Crowded. Whos making it official just now and how could this change the conversation . His car door was opened. He managed to get the other gun and start shooting at me. A hero tells his story about confronting a gunman in new zealand while police go on the defense about the Response Time to the attack. Plus, a new theory of how the president could gut muellers final report, citing executive privilege. But we begin with new details in the attacks on two new zealand mosques. The number of dead has risen to 50. One additional victim was found while officials were clearing the shooting sites. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern confirms that the suspects apparent manifesto was circulated by email nine minutes before the attack. And survivors are sharing details of their ordeals. This burn mark is i look on the ground and there was a bullet right next to me, and it just skimmed my face. It didnt even skim my face. It just went by me and the heat that this. I can only imagine what people who got shot went through. Nbcs sara james is joining us from christchurch, where its already after midnight. Sarah, officials are getting ready for the first work day since the attack and are now dealing with new concerns. What are you hearing . Reporter phillip, what authorities are saying is that the most important issue for them and for everyone here to feel comfortable is public safety. So theyre going to be putting an additional 124 Police Officers on the street here in christchurch to make sure that as people go back to their jobs and as kids go to school, that everybody feels safe and secure. There will also be a Police Presence at mosques as well. And in the meantime, weve heard more details about exactly what happened, including the way some individuals who were there for services actually responded. For example, abdul aziz was one of those. He picked up a rifle that the shooter had dropped and confronted him. Heres what happened next. His car door was open. He managed to get the other gun and start shooting at me. I managed to get in between the cars and get away from his firing. But when i went to the site of the mosque and i saw there was a dead body with a shotgun there, and i just grabbed that shotgun. Reporter and basically, what he says is that if he hadnt gotten into that altercation, it couldn even more horrific than it already was. Some here in the Muslim Community are raising questions about the time it took the police to respond, but the police are saying they did everything they could. Lets have a listen. Very upsetting that the police didnt come on time. 17 minutes video i have seen with my own eyes, unfortunately. But there was no one to come in and defend. And the way he came in and killed out and went out and came in and killed again and again, its quite upsetting. Six minutes and police staff were on the scene. Within ten minutes, members of our armed defenders squad were on scene. And within 36 minutes, we had that mobile offender in our custody. Reporter and we actually, phillip, learned a few more details about that. The new Zealand Herald interviewed a couple of the Police Officers. They had actually been in christchurch from towns not some distance away, and they were here for a Training Session on how to deal with an active shooter. They then learned that there was an active shooter nearby. They went out and they managed to apprehend him. So we are learning more details all the time. This city, though, is still reeling. People come to the memorial here behind me. They drop off flowers, candles, teddy bears. Its an opportunity for them to come together, and today in just a few hours, as the work day begins, theyll have that first day back at work. Phillip . All right, sara james reporting from new zealand, thank you 123467. Meanwhile, in the u. S. Some democratic president ial candidates are condemning President Trump for downplaying the nationalism threat. Im not connecting him to any incidents, but i know that that rhetoric is dangerous. For him to talk about invaders the day people were shot in new zealand was entirely unacceptable. These acts of hatred are on the rise around the western world. Theyre on the rise right here in this country. Now to the 2020 race, and democrats running for president returning to the campaign trail today. The big news is this hoemt, moments ago, senator Kirsten Gillibrand made heir campaign for president official. In a new video released exactly at 7 00 a. M. Eastern time today. Heres a part of her message. Doesnt pit people against each other. Brave doesnt put money over lives. Brave doesnt spread hate. Cloud truth. A lot of its a hoax. Build a wall. Children can be separated thats what fear does. We can definitely achieve universal health care. We can provide paid family leave for all. End gun violence. Pass a Green New Deal. Get money out of politics and take back our democracy. I took your lead. I chose brave, too. Joining me now, julia manchester, reporter for the hill, and jonathan allen, National Political reporter for nbc news digital. All right, i want to start with you, julia. What do you make of this Kirsten Gillibrand announcement . How does it change the equation . Where does she fit in . Well, she fits in by the fact that she is a woman entering this very crowded and increasingly really diverse field. I think Kirsten Gillibrand brings a lot to the table coming from her political history, if you will, you know. She started out as a congresswoman from the Capital Region of new york, so more seen as a centrist democrat. However, once she became a senator, she shifted her politics more to the left in order to encompass all of new yorks really liberal democratic vote. So, shell bring i guess a plethora of policies to that table and i think shell take some hits from the increasingly Progressive Field for some of her past stances on issues such as gun control, for example. However, to her gender, i think she brings quite a bit to the table in that regard. Weve seen her talk about how she wants to fight for americas children like theyre her own. Weve seen a lot of talk of motherhood in her campaign and how shes willing to fight for womens issues. So i think she is yet another female candidate bringing womens issues to the front and center of the 2020 democratic field. Jonathan, i wanted to get your reaction. Well, i think its interesting. Senator gillibrand is trying to gain traction in this race, something shes not been able to do during the exploratory phase. She rubbed a lot of democrats the wrong way with her push to get rid of senator al franken, if you remember, during the controversy over allegations of Sexual Assault against him. And i think whats going on here is her trying to really own the narrative of what shes done in congress, including that and saying, look, im somebody whos out there in bold, im somebody whos out there going to take positions. I will take some arrows for that. There are going to be people who arent always comfortable with what im doing, and what im doing is brave, and you heard that word brave. And i think what shes arguing is that you need somebody like her, somebody whos willing to ruffle some feathers in order to get some things done. Whether or not that ends up being what the democratic electorate wants or whether or not shes able to gain traction with that message, shes certainly taking a bold approach to that and trying i think to answer some of those questions and trying to put that in the light which she sees it, which