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State of the Union

Brown University Shooting; Terror Attack in Australia; Interview With Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA); Interview With Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired December 14, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is waking up to a very sad reality, two tragic scenes.

The latest, at least 11 people are dead, 29 more hospitalized after gunmen opened fire at a Jewish event in Bondi Beach in Australia. Officials call it a targeted terrorist attack on Australia's Jewish community. There were at least two suspects.

New video shows a bystander confronting one of the gunmen and wrestling a weapon from him. We know one of the suspects was killed. Another is in custody. Officers are investigating if a third suspect was involved in this attack.

This is the tragic scene that happened at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday. Police say they have a person of interest in custody after a deadly shooting on that campus, two students killed there, another nine injured after a masked gunman opened fire on the Ivy League campus during final exam review session.

CNN's Brian Todd is in Providence, Rhode Island, near a hotel where the person of interest was taken into custody.

A lot unfolding in the past hour. Get us up to speed.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Dana, a real flurry of law enforcement activity here in the overnight and early morning hours this morning.

I can confirm that the person in custody that Providence authorities announced that they have -- this person of interest that they have in custody this morning is the same person who was apprehended here at this hotel in the Providence area, that a member of our team witnessed the law enforcement convergence on that person's room this morning.

I can also tell you a little bit more detail about just what unfolded at in the 3:00 a.m. hour this morning. A member of our team witnessed a heavy police presence here. This person saw at least 20 FBI, U.S. Marshals and local police converge on this room.

One of the officials said it was connected to the incident and did -- later confirmed -- we did later confirm, of course, that this person was the same person who is now in custody. I did ask an FBI official earlier whether a weapon was recovered in the room. This person said he could not discuss that they said.

They still have a search warrant that they have yet to issue -- yet to execute, rather, in this room. Some additional color from this morning and from when these law enforcement officers got here, they could be heard saying "Open up" at the person's door, heard saying -- quote -- "We have a warrant for your apartment and we're taking you out back to the cruiser."

That's what a member of our team heard law enforcement saying. This was only a mere feet away from where a member of our team was at the time that this happened, Dana. So it was a real flurry of intense law enforcement activity, resulting in, we know now, the apprehension of the same person who is in custody as a person of interest in this case.

BASH: Brian, thank you so much for that reporting, really, as officials there said they are breathing a big sigh of relief. Thank you very, very much.

Here with me now is someone all too familiar with mass shootings like this, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, elected to the Senate just weeks before the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which was 13 years ago today, Senator.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Today, yes.

BASH: Just as you see what's happening in Rhode Island, not too far from your home state of Connecticut, your reaction.

MURPHY: Yes, I mean, what I think about when one of these mass shootings happens is that community in Sandy Hook.

Those parents when they see these images on television are always having to relive the horror of that day. And, of course, it's especially tragic, given that we are marking 13 years since that shooting.

What I know is that a community never, ever recovers from a shooting like this. And the trauma and the cost is not just in the lives lost. Obviously, we are mourning most deeply for those that were killed, those that were wounded, hoping that there are no more fatalities.

But that community in Providence won't recover. Those kids who are returning to campus are going to be looking over their shoulder, wondering whether they are going to survive their next day in class, as kids all across America do every single day that they show up in their classroom, wondering whether they someday are going to have to flee for their lives. [09:05:16]

We think maybe at least two of the kids at this shooting had already survived a previous shooting when they were in elementary and secondary school. That is just not a reality that we should accept in this nation for our kids.

Unfortunately, right now, we don't have the leadership in Washington to do anything, anything to respond to the shooting this weekend.

BASH: Yes. Well, we haven't had the wherewithal to do anything in Washington, I mean, we did a little bit a few years ago, but of means for years and years and years.

But having said that, Rhode Island has some pretty strict gun laws. They have universal background checks, red flag laws, waiting periods to purchase a gun. So this is about, and we have talked about this, much more than gun violence. It is gun violence, but the laws that we have, could be stronger, but they're stronger than other places in Rhode Island.

