Transcripts For MSNBCW The 11th Hour With Brian Williams 20170523

Grande, there was a concussion. There was a blast. Some reports said more than one. That much, however, is unclear. And for several of the initial hours, i think we were all hopeful that it wouldnt turn out to be what we feared it was, that is, the first word arrived probably two hours after the blast that investigators, indeed, thought this wwas terro. When they went to the seat of the blast wsht blast came from, they found pretty much indelible evidence that this had been a solo suicide bomber, and they usually act in a way that is meant to inflict the greatest number of casualties. Weve been weve come to call this kind of environment socalled soft targets. And tonight, that meant 19 people and 59 injured. Ariana grande attracts mostly a teen audience. A lot of these young women are seen with members of their family, with friends, and that was that was the scene. We are limited so far to the video we have been able to take in off of social media. A lot of video was posted, thankfully in their haste, a lot of people didnt stop to shoot video or record the moment. They were scared. They were under orders to get out, and they were looking for the nearest exit. It is feared this might have happened initially at one of the exits that leads down to a box office that eventually leads down top Victoria Station in manchester. The arena is built over what they call the air rights to the train station. A lot like penn station in new york city has Madison Square garden sitting right over it right on top of it. Its that kind of layered construction. The train station went through a huge reconstruction, and Manchester Arena is no more than 25 years old certainly. Camera crews and civilians were out talking to eyewitnesss immediately after the blast. We want to bring you some of that. We were in the arena and we heard a bang. And i run for my life. Told you it was a balloon . Staff. They stopped us from running. How did you mr. To get out . They told us to be calm and a few minutes later reporter did you see people who were injured . No, but i saw someone outside that was covered in blood and a 5yearold. People started streaming out and next thing is a big flash. Didnt really hear the bang. Big flash and then a wash of air, and just thought, what the hells that. And then the smell in the air and then whats that . And sort of looked back where the explosion was, people laid out on the floor. Lets go to our London Bureau correspondent kelly cobuy aia who was on the air with us during the first moments where we thought we might have had an incident at the arena. Kelly, listening to the accents of people who are still in the moment reacting to in that manchester is in a unique part of the country. It has wales to the west approximately, scotland to the north, it is part of the northern uk. An Industrial City and proud of it. Reporter yeah, brian, i guess the equivalent in the u. S. Would be the midwest or the rust belt. This is an Old Industrial type part of the uk. Sort of falling into disrepair for decades really and has since undergone a resurgence. These are saflt earth people, hard working people. A big working Class Population in this area but also a lot of new industry moving into that area, as well. At this concert, as you mentioned i think, this arena is massive. It holds 21,000 people its the biggest arena in the uk, one of the biggest in europe. You would have had young people coming from all around the uk to go to this area at a grande concert. This was i think the third stop in her tour of just the uk. She had already played dates in other parts of europe. This was a big, big deal for these young people in sort of central and northern england. Good wholesome families headed out for a great night of entertainment for teenage girls, teenage boys, moms and dads going with their kids. And then of course, this happens. We see a lot of this social media video showing just kind of the panic that happened after that explosion was heard. You know, a sold out concert, brian, a packed arena. The final song had already been sung. Ariana grande had left the stage. One of the fans told us that she had gone, the balloons had fallen, the lights were on. People wrep already heading for the exits when they heard this blast. This one young woman who spoke to us said at first she and her friends thought it was a mike drop or a speaker blasting. They didnt even realize the full extent of what was happening until they got out of that arena. And you know, the scenes on the outside now as we understand the blast did happen outside according to an arena statement. It happened in a public space. The scenes there very much different from inside that concert hall. One man told a local station here that he was there to pick up his wife and daughter and that he was fairly close to the blast and was thrown 30 feet. And afterwards saw the aftermath. Others talk about walking out, seeing fans bloodied on their faces. Weve seen pictures of young people and adults walking around, walking wounded with bandages around that their knees, ripped jeans, volunteer First Responder told thaws theyve been treating shrapnellike injuries. And thats really when we got the sense that this was something very sinister, that this was potentially an explosion. We have since learned, as you know, brian, multiple u. S. Law enforcement sources telling nbc news that theyve been briefed by uk officials and saying that this was, appears to have been the work of a suicide bomber and that based on forensic evidence at the scene, brian, they believe they know who the bomber is. We dont have any i. D. S yet. We got a very terse statement from the Manchester Police simply confirming casualty numbers earlier in the evening and havent heard anything