The NPR Politics Podcast - GOP Baseball Practice Shooting

Episode Date: June 15, 2017

A man armed with a rifle opened fire on a group of Republican members of Congress practicing for a baseball game in Alexandria, Virginia, wounding Lousiana Representative Steve Scalise, a lobbyist and a Capitol Police officer. Another congressman and a second police officer also suffered minor injuries. This episode: host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Geoff Bennett, and congressional correspondent Susan Davis. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's the NPR Politics Podcast, here to talk about a shooting that happened today at a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. Five people were wounded, two remain in critical condition, including Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana. The shooter was killed by police. We are taping this at 4.42 p.m. on Wednesday. We will discuss more when we come back for our regular Thursday Roundup episode tomorrow. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Jeff Bennett. I cover Congress. And I'm Susan Davis. I also

cover Congress. Yeah. And today covering Congress was different than many days covering Congress. And a shocking day. a day that I think really reverberated across the hill. The thing that struck out to me the most is just how deeply emotional lawmakers were in response to today's events. What do you mean by that? How many people broke down crying? Like you were just talking to people? Yeah, I mean, essentially, in every interview I did in the hallways today with members of Congress, all of them kind of started out the normal way, asking questions about the shooting. But when members were asked to reflect about the baseball game or their colleagues or what happened, just tears from everyone that I talked to. And it's just not it's just really rare to see members of Congress cry.

They just don't tend to really do that. So when they do, it's kind of jarring and sticks with you. Those Democrats and Republicans. Yeah. So when they do, it's kind of jarring and sticks with you. Those Democrats and Republicans? Yeah, people were really upset by it. And Jeff, you spent your entire day basically at the scene of the shooting, which is right around the corner from where you live? Right around the corner from where I live. I spend most of my Saturdays at that field because that's where I take my son, who's five years old, to soccer practice. And so I got pretty close to the scene, but people who lived nearby were telling me

that they could actually see bullet holes at the nearby YMCA and at the coffee shop across the street. And people should know that this neighborhood, it's in the Delray section of Alexandria. It's a bedroom community for Capitol Hill. It's about 10 miles from the White House. There are lots of congressional staffers, lots of journalists who happen to live there. It's not the kind of, and you hear this all the time when situations like this unfold, it's not the kind of place where you think that this would happen. And so that's what a lot of people who live in that neighborhood were saying. So, you know, shock here on the Hill and just a lot of sadness around that baseball field today.

I just want to walk through the timeline, what happened, and what we know at this moment. So at a few minutes past seven o'clock this morning, Republican members of Congress were out on the ball field at Eugene Simpson Park in Alexandria, Virginia. They were taking batting practice. The congressional baseball game is tomorrow night. So this was their last practice. The baseball game is held every year as a charity fundraiser and the Republicans play the Democrats. And then shots rang out at this practice field. And Alexandria Police Chief Michael Brown says police got calls of an active shooter at 7.09 a.m. They responded within three minutes. Local police and the Capitol Police,

who were already there on site, got into a shootout with the gunman. We now know that he was 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois. He was taken to a hospital and later died from his injuries. Among those who were shot on the field was House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, the number three Republican in Congress. He was hit in his hip and went into surgery earlier today, and we're told that he's in critical condition as we record. Arizona Senator Jeff Flake was there at practice this morning, and he spoke to NPR's Steve Inskeep by phone. Flake, at the time, was near home plate.

And all of a sudden we heard a loud, what sounded like a gunshot, very loud and very close, but weren't certain until the second one a few seconds later, and then just a full rally, and it was clear that there was a gunman. When you say a full rally, Senator, people have said there might have been more than 50 shots. Is that your impression as well? Oh, yeah. That would be, I think, an understatement. We dove for the dugout, those of us who were on the field still,

and Steve Scalise went down and dragged himself off of the infield into the outfield about 10 or 15 yards and was laying motionless out there. But there was gunfire going overhead, so I couldn't get out there. Another staff member with a leg wound who was shot in a field made it to the dugout and came in, and we got a belt and put pressure on his wound. I got a look at the gunman behind the backstop, and he had a line of sight into our dugout. I feared he was going to start firing into the dugout. So we finally got a, somebody said that the gunman was down, and that's when I ran out to Steve and applied pressure on the wound. You applied pressure on the wound because he was bleeding profusely, I would assume.

