Joined the lawmakers. Good morning. Thank you for being here this morning. This congress has failed the American People. After charleston and orlando, now las vegas, how many more must die . 100 . 1,000 . 10,000 . A million . What is your blood price . How many more must die . How many mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives . Tell me what, tell me, and tell us. What is the number . How many more dead bodies will it take to wake up this congress . But theres no number, is there . Theres no amount of blood, of pain, of death, of suffering. What would move this congress to act . We hold moments of silence and vigils. We offer our thoughts and prayers, but its all a show, a place holder, until people forget and congress can move on, rolling back restrictions on silencers, making it easier for the mentally ill to purchase weapons. Dont tell me otherwise. Ive been around too long. I lost colleagues in mississippi and alabama to gun violence. We lost dr. Martin luther king jr. To a man with a rifle. We lost senator Robert Kennedy to a man with handguns. Ive seen too many gun deaths, and im here to say right now this must stop. And it must stop now. We were elected to lead. We were elected to be a headlight and not a taillight. I say to all of you, to all of my colleagues on the other side, we must have more courage to make a down payment on ending gun violence in america. We can no longer wait. We can no longer be patient. We will bring water. There was a virus, we would send medicine. If this was a storm, we would give shelter. But this is about guns, and so once more, this congress does nothing. Dont tell me dont tell me we need Mental Health reform when you wont provide every american access to Mental Health care. Dont tell me its about protecting the Second Amendment when you wont stand up for the first amendment. Dont tell me this is about anything other than greed, greed, money, and fear. I said to each one of us, to all of the members of the congress, have courage. Be unafraid. Do your job. Bring commonsense gun control legislation to a vote. We need it, and we need it now. And i yield to our friend, our beloved sister, a former member of congress, representative giffords. Thank you, gabby, for being here. Stopping gun violence takes courage. The courage to do whats right, the courage and new ideas. I have seen great courage when my life was on the line. Now is the time to come together. Be responsible. Democrats, republicans, everyone. We must never stop fighting. Fight, fight, fight be bold. Be courageous. The nations counting on you. Thank you very much. Thank you, gabby. Im Mike Thompson from california and chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task force. I want to thank you all for being here. I want to thank all my colleagues who are standing with us today. And i also want to mention that our colleagues from nevada would be here with us, but theyre in nevada now grieving and helping those who were victims of this last terrible mass shooting. Were here because we know we can do something. You know we can do something. And we must do something. First and foremost, we have to stop this dangerous gun agenda being brought forward by the Majority Party in the house. A bill to lift the restrictions, deregulate the sale of silencers. And a bill to make it easier for anybody to carry a concealed weapon any time, any place. We also believe that we should pass commonsense gun violence prevention legislation. First, a bill that would require anyone who buys a gun through the commercial sale to undergo a background check. And second, the speaker needs to step forward and establish a select committee on gun violence prevention. For the last four and a half years, weve been working on gun violence prevention measures. Everything that weve brought forward doesnt cut the mustard with the republican majority. They wont give us a hearing. They wont give us a vote. Well, if you dont like what were bringing forward, you bring something forward. Establish a select committee, let democrats and republicans sit down and work on this very real and very important issue together, and bring measures forward that will help keep the American People safe. And i yield to my colleague and someone who experiences the issues of gun violence in her district daily, congresswoman robin kelly. Thank you, rep thompson. Good morning. Like me colleagues, im glad to be here standing united and saying with one voice, enough is enough. But im also angry and sad. Sad for the 59 people who lost their lives. Sad for the families that will never celebrate another birthday with bailey and quintin. Sad for the friends that will never get another excited text from jordan or afg angela, and im angry. Angry that we are here yet again. Angry that sandy hook and 20 dead first graders werent enough to spark change. Angry that it took 477 days for pulse to be surpassed as our nations worst mass shooting. Im angry because i know that we will be back here again and again and again until something changes. Back here mourning with the nation, looking for answers because the peoples house refused to act. Back here demanding something, anything, to save lives and getting the same response. Thoughts and prayers while they head to the bank to cash their nra checks. Something has got to change. Something has got to change because angela gomez was just 20 years old. Something has got to change because Hadiya Pendleton was just 15 years old. Something has got to change because Grace Mcdonald was just 7 and in the first grade. Something has got to change because Jason Josephat was just 20 years old. Tragically, its too late for them but its not too late for someone else. Someone who might be your daughter or your son. Your nephew at the nightclub or granddaughter at the country concert. Your mom at the day spa or your sister teaching in an elementary school. We can act now and save their lives. So i ask the speaker, whats so scary about a select committee . You created two last congress but cant find the space for a committee to find a way to save 30,000 american lives every year. Is it because this isnt a project for the video, is it because it isnt a democratic president ial candidate to slander and attack, or is it because you got a nice check for 5,950 . The time for action is now. Enough blood and tears have been shed. Enough families have been broken apart. Lets do something to stop this death. Otherwise, we do not deserve to be here. I yield. Now is the time for action. We must act. This is the end of our program. But this is not the end of the movement. Thank you. And were live on capitol hill today as the Senate Intelligence committee chair, richard burr, and vice chair, mark warner, are gathered, will be gathering here to brief reporters on the committees investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election. Just got a twominute warning before the start of this event, so it should get under way in just a moment here. While we have a second, karen and greg miller of the Washington Post have written a story about this. The Senate IntelligenceCommittee Leaders expect it to wednesday, largely endorse the Intelligence Communitys findings that russia sought to sway the 2016 u. S. Elections through a hacking and influence campaign as they sound the alarm that states preparing for the coming election season must be vigilant against similar threats. In the course of the investigation, Committee Members and staff investigators have interviewed several members of the Intelligence Community and president trumps inner circle, mostly behind closed doors. Including former campaign chief Paul Manafort and current Senior Adviser jared kushner, who is also president trumps soninlaw. They also have spoken with senior executives, with social Media Companies like facebook and twitter, which carried many of the russianbacked ads and falsified accounts that tried to exploit popular divisions in the runup to the election. Read the rest of that story in the post today, washingtonpost. Com. Who dont want the federal government, for example, to set standards or control their vote counting. I think theres a lot of concern, okay, how do we make sure that each individual state which has its own secretary of state, board of elections, way of doing things, is prepared and ready to handle a potential attack from a foreign entity as we go into this Virginia Election as a bit of an outlier, but 2018 midterm elections will take place across the country. Theres some states that are better prepared than others, and im sure some questions from the senators about just what the department of Homeland Security is doing in preparation for it. This is a very rare situation. 150 plus people interviews already. 250 hours of interviews. 4,000 transcripts. They also say there are 11 open hearings. That may suggest something about what were going to see in the future. They also say 100,000 pages of documents read. Theres 80plus copies of war and peace. I think that means if you put 80 copies of war and piece on top of each other, you would have 100,000 pages. This gives you a sense that this is going to be a Progress Report of sorts on where they are in this investigation. That gives you a little bit of a sense of the scope of what we may see here. Hello. How is everybody today . Thank you for being here. Its a busy day around the country. Mark and i recognize the tragedy of nevada this week, and at this point, im glad to say that it