since. But no doubt, the investigative work is in full force at this very early hour here. Kelly in our London Bureau with the scene from there and what its been like this whole evening long as weve gone through that slow realization that this was, in fact, what we all feared it was and that is that investigators are pointing to a single acting alone that is suicide bomber at one of the potentially one of the main exits. Were joined in our studio by former new York Police Commissioner bill bratton. Commissioner, when you hear kelly report, again, sources in the investigating world say i know who this is, i know what this is, what does it take for them to be able to say that, first, and second, what is our relationship for people who are just joining our coverage . We talked about this a little bit earlier. Whats our relationship with the uk back and forth in areas of intelligence and security . Relationships with the uk are seamless. I can speak from personal experience as the former commissioner of new york and relationship with me counterpart at the met. And the Intelligence Services. The coordination, collaboration has improved significantly from what it was in the years immediately after 9 11. In terms of the technology, forensic capability to so quickly identify the individual at least reports were getting both on air and some of the backgrounds information were getting, two thoughts there. That one its reflective how good that technology is, but it would lead meed to start thinking that they may have had a suspect or suspects in mind that they began to matchup quickly what they had recovered at the scene. So as to whether there was any type of stream of Information Available to intelligence, police services, before this event, that will be part of the investigation and part of what will come out in the days ahead. But the good news is that we get better at this all the time. Were going to have to because the pace of these events is increasing dramatically. What do they say in Law Enforcement, the terrorist only has to get lucky once but Law Enforcement has to be lucky every day. Every time. Thats right. All right, commissioner bratton, thank you very much. Juan zarate is with us, our Senior National security analyst and a former deputy National Security adviser for toirnl for president george w. Bush. Juan, more on this intelligence sharing. Were not critiquing the finding that kelly dough cobiella was reporting from someone in your line of work that they have some degree of certainty whats behind this, whos behind this who this was, but how can that be possible in so short a time . Well, i think bill bratton has it right. I think the british authorities are incredibly good at their work. They are tracking a number of individuals of concern. This seems to suggest that this may be an individual that was on the radar screen or at least that they had information about biometrics or other information readily available that they could match to the forensics at the scene. Authorities want to be very quick in these cases. They want to find out what they know, not only about this attack in particular, this attacker, but they want to make sure that they understand what the support networks are around this individual, this attack to ensure nothing else is unfolding in terms of terrorist attacks. And so i think theres going to be even more information coming out. Understanding that theyre going to be digging very hard into who this individual was, his social networks, his Family Networks any communication with other suspect individuals or even isis or al qaeda elements that may have been either training him, inspiring him or even directing him in this attack. So theres much more to be learned, but the fact that british authorities think that theyve identify this had individual u. S. Authorities tracking that, as well is a very significant sign and certainly a demonstration of great capability to do in this quickly in the wake of such a horrific attack. Juan, this is the brits. They really invented the art form of flooding the zone with cameras for digital imagery. When that happened, when that era broke and when they kind of debuted their system, it was people from the n yp pd who traveled to london, looked around. Society debates constantly and should the exchange of privacy for safety in a free society. But what are the rules governing imagery . Lets assume theyve got six angles of this bomber prior to detonation. And lets assume getting his face out there would help for people wondering, have you seen him, does this ring a bell. Well, its a great point, brian. British authorities will use whatever footage they have available. And their cctv system allows them access to several vantage points no doubt. Theyre going to be look not only to whether or not they can identify this individual at the point of the attack but whether or not they can spot others who may have supported, dropped off, or been a part of this particular attack. So theyre going to be pouring over whatever data, whatever footage they have available. To your point about the balance between privacy and security, you know, the british have been criticized for this kind of coverage. And i think its for every open society to debate how much security is enough. Its impossible in an open society to prevent these kinds of attacks. There is the work of intelligence gathering which is probably the long pole in the tent here. You try to understand who the suspects are, you try to understand where the threats are coming from to try to prevent this from happening to begin with, but to the extent that you have capabilities like footage in public arenas liking this, you try to use that to maximum efficiency to ensure that there arent followon attacks as well as to deter those trying to perpetrate these