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New Day

Twenty-Six Dead, Twenty Hurt in Texas Church Massacre; Trump: North Korea Is a 'Threat to the Civilized World'. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 06, 2017 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[05:58:53] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, this is NEW DAY, but we are facing a horribly familiar tragedy. It is Monday, November 6, 6 a.m. in New York where Alisyn is, 5 a.m. here in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the sight of another mass shooting in America. Twenty-six lives lost, 20 others hurt. A gunman opening fire with a military-style rifle at a Baptist church during Sunday services. He apparently would spare no one. The youngest victim was 5 years old, the oldest 72. Among the dead, the 14-year-old daughter of the church's pastor. Eight people from one family alone affected.

The scale here has to be considered. This this is a very small town. Just a few hundred people. And we saw them come out last night for a candlelight vigil to remember their victims. In a few hundred people population, this man affected such a huge slice of this community, and now it is reverberating across this entire country.

What we know about the killer was that he was a veteran of the United States Air Force. He'd been court-martialed five years ago for assaulting his wife and child. Investigators do not have a specific motive about this, but he was not from here, reportedly, and that is factoring into the investigation.

The president weighed in from his trip in Asia. He says he believes that this attack was caused by a mental health problem and insists it's not an issue with the nation's gun laws. He says we can talk about guns but now is not the right time.

Let's figure out what happened here. That's where we begin with the facts. And we have CNN's Ed Lavandera. He has the latest.

So talk us through it. What do we know about how we came to see this? It was about 11 in the morning, there at services. What happens?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think one of the interesting things to point out and look into is that the gunman lives in the town of New Braunfels, which is north of San Antonio.

CUOMO: He's not from here.

LAVANDERA: Not from this particular area, about 40 miles away. So the real question is why does someone come 40 miles and pick this small little church in this small town to carry out this rampage? (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): CNN is learning more about the man believed to have opened fire at this small Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Law enforcement sources tell CNN the suspected killer is 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, who once served in the U.S. Air Force. Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 for assaulting his spouse and child. He served a year in prison. In 2014, Kelley was discharged from the Air Force for bad conduct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are dealing with the largest mass shooting in our state's history.

LAVANDERA: Police say the suspect began his rampage around 11:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Dressed in all black tactical gear and a ballistic vest, he began firing from outside the church during Sunday's service. He then entered the church and continued his assault, killing dozens.

(MUSIC)

LAVANDERA: This video taken last Sunday shows just how small the congregation is. The pastor's own 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle Pomeroy, is among the dead. Eight members of one family were also killed, including a pregnant mother.

At a nearby store, employees recalled hearing shots ring out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was semiautomatic fire. This was rapid fire. We were flabbergasted.

LAVANDERA: A law-enforcement official tells CNN that Kelley legally purchased the Ruger AR-style rifle used in the attack back in April of 2016. But when filling out the paperwork for his background check, Kelley indicated he didn't have any disqualifying criminal history. Police say a local resident confronted the gunman at the church.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As he exited the church, a local resident grabbed his rifle and engaged that suspect. The suspect dropped his rifle and fled from the church.

LAVANDERA: The suspect fled the scene, but that resident and another man pursued him for 11 miles at high speeds.

JOHNNIE LANGENDORFF, PURSUED SHOOTING SUSPECT: The gentleman with the rifle came to my truck as the shooter took off, and he briefed me -- briefed me quickly on what had just happened and said that we had to get him and so that's what I did.

LAVANDERA: Johnnie Langendorff says the suspect lost control of his vehicle, crashed on the side of the road, and that's where police found him dead, inside his car with a gunshot wound.

President Trump reacted to the massacre half a world away during a press conference with the Japanese prime minister.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This isn't a guns situation. Fortunately, somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction.

This is a mental health problem at the highest level.

LAVANDERA: Now this small, tight-knit community comes together to remember those killed and hurt in Sunday's carnage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's so much love for one another. There's no room for hate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: And Chris, we were out here last night. It was close to midnight, and there was a family that walked across the street, distraught. And we approached them to kind of figure out, trying to figure out, get a sense of what they were going through. They said that they had -- their daughter was missing and that they had not had any contact. This was almost 12 hours after the rampage.

