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Record Flooding in the Carolinas; Learning Details About the Oregon Shooting Victims; Doctors Without Borders Hospital Hit in Kunduz Air Strike; Army Vet Wounded Trying To Stop Gunman; Jeb Bush Reacts To Oregon: "Stuff Happens"; Pope Francis Talk With Same-Sex Couple In U.S.; Weekend Downpours Impacting College Football. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired October 03, 2015 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:00:01] CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Well, have fun with that, (Clay)(ph), definitely.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. All right.

PAUL: All righty, hey, and go out there and make some great memories. But stick around, we're so glad that you're with us today.

BLACKWELL: We've got a lot more ahead in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM. We turn it over to Suzanne Malveaux, in for Fredricka. Hey, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Hey (inaudible).

PAUL: Hellooo!

BLACKWELL: Yes.

MALVEAUX: Nice to see you, nice to see you in person (inaudible).

PAUL: You too.

BLACKWELL: Likewise.

MALVEAUX: Hope you have a good weekend.

PAUL: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: You too.

PAUL: We'll see you tomorrow.

MALVEAUX: Yeh, we will.

PAUL: And this afternoon.

MALVEAUX: Absolutely. It's eleven o'clock on the East Coast. I'm Suzanne Malveaux, Fredricka Whitfield is off today. Newsroom starts right now. Hurricane Joaquin now back to a Category 4 storm with drenching rains

already being felt on the East Coast. Now here's what it looks like right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

This is Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Millions of folks in the Carolinas expected to be affected. There is new video of cars battling flooding in Charleston, where they already broke the daily record on rain fall. In Brunswick County in North Carolina crews spent Friday night evacuating people along the coast. And now let's go live to North Carolina. The Governor, Pat McCrory, is speaking about the conditions.

GOV. PAT McCRORY, (R) NORTH CAROLINA: You have storm activities, and I've got a great team behind me on stage that I am so proud of, the North Carolina team in storm preparation and also storm response. We think we've got the best team in the United States of America. And we're working together as a team, just like we have during the past winter storms. Our goal is constantly to be over prepared and underwhelmed. And, frankly, the good news is with the hurricane we are underwhelmed, and that's good news for North Carolina. The tough news still for North Carolina and especially South Carolina is the continued rains, which we're going to be keeping track of, and I'm going to have our Emergency Management Director give you a clear update on all of that activity.

I do want to let you know that we do have flood warnings right now, primarily in the southeastern part of the state and in the far southwestern part of the state. Something we didn't expect two days ago. We expected most of the problems to mainly be in the northeast, but they ended up being in the southeast. And the closer we are to South Carolina, the more situations we run into. But in Brunswick County right now we have a flood warning along the French Broad River. That's Ashville to the west, and then all the way down to the coast near Buncombe County. Actually in Haywood County near the Pidgeon River at Canton we have at this point in time a flood warning, which is the highest level of warning we can give regarding water. We, we anticipate more flood warnings popping up across the state, so we encourage people to stay tuned to the local news and, again, please be extremely careful when you're in or around especially water, because that's where most of our deaths occur during these types of storms.

So we ask you all to be careful. Make sure also there, due to the wet grounds, the saturated grounds, we're having some trees fall down and we're having some power outages across the state. My sister just called me from Charlotte and said her power's out, so even it's hitting members of my own family.

So on the stage with me at this point in time is Deputy -- Department of Public Safety Secretary Frank Perry; Department of Transportation Secretary Nick Tennyson; Emergency Management Director, Mike Sprayberry; North Carolina Agricultural Commissioner, Steve Troxler; State Highway Patrol Colonel, Bill Grey; North Carolina National Guard Adjutant General Greg Lusk, and we're also very pleased to have Libby Turner from FEMA. Thank you very much for your regional coordination in this area. I also want to thank Lee Williamson, who helps with the hearing impaired and deaf, and we really appreciate you helping us out in that area.

So, with that, instead of me doing all the talking, I'm going to ask that several of these individuals give an updated report, primarily on the overall activity of our emergency response team, which Mike will give. And then I'm going to ask Steve Troxler, who I'm -- a great partner of ours in the executive branch -- to give an update on the ag situation, which is a big concern to us because the farmers are impacted by this rain in a negative way. And then Nick Tennyson, my Secretary of Transportation, is going to give an update on some of the road closings and some of the flooding we're having in several areas of the state at this point in time. So, with that, Mike, I appreciate your great leadership again. You've been a true leader of this entire team and I'd like to thank you very much for that.