kinds of attacks to begin with. So its a very important question because every society, including the United States has to grapple with how much are we willing to allow authorities to know beforehand, how much intelligence gathering, how much information is gathered, and then how much surveillance are we allowing in the public arena and in the Public Square tore allow authorities to both prevent and then to react in the unfortunate event of an attack like this. British authorities i think have come to a balance. Thats obviously a question for the u. S. Still moving forward, how much security is enough, especially when terrorists are going after soft targets. Juan zarate, thank you as always for being part of our coverage. We want to welcome back to our coverage jeremy bash. Gentlemen, we normally turn to while were covering political news, which if youve just joined us looking for the 11th hour, we will also be doing here tonight. Theres plenty of that. First this breaking news from manchester. Jeremy, former chief of staff at cia and defense. Jeremy, i asked you earlier, what gets lit up and what gets turned on on a night like this given the close working relationship between u. S. , uk . Probably, brian, the first thing they start with is a fingerprint from the individual who conducted the attack. Theyll take that and run it through their databases and come up with a name. That name will be run through a number of different electronic databases. Ours in the u. S. Is called the terrorist identities data environment tide. Its run by the National Counterterrorism center in Northern Virginia and the uk authorities through mi5, their internal Intelligence Service will work with all of their other partners in the word, in europe and the other partners to try to match that name with any other aspect of a known terrorist network. And within hours, brian i predict that heal use that name to identify an address, probably somewhere in the uk and you will see armored, an armored raid force by the uk police or paramilitary s. W. A. T. Teams unceremoniously removing the door from the hinges and theyll be inside the individuals home or apartment of their relative nz. Theyll question witnesses, take evidence, take information. Theyll look at the Electronic Holdings of the intelligence agencies, signals intelligence, email intercepts, phone intercepts and within hours, we have within hours and days well probably have a sense to the sense this person was tied to another network. Weve been talking about was he acting alone, inspired, directed. Ive been looking through the list of previous terrorist attacks. If you look at truck attacks in sweden, a truck attack in berlin in 2016, knife attacks, the nice attack that killed 86 in july 2016, those were lone individuals operating with a truck, a handgun, a sword, something they could get in their everyday life. Those attacks that involved high power explosives like the attack in turkey in july 2016 that killed 45 at the airport, the attack in brussels that killed 32 at an airport in march, 2016. The attack in paris at the theater that killed 89 and 130 victims overall in paris in november 2015, those individuals are part of a terrorist organization. They were either again inspired or directed by other people who wanted to do harm against civilians. I think the working hypothesis has to be tonight based on use of explosives, the fact that the individual went to a place where they knew there would be several hundred innocent civilians gathered there, that this wpers acts as part of a network. Again, you will see all of these activities lead up to a targeting Package Understanding the cell of individuals that may have been connected to this individual and you see steel on argument and potential drone strikes in syria if its connected to isis. Jeremy bash, thank you so much for being art part of our coverage tonight. For those watching just when initial word came in from manchest manchester, we had been talking about a blockbuster story in the Washington Post which we are minutes away from getting to ourselves. Thats when our investigative producer ken delane yun had been on the air talking about president ial politics. And ken has been pressed into service. Getting all that you can about this investigation. What are have you learned. Brian, i was just speaking to a u. S. Intelligence official about this very scenario jeremy sketched out. The question is, if you see a complex bomb, does that suggest a network. And the answer is yes, it very well might but dont forget, there are instances where isis is now walking people through bomb making instructions on line. Isis has shown the ability to recruit disturbed individuals and take them through the steps necessary to get to radicalization and to get to operational ability online. But in either scenario, folks are telling me we are likely to see a situation where encryption was used. Thats going to raise questions. Jeremy was talking about surveillance. Theres a lot of surveillance going on that will help unravel this plot. But there may have been a point where some of the terrorists use encryption to guys theto disgui Intelligence Services. Thats become a running debate in this country, the going dark debate. Should the government have a way to penetrate that. Should there be is there an absolute right to have your conversations secure from government surveillance or not. Thats going to continue if that shows up in this case. I had one official say to me tonight, in a reassuring tone, that by this time tomorrow, the brits will know everything this person ever searched on google and when and what the result was. Is that an overstatement. I think that may be apt. But what they obviously didnt know in time was whether this person was communicating either with terrorists abroad or