Thats being tested now down stairs so the mail room area is contained while we go through the various steps to test that. On a field test. Package it up safely for removal and decon that area and anybody that came in contact with it. Im going to take just keep in mind it happened a couple of hours ago and still ongoing and going to take some questions and not going too deep into it. Yes . Can you talk about how concerned you are the connection of these targets . People who have been criticized by the president well, take a look at whos being targeted here and thats why were doing it proactively. Reaching out to people in the city. People that do their security and making sure that the mail rooms follow proper protocol and of concern to us and reaching out to the right people. Yes . Hold on. Mayor or governor, earlier
this week, president assaulting a journalist. All sorts of threats to journalists. Do you have a particular message to President Trump in light of what happened at cnn or critics like john brennan and im going to Say Something broad. It Doesnt Make Sense to exacerbate it. To all Public Officials of all affiliations, dont encourage violence. Dont encourage hatred. Dont encourage attacks on media. You can disagree but you have to show respect for people and air your disagreements peacefully. Unfortunately, this atmosphere of hatred is contributing to the choices people are making to turn to violence. Theres no question about it. And the way to stop that is to turn back the other way. To bring down the temperature. To end any messages about the use of violence against people we disagree with and that has to start at the top. Look. This is a this is a political year. Its a political season. We are weeks from an election. And thats obviously in the air. And thats an obvious fact. But weve been through Many Political seasons and we have political differences and thats actually good for democracy. What is not good is overheated rhetoric, extremism that pushes people to violence. And at the end of the day, we may have political differences, but this is one country. Were all americans. Out of many, one. And keeping the debate and the
dialogue civil is very, very important and for elected leaders who in many ways set the tone it is especially important. What should hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Right there. Can you see devibe what the device looks like . Sure. Brian paarmann. So far the devices have been what appeared to be pipe bombs. If i could, id like to make a statement. I know that a lot of the public is scared and concerned and confusion surrounding this. I want to assure you that the reason we are here because the totality of the federal, state and local authorities will investigate this thoroughly and follow every lead and every well turn over every rock, turn every corner and talk to
everybody we have to in order to mitigate this threat. The mission of the new York Joint Terrorism Task force is to protect the American People and uphold the constitution. The utilization of violence in order to further ones own political agenda is unacceptable to us and we will not rest until we find this, stop these hazardous devices from being mailed and bring the individual or individuals to justice. We have no better partners than the nypd, the new York State Police and the entirety of the joint Terrorism Task force. We will be on this until the day that we find this individual and bring him to justice. Id like to thank nypd and our partners on the task force as well as the United StatesSecret Service as well as the u. S. Capitol police and the Westchester County authorities for the cooperation and collaboration we have thus far. With that, ill turn it back over for questions, sir. Hold on. Go ahead. Hold on a second. The as you have heard, there is a a number of devices and theres a pattern apparently to the number of devices. We wouldnt be at all surprised if more devices show up. A device has been sent to my office in manhattan which we were just informed about that and device is also being handled. So again, this is a situation a. Number of devices have been sent. Theyre being handled. We wouldnt be surprised if additional devices are sent. And the device that is been sent to my office has been identified
and is being handled as we speak. Are they related . What do you well, terrorism related, right . Terrorism is an attempt to strike terror, an attempt to strike fear. Obviously, these devices are an attempt to strike fear. Hence terrorism. Are they domestic . Are they international . These are all questions that would have to be handled by the investigation. But yes. It was a terrorist attempt. It was a terrorist attack. And as you said, whats the intent . To strike fear. And when they strike fear, they win. Thats when they are effective. Who controls that . We control that. We control that. This is not the first time we
have been through this. We have been through this many, many times. Literally as i mentioned before it goes back 25 years to the First World Trade Center bombing. This is new york. Its part of who we are and part of our profile. So, we refuse to be intimidated. We refuse to allow them to make us afraid of going to our daily lives. We have the best Law Enforcement agencies. Were all working together. Were all here. And were going to go about our daily lives, enjoying this beautiful city an state. And were not going to let them win. Period. Kate, you had a question . A couple more questions, guys. Was anything written on the packages . Yes. I wont go into what was on the package. Okay . It was consistent with the other