MURPHY: Well, but the laws do make a difference. I mean, if you look at states like Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California that have stronger laws, we have gun violence rates, murder rates, mass shooting rates that are two to three to four times lower than states that have loose gun laws.

And many of the weapons that are used in our states for gun crimes come to our states from those states that have an ability for criminals and people with serious mental illness to buy weapons. So what we know is that stronger laws do work. And since we passed that bill in 2022, the first bill in 30 years that strengthens the nation's gun laws, gun violence rates and mass shooting rates have come down in this country.

But this is not shocking because, over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country. He is restoring gun rights to felons and people who have lost their ability to buy guns. He eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection, and he has stopped funding mental health grants and community anti-gun violence grants that Republicans and Democrats supported in that 2022 bill.

So he has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely in this country. And I think you're, unfortunately, going to see the results of that on the streets of America.

BASH: That's a pretty big statement. He's in a campaign to make violence more likely?

MURPHY: Of course. I mean, he's knowingly restoring gun rights to dangerous people. He is cutting off grants that have bipartisan support to try to interrupt violence in our cities or to try to get necessary mental health resources to families and children in need. The evidence tells you that, when you stop funding mental health, when

you stop funding community anti-gun violence programs, when you give gun rights back to dangerous people, you are going to have an increase in violence. That is knowable and that is foreseeable.

BASH: This is probably a question I know the answer to, but I have to ask it anyway. There is the climate and then -- in Washington, and then there is the reality of the conversations I know you and your colleagues have across party lines on Capitol Hill.

And it did happen when you worked with John Cornyn, the Republican, and others to make that narrow bill happen a few years ago. Do you think that there is any appetite for any discussion right now?

MURPHY: I mean, of course I will try. And a month or two before we passed that bill in 2022, people would have said, no way, there is no way Democrats and Republicans can come together.

But after Uvalde, things changed. And we were able to get a narrow, but important agreement. So I will never stop trying to get bipartisan support. But I think it is pretty clear that President Trump and this White House are in the pocket of the gun lobby. I just don't foresee that this White House is going to support anything that would cross the gun industry.

And, as we know right now, unfortunately, the Republicans in Congress don't ever meaningfully break from this president. So until they get the OK from President Trump to break with the gun lobby, I think the chances of us getting something done are slim. That doesn't mean I won't try.

BASH: Can we talk about the other aspect? We don't -- just want to be clear. We don't know anything about the shooter. We don't know the motive. We don't know specifically the age or anything.

But another thing that you have talked extensively about is the epidemic of loneliness and the problems that, in addition to the epidemic of having too many -- from your perspective, too many guns on the street, have this cocktail of violence.

MURPHY: Yes, listen, I do think it's important to understand that we have an epidemic in this country of young men who are going through some deep, deep issues that end up taking out their anger in mass violence.

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We have a broader loneliness epidemic in this country. And what we know when we look at these shooters is that they tend to all follow the same pattern. They have some break with their community, with their peers, and they start to withdraw into a life of isolation.

And so that's why, in that bill in 2022, we put billions of dollars into the kind of support services that would recognize especially these young men before it's too late and wrap around the kind of services for them that could make a difference. That's why it's so tragic that President Trump shut down that grant

program as one of the first things he did in his second term. So, yes, we have to acknowledge that the most important thing is to stop that brain that is breaking from getting access to a weapon, but we should also be putting services around those kids, especially those young men who are retreating into that life of isolation.

And it's just a lot harder to do that now, since the president has, I think illegally, stopped funding the bipartisan commitment we made to try to help those young people in crisis.

BASH: Is there anything that you can do? I mean, I know that there are lawsuits and so forth to try to get that funding back up and running.

MURPHY: Well, I do wish that Republicans would stand up to the president on this issue. That wasn't the controversial part of our bill. I think, if that bill was just funding for mental health and community anti-gun violence programs, we might have gotten 90 votes for it.

So, maybe, in the wake of this shooting, maybe as we learn more about this shooter, we will get a handful of Republicans in the Senate or the House, maybe the ones that voted for that bill, to say to President Trump, restore the money for at least the programs in that bill. That would make a difference.