plotters in the uk. Unfortunately tlerks didnt know it in time to stop this attack. Brian, i also wanted to point out to you while weve been reporting this story, the United States Central Command has issued a statement announcing a raid, a joint special operations raid into yemen that killed seven aqapl al qaeda militants unrelated to this incident but its another reminder that the u. S. Is at war against terrorists arented world. Ken dilanian, thank you. Also unrelated to this incident or we hope was the visual all day long until about dinnertime east coast time when we realized our news day and our coverage was about to change because of the breaking news out of manchester. But previously, all day long, the news was about the president s trip to the middle east. A trip that started in saudi arabia and a trip that took him top israel today. The problem is, the problem again, the news from us back home in the u. S. That continues to follow this president and this administration. And again today, it was the Washington Post that was out with another bombshell report. Quoting from the Washington Post headline tonight, trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against fbi collusion probe after comey revealed its existence. This report says back in march, trump made separate appeals to the director of National Intelligence, former senator dan coats and to admiral michael s. Rogers, director of the National Security agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election. The report goes on the new revelations add to a growing body of evidence that trump sought to coopt and then undermine comey before he fired him may 9th. Connecticut senior senator, also that states former attorney general added this point. It adds additional mounting powerful evidence of a coverup and obstruction of justice and what is really significant about it is that its cumulative on the issue of intent because Donald Trumps defenders have said he really didnt mean any harm when he pressured comey or he didnt mean what he said. But this repeated attempt to stifle investigative work, stop the truth from coming out, eventually becomes evidence of intent. All of it mounting evidence of powerful undeniable dimensions and it goes to the issue of intent. Again, that was part of the news that went into this day and earlier today, we learned mike flynn will invoke the fifth amendment in response to a subpoena requesting documents about his ties and contacts with russia. Were going to talk more about this a little later on. Flynn was also accused in a letter today from democratic congressman Elijah Cummings of maryland of lying to security clearance investigators back in 2016 about being paid by russian media. Those payments were for an appearance ot a now well chronicled dinner honoring Vladimir Putin in december of 2015 for rt russian television. Here with us tonight to discuss it eli stokals, wall street Journal White House correspondent, irdand politico Senior Affairs correspondent michael crowley. Wow, where to begin. Michael, youll get the first question tonight. What just happened today . Well, brian, its another log on the fire. I assume were talking here about the latest reports and particularly this Washington Post report as opposed to manchester. What it does is, you know, just build out as if we needed any more evidence that this president doesnt seem to respect or care about the traditional boundaries that should limit him, that should restrict him from an Ongoing Investigation at a minimum, i think the most charitable thing you can say when you read the story is donald trump is a very wealthy man who is used to picking up the phone and getting things done in new york city and his real estate deals and he thinks that works in the federal government even when it applies to a federal investigation that involves possible nefarious influence by a foreign power. But then you see, senator blumenthal put this well. You start to see intent in particular, brian, i think somewhat buried in that story below the lead which descres trump asking two of Senior Intelligence officials to come out and essentially say hes not under investigation and to clear him, other white house officials who are not named in the story apparently made inquiries about getting those intelligence officials to pressure comey, the fbi director and now fired to drop his investigation into Michael Flynn. And theres really no way to explain that away. So in the first case, trump could be a really rich guy who thinks i have this sense im not under investigation. Why wont more people come out and say so. He shouldnt be making phone calls. Its crossing into lanes he shouldnt be in. Maybe you could explain it. But that second part is very troubling if white house officials are leaning on people in the federal government and saying go to comey, get him to drop those charges, that screams obstruction of justice to me. And eli, if news stories in fine newspapers and publications like yours were allowed to speak english in their first draft, theyd have the conversation People Like Us are able to have. If true, this story means that donald trump as president was going around to people in government saying either making this go away or tell the folks that im cleared, tell folks everythings fine. Yeah, its another woe if true story. The thing about newspapers is, they dont generally have a habit of printing things that are not true. They source these things. They have sources deep inside these intelligence agencies. Are you starting to see a pattern with these stories documenting the same behavior over and over and over again, and when they come back to the white house, you saw it again today. There is no denial of the allegations in the story. Today the white house said Something Like were not going to talk