packaging, though. Listen. We have to go back to work so were going to give you updates throughout the day and want to remind everybody here and all new yorkers, any tips, any leads, call 911 or 1888nycsafe. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Im stephanie ruhle. We start with the breaking news. The act of terror. That is how the mayor of new york city has described what happened today. At this point, across america, my partner and coanchor ali velshi is live in new york outside the Time Warner Center. Of course, ali, you are just outside cnns new york headquarters. Talk to us about where you are and what youve heard as just moments ago we saw the governor of new york andrew cuomo just wrap his Press Conference. Yeah. And he just confirmed a sixth
device that went to his office. This is brand new. A sixth device going to the governors office. This is 58th street. Looking west to the hudson river. Thats 9th avenue behind me. Just behind where that Police Bomb Truck is, thats where the Press Conference is and just beyond thats the entrance to cnn. We have several entrances of this building. We have the shopping plaza. We have got condominiums and then the entrance of cnn. The building is shut down. The bomb has been removed from here. Ive seen a photo of it. It looks very much like a pipe bomb. I dont know much about pipe bombs but an imagination for what one would look like, this is what it looks like. Came in a manila envelope with stamps on it addressed to john brennan with an address not this address but cnn Time Warner Center. That is removed by a device in the garage. Thats gone for inspection. However, there was white powder found with it. And thats why they are still
investigating in the mail room here at cnn what the white powder actually is. Theyre not clear as to whether its just white powder or it might be a chemical substance. Thats the part of the mystery. And then, of course, the concept of these coordinated devices showing up at different places is what has people really, really concerned here. We heard from the police commissioner, the fbi, the atf, the mayor, the governor and the Deputy Police commissioner john miller who was oh. Hang on a second. The Deputy Commissioner who was talking about the fact that they still dont know exactly where these came from but its early investigation. You can see some of the official Police Vehicles leaving now. We have got the mayor as i said here. The governor. The media is now been allowed to that point over there but this building is shut down. Everybody is evacuated from it. The residents, the retailers and the investigation is still ongoing. As for cnn, stephanie, again, as you know, i worked in this building for seven years and cnn
for 12 years. Cnn has inspected all of the bureaus or in the process internationally. Jeff zucker, the boss at cnn, put out an email saying specifically that atlanta which is also a public area, its part of cnns center, theyre putting magnetometers so the public will go through a device. Thats whats part of Whats Going On here and where you are, stephanie, the governor and the mayor did say you will see a Greater Police presence at all Media Outlets around the city. Steph . Without a doubt. We should always remember we are not just media headquarters. These are Tourist Destinations whether its Time Warner Center or Rockefeller Center where i am now. It is not just employees of these News Organizations or retail companies. Think about all of the people that visit these locations every day. Now i want to bring in nbcsGarrett Haake, just near president obamas house in washington, d. C. Ron allen is live near the clintons home in westchester, chappaqua, new york. Hans nichols live at the white house. Whats the latest there . Reporter well, stephanie, at this point theres still heavy Police Presence here and always security here at the clinton estate. Theyve been here for 18 years. The Secret Service is always here and one thing that Hillary Clinton emphasized in the remarks in florida. They have police protection. They have security. Many of the other people who are who have presumably targeted or some do not have that. But here today, the Secret Service has been emphasizing that the device to mrs. Clinton intercepted along the way at a sorting facility, at a secret Service Screening scenter. And it never got anywhere near the home, anywhere near the
family. We believe that bill clinton, former president , was here at the time when this happened. Sometime in the late last night, Early Morning hours, not sure of the exact timing. We dont know if he is still here and seen comings and goings throughout the day and not them. We have heard from Chelsea Clinton who sent out a tweet saying essentially expressing her Glat Tuesdratitude and than Secret Service. We are about, oh, maybe 15 minutes drive or home from the home of george soros and we know targeted with a bomb yesterday, with a device yesterday. That was a very different situation because that device actually found its way to a mailbox that is on the road in front of soros house, estate, an employee apparently picked the device up or took it out of the mailbox, thought it was suspicious and took it out Into The Woods nearby and called authorities. So a much more troubling, disturbing, serious situation