BASH: So, just to go back to where we started, another New England town is devastated by this violence. And, again, it is 13 years after Sandy Hook.

You must just be exhausted. I mean, I think the country is exhausted.

MURPHY: Yes, I think the country is exhausted. I think our kids are exhausted.

And I do think it's important to remember that it is a little dangerous to view this crisis only through the prism of these mass shootings. Yes, there is something different about kids being targeted in a college or in a school classroom.

But I live in the south end of Hartford. And when I talk to kids in that neighborhood, for them, the school is the safe place. What they fear is the walk to and from school. My neighborhood has thousands of kids, but you rarely ever see them out in the streets, because their parents and grandparents who take care of them don't let them out of the house ever.

And so what we need to understand is that this choice we have made in this nation to subject our kids to daily exposure to violence is not just about what happens inside the school. For many kids in our violent urban neighborhoods, it's about the trauma that is breaking their brains, that is causing them to be unable to learn, because, every single day, they are fearing for their lives.

And every month, they have a friend, a cousin, somebody they know that is gunned down in the street. So, it is just important for us, especially on a day like today, when we're thinking about mass shootings, to remember that there are kids in this country who are facing that risk of daily street violence every single day.

BASH: Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for being here.

MURPHY: Thank you.

BASH: Sorry we ended up talking about something that we had not planned.

MURPHY: It's important.

BASH: But it is important.

MURPHY: Thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

And we are continuing to monitor the two tragedies this morning in Australia and here in the U.S. at Brown University. Coming up, we'll break down what we know about where both those investigations stand.

Stay with us.

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BASH: We're tracking the latest in the investigation into the Brown University shooting after officials said they have detained a person of interest.

I want to bring in our law enforcement experts now, CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller and CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.

Thank you so much to both of you for being here.

John, I'm going to start with you. A person of interest in custody, turn that into English. What does that mean for us and those of us watching to know whether or not we really think that they've got this guy?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, I think it's a very strong lead.

Something picked up the pace of this investigation in the early hours of the morning that drove them to this hotel in Coventry to that particular room to take that person into custody. They didn't sit him down in the room and interview him there and ask him questions. They pulled him out.

They're awaiting a search warrant for that room and they took him down, and he is in custody. Now, he is not charged. Being a person of interest is slightly different, in that their investigation is continuing, but he's also not free to go. I mean, technically, in the legal sense, he's under arrest. So this is a very significant development.

What brought them there? This is the part that we don't know, but we also know their approach to the case, which is, let's release this video. You can't see his face. You can't see his features. You can't see anything, but a guy who's got one hand in his pocket and another hand by his side walking briskly away from the shooting scene.

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On the other hand, that could be the piece that generated the lead. For instance, if you were a clerk at that hotel and say, you know, a guy checked in here yesterday, but when he left this afternoon, that was what he was wearing, or, when I checked our cameras, I saw him, you know, getting out of the car wearing that same similar outfit, that could have been the beginning of a tip.

We know just a little bit about him, the date of birth, a name, but we don't know anything about his connection to Brown University, about his motive, if he is in fact the person responsible for this attack, so a lot to come.

BASH: Juliette, you happen to be in Rhode Island. You have a home there. What are your questions right now?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, as I was saying earlier, it's a small state. I mean, you're sort of 20 minutes away from everything. So it's a very tight knit community. Everyone does actually seem to be one degree away from each other.

That means that the this is -- this has sort of happened to the whole state. It wasn't just a university. It wasn't just Providence. And the questions -- and for that reason, the questions I have based on the evidence we know now, really revolve around the motive.

As John was saying, the person stayed in Rhode Island. Brown is right near I-95. If the person lived somewhere else or had connections out of state, it would have been easy to get out of the state right after the shooting. So -- but he stayed in state. He's about 12 -- Coventry is about 12 miles from where I am right now.

And so what are the ties to Brown, if any, or to that community, if any, as regards the motive? Or is this something about a radicalization, a violent radicalization, that we just don't -- aren't privy to yet in terms of why he would target a university?

