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Interview With James White (R) Texas State Representative: Uvalde School Shooting; 19 Children, 2 Teachers Massacred In Texas Elementary School Shooting; Pope Francis Says It's Time For The U.S. To Act On Guns; Survivor Of Florida Pulse Nightclub Mass Shooting Reacts To Uvalde Tragedy. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired May 25, 2022 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Why not act with that alacrity to protect living, breathing 10-year-olds in this school behind me.
Use that same blueprint that you used for that abortion law. Make there be waiting periods, make them have to come back to the scene more than once.
Make them have to answer questions. Why can't you protect living 10- year-olds?
JAMES WHITE (R) TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Well, thank you for that question.
And let me tell you why we will not -- have not taken that approach consistent with the legislation you brought up as it relates to innocent unborn life in the womb is because we have this thing called the constitution. OK.
And what we really need to be looking at is whether it's Buffalo, whether it's in Uvalde, is these young men for some reason that have some very disturbed emotional state.
We need to look at our mental health system and --
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: There's no evidence there's a mental health issue here sir. We heard the same thing from the governor.
We heard it from several elected officials. The governor said there is no known connection to mental health illness.
The statement from the NRA, you have a 92 percent rating from the NRA, your lifetime member. They say that this was the act of a lone deranged criminal.
There's no evidence that he was deranged. There was no evidence that there was mental illness.
WHITE: Well, well, look, deranged is a state of mental health. OK. So, look, we're going to look at everything, Victor. All right. But at the end of the day. BLACKWELL: Are you going to look at the guns?
WHITE: Yes, we're going to look at -- we always look at the -- look at the fallings. But at the end of the day, we're going to look at the people who do these acts.
We're going to convict them. And we're going to punish them.
CAMEROTA: You can't convict him. Sir, you can't convict him. He was killed --
BLACKWELL: If he's dead.
CAMEROTA: -- along with 19 children in the school behind me. And so why don't we hear you saying that there's some nexus between mental health and gun purchases?
It seems as though you could do something at the point of purchase where maybe you could do a little bit more intervention or ask some more questions, because again, we've seen you do this recently with the abortion legislation.
WHITE: Well, according to the federal statute when someone presents themselves to a federal firearm licensee to purchase a weapon, there's a background check, that if they fail, has certain rules and regulations, according to the federal government to transfer or sell that weapon to that person, and no FFL is required to sell a firearm to anyone.
So again, three different background checks, Victor, and he passed each one of them.
BLACKWELL: Listen, we've been here before. I just read off the number of shootings after the 2018 shooting in Santa Fe, you see you're going to wait for the investigation.
You didn't wait here, in which you sent this letter to the governor about recommendations for school safety.
Your recommendations were to make sure that there weren't too many entrances and exit points. You agreed with the lieutenant governor there.
You suggested that some constables offer security. These are peacemakers who deliver summons that they are now school security officers.
And you say that architecture of the building should be a spirit of oasis, and not a fear box for students.
That's the totality of your recommendations to prevent school shootings and school safety. When you say we're going to wait, this is what you have four years ago.
Is that really the totality of what should happen to protect students in schools? WHITE: Well, Victor, I don't know the architecture or the layout at
the elementary school in Uvalde, OK, those were my recommendations. Other members --
BLACKWELL: How is that relevant? How is that relevant to protect children? You say that they need to be places -- you say here, the architecture and feel should be an oasis of learning.
How does that keep someone from going and shooting up a room full of 4th graders?
WHITE: Well, let me tell you how. You can have a building that is secure and at the same time you can have a building that nurtures learning and compassion. I know about that because for 17 years, my friend --
BLACKWELL: You were a public schoolteacher, I know that too. Yes.
WHITE: Yes. OK.
BLACKWELL: All right, Texas State Representative James White --
Go ahead, Alisyn.
WHITE: Yes, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: All right, we have to let you go.
[15:35:00]
Representative James White, we appreciate you coming on, and we hope that you can move with all due speed on fixing what's happening in Texas as well. Thank you very much for being here.