The emotion and just how distraught they looked last night just really captured the pain and the agony that so many people here are feeling today.

CUOMO: I mean, look, Ed, you and I have had -- you know, as part of the job, we've been at a lot of these. We've never had this deadly a church situation. Obviously, everybody will remember what happened in Charlottesville. But this scale we haven't seen and the scale to this community.

[06:05:08] If you have close to 50 people affected by the actual shooting, you only have 500 people here. You know what I mean? It's like one in every ten people was affected as a victim, let alone their families and everyone who knows them.

So the amount of devastation to these people is just unimaginable. And it was good to see the governor show up here last night, put his arms around people, but they're all wondering why. And the -- as we know, it's getting hard to answer that question. It just is.

LAVANDERA: Safe to say that there's not a person in this town that is directly connected in some way to one of the victims, either who was killed or is recovering from the wounds today.

CUOMO: Yes. Ed, thank you very much. Good to see you. I appreciate it.

All right. Let's bring in our panel. Let's get some expert opinion in terms of where they're looking here and how they're trying to move this forward. We've got James Gagliano, CNN law enforcement analyst; former special agent for the FBI, as well, Jeff Lanza. Gentlemen, thank you very much.

Obviously, Gags worked with the FBI for a very long time. He's now a professor. It's good to have you both here to help us wrap our head around this.

You heard me talking to Ed. We've seen too much of this, but we've also never seen anything like this. This -- this number of people taken out during church services, this small a community affected with this wide a swath of death this way. Very hard for them and hard for the rest of us to figure out what to do in these situations, James.

How does this -- when you're looking at this from the outside, how does it size up? Nobody's calling it terror. I guess that's because they don't know what motivated this guy or whether it was a furtherance of just cold-blooded evil or some kind of agenda. What are your questions at the top?

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Chris, to your point, you know -- defining something as terror or something as a hate crime, those are just definitions in distinctions. We know that this was a depraved, evil human being. And all too often, the last 35 days, Chris, we've been in Las Vegas together. We were in lower Manhattan together and here, 35 days from the attack in Las Vegas we have this incident happen.

And after each of these, you've asked, you know, what should we be doing different? And we talked about banning the bump fire stocks after Las Vegas. We talked about putting up concrete bollards along the bike path on the West Side Highway following the terror attack there. And that's happening right now.

In the wake of this, Chris, I think for law enforcement, two things are so frustrating. If you go to the FBI.gov web site page, there's a list of prohibitions for people that are unable to own firearms. If you are discharged from the military, a dishonorable discharge. That precludes you from owning a firearm.

But this guy was discharged under a bad conduct discharge. A slight distinction, meaning whether or not it was a general court martial or a special court martial, and the distinction between dishonest, dishonorable and bad conduct could be the difference between desertion, rape and murder versus assault, which we understand that he was guilty of. We've got to charge that loophole now, Chris, in the wake of this incident.

CUOMO: All right. So let's look at that a step deeper. Let me bring in Lanza. So James is talking about the 1968 act that brought in dishonorable discharge as basically a felony trigger in disqualifying that person from owning a weapon. This is a step below that. The definitions about bad conduct versus reprehensible conduct.

The guy spent a year behind bars because of what he did, according to the reporting. So why wasn't that enough to qualify the way a felony would on the outside? And why, more importantly, I think, in terms of the loophole, why was the system so dependent on his disclosure?

We keep seeing reports from law enforcement that he didn't disclose he had any disqualifying record. Well, obviously, you can't depend on the person for the vetting. Is this about whether the military or the federal government uploads this information quickly enough? Or was this simply something that didn't qualify as a felony would on the outside? JEFF LANZA, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, that's what's going to be

examined right now. Whether -- whether this could have been prevented, if that disclosure was vetted out, that's what they'll be looking into. But unfortunately, we're looking at these events, and it's always, you know, what could we do to have prevented it. It's always after it happened.

I think we need to take a broader view. You're talking about the disclosures, how that's vetted. How much do -- do we take someone's word for what's put on those applications, and what can be be done to prevent someone like that from getting firearms. And what can be done to prevent someone from driving a truck into a bike path?