there in the sense that someone actually came in direct contact with the device, very close to the property of george soros. Who we know is a billionaire, Political Activist whos been a frequent target of conservatives, the right, for his support of Democratic Candidates like mrs. Clinton and bill clinton and president obama, as well. At this point, again, the Secret Service is here. Theyre keeping us at bay. We have not gotten an update about the situation involving the family. But again, emphasizing that the clintons were never directly threatened by the device. Never got near them. Stephanie . Any goodness. As as distressing as this is, theres six targets and good to know no one is injured. Appreciative of the fbi, Law Enforcement. Lets go to Garrett Haake in washington, d. C. Lets have an update where you are. Reporter stephanie, a similar situation here in that
one of the devices was addressed to the obamas here in the northwest washington, d. C. But likewise never got near the obamas home and intercepted at a mail screening facility. They dont come out and check their mail like we do. Their mail is screened offsite and intercepted. You can see the barricades here. The obama house about four houses back over my Left Shoulder here. Most of this already existed here. This is sort of normal in this neighborhood. This is probably the second most well watched, well guarded neighborhood in all of washington, d. C. After that around the white house. You have the obama family which lives on the block im standing on now. Jared kushner and ivanka trump live a couple of houses that way. A little bit of an increased Police Presence here and likely to remain throughout the day. All right. Garrett, thank you so much. I want to take you back to ali velshi in Columbus Circle. You have more news . Yeah. Pete williams has got it. Lets go to d. C. With pete williams. What do you have got . There might be seven devices that we know of. The soros device, clinton, obama, brennan at cnn, one sent to eric holder. Ill come back to that in a moment. One to andrew cuomo and now told that there appears to be not confirmed yet but appears to be one that was found at the congressional mail sorting facility. We dont yet know any further details about that. To whom it was addressed, we dont know yet and could be a seventh possible one. Now, the device that was addressed to eric holder turns out to have an interesting story according to Law Enforcement officials. So, were told by several officials familiar that one of these devices, one of these
packages, was addressed to former attorney general eric holder whos been mentioned as a possible democratic president ial candidate in 2020. However, it was never delivered to his office. There was apparently some problem with the address and so it was sent back and the Return Address we have been told on all these packages, the Return Address was congressman Debbie Wassermanschultzs office and thats why theyve been searching there in florida because of the Return Address. So to be clear, according to Law Enforcement officials, there was no package addressed to her. She was not the addressee. She was the Return Addressee were told on all of these packages. And the one addressed to eric holder never delivered, not intercepted by Law Enforcement. But was discovered when it came back as the Return Address to the office of Congresswoman DebbDebbie Wassermanschultz. We cant count the one of the office twice. Its not a separate one. Its the one that was addressed to eric holder and waiting to find out whether the one intercepted at the congressional Mail Facility addressed to a member of congress. By now, as you heard in the fbi news conference, john miller saying that a complete description of these devices, the packages, has been sent to all the people who get these advisories from the fbi, people in industry, people in government that normally get these so they know what to look for. Yeah. Its 20,000 agencies, groups, companies that get this information from the joint Terrorism Task force and they have all been informed of this. I have seen the picture of the device and the envelope. The one i saw addressed here to john brennan with an incorrect address did have u. S. Mail stamps on it. So, just to be clear, this congressional Mail Facility, where is that . Is that at congress . No. None of these facilities are near the places where the mail is delivered. The white house facility is at a Military Base some distance from the white house. The facility for looking at congressional mail is several miles away. In washington, d. C. So no. Theyre not nearby at all. And the postal authorities and the Law Enforcement authorities are well on the lookout for these devices now. So i dont think anymore of them are going to be delivered. At cnn, it got ooitsz right in into the mail room and theyre deliberate of taking in mail and packages. In addition, john miller saying that this package, this what appears to be a pipe bomb, also had im not clear in a
package or a different package, white powder associated with it and why the building is not reopened yet because investigators are still trying to figure out what that white powder is and make sure its not dangerous and contagious and n