>> police are searching for a car. >> he dropped his vehicle. he is out of lewiston. >> he is former military. he is a certified firearms and tactics instructor. >> this is so often the weapon of choice for many of the nation's deadliest mass shootings. >> the two hospitals called in every off-duty staff member that they could. >> i split in where the pins are and on top of the -- >> unbelievable somebody would start shooting at families. >> those kids probably trying to have a family night. >> we had a really strong community. we have overcome a lot. we will overcome this. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. good morning. we are continuing to follow the breaking news. i'm phil mattingly with poppy harlow in new york. right now urgent manhunt underway in maine after mass shootings at a bowling alley and a bar and grill in lewiston. at least 16 are dead. >> police are looking for robert card described as an armed and dangerous person of interest. we are told he is a military trained firearms instructor, a member of the u.s. army reserve who was recently committed to a mental health facility. these are images of the gunman inside the bowling alley. >> you can see people running out of the building as police search the area with flashlights and guns drawn. we are hearing from survivors, including a man who says he was bowling when the gunman came in and opened fire 15 feet behind him. >> bowling. out of nowhere he came in. there was loud pop. thought it was a balloon. i had my back turned to the door. and as soon as i turned and saw it was not a balloon, he was holding a weapon i bocked it down the lane and slid into where the pins are and climbed up into the machine and was on top of the machines for ten minutes until the cops got there. >> investigators say a vehicle connected to card was found mera trailhead and boat launch in a nearby town. this is video of a s.w.a.t. team with an armored streak and officers rushing to the area. cnn spoke to a residents hunkering down where the vehicle was discovered. >> my wife normally gets up for work. she came and grabbed me and was, like, hey there is an active parked where you go fishing at. nerves are rattled now, keeping an eye on the woods. because i know those woods down there. they go run right back here. and i got my daughter inside. it's very unnerving right now. >> hospital also been overwhelmed. sources tell cnn 50 to 60 people were injured in the shootings. officers with rifles have been standing guard outside of the hospital in lewiston. we have team coverage on the ground in maine this morning. omar jimenez is there in lewiston. shimon prokupecz has been in the middle of the manhunt in nearby lisbon. shimon, what can you tell us? >> reporter: poppy, i am standing at that boat launch that fil phil was talking about. police last night found the person of interest, where they found his car and that sort of kicked off this manhunt. >> this is kind of the area that police are searching. what they are doing is mostly responding to 911 calls. people are calling 911 to say they hear things, to say that there is an open door. we were present in one of those situations where there was a 911 call. police responded and they did a search and they found nothing. but certainly people here in lisbon are on edge. they have been told to stay home. school is closed. they have been told if they don't have to go to work, not to go to work. many of the stores are expected to be closed as well. we got a chance to speak to the police chief, the lisbon police chief, who talked to us about some of the things they have been going through, through the night. take a listen to that. >> there is a lot of -- involved. i don't want to give anything away. the whole department is involved. >> how many -- >> in this area. say every department. i have seen departments across the state of maine responded. so we want to locate the individual. biggest thing i can say is make sure that if the community sees anything, stay inside, don't approach, call the police department just like we did here. someone heard something, they called. it's the right thing to do. i would rather it turn out this way than this person -- but we want to locate them. >> reporter: do you know if the person of interest knows this area? >> i can't comment on that right now. we have intel. we are working with our state and federal partners. we are trying to keep the community safe. obviously, a tragic incident that happened and we are doing our job to the best abilities to locate this suspect. >> reporter: how confident are you that you will get him? >> i would say that we are not going to stop until we locate him. so you don't have to worry about that. >> reporter: and phil and poppy, what's making it so complicated here, look around. there are woods everywhere. this entire area surrounded by woods. there are trails. there is rivers. and there are homes. people living in homes. and that's what's got everyone so on edge here, that perhaps, you know, obviously, he could be hiding in one of the homes and that's why we see police respond to any 911 call they get for any suspicious activity. there is a lot of people on edge here and, hopefully, they can find this guy pretty soon. >> yeah, understandably so. shimon. stay with us. omar, police are set to give a press conference at 10:30 a.m. what do we know? what's the latest there? >> reporter: yeah, well, bottom line, this is still a very fluid investigation. it's a very fluid situation. we know the manhunt is continuing as shimon laid out there. but also the investigations into what actually happened at these scenes is going on. we are right near the bar and grill, one of two mass shooting sites, two sites of the mass shooting that unfolded last night. we got a little bit of an elevated view here. we have been watching investigators come and out. scene throughout the morning as the sun's come up, a little bit more of an increased presence here, of course, as they try to piece together what happened there. this was at the bar and grill. a few miles from here at a bowling alley another one of the mass shootings happened. look, it's why they have put out the picture of robert card as a person of interest. we understand the person that law enforcement are trying to track down and the person they consider armed and dangerous. we know that these were mass casualty events. some were killed. many more were injured. also many survived. listen to two people who were inside the bowling alley as those shots broke out. >> she was grazed by a bullet while we were running. >> i never thought i would roll up and get a bullet in my leg and it's just, like -- like, why? like, why do people this? >> reporter: this shooting at a bar. both places where people were out trying to have fun before it quickly became a nightmare. schools are closed. places across this area are told to shelter in place. out of an abundance of caution. all waiting for answers from law enforcement. hopefully, we get some animals at this press conference that's happening a little bit later this morning. as we know from them, it is still a very fluid investigation and situation and they hope to bring some peace of mind to people soon by capturing this person. obviously, it's going to be a long process here. >> thank you. joining us now cnn chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst john miller. very busy night. the resources that flowed in have been significant. how does it work when you have the atf, fbi coming up from boston, you have the local police department, state police as well, how does this all work? >> there is a system. it's called the incident command system, or ics. it's an interesting question because without it you have everybody doing their own operation and no coordination. with it you have a designated incident commander. you have a command post. you run the operation from there. that person is calling the shots. you look at your perimeter, divide it into sections. you have your fbi s.w.a.t. team, atf s.w.a.t. team -- >> just to pull up the locations right now. if you are looking at the map, what are they trying to do now? >> they are gridding this out and they are giving, you know, different teams areas of responsibility. this is your area within the perimeter. but there is also response teams because all night long they have been getting the calls and it's, you know, you one of my garage doors is open and it wasn't open when i went to bed. i heard a noise outside. i saw a figure cross through the yard. and they have been responding to those. none of those have panned out. >> in terms of we don't know if he has a car. they found a car connected to him at this sort of area where there is a trailhead and where boats can launch, but they haven't said it was his one and only car and we got it. we don't know if he is on foot or in a car or a boat. >> that's one of the questions at the command postn they are gaming out. what was the play here? he does multiple victim sh shootings at two locations. he grows down a country road into the woods. it ends at a trailhead where hikers would go and there is a boat launch. so inf we have a planning perso who gamed this out -- by the way, my experience with these cases is there is a lot of planning that goes into developing and planning and equipping yourself for the agent and not much on the back end. but if there is a back end plan here, that could be where there was a switch car and then as you said, poppy, they have to look at in the intelligence cell in that command center what cars has he ever had, been pulled over in, what cars he ever received a ticket in, what cars do family members have that he has access to and look for a switch car. the more likely scenario, he goes off into the woods with his military training and weapons -- >> could we talk about that? that's an important element here. you look at forest areas here, but we saw the live shot. when the light came up, you saw the sun and you look around and you go this is a difficult terrain for law enforcement. is that fair? >> well, it is. but at the end of that trailhead, there is two things. there is the trail and the bow launch. the question is, does have a boat there, or is he aware of a boat he could take there and is that a second part of a plan or just because he has done his shooting and he is in escape mode and it's where he ended up. those are unknowns. >> one more. how different this is than the inmate that escaped a couple of weeks ago. >> danelo cavalcante. >> yeah, very different. this guy is military trained in firearms use and there is the fact that he is an army ranger? >> so his level of training is superior. he has a military back ground. he has got a superior weapon. and, you know, he has multiple murders behind him and he knows