and into a containment van and ultimately taken care of. but we're left with a lot of questions as we close the show this morning. that does it for us for now. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> we begin with that very breaking news. two more packages found this morning. one addressed to senator cory booker and another to former director of national intelligence james clapper. nbc's investigative reporter tom winters joins me now via phone. tom we're up to 12 potentially suspicious packages. walk us through this. >> shortly after 8:00 a.m. this morning, we first got word the package that was addressed to cory booker but was found at a mail facility in south florida, at that time, we understood it, the package was addressed to booker in camden, new jersey. the package obviously does not appear to have ever made its way there. they were able to get --
subsequently, about the same time, a mail sorting facility in new york city. that's certainly kind of the we were edge of midtown manhattan. at that point, officials immediately believed bomb squad personnel, senior bomb squad personnel immediately believed looking at yet another package that had all the hallmarks of the creepiest ones that had been found and confirmed to be tied to the same group. that package was addressed to james clapper. obviously former intelligence official in the u.s. government and somebody who has also been quite critical of the president. so you have right now we believe we're up to 12. the big question right now, stephanie, is, you know, from finding some packages yesterday, addressed to former vice president joe biden, and addressed to robert de niro, those packages.
believed to be the same time as the packages sent to sorros, clinton, obama, waters, et cetera. so the question right now is are these new packages or are these packages have been in the mail stream for past several days as well? we know the postal service has been on the lookout. >> i think we just lost tom. i want to take you now to kerry sanders who is outside the mail sorting facility in oppalacha, florida, where the attention was focused overnight. what is the latest there? because the package that was intended for cory booker is in royal palm beach, it's not where you are, but your location has been a definition of focus you could say. >> it has. but let me just sort of clarify something. royal palm beach, this may be also known as the royal palm sorting facility. so we're trying to determine whether it's the physical
community of royal palm beach or whether it's this facility here in opa-locka. bottom line is the fbi is still here. they have three shifts of employee, almost 600, that work here. the fbi is interviewing those employees that work on three different shifts. this is a real tough one because they're trying to see with about half a million-plus packages that come through here every day whether an employee in that sea of packages maybe remembers seeing something, seeing that rather unique label that we've all seen on camera, and whether they can then determine with an interview, with some information, where the packages started. this is simply a sorting facility. so from ft. pierce, florida, all the way down to key west, anybody who sends a package, the package comes through the facility right here, there's, like, 7 million people that live in the area. so as they begin to try to
narrow down who may be responsible for this, it's still a very, very big area with a huge population. and it doesn't preclude the possibility of somebody driving into the area, dropping the packages off and then leaving. but there have been bomb sniffing dogs here yesterday. there are federal agents here right now. and they're trying to get to as much information on the lead that they have, which is -- at least we know some of the packages made their way through the sorting facility here in opa locka, very close to miami. stephanie. >> all right, kerry sanders down in florida. on the left side of your screen, you're looking al ining at midt manhattan. where there is a postal facility that received a suspicious package we which believe is potentially the 12th package. this one intended for james clapper. i want to bring in former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor barbara mcquaid, retired special
agent jim cavanaugh and michael governorman. the two packages found this morning, both in mail facilities, so the positive is we have every mail facility on high alert. what are investigators looking for specifically at this point? >> well, luckily, they have a lot of evidence because these devices didn't detonate. so they have exactly what to look for as long as these are being mailed at the same time. i mean, now that we have some time between when the first package was delivered and these ones are discovered, it's up for grabs whether new devices are being made and put in the mail, different places. that's going to be the hard part. because of course i think appropriately the fbi has put out what these packages look like so we can be warned what to look for. but that also alerts whoever is doing this, that they need to change out the way they've done it to make it harder for them to
find it. >> or maybe copycats are now doing the same thing to make things even more chaotic. >> exactly. >> jim this sorting facility down in florida, it's the size of a football field. so even if we're getting more and more information with each subsequent package, how difficult is this? i mean, thousands of packages go through this processing facility a day. >> yes, steph, i talked with some of my colleagues and atf yesterday and we talked just in general terms about the investigation. you know, what you got there at the facility is a lot of fbi agents, atf agents, postal inspectors, detectives from the police there, all can throw in,er there part of the joint terrorism task force. those agencies add in more people. so they can conduct the sweep, conduct the interviews, try to talk to all the postal employees. the postal inspectors are great at this, by the way. i worked with them extensively
going back 40 years on mail bombs. they're very good. they're inside baseball on this. then you have the fbi and the atf or at least these world class bomb experts. so it's like this collective wisdom that's all running around, that can defeat these bombers. you have a lot of personnel there. the ticket on this is going to clearly start moving toward south florida. where, you know, the fbi's joint terrorism task force right in south florida, right in miami, is going to have a lot of leads to command. that's where the joint operations are going to be happening. deeply happening there. certainly they have it in new york. fbi director may decide to move that to washington or florida. but right now the tempo of this case is in florida because they were -- they were sent from there. >> all right, i want to bring pete williams in. our senior justice correspondent. pete what do you know? >> well, i apologize i haven't heard what you've been talking about the last few minutes. but just to backtrack here,
we're up to 12 now. a little bit of confusion on where this 11th package was found that was addressed to senator cory booker at an address in camden, new jersey. we'd been told it was the mail processing center in florida, that mail distribution center that's the focus of investigative interest for the past 12 hours or so. the second one was found at the -- the picture you're looking at there on the left side, the mail processing center in midtown, manhattan, that one addressed to james clapper. earlier this week there was another package found to another former member of the intelligence community, john brennan, the former cia director, so there's some consistency there. the good news here is they're finding these packages in the mail distribution system without having to have them discovered at the -- near the addressee.
