Transcripts For MSNBCW Deadline White House 20190427 : vimar

MSNBCW Deadline White House April 27, 2019

The citys mayor has declared the attack a hate crime. Authorities say they have a 19yearold man in custody. He is being questioned right now. Those are all new details that came up in the last 30 minutes. Heres a little bit now from the mayor there of paw way, steve vaus, speaking last hour. I want you to know this is not poway. The poway i know comes together as we did just a few weeks ago at an interfaith event. We always walk with our arms around each other, and we will walk through this tragedy with our arms around each other. We have deep appreciation for those who showed courage at the chabad, deep appreciation for the Law Enforcement agencies that responded so quickly. We will get through this. Our thoughts and prayers will be with the families and those who are investigating. Poway will stay strong, and we will always be a community that cares for one another. That was the mayor. Again, very difficult for this leader of a town of just 50,000 people. A very closeknit town as you can probably tell right now. This as they try to understand why and how this all happened. Joining us now by phone, executive director of the terror asymmetric project, terrorism analyst and a lot of other things, malcolm nance. You have been following this from the restart. Far those of us just joining us at the top of the hour, from all of the information that came in from the news briefing, from the mayor, where do you think this started . Where do you think its going . And the big question, why . Why did this person do this . Well, from what we know from the initial briefing and the briefing by the mayor and intelligence weve been gathering just in general from some of the eyewitnesses, clearly a gunman stormed the chabad of poway in the Rancho Bernardo area and shot four people. I think its significant there was an offduty Border Patrol officer who engaged him and caused him to flee. The suspects been taken into custody. We know hes a 19yearold young man from san diego proper. But these give us some indications as to the type of person who may be carrying out this attack. It was said he had an arstyle rifle and that he specifically went into the synagogue during this passover ceremony and carried out the shootings in which hes murdered one person and severely wounded three others. This is starting to look more like right wing extremism. Theres some indications, theres some unconfirmed information out on the internet that weve only gotten in the last few minutes. Were not going to report on that until its confirmed, but were looking at someone who saw the synagogue as a primary target and as we have learned since over the last certainly six months from today with the tree of life attack in pittsburgh, we might be looking at a right wing extremist. But, again, we dont know that until its confirmed by the Law Enforcement authorities. Malcolm, be careful on the words you use always, when we talk about right wing extremism and potential, we dont have it confirmed. As we go through this process, what are generally some of the characteristics that brings a person with your expertise to look that way as an option here . There are several indicators that weve been discussing over the last few hours, and you know, although they may look superficially like others, when taken in sequence, theyre very significant. I want to call attention to the shooter in pittsburgh, the mass murderer in norway, the mass murderer we saw at the mosque in new zealand, they all had the characteristics of a single shooter coming in with a semiautomatic weapon, going into a synagogue or a mosque on their day of worship and generally, unlike islamic extremist terrorists, theyre not there on a suicide mission. Theyre there to be caught and to popularize their cause. Now, again, we have not confirmed that, but that profile gives us an indication that this incident fits into those other profiles and is unlike the type of terrorist attacks that we see in other places where they do a hostage barricade or theyre really going into mass murder everyone, then ensure that they themselves are killed. This per surrendered to Law Enforcement almost willingly. And it remains to be seen considering his very young age, 19 years old, remains to be seen what his confession or what his political bent was and why he targeted that synagogue specifically. But i think well find out relatively soon. Malcolm, stand by, i want to go to our correspondent there in los angeles in the southland. Nbc news correspondent molly hunter. We have new information, and we have what we have seen over the past couple of hours, were getting more and more elements of how this story came to pass. Richard, good evening. Thats right. Were getting little bits kind of every hour or so. The police have been pretty good about actually briefing reporters down there in san diego. Of course, were in los angeles. I just want to highlight a couple of new things since we last spoke. And we have more details about that suspect. I just heard you talking, some of the specifics, we know he as we 19. We know he was a white male. Importantly, richard, we know he was using an arstyle rifle. That was the exact type of rifle used, for example, six months ago in the attack on the pittsburgh synagogue that killed 11 people. And also what we know in the last presser he was detained just down the road and detention was fairly easy. A Police Officer sees his car because they had gotten a call from chp and almost immediately the suspect gets out of his car, puts his hands up and the authorities who approached the car saw the rifle on the seat. So that was very easy. He clearly knew he was being zeroed in on. The other details that were just getting, the president has spoken about this, richard, and he says, quote, my deepest sympathies to people affected by this. Obviously it looks like a hate crime. We heard the mayor earlier call this a hate crime. The president continues and said looks like the Law Enforcement was apprehended. Law enforcement did a fantastic