about it because its based on unnamed sources. Before they were trying to say i didnt do this and the thing they were saying they didnt do wasnt actually alleged in the story. Theyve yet to deny any of these allegations that he pressured comey or that he pressured the two other intelligence officials that the post reported tonight. And that a lot of other newspapers news outlets quickly confirmed on their own. There are a lot of sources across what donald trump might like to think of as the deep state. Thats our government. Thats the Intelligence Community. This is a community of people who are bound together by their belief in and respect for the rule of law. And it doesnt matter to them if this is an executive in the oval office, the president of the United States, if its someone who doesnt seem to have respect for the rule of law, you can understand why there are so many damaging leaks. We probably havent seen the end of them. Eli its been said donald trump was no not a traditional ceo in that he didnt have a board to report to. Its been said with great frequency today over and over again, heres a guy who had one way of doing things in his world. It was the only world he knew. Not only is the mindset of a Good Government type foreign to him, but he thought he could pull the levers of democracy and make it work for him. Is this really the learning curve of someone from the Business World now in the oval office . Well, its not the learning curve of anyone from the Business World who might have won the oval office but it is that way for this executive, for donald trump, a person who has never had to answer for anyone, who is 70 years old. Has always surrounded himself with a sort of coatry of yes men and women, people who never questioned him who got things done for him and who looked the other way on ethical things, legal things. They sort of fudged it. You cant do that when youre in a system when youre in a system of government and have all the checks and balances and bureaucracy with thousands of people hop can be checks on your power because they have access to the information. This happened back in march, the same time if the story is true, the same time that he was saying these things and trying to pressure these Senior Intelligence fishes to end these investigations pressuring comey, at the same time, he was tweeting about president obama tapping his wires that he got the chair of the lous Intelligence Committee devin nunes to go around and try to stand up that story and convince the media that the president might be on to something. All of this was happening when they thought they cosort of manufacture their own version of truth back in march. Now we hear of, its may. We hear the president his advisers and legal team telling him you have to be a little more judicious and discreet with your words. You cant just say things. You have to be more bound by the facts. Hes never tried to do that. It may be too late. Even if they sort of make headway and he changes his behavior now, he may have already done too much and said too much. You know, in terms of allowing people to make a case for obstruction of justice. Indira, by way of welcoming you back to the broadcast, i saved an interesting one for you. Im going to take you back. Its been a long time, back a week to when we learned that the president had two russians named sergei in the oval office. There were no american journalists there. A footnote, the Russian News Agency tas was there and it was their photos that got sent around the world. We later learned that in the oval office, donald trump shared intelligence code name intelligence with the visiting russians. It was whispered and further leaked that this was an intelligence partner. That led a lot of people to believe it was israel that further we had perhaps endangered someones deep cover among elements of isis overseas. That element was never confirmed by the white house. Fast forward again, a whole week until today. Donald trump is in israel. He is with bb netanyahu, and trump chooses out of nowhere to kind of shush and silence the combined press corps so he can speak up and make a. Well air that and then you can talk about it on the other side. All right. Cooperation is terrific. Just so you understand, i never mentioned the word or the name israel. Never mentioned it during ta conversation. Theyre all saying i did. So you had another story wrong. Never mentioned the word israel. For the record, none of us were saying he did. His National Security adviser general mcmaster came out in fact and said the president was never told the source of that information. So he wouldnt have passed along the sourcing of that information. But indira, on this front, what just happened. The chronology here just to get it straight is of course it was the Washington Post that broke that incredible story about the code word intelligence that donald trump shared with the russians. In the same conversation in which he called james comey a nutjob and said fortunately ive fired him so ive got that behind me now. But it was many of us who cover National Security and Foreign Policy immediately jumped to the conclusion or had sources who made us believe that it was in fact israel that was the original source and thats why it was so sensitive and that naming the city that isis was plotting this in was sensitive. Fast forward is the next day and the New York Times had a separate story in which they said that israel was the source of the intelligence according to their sources. So the twos things were not put together in one story. No one said that donald trump mentioned israel but by him responding to this News Reporter who shouted out to Bibi Netanyahu are you comfortable with intelligence sharing and donald trump felt compelled to jump in and say i never mentioned