I mean, these things are happening, and then we figure out what to do to prevent it, but it's always after. We need to take a much broader perspective now at all the way people can do these things and what can be done maybe to prevent them to begin with.

CUOMO: And look, you do have a little bit of a mystery in this in terms of what Ed Lavandera laid out about why this man come to this little town to do this. He's not from here. And that's going to be part of the intrigue. But it's only so satisfying, James, because you know, really, you wind up where the president is on this.

[06:10:14] It's not about guns, we with talk about guns but not right now. We know that the idea of not talking about it now, if you don't talk about it in the moment about why these things happen, what it speaks to about us as a culture, because let's be honest: you don't see this other places in the world the way you see it here. You just don't.

You can look at the numbers. I've had way too much firsthand experience. Lots of bad things happen in the world. This is something that's almost uniquely American in terms of its frequency. And then he also checked the box of mental health, which is probably not going to be far off the mark in analyzing where this guy was; was he spiraling downwards. But again, we have a system that doesn't account for that problem.

GAGLIANO: Yes, Chris. I mean, the Second Amendment's been around since 1791. You know, I'm prior law enforcement, as Jeff is. We're firm believers in its utility. However, this has got to stop.

And I think a big problem with this is just some of the incredibly just insane loopholes that there are. In many states, if you have a firearm and it is stolen, you are not compelled to report it.

So the police and law enforcement can't even track it to know that that firearm is obviously in the hand of someone that shouldn't have it.

And secondly, Chris, for many, many years, you know, 40, 50 years ago. The way it was with separate states and their DMVs, their Department of Motor Vehicles. If you had 50 speeding tickets in one state, all you did was cross the border, and you had a clean record. We were able to start linking DMV. How in 2017, the 21st Century, can we not have these things linked

together? Mental health issues, as well as whether or not somebody got a bad conduct discharge for assaulting his wife and child and spent a year in the brig. Chris, it's insane.

CUOMO: Well, look, it's at a minimum inefficient. And I've tried to attach some kind of emotional significance to that, but that's really the word. The system doesn't always work the way it needs to. That's something that has to be addressed. We get it. Politically, people will say don't talk about it right now.

But what do you say to these families? What do you say to this community? "Yes, it's a problem. It happens"? The way we heard from law enforcement here. Don't say this should have never happened, because it does happen. Of course it happens. That's the dilemma that we're in, is that it keeps happening. We seem to be powerless to stop it.

People in church, listening to the gospel and here they are mowed down by a man who wasn't even from here. At the end of the day, does it even matter? We've never seen a community affected like this, and let's try to understand their pain and what they're going to need from the rest of us going forward.

Our next guest, unfortunately, knew many of the victims in that church, including the pastor's 14-year-old daughter, whose name was Annabelle Pomeroy. She was killed there, just attending service. Her name is Gloria Rodriguez Ximenez, and she's going to come in and join me. We're getting her miked up right now.

And again, please try to wrap your head around the scale of what we're dealing with right here, right now, which is you got 500 people maybe in this town. You had almost 50 affected by the shooting. It's one in every ten people. So when Ms. Ximenez is ready to come on, it will be good to go and talk to her about what this means.

I want to show you where we are in terms of this. Let's be honest with one another here. Of course we have to talk about this right now. We see the proof of that from what we lived through in Las Vegas. We knew the bump stock was relevant to that. We knew it was something to be discussed. We kind of get pushed off it by the emotional urgency of the situation. You haven't heard of word of it since.

Look at the numbers. Please, put up the graphic. There it is. Las Vegas. New York City. I know that was terror, but just try to keep your head in the same place of why people are motivated to kill in a way that we don't see in other places in this world. And then of course, what we just lived through here, the worst we've ever seen in a church. An odd distinction to have to draw but meaningful in terms of this.

Gloria, thank you. I can't imagine what it is like for you to be living through this in such a small place where people know each other so well. I'm sorry to meet you under these circumstances.

GLORIA RODRIGUEZ XIMENEZ, KNEW VICTIMS OF CHURCH SHOOTING: I know. Thank you.

