The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Calls Las Vegas Shooting "An Act Of Pure Evil"

Episode Date: October 2, 2017

At least 58 people were killed and more than 500 were wounded in Las Vegas Sunday night when a gunman fired on an outdoor concert from high above. It is the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. This episode: host/congressional reporter Scott Detrow, justice department reporter Ryan Lucas and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. 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

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busy lifestyle, choose from Paleo, Lean & Clean, Gluten-Freefree, vegetarian, and family options. Get $35 off your first order at sunbasket.com slash politics. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. For the second time in two years, the country is grappling with the worst mass shooting in modern American history. Last year, it was Orlando., today it's Las Vegas. At least 58 people are dead, more than 500 injured after suspected gunman Steven Paddock opened fire on a crowd of thousands at a country music concert in Las Vegas. We're recording this at 2 15 p.m.

on Monday afternoon, October 2nd, and the sad truth is those numbers will likely change as the day goes on. Paddock fired on the crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. President Trump called the shooting an act of pure evil. Hundreds of our fellow citizens are now mourning the sudden loss of a loved one, a parent, a child, a brother or sister. We cannot fathom their pain. We cannot imagine their loss. To the families of the victims, we are praying for you, and we are here for you. And we ask God to help see you through this very dark period. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the

Justice Department. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. So let's start with what we know so far. Again, those numbers, sadly, probably going to change. But this is an attack that began just after 10 o'clock local time with gunshots from hundreds of yards away, the 32nd floor of a hotel into a crowd of thousands. That's right. 32nd floor, as you said, Mandalay Bay. And if you look at the setup of Las Vegas, it's an open target. There's no obstruction. And the alleged shooter, Stephen Paddock, you know, we're looking at 58 killed, more than 500 injured, makes it the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department undersheriff, Kevin McMayhill, has described it as domestic terrorism.

Now, what we know about Paddock so far, there are a lot of question marks with him. What we do know is that he's 64 years old. He's white. He lived in a town called Mesquite, which is about an hour, hour and a half northeast of Las Vegas. He does not appear to have any sort of criminal record at this point, and he wasn't known to Las Vegas. He does not appear to have any sort of criminal record at this point. And he wasn't known to Las Vegas authorities, at least from what the sheriff's office has said so far. And we know that he had 10 guns on him in the hotel room. That's according to law enforcement. That's right. And those are, of course, guns that the Las Vegas Police Department is going to want to trace, find out where he purchased those guns. Did he purchase them legally? Did he tweak them in any fashion so that they would fire more quickly? And that's stuff that Las Vegas PD will work with federal authorities, the ATF, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI to try to determine. Mara, I just can't get over the fact that we have this conversation every year now.

It's a year and a half about since we covered the largest mass shooting in modern American history. And here we are talking about the same thing because it's an even larger shooting. And before Orlando, there was San Bernardino. And before San Bernardino, there were countless other shootings that are burned in our memory, but it just keeps happening. You know, on Twitter recently, there was a tweet from a guy, I've never heard of him. He said, I've seen this headline three times in my life, Virginia Tech, Orlando, and now

Las Vegas. I'm 22 years old. Yeah. He's 22 years old, and he's already seen the three largest mass shootings in modern history, and each one gets bigger and bigger. Mara, I feel like a lot of the conversation this morning in that inevitable social media frenzy that happens after a terrible event like this is just the stewing anger of why this keeps happening and if there's any possible way to stop this from happening again? Well, it's a terrible, deadlocked,

almost futile debate right now in American politics, because there's no way out. There is a group of people, mostly Democrats, who think that better gun control regulations, for instance, making it harder to get certain kinds of automatic weapons. And then there's the NRA, which is now one of the most important interest groups supporting Donald Trump and the Republicans who say, no, that's not the answer. Guns aren't the problem. And it's totally stalemated. I don't think that this horrific massacre will change that only because Sandy Hook didn't change it. So we're going to talk all about that a little more in a bit. But, you know, a big part of the government response is the investigation that's already several hours

underway now. Ryan, can you talk a bit about how federal investigators work with local investigators and what exactly they're looking for at this point in time? As for what they're looking for, the main question is motive. And that will determine whether we head down the path of terrorism or whether we stay on the path of mass shooting. People can argue the difference between those two, and there certainly has been discussion today about that. And there likely will be going forward, but it does matter in terms of who's in charge of the investigation. Yeah. Can you explain that a little bit? Because you're right. There's a really sensitive, thorny topic of of terrorism or not. Terrorism often comes down to what the suspect might look like or their background. But why does terrorism versus mass shooting matter for law enforcement? If there is a terrorism case, then it is going to be handled by

