issue and were not talking about it. And, governor, according to our new poll, almost twothirds of american say government and society can take action that will effectively prevent shootings like the one, its a much higher number than the 64 say government and society can take action to say they can prevent another mass shooting. You can see the numbers, and youre skeptic of this poll, but the numbers after previous shoot rrgs vegas, orlando, tucson, much lower. The poll is consistent with the poll that was earlier this week, another network did a different poll thats consistent with it. This is the trend. Why is this sentence its because these kids vin jected steel into the spine of america. These kids have made donald trump frankly look like hes cowering behind the nra. If he does something, it will be such an awayimazing thing for h and the country. This poll demonstrates that america is afraid. We need to make america safe again. The fact that we are 25 times more likely to be killed in this country by a gun than in all the other industrialized nation tells you we have a problem and these kids have stiff end our spines. How much do you think President Trump is willing to support something the nra opposed . The nra supported him, supported him more than any other previous president ial candidate. He loves loyalty. Yeah. Thats important to him. Nra says we dont want to raise the age limit for purchase of semiautomatic weapons to 21, we want to keep it at 18. He said he wanted it to go up to 21. Will he fight that . I would say if you look. President his entire life hes always been his own man. People are going to buy into what his mission is. Its good that the nra has been a supporter in the past. But the president has made it a priority do something on this issue. Hes released some suggestions, those suggestions have now been incorporated by Governor Scott in florida. And i think you see some activism going on on the president on this issue. Its a horrific issue. You cant explain what these kids are going to suffer Going Forward and the effect. I think when you look at kids suffering and the kids gassed in syria, the president has this reaction that sort of resetsds a lot of things for him. We do have an opportunity to move the age limit up to 21. I has to make the argument, hes sort of leaning in, something that a previous republican president has never done. I think thats a good step. Where do you think the debates going to go here . I hope that it deals all of the issue. I think when youre dealing with an epidemic as kids being literally killed, hunted down in their schools, you have to do everything humanly possible to stop that. And what donald trump is trying to do, hes trying to deal with the shooter and its fine, great, Mental Health is important to deal with, absolutely. Raising the age limit is important, absolutely. But lets not forget in vegas the guy was 64 years old. In orlando that kid was 29 years old. You just cant deal with half the problem, you have to deal with the other half which is universal background check which is dealing with why do we have weapons of war in the streets of the u. S. . That is just not should not be happening. As the president s handling of the gun issue comes under a microscope, our new cnn poll found that his approval rate is back down to 35 . February 35 , back in january it was 40 , december 35 . I know youre sceptic of the poll. True. Two skeptics of the poll. Do you think that if he bucks the nra and takes a more centrist position on guns that might help him . I understand are the focus on the nra. The nra represents a huge swath of america that has concerned. 5 million supporters, i mean zblebs yeah, members, but lots of other people. By the way, which i am one of and proud of the fact. And the reality is, none of these gun control measures have ever proven to be and Chris Murphys out here talking about, you know, how rifles do more damage than pistols. Were not talking about rifles and pistols, youre talking about hunting rifles and assault weapons. Theyre the same. One has a grip sock and that makes it an assault weapon in the is ridiculous. Functionally these are the same weapons. The idea that were going to ban these is never going to happen and the idea that were even focused on this when there are so many other issues that are much morel to the systemic problem we have in the breakdown three people three people. And School Security. Three people since this show has started have died as a result of gun violence. The availability and accessibility of guns in this country say massive problem. We are less than. Are you going to take them away. No. What are you going to do . Lets start with banning the kinds of rifles that destroy people reckless use is 1 of all crimes in this country. Were not going to set it will and solve it right now thanks for spending your sunday morning with us im jake tapper in washington. Fareed zakaria gps starts right now. This is gpv the Global Public square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world, im Fareed Zakaria coming to you today from los angeles. Well start todays show with guns. Just why is america so different from the rest of the world when it comes to firearms . Why do we have to march on washington just to save innocent lives . And just what does the Second Amendment really mean . I will talk to two great experts