Yes, quite a bit. And we were out there for about 15 minutes, myself and another congressman. When you say the gunman was down, that's because there were Capitol Police protecting you? Yes, there were. They were firing from behind our dugout. And I didn't know initially if that was friendly fire or not we couldn't tell if there was another gunman and then i saw uh one of the capitol policemen and and he was firing just using our our dugout for cover um so there were there

were bullets going all around senator flake said that they've practiced at this field for years and in the lead up to the game they were out there almost every morning at 6 30 a.m. and Jeff you've seen them. I've seen them practicing. Yeah they've been practicing for weeks for this game happening tomorrow night. Yeah there was a Capitol Police security detail there at the field this morning because Steve Scalise was there. He came to practice and he's in house leadership and has a protective detail. Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama talked to CNN a bit about that particular detail. The Capitol security guy who had already been shot, who had helped take down the shooter, came limping over to us in the outfield, totally ignoring his own wounds, to check on the person he was primarily responsible for, as he's being a part of the House leadership team.

And I'll tell you, those two security details, those two Capitol Police officers, they showed incredible bravery. Two Capitol Police officers, they showed incredible bravery. Two Capitol Police officers were wounded. And guys, can we just sort of run through the names of everyone who was affected? Well, in addition to Scalise, there was also a staffer for Congressman Roger Williams of Texas. He's named Zachary Barth. He posted on Facebook shortly after the incident that he had been shot, but that he was OK. A lobbyist named Matt Micah.

He's a government relations director at Tyson Foods. And then the two Capitol Police officers you mentioned, Special Agent David Bailey and Special Agent Crystal Greiner. Mo Brooks says something that really stuck with me. He says that Scalise essentially did an army crawl for about 10 to 15 yards, a trail of blood behind him, trying to take cover, which is just, I mean, staggering. And then one of the other details that stuck with me is Congressman Jeff Duncan. He left practice early and said that he believes he spoke with the shooter, that he saw the shooter in the parking lot. The guy came up to him and said, are those Democrats or Republicans practicing?

And we said, the Republican team, he said, OK, thanks. And he sort of thought nothing of it. Thought nothing of it because, you know, there are people out there walking their dogs, people coming in, going in and out of the Y to exercise. You know, it's a pretty active neighborhood. Thought nothing of it. And they were all Republicans because they're the Republican team practicing. That's right. And Democrats were practicing in Washington and actually stopped to pray when they heard what happened to their Republican colleagues. It's also amazing because Republicans were just really fortunate that Steve Scalise was there in a way, because I don't know if most people realize this, but most members of Congress don't have security details. They go about their everyday lives like everybody else.

When they're back in the district, when they're here in Washington, of course, there's Capitol Police that protect the complex of the Capitol and the office buildings. But when they're out and about, they tend to be on their own. And the only reason that today was not a lot worse is because Steve Scalise was there on the field and he had a personal security detail. If he had not been there, it is likely that members of Congress would have been practicing without any security and it could have been an absolute horrifying scene. So I think there is also a profound outpouring today and gratitude towards the Capitol Police. And it was, you know, Steve Scalise, as you said, Tam, he's the number three Republican in the House. But that position didn't always have a security detail. The security details for members of Congress used to just be for the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tem of the Senate because they're in the line of succession to the presidency.

After 9-11, they expanded those security details. So now it's the senior members of leadership in both parties now have security details. But for the whip, it's only really been in place for about the past 15 years. And so the thing I keep wondering about, and you might know the answer to this, why hadn't anything changed in terms of security protocols after the shooting of Gabby Giffords? And let's just say that Gabby Giffords is the congresswoman who was in Arizona doing a Congress on Your Corner event in a grocery store parking lot and a gunman opened fire and killed, I think, six people. Gabby Giffords was gravely injured. It's a good question. And in some ways, I do think they did change.