CUOMO: What can you tell us about how the community is holding it together right now?

XIMENEZ: They're in pain, hurting for all the victims, the families. There's no words to describe what everybody's going through. It's been -- you think you're safe in the house of the Lord, but the devil never rests. He's everywhere destroying lives. Who would have ever thought? That's the safest place to be, and look what happened.

[06:15:06] We're never sure of anything. And it can happen anywhere at any time, but we never, never in our lives thought that it would happen in a small community like ours. You hear about San Antonio, Austin, other big cities but never in a small town. And it hurts. The pain is there. The hurt is there. And like I said, there's no words for all these families, what they're going through.

CUOMO: And those aren't just names and a vague familiarity for you. You knew people who were in there attending service?

XIMENEZ: Yes, I did. I was born and raised here all my life. And my family, the Morales family, we're all Baptists; we're all Christians. We all know everybody. Sure, there's new members that I don't even know. I was not a member of the church. When I got married, I moved on to Floresville (ph), and I got me a church in Floresville, but these are my roots. Like I said, we were born here and raised here, know everybody, grew up with everybody. And I met Pastor Frank through my mother. And I mean, he's just a man of God.

CUOMO: Now, he and his wife weren't actually at services yesterday, but one of their kids were. Their 14-year-old daughter was there.

XIMENEZ: Exactly.

CUOMO: How are they dealing with the news? I mean, I saw the statement that the mother put out about it, and the pastor saying she was a very beautiful, special child. But for them to have lost their kid in their own church during service, how are they holding up?

XIMENEZ: I haven't talked to them. I've heard that they're coping with this the best they can. But I heard they just came in last night. So to have to come in and face something like this, I can't even imagine.

CUOMO: What do you tell yourself about why?

XIMENEZ: I asked that question all all night long. Why? Why did this happen in our small community? But only God has the answers. We don't.

CUOMO: What are we supposed to do in a time like this, do you think?

XIMENEZ: We need to get stronger and pray. And I mean, pray. So much violence, so much hate all around. It's time that we all get united and get closer to God and pray. Unity. There's too much hate in this world, and there's no room for hate. CUOMO: I've heard that you said that. And, look, that's hopefully

true, but every time one of these happens, I've never seen anything like this where it was at a house of worship. The town is so small, so as a percentage this was so hugely impactful.

XIMENEZ: Exactly.

CUOMO: And we get drawn to this conversation of what is wrong with us here, because America, I think, makes a strong case it's the best place in the world. This doesn't happen in other places like it happens here. And this doesn't happen all the time, and it's not a huge slice of our overall gun crime. That's true, too.

But when you raise questions about, well, should this guy have gotten these weapons, what was in his head and in his heart? Should people have moved in on this guy and been able to help him if it turns out he was depraved, as the president says, and descending into some kind of madness? Should that system change? How about when people say, "How dare you? How dare you do that? Think of the victims."

But in my head, having been around so many of you, you want those answers more than anybody else.

XIMENEZ: Exactly.

CUOMO: Because you're the one who's -- you are the one who was just affected by it. For so many who are watching this morning, they're just questions of curiosity, you know? They mean something on that level.

But to you, when I meet these families, I see in their eyes, they want to understand how this happens in this kind of world. They want those answers, too. What do you think? What should we do? Not in terms of, like, what's the policy? That's not what we're here to figure out. But are we right to be asking about it? Are we right to be pushing, even if it's difficult, even if it's painful.

XIMENEZ: We have a right to ask. We'll never get the correct answers, but we do ask. I'm sure everybody's asking why, why in a small town, why? And then I say why not? It can happen anywhere. But why in the house of the Lord, of all places.

CUOMO: Why did he come here? He's not even from here.

XIMENEZ: I've never even heard of the name. I've never seen him. I don't know anything about him, where he came from. Somebody knows. Somebody has to know, because why would he come back to this small town? Why did he choose this town?

[06:20:00] CUOMO: And they'll get their answers. They'll get the answers, but that doesn't mean that it makes it less likely the next time.

XIMENEZ: No. CUOMO: And I was looking at the -- I'll let you go. I don't want to put you through this all morning. I know you've got to live your life and help the people who matter more.