that shows some progress there. trying to find them before they get out further toward the addressee. what we don't know, which i think the authorities don't know yet, where in the mail chain were they. in other words were they outbound going toward their destination? or were they inbound coming back down because of the phony return address? we know so far that the packages have gone both ways. the ones, for example, george sorros. the one that was sent to brennan at cnn. those were all headed towards and got to their addressees or close to them. for example, the one that was sent to eric holder was being returned. the ones sent to senator -- addressed to joe biden were being returned back down to the return address. >> if they were being returned for a phony return address, then where would they be returned to? >> well, remember, they were on their way back to the phony
return address, which is debby wasserman shuttlings. the one at eric holder managed to get there. they stopped the ones sent to joe biden. because they figured out what was going on. so we don't know if these were reject order -- and on their way back or were outbound and i'm sure we'll figure that out shortly. >> i want to bring barbara mcquaid in. from what you have seen, what do you think the motivation is here? we're now up to 12 packages. none of which detonated. so more people are saying the goal here is to sow fear or create chaos, which has been done. >> i think looking at the recipients you can find some common links among them as people who are prominent in the democratic party or outspoken critics of president trump. i think that one of the things investigators will do is be cautious about not allowing a motive to impact the way they investigate the case. because sometimes people
deliberately mislead with who gets targeted in an effort to divert the attention of investigators to someone who might be the real target. so i think the investigators are likely to keep an open mind about what to look for and consider everyone to be at risk. you're right, none of these has gone off, but the reporting suggests that these are live devices that can go off, which is important because it changes the penalties and changes the potential statute you can use in a case like this. so it may than they're poorly constructed. it may be that there is something about them that's not functional. we don't know whether this is poor bomb making or a deliberate attempt to just be a scare tactic. but the fact they include actually explosive device if the reporting is accurate on that means these are bombs that could go off if they're not handled properly. they've not been mishandled and opened and exposing vick ttim a to harm. >> i want to bring chris jansing
in, my colleague on the phone with us. you are basically on the scene. tell us what it's like there. >> i actually just live in that neighborhood which is hell's kitchen, and i just wanted to give people sort of a sense of what that's like. because it's a little bit different than we saw yield where you had just a sorting facility. this is -- if this is the post office that's on 52nd street between 8th and 9th avenues in new york, it is both a working post office and a sorting facility. the other thing that's different about it is there's actually a residential condo development that was built on top of this. so people actually live directly above where this is. there is a series of condominiums there and they are residences on one side of it to the east side of it, residences across the street. so this is also a heavily residential area. it's not something that's separate from here.
and it's a very busy post office. in fact, i walk this neighborhood all the time. you can see usually, certainly in the morning and then in the afternoon lots of mail trucks lined up there because it is a sorting facility. the stuff gets sorted, loaded into the trucks. i think you can see from the picture on the air right now what you're looking a in ing at residential building. >> that package, number 12, was intended for james clapper. the one we're also speaking about this morning that was discovered in florida intended for cory booker. jim cavanaugh, yesterday when we were speaking about this and we said, well, since they didn't got off, maybe they're just there to scare people. you said since the way they were put together, what was inside was making you believe they were intended to go off. >> right, steph. just tilting a little way that way. based on the facts we know.
the nypd early on said all the components were present. that means a container,vised de. so it's a bomb. its components for a bomb. and so we know that. most hoax bombs we see, and i've seen many over the years, don't have real explosives. they have a pipe filled with sand and a bunch of nails taped on them, an alarm clock taped on them. they're meant to scare. so why go to all the trouble to have real explosive improvised detonators and its real components? that's one point. the shrapnel, the gas, is inside the bomb. that's not going to scare anybody. so why do that if it's just to scare you, a hoax? why bother? you can tape a bunch of nails to the outside. that will scare you more. secondly two bomb also to maxine waters. two bombs to joe biden.