the area. are but a lot of the dynamics are similar, which is they have got a perimeter that they believe he is within and we learned in the danelo cavalcante search in pennsylvania, sometimes the perimeter has been penetrated on the outside. in this case, they are going on what they have. the chief told shimon we have a lot of intelligence. >> that was interesting tharjs intelligence cell has been running everything about him, everyone he has known, all the things he said on social media, all the same things i did last night going through his notes and travels and his friends and his messages to try to figure out who would he turn to, where would he go, is there a tell. >> did anything stand out to you? >> what i learned from his traffic on social media is he was coming out of the military. he was talking to army buddies. these were very normal conversations. talking to army buddies about, you know, i got so and so to move up here to maine so we've got our little group together. we are doing some training at west point, was one of the things he said, we haven't verified that, but that's what he said. he made the joke, you know, when you can't do, you teach. so seemed like a very rational conversation between someone who was trying to reconnect with people he had been through things with. >> john miller, stay close. we appreciate it. >> we are, obviously, going to continue to cover this breaking news. an urgent manhunt for the gunman who sources say killed at least 16 people last night. one of the scenes. murders, schemengees bar & grille. the restaurant posted this on their facebook. my heart is crushed. i am at a loss for world. we lost great people in in community. how can we make sense of this? sending out prayers to everyone. more in a-minute. we are continuing to monitor the breaking news in the mass shootings out of maine wchl we also want to turn to other major news. the first time michael johnson is now the speaker of the house. house republicans have a speaker. a speaker who will have to navigate the familiar calls for congress to do something, anything in the wake of another shooting. johnson secured the gavel after a bruising and chaotic three weeks for his party. >> we have learned a lot of lessons. you know what? through adversity it makes you stronger. and, yeah. [ applause ] >> we want our allies around the world to know that this body of lawmakers is reporting again to our duty stations. let the enemies of freedom around the world hear us loud and clear. the people's house is back in business. >> the new speaker is facing pressing issues with the future of aid to israel and ukraine and here at home where in three weeks government funding is set to expire again. the gop controlled house will need to work with the democratic-led senate and house to avert a government shutdown. joining us dusty johnson, he and his colleagues all voted for the new speaker, now speaker, michael johnson. congressman, i appreciate your time. i know we have spoken how this has been a frustrating three plus weeks for you. i want to play something you said on friday. i thought this was a very -- it was candid and also a very astute observation about what the next speaker would be. take a listen. >> what's going to happen is i think we need to take a little time to decompress from what was a difficult environment and we are going to need to have some people do some soul searching. we need to find people who never thought of themselves in this way, somebody who has not spent five or ten years trying to become the speaker of the house. somebody who understands that this may well be the last opportunity they have to serve in politics. we have dealt ourselves an incredibly difficult hand. >> i am not going to ask if the last opportunity michael johnson has in politics. it was important because alluded to what comes next. you have a couple of weeks to fund the government. you have $105 billion emergency supplemental to consider, a fractious conference that despite the unity yesterday i think there are some wounds there, very much still open amongst the various sides of things. so where do you think this goes from here? >> mike johnson has a different hand of cards that has been dealt to him. you were right in describing it as chaotic and bruising. that might help us. people are tired of fighting. this ef had an opportunity to realize how embarrassing it was that we didn't get legislation addressed in the last three weeks. so i actually get the sense that there is a willingness to move forward. you're right. in three weeks we shut the government down if we don't act. that would be unacceptable. shutdowns are stupid. they don't save any money, don't make america stronger. you are going to see in the next few days, today and then also next week we are going to pass those single subject appropriations bills that are going to be necessary to avert a shutdown. >> the speaker and his letter to the conference before he was elected said i think acknowledged to his credit the reality that there will need to be a continuing resolution given the compression of time and the number of bills that haven't been reconciled with the senate, yo all of them. he suggested january or february. would you be amenable to either or both of those dates? >> i am willing to defer to the speaker. when you select a new coach, i think you have to give them some flexibility to call the play. i