But you know, on the gospel calendar yesterday, should have been Matthew readings and it's, you know, Jesus talking about practicing what you preach. And it's -- you have to bend over and do the week, and you know, sometimes you wonder if that message was out there at this time for a reason. That you practice what you preach. You say that we have to give prayers and love and hope to the people who are -- maybe you do something to act on that Maybe you do something more than just say it.

XIMENEZ: Right.

CUOMO: I don't know. We'll see what comes of it, but you can never bring them back. That's for sure.

XIMENEZ: And there is a message. Every time there's some answers, that we read the Bible. God's talking to us, and it's for us to take it. It's a message he's talking to us. Whether we take it or not, that's up to us.

CUOMO: Well, look, hopefully, this stays right now. This community is God-fearing, and they just had the fear of God put in them by a very, as the president says, deranged man. We will keep asking questions. We'll try to find out what happened. Let us know what we can do to help.

XIMENEZ: Thank you so much.

CUOMO: Thank you for being with us this morning.

XIMENEZ: Thank you.

CUOMO: And Alisyn, ahead on the show, we're going to be fortunate to have the governor, who came out here very quickly, Governor Greg Abbott, to talk about this. Very difficult, very painful. But again, you know, that gospel reading, sometimes there is a larger message.

And the idea of practicing what you preach, everybody's heart and mind is going to be here in this small Texas town today. But what do you do with that? What does change? How do you help?

The really tough questions, we have not come up with good answers, but now we're presented with another horrible opportunity to think about it and act on it. And we'll see what happens. And it will be good to have the governor, to get his take on what it all means.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Chris, it's so good to have you there at the scene to have this conversation with all of the people who are most affected and obviously who will be having that conversation with the policy makers and the lawmakers today about what's next. So thank you very much. We'll be back with you very shortly.

Meanwhile, President Trump said that he's monitoring the Texas church massacre while on his five-nation Asia trip. At the moment, he's finishing up his visit to Japan with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, where North Korea was the big topic of discussion.

CNN's senior White House correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, is traveling with the president. He joins us now from Tokyo. Give us the latest, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

As the president is embarking on a 12-day trip across Asia as you said, it is that news from Texas that is impacting and overshadowing some of his visit. The White House said he is not going to adjust his schedule as he's hearing updates of the investigation, trying to stay focused on the issue at hand here in Japan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The era of strategic patience is over.

ZELENY: President Trump delivering a stern message to North Korea.

TRUMP: Some people said that my rhetoric is very strong. But look what's happened with very weak rhetoric over the last 25 years. Look where we are right now.

ZELENY: Defending his fiery threats against Kim Jong-un as he opened a diplomatic marathon through Asian capitals, anxious over Pyongyang's nuclear threat. The president trying to sell Japan on the plan to bolster its self-defenses.

TRUMP: He will shoot them out of the sky when he completes the purchase of lots of additional military equipment from the United States.

ZELENY: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreeing, saying it's not time for talks with North Korea, instead announcing a new plan for sanctions against the rogue regime.

After meeting the families of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents, President Trump expressed hope the standoff can end peacefully.

TRUMP: They would send them back. I think would be the start of something, I think would be just very special.

ZELENY: Amid somber themes, the two leaders also managed to look upbeat. They lunched on hamburgers, played nine holes of golf, and fed koi fish at the Akasaka Palace. Despite the friendly photo ops, though, Signs of tensions emerged over trade, Mr. Trump insisting any deal with Japan be free, fair and reciprocal.

TRUMP: We built one of the world's most powerful economies. I don't know if it's as good as ours. I think not. OK? And we're going to try to keep it that way, but you'll be second. ZELENY: President Trump heads next to Seoul, 35 miles from the North

Korean border. He will also stop in China, at Vietnam and the Philippines. The president is touring the continent as he faces record low approval ratings back home. A new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll shows nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of how he's handling the presidency.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:25:05] ZELENY: So the president right now this evening here in Tokyo is at a state banquet with the Japanese prime minister. But it is another meeting later this week, Alisyn, that we do have our eye on. The president said over the weekend that he does intend to meet one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week in Vietnam at an economic summit there.