I think it's important to know that the Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms, which is the officer that oversees the Capitol Police and is responsible for the protection, not only of the Capitol complex, but of lawmakers. They do provide consulting and security to individual lawmakers as needed. They will consult with them on how to keep their home safe, how to keep their district offices safe. If there's threats at a particular member, for time being, individual members can get security details if it's event specific. Members can always request Capitol Police if they're having an event and want to have more security there, and Capitol Police will respond. It is a fairly large police force. It's larger than some cities' police forces.

But you have to remember that most members of Congress don't want security details. It's a point of pride for a lot of House members. You know, they refer to it as the people's house, that they want to be close to their constituents. They want you to be able to come up to them in the grocery store. Like Gabby Giffords, she was at a constituent event where she was meeting kids and constituents. You can shake their hand. You can touch them. You can tell them you're angry at them.

You can tell them not to vote for something. So I think that there is just a cultural and an institutional desire to not put many layers of protection between you and the people you're trying to represent. That, as we saw today, comes with its own risks. Yeah. To your point, Rand Paul said that had Scalise not been there, it would have been a far more tragic situation. Yeah. I think members also, when I was saying how they were upset they were, I think there was an element of where this was. You know, everything is so partisan and often nasty and just the vitriol and just the political climate isn't great. I don't think anybody would dispute that. And the congressional

baseball game is still one of these like few events that all of the environment around it is friendship. It's bipartisan. It's friendly trash talk on the field. I mean, there's just a lot of goodwill around this event. And most members of Congress, if they're not playing in it, they go. Leadership often goes. It raises money for charity. I mean, it's just kind of a feel good event. And so when even things like that are attacked and undermined, I think it really shakes people. I mean, these were just a bunch of guys in gym shorts out having baseball practice as they do basically every day in the period leading up to the ballgame. And Texas Congressman Joe Barton, who's actually the manager of the Republican congressional baseball team, wore his uniform

back to Capitol Hill when he left the field as members gathered on the House floor. I want to go to that moment on the House floor. But first, let's hear from President Trump. You know, this is one of those moments in our country where people want to hear from the president of the United States. And President Trump at 1130 in the morning went to the diplomatic room in the White House and delivered this statement. Let's hear a little bit of it. Congressman Scalise is a friend and a very good friend. He's a patriot and he's a fighter. He will recover from this assault.

And Steve, I want you to know that you have the prayers not only of the entire city behind you, but of an entire nation and, frankly, the entire world. America is praying for you, and America is praying for all of the victims of this terrible shooting. I spoke with Steve's wife, Jennifer, and I pledged to her our full and absolute support, anything she needs. We're with her and with the entire Scalise family. You know, when he was saying, you know, Steve Scalise is this great friend, I flashed this

image of right after the House passed the health care bill and they all gathered in the Rose Garden at the White House to sort of celebrate. And Steve Scalise was just right, right sort of off to the side of the president and just smiling from ear to ear because he's the whip. He's the one who was out there whipping up the votes to make that vote happen. Of course, that was a highly partisan moment. President Trump, in his remarks at the White House today called for unity. The President We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation's capital is here because, above all, they love our country.

We can all agree that we are blessed to be Americans, that our children deserve to grow up in a nation of safety and peace, and that we are strongest when we are unified and when we work together for the common good. And there was a similar theme that House Speaker Paul Ryan struck when he went to the House floor. Were you there? I was there. And the word he used, humanity, is something that came up a lot today, I think, where members were talking about, you know, they get that they're politicians and people don't like them and that Congress has horrible approval ratings. But you can't forget that at the end of the day, they're human beings and they have families and they have kids and that they're not necessarily always seen that way.

And I think that is one of those aspects that just had them sort of self-reflecting today. And when Ryan spoke to the full House chamber, members gave him a standing ovation when he said this. We are united. We are united in our shock. We are united in our anguish. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. And then he went on. You know, every day we come here to test and to challenge each other. We feel so deeply about the things that we fight for and the things that we believe in. At times, our emotions can clearly get the best of us.