The data we have now is inconclusive in that regard, although entering a university room on a Saturday and knowing that it's filled with students, which is not common, either he knew it or it was just convenient to enter at that stage. So that's what we're looking at or what needs to be answered.

I mean, the second is obviously, this is a university in the middle of final. Students are leaving. It's got an international student body. Parents are concerned. I am the daughter -- I am the parent of an alumni. They have to communicate, as they are, and figure out what recovery means for a university like this, which has never experienced anything like this.

BASH: Speaking about a community that hasn't experienced anything like this, I want to go now around the world, John, and talk about what's happening on Bondi Beach, the terror attack on a Jewish community celebrating the first night of Hanukkah.

What do you make of what we know so far about the intent, and the motive seems pretty clear, but the way that it was carried out?

MILLER: Well, this is part of this pattern we have seen across the world, whether it is the attack in Russia, attacks in Afghanistan, plots to have attacks against targets in the United States.

(COUGHING)

MILLER: Excuse me.

But we still have groups like ISIS and al Qaeda who are pushing propaganda asking for that lone wolf factor, one or two people who can get together with a simply based attack. In this case, you have two individuals with guns. You have cars recovered at the scene that have multiple IEDs in the back.

So we don't know if they had intended to either bring this attack to a different level or go to another location before they were stopped. But this is the power of -- most likely, the power of propaganda and antisemitism.

BASH: Juliette?

Yes.

KAYYEM: Yes, absolutely right. I mean, this is there is no question this is a terrorism incident, an antisemitic incident. The reality, you don't you don't need to look for links. It's a Hanukkah celebration on a beach.

And one interesting aspect of this, as we're showing on air right now, look, I mean, with gun violence, there's just growing evidence -- I wouldn't ask anyone to do this, but trying to distract or interrupt a shooter can be successful.

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This person who basically just approached the terrorist from behind is clearly responsible for saving lots of lives. My understanding is, he got injured or shot in the process. And so it also shows how people are also responding to gun violence.

BASH: Yes.

John and Juliette, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Stay with us. Our breaking news coverage will continue. We're going to

go live to Sydney, Australia, where the Jewish community is reeling after two gunmen targeted that Hanukkah event.

Stay with us.

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BASH: And we're back with an intense scene unfolding in Australia. At least 11 killed, 29 injured in a terror attack at Sydney's Bondi Beach. Hundreds were gathered to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah.

I want to bring back CNN's Angus Watson. He is in Sydney.

Angus, there was a heroic bystander who almost certainly prevented what was horrible from being even worse.

ANGUS WATSON, CNN PRODUCER: That's right, Dana, some extraordinary footage that we're seeing of this bystander tackling one of the gunmen, removing that gun from him and then using it to defend the community here, a community that has been shattered today by the deaths of 11 people in a terror incident, a terrorist attack against the Jewish community here in Sydney, Australia, and here in Bondi, which is a hub for the Jewish community.

The Jewish community is very visible here, very proud. There are synagogues, several synagogues a walk from here. This is a calculated attack against them. And it has resulted in the deaths of 11 innocent people, 29 more taken to hospital by ambulance, and then more people have presented to hospitals themselves with injuries after this horrific event here at Bondi Beach, where two gunmen open fire on an event where people were celebrating the first night of Hanukkah.

Hanukkah by the Sea, it was called. You cannot think of anything more innocent than that -- Dana.

BASH: Angus, thank you so much for your reporting. Really appreciate it.

I want to bring in now Alex Ryvchin. He is the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

Alex, thank you so much for being here.

ALEX RYVCHIN, CO-CEO, EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIAN JEWRY: Thank you.

BASH: Can you just describe what you are hearing from your friends who were there at the beach?

RYVCHIN: Well, the first I heard was from actually one of my colleagues who works in our media department. He's a very dear friend of mine, and we were supposed to attend the event together. And he called me and he showed me shrapnel and gunshot wounds that

he'd suffered. And I was supposed to be at the event. I'm there every year. I speak on the stage next to the rabbi who was murdered. And, you know, I'm always there with my three daughters. It's one of the happiest days of the year.