why two bombs if we're trying to scare you? it goes more to me that i'm really trying to get you, i really have an ire for you, a hatred, i really want to get you, maxine waters or joe biden. so that's just some ways to look at it. it's not absolute. we could very well find out there was no way to trigger the device and that's the way the bomber made it. so we made a real bomb that he didn't tend to go off. i think more likely it's his bomb making skills, steph, are lacking, you know, maybe the bottom of the bomb class he graduated in, not too good. maybe trying to be too clever by half. you have a timer on that picture. a digital timer. mail bombs normally don't have timers. so this could be a safe arm switch or it could be, you know, a digital type they're w time r
meant to activate. a bomber activates that when he's carrying the devices. lumbering these dozen devices in his car, to the post office. so he doesn't want to blow up. if he had an alarm clock with a delay on it, none of this is live. when he mails it two hours into the mail, they become live. so eelhe's not in danger. or it could be the actual mechanism. they sell these things which are digital alarm clocks that work on voice. you have to have a learn level of decibels to make the light digital part function. you'd have to get in there and rewire all that stuff. we don't know. we don't know what he's done. others can work by light. you have a lot inside your house. when the light hits it, it goes on or off. it may be they tried. the bomber tried and couldn't
quite make the circuits reliable. it may be that none of these bombs are open. these is a salient point in this case. none of these bombs, not one bomb was open via victim, via citizen, via target. is it patriots, and think we need to say this, 12 american patriots, who have served the country who have been successful in their businesses have received these bombs. every single one of these people. business like mr. de niro, successful, highly successful actor. mr. sorros, a business man. then political leaders who have served. intelligence leaders, mr. brennan, mr. clapper. 12 patriots have been attacked by a bomber. we don't quite know every little thing. the fbi lab and the atf cameras and the experts and postal inspectors still ferret this out. the danger is the bomber progression. that's the danger going forward. is he going to adapt, change the
package, change the bomb, improve the firing mechanism and go at this a different way? canning the place devices? different attacks? we're finding these, but we don't have him yet. or them. there may be more than one here as well. >> i want to mention robert de niro just put a statement out, writing, i thank god no one has been hurt and i thank the brave and resourceful security and law enforcement people for protecting us. there's something more powerful than bombs and that's your vote. people must vote. robert de niro received a package. it was someone from his office that actually alerted the police. it was because that person had seen these packages. had seen all of the reporting on the news. we're now up to 12 suspicious packages. i want to bring in senator mark warner in this conversation. senator, you were joining us this morning to talk about a lot of things. this wasn't at the top of our list. but here we are, two more packages. >> it's pretty remarkable. i mean, 12 bombs sent to
prominent figures, intelligence community. two former presidents, a former vice president, and, again, i want to ecowhat mr. de niro said. thank god for the law enforcement, for postal employees, for the fbi agents that are investigating this crime. it would be nice if there was that same level of commentary coming from the white house. supporting law enforcement. calling this out as a heinous act. trying to show support and bring americans together. i mean, in a much smaller way, when i was governor, we had a sniper incident that terrorized the greater washington area. i knew my job was try to keep people calm and also try to bring folks together. we've not seen that from this white house. >> why doesn't the hill come together? i saw a joint statement from chuck schumer and nancy pelosi. it would have more of an impact if that statement came from
mitch mcconnell, paul ryan, chuck schumer or nancy pelosi. that's a coming together. >> stephanie, i agree. the fact we are -- people across the country are campaigning makes it more difficult but that's not a good enough reason that all responsible leaders from both political parties, if there's ever a time to step up as americans first, it's right now. >> are you scared? >> listen, i'm worried about how many more of these packages may take place. i'm worried about the folks who work in congressional offices or the folks who work in postal offices about their safety. i'm worried that we've seen a worsening of the political debate at a level i've never seen in my lifetime. i'm worried we unfortunately here out of the white house, attacks, frankly, against the fbi, against the justice department, against our intelligence community, against these leaders.
not just the political leaders. that i worry whether the kind of basic respectful rule of law that has been the hallmark of our country, at least for some folks seems to be eroding. >> civility and decency are what we desperately need to bring back. want to bring rehema ellis into this conversation. she is on location at 52nd and 8th. that is just a few blocks from where we are. it was just a few days ago our colleagues at cnn office center was evacuated. these are massively crowded areas in new york city. >> i literally sprinted over here from our building. behind me about 50 yards behind me, that's where the mail sorting facility is located. you can also see off to the side the nypd officers. members of the bomb squad have gone inside.
