popcorn chicken combo. order on the jack app today. >> announcer: "this week" with george stephanopoulos starts right now. tragedy in texas. >> it happened here and it took my baby. >> she wanted to make a difference. i want that for her now and she still can. >> the deadliest school shooting in a decade. a gunman murdering 19 elementary school students and two of their

teachers. warning signs missed. a cascade of errors in the police response. >> of course it was not the right decision, it was the wrong decision, period. >> marcus moore with the very latest from uvalde and pierre thomas and former counterterrorism chief john cohen on where the investigation stands. demands for action. >> as this slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we are doing nothing! >> why are we letting this happen in this country. >> when are we going to do something! >> what some people di is immediately want to take their second amendment rights away. i'm not willing to do that. >> after decades of doing nothing, will congress finally act? >> what we can do to make the terrible events that occurred in uvalde less likely in the future. >> senator chris murphy and congressman adam kinzinger joins us live. plus, our powerhouse roundtable covers the political fallout. >> announcer: from abc news, it's "this week."

here, now, co-anchor jonathan karl. good morning and welcome to "this week." as we come on the air this morning, we are yet again trying to come to terms with the slaughter of innocence, 19 children and 2 of their teachers gunned down in their classrooms at robb elementary school in uvalde, texas. murdered by an 18-year-old who was armed with two ar-15-style rifles and enough ammunition to that could have killed dozens even hundreds more. the horror at robb elementary came just ten days after a rampage at a grocery store in buffalo, new york, where another 18-year-old faces charges in those killings. this morning, we're trying to get to the truth of what happened and what should have happened and what it will take to prevent a horror like this from happening again. officials initially told us a security officer confronted the gunman as he entered the school, that was not true.

in fact, the gunman was inside the elementary school, locked inside enjoining classrooms filled with kids for nearly 80 minutes before law enforcement broke in and took him down. the emerging time line of this horror is chilling. after crashing his grandmother's car the gunman entered the school at 11:33 a.m., shooting one hundred rounds of ammunition and locking himself inside those classrooms. two minutes later the first police arrived. at 11:37 the gunman fires another 16 rounds. more police arrive on the scene. at 12:03911 receives a call from inside the classroom, a student whispering that she was in room 112, she calls back saying there's multiple dead. she calls again and again, on the fourth call saying there were eight to nine students still alive. over the next 35 minutes more

calls are made from inside the classroom as shots can be heard and a plea, please send the police, now. but officers don't break into the classroom until 12:50 p.m., 77 minutes after the gunman fired his first shots inside the school, and beyond the tragic inaction of the police during the shooting, there are questions about thing signs that we're missed. we'll get to all that in a moment. but first, let's turn to marcus moore in uvalde, where president biden is meeting this afternoon with families of the victims. good morning, marcus. >> reporter: jon, good morning. you can feel the pain here in this community that not even a full week ago was thrust into chaos and despair. and as you just mentioned, president biden will be here at robb elementary school to help this community heal from what they have been through, and people have been coming here in

the days since the shooting to pay their respects. many traveling hundreds of miles to leave flowers here, hoping to support the families who meanwhile are continuing to ask the ever-present questions about why this happened? how did the 18-year-old gunman obtain the weapons and carry the heinous about on the most vulnerable and the most innocent. the investigation remains under way this morning with the fbi assisting state authorities. including establishing more clarity on the time line. the officers who arrived here at the scene, what information were they given and what prompted them to finally make the decision to force their way into that classroom, jon, where that gunman was holed up. we now know that the officers were outside that room for 77 minutes before finally deciding to go in. >> and marcus, the governor of texas, greg abbott, initially praised the, quote, swift action

of the police, saying, they were, quote, able to save lives. what is he saying now? >> reporter: well, jon, he says that he was misled and that he is livid about that and the day he took to the stage to deliver that information he had met with law enforcement officials and he said that he took handwritten notes about the information that they relayed to him. we know that information wasn't accurate and he said the people who deserve the answers now the most are the families who lost loved ones here in uvalde. >> thank you, marcus. joining us now for more on the investigation is abc chief justice correspondent pierre a and former department of homeland security counterterrorism chief john cohen. john, so you led the dhs effort to -- about how law enforcement should respond to these active shooter situations after newtown a decade ago.