SEC. NICK TENNYSON, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, NO. CAROLINA: Sure.

DIRECTOR MIKE SPRAYBERRY, DEPT. OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, NO. CAROLINA: All right. Thank you, Governor. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the North Carolina State EOC. So far we've dodge what could have been a major bullet with two hits, one from Hurricane Joaquin, and the heavy rains. No danger from the hurricane at this time, but we're going to still experience some heavy rains, just like we've had for the last couple of days. So we're not out of the woods yet. We still have portions of the state that are scheduled to see up to seven more inches of rain on top of what we've already received. At particular risk are counties -- the counties of Brunswick, New Hanover, and Pender County in the southeast, as well as counties west of Ashville. I'm now going to review the current situation regarding flooding caused by our heavy rains.

On Thursday the Governor declared a state of emergency for all 100 counties. He also directed that the State Emergency Response Team provide a full spectrum of response capabilities. This team includes all state agencies, as well as our private sector partners and our volunteer partners. Governor McCrory's guidance and Secretary Perry's guidance to me was to mobilize the necessary resources that would enable us to provide timely and decisive support to ensure public safety. To that end...

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: You are listening to the Governor of North Carolina saying that there is good news that they are underwhelmed by the weather, that the hurricane -- no danger from the hurricane, but it is the heavy rains that is causing some flooding there. We'll continue to monitor that situation. Want to bring our Nick Valencia. He's live in Charleston, South Carolina. So, Nick, tell us about what you're seeing there.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miserable, wet weather conditions, a steady downpour of rain, Suzanne. And you can see behind me this really is the worst of it. We've got three stranded cars in this usually pretty busy intersection. But fortunately for people like that, there are people like (Zach)(ph) and Brian. You guys came from three and a half hours away just to help people out.

BRIAN: Yeh, have some fun, do some kayaking, paddle boarding, from Wrightsville, South Carolina.

VALENCIA: What'd you guys -- what have you guys seen so far, as you're floating away from me here a little bit?

BRIAN: Just the cars. One car was already up to the steering wheel earlier.

VALENCIA: What about you (Zach)(ph), you're here in a kayak, floating around an intersection that usually has cars moving through it.

(ZACH)(ph): Oh, yeh, it's pretty awesome out here. We don't have -- I mean, we don't have this not too much. So that's why we drive all the way to Charleston to experience this.

VALENCIA: Well, we're smiling about it now, but there are of course some safety concerns for people out there. You know, there haven't been evacuations just yet, but there is a steady downpour. Are you guys concerned at all? I mean you're putting yourselves out there to help people.

(ZACH)(ph): Well, we've done work with the Fire Department in Wrightsville numerous times, so...

VALENCIA: So you have some experience?

(ZACH)(ph): Yes, yes, he's got swift water training, for everything up and down the river.

BRIAN: He's done triathlon.

VALENCIA: You guys have come prepared here.

BRIAN: Yes, sir, I'm advanced swift water certified. I'm up to class 4 rapids. I can encounter and pull people to safety. I mean we're having fun, but we're helping people out as well.

VALENCIA: Well, we wish you guys the best of luck. It's people like you that really make a difference. Thank you guys so much.

And really the worst is yet to come, Suzanne. We heard from the South Carolina Emergency Management Division high tide expected about 1:00 pm Eastern. There could be water up to about eight and a half feet. I'm ankle deep in it right now. Again, this -- this really is a serious concern for the state of South Carolina. The Governor, Nikki Haley saying yesterday the state has never seen any rain quite like this. Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Nick, I see them paddling away there and it's good they're going to help some folks out too. It looks like they're having a little bit of fun there. Talk -- we see those cars in the background. About how high do you think the water has risen here? How much water are you actually in? 'Cause it looks pretty deep when you look at that car behind you. VALENCIA: Yeah, I'd say the worst of it, Suzanne, what we've seen is just a couple of feet so far. But for these roads that historically have flooded over history. Back in the -- just to give you a little history lesson, back in the 17th century they extended the land here in Charleston which led to this area historically flooding. There's, you know, not enough storm drains to handle this, this amount of water that's inundated these streets. But so far, this intersection, the worst that we've seen. The concern of course along the waterway right there, if you're familiar with Charleston, near Battery Park, right along that waterway. And we've seen a hundred homes so far already impacted. Fifteen people evacuated so far, two of them spending the night at the Red Cross shelter because of these conditions, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right, Nick. Please be safe. We'll get back to you shortly. We're also monitoring another dangerous situation. This is tied to the Hurricane Joaquin. Well, a cargo ship carrying 28 Americans, five Polish nationals, it is still missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