her supporters see it, which is that she has been brave. She took on a lot of people in military, took on a lot of people on capitol hill in trying to push forward with reforming the rules around the investigations of Sexual Assault and rape in the military. That was not an easy fight for her to take on. She took on some seriously entrenched powers. And even though thats not something she had in that ad, thats certainly part of the narrative and fits into that sort of brave image that shes trying to portray. Jonathan, julia, stick around for just a second. I want to get your take on the other big story of the morning. Right now i want to toss it to mike viqueira. He joins us from the white house. Mike, the president tweeted about john mccain. What was that all about . That came out of the blue. What was behind that . Reporter well, lets remember that john mccain has left us now seven months gone. Of course, he was the 2008 republican nominee for the preside president. He is considered a war hero, having spent almost seven years as a war prisoner by the north vietnamese. That didnt keep the president from attacking him in the 2016 campaign, saying i like people who werent captured. And since especially getting under the president s skin, that vote since repealing obamacare where mccain famously gave that thumbs down on the senate floor. President trump now seeing something on media, as he is want to do. This from ken starr. And this is what the president tweeted just a few hours ago spreading the fake and totally discredited dossier is unfortunately a very dark stain against senator john mccain. Ken starr, former independent counsel. He had far worse stains than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace. Remember, that vote was against repealing, not replacing. And so, donald trump taking out after john mccain because its something that ken starr said. We should note that ken starr is the former independent counsel. He believes that a sitting president can be indicted, and he said that in the context of the Mueller Investigation. But now Meghan Mccain hitting back, of course, the daughter of john mccain, so famously eulogizing her father at the funeral in washington. She says no one will ever love you the way they loved my father. I wish i had been given more saturdays with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitter obsessing over mine . So an ugly backandforth. Meghan mccain really hitting back at President Trump over this latest attack on john mccain. Phillip . Mike viqueira joining us from the white house. Thank you for filling us in, mike. All right, jonathan, what do you think of the president . Why is he going after senator mccain months after he died . The president doesnt have a lot of selfcontrol when it comes to john mccain or really any other subject. He gets a burr in his saddle and decides to hit twitter to relieve the pain. I mean, i dont think theres anything more complicated to it than that. All right. Do you anticipate any reaction from congress here, especially those who were close to john mccain, people like Lindsey Graham for example . Yeah, Lindsey Graham was first person that really came to mind. Weve seen that ever since President Trump took office, Lindsey Graham, who was a bit of a vocal opponent of his during the republican 2016 primary, has really fallen in line with President Trump, especially since he became Senate Judiciary, the head of the Senate Judiciary committee. So you know, i see maybe a slap on the wrist, but i dont think the Republican Party is really going to change in that theyre going to slam President Trump more for this. I dont think its going to make much of a difference. Since were on senator graham, jonathan, this week the house almost unanimously passed the bill urging public closure of the Mueller Report. Four members voted present. But then senator Lindsey Graham blocked the senate from even taking it up, even though the president tweeted that all republicans should vote for transparency. So, jonathan, why did senator graham do this . Well, i think maybe were looking at it backward here a little bit. Okay. I think the president was willing to tweet that all the republicans should vote for transparency because he knew that when it came to senate that this was not going to go forward. So, why not tweet that it was perfectly fine with him that the House Republicans all said that the Mueller Report should be made public. I mean, this is a president who said that the Mueller Investigation shouldnt have happened in the first place. This is not somebody who wants the Mueller Report made public. This is someone whos been calling it a witch hunt from day one, someone who has not treated this as something that was going to exonerate him. If it is something that does exonerate him, at the end it will end up looking like very bad strategy to have not embraced it in the first place. So, i think perhaps he didnt see around the corner that Lindsey Graham would be able to help him by blocking this in the senate or that mitch mcconnell, the Senate Majority leader, ultimately would be able to block it for him in the senate, but now hes in the position of simply saying its okay with him that House Republicans essentially went against him and said that the Mueller Report should be made public. So, graham and mcconnell just shielding him for good measure. Julia, what was the reaction from fellow Senate Republicans . Yeah, i think a lot of Senate Republicans would fall in line with this move. You know, i dont think President Trump obviously wants this report to be made public. And i also dont think attorney general william barr would necessarily release a lot of salacious material if that was found in this report. Its interesting because weve actually you know, it seems like weve gotten so many tidbits from this Mueller Investigation really made out in the public. However, it will ultimately be up to the attorney general as to what to release. And i dont think hes necessarily going to release anything juicy, if you will, but i dont think republicans necessarily want the president to have this major stain in terms of what the outcome of the russia investigation looks like going forward. I think they would rather move on and focus on other policy initiatives. All right, julia manchester, jonathan allen, thank you both for joining us this morning. Thank you. New questions about executive privilege and whether it can help the president gut the Mueller Report. Elp the pres the Mueller Report guys go through a lot to deal with shave irritation. 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A new op ed in the hill raises the question of executive privilege and whether he can still gut muellers final report. Joining me now is msnbc legal analyst Danny Cevallos and criminal defense attorney ashleigh merchant. That article says that the president can argue that speaking with mueller is not a waiver since the special counsel is part of the Justice Department, which is a part of the executive branch. Is this question of privilege an argument thats going to hold up . I think it could. Theres two different types of president ial privilege that could an certified here. Theres one thats sort of a decisionmaking privilege that the president has, and that ones very easily overcome when theres conduct that is alleged to have been misconduct, an allegation like we have here. Whats a lot more difficult and what the president can assert and is not as likely to overcome is this other type of pr