state police are on scene as well. the whole area cordoned off. it is very frightening for people. what happened is, as you've been pointing out, they were sorting mail. the postal workers now it seems are on the front line of defense of all of this. they were sorting mail. they noticed something that was sus suspicion. they called authorities. it was addressed to james clapper, the former director of national intelligence. it was supposed to go to him at cnn and, again, another reason, i suspect, why postal inspectors were suspicious of what they saw. now on the scene, we'll probably be here for several hours, as authorities sort this out, the bomb squad is on location. they are inside the facility i'm told. they're going to try to figure out exactly what this is. if they follow the practice that we've seen in other instances, they will take this package, load it into a facility, a secure facility, and then take it off to a location where they can make certain they can transport it safely down to the
fbi headquarters in quantico, virginia. they will add this package to the slew of others they are now investigating, trying to find out who is responsible for sending this. it's very interesting, because only yesterday, i was at the new york city police department headquarters, where the chief of police, james o'neil, said, when asked, is it just a hoax that these things have not exploded, he said whether it's a hoax or not, this has to be taken seriously. what is not a hoax is this is intended to terrorize people. and i have to tell you, it's causing fear out here. stephanie. >> without a doubt. i want to bring in peter alexander live at the white house. peter, i know the president was up late tweeting. is he up now? have we heard any statement for him, from him or his staff regarding this? >> yes, i can say so far we've heard nothing from the president. certainly nothing from his aides so far. it was just inside the west wing, trying to find sarah
sanders, trying to get any information on whether the president has been briefed yet. so far, no information to that effect. intere there is no marine guard. we won't see him until 11:45 this morning when he will be hosting a young black leadership summit in the east room. if he were to make any public statement, it's likely it would occur at that time. it's obvious based on his comments over the last couple of days on twitter that he believes he's being unfairly even hostilely cast as a player in this whole situation that we're witnessing nationwide. this is what the president tweeted overnight. this tweet came out at 3:14 in the morning. we will put it up for you. he wrote funny how lowly rated cnn and others can criticize me as well. and ridiculously comparing this to september 11th and the oklahoma city bombing. yet when i criticize them, they go wild and scream it's just not
presidential. we haven't seen anybody comparing this to september 11th or the oklahoma city bombing. at least it relates to whatever the president's role here may be. but obviously he is among those who has had some pretty tough rhetoric as it relates to all of these individuals, including the two individuals who received these latest pa esst packages. we don't know anything about the motivation of this mail bomber. we do know within last week the president did go after cory book booker, the senator, democrat, from new jersey, saying among other things he was a horrible mayor. saying if he became president, as he's likely or suspected he might run in 2020, the president said booker would run the country the hell into the ground, to use his language. he's been critical of james clapper in the past. grouping him together with john brennan, the former cia director and the former president, barack obama, as well. but just the latest from here at the white house is so far we're hearing nothing from them. we do know the president in his
comments in the east room earlier this week spoke out against violence and violent rhetoric. but then some of his public comments since, people have suggested, seem to undercut the original message, steph. >> his public comments since and before, let's remind our audience. let's always remind our audience, while the president talks about the negative media bias, it's called fact checking. every day the president of the united states lies. and every day, the media fact checks him. so calling him a liar surely makes him feel terrible and angry and he would like that to stop. he should stop lying. >> if the president is up set and his feelings are hurt, what he should do is start acting presidential. he should make a statement today not only condemning the violence but supporting an american free press. he should pick up the phone and call barack obama and bill clinton and hillary clinton and express concern about their
safety. he should make sure and call on all of us as the national leader to tone it down in terms of the rhetoric of the last ten days of these campaigns and not go out and attack his political adversaries as enemies. and when he goes off to his campaign rally tonight, whoever he's attacking, he may be ought to say we have differences but at the end of the day, we're americans. >> would they take that call with an open mind and an open heart? because we're in a hyper poll lilt sized moment. we are less than two weeks from the midterms. if the president did exactly what you're saying and put country first and do something presidential, that might be the pivot people were waiting for, for so long. would democrats receive him with open armings? >> i absolutely believe it. listen, i have huge frustrations with this president on a whole host of issues. but moments like this, up to 12 bombs. we don't know how many more are in the mail or being sent.
if there's ever time to be presidential, if there's ever a time to be a leader, if there's ever a time to actually maybe have nbc and cnn -- step up and be presidential -- >> let's make something clear. when the president does things that are positive for the country. when we talk about the economy on days that it is doing what we absolutely give the president credit, the issue is his constant unforced errors. even on things that are going well, he overstates them. that's what blows my mind. >> the fact that he has created this new normal where he can, you know, let's just call it out what it is, lie on a daily basis. and then when he's caught up on that and fact checked, condemn the fact checkers, is, you know, that is not the way american politics. that's not the way american business works. >> that is 52nd. between 8th and 9th.