It disappeared in the hurricane, near the Bahamas. This happened on Thursday. The U.S. Coast Guard sent a cutter ship, a rescue helicopter, and a C-130 plane into the storm yesterday, but still no signs of the larger container ship. Well more searches are expected to resume again today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Now we turn to our other story, the horrific mass shooting at Umpqua Community College that happened in Oregon. We are now learning more about the most important part of this story. And that of course is the nine people who went to that campus that day and never came home. We're hearing from some of the families of those victims after members of the Oregon State Police Department read their statements about their loved ones.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Lucas Eibel, just 18 years old. He was studying chemistry and he loved volunteering at animal shelters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE OFFICER (reading): We have been trying to figure out how to tell everyone how amazing Lucas was, but that would take 18 years.

MALVEAUX: Lucero Alcaraz, 19, wanted to be a pediatric nurse or a doctor. She was in the honors program on a full scholarship. Jason Dale Johnson was 34. He was proud to be a Christian and he had just recently enrolled in the school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE OFFICER (reading): Jason's mother said that Jason was proud of himself for enrolling in the school, and so was his mother. They felt that Jason had finally found his path. His family says that he will be loved and missed.

MALVEAUX: Lawrence Levine taught at UCC. He was teaching the class where the shooting took place. He was 67. Kim Saltmarsh Dietz was 59. Her daughter is also a student at UCC, but was unharmed. Treven Anspach was 20 years old. He is the son of a local firefighter. His family said he was always positive and looked for the best in life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE OFFICER (reading): Treven, Treven was larger than life and brought out the best in those around him. In Justin and Kim's words, Treven was a perfect son.

MALVEAUX: Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18 years old, had just started school and a new job. Her cousin wrote on Facebook "This isn't supposed to be how life works." Sarena Dawn Moore, 44 years old, was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Her pastor said one of Sarena's last posts on Facebook expressed her desire to stand up for Jesus and Christianity. Quinn Cooper, just 18, was attending this fourth day of college. He and his brother Cody were inseparable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE OFFICER (reading): I don't know we're going to move forward with our lives without Quinn. Our lives are shattered beyond repair. We send our condolences to all the families who have been so tragically affected by this strange gunman. No one should ever feel the pain that we are feeling.