We're all imperfect. But we do not shed our humanity when we enter this chamber. For all the noise and all the fury, we are one family. These were our brothers and sisters in the line of fire. These were our brothers and sisters who ran into danger and saved countless lives. So I want to talk about sort of the political climate of the moment and what this might mean for our politics, which I think that we, everyone can agree, are sort of broken and deeply divided at this moment. There's one aspect of this incident that also

became very political very quickly, which is that the Gutman was reportedly a supporter of Bernie Sanders and appears to have volunteered for Sanders' presidential campaign. Sanders, as soon as he heard about this, went to the floor of the Senate to deliver a statement calling it a despicable act. I have just been informed that the alleged shooter at the Republican baseball practice this morning is someone who apparently volunteered on my presidential campaign. I am sickened by this despicable act and let me be as clear as I can be. Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. And just to get it sort of the political climate of it all, Republican Congressman Steve King from Iowa said something that has been bubbling up sort of all over the internet and parts of the

internet today. He was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, quote, America has been divided and the center of America is disappearing and the violence is appearing in the streets and it's coming from the left. So one, I think that there is just an obvious knee jerk political reaction to ascribe the political views of someone who commits a crime like this to whoever they supported, right? But I can say absolutely that the threats towards members of Congress, no, no party. That Democrats and Republicans in history, both above the Congress, but in recent years, it applies to all members. No party owns threats towards politicians. Just in recent months, we've seen, I don't even know if I want to say it's an uptick, because I think that a lot of things happen to

members of Congress that aren't always reported because they're handled by the sergeant at arms and the Capitol Police. But Democrats today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on the floor when she was talking about this referenced the sheer volume of threats that she gets because one of her position, but also that she's someone that her political opponents over the years have vilified in political campaigns. She's a really well-known Democrat who gets a lot of vitriol towards her. Al Green, who's a Democrat from Texas who recently suggested that the president should be impeached, has gotten a huge influx of threats towards his life. In the reverse, you know, we've seen a lot of news reports this year. And I think part of this climate that lawmakers are talking about is the heated debate over the policies that are being

debated on Capitol Hill, specifically the health care legislation, and that we have seen in recent months at these town hall meetings that Republicans have held, there has been incidents of sort of violence or confrontations just the priority or the problem of one side of the political spectrum. Yeah. And I would also add that all the partisanship we've seen, especially on Twitter today, really stands in stark contrast to what the baseball game itself is about. Right. Because, I mean, the Republicans and the Democrats who are practicing today were doing exactly what their constituents say they want them to do, to work across the aisle, to find opportunities to work together. I think, Sue, you used the term garbage people. There were a lot of garbage people on the Internet today. That's terrible. You know, our colleague Sam Sanders was posting also on the Internet and said, you know what?

Twitter's not real life. The reaction that people are having in their Twitter feeds to this that is at times just totally callous and super political. Speaking of lacking humanity. Right. Twitter's not real life. And I'll tell you, as someone who was off Twitter today for about seven or eight hours as I was standing in the street covering the shooting, you know, the humanity I encountered were police officers who were responding to what happened that morning. Neighbors who were letting members of the press sit on happened that morning, neighbors who were letting members of the press, you know, sit on their front steps, set their equipment up on their grass. Some people brought out, you know, food and drinks. I mean, that's humanity. That's real life,

not what is apparently transpired in 140 characters or less throughout the day. Okay, so here's the question. They're talking about unity. There's a lot of talk of maybe our politics have gotten too polarized and people aren't seen as people anymore. They're just seen as like partisan rivals. Is this going to be the moment where finally the tone changes? No. Yeah, that was. I know. I do think, though, I do think I've never actually been to a congressional baseball game. I think the one tomorrow night might be the first one I actually go to. Sue, have you been?

I have been before. I have not been. I didn't go last year, but I've been in the past. And it's usually just a really fun night. I mean, it's just a lot of staff comes out. It's very bipartisan. It's just like a night at the ballpark. It's a very feel-good kind of event. I would imagine that tomorrow night it's going to be absolutely wildly attended, probably, and probably good news for the charities that the game aims to support, because I feel like in times like this, people find a way to support or help or do something good. Yeah, it's like you don't want to let the bad guys win.