You know, it's a family event. There's a petting zoo and face painting and a jumping castle and food stalls. It's one of the most joyous days of the calendar. And to think that people plotted to target this event, came there with automatic weapons, and massacred people in cold blood. I can't believe it.

And I can't believe the people who are dead, the rabbi, who was the most luminous, radiant, kind-hearted human being I have ever met. He -- this is a guy who visited people in jail and listened to their stories without judgment. This is a person who visited the elderly every day, drove long distances to bring them food packages and just sit with them and listen to their stories.

And he's been taken from us in cold blood, along with 10 other people. It's just devastating. I think it'll take a long time for us to recover from this.

BASH: Can we talk about the context in which this happened, the alarming rise and antisemitism around the world, but particularly where you are in Australia?

RYVCHIN: Look, in a way, this was the logical conclusion to what's been simmering in this country for two years.

At the start of the year in January, my former home was firebombed and targeted in an attack. There's been firebombings of synagogues and childcare centers. There have been over 2,000 incidents recorded in the last year. So, in a way, you look at it and the writing was on the wall.

This sort of thing was always bound to happen. But at the same time, we're not a country with a high level of gun crime. This is the most devastating mass murder of any sort, targeting anyone since the 1990s. This sort of thing just doesn't happen here.

And it's one thing to have persistent antisemitism, as we have had, but it's a huge leap to have a massacre on a beach at a Hanukkah lighting event. It's still beyond comprehension, but this is what we have become as a country.

And we as Australians like to view ourselves as being open and multicultural and peace-loving. But after a while, when this sort of thing happens, this marks our country. This defines our national character. This is no longer an aberration. This is part of who we are. And I think we have to come to terms with that.

BASH: I just want to go back to what you said. You said that your former house was firebombed?

[09:35:03] RYVCHIN: Yes. So this is on January 17 this year.

BASH: Were you living there at the time?

RYVCHIN: The vehicles in front of my house -- no, so we had moved out of the house about a year prior, but it was discovered that they believed that we still lived there and it was a targeted attack.

The cars that were in the driveway were dubbed with slogans like "Eff the Jews" and "Eff Israel." There were firebombs set on fire. There was a huge inferno in the street, which could have been devastating. It was devastating, but it could have been deadly as well.

So -- and it was one of about a dozen firebombs that targeted the Jewish community in Sydney and Melbourne over that period of time. Cars were set alight. A synagogue was burnt in Melbourne. A childcare center was burnt down a few days after my former home was targeted. And it was found that at least two of those attacks were orchestrated by the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, working in unison with organized crime here in Australia.

So, we have had a serious problem here. There's no question about that. But, again, to move from that to a massacre in cold blood of the sort that we saw on Bondi Beach, one of our most iconic destinations, it's just difficult to contemplate that this has transpired.

BASH: Do you feel that your leaders, elected leaders are taking antisemitism, and not just the threats, but the attacks that you're describing even before this massacre today, seriously?

RYVCHIN: I think it's self-evident that they haven't taken it seriously.

They have passed certain laws and they have given funding in certain areas, which is fine, but they have never understood exactly what we're dealing with here. They have never understood the menace of antisemitism, the psychosis that can take hold in societies, the obsession that people have with the hatred of the Jewish people.

It's not an ordinary form of racism. And I think that our elected leaders never fully grasped that. And they viewed supporting the Jewish community as coming with a political price perhaps. They viewed it as unpopular. And so they were always slow and reticent in their reactions.

And I think that that's created an environment where step by step things were degraded in this country. Our social harmony was eroded. And what was tolerated, the things that have been tolerated have become more and more extreme and severe. And now we are where we are.

So, I mean, the primary responsibility is with those who planned this, who carried this out, who incited it, but we look to our government to keep it safe, to set the tone, to lead. And, clearly, there's been a colossal failure of that.

BASH: Clearly, there has. Alex Ryvchin, thank you so much for being here. And I'm not sure why

you weren't at the beach, which you normally are, but thank goodness you weren't there.