there's transporting the package. let's bring rehema ellis in. walk us through what we're looking at. >> what's happening right now, stephanie, it just passed me, it's the new york city police department, it's called a tcbt truck. it looks like a small cement mixer. this is what authorities use to place the suspicious package inside this contained unit and it -- hopefully, if there were to be an explosion, this unit can contain it. they're going to bring the suspicious package outside of the mail sorting facility and put it inside this truck. i have to tell you also that according to my -- our camera man, tim, who was here on the scene, moments before i was, when the call came through from the postal department that they had a suspicious package, the fire department was here in a matter of moments. it was pandemonium on the street. because people were running away from the fire truck because the
alert is at a very high state here in new york city because we already have been reporting about suspicious packages being found and people have been told to be on the lookout. so there was fear, right here on this corner where i'm standing at 52nd and 8th avenue, one of the busiest areas in the world, not just in the united states, and people were running, not knowing what was about to happen. right now, you can see that the police are still on the scene. fire trucks are here. the state police is here. the bomb squad is here. trying to figure out what in the world they have this time. it was spotted by the postal inspectors this morning as they were sorting through the mail. something suspicious. we have not yet been breeiefed exactly what it was. it was a package addressed to james clapper. it was supposed to be delivered to him at cnn. as you know, he's the former director of national intelligence. eyebrows were raised. we have to send a shout-out to those postal workers who were very, very alert.
they spotted something. and they said something, stephanie. >> thank you so much to all of them. if you're joining us now, we're continuing to follow this breaking news. two more suspicious packages. one to former director of national intelligence, jame clapper, found at a mail facility in florida. bringing the total number to 12. i want to bring senator warner back in for a moment. senator, we're seeing kirstjen nielsen to border. the narrative the president wants to focus on is this migrant caravan. when i look at images from 52nd and 8th, you're looking at a potential 12th bomb being driven to a facility to inspect. as far as the narrative goes, you do have a midterm coming in two weeks. to me, i look at this and say, we have a domestic terrorist on the loose. but from a strategic standpoint, the white house just keeps saying look at this caravan,
these 4,000 people coming to attack us. what do democrats do at a moment like this? what alert should you be making to us? >> we should be making alert, one, has been mentioned already, commending the folks at the post office and law enforcement. in our intelligence community who are doing their job. that should be a basic premise we should expect from every elected official all the way up from the president. we should also make sure we send a message this is not who we are as a country. we can have political disagreements but we don't resort to violence. that's not the america i've grown up with or the america i think virtually every elected official, democrat and republican, represents. >> it appears the president doesn't want to refocus on this. he wants to go to rally after rally. focus on the cakar caravan and things. >> we ought to send a message on election day if that's not the kind of leadership you want that kind of white house needs to be
held in check and that would mean go out and vote on election day. in the cation of the caravan, remarkable thing is we had a bipartisan agreement earlier this year that would have dramatically increased border security, that would have put more resources into honduras, guatemala and el salvador, the source of most of these migrants, to actually cut down the violence, cut down the drug trafficking, processing more people in those countries so people don't set off in this caravan. with the agreement a path to legal status to the dreamers -- >> so the democrats -- >> let's say democrats agree. but the president couldn't say yes for an answer and reneged and now he's complaining about the fact we have challenges at the boarder. >> let's say the blue wave comes. november 7th. the caravan's approaching. what do you do? >> it is strange, the timing on this caravan. >> strange it is what it is. here it's coming.
what is the democratic strategy? >> we need immigration reform. we need more border security. but we need to realize that the source of the folk's movement is violence and drugs in their own country. since drugs are, much of the drugs are consumed in the united states, we ought to shut down the demand and also up our game in those countries so people aren't fleeing their families, particularly young, unescorted children often times, to try to find a safe halfen. >> find a safe halfven. we need new york city to be a safe haven. i want to go back to jim cavanaugh. jim, as we look at these images, i'm stunned we're now at package 12 in midtown manhattan. we're a day away from people. i realize actually halloween night is next wednesday. but this weekend, you're going to have people all over new york city.
carrying packages. in masks. this is one of the scarier times in our year. how does law enforcement handle itself? >> i want to focus this a little bit for you, the audience and certainly new yorkers. these bombs and parcels are very small. they can kill you if you open it and it's a foot ahead of your chest. >> that's how we open our mail, jim. >> no, that's what i'm saying. but it's not going to kill anyone on street who's running away. one thing to get in your mind is this is a targeted bomb. this is not a massive car bomb placed in the street that can kill people for blocks.