the FBI. If it is a local investigation, it's going to be led in this case by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The FBI and all of the federal authorities and all of the resources and powers that they have to bring to bear will help out the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as much as they can. And they will provide resources, they will provide expertise in terms of forensics at the crime scene, checking bullet case scenes, interviewing witnesses. As one former FBI official I was talking to earlier today said, you know, I mean, you have 22,000 potential witnesses here. That's a lot of people to interview. And the Las Vegas Police Department does not have those sorts of resources. And so what the FBI will do,

we'll send in people from Los Angeles, send in people from Seattle, bring in people from Dallas, all over the country to help run down those leads. And the other thing that I just thought about was there are a few places on the planet with more closed circuit cameras than a casino. And this is where the shooting took place. So I imagine there's just scores and scores of raw footage that they can go through to figure out where this guy was going and what he may have done beforehand. And there are, I have been told, special skills that the FBI has in order to go through video footage quickly, identify who's on it. And that's something that

federal authorities will definitely help out their Vegas colleagues with. What else do we know about this investigation? Early in the morning, there was a lot of talk about a woman who is a companion or a roommate of the shooter. Some confusion as to whether she was in Las Vegas or whether she was out of the country. Where did that angle of the investigation end up? The woman's name is Mary Lou Danley. And the Clark County Sheriff said earlier today that she is out of the country at this point in time. They have spoken with her. They are going to follow up with her later. Obviously, this is somebody that they would want to talk to, to try to get a sense of motive behind what Paddock did. But while that was a major lead early on, it seems like they're saying that she's no longer considered a suspect or a person of

interest. She's someone who they want to talk to and will talk to. But if you're looking for a break in the case, it sounds like they are not focusing on her right now. There are other things that they're trying to track down. Okay. And another person that people have been talking to today is Stephen Paddock's brother. That's right. And he had a lot of interesting things to say. He was my brother. It's like an asteroid fell out of the sky. He had no machine guns when I moved him from Melbourne to Mesquite. I mean, find out who he bought the machine guns from. And once again, there's no blaming, it's just, he bought the machine guns and he did this. I mean, it was him who did this. There's no doubt about it, because he was him. Completely out of character. He's never I mean, he's never even drawn his gun.

I mean, it makes no sense. He's never hit anybody. He's never a gun enthusiast or just a few. He had a couple of handguns, I think. He had a safe with a couple of handguns.

He might have had one long rifle, but he didn't have any I mean, he had no automatic weapons that I knew of handguns. He might have had one long rifle, but he didn't have any, I mean, he had no automatic weapons that I knew of at any time. There's no... It just... It just makes no sense.

Like I said, it's an asteroid, Phelps. It doesn't... How's everyone in the family? I mean, other than the obvious. F***ed up. I mean, f***ed up. I got a 90-year-old mother whose son just killed 50-plus people and now is dead. He said, among other things, that his brother had no record that he was aware of,

no ties to white supremacist groups, to religious groups, to militant groups. He said that actually he called him a wealthy guy. He said that he played video poker, he went on cruises, he bought outrageous amounts of cookies for his mother. And this is the most detailed image of Paddock that we've received to this point. There hasn't been a lot of information in terms of social media profiles, like we saw in the case of Omar Mateen, the shooter in Orlando. So what we have received from the brother is the most kind of detailed image of

who Paddock was. I feel like talking to the immediate family members is always such a strange thing to see and to hear, because obviously these people are in shock. Sometimes they begrudgingly say, yes, something was deeply wrong with my brother or my son or my sister or my brother. But I mean, other times they just are totally taken aback. I found the interview with his brother to be one of the most compelling parts of today because his brother struck me as being totally open, not defensive, not trying to come up with an explanation, just talking openly about everything. He said he had no machine guns when I moved him from Melbourne to Mesquite. In other words, he just saw the guy. I mean, he was dumbstruck. And of course, as the names of the victims become known and as the family members become known,

we're going to hear many interviews with the family members of people killed in this shooting. And something that one of our colleagues, Scott Horsley, pointed out this morning was, this was in Las Vegas. This was a concert. This was a destination. And that means that that the sadness of this is going to be spread out throughout the country, that people had flown here from probably all over the country. So many communities are going to be finding out that that that one of their friends or their family members died last night. So the investigation is a big task that the federal government is involved in. And another thing that happens, Mara, is the symbolic, important public reaction from

the president, from members of Congress, from our leaders. President Trump spoke this morning. He was muted early in the morning. There was just one tweet around seven o'clock. But mid-morning, around just before 11 o'clock, President Trump spoke from the White House. Let's listen to that for a moment. We call upon the bonds that unite us, our faith, our family, and our shared values. We call upon the bonds of citizenship, the ties of community, and the comfort of our common humanity. Our unity cannot be shattered by evil. Our bonds cannot be broken by violence.