help us understand now, how did this go so wrong? >> i mean, jon, it was a failure. i've been in law enforcement almost 40 years. i'm proud of my profession. i respect the men and women who are out there each day trying to make our community safe. but at the end of the day, we had 21 people die. we had 19 children die, we had people potentially die while law enforcement was on scene. we'll learn more in the days ahead about whether they were properly equipped and whether they were properly trained, whether the incident command system worked as it should, whether the instant commander made the right decisions, communication issues, information-sharing issues, but at the end of the day it doesn't change the outcome. when you put on that badge you make a commitment to protect those who can't protect those. on that day law enforcement failed. >> i mean, there were shots coming from inside that

classroom. we know a couple of the officers were grazed by bullets, but what you're saying is, the requirement of the job is essentially to put yourself in harm's way, to break into that classroom and to do it immediately? >> it is accepted practice in law enforcement that when responding to an active shooter situation, you enter the location, you locate the shooter, you neutralize the threat. these incidents generally last less than 10 minutes, most of the fatalities occur in the first several minutes. you have to get inside that location and stop the shooter. >> what's so horrifying about this is the 911 calls, four of them came from a single student. some of those we're told that you could hear the gunfire. the 911 operator could hear the gunfire. pierre, a step further back, the missed signals, there were clear missed signals regarding this shooter, danger signs that some of his friends saw.

>> there was every indication that this was a troubled young man increasingly full of rage. that's the only way to describe it, full of rage. there are examples, and sources telling us that he was streaming videos of him abusing animals, classmates are telling us that he threatened to kill one of them, classmates are telling us he stalked classmates. following them to school, knowing what they would wear to school, telling them what they were wearing to school. creepym only the word that you could describe what we've been told. and, we have some information that came out on friday that's literally stunning. there's a series of private instagram messages to a group of about four people in which they clearly are discussing the notion that he's going to become a school shooter, they're

discussing it, at one point one of the people on the chat asked him, are you going to go shoot up a school? he said no, but basically you'll see. now we know what happened. >> what's also haunting, the two of you were on the set of this program just after the buffalo shooting. we saw the same thing. there were clear missed signals. even abuse of animals. some of the very same things we're talking about with this shooter we saw in the 18-year-old in buffalo. >> in that situation, the missed signs i would describe as a neon flashing red, you know, las vegas kind of missing signal. here's what happened there, he was asked to write a school paper prior to his graduation his senior year, in the school paper he responds -- murder/suicide.

murder/suicide. that prompts school officials to contact police, they order a mental health evaluation. he's in a mental health hospital for 20 years. he lies to them. he says he was joking. he writes about it later in a private, you know, diary, that maybe i was crying out for help, but i just lied to them and they bought it. >> john, what do we do? how do we get -- you had people who knew these kids, these 18-year-olds who knew they were troubled, who were worried they were going to do something wrong, how does that not go up, how do officials not known about it? what needs to be done so that those red flags can be taken into account? >> so that's the key question. what pierre described, the behaviors exhibited by the

buffalo shooter and the texas shooter, they're not uncommon, this is what we see in every single active shooter situation whether it's ideologically motivated or motivated by some kind of personal grievance, we actually know what to do and we know the systemic changes that need to take place. threat assessment investigations. they need to work with mental health professionals and others in the community to develop threat management strategies and we have to be able to recognize the warning signs, whether they're on the internet or in our community, we need to come together as a community. >> make it impossible for them to buy guns. pierre, we're almost out of time, but, you know, we covered columbine together at cnn. we've been dealing with these mass, active shooter mass casualties events for a long time, but is there something different now? has it actually gotten worse?