MALVEAUX: It is such a hard story to tell. We are also learning that the gunman in this shooting, he was also a student in the class where he opened fire. Well, CNN has decided not to show the gunman's photo. We're also not reporting his name because he wanted notoriety for the shooting, and that's just not necessary to even give him that. We're also hearing new information about the firearms used to carry out the attack. Investigators they found 13 guns linked to that shooter. For our Dan Simon, he is live in Roseburg, Oregon. And, Dan, what else are we learning about how this was carried out and what was used?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, Suzanne, I want to let you know that we are expecting authorities to give another press briefing sometime this afternoon, where we hope to learn more details about the shooter's motive and the circumstances about what happened here on the campus. First of all, let me also explain where we are, Suzanne. We are just outside of campus. You can see that there's this yellow crime scene tape that's still up. Authorities have blocked this access road. For now this community college remains closed. We know that classes are cancelled for all of next week. Now, in terms of the investigation, we know that the shooter had amassed an incredible amount of fire power. Six weapons were found here at the school, seven more were found at his home. We also know that the shooter had body armor. There were steel plates and a flak jacket, which suggest that he was prepared for battle. He also had a lot of ammunition. So he was intent on killing a lot of people, and apparently also took efforts to protect himself. Now, as the investigation rolls on, one area of focus of course is going to be on the shooter's writings, and we know that he posted on blogs. He also handed some writings to somebody here on campus. And the picture that emerges is that this is somebody who obviously had a lot of trouble in his life. There was a lot of animosity towards organized religion, animosity towards African Americans. He makes references in a blog to having some sort of fascination with the Irish Republican Army. So I think when investigators look at all of these writings they're going to see somebody of course who is mentally disturbed. And they're going to talking to obviously all the people he knew and talking to his relatives. And we know that more than a hundred investigators are working the case, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right. Dan, thank you so much. We're going to dive deeper into this. This massacre in Oregon again raising questions on how do you know when somebody is about to lose it, to take up a gun and simply start shooting? Well, joining me from our New York bureau, Jonathan Gilliam. He's a former Navy Seal and former FBI Special Agent. Also with us is criminologist Casey Jordan, who teaches criminal law at Western Connecticut State University. Casey, a couple of points here. I understand we're not exactly sure how he got these guns, but my understanding is that he did get them legally, that that was one of things that they found in the investigation. Do we know, first of all, that there are indications that this killer is similar to ones that we've seen in the past, in terms of his characteristics, his personality? Because he is described as many others are, as being shy, off to himself, even kind of a nice young person.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. CASEY JORDAN, ATTORNEY, CRIMINOLOGIST, BEHAVIOR ANALYST, WESTERN CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY: Absolutely. And when we look at the actual textbook profile, the variables that we see in so many of these incidents, he really does fit the profile. And the initial information that was coming out, much of it was mistaken or misguided. But the truth is he's a 26-year-old male and he did in fact do this rampage at the college campus where he was a student. He fits almost all of the 30 personality traits, most of which have to do with being alienated, alone, having a low tolerance for frustration, not being able to handle criticism, anger management issues, all of those things very much pertain to him. Then we often look at the dynamics of his family, his school, and his social life. Right now I think we're focusing very much on family because we learned yesterday neighbors said his mother was one of those hovering, helicopter mothers. That she protected him from everything, even the slightest annoyance. And in our culture we know that can create a very fragile person for whom any sort of stress can cause them to break. We don't know if there was something specific on that particular day, but we know that he just was not very thick-skinned with handling the problems of life.

MALVEAUX: Do we know what the role of the father was in parenting?

JORDAN: We know that he lived with his mother, about five minutes from the campus there in Oregon. And his parents are divorced and his father lives in California. His father, I believe, is British and we know that he was born in the U.K. but came here as a young child. So it's entirely possible that because he came here from a foreign country -- and he describes himself of mixed race, although we don't know anything more about that -- he may have been bullied his entire life. We're very interested in a little bit more of the social dynamics of his life.

MALVEAUX: All right. JORDAN: We don't know anything about whether he consumed violent video games yet. But these are the things we look at to round out his profile.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: OK. Let me get to Jonathan to weigh in in this conversation here. So, Jonathan, how does the FBI go about profiling people to identify, really on the front end, right, as a potential risk before a person like this actually acts out as this shooter did?

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER NAVY SEAL AND FBI SPECIAL AGENT: You know, to tell you the truth, I don't know if the FBI can actually profile people like this. I mean there are certain characteristics, as we just heard, with these individuals. But those characteristics meet so many people in this country that it would be almost impossible to reach out and say this person is going to do something versus that person. But I think what, what we can do is start to put law enforcement that is police officers, city police officers, that are in the community that interact with these people on a daily basis, that we could start giving them a little bit more of what I would like to call a matrix. So that when they interact with people, or when people file a complaint, or they call 911, or the see an officer and say this person's acting odd, that when they go and talk to these individuals they can put them in a matrix. Because often they do interact with these people multiple times before something happens, or there's multiple people that say this person has a behavior that is far beyond odd.

MALVEAUX: Yeh, and these people need to speak up, they need to tell others that this is actually what they are seeing, what they are observing. Otherwise, we really -- if we don't have a heads up, we don't know. We depend on their family members and their close friends. Thank you, Jonathan, appreciate it. Jonathan Gilliam, Casey Jordan, for joining us this morning.