am going to go to the huddle and run the play that the coach calls. that doesn't mean blind allegiance. it does mean that from a strategic perspective i think we want to give speaker mike johnson his leadership team an opportunity to figure out a way out of this box. we are in a bad spot. we were in a better spot three weeks ago but squandered the time we needed to get the work done on the appropriations bills. so if the speaker wants to get a conservative cr that gets us to january, i'll back his play on that. >> the $105 billion emergency aid request from the biden administration, israel, ukraine, border funding, indo-pacific region funding as well, i am not saying you are going to take it as whole and push it through, but is there a pathway for israel funding and ukraine funding? >> there is a strong majority of lawmakers in both the house and the senate that understand this world is a lot more dangerous when america recedes from leadership. clearly, we want to help our allies like israel and ukraine. i do think we need to work with the white house for them to have a stronger value proposition about why this matters. of course, in the early days of a conflict, like with ukraine, 20 months ago, americans are there. we understand the stakes. we are appalled at the invasion by vladimir putin and his thugs. over time, people get fatigued. they get exhausted. they ask legitimate questions about what is the end game, what has this money gone to? i hope the president steps up and does a better job of explaining what is the mission and how do these investments tie towards american interests and a safer globe. >> congressman, i want to ask you about the shooting in maine. less about the, you know, what is congress going to do here? because we don't know the type of gun, how it was purchased, don't know so much right now. from the broader context of things, maine, not unlike south dakota, low levels of vi vie cr higher averages of gun ownership. you are a hunter as well. is the realty with the second amendment and gun ownership, this is just the norm? people have to accept this? >> i am glad that you mentioned the similarities to the area where i live and where this terrible tragedy happened in maine. i think that's the human psyche. we have a tendency to look in these crises for the stories that connect with us. and you're exactly right. i mean, i live in a rural community. communities with very high levels of gun ownership but very low levels of violent crime. so to have this kind of a story come out of that kind of a community is jarring. and i don't think we can accept that this is the norm. i think everything in us needs to say absolutely not. and we know that america -- even a side from these mass shootings, america is a very violent country. and we have a carnage that is breathtaking with 100,000 suicides a year and 100,000 drugover dose deaths. and i think we need to figure out from a root cause why -- why is society fraying at the seams? i would just note that the accused did spend two weeks in a mental health facility. although it is almost impossible to find anything positive about the story where real people have be erased from that world, i think we -- that is part of the solution. the fact that his community, his society was willing to get him that help, it clearly did not work. but that is the path forward because it works so many times. >> tied to that, you know, you opposed the gun safety bill that was signed into law by president biden that had funding not direct application of red flag laws. maine has a yellow flag law, which i think is a restructured version of that, has a couple more steps to that. is that an answer here that ties to the mental health that runs into issues with gun rights advocates who are concerned about people's ability to have their weapons taken away? >> the data does not indicate that these move the needle in a substantial way. we are still relatively early on had the lifetime of some of these gun control mechanisms, right. we will continue to see data come out. two years ago when that gun control bill passed -- and it did more than just red flag laws. it did other things. you're right. i voted against it. president biden called this a sweeping piece of legislation that would save thousands of lives. i am a data guy, so i want to analyze the data. but my thought right now is that this gun violence in the last two years has continued unabated. in fact, what the president said is not true, that that gun control legislation didn't actually move the needle in the right direction. as a result, before we just go piling on more gun control legislation on gun control legislation that doesn't work, i think we need to talk about root causes. >> congressman johnson, thank you, sir. >> thank you. all right. at 10:30 a.m. eastern time a couple hours from now police will hold a news conference with more details on the shootings in lewiston, maine. we are live on the ground there next. i don't even -- i don't even know what to say. that is -- that is absolutely disgusting. and it's sad. and it's sad that we sit here and watch this happen time after time after time after time and nobody does anything about it. i don't even want to talk basketball. i'm sorry. we played a game. it was fun. obviously, we won. but there is -- if we can't do anything to fix this, it's over. it's over. it's over for our country, for this to