WHITE: OK, we'll get the facts, thank you so much.
CAMEROTA: From Pope Francis to Ukraine's President Zelenskyy, there are prayers around the world going to the Uvalde community now.
Next, we'll speak to the Archbishop of San Antonio who's here comforting families.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: This morning, Ukraine's President Zelenskyy sent his condolences to the Uvalde victims here and all of their families and all Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): This is terrible. To have victims of shooters in peaceful times.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: And at the Vatican, Pope Francis said he's heartbroken by the shooting, and he implored Americans to take action.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POPE FRANCIS (through translator): I pray for the children and the adults who were killed and for their families. It is time to say enough to the indiscriminate trafficking of weapons.
Let us all make a commitment so that tragedies like this cannot happen again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Joining us now is the Archbishop of San Antonio Gustavo Garcia-Siller.
[15:40:00]
He spent yesterday supporting the grieving families at the Uvalde Civic Center. Archbishop, thank you so much for being here.
You were with the families before they even knew before they had word. What was that like?
ARCHBISHOP GUSTAVO GARCIA-SILLER, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Well, it was different at the hospital because they had hope that their children were going to make it.
And I was there when one of the families was told that their child didn't make it.
CAMEROTA: What do you say to that family? How do you comfort them in that moment?
GARCIA-SILLER: You know, in those situations, it's just gestures. Gestures of love, care, that they are at the forefront and that their child is important.
So, when I was with the families at the civic center, they were waiting to hear if their families would be affected by the killings.
CAMEROTA: And that's excruciating. I mean, that waiting we hear over and over, it's excruciating. And so --
GARCIA-SILLER: They were numb, numb, couldn't say a word. So, gestures, again, but one word that came from many families there was pray for my child.
Pray, pray. They knew that they were out of control. They knew that society was out of control in this situation. And just waiting and waiting and waiting. And then there I met the husband of one of the teachers and the three children.
Three young children, teenagers, two girls, and a boy. The father was strong, but a little bit numb. The children, they were -- it was hard even for them to look at me, but they were not letting me go. CAMEROTA: Because that teacher died.
GARCIA-SILLER: Yes, oh, yes.
CAMEROTA: I understand that you have also been reached out to by the suspected shooter's family.
GARCIA-SILLER: Yes, our Parish and I will in a very private way and delicate way to connect with the family too.
CAMEROTA: What do you say to that family?
GARCIA-SILLER: Again, gestures of tenderness and compassion, because they are suffering. They are suffering too.
You know, these actions, you know, I don't agree with something that I heard this morning saying that that man is evil. No, evil actions. Everyone has dignity, and the family is suffering too.
And they need to be attended, and we need to be careful. It's very easy to make remarks that destroy people's lives. It's only letting of destruction, you know.
CAMEROTA: I know that you just got a letter from the Pope. Can you share that with us?
GARCIA-SILLER: Yes, yes, the Pope, what he's conveying is that instead of promoting in any way at any level violence, let us promote fraternal love, solidarity.
And I think we in leadership in many ways, we have failed. We, and I include myself, because this is a situation that we just lived two days ago in Buffalo, New York, in Houston, in El Paso, a year ago, and it's every day.
And life is discarded. And so, our work is to be present, to accompany people, and to remind them that they count and that God loves them, and we love them.
No matter race, culture, language, religion, God loves them, and we love them. And we can do a little, a little tears of love.
CAMEROTA: We can all individually do a little bit. I agree -- in spreading love. Archbishop, thank you for that message. We really need it. Thank you so much for being here.
GARCIA-SILLER: You're welcome. There is hope.
CAMEROTA: And we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLACKWELL: In just a few weeks from now, the nation will mark the sixth anniversary of another tragic mass shooting.
Orlando's Pulse Nightclub shooting. One of the deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. in modern times. 49 people were killed, 53 others injured when a gunman started shooting a semiautomatic rifle inside a nightclub in Orlando.
Police would later kill that man after a three-hour standoff.