GILLIAM: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Going to take a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: The Pentagon is now investigating a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan to determine if it killed 16 people at a hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Doctors Without Borders says that the strike damaged the hospital they use in the city of Kunduz. The aid group also saying that nine staff workers and seven patients, including three children, were killed and at 37 others were injured. I want to go to our CNN International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson. And, Nic, tell us how something like this could happen.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, Suzanne, what we're being told by MSF is that, when these strikes occurred overnight, there was fighting in the area around the hospital. Not inside the hospital compound, they say, although Afghan government officials have said that there was gunfire coming from within the compound of the hospital. It's a relatively large compound in the center of Kunduz. What Doctors Without Borders say, however, is that five days ago, five days ago, they gave the GPS coordinates of the hospital to both authorities in Kabul and Washington. That was because the Taliban had stormed into the town and the government forces were fighting to and fro with the Afghan government forces for control of the town. U.S. and NATO special advisers were on the ground there, with the Afghan forces, directing air strikes when their forces were under threat. When this air strike began overnight, the bombardment first began, Doctors Without Borders say they called both Kabul and Washington again to inform them what was happening. And they say then it took 30 minutes before the fire stopped. The type of aircraft, the gunship aircraft fires rapid fire, heavy caliber machine gun. Very good, if you will, at taking on the Taliban in an open field. It's very, very lethal in that kind of an environment. The investigation into whether that, that was flying in the area, was involved in this. The destruction we've seen in the video of the hospital does seem to indicate that it wasn't hit by a large bomb. There are no walls that were seen knocked down, but heavy damage, smoke and fire damage, inside. Heavy casualties.

MALVEAUX: And, Nic, we're seeing these pictures of the hospital and it looks pretty bad. I mean, did it get all of the hospital? Where there areas in the hospital where they were still able to, to treat patients and to deal with those who'd been injured inside of the hospital? Is it still up and running?

ROBERTSON: Sure, it's many buildings in a large compound. There were 80 Doctors Without Borders staff, local and international, 105 patients and their families additional on top of the 105 that were there. So it does appear -- and some of the photographs that Doctors Without Borders have released -- they were able to set up makeshift treatment facilities in other buildings that weren't so damaged inside that same general area. These, these -- typically in Afghanistan you have a cluster of buildings inside a walled compound. That's what the Doctors Without Borders have there. Doctors Without Borders say they were very clear, no weapons allowed in those facilities. I've been to many in Afghanistan, they have big signs on the outside that say no weapons allowed inside. And that is generally respected. Doctors Without Borders say the Taliban who brought in casualties this week had not been taking their weapons into the compound. Suzanne.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: All right, Nic, thank you so much. Appreciate it. We're just getting this in. This is a statement from the Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, just released here. And it says "Overnight I learned of a tragic incident involving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that came under fire. The area has been the scene of intense fighting the last few days. U.S. forces in support of Afghan security forces were operating nearby, as were Taliban fighters. While we're still trying to determine exactly what happened, I want to extend my thoughts and prayers to everyone affected. A full investigation into this tragic incident is underway in coordination with the Afghan government."

And still to come, as the gunman opened fire on a college campus, one man put his life on the line trying to save others. Well, of course, he's being called a hero. We're going to tell you his story. Up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:30:30] MALVEAUX: In the wake of shootings like this, tales of heroes emerge, Chris Mintz fits that title. He is the Army veteran, who tried to keep the gunman from entering his classroom during the rampage using his body to try to block the way. CNN's Jean Casarez has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When a gunman opened fire at Umpqua Community College early Thursday morning, it was a scene of terror and chaos.

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: Somebody is outside one of the doors.

CASAREZ: The 30-year-old Chris Mintz reacted instinctively trying to save lives.

WANDA MINTZ, CHRIS' AUNT: He tried to block the door to keep the gunman from coming in. He gets shot three times, hits the floor.

CASAREZ: Even after being wounded and facing the killer, his family says Chris was thinking of his 6-year-old son.

MINTZ: He looks up at the gunman and says, it is my son's birthday today.

CASAREZ: But that didn't stop the gunman from shooting Chris in his back, his stomach, his arms and his legs. According to his family, Chris was shot a total of seven times while trying to defend his fellow classmates.

Long before heroic actions at college, he was a star at his local high school in North Carolina, number 71, defensive tackle, after graduation, joining the United States Army from 2004 to 2007 achieving the rank of specialist and being awarded a national defense service medal.

Now, with two broken legs, his focus is on healing and spending time with his family.

ARIANA EARNHARDT, CHRIS'COUSIN: He is OK. He is going to have to learn to walk again. He walked away with his life and that's more than so many other people did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: What an amazing guy. That report from CNN's Jean Casarez. Mintz' family has started a "Go Fund Me" page to help with the physical therapy that he is facing once he is released from the hospital. He has a long way to go. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:35:57]

MALVEAUX: I want to get back to this week's shootings at the Oregon Community College. The conversation that's been fueling across the country about gun laws, President Obama joined in the conversation on Thursday addressing the American people.