happen time after time. >> you hear the exasperation in his voice, sacramento kings basketball coach mike brown addressing the mass shooting in maine last night. and, phil, how many nba coaches have been talking about this for how long? doc rivers, gregg popovich, steve kerr. they don't want to talk about basketball. they want to talk about why this keeps happening. >> i don't think that's a lot different than a lot of people in the country. people are exhausted and tired. the question -- i just asked congressman johnson. is this the reality? people say no. sure seems like it sometimes. frustrating and infuriated ago and tragic. >> there is new information into cnn we learned that a shelter in place advisory has expanded to the neighboring town of bowdoin, maine. schools are closed. an urgent manhunt is underway for the gunman behind mass shootings at two locations in lewiston, maine, last night. there will be a news conference two hours from now. 10:30 a.m. eastern time from state police. evan perez joins us from washington, d.c. you are getting a lot of information. certainly not just local authorities. the feds are there? >> reporter: right. and i think one reason that you see that, the response, poppy, is that because of the longer this goes, the more hours that this suspect, this person is at large, the greater the distance that the searchers have to cover. so that's why you see additional shelter-in-place orders going into those towns that are a little further away from lewiston. it's not clear where this suspect has gone. now you see dozens of agents coming from the u.s. marshals, from atf, from the fbi. one of the things we heard this morning is the fbi has sent diseases of people in there, not only s.w.a.t. teams, who are going to respond to wherever there might be sightings, but also evidence collection teams. obviously, this is an area with police that don't deal with scenes like this. not many places deal with scenes like this. and so even the basic things like the police work of evidence collection is something that the fbi is helping to assist both the state place and the lewiston police department there. we know that they also have brought in victims assistance people who will help the victims who witnessed this horrific se scene and to get information from them. one of the big questions at this hour, why did the suspect go to these two locations? what happened? was there something that brought this suspect to these two locations to carry out this shooting? at this hour, everybody is trying to figure out where this suspect is. >> evan, thank you so much for that reporting. and this is new video just into cnn showing people, some of them holding hands. look at that. they are evacuating the bowling alley after the mass shooting there in maine. the latest ahead on that. we are watching what the middle east -- what is happening in the middle east as the u.s. calls for a humanitarian pause to allow desperately needed food, water, medicine and other essentials to reach gaza. the executive directoror of the world health organization food program joins us next to discuss. breaking news out of maine where an urgent manhunt is underway. we want to turn to the border of israel's northern border where israel and hezbollah have been exchanging fire across the border over the course of several weeks. cnn's jim sciutto is live at a staging post where israeli troops are preparing for further attacks from hezbollah. what are you seeing on the ground there? >> reporter: phil, if you want a sense of the level alert up here in the north for the possibility of a second front in this war, you get it here. this is in northern israel, normally a bustling down of young families and older people, students. it's empty, under mandatory evacuation it has been after a day after the october 7th attacks. it's surrounded three sides by lebanon to the north and here as well and the soldiers tell me they are under constant lookout for sniper fire, rocket fire, ground incursions. a few miles from here several days ago a hezbollah unit crossed the border. they were engaged by the idf and killed. they say they were probing attacks similar to that most days. that is the level of the alert here. when you speak to soldiers here, most of them reservists, called up since october 7th, they feel like they are fighting for the safety of their country now. one of them said to me, it feels like a second war of independence for israel harkening back to 1948. they are watching. they are waiting. this is really a buffer zone in the north because they fear what they saw in the south in gaza, they may see soon again in the north from lebanon and from hezbollah. phil. >> extraordinarily intense moments. thank you. these new satellite images show the significance of the destruction across gaza. on left that image from october 10. on the right, just 11 gase later. you see so much flattened people are desperate, desperate to get out of gaza. humanitarian aide is not getting in fast enough. the united states now calling for a humanitarian pause to allow that desperately aid, food, water, medicine, essentials into gaza. an american doctor trapped in gaza sent cnn this voice message yesterday describing what it's like in southern gaza. >> each person gets a piece of pita bread. they had one can per two people of canned meat and now it's four people. so they are getting some food, but