Yeah. And Congressman Barton actually said they're adding an extra charity for this event. They're adding a charity that benefits fallen officers, the families of fallen officers. And just to be clear, the game is happening tomorrow night. It is going ahead as planned. Representative Joe Barton, he's the manager of the Republican baseball team, and Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat who manages the Democratic baseball team, decided to hold a press conference together. And there was this particularly tender moment where they were talking about Barton's son, who was at practice. When my son Jack was born, I was chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Jack got as many presents from the Democrats as he did from the Republicans.

And he still has some of those. He's grown up. He lives in Texas with his mother. We're divorced. But he's grown up in the Congress in Texas with his mother. We're divorced. But he's grown up in the Congress, and he comes up every year. And when he comes on the floor, he'll touch base with some of the Republicans from Texas, and then he'll make a beeline to the Democrat side to talk to Cedric Richmond, to Mike Doyle, and when John Dingell was still in Congress, to John Dingell.

So he is an example of bipartisanship in himself, and he was at practice this morning, and he had 25 dads. Everybody out there was looking out for him, not just me. The first thing I thought about when that happened was Jack. You know, closer to game time, families come to watch the game, and they're here. And a lot of them come out to the practices. And I don't think any of us ever give thought to our safety when we were practicing on the baseball field. And Barton's son apparently took cover behind an SUV nearby as the shooting took place.

I think that part of what he said there that stuck in my ear, and it's one of the things you hear a lot about Congress and the way it functions and climate, is that members don't know each other as well as they used to. And part of that is just the pressures to be back home, the pressures to not spend time in Washington. Even though we're more connected than ever by internet and social media, we don't feel as connected to each other as human beings. And I think why what happened today hit such a raw emotional spot is this is one of those events that members hold on to to have that human connection to each other. I talked to Patrick Meehan, who's a Republican from Pennsylvania, who said he has been in like a years long trash talk with Tim Ryan, who's a Democrat from Ohio about the

congressional baseball game because Meehan is a pitcher and he struck out Ryan at a game and it was it if and Republicans won. And he said that every time they see each other in the halls, they talk trash about it. It kind of gives them a friendship and a human connection. And he said when he saw Tim Ryan today, he just walked right up to him and hugged him and pet me and started crying when he was talking about that. I think all of us want to play. We do not want to let this change. We can't let haters win. And they won't. We'll play. You know, we say this a lot about reporters that nobody feels bad for us, so we should never

complain about our jobs because it just sounds very tenured. And I think that also applies to members of Congress, too, right? Like, we don't ever give them the benefit of the doubt that there are, like, stresses and rigors and difficult days. And sometimes the job sucks and the public has no sympathy for that. You know, it's a privilege to serve in Congress. They have run for these jobs. They take the good and the bad, but it does not inoculate them from sort of the humanity of things and just feeling very vulnerable and sad. And today, I think, struck them more at the heart

of them being people and not as members of Congress, because, again, this wasn't an official capacity. This wasn't an official event. This was some guys on the baseball park just throwing the ball around, trying to sort of connect and be friends with each other. And the fact that kids were there and that at the congressional baseball game every year, it is one of those opportunities where a lot of lawmakers do bring their families and do want their kids and wives and husbands to hang out. So it just sort of struck at the heart of the building, the place and the people that work here in a way that nothing else really has. Yeah. So trophies for everyone tomorrow at the baseball game tomorrow. That is one thing they made really clear. No matter what happened today, the trash talk is on and the competition will be fierce at the congressional baseball game.

There's not going to be like a symbolic tie or something where they all shake hands and walk away. If you know, if you look, if you look back on any of the history of this game, it is fiercely, fiercely competitive. They even joked, you know, I'm rooting for you, but I'm not rooting for you to win tomorrow. All right. Well, you guys are going to the game tomorrow night. I kind of hope I can make it, too. We'll save you a seat. OK. And we will all be back tomorrow with our regular Thursday episode of the podcast. We will talk there about any new developments on this as well as some other political news this week. In fact, there was other political news this week. You can catch our episode from yesterday for a recap of Senate testimony by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And listen to Up First every morning for the latest daily news from NPR. I'm Tamara

Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Jeff Bennett. I cover Congress. And I'm Susan Davis. I also cover Congress. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.