israel, hes inadvertently confirming in the view of many people that it was israel that was the source. You could see in the video how the Prime Minister of israel looked momentarily uncomfortable about the whole situation. Everyone was kind of cringing. That wasnt the only cringe worthy moment. There was another one where donald trump said weve just come back from the middle east and you saw the israeli ambassador put his hand up to his head and like oh, no, i meant to do that. Israel is very much mart part of the middle east. There have been a lot of things said that were kind of foot in mouth moments in this middle east trip. Michael crowley, a lots of this trip transpired over the weekend. After we had signed off, midnight eastern friday night on right up till now, a lot of the imagery. It had been i think going well on a pass fail basis. But then the statement on israel then the statement that perhaps they have been in the middle east yesterday but by traveling to israel were no longer. Right, brian. So you know, it was a low bar for trump to clear in saudi arabia. He basically had to not get caught on an open mike saying something goofy and then he had to read a speech successfully. And he managed to do those things. By the way, i would say that the speech was pretty temperate. Even if youre a trump critic, it was not the worst Case Scenario from the perspective of his critics where he went in guns blazing saying muslim ban. It was a fairly establishment speech. People were saying okay this president on the world stage being a diplomat, you might disagree with his policies but he can at least paint by numbers and just you know, do the stage craft without causing any kind of big problems. Today was a reminder that when donald trump is at an open mike and he is not completely scripted, the odds are pretty good hes going to Say Something that makes an unwelcome headline that is indiscreet that makes him look foolish and by extension the country look foolish. I would add, brian, this trip is still just starting. Hes got a couple more stops. Hes going to be meeting with a lot more foreign leaders. Hes going to a g7 meeting and then to the nato summit and in many ways the summit is the biggest test of all. Hes been in very friendly territory with the saudis and israelis rolling out the red carpet, really wanting to reboot relations with the u. S. And knowing that trump comes to them ready to give them a big warm hug. When he starts meeting with the nato leaders a lot of unresolved friction. A lot of points of disagreement, how much are other countries spending on nato, does trump really believe the alliance is necessary and the elephant in the room at that summit is russia. Nato is an loins formed to defend europe against russian aggression. To the extent trump has been running away from the russia story on this trip, he is running right into the russia story when he arrives in brussells to meet with those nato officials. Indira, someone is going to thrust a microphone. Front of the american president tomorrow morning local time in israel. And ask for his response to what happened in manchester. And there i suppose right there in that moment will be a very stark choice of words. Well, i suspect he may go back to the formulation that he was so comfortable with during the campaign talking about radical islamic terrorism. And in fact, as youve been talking about for a couple of hours now, the british authorities so far do believe it was probably a terrorist attack. So i think hopefully he will get briefed on intelligence and hopefully he will say the correct thing. But i do think this all goes back to the larger problem of hip not taking advice. Him being used to saying whatever he wants to or cares to. As the heads of a company with no board. As michael said. I think michaels explanation, by the way, of why donald trump says whatever he wants like trying to tell the nsa director or the director of National Intelligence to tamp down an investigation or come out and say that im not the subject of the investigation, its a completely understandable explanation but its not a justification for that. And by the same token, needs to be listening to advice of people who know better about governing things and he doesnt seem to be very good at taking that advice. Hes used to doing things his own way. Eli, again, the day started in a entirely different direction but we had the story about general flynn announcing his intention to take the fifth amendment. Explain to our viewers what prong of the investigation this is and if a capitol hill investigation cant result in any kind you have charges, why would this be . Well, this was a senate Intelligence Committee request for flynn to testify. And he informed them in a letter this morning that he would be taking the fifth and refusing to do so. It was immediately bringing back to the news channels to the coverage all the clips of the times during the campaign when donald trump and his advisers opined about Hillary Clinton and her aides taking the fifth and saying that doing so made it seem like they were guilty as hell. Mike flynn will not be doing this if probably if he had a good story to tell. But i think you know, talking to folks who are running these intelligence investigations on the hill and to the Intelligence Community which has its own investigation and now the special counsel leading that investigation, there is not a lot of concern about the truth eventually getting out, about being able to find this stuff out. Obviously, weve seen the amount of leaks across the government and i think with multiple investigations going on simultaneously and people who are pretty good at getting to the facts i think one way or another, youre going to see a pretty clear composite picture come into view into focus over the next