very little. >> joining us is the executive director of the world food programme cindy mccain, she just returned from spending time on the ground there in the middle east. ambassador mccain, thank you very much for being with us "the new york times" this morning citing the red crescent says of the 28 trucks that were supposed to go through that rafah crossing yesterday, only eight made it in. what be done to change that? by the way, 20 is not nearly enough. >> 20, you might as well not do anything. we need to have a full access corridor that goes in, that is sustained and safe. and i mean a lot of trucks, because we're talking about a million plus people that don't have any access to food now. hunger is upon us. starvation is upon us. it is utterly necessary that we get in there so that we can take food, medicine, water as you just described, and we need it now. we need it desperately. >> for some perspective, i know wfp said about 500 trucks of humanitarian aid per day were going into gaza before the crisis. 500 compared to eight overnight. are we in a window of just days where people, including children, may starve to death? >> yes, we are in that window. because we can't get in, we can't -- obviously, we can't get food to people who desperately need it. and the stores and the things that were left on the ground prior, you know, as the war hit are running out. and we've all heard the stories about fuel and water, of course. so this is the kind of thing that is an absolute catastrophe happening, and the world community needs to pay attention to this. we have got to get in there so we can help these people, so they don't die. >> can you explain, cindy, what is holding it up besides those barriers that we have seen egypt removing and putting back? there has been reporting, "the times" citing an egyptian unnamed official who had said that the idf is inspecting trucks because they are concerned that things could be smuggled in for hamas. that part of what's holding it up? >> i think it's a combination of things. that is certainly part of it. i also think that there are some difficulties on the egyptian side. we're relying on looking to our leaders to make sure that we can get the message straight and get us in there. you know, our trucks, we've got trucks amassed at the border if we get them in we could get food to the people that are starving. but we can't get in. and so the lack of urgency is what, in -- what really makes my heart pound because the sense of no urgency at all or the sense we don't need to get a lot of the trucks in there, just to me is very heart-wrenching. >> part of that lack of urgency, partly, from some lawmakers, some republican lawmakers, is the reason you are in d.c. this morning. you flew there to have the crucial meetings. some republican lawmakers, not all by any measure, who oppose this humanitarian aid to gaza. they think it's going to get in the hans of hamas and who also are signaling they would appose the broader $105 billion supplemental package. this is a taste of what some of them have said. >> remember, when aid goes to gaza, it's not diverted by hamas. it's delivered to hamas. >> stop sending money into gaza until israel cleans it out. even if you have good intentions, a road to hell is paved with good intentions. >> senators tim scott and tom cotton. have you been able to change their minds? have you been able to change some other minds in washington? >> i talked to a lot of senators and a few congressman, as well, on this issue, and i believe that i have been able to make it clear with a better understanding on their part as to exactly what's going on. but what i would say to all members, and especially to those who are naysayers, is if you are -- if you don't want to send money to help starving people, then do it for national security because this is a national security issue. so i have been pleading in that direction as well. i am trying to make them understand what's at stake here. >> what do you mean by that, the national security argument? >> well, migration. if we are talking about migrant. we have countries on every border there that simply don't want any more migrants. so what does that mean? it becomes a national security issue. and so it's something that we have to -- we have got to feed these people and help them at least have, you know, make sure that they don't starve to death and, hopefully, keep them, you know, in one place as to whatever the world's going to bring them. let me say this, okay? wp is good at what we do. we are great at what we do. we help other organizations as well. i would plead with every country involved to please let us get in there and get to to work. we have people on ground and we are looking forward to getting more trucks in so we can do our job. >> everyone is hoping. thank you for your work, ambassador cindy mccain, very much. right now police are urgently searching for the gunman responsible for the deadly mass shootings in maine lastst night. the latestst on that s search, that's ahehead. how are they doing? >> it's -- several of them aren't with us anymore. and the other folks i knew that were there either as witnesses or family members of witnesses, it's obviously traumatic. >> that was the mayor of auburn, maine describing how everyone in his tight knit community knew victims in the mass shooting overnight. police search for this man, robert card, identified as