This is the 15th time he has responded to a mass shooting since taking office. A day later, the president spoke about the shootings again. He vowed to take action to stop gun violence. Here is how he put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: This will not change until the politics changes and the behavior of elected officials changes. And so the main thing I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about this on a regular basis. Our inaction is a political decision we are making.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi proposing a new House committee to address gun violence. She is urging bipartisan legislation on background checks.

Joining me now to talk about all this, Nomiki Konst, executive director of the Accountability Project, and Giano Caldwell, he is a Republican strategist. Thank you for joining us this morning here.

Both of you, we have seen this time and time again, and the president is absolutely right. It does seem routine. Is there really political will to do something about this? It is political will and action to take place. Many disagree.

NOMIKI KONST, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: When 90 percent of Americans, including NRA members, Republicans, Democrats, all agree that we need tighter background checks. It is time for action. It shows Congress is being helped by the NRA. The NRA is ruining our Congress rather than the people.

When there is a shooting a day, there is a murder an hour by a gunshot wound. When is it not time to be political? We have to take action. At every moment, communities are affected by gun violence.

Nancy Pelosi should have called for this hearing years ago at this point and is only really as a response to the ridiculous hearings of Planned Parenthood and the Benghazi hearings that are purely political, I think she is trying to make a statement.

If we have these hearings, the public will hear about the gun violence and the data. They will hear about Australia had one mass murder 20 years ago. They are going to hear the evidence that really makes the case that gun violence is an epidemic, a public health epidemic in our country.

MALVEAUX: Giano, I want to bring you into the conversation here. We have heard from a lot of the presidential hopefuls. One of them was Jeb Bush. A lot of people were confused about the comments he made on the shooting. I want you to react on the other side. Just listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I had this challenge as governors. Look, stuff happens. There is always a crisis. The impulse is always to do something and it is not necessarily the right thing to do.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No matter what you do, guns, no guns, you have people that are mentally ill. They are going to come through the cracks and going to do things that people don't think are possible. You can have the best security and the best everything, but people are able to get in and do this terrible damage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: I know the campaign, Jeb Bush's campaign fought back and said, it has been taken out of context. He wouldn't mean to sound callous. The fact that he said, stuff happens. A lot of people are looking at that saying, God, that really is tone deaf.

GIANNO CALDWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It is a sound bite. The left has taken it and made it something more than what it is.

MALVEAUX: You heard it. It is not just a sound bite. You heard what he said. We don't think he meant that it doesn't matter. It doesn't sound good to say, stuff happens. It sounds like there is nothing that can be done. How does he fix that?

[11:40:03] CALDWELL: It was an inappropriate way to address the situation. What he was saying is we cannot be reactionary when we get in situations like these. This act of domestic terrorism which occurred is something that we need to focus on not just policies and solutions that prevent these kinds of things from happening.

Also, we need to make sure that we are conducting the right investigation and learning the facts when they come to the front. President Obama said something I thought was particularly interesting.

He said he wanted to politicize this situation. That's something we shouldn't be doing. The fact of the matter is, this situation occurred and in some ways, the shooter said that he was going to kill people because of their Christian beliefs.

He asked, are you a Christian? If she said yes, he shot them in the head and if they said no, he shot them in the leg. There is domestic terrorism. It is on Christians. We saw it in South Carolina where nine were shot and murdered. We saw it in this particular instance as well.

KONST: Gianno, what about every other hour? It is not just one mass shooting a day. We have one mass shooting a day, one shooting death an hour. What about those answers? I think what the president is trying to do is creating a call to action. The lawmakers who take their oath to protect and represent people are not doing that right now. They are representing gun manufacturers.

CALDWELL: Nomiki, I'm from Chicago, we have had the most comprehensive gun laws on the books. There was a ban on hand guns. Every time you look at news in Chicago, there are 50 people shot in the weekend. Gun control laws aren't helpful in Chicago. Criminals are still going to get guns. We cannot politicize domestic terrorism like that.

MALVEAUX: Gianno, what would be an idea of a solution here? It is a political as well as moral issue. What would be an ideal solution?

CALDWELL: Congressman Peter King, he has a background check bill that's in Congress now. It was introduced, I believe, in March. That's an idea. We need to make sure that folks that are mentally disturbed don't have access to weapons. I think Donald Trump mentioned that.