>> it has. in general gun violence has surged since 2019. we saw a 30% increase of more than almost 5,000 more gun deaths non-suicide from 2019 to 2020 so it's pandemic related. but also, we're just seeing more active shooter scenarios. in 2013, there were only 17 active shooter scenarios. last year there were 60. a nearly fourfold increase. >> dramatic increase and of course, mass shooting incidents just represent a tiny fraction of overall gun deaths, about 1% or less. >> we're talking thousands and thousands every year. >> thank you, thank you both very much. joining now is chris murphy the democratic senator from connecticut who's made combatting gun violence his mission in congress. senator, murphy, thank you for joining us. i want to go back, you were on this program just two days after

the sandy hook massacre. it was just a couple of weeks before you were first sworn in as a u.s. senator and you were asked at that point, this was ten years ago, you were asked if sandy hook and that horrific tragedy we saw in newtown was going to represent a turning point, a tipping point, this was your response. >> the time for sort of saying that we can't talk about the policy implications of tragedies like this is over. for us here in connecticut we're going to grieve and make sure the families have everything they need we're going to be on the floor very soon talking about where we go from here. >> ten years later, what has been accomplished? >> it's inconceivable to me that we haven't passed significant federal legislation. trying to address the tragedy of gun violence in this nation, especially because since sandy hook we've seen even worse slaughter, in las vegas, in

orlando, as has been mentioned the pace of everyday gun violence has dramatically escalated over the past two years. states have passed tighter laws. referendums passed. there are present of local efforts that have been successful in tightening up our gun laws. be you we need federal legislation. after every mass shooting, there are talks in washington they never succeed, but there are more republicans interested in talking about finding a path forward this time than i have seen since sandy hook and in the end i may end up being heartbroken. i'm at the table in a more significant way right now with republicans and democrats than ever before. certainly many more republicans willing to talk right now than after sandy hook. >> senator mcconnell the republican leader has tasked john cornyn, one of his top lieutenants, to take part in those negotiations.

can you bring inside the room, i guess you're having zoom conversations now that the senate is in recess, what's going on, what are you hearing from dorn cornyn and other republicans? >> we have continued to work throughout the weekend. i was in touch with senator cornyn and senator toomey. other republicans and democrats yesterday. these are serious negotiations. and we're going to continue to meet through early next week to try to find some common ground. now, listen, i've been clear. i'd love to ban assault weapons, i think that's probably the most impactful way to stop these mass shootings. i'd love universal background checks, that's the best way to curb the level of violence in my city of hartford and other cities across the country. but what we're talking about is not insignificant, inside this room we're talking about red flag laws, we're talking about strengthening expanding the background check system. we're talking about safe storage, but yes, we're also talking about mental health

resources and more security dollars for schools. a package that really in the end could have a significant downward pressure on gun violence in this country and break the logjam, maybe that's the most important thing to do is to show progress is possible. we got a short time frame, jonathan, we got to get this ready for congress when congress reconvenes in about a week. i think we can do it. >> let me ask you in this case, the issues we hear the most about is expanding background checks, red flag laws. this person who bought -- this shooter here didn't have a criminal record, you know, and in terms of red flag laws he ahd no diagnosed mental illness. school security, this school just doubled its security budget. let me ask you about raising the ae. i know you're in favor of this.

is it part of the discussion? right now you can buy an ar-15 at 18. you can't buy a handgun at 21. is this now part of the discussion? >> right now, we're having i think a discussion inside this room about the profile of the current mass shooter, which as you mentioned does tend to be young men in between the ages of 18 and 21 that is a profile that does not allow you to buy a handgun but does allow you to buy an assault weapon, so there are discussions happening in this room how we recognize this profile and maybe make it harder for those individuals to quickly get their hands on weapons. i don't yet know exactly what's possible, whether the votes are there to raise the age, but we're having a discussion about what we don't about that specific profile and it's an encouraging conversation. >> you mentioned some states have acted. one of those states is florida. after parkland, florida passed a

law signed -- passed a bill, signed into law by the governor in 2018. let's look at what it did. it raised the minimum age for long guns from 18 to 21. it imposed a three-day waiting period. it banned bumpstocks. that law passed after parkland was passed by a republican legislator in a very republican state and signed into law by a republican governor named rick scott, who's one of your colleagues in your senate. couldn't that be a model? if rick scott could sign that into law in florida, why couldn't that pass in the united states senate? >> the florida law is a good law, and it's a signal of what's possible, right, it married together changes to florida's gun laws with some significant investments in mental health and school security. i had a long conversation with