Of course, that is likely to bring many headlines and interesting discussion, as well, because so many people in his administration, so many Republicans attached to his campaign, still consumed and worried about that Russian investigation here. So that is one of the many things that is competing with the attention here to his first visit as president to this region -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Jeff, thank you very much for all of your reporting. We'll check back throughout the program.

Let's bring in our CNN political analysts. We have John Avlon and Karoun Demirjian to talk about everything that has talked happened in the last 24 hours.

Let's talk with the horrible attack in Sutherland Springs, Texas. John, the president gave his snap judgment on what he thinks was behind this attack. Police say that they, obviously, are at the very preliminary stages of this investigation. But the president had sized it up. And so let me play that for both of you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think that mental health is your problem here. This was a very -- based on preliminary reports, very deranged individual, a lot of problems over a long period of time.

We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries, but this isn't a guns situation. I mean, we could go into it, but it's a little bit soon to go into it. But fortunately, somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction. Otherwise, it would have been -- as bad as it was, it would have been much worse. But this is a mental health problem at the highest level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So I guess that means what, John? This is a mental health problem; we just live with it? This is our new normal?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There will be some folks who de facto argue that. There will be some folks who say we need to increase funding for mental health issue. But obviously, this is a mental health plus access to guns issue.

The president speaking in Japan. Japan had one gun death last year. Let me say that again. Japan had one gun death last year. We've had 60 "X" that multiple in four weeks. This is an American issue because of our gun laws, and even when members of law enforcement are saying we've got a problem, even when there's strong support of the Second Amendment, to deflect that, to deny that is politics at its worst, and it's an abdication of moral leadership.

CAMEROTA: I mean, it's so irresponsible that we can never talk about it, Karoun. Now is never a good time to talk about it. And when we talk about it, we have to just focus on mental health. You know, heaven forbid we talk about guns.

Contrast this to the president's reaction after the madman mowed down eight innocent people on the bike path. Within hours, in less than 24 hours, he didn't talk about that as being a mental health issue. He had a policy change. She suggested getting rid of the diversity lottery program by which that guy entered. Why the difference?

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, this is not the policy agenda that the president is projecting. The other one does not. You have not seen the president be very strong out there on gun control. You have seen him take various steps over the various months of his presidency to limit immigration to this country.

And so one is a convenient fit. The other one is not a convenient fit. And you know, he's not unique in -- in lawmakers and various politicians that are saying, you know, we don't want to talk about gun control. I think the Las Vegas shooting was actually an aberration in that people were so shocked by the bump stocks, that issue, people were caught off guard. It was actually an open discussion we're willing to have. But it's not a closed discussion.

The other thing I would also...

CAMEROTA: Just one question, bump stocks, everybody agreed. That's that. That turns a horrible situation into a killing field and an even bigger massacre. So it's been 35 days. What's happened to bump stocks?

DEMIRJIAN: Exactly. That's the right question, because we have not -- that conversation has not resolved in any sort of legislation or any sort of change. And still -- in a way, we're almost kind of going a little bit backwards from that point. Because that was a point at which you might have actually been able to have Republican-Democrat support around this one thing, which you may have created some momentum. Maybe not. Who knows? Maybe it would have just solved one problem.

Instead, we're going back to a place where we're talking about mental health very generally right now. And we could talk about the discharge this guy received. We could talk about domestic battery. We could be very much more specific than just mental health. So it's kind of like pulling back and smoothing it over again. And that's -- that's what... AVLON: But I think the important point is in the wake of Las Vegas, we did have consensus among Democrats and Republicans about this one narrow issue, bump stock.

CAMEROTA: Then what happened?

AVLON: Nothing. Why? Because people hope you forget. The lobbyists hope you forget. The people who are afraid of the base, who bought into the absolutism, hope you forget. And we forget, and so nothing gets done.

CAMEROTA: We have forgotten a lot. In fact, that's what Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, had talked about. He put out this statement after the Texas mass shooting: "My heart breaks for Sutherland Springs, just like it still does for Las Vegas, and Orlando, and Charleston, and Aurora, and Blacksburg, and Newtown.