job. We also heard from the Vice President , Vice President mike pence, tweeting we condemn in the strongest terms the cowardice and evil shooting. No one should be fear in a house of worship. Antisemitism isnt just wrong, its evil and Melania Trump tweeted on this last day of passover i was heartbroken to hear of another senseless shooting in a place of worship. My heart and prayers go tout all affected in the community. What we will probably get in coming hours we should hear hopefully from authorities again. Right now theyre fully in kind of investigation stage and cooperation. We know theres a command center. We know all arms of Law Enforcement are working together to try to figure out the motive and figure out why this guy went to this chabad, this synagogue on this day. And i heard you speak about this before, we know hes from this san diego area so was this some place he had been before . We dont know but hopefully Law Enforcement will find out in the coming hour u. S. Nbcs molly hunter in california, very close to the crime scene there. Thank you for the update on what you have. We will touch base a little later to get more from the reaction molly was just describing there from the beltway. The white house and president , and we will go straight to our White House Correspondent kelly odonnell, whos been monitoring there in front of the white house. Kelly, what are you seeing . Well, we were waiting for the president outside on the south lawn and he was delayed and one can presume that might have been part of his accessing information about the shooting in san diego. And he gave us his initial comments about it. Of course, limited at the time by what was known when the president was given his briefing on the situation. But the overarching themes are very clear of concern and surprise about yet another hate crime, as he described it. And, of course, there is also the response from the first lady and the Vice President on this, noting this last day of passover and the heartbreak associated with all of this. I was among the reporters on the south lawn. I asked the president for his response to the shooting, and heres part of what he told us. My deepest sympathies go to the people that were affected, the families, their loved ones, by the obviously looks right now based on my last conversations, looks like a hate crime. Hard to believe. Hard to believe. With respect to the synagogue in california, near san diego. Were doing some very heavy research. We will see what happens, what comes up. At this moment it looks like a hate crime. But my deepest sympathies to all of those affected. And well get to the bottom of it. It looks like the person was apprehended. No more danger. And Law Enforcements done a fantastic job. The president , of course, praising Law Enforcement. One of the things we often see him do in these times of crisis. Of course, issues relating to the Jewish Community have political overtones as well. The president has been speaking a lot about antisemitism on the campaign trail, accusing democrats of that at times, obviously in a time of crisis, we will separate the politics of the moment from his initial response to this. The president continuing with his planned schedule going to green bay, wisconsin, tonight for a campaign rally. Weve also seen in the past the president will sometimes talk about these realworld event in the arena style setting where theres a lot of frantic energy for his maga rallies, make America Great again is the term they use. And we may see the president talk about this in some form today at least to elicit support and response from his supporters in respect of those who had been affected by what happened in san diego. It just gives you a sense of the initial comments from the president and his intention to keep his planned schedule and, of course, hes got some of his senior aides with him so he can get briefings on any additional developments that come up. Richard, i thought it was notable where he said were doing heavy research. I have not real lird the president use that sort of description before in a case where were getting incoming information about a suspect. Perhaps that ties into some of what malcolm and you were talking about, about looking for any political ties or any motivations related to this suspect, perhaps the president is getting some early indications of that as well. Richard . Great to have you there, kelly odonnell, White House Correspondent for us. The very latest coming from the president on this day of unfortunate tragedy in california. Thank you very much, kelly. I want to get to our msnbc contributor Jim Cavanaugh, whos also been watching this develop throughout the morning and afternoon there local time in california. Lots of pieces of new information, right, jim, since you and i spoke an hour ago. 19yearold suspect, an individual that pulls over, selfidentifies to Law Enforcement. Those are just two things that at least in my comparison of other tragedies like this, we dont see very often. Right, richard, exactly. Thats a great point. He wants to be caught. Hes proud of his vulgar act. He is the shooting. He lives that hate. Hes a guy whos been brainwashed or inculcated with some form of hate. Probably white supremacist but we dont know for sure but hes been inculcated with some form of hate where hes starktitarge jewish people. This has gone on over the centuries and in Law Enforcement we have sadly worked it for many, many years. Its not new unfortunately. But its ramped up now because having worked this all of my life, worked on these guys all my life, to see that torched had much lit march in charlottesville last year mimicking a nuremberg rally, we have never seen anything like that since the klan was decimated back in the 60s post the civil rights act. So they were damp there. Look we used to infiltrate the klan caverns when we knew they had bombs and machine guns. Does that mean we cannot do that today . And i say we, real palestining you and those who are the experts and have the capabilities in part of the institutions that would prevent Something Like this from happening . That