senator scott last week and had him tell me the story about how they were able to pass that legislation and get republicans to support it. it proved that the republicans could take on the gun lobby, because the nra opposed that measure, and still get re-elected the guess i've been making to republicans for a decade. that kind of legislation certainly is a model, significant not everything that anti-gun violence advocates would want. while i don't think we'll mirror the florida law it's certainly the kind of thing that would make a big difference and would make a lot of families and kids in this country feel more secure and more safe if passed at a national level. >> and very quickly, we're almost out of time -- you've led the discussion on the gun issue, which obviously is a critical one here, what are the other things that need to be done, aside from, you know, having gun safety measures, limits on gun purchases, all that we've just discussed, what are the other issues that need

to be addressed? to deal with this problem. >> well, remember, this is a problem that happens every day in our cities, and so we got to invest in our cities, when you talk to the victims of urban gun violence they want gun laws changed but they want services for their kids, so there's not a sense of hopelessness that drives many kids into very at-risk behaviors. the president's domestic agenda includes significant for urban anti-gun violence initiatives. we got to remember that gun laws is a big part of the solution but we also have to have in these poorer neighborhoods services wrapped around kids and families that need them. >> senator murphy, it sounds like at least some encouraging signs this time could be different based on your discussion with republicans. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. up next, we'll take a look

at the influence of the nra on the debate over gun violence. republican adam kinzinger joins us next. we're back in 60 seconds. (fisher investments) in this market, you'll find fisher investments is different than other money managers. (other money manager) different how? aren't we all just looking for the hottest stocks? (fisher investments) nope. we use diversified strategies to position our client's portfolios for their long-term goals. (other money manager) but you still sell investments that generate high commissions for you, right? (fisher investments) no, we don't sell commission products. we're a fiduciary, obligated to act in our client's best interest. (other money manager) so when do you make more money, only when your clients make more money? (fisher investments) yep. we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments, we're clearly different. ♪ ♪ fight fleas and ticks with seresto. eight months continuous protection

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politically, but it's never been about guns. >> president biden and senator ted cruz in a debate over gun violence that's become all too familiar. one republican who has changed his position on guns is congressman adam kinzinger of illinois, he joins us now. congressman kinzinger, let me just ask you straight up, we heard from senator murphy that he thinks that something different may be happening this time, that he has far more encouraging conversations with republicans now than even after newtown, what's your sense? i mean you're obviously willing to deal on this, but do you think something will get done? >> it does seem that way. first off, i want to commend chris for one specific thing, i've known him since he served in the house, it's easy in this business to start throwing out things republicans aren't going to do and make a campaign issue for november, i think he's willing -- doesn't mean it's not going to continue to be a campaign issue --

he's focused on what i can do at this moment. that's a hard thing to do. i do think we're on the track of maybe getting something. look, the reality is, i actually think the raising -- if we can't get it done -- i think raising the purchase of a gun is no-brainer. if you look at the parkland shooting, buffalo, this shooting, these are people under the age of 21. we know that the human brain develops and matures a lot between the ages of 18 and 21. we raised the age of purchasing cigarettes federally to 21. >> the issue of raising the age it's remarkable to look back at all of these shootings and see how many of them are done by individuals, men, young men 18 to 21, even newtown, the shooter was 20, his mother actually got

him the gun, but many of them are bought legally, but let me ask you about your journey on this, because you -- you were once an a-rating from the nra, you owned an ar-15. do you still own an ar-15? >> i do, yes. >> help me understand, how did you go from being somebody who was right in line with the gun lobby on this to somebody who thinks it's time to change these laws? >> look, it's a journey of, you know, getting sick of seeing the mass shootings. you know -- look, i'm a strong defender of the 2nd amendment. one of the things that i believe for a strong reason that as a person who appreciates the 2nd amendment we have to be the ones putting forward reasonable solutions to gun violence. the reaction of my colleagues to the nra to say, if you want to

come and take my guns, i'm going to go walk around, i'm going to go into the michigan state capitol with my a.r., by the way can i make a point that alteapof michigan wi aunau ars m ftoh, these are the kinds of things that 2nd amendments are doing no favors to defend that. for me i woke up the morning after the vegas shooting, i had shot a bumpstock before, i heard the audio from that shooting, i knew that was a bumpstock and i called for banning bumpstocks that was ultimately done and because of that the nra said, kinzinger is a rino, or whatever their language was, and i realized especially then, nra only cares about raising money on your back, they don't give a lot of money to people, they can get people upset.