RYVCHIN: Thank you.

BASH: And we are sending our loving condolences for the loss of the rabbi.

(CROSSTALK)

RYVCHIN: It was my daughter's best friend's bat mitzvah. That was the only reason that we weren't there. By the grace of God, we weren't there. But others weren't so lucky.

BASH: That is for sure. Thank you for being here.

RYVCHIN: Thank you.

BASH: Really appreciate it.

RYVCHIN: Thank you.

BASH: Coming up, we are going to go back to Brown University in Rhode Island, the tragedy there, the mass shooting epidemic plaguing America.

Senator Bill Cassidy will join me next on that and more.

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BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

We're tracking the deadly attack targeting the Jewish community at Australia's Bondi Beach, while Americans are waking up to a harrowing reality, another mass shooting targeting students, this time at Brown University.

Here with me now is Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, also the chair of the Senate Health Committee.

Thank you so much for being here, sir.

I do want to get your reaction to this tragic shooting in Providence.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): Yes, isn't it awful?

As a parent, as a grandfather, the fact that you would send your child off to school, they're in their finals, you're saying a prayer for their grades, and it turns out there's a shooting, and you're saying a prayer for their health and safety and sometimes in memoriam.

So we have to learn more. Dana, as you know, we don't know anything about it yet, except a man in his 30s apparently entered, presumably not a student at that age. We don't know for sure. But, again, everybody, in spirit, be with those parents, those grandparents, those students.

BASH: Senator, I want you to listen to something that Brown University sophomore Zoe Weissman told my colleague Jim Sciutto.

She said that she's now, because she's there, lived through her second school shooting because she grew up in Florida and witnessed the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOE WEISSMAN, STUDENT: I think that we have seen time and time again Congress has failed to show that they actually care about their constituents. And if they did, they would immediately pass comprehensive gun violence prevention bills.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Senator, what do you say to Zoe?

CASSIDY: I would say that, after the shooting in Texas and Uvalde, Congress passed the Safer Communities Act on a bipartisan basis that created many things that would address all the issues of which he speaks.

Now, if she's going to say, wait a second, we need gun control laws, there is the also shooting we just occurred in Australia, in which there are gun control laws, and yet this still occurred. Again, we don't know the facts of this, but in the Uvalde shooting, we addressed not just mental illness, but also background checks, also the girlfriend loophole, other things that would attempt to address this.

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And I would argue that, if the facts are known, you will see the Congress has acted.

BASH: Senator Murphy was just on here. And I know you voted for that legislation that you just talked about he worked on getting actually passed.

And he was saying that, yes, that is true that that has helped with the epidemic of gun violence in America, but that, since President Trump has taken office, he has made cuts to the funding that you actually put into law to help with mental health and other resources.

Can you do anything about that? Is there anything that you can or will do to try to claw back some of the money that you put in there and that was signed into law?

CASSIDY: I don't mean to demean what Senator Murphy said, but I do find that, if there's something bad that happens, the checklist is first blame President Trump. Let's find out what the facts are. Let's see what's actually going on.

As you noted, there is a decrease in gun violence. I will point out among the things we did was that -- allowed records to be unsealed for a minor so that, if there's a history of mental illness, a judge can order that that be looked at to see whether or not that child should -- now an adult, should be able to purchase a weapon.

Other things that are rather independent of funding and for -- under a court order, for the time to have a background check performed can be extended. So we did a lot of things which are quite independent of funding. They're just part of the system. Let's find out the facts before we go to the checklist of first blame President Trump.

BASH: Senator, we originally invited you on today to talk about health care.

So I do want to ask you a few questions about that, because, this week, we saw both Democrats and Republicans, the plans that they put on the Senate floor fail, including a plan -- the GOP plan was co- sponsored by you. And these plans were intended in various ways to try to help the fact that, at the end of this calendar year, the help to pay for Obamacare premiums will go away.

There are just four legislative days left until those subsidies expire. Now what?

CASSIDY: Yes.