several months of what actually happened here. Whether or not people like Michael Flynn decide to be forthcoming publicly or not. Michael crowley, eli stokles, indira, thank you all. Its been an eventful day and a sad evening. But the geopolitical news really commanded our attention tonight. Were going to fit in a break in our coverage here and again, were covering these dual stories, the traveling white house tonight and all that means with the news media back here in the states. And this terrible tragedy an apparent terrorist attack in manchester, uk this evening. Well be right back. Thats it . Yeah. Everybody two seconds dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. Through the Tuition Assistance program, every day mcdonalds helps more people go to college. Its part of our commitment to being americas best first job. No need with thending thcars. Com app when on the lot, scan a vin to pull up all the info you need to help get the price you want. Start scanning today. Deartheres no other way to say this. Its over. Ive found a permanent escape from monotony. Together, we are perfectly balanced, our senses awake, our hearts racing as one. I know this is sudden, but they say if you love something. Set it free. See you around, giulia the police have said theyre treating this as a potential terrorist attack. Your thoughts towards the people who did this . Why . What was the point . I mean, your children, we let them out for a day out thinking theyll remember the concert. So many family members were together for tonights concert. So many parents, for example, brought their teenage daughters. The crowd base for Ariana Grande, tconcert tonight. I want to read the way the Associated Press is putting it. At this hour it, date line manchester, england, a. P. A highly anticipated night for Ariana Grande fans endsed in blood and terror after an explosion tore through the foyer of the Manchester Arena. At least 19 concert goers were killed. About 50 others were injured on monday night. All evening long, weve been getting contributions from jonathan dienst who is part of our Investigative Reporting Team here in new york. Jonathan, bring us up to date especially for viewers who may just be learning about this story or are looking for a late live update. Yeah, the very latest we have is that all indications are, it was a lone attacker likely a suicide bomber with some sort of backpack bomb, perhaps filled with nails and bolts to try to inflict maximum damage as well as the stampede that caused other injuries. But again, a lone actor outside that arena beyond the checkpoints of the crowds going in and again this happened at the end of the concert. So its as the crowd was filing out that this explosion took place, causing an the panic. The question now is, who is this suspect . Weve been told from Law Enforcement officials here who have been briefed by the brits that they have a tentative i. D. Of the possible suicide bomber and that theyre working very hard to confirm that and track that. And thats important because they want to know was a lone actor or part of any sort of terror cell. Britain has been faced with a regular drum beat of threats. We saw the incident outside westminster. There have been more than a dozen plots there in the past year. There are hundreds of extremists inside that country that intelligence agencies are trying to track and monitor. Some had traveled to syriacontrol isis controlled territory in syria and returned. So there was that whole picture and again, the question is, was this a lone actor or part of a cell. The brits clamping down on information now because now the investigation is very much under way as they try to track and see, did this bomber have any help, was he part of any cell, how did he pull this off without getting caught. Jonathan, initially, we heard about the toll especially of the injured. But then sadly, the dead and there were people theorizing that maybe this had been a stampede that, maybe some of the deaths came that way. I was loosely trying to explain to folks who may be familiar with new york, folks all across the country who have had the i wont call it the pleasure, the experience of being to penn station and Madison Square garden which sits right on top of it. Its not unlike Victoria Station and the Manchester Arena in manchester. Theyre one on top of the other using the air rights of the train station and so there are levels between trains, the box office, and the venue itself. And thousands of people all moving in that direction to the exits to try to get to that transportation and all of a sudden, the explosion takes place. So all the people start running the other way causing terrible confusion. You and i have seen the videos at Kennedy Airport with some of the erroneous scares where we saw airports shut down. We had a similar scare in los angeles recently at the airport there where just panic over a noise. This one described as a major thud, chest pounding thud in terms of the explosion that took place around the crowd of people. And the ensuing panic i think. We saw video of people literally jumping over the sides of the stands to get to those alleyways to try to make their exits. Just sheer panic. Right now 19 dead, 50 injured. Were waiting to learn more about the extent of the injuries of those 50. Weve seen in cases like this you would expect several of them numerous of them to be Critical Condition at this time. But again, we should wait to hear from the hospital authorities and the british authorities on the status of those injuries. Some officials caution us perhaps expect to see the toll of see the toll of casualties to rise in the hours ahead. And in the hours ahead, i expect we will get new imagery to show what weve been forced to repeat and repeat. Thank you for contributing to our