they're competing with another group called gun owners of america, you think the nra is crazy, look at the gun owners of america, these are the ones who think there should be zero restrictions of owning guns. the nra has become, it's gone from defending rights of gun owners, it's become a grifting scam, and all you have to do is look at the last few years of the grifting scam of the nra to know that's true. >> the gun owners of america, i remember covering them after the oklahoma city bombing. they're outright in support of militia movement in the country. but the nra itself is, you know -- has had huge issues with its budget, internal scandals, not the force it once was, but the issue still seems to have ahold on republicans as much as ever now. >> look, i think the right to keep and bear arms is important to republicans. it is to me too.

but for some reason we got locked into this position of where we can make a difference. you mentioned earlier, florida, raising the age of buying guns to 21, the red flag laws, this is florida, right, this is rick on the scott, this is ron desantis' state, there was no blowback, let's do that kind of stuff now, because, look, yes, it's ultimately a mental health issue, somebody has to make a decision to pull a trigger, but can an 18-year-old buy an assault rifle the day of his birthday with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and still kill 20-some people with 150 cops standing around? obviously yes. what can we do to stop or mitigate this? this is -- jonathan, you know as well as i do, i talk to people overseas all the time, this is embarrassing, they look at the united states and say, what's going on? we can have this rich tradition of kind of individualism and gun rights, you know i'm a big

staunch advocate of con sealed carrying if you know what you're doing. but this attitude, first off, you're not doing anything to defend your rights to to second generation. secondly, you're playing tough camp out there while real people and innocent people are dying. >> before you go the ar-15, you own an ar-15, las vegas, it was an ar-15, the pulse nightclub, sandy hook, uvalde, so many of these are with that weapon, what do you say to chris murphy who says that the ar-15 should be banned, straight up banned? >> i say that i'd love to get in a conversation with him in a good way. i think we need to have this real discussion, and i don't

mean that as politicians, i think if there's a way when it comes to ars if there's a special license you need to own one, are there ways we can ensure that those who own them -- look, again, we all have to admit, 99.9% of ar owners are not walking in and having mass shoots. i'm definitely ready to engage in that conversation, and maybe including not selling them anymore. that's fine. to me, again, i'm focused on saving life now. at the same time, what's the first thing we can do to mitigate this situation? raise the age to 21. right now, there are things we can do to stop it. >> congressman kinzinger, and let me also say, i know you're an iraq war veteran, memorial day weekend, thank you for joining us on this memorial day weekend. really appreciate it. thank you for your service.

>> you bet. thank you. >> thank you. we'll have more on the debate over gun safety when we come back. plus, two of donald trump's top republican targets successfully fended off primary challenges on tuesday, is the former president still the gop kingmaker? our roundtable is next. ker? our roundtable is next.

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get out of here. >> former president donald trump last night in casper, wyoming, taking on republican congresswoman liz cheney. and not exactly telling the truth. while cheney has come out forcefully against what trump did on january 6th, she continues to have one of the most conservative voting records in congress and there's no evidence that she's gone crazy. here to discuss that and more the editor of national review, ramesh ponnuru.e. "the new york times" national political correspondent and co-author of the bestseller "this will not pass," jonathan martin. and congressional correspondent rachel scott. we'll get to trump and the midterms, but first, donna, first, after this discussion we just had with kinzinger and murphy, the tragedy in uvalde,

coming right after the tragedy in buffalo, what's your sense, do you agree with the slight note of optimism that something might be done this time? >> i'm a woman of strong faith, tremendous courage, but most importantly, hope, hope that when you see what we have witnessed personally the tragedy in buffalo, i'm not optimistic. you know why? because i have seen these cowards walk away before. i'm going to call them cowards. i have seen lawmakers stop right when it's time to act and say, well, you know what, we'll wait. or they'll accuse democrats of politicizing and we're not politicizing anything, we're trying to stop the murder of innocent people, period. children. you know, i love politicians when they can come on tv and give us all of the stuff they plan to do, but why are not acting right now? why are you waiting for another mass shooting?