it's deadly. it can be deadly if it goes off to the targeted person or staff member. even other people who might be in the office. it's not going to destroy these buildings. these buildings are large cement and brick structures. they're pretty safe. orderly evacuations that the bomb squad would order is going to keep you safe. so just keep that in mind. it's not a danger to everyone in the street. that total containment vessel, it's a giant sphere there. it's a sphere, that one. there are about four inches thick steel. a pencil hole at the very top
and a door in the side. you put the bomb in the door, shut the door. if the bomb detonates when you translates it, the gases escape through the pencil hole in the top but all the bomb components, the fragments, the timer, the mechanism, is all in the sphere. you empty the sphere and go through the bomb and reconstruct the bomb. some cities use an open top. of course in new york, you know the high rise buildings, you wouldn't want to shoot that stuff up like a cannon. those containment vessels sometimes have an open top and would stop the blast from going sideways. so once the bomb squad gets the package into the back door of the containment vessel, everybody's safe. they'll take that to there, do a
safe procedure on it, try to open it without blowing up, safely -- make the device safe. then it will be sent to quaint quantico, where laboratory, forensics, can examine it for fingerprints, dna, mechanism, fusing and firing system and get that all going. >> as a reminder, you are looking -- this is an aerial shot of the postal facility where that package was delivered. it was intended for james clapper. he phoned in to our colleagues at cnn. let's listen to that. i think anyone who had been a critic of president trump need to be on extra alert and take some cautions an particularly with respect to mail. at the same time, we shouldn't
get too overblown about it. to overwrought i guess is the right word, at this point. >> james clapper, the package is intended for him. >> one of the things we have to keep in mind is terrorism is very rare in the united states. it's obviously something for the people being targeted and certainly for the postal inspectors who have to handle mail that they don't know what's in it. what we have to do is ratchet down the fear. that's why i'm very troubled by the president's rhetoric, that blame als the victim, saying th cnn deserves some kind of retribution because that's going to escalate this conflict. as you suggested, create copycats, create other justifications for using violence rather than resolving our differences. >> is that what this potential
bomber wants? we've seen the governor and the mayor of new york say this is an act of terror. is that they want to hear? i'm happy we're being somewhat cautious about motives. certainly victims, we know these are the prominent targets of the right wing eck ecosphere. certainly has become much of our political discourse. where there was actual direct outreach to the types of people who prominently use these conspiracy theories. >> this is a moment for the exhausted majority to rise and say enough is enough in the center. >> you hear people say, that's enough.
my hope is out of this terror attack, the american people might step up and say we actually want leadership that would put country first. ahead of any individual personality. while i appreciate the commentary we do need to put appropriate -- this will perhaps not generate a mass casualty event. i feel -- literally thousands of postal workers all over the country processing. the whole host of folks who process the mail for congressmen and senators. but one of these packages i believe was sent to the district office of maxine waters. what do i say to my staff and other members of congress? we tried to upgrade dramatically in the last 48 hours our security provisions. but i think there is this fear out there.
and it's not just in new york city. and if there's, again, from all of us, in any form of leadership, need to step up our game and put aside the kind of back and forth and say this is not who we are as a country, support our law enforcement, support our intelligence community officials, and that will be a heck of a lot stronger if that message also came from this white house. >> barbara, how does one take this as seriously -- as serious as possible without celeb ra tizing this bomber, without inspiring others to become copy cats? if the goal was to sow fear and chaos, it's working. >> there's a lot of attention to be paid to it. you want to alert the public of this threat. i think the best way to achieve is it by working quickly to
identify who this bomber is. quick action is required here. i think in a case like this, there are many more clues. there is a lot of evidence left behind in an undetonated bomb. i'm hopeful that the investigators from atf, fbi, and don't forget the postal inspectors who play a very important role in this on every piece of mail, there's an electronic signature that is affixed that can tell the entire routing of that piece of mail. you will see all kinds of numbers and bar codes that can identify the chain of that package. and so through that work, they can identify where the packages were mails. look at surveillance cameras from there and perhaps get clues. even the powder itself can be unique and they can trace that back to where the powder was sold and manufactured. all those component parts like
pvc. i'm sure fbi agents are out talking to all the large hardware stores in those communities wherever they find those packages were mailed to for anyone who might have bought an unusually large volume of pvc pipe. i think resolving the case quickly is the best way to calm the public. >> tough to do when more packages keep coming in. i want to go back to rehema ellis. it was just a few minutes ago you walked us through it. we saw that police truck that looks somewhat like a cement mixer carrying that suspicious package. make its way out of the street and soon to be out of new york city. so now that that is gone, what's happening there? has the street -- is the street closed down? can pedestrians walk on it? >> no, not at all. there's no pedestrian traffic going down this street, stephanie. about 50 yards from where i'm standing, it is that mail facility, mail sorting facility,
and you can see the flashing lights on an nypd police vehicle right now. it's pretty much right across from the entrance to this facility. there's been a lot of coming and going of vehicles. including a tcb vehicle. it looks like a small cement truck mixer. we've seen in the past that vehicle has been used to transport the suspicious package to a location where they can examine it a little further and then of course like the other packages it would be sent down to the fbi headquarters for analysis in quantico, virginia. but it is very quiet. if you pan over, let me give you a little color here, stephanie. there's a coffee cart over here. and they're not doing any work at this hour. because no one can get down this street. coming back in to see the fact that a lot of officers are here. trucks are coming. new york city police of course. state police. the bomb squad. we've got ambulances around.