a person of interest. as of yesterday the u.s. has seen 560 mass shootings this year alone it and ams not even the end of the year. with us this morning, democratic senator of delaware who has worked tirelessly on the issue of gun violence, chris coons. let me ask a question that phil just asked representative dusty johnson. is this what americans have to accept? this could happen to them any day? >> poppy, i hope not. president biden signed into law year the biggest progress we've made forward on closing loopholes in the gun background checks system and investing tens of billions of dollars more into community mental health. but yesterday we took a vote on the floor of the senate on relaxing the standards for access to guns for veterans who have been adjudicated mentally ill -- actually, i may be wrong that may be a vote coming up today. we have a country divided in terms of our understanding on the limits of gun rights. it was one of president biden's big accomplishments along with a bipartisan group here in the senate last year that we move forward on closing background check loopholes and improving gun safety but there is so much more to do. no other advanced industrialized country has this challenge where day after day after day there are mass shootings all over our country. all of us should reflect on our willingness to commit ourselves to the safety of our children, our schools, communities. if you can't go to a bowling alley, movie theatre, synagogue or church without having to worry about an armed assault then frankly we are not protecting our own people in the ways we should. >> senator to put a finer point on this, to poppy's question. in the wake of the bipartisan gun law, which you noted the most significant in decades. every republican who co-sponsored that bill with you, almost two -- not all of them, said that there's no appetite for anything else, period, end of story. guys you work with, spoke highly of, there's no path here for anything else, is there? >> there isn't, phil. and that's maddening to those of us here who think there is more for us to do. and frankly after several weeks of chaos, the house has settled on a new speaker, who i look forward to getting to know. but who by press accounteds and what i've found online on his record is far more conservative than any speaker. that makes me more concerned that thatwe'll struggle to make progress on improving gun safety for our families, for our children. >> you say no appetite for any more gun violence prevention laws. and you're right, speaker johnson did vote against that bipartisan bill last year that you mentioned. but what about just mental health? because this man spent two weeks this summer in a mental health facility. do you think there's any appetite, just at large, for more mental health aid, if you don't connect it to guns? this. >> well, it's important, poppy, for us to distinguish between these two fields. because there are millions and millions of americans with mental health needs that are under funded where they have difficulty accessing services that have no connection whatsoever to gun violence. but this this particular instance that clearly, seems to from press accounts seem to be the factor, that's why i highlight the amendment by senator kennedy that we have to vote on before we vote on our appropriations bill it reduces the restrictions on veterans who have been adjudicated mentally ill from being able to access guns. for decades that's been in place. the -- if a court rules you're a harm to yourself or others to have gun that should be a good predictor you should not be involved in gun ownership. yet there's a group of republicans here in the senate trying to roll that back. that would be the biggest reduction in gun safety. the biggest reduction from folks on the background checklist in decades. so it's alarming we have such a deep division between our parties in the intersection of gun safety and mental health. and i think it is a bad predictor of our political direction soon. some of the hardest meetings i've ever been in at home in delaware was the parents of young children who, in their first year of school, had to do active shooter drills. something we did not grow up with, something that is now a daily reminder to school children that their parents, communities, national leadership is not doing enough to keep them safe. >> senator, we appreciate your time as always, sir. thank you. >> thank you, phil. just in to cnn, the u.s. economy expanded at a stronger pace even though interest rates were at the highest in years. it grew at 3.1%, faster than expectations, fuelled by strong consumer spending with factors like student loan payments resuming, experts think the economy won't stay this strong. they thought that often the course of the last year. >> they have. we'll keep a focus on this breaking news all day. and, of course, on the war that continues between israel and hamas. at 10:30 a.m., the governor of maine and local police are set to hold a police conference given the latest as they look for a person of interest. our teams are across maine. coverage continues after this break with cnn "news central." hello, everyone. i'm kate bolduan, john berman is on his way to maine, sara sidner is in israel. we are tracking breaking news, the manhunt in maine, a mass shooter at large this morning. people across multiple cities in the state are bein