how many mass shootings do we need in the state of texas? it's horrific. i got to tell you, i went to a major retailer, you know i'm a shopper. i saw a cop yesterday and you know, i was -- i said, thank you for your service, i always say thank you for your service. >> a police officer. >> when i walked out i just wanted to hug him. you know what, i'm going to say something to him. sir, i was raised by a dad who served in the military and he always told us as children, say thank you. i want to hug you because you're protecting me going to the store, that young man was casing the joint out, figuring out where black people shopping and yesterday i felt that vulnerable, so no, i don't feel that they're going to act. we need more than cowards. we need leadership. we need to take these guns out of the hands of people who have no right because they're unstable and we need to act now. >> but, jonathan, the nra, which

has been this, you know, larger than life force, don't cross the nra if you're a republican, and in some cases if you're a democrat, but the nra is shadow of its former self. >> it doesn't have the clout as a group. the nra isn't the issue here. the issue is the perceived strength of gun owners in republican primaries and collectively as a force what they could do in a fairly small pool of voters when they act together and that strikes fear in the heart of a lot of gop politicians and i think that's the issue here. it's the polarization that's the larger issue that's driving this debate, it's not the donations or the endorsements of one group anymore, it's our politics today. we're sort of locked in this red/blue dynamic, i think that's what driving this issue. i'm told there are going to be

zoom meetings this week -- congress is in recess -- zoom meetings tuesday and wednesday this week between lawmakers in the senate to come up with some incremental solution on this issue. i thought it was so telling last week that chuck schumer didn't schedule a vote. that to me was the big reveal last week, no show vote, because schumer wanted to give murphy a few days, few weeks to get a compromise on guns. >> rachel, you were in houston at the mra convention, covering the debate in congress. i think kinzinger pointed to something important, what jonathan just said, murphy in that interview, here on "this week," was restrained in how he went after republicans and made it very clear that he's willing to take a half-measure or a quarter-measure to get something done. >> that's so notable, jon. when you were asking him about why not raise the legal age limit, he kind of hesitated there, because i think he knows

that there may not be enough republican support for that. democrats have reached the point that says, let's just figure out something to, even if it's something they call modest. two background check bills that have already cleared the house. but i will say this, too, after being on the ground at the nra convention, and talking to gun owners on the floor there, they were telling me that they support some of these measures, they support background checks for gun sales, they support even raising the age of when you can purchase a gun. one woman said that no 18-year-old should be able to buy a weapon that powerful. >> so, ramesh, did you read into anything at the nra convention? cornyn pulled out. governor abbott pulled out. >> abbott sent a message. >> yes, he did. >> i don't think the people at the nra convention begrudged him

going to uvalde instead of going to the convention. i think that what jonathan was saying was right. the people have always exaggerated the power of the nra on this issue, what's really made the difference on the politics of guns, supporters of gun rights are much more intense than opponents. they're much more likely to vote on the issue, lot of soft supporters of things. that's why those pool who show strong support for some of those measures never translate into action. we're seeing a different situation right now. i think senator murphy is coming at this in a different way. than we've seen in previous negotiations. i think we're focusing on a slightly different set of issues where there might be more potential to generate some consensus. for example, red flag laws, one of things that speaker pelosi has talked about it. i think we try and see what

works in different states because there are different ways you can try and structure those certain laws. that's a more hopeful beginning than something that's focused on what gun owners see as an attack on gun culture. raising the age i think is another one, because it's a more targeted response than saying going after those popular rifle in the united states. >> ar-15, you know what an assault weapon is, it's designed to do? i grew up in a household and a neighborhood full of weapons, the only time they actually used the weapons, it wasn't to kill a creature, they used it during the celebrations, you know, new year's day. >> right. >> my father was trained to use weapons. if we're not talking about training, if we're not talking about banning some of these assault weapons, i mean, you go out on your 18th birthday -- i remember what i didn't on my 18th birthday --

but i can tell you this much i don't know anybody in my family who went out on their 18th birthday and bought an ar-15. or bought 400 rounds of ammunition. then went out and bought another one. come on, we got to have a conversation. >> i want to do a quick flashback to what happened after parkland when there was a different president in the white house who had this to say. 2019. >> it doesn't make sense, i have to wait until i'm 21 to get a handgun but i can get this weapon at 18. >> we didn't address it, mr. president. >> because you're afraid of the nra. >> 2019. i mean. >> it's classic trump, jon, where he sort of blurts out a widely accepted verity in washington, that just having to scorch his own party in that moment, but i think right there what you're seeing is, this sort of deeper red and blue in