and people standing around. at one point, as i've mentioned, it was pandemonium here. it's important to point out what the mayor of new york city said yesterday in the news conference. he said this indeed is terror. whether these devices explode or not, they have achieved their purpose of terrorizing people in this community. people were running away from this area. it was a scene of pandemonium earlier. when the fire trucks came through. because people, they are on edge. nerves are on edge. because this is now the second time in new york city in this area. we're at 52nd and 8th. the cnn offices are just a few blocks north from where i'm standing. and then a few blocks south of where i'm standing is where they found a suspicious package that was sent to the robert de niro offices, so this area -- again, i can't emphasize it enough. people are on edge, stephanie.
>> i want to clear something up because i think i misspoke earlier. that truck that is on the street, has it received the bomb yet? when i saw it moving earlier, i believe it was making its way to 52nd and 8th. i thought it was departing before. has the package left the building and been put in the truck yet? >> no, from what i understand, and i can't -- i'm at the corner and i can't see everything. but i do not think it has been placed in that tcb vehicle yet. that might happen any moment from now. hope friday, when it does happen, we will be able to see it leave, but i'm not sure because you got a lot of vehicles now pretty much obstructing our view and maybe they're obstructing the view because they may have placed that device inside that tcb vehicle and then there's going to be an escort of emergency vehicles leading to a facility over in the bronx where they'll take a closer look at this package. >> all right, rehema, stay with
us. i want to bring in tom winters. you and i have been through these two seats for the last three days. >> yes, it's a -- i think the key thing now, the thing we're trying to figure out, the thing i think law enforcement is trying to figure out and the most important thing is are these two new packages, in other words, this 11th and 12th -- we know from the other packages they were sent out, presumably all around approximately the same time. or certainly earlier this week. if these two particular packages were sent out since that initial -- since that initial sending, well, that raises some questions as far as, you know, are we now going to be looking at 13, 14, 15? are we looking at somebody who's progressing along a scale of potential devices to send out? it also indicates the person is still active and involved in sending out the packages. so at this point, that's something we really look to get to the bottom of. this particular -- this
particular piece of equipment you're look at on screen right now is -- rehema put it, the total containment vessel, tcv, an explosive that's many more times powerful than the ones sent around could go off inside of this. as it is being driven to the facility. it could go off in there. you could be driving next to it on the highway. you would have no indication of it. it contains all of the blast. the best part about it, the reason why they use it, it contains all the evidence. if for some reason, it's disrupted in any way in transit, for some reason, if there's any sort of -- if it falls apart, everything is contained in there. all the potential dna evidence, anything they can get from that. it's a really smart and safe way of transporting it. it's great for public safety. it's also great for the investigative work that needs to go into it. this is something that's very standard.
many large police departments have them. certainly the fbi has it. so at this point, it's just another attempt to, you know -- is there a mistake that this person that's been sending out these packages, is there a is t that they will make that will provide the central clue for us to get to a point where law enforcement is able to make an arrest. so that's what you are looking at live. this has been going on now for over 90 minutes. the bomb squad ceo is on scene and he made the determination that the clapper package is similar to the other ones and at that point the nypd fully locked down the area and were able to get in the full bomb squad to do what they need to do to safely get this package out of there. so shortly after 8:00 a.m., we first got word that the package to do co
to cory booker was able to be picked up. >> and we've been talking for the last few you minutes about what we're seeing in new york because it is in our backyard. but there is that other scene unfolding in florida, the suspicious package addressed to new jersey democratic senator cory booker. it was discovered at a postal facility in the city of opa-locka, florida, that is near miami. on thursday investigators said they believed some of the bombs sent this week could have passed dl through that facility. and thus far the packages were listed from congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz's address in sunrise, florida. for all of these people in the sorting facility, postal workers, once they see a package like this, what is the next chain of command? we were talking about putting the package in that truck and if it went off in the truck, you wouldn't even know it. but while it is still in the postal facility, what happens?
