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00:00And joining us now is Republican Congressman Michael McCaul of Texas.
00:03He serves on the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security Committees.
00:06He was also our guest at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night.
00:11Chairman, first of all, how are you?
00:14And the first thing I want to ask you is, we spent a lot of time standing in that well
00:17after this all happened last night.
00:19When you went about the dinner last night, do you think there was enough security there?
00:23You've been there before. What are your thoughts?
00:24Yeah, that's putting my chairman of Homeland Security hat on as a former counterterrorism federal prosecutor.
00:31I would say Sea Research did an amazing job.
00:35Capitol Police escorted the members out in emergency vehicles.
00:40But the outer perimeter, if you will, was very free access.
00:44It's an open hotel.
00:46And I think that was part of the risk involved here if you had to analyze it.
00:51And it's very difficult to harden that kind of environment.
00:55But when you have the president coming in, what I was sort of amazed, you had the president and the
00:59vice president at the head table and the speaker.
01:03So you had the line of succession right there.
01:06If a bomb had gone off or something more dramatic, you know, it would fall to Chuck Grassley.
01:14Amazingly.
01:14Amazingly.
01:15After this took place, you thanked Secret Service and the Capitol Police for squiring you and your congressional colleagues out
01:19of the room.
01:20Something Joe Matthew brought up a few minutes ago is what it was like to see those security officials on
01:26stage, yes, with weapons.
01:28But then how Secret Service, those law enforcement, knew exactly where everybody was.
01:32There was an eerie quiet in this space.
01:33But talk a bit about that, what you were thinking as you watched all of that unfold.
01:36Because I confess, from where I was sitting, we were beginning to eat, there was some commotion, and then it
01:42became very, very quiet in the room.
01:43Well, I heard three gunshots, so I knew something was horribly rolling.
01:49And you're not quite sure what's going to happen after that, right?
01:52And I saw the president being taken off the stage, Secret Service jumping up on the stage with their weapons
01:59pointed towards the audience.
02:02And it was surreal, you know, like, you know, it's not an ordinary event.
02:07Unfortunately, it's becoming too commonplace in this country.
02:10But they went into action very quickly and escorted the cabinet members out of the room.
02:16But you don't know what's going to happen quite after that.
02:19I didn't know if we're going to have, like, an AR-15 and a spray of bullets and are we
02:24going to be diving under the tables.
02:26And fortunately, we heard of the three gunshots, and that was the end of it.
02:32But, you know, this country is getting too violent, you know, and the rhetoric needs to tone down, in my
02:38opinion.
02:39I was at Texas A&M talking about civility and politics just this last week with Henry Cuellar, a Democrat,
02:46talking about, you know, how we can agree to disagree but with civility.
02:51And I think last night's a good lesson for all of us.
02:54And, you know, amazingly, the press, right?
02:57We were celebrating the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.
03:02And the press were there, along with Republicans and Democrats, all together celebrating our Constitution.
03:09And the First Amendment does not allow for political violence.
03:12We were talking about the First Amendment, but it often comes into contradiction, it seems, with the Second Amendment, especially
03:20when your party votes on issues.
03:23They've been very reticent more and more.
03:25We were talking about Jim Brady and the Brady Bill.
03:26That was the Reagan administration.
03:28This is a current Republican climate in which almost any gun control, even logical gun control, is impossible to get
03:34past.
03:34Is that something your party should reevaluate, given what you just talked about, the heated political rhetoric and the violence
03:40that we're seeing?
03:40You know, it's interesting.
03:41As I was talking to your CEO right next to me about this very issue before the shooting, and when
03:47I met with Michael Bloomberg and he donated my campaign, this was many years ago, he said, you're from Texas.
03:54And, you know, where are you on guns, right?
03:56And, you know, we were having this conversation that, you know, of course, the weapons purchased, I think he had
04:02a, it wasn't like an AR-15, it wasn't, I used to prosecute gun cases.
04:08A lot of them were stolen.
04:09But there has to be a way to, usually after the fact, flags come up, like, yeah, I knew this
04:15guy and I thought there was a problem, but they don't report it until after.
04:18And I had to build like a fusion center to capture the red flags and then be able to act
04:25beforehand or at least provide more security if there's a threat out there.
04:30So I think there is room for improvement here.
04:33I don't think you're going to see my party, you know, infringing on the Second Amendment per se.
04:39But, you know, there are certain weapons under the 1968 Gun Control Act, you know, like fully automatic machine guns
04:47that are, you know, and that was an outgrowth of, you know, Robert Kennedy.
04:52You know, of course, you had JFK assassinated in the 60s, Robert Kennedy, and then you had Martin Luther King.
04:58And we had that legislation in 1968.
05:00That's the last time we've done that.
05:02Chairman, I just mentioned Michael Bloomberg, of course, the majority shareholder of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
05:07We'll get that out there.
05:09I want to ask you about what Homeland Security is going to do next here, the Committee on Homeland Security.
05:14Will there be an investigation, do you think?
05:16What questions do you have about the way in which all of this unfolded?
05:18I think a lot of us took note of the way that security was set up.
05:21You rightly bring up the fact this was an open hotel.
05:24There were guests there totally unaffiliated with this dinner.
05:27What do you want to see investigated in terms of what that perimeter was like, how fortified it was?
05:32I think we have to.
05:33We have to take a look at the outer perimeter.
05:36Now, as I understand, he was a guest at the hotel.
05:38So any time you have a big event like that, and it's known as the Hinckley Hotel because in 1981
05:44Reagan was shot there.