american politics, i think you were around to cover some of the 1990s, early 2000s votes on guns, you had conservatives democrats opposing measures and more liberal republicans voting for gun control measures. where you had more diversity within the parties. that's not the case anymore. the book you mentioned earlier that we have out now, there's a reason it's called "it will not pass." if we do see ten republicans vote for the bill that murphy is talking about, i guarantee you, those ten republicans are going to be folks who are retiring either this year, in 2024, or 2026, because they don't want to be voting for this kind of a bill and be on a primary ballot ever again. mark my words. if there are ten, at least eight of those ten won't run for office again. >> do you think there will be ten? >> i think it's possible if you

watch murphy today and what mcconnell has done, there's clearly an opening to do something incremental. i think murphy is trying to convince schumer hold back, don't call a vote yet to jam republicans, let's see if we can get something across the line first, he has to find people in the gop caucus who probably won't be on the ballot again. >> so, i want to turn to these primaries, and rachel, the georgia primary, which has been overshadowed by all of this, was a significant moment, wasn't it, these were two of donald trump's top targets, the governor brian kemp and the secretary of state, trump did everything in his power to defeat both of these men and they both won their republican primaries. >> and trump has endorsed a lot of candidates but he hasn't given a lot of money in races. >> when trump spends money that's -- >> that's a sign. >> there's no denying it.

this was a major defeat for the former president. it tells you that in georgia, some voters you can't just talk about false claims about the 2020 election we want to move forward. also, i think it's hard to say that this is a party that's departing from the former president and when you look at the type of candidates that are running across the country, in many ways this is a party that's moving closer to trumpism. >> ramesh, what was your sense? first of all, did the events in georgia trump is more or less likely to run for president himself? >> i think we have to see what the next round of primaries and the round after that say about the candidates he's supporting. what i think we're seeing right now is most of his candidates, with some exceptions, mostly they're getting about a third of the electorate in different primaries. >> trump endorsement, 30%. between 30% and 40%. mo brooks was at 29%. he took back the endorsement.

>> he actually did better after the endorsement was taken back. in ohio for example that was enough for jd vance to win the senate primary for the reublicans there. and of course not all of that 30% is just the trump effect, presumably some of these candidating would have had support without him. but he's giving 10, 15 points to these candidates, that's substantial. there's nobody else in republican politics who has that kind of sway, whose endorsement matters that much. he's a factor and i think he's ebbing a little bit each month. >> sure he is. the brian kemp model is important in georgia, because it's not the liz cheney model. brian kemp never publicly confronted donald trump. he just bit his tongue and ignored trump. didn't bait the bear if you will. as we capture in our book, there's three models basically now for the gop. the liz cheney model. open war with donald trump, take

him on, denounce him as unfit for office. there's the mcconnell model. which is what brian kemp did, go silent. hope he fades away. then, there's the kevin mccarthy model, which we chronicle at great length in the book, jon, and you do a full embrace of the trump himself and trump version of to gop that's basically -- >> that showed he was in private at a much different tone. mccarthy, though, he was out -- he spoke at the rally last night in casper via taped message. >> he got boos. >> he got booed. >> because people heard the audiotapes from our book which does capture the really kevin mccarthy, who like most gop members of congress wants to move on from trump, believes he's basically a headache for their party but will never dare

say so in public. that public dimension captures the gop leadership, never recalled in modern history has there been a gap between the leaders of the party and the grassroots of party, today's gop and donald trump. >> elections are about the future, and while the democrats are sitting around trying to figure out how to control inflation, how to lower the cost of prescription medication and how to relieve students of this awful debts republicans are relitigating 2020. >> all right, on that note, we'll be back, that's it for roundtable. more from the tragedy in uvalde, texas, is next, please stay with us. uvalde is next, please stay with us.

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up next, a tribute to those who tragically lost their lives in uvalde, texas, last week, lives we shod neverer forget. s, lives we should neverer forget.

that's all for us today. we leave you this morning with a tribute to the 21 lives lost in uvalde, texas. ♪

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