And though we feel such great anger at the senseless murder of our fellow citizens, it is our love that defines us today and always will forever. And this statement wasn't that long and it stuck to these type of big picture unity themes throughout it. In times such as these, I know we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, some kind of light in the darkness. The answers do not come easy. But we can take solace knowing that even the darkest space can be brightened by a single light, and even the most terrible despair can be illuminated by a single ray of hope. Mara, we hardly ever hear President Trump descriptive, and we certainly don't hear him this reflective that often. No. When he does that, he sounds like any other president who sees their role as providing some kind of solace and calls to unity after a horrific incident like this. What we've seen in

the past is it doesn't last very long, and pretty soon he's tweeting angrily and divisively. But we don't know if that's going to happen this time. He might just stick to this. Right. After after a terrible event happens and the president speaks with President Trump, I find myself holding my breath, wondering, is this going to be scripted or is this going to become an angry, you know, lashing out? And sometimes it's both because we saw his initial expressions of concern for the victims of the hurricane in Puerto Rico, which pretty soon devolved into attacks on the mayor of San Juan. So we don't know where this is going to go. But right now, we'd have to say that the president spoke as any other president would after an incident like this. And he said that he's going to go to Las Vegas on Wednesday. Do we know anything more about that? We know that he's going to go to Puerto Rico first tomorrow, and then he's going to go to Las Vegas.

And we should say, we should just pause here really quickly, as you mentioned that President Trump is going to Puerto Rico tomorrow, because what just happened is obviously a huge story with an enormous impact and enormous consequences that will play out over the coming days. But it happens as a devastating humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico continues. Only a fraction of the island has power. A fraction of the island has water. Communication, basic modern necessities are just lacking in Puerto Rico right now. And every day that continues, the situation grows worse. And President Trump has, I don't know the way to frame the way that he's responded to this because it got even worse over the weekend.

He said they want things done for them. He suggested that it was their fault that the aid wasn't being distributed properly. He accused the mayor of San Juan, who had begged for more help, that she couldn't get her own people to work. And a lot of that wording sounds very charged and very familiar. Sure. It was his usual default position of racial divisiveness. And he's done it before with his comments after Charlottesville. And some of it comes from a place where if he feels criticized and he doesn't feel that people are being sufficiently grateful for what he says is the tremendous, fabulous,

never been better federal response to this disaster, he lashes out at them. While that happens, Las Vegas is reeling from, again, the worst mass shooting in modern American history. So one of the strange dynamics that have emerged from the fact that America goes through this, you know, every nine months or so, it seems recently, is that a very set pattern emerges. The president gives a statement. Twitter is flooded with congressmen, congresswomen, senators expressing sadness, disgust, anger, and saying that their thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the shooting. And in recent years, there's gotten a backlash to the thoughts and prayers,

especially from people who want to see more gun control, saying thoughts and prayers aren't enough. On Morning Edition, Representative Ruben Kuhn from the Las Vegas area was talking to us. He's a Democrat. And I asked him about that, saying that, you know, there's just a lot of frustration when congressmen say they're they're thinking of victims, they're praying of victims, because the question is, what's next? And here's what he said to that. Well, look, I mean, today's not a day to talk politics. I'm sure there are going to be many discussions about what needs to happen moving forward as far as keeping our American citizens safe.

Today, more importantly, we just want to lend moral support and any support possible to the victims, to the families who are suffering. And Sarah Sanders said something very similar at the press briefing. Look, this is an unspeakable tragedy. Today is a day for consoling their survivors and mourning those we lost. Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with all of those individuals. There's a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country. Of course, that's one way to look at this.

There are other members of Congress who are deeply, deeply angry. Chris Murphy is a Connecticut Democrat in the Senate, and he has really made gun control a central issue ever since the Sandy Hook shooting. And he's become very close with family members of the children who were shot. He released a statement saying, This must stop. It is positively infuriating that my colleagues in Congress are so afraid of the gun industry that they pretend there aren't public policy responses to this epidemic. There are, and the thoughts and prayers of politicians are cruelly hollow. If they are paired with continued legislative indifference, it's time for Congress to get off its ass and do something. A couple of thoughts. One, I feel like the frustration of things aren't changing, things getting better,

gets in the way of the fact that praying for someone who was killed is a very human response. And I think there's nothing wrong with saying you are in my thoughts and prayers in a vacuum. Right. I don't think he meant this must stop as in the prayers must stop. I think he meant that doing nothing beyond praying must stop. So that's an argument or a conversation that's going to continue, though it seems pretty clear with the political dynamics in Washington that it's not necessarily going to change much. So there's a lot to follow here. We, of course, keep our focus on politics on this podcast, but NPR is going to be covering every detail of this story. It seems like we just sent a plane load of our colleagues to Las Vegas to report on this, including

Steven Skeet from Morning Edition. So check out NPR.org or the NPR One app to hear from a lot of the people who are just trying to make sense of what happened today. And that's a wrap for us. We'll be back on Thursday with our weekly roundup. I'm Scott Tattrall. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.