05:46So it has a bit of a checkered past.
05:48And so I do think we'll be analyzing that.
05:51And I think also it just reemphasizes how important it is to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security and
05:58stop this nonsense of a shutdown of a very important agency within our federal government.
06:04Still partially shut down.
06:05It is.
06:06What is your take on the appropriateness of the president's true social posts that we just saw this morning and
06:12everything we've talked about, violence, political rhetoric, that the president is focusing on building a ballroom?
06:18What's your take on that?
06:19Well, let me say first, I think his remarks last night were very gracious towards the press, you know, and
06:28to both Democrats and Republican alike.
06:31I'm glad he took the high road and the rhetoric, which I think needs to be addressed.
06:36You know, the ballroom, you know, I was in the east wing and he pointed to it.
06:41It's a big hole in the ground.
06:43It's going to have a lot of security features to it in the basement.
06:47But I think, as was pointed out earlier, this is a private association.
06:52It's not, you know, that's a federal building, essentially.
06:57So I don't know.
06:58I mean, I think it would certainly be a lot more secure if it was done at a place like
07:04that.
07:05The next time the president shows up, I think they're going to tighten up security even more so on the
07:11outer perimeter.
07:12And, again, the line of secession all being there at the same time, I think we had to take a
07:17look at that as well.
07:18Is that concerning?
07:18Is that something Congress should investigate?
07:20Yeah, of course.
07:22I was really shocked that the president and vice president were at the table together.
07:27Surprise.
07:27Yeah.
07:28Yeah.
07:28Yeah.
07:29I want to go back to the rhetoric.
07:31And I'm curious how hotter rhetoric has shaped the way that you approach your job.
07:36Is it something that you give more thought to?
07:38God forbid something like this were to happen.
07:40And how has it shaped the way that you and your colleagues in Congress approach the job?
07:43We've seen some reticence to attend town hall meetings.
07:46If they get pretty fractious, who knows what might happen?
07:49What are the consequences on a day-to-day basis for having the kind of heated rhetoric that we have
07:54in this country?
07:54Well, we're a reflection of the American people.
07:57And there is a violent rhetoric out there.
08:00But we don't have to be an echo chamber for that.
08:03And the irony was I was just at this symposium at a university in my district where we talked about
08:11this very issue and how it needs to be.
08:13I've been up there 22 years up here.
08:16And it's changed for the worse.
08:18And it's okay to go on social media and say vile things about the other party and other members of
08:25Congress and the president.
08:28But isn't some of that coming from the top down?
08:30Isn't the president partly to blame for that?
08:32Well, I think we're probably all to blame.
08:34And you know what happens when these things occur?
08:37Everybody says the right things for a couple of days.
08:41And then I'll give this a couple of weeks and we're going to be right back at this violent rhetoric
08:47out there.
08:48And it doesn't seem to change.
08:50You can't legislate that.
08:52That is a conduct issue.
08:54It's a moral clarity issue.
08:56And I think the institution is weakened and hurt by, and then politics in general are hurt by, this violent
09:06rhetoric that is out there today.
09:08And I hope members do reflect on this.
09:10The ones that want their five minutes of fame on YouTube and social media, I hope they reflect.
09:15It's not how I conduct myself.
09:17I wasn't raised that way.
09:19It's on my value system.
09:20I show respect for people that have other opinions.
09:23And that's what democracy is all about.
09:25That's what the press, the First Amendment, freedom of speech and press is all about.
09:30And we've got to respect each other a little bit more.
09:33Last night, you know, I've been in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
09:36And I've, you know, heard mortar shells and, you know, rounds of ammunition.
09:42I'm going to Ukraine this summer and, you know, drones and all that kind of stuff.
09:46But you don't expect that, you know, at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.
09:51Do you have confidence in who's going to be leading this investigation and prosecution?
09:54So Kash Patel, not somebody who has a traditional background for somebody running the FBI.
09:58Mark Wayne Mullen just taking this job over as DHS secretary.
10:01Should we be at all worried about those individuals' capacity to see this through?
10:06Well, they're the figurehead.
10:07I do think, like when I was a federal project, the line FBI agents, line, you know, Secret Service,
10:15they've been doing this for many years.
10:17They're professional and they know how to conduct this.
10:21I'm a little surprised we don't know anything more about the shooter.
10:24To be honest with you.
10:25Other than he took a train, which I think is very strange.
10:29He had a couple of weapons and knives.
10:32You were there last night, Christina.
10:33We were at the table together.
10:35Yeah.
10:36Somehow he runs in.
10:38He gets pretty darn close to the ballroom.
10:40And then we heard the gunshots.
10:42And so, yeah, there were a lot of unanswered questions.
10:46I didn't know if it was going to be like in Austin, Texas.
10:48We had the property of all an Islamist terrorist, you know.
10:52It doesn't look like that's the case here.
10:54And I don't know what motivates somebody to do something like this.
10:58And we don't know the answer to that right now.
11:01Very quickly before I let you go, you said you think Congress should look into why all
11:05the cabinet officials were there.
11:06You know, the last survivor issue.
11:08But I'm wondering, you think there should be a congressional investigation into what we've
11:11been talking about, how we got that far, the perimeter and the security precautions
11:14around the president?
11:16Oh, yeah, 100 percent.
11:17And we will.
11:17Well, and I think the Homeland Security Committee will be charged with that responsibility.
11:23But I do, let's not lose fact that the Secret Service immediately popped up in the room,
11:29went into action, and the Capitol Police.
11:32So I'm very proud of what they did.
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