With me now is one of the survivors of that shooting, Brandon Wolf. Brandon, thank you for your time. Let me start here.
You listened to the conversation that Alisyn and I just had with James White. By the way, he's chair of the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee in Texas State Legislature.
And what he said about the path forward to protect students. What did you think?
BRANDON WOLF, PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING SURVIVOR: Well, I'll be honest. I'm dumbfounded. I'm at a loss. What are we doing? What are we even talking about in this country anymore? 21 people are dead, 19 of them were children.
[15:50:00]
They were babies. That's 19 families who sent their 8, 9, 10-year-old kids to school. They then tucked their sheets on their little beds.
They tossed a few of their picture day button up shirts into the washing machine. They may be set out a plastic plate for their after- school snack.
And then those 19 families got the worst news possible, that their babies would be leaving class in a body bag. What are we doing?
And to add insult to injury, self-obsessed right-wing politicians like the person that you just had on, who care about nothing except their political futures, have held this country hostage for over a year.
Insisting that the greatest threats our children face is they may, God forbid, learn this country was built on the backs of enslaved black people or that their teacher uses they/them pronouns.
They've been on a rampage banning books, censor curriculum, terrorizing parents and teachers and school board members while they didn't do a damn thing to keep our kids safe from what is actually killing them.
So, when I say I'm at a loss, it's because I just don't know what to say anymore that hasn't already been said.
These power hungry elected leaders like that man who have sold our country to merchants of death in exchange for help up to the next rung of the political ladder should be ashamed of themselves.
BLACKWELL: You of course, mentioned the 19 children, the two teachers who were killed here. But also, I watched your testimony before Congress.
And you describe remembering smells, remembering what you saw, remembering the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
What do you say to and what is ahead for the scores of children who saw or heard or rushed out through a broken window during this?
I mean, you're several years out now from this tragedy. What's ahead for them?
WOLF: Well, there's nothing in the world that I could say that's going to take away the pain that those kids are going to feel. And I think that's why it breaks my heart so much, because I know the hell that they're going to go through for the rest of their lives.
The first member of the media I spoke to after the worst night of my life was actually Alisyn Camerota. We sat together in my best friend's living room while I choked out stories of why he was the best person I ever met.
And at that time, the pain I felt was so deep and so soul crushing that I wondered if it was even worth waking up to see the next day.
It breaks my heart that we have children in Texas and across this country that have to deal with that every single day because our political leaders refuse to grow a spine and do something to keep them safe.
BLACKWELL: Brandon Wolf, we're about six years out from the Pulse Nightclub, and I can hear from you just how fresh some of the wounds are.
Thank you for spending some time with me. Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting.
All right, just moments before the attack, the suspected gunman posted on social media exactly what he was about to do. We got some new alarming details, next.
[15:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: So, Victor, I was touched to see you talking there to Brandon Wolf, and of course, I remember those first moments after the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
Where I once again came down, once again, it was another mass shooting and I got to meet Brandon and we did talk in just the hours of his raw grief.
And here we are again, as you and I have been talking about, and there's been enumerable other mass shootings since then.
But today, I actually am not hopeless as I'm here. And the reason is, it seems sort of obvious to me that there's a common denominator between Parkland and Columbine and Sandy Hook and now here.
It is unstable teenage boys getting their hands on weapons of war. It seems quite obvious to me that that's the disconnect that we need to figure out how to solve, and I know we can do it.
And I'm not sure why we're not hearing from elected officials on that piece of it and how to stop them from getting guns.
BLACKWELL: Yes, on elected officials, listen, we had for more than a year now, Alisyn, this national policy debate and Brandon mentioned this about the dangers, so-called, that are presented to children about books about slavery, about books about the Holocaust, from curricula that talk about the fullness of American history, even mentioning there are LBGTQ people in the country. That that's a danger that must be addressed immediately.
But when it comes to policy to stop children from being killed by these weapons of war, now is not the time. We hear from lawmakers over and over again.
[16:00:00]
Listen, we're going to leave you now with some photos of some of the 19 children and 2 educators who were killed yesterday.