MALVEAUX: We are running out of time. Hold on to those ideas. Thank you very much. We appreciate your time. We are going to bring you back later. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:46:32]

(VIDEO CLIP "PARTS UNKNOWN")

MALVEAUX: Pope Francis' visit to the United States still making headlines nearly a week after he returned to Rome in an exclusive interview with CNN, an openly gay man describes a private meeting he and his partner of 19 years had with the pope when he was visiting Washington.

They are old friends from Argentina. The meeting happened after the pope met with the controversial Kentucky clerk, Kim Davis. Now Davis' attorney says the pope was endorsing the opposition of same-sex marriage.

Now, the Vatican is clarifying the details of that meeting. I want to bring in our CNN Vatican correspondent, Delia Gallagher, to join us from Rome. Clarify first and tell us about the meeting and the clarification from the Vatican and also this very unique situation that we have heard of with this man and his partner.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Right. So the Grassi meeting happened according to Mr. Grassi because he had contacted the pope by e-mail a few weeks before he came to Washington. The pope called him and said he would love to see him and give him a hug.

The Vatican confirmed that the meeting had happened, that Mr. Grassi wanted to present his mother and some friends to the pope. The Vatican said that they had met several times before. Mr. Grassi is a former student of the pope.

He said he was prompted to talk about the meeting because of the media interest in the Kim Davis situation, which the Vatican also confirmed. Making the distinction that with the KIM DAVIS case, they didn't want to show complete support for all the particulars of her case.

I think the important point here with these pope meetings that the Vatican wants to say is that the pope meets with a lot of people. It doesn't necessarily mean he supports all of the things that those people represent.

The important thing is not who he meets, because with this pope is not who he meets because we know that part of his whole pontificate is to reach out to all kinds of people, but it is important to notice what he says about particular issues.

MALVEAUX: Delia, I understand that the pope, that they are friends and that he does know that Grassi is openly gay, that that was not an issue, that this is the pope, simply living his life of inclusion.

GALLAGHER: Well, absolutely. I mean, first of all, he was a former student. He was a friend of the pope so really no big surprise that the pope would meet him. We know Pope Francis is open to meeting any people.

[11:50:08] There was a transgender man from Spain that he met at the Vatican in January, who claimed, you know -- so, there are a lot of people that the pope meets, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we can draw any kind of conclusion on what the stance on a particular issue is. For that, we've got to go to what the particular issue is.

MALVEAUX: All right, Delia, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Make sure to tune into CNN tomorrow morning. "NEW DAY" will be talking with Grassi about the private meeting that he had with the pope. Stay with us.

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MALVEAUX: Hurricane Joaquin now back to a Category 4 storm, its effects already bringing heavy rain to the east coast. The Carolinas is getting hit hard with flooding right now. We've got new video of cars trying to get around Charleston here. They are seeing a record rainfall and that torrential rain is drenching the east coast.

Right now, could impact several college football games this weekend, yes, especially in the southeast. Notre Dame facing Clemson tonight in South Carolina, we'll see what happens there.

Coy Wire is joining us live from Clemson. So what do we think? What's going to be the impact here? Are they going to play? Are we going to see something?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: It is raining like crazy right now, Suzanne. Good morning to you. It's not showing any signs of stopping. The rain here at Clemson is certainly having an impact on tonight's game.

[11:55:09] You're talking about a pair of unbeaten teams. So tonight over 80,000 people will flood Death Valley just behind me and I'm standing in about an inch and a half of mud right now.

So we're talking about a place that's picked up 2.5 inches over the last two days, so a lot of the grass parking lots they normally use on game day are limited. Clemson officials are encouraging fans to carpool to the game.

Now, on the field, this is only the third meeting between these two powerhouse programs. Notre dame has won once Clemson has won one as well. The adversity that Notre Dame has faced all season, losing key players at injuries is going to play a factor, but Clemson is going to be a tough, tough matchup.

That is going to be an awesome game. They're expecting 4 inches to 6 more inches until tonight. That equals the two months' worth of rain here at Clemson in just three days. Suzanne, back to you.

MALVEAUX: That's going to be one heck of a game there. Try to stay dry, if you can. We'll be watching. Coy Wire, thanks again. We'll be right back.

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