the capability is not there and maybe there is no possibility of really reaching that level of capability that you are talking about there, jim . Well, the capability exists. Its the direction given from the top political leaders and to put all of the agencies into the fight in total and to understand that this threat is never going to go away. Its been here for our lifetime. And we can he do it. Look, the president has a lot of talk but he needs a little more action. He can convene the attorney general and heads of the major Law Enforcement agencies in washington. Hes their boss. He can convene them and say, i want to do more on this. I want more infiltration where theres known criminal activity. I want it harder. I want it faster. I want it better. I want to ramp it up. I want your ideas how 20 do it. We would join these groups and put undercover atf guys in the group when we knew they had machine guns. We had marched with these groups and thats how we dismantled them. We got their plots and we got informants and charged their members and weakened them through the 70s and 80s. Now, it could be ramped up again. This is could be a lone actor not with an organized group, and this is harder because we covered them and talked about them and theyre inspired by the web. So part of the thing i think the president should do is also incorporate your efforts with the Digital Companies facebook and youtube and twitter and the platforms that carry messages of hate. Theyre trying. They need to did more. Theyre making billions of dollars and this is killing our citizens not only in america but around the world. So you have to do more. Whatever youre doing is not quite enough. Youre making billions based on our freedoms yet people are being slaughter based on your platforms so everybodys got to step up. A lot of things continue happening, sadly we had a fatality but we didnt have a mass slaughter. The rabbi talk about that very point, youre wearing a special agent in charge atf hat on, is that his firearm, talk about the firearm. Talk about what could have been based on what the development of the morning and how he was stocked. It could have been much worse based on the firearm he had. It could have been much worse. But we dont know at this point was the ar15 the weapon used in the shooting . We know he was apprehended with an ar15 and it may very well have been a weapon. We also heard from one of the witnesses the rabbi heard the shot and didnt react. Ar15 is very loud if its shot in a building. It would be hard not to react to that. Some of these attackers will have multiple guns with them. Long gun, remember, hes got to get it inside if in fact the shooting was in fact inside. He would have to wear a coat other jacket to smuggle it in. They can have short barrels and they smuggled with collapsible stocks. The rabbi, it will be interesting to see because we know the congregants stopped this guy, what would be interesting to see was the rabbi one of the people who actually grabbed the gun or tried to stop him and the reason he was so severely injured in the happened because he was in proximity to the gun. Thats possible. We dont know for sure. But the congregants and Border Patrol officer who fired on him, all of these people routed this guy away and then, of course, he called the Highway Patrol and said oh, by the way on the shooter, i hate whatever he said, i might have said i hate somebody or i did this for hate or whatever and then he surrenders like the coward that he is because, of course, hes afraid of getting shot. When the Border Patrol fires a round, he runs away like a scary cat he is, mr. Big hate stuff. This is a sad case. I think we dont we dont name the guys much we might have to name him but i know where youre going with that because its always that question, right, jim . Based on what you developed here quickly, fame hungry in the way that this has progressed so far sf on t is often the question and concern. They crave infamy and they crave other acts. But we all have to understand, newsman and journalists are going to report the guys name. Its news. Its going to happen in the first 24 hours and nobody will be able to stop it in a free society and im not sure we should stop it at all in the first 24 hours of news. But after that, once we start referring to the shootings, i like to say the shooting was at this location and at this church or that mosque and the no always refer to the shooting based on the name and identity of the killer because it just parades his infamy on and on and on again. But we will not be able to suppress their identities for all time. Understood. But it could be minimized. I think people have to understand journalists will report it in a free society. I brought it up from that point as well as to the point of what may be propelling this particular suspect, around that psychosis that led him or her to this situation in any of the cases that weve talked about in the past. I do want to get to one of the eyewitnesses. One of the witnesses on the ground, jim, who described very early on what was seen there at the chabad the howway. Your husband, how is he doing . He has high Blood Pressure and he was shaking and i was really worried about him. That is a shock. Youre saying one woman and rabbi rabbi was shot . Yes. Can you tell me about cha bod. You said a lot of people dont have technology. How are they getting the word out . He use his phone, so theyre not so religious that they cannot touch their phones, during shabbat you can touch, and so many people in that family, they dont know whats going on. I was lucky my husband called me but i feel bad for the rest of the people they dont have communication and dont know whats happening. Youre telling me the shooter shot rabbi and the woman and the rabbi continued to speak to his congregation . Rabbi continued to speak to his congregation and my friend, she said, my husband said, shes gone and they tried to stop him leaving but they have to take care of her. Have you heard anything from her family . No, no. There a very shaken e

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