nationalist martyr who must be avenged. who must be the, you know, cause behind which we organize the race war. that started from the very bleeding edges of far-right and white-supremacist online discourse. and then, it creeped into the conservative mainstream. amplified by conservative pundits and conservative members of congress. and then eventually, by the man at the center of it all, former president trump. who started at his post-presidential rallies demanding to know the name of the police officer who fired that shot. shouting, who shot ashli babbitt? as a regular feature of his rallies now. well now, in a remarkable turn of events um we know the answer to that question because the officer who shot ashli babbitt, while protecting members of congress on his own terms chose, today, to speak publicly for the first time with nbc s lester holt. my name is michael bird.
supposed to be her in front of the capitol. and you see, underneath her chin, there s that drop of blood. um, there is several versions of that flag. some with tag lines like the word vengeance written on them. meaning, vengeance for her. note, also, in this one the star of david on the capitol there, presumably to suggest that the government is controlled by a jewish conspiracy and so we need, you know, vengeance on the jews or whatever. that far-right and, indeed, white supremacist attempt to turn ashli babbitt into a white nationalist martyr who must be avenged. who must be the, you know, cause behind which we organize the race war. that started from the very bleeding edges of far-right and white-supremacist online discourse. and then, it creeped into the conservative mainstream. amplified by conservative pundits and conservative members of congress. and then eventually, by the man at the center of it all, former-president trump. who started at his
dot in the court of public opinion, nobody cares about this other stuff. i have precedent on this. we all have it. it s just a matter of remembering it. remember, during the 90s, bill clinton was not being investigated for his affair with monica lewinsky. it creeped in that direction. when he committed perjury about that affair and impeached over it and not removed from office though sean: the paula jones lawsuit. right. it ends up being another thing all together. bill clinton s approval shot up to 73% in gallop. if democrats overreach here and the media overreaches, nobody is going to care. it s irrelevant. unless what it s been based on, doesn t matter. sean: it s a different story, sean spicer. and then they list a litany of crimes. i feel sorry for michael and paul manafort. you know, these are human beings with families and lives here.
dot in the court of public opinion, nobody cares about this other stuff. i have precedent on this. we all have it. it s just a matter of remembering it. remember, during the 90s, bill clinton was not being investigated for his affair with monica lewinsky. it creeped in that direction. when he committed perjury about that affair and impeached over it and not removed from office though sean: the paula jones lawsuit. right. it ends up being another thing all together. bill clinton s approval shot up to 73% in gallop. if democrats overreach here and the media overreaches, nobody is going to care. it s irrelevant. unless what it s been based on, doesn t matter. sean: it s a different story, sean spicer. and then they list a litany of crimes. i feel sorry for michael and paul manafort. you know, these are human beings
intelligence, james clapper, he gives new information about the number of americans who actually tried to travel to syria. reporter: he did. he raised that number to 180 and keep in mind so this figure as you say, it s people who have either gone to syria and iraq successfully including the group such as isis or have tried to go some of them killed there. so it s a broad number. it s an estimate but the estimate has jumped. last year that number was around 50. it creeped up to the 70s. it creeped up to 100. a short time ago, it was 150. it is growing and partly it s growing because more people are attracted and also growing, anderson, because they re making a better effort to keep track of these people but, you know, that s a worrisome sign. it s not to the level you see in european countries, several hundred in the u.k. and in france et cetera. but still, that s a significant number and that s already a difficult group of people for u.s. authorities to follow. yeah. jim sciutto, a