reporting. I want to bring in our Senior National security analyst, juan zerate. Im going to ask you a political question, and its this. You served on the National Security staff of president bush 43. If this president is getting a proper briefing tomorrow morning, local time in israel, what do you counsel a president to say when he is asked about a strongly suspected terrorist attack overnight in the uk . I think the first thing the president is going to want to know is what do we know about the attack itself . About the perpetrator . Are there any american citizens who have been who suffered as a result of the attack, either killed or injured. Are we providing support to the full force and weight of our capabilities. To we know if anything ties this attack to other threats that we may be concerned about . And are there preventative measures we should be taking in concert with state and local authorities to include forces like nypd and lapd to ensure that there is no potential, that there is an attack in the u. S. , thats either copy cat or maybe even something thats attached. So those are things the president will want to know. I was in the white house, the deputy National Security adviser on the 7 7 attack in 2005. President bush was actually in glenn eagles in scotland for the g8 meetings at that point. We went immediately into debriefing mode. The president knew more because he was with Prime Minister blair at the time, so he was in some ways briefing us back in washington. But we were going through the whole assortment of issues and concerns about what we knewnt t knew about the attack in britain and what we were doing to secure the u. S. So the president is going to be briefed based on what we know. It sounds like the british are getting down to some great details in terms of who the perpetrator is. They are going to find out more about his identity, his whereabouts, his communications, his network. Those are things that the british will share no doubt with the u. S. , and those are things that will be briefed to the president. Im going to ask you a second political question because youre too smart and cagey to have bitten at the first. Since this is no ordinary time, and since this is a president like no other, what do you tell him not to say based on regional sensitivities, based on what we may not know, based on its just really smart not to say this . Well, i think there would be three principles to convey to the president. First is, you know, this is the fog of war. The initial stages of anything were getting are going to be its going to be incomplete information and may be wrong information. So you dont want to be the lead fact witness here on whats happening. We will continue to brief and update you, but dont get too far out in front of your ski tips here in terms of the information, because the infoation could be wrong. Secondly, this is a british led investigation an a british issue. You dont want to get out in front of the british here. So let the british take the lead and we will follow. If they want us to share information, if we need to share information, we can go back and ask them. But lets be careful with respect to that. Third, if theres anything sensitive convaeconveyed, anyth that leads to the potential this is involving isis or al qaeda, you want to make sure the president knows where those areas of sensitivity are and make sure that he is aware that he probably shouldnt be talking openly to others or publicly about some of those threats that could be important to unraveling what could be a support network to this attack. And so i would start with those first principles. I would be very open with the president and hopefully the president is getting his feet under him in terms of how to handle these kinds of briefings and this kind of sensitive information. Now, that was an answer, useful information. Juan, thank you. We have just a few minutes remaining in this hours coverage. Were joined back here in the studio. Ken, as americans go to sheep as daybreaks in the uk, were going to know so much more by the time we get up in the morning. It sure looks that way. If they have a name, as you said in the last segment, theyre going to know a lot about him. Where that person was searching on google, two that person was communicating with, every bit of digital exhaust that person has left. So if there is a network, you may see overnight raids. If its not a network, you know, we may be learning new details about who this person is. I just want to make a point about President Trump and the muslim world. The president made a remarkable statement or speech in saudi arabia. It was a real rhetorical turn from what he had been saying. It was respectful to islam and did not use the kind of phrases that hes used during the campaign, where he said that islam hates us. It will be an interesting test for President Trump whether he can hue to this new line coming out of advisers like h. R. Mcmaster and james mattis, or whether well see the old donald trump lashing out at islam. Sean hennry, 35 seconds to play with. Do you rush out the imagery which you know the brit also have of this bomber to help garner more information . I think they would do anything they can to identify any potential coconspirators, if they know who this person is. They may have been following him. To the extent they can identify others who might be complicit with him, theyll take every effort possible to get the publics help to help them with that identification. Thats going to conclude this hours coverage. A kind of complicated version of what is normally the 11th hour. We were unable to cover just pure politics tonight because of this tragedy from manchester, england. Our coverage will continue. You are going to be 67. 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