So, first, we have to focus on affordability. Republicans are pointing out that, if somebody gets a policy with a $6,000 deductible, that's effectively no policy. It brings profit to the insurance company, but not protection to the patient. So what can we do?

And, by the way, as a physician, I can tell you, patients come distraught. They cannot afford whatever you're ordering because their deductible is so high. That's the case of these policies. Republicans have pushed that we would put money in the patient's pocket, so that she has something to pay the out of pocket.

Democrats are saying, let's do something about premiums. I think, Dana, there is a deal that could be made. Why don't we do both? Let's go ahead and not give the profit to the insurance company, but the protection to the patient by giving them access to an account, a wallet, a purse, a pocketbook, if you will, that would have up to, pick your family, $1,000 to $5,000 to pay those initial expenses, but also do something on the premiums with maybe a temporary extension of the enhanced premium tax credits to address it for some, those who really have high expenses.

BASH: Do you think that...

CASSIDY: I think there's a deal that could be done.

BASH: You do? And do you think that the Republicans, the ones that you talk to, would go for anything that does extend the premium help? CASSIDY: It has to have reform to cut out the fraud. There's an

estimated billions of dollars in fraud the way the current system is currently constructed.

But if you address the fraud, and particularly address the fact that the premiums being pushed -- excuse me -- the policies being pushed have $6,000 deductibles -- again, it's more about profit for the insurance company than protection for the patient. If we do that, I think there could be interest in a short-term extension.

I think that could be the deal.

BASH: I just want to be clear, because time is really, really ticking here, four legislative days. People's premiums are going to spike by the end -- or after the end of the year. You say that you do have hope that you can help people before that happens, that there is a deal in the offing?

[09:50:00]

CASSIDY: Yes.

Well, I can't tell you it's in the offing. It's something that's being worked on because we have got to do something about affordability with -- again, health care is so important to a family. And we're talking about the Obamacare exchanges, which is only 6 percent of the total insurance market.

But it's an incredibly important 6 percent if you're in that 6 percent. And maybe we can do other things which help affordability across other areas, like employer-sponsored insurance. The first thing, though, is to diagnose the problem, speaking as a doctor.

And to diagnose the problem, you have got to address the issue of the out-of-pocket, which is so high for so many that they just cannot get the care they need. And after that, let's go to the premiums. I think, if we can meet halfway on that, we can find common ground, we can do both.

Yes, we have got four days, but some of this policy can be implemented over the course of the first quarter of 2026. For example, if you have money in your account, your health savings account, you save your receipts and you submit them. And then you get reimbursed. My wife does that with our account like that.

So let's put money in their pocket to pay the out-of-pocket that really addresses affordability and then help those who also have the higher premiums.

BASH: Well, listen, I like your optimism. That's certainly the way the Congress I started covering used to work. And let's hope that that happens, that there is some bipartisanship.

I really appreciate you being here. Next time, we will have a longer, more in-depth conversation about the health insurance and health care crisis in America. Thanks, Senator, Dr. Cassidy. Appreciate it. CASSIDY: Thank you.

BASH: And ahead: mourning the victims of America's latest mass shooting on the anniversary of the shooting that a lot of people hoped would finally end the epidemic.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:30]

BASH: Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, a celebration of joy and light.

It's what the Jewish community in Australia was doing on Bondi Beach when they were attacked by gunmen. But this holiday is also about perseverance, that community making clear that spirit will endure, even in the face of tragedy.

And here in the United States, 13 years ago today, 20 schoolchildren, six teachers were murdered at a shooting, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. It was a horrific day, one many people hoped would finally break the fever of school shootings in America.

And yet here we are, more than a decade later, another school shooting, more students killed. More terrified young people, an entire generation grown up under the shadow of gun violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT SMILEY (D), MAYOR OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND: We have a generation of kids who have done active shooter trainings. That was not something I had to do when I was a kid.

And we all -- I think, maybe intellectually, we knew it could happen anywhere, including here. But that's not the same as it happening in our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: It's hard to escape the conclusion that we are failing our children. The question now is, when will we, the adults, finally step up?

Much more on the breaking news this morning when we come back.