>> well, number one, you want to get everybody who is not a bomb expert away from it very quickly. and as jim suggested earlier, the postal inspectors are very good at this. and they have experts who can keep it safe until a bomb expert can come and handle it appropriately. at this point we at least have what the previous devices looked like, so we can estimate better what the damage could be created. the problem i think as time goes by is the anthrax case being another example where the person who was sending it refined his methodology. so here if they are intending to do harm, perhaps they can figure out what their mistake was and actually make a more deadly device. >> i think that is why i'm so interested to find out when were
these particular packages that we're hearing about, when were they sent. because if this person did intend to your point to harm here, maybe they saw that in fact, well, you know, the previous explosives did not go off, so maybe i've got to change up the way that i'm designing and building them. and just because the exterior of the packaging -- we're getting a picture now that we can share with you shortly from my colleague marc santia. it shows the package addressed to clapper. and it is very similar to the other ones. the one we're looking at right now, the main image on the more left part of the screen there for folks watching at home, that package looks very similar to the ones that we've shown -- the numerous other packages that we've shown this week. manila padded envelope, all the markings are essentially the same. so just because the exterior looks the same doesn't mean that the interior is the same. so that is something that i can tell you that the new york city
police department, bomb squad, is taking a look at just to make sure that the interior of that is not different in a way that could cause you harm to them or anybody else. so that is something that i really would like to -- we're all trying to get a better handle on frankly. >> and i want to bring back kerry sanders at that sorting facility in opa-locka. give us an update where you are. >> reporter: i'm at the opa-locka mail sort facility. this is where several of the bombs have been found. this is not the regular sort of post office where you go and drop off your mail or buy sample -- stamps. this is where they sort the packages. bomb number 11 now, the bomb that was addressed to senator cory booker, was found at this facility. late last night at around 11:00 p.m. or so, they actually evacuated the building here if a short period of time. it is believed that is when they found the package amongst a sea
of packages that were here. at around 4:00 a.m., the authorities from the local miami-dade police department withdrew their k-9 units as well as their bomb techs that were here so the general sense is since they haven't returned that the threat has been at least negated with that bomb number 11. but they are still interviewing employees here. there are fbi agents talking to employees. there are three shifts here, it runs around the clock. about 600 employees. to see if perhaps anybody has seen something in the mail coming through here and the packages that may tip them off to where these packages came from. as we've been reporting, the stamps were not canceled. and that cancellation on the stamp is what shows where these packages were first mailed from, where the initiation began from. >> all right. kerry sanders, thank you. barbara mcquaid, as we look at
this across the united states, how difficult is it -- and i know we heard from jeff sessions briefly yesterday. how difficult is to coordinate efforts with local, state, federal law enforcement and the justice department? >> since 9/11, federal law enforcement is really structured to be a national and even international operation. fbi has field offices, atf has field offices all over the country. and at those field offices, fbi houses joint terrorism task forces. so co-located within those jttfs as they are known will be state police, local police, and all of the agenfederal agencies that operate in that community. so it is very efficient. very quickly they can reach all the people they need to reach and have all the expertise that they need. atf for bombs, postal inspection service for the postal knowledge and access, fbi for management of a terrorism investigation. state and locals for what is
going on the ground and getting video surveillance from nearby businesses. so they can mobilize very quickly. it is one of the great trance information makes we saw after 9/11 is the ability to do this very quickly. so i have great faith in the men and women of all of those law enforcement agencies to put this together. if anyone can crack this, they can. and it is fine tuned to handle this kind of investigation. >> and one of the strengths frankly of the new york joint terrorism task force which has been in place since 1980, you have over 100 nypd detectives on it, you have a huge contingent of fbi special agents that are on it. and after 9/11, this has been strengthened further. so you have close cooperation and discussion between prosecutors, between the fbi and between the nypd. federal law enforcement agencies, nypd has 40,000. they don't have anywhere close to that. so there is a real kind of
symbiotic relationship there. they trust the nypd. there is a lot training that goes back and forth, federal law enforcement agencies train with the nypd regularly and vice versa. so this is something where there is a high degree of familiarity between the two. and then the techniques that are used by whether it be the nypd bomb squad, whether it be used by squads up and down the east coast, they all kind of follow the same model. they receive a lot of the same training from the same facility in the u.s. which i'm not going to name. so special agent bomb technicians and their supervisors in quantico that are examining if any of these devices had been rendered safe, in other words purposely destructid destru destructed, they will reconstruct the bomb from squach. a -- scratch. and i'm sure that they are trying to build these devices themselves to look for the little tricks and things that theyrecreate this
so they can develop the clues. >> and we do talk often about the hyper politicized environment we're in right now. we did know that political leaders are thinking about this, but they are also thinking about the midterms. but for everyday americans, for people like me living in new york city who is two blocks away from this right now, should we feel confident that law enforcement and the department of justice are completely coordinated and not plitd sized and they are putting safety first? >> yes. i think this is something that the joints terrorism task forces do very well. i think what we have to be careful of, you know, to tamp down fear, often knowledge helps. and you can go to the internet and find the fbi and dhs put out information on what to look for in your mail that is worth being suspicious about. so rather than calling anytime you receive something that

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