Summary
7 killed, 30 plus injured after gunman opens fire on parade. 1/6 panel`s next hearing scheduled for July 12th. Parade shooting suspect charged with 7 counts of murder. Suspect reportedly engaged in online discussions glorifying violence. Fulton grand jury subpoenas top Trump allies.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: That is tonight`s "LAST WORD". THE 11TH HOUR with Stephanie Ruhle starts now.
STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, another community in mourning, seven killed while celebrating the Fourth of July. We`re live on the scene with the latest on the investigation and honoring those lost.
Then, the latest on George`s investigation into the former guy used subpoenas issued to members of Trump`s inner circle, but does it change anything? Plus, a conversation about mental health from a man who struggled in secrecy while in the spotlight, now opening up to tell his story. As THE 11TH HOUR gets underway on this Tuesday night.
Good evening once again, I`m Stephanie Ruhle. The Chicago suburb of Highland Park is the latest community struggling to come to grips with the horror of a deadly mass shooting. Tonight, the town held a vigil for the seven people killed when a gunman opened fire on a fourth of July parade. The attack also left dozens of people injured.
Just a few hours ago, Vice President Kamala Harris visited the scene to pay tribute to the victims. Police say the suspected gunman fired more than 70 rounds from a rooftop shortly after the parade got underway yesterday morning.
Authorities have charged 21-year-old male Robert Crimo with seven counts of murder and say he could eventually face more charges.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC RINEHART, STATES ATTORNEY FOR LAKE COUNTY: These are just the first of many charges that will be filed against Mr. Crimo. I want to emphasize that, there will be more charges. We anticipate dozens of more charges centering around each of the victims, psychological victims, physical victims.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: So far, police have not identified a motive but they say Crimo allegedly planned the attack for weeks and disguised himself as a woman to make his escape. Official say he legally purchased multiple weapons, including at least two rifles before the shooting. They also revealed that police had two prior contacts with the suspect. In 2019, a family member reported he threatened to kill everyone and several knives were seized. But it wasn`t just Highland Park.
Remember this holiday weekend brought gun violence across the nation. According to the gun Violence Archive over 230 people died in shootings from Friday morning until Monday night.
Meanwhile, we`re also following the latest developments in the January 6 investigation. The House committee says its next hearing will take place on July 12, one week from today. The news comes as the Georgia prosecutor investigating Donald Trump for possible election interference has subpoenaed some of his closest allies, among them Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Senator Lindsey Graham. We`ll have much more on that later in the hour.
But I want to begin with my good friend and partner Ali Velshi live in Highland Park tonight. Ali, thank you so much for being there. You always go to the toughest scenes, and we`re grateful for it. Tell me what`s it like there?
ALI VELSHI, MSNBC HOST, "VELSHI": You know, you said it in the beginning, you said another community coming to grips with, right, that it`s not even that these are not expected anymore. It`s now a game of Roulette, will it come to my community?
The number of people I`ve heard here tell me the thing that you and I have together heard in different places where people have said, we didn`t think it would happen here. And now we`re finding that it`s happening everywhere. We`re now averaging about 12 what we call mass shootings a week in which more than four people are shot. You outlined just this weekend, the number of shootings that there have been. So this is a tight knit community. It`s a suburban community, bedroom community to Chicago, and it is ironically a community in which AR-style assault weapons are not permitted. This is a community that after Parkland, took a stand on this. They passed a municipal ordinance that not only said that those types of weapons are not allowed in the city, but it took a shot at the state government, the governor and the legislature at the time to say and you should do this around the state but Illinois actually has relatively strict gun laws so does Chicago. But guns get in from other places because there aren`t hard borders between states. And that`s the same problem with Highland Park. Guns get in from other places.
The other thing people talked about in fear really graphic detail here is those who were killed and the damage that was done to them, there was a gunman perched on a roof up there, two stories right over the -- right over the parade route, and was shooting people at very close range.
[23:05:15]
The -- I had a doctor on earlier who said to me that the people who were shot that he looked at and that he tried to treat they had passed, they had passed very quickly, there was no chance of saving them. So they moved on to the other, many other people who were wounded. So it`s a community that is reeling. It`s a community as confused as a great deal of anger. A lot of people who said to me, they want to do something, they want to channel their anger, but they`re not quite sure exactly how to do this, because it`s exhausting. The same people who`ve been watching the shootings across the country saying, what can be done about this.
Everybody`s cognizant of the fact that we have had some federal legislation for the first time in decades, and somebody might have actually been relevant here, Stephanie, because that that Red Flag Law, as you said, this shooter, this alleged shooter did have two interactions with the law, one that referenced possible suicide, and one that referenced possibly killing other people under well executed red flag laws. That kind of person is the kind of person who might have a weapon taken away from them or not be able to get one. So we`re still in that area where young men are getting assault weapons and committing mass murders. As many times as we report on this, Stephanie, the underlying story doesn`t change all that much.
RUHLE: And they`re getting them legally. Ali Velshi, thank you for being there. Thank you for staying up late. I appreciate it.
VELSHI: My pleasure.
RUHLE: And throughout this day, our team on the ground has been hearing from people who were there when the shooting happened. I want to share a bit of what some of them said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DAVID BUM, WITNESSED HIGHLAND PARK PARADE SHOOTING: X number of shots that it sounded like, you know, howitzer. People started screaming bodies down, bodies down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I picked up my kids and we ran again. I put them in a garbage dumpster.
JULIE MORRISON, (D) ILLINOIS STATE SENATE: A wave of people were rushing back towards us, running away from the parade. Moms and dads carrying their kids kind of weaving in and out of the cars, doing whatever they could to get away.
BRADLEY HANSEN, WITNESSED HIGHLAND PARK SHOOTING: I dove on the ground and I pulled my one year old son and his stroller onto the street next to me and I tried to cover as much as I could.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: With that, let`s get smarter this evening with the help of our leadoff panel. Clint Watts, joins us, West Point Graduate, Army Veteran and former FBI Special Agent and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. And former NBC News Correspondent Kevin Tibbles. Kevin joins us why, because Highland Park is his home town. Kevin, were you at the parade yesterday?
KEVIN TIBBLES, FORMER NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: No, I was just down the street from here. I only live about a half a mile from this location. And I was riding my bicycle. I started to see the ambulances, the police cars, fire Department. And it was a neighbor that ran out and said they`re shooting. They`re shooting at the parade. And I was like, well, of course, the same reaction that people have been sort of expunging all day long is my reaction was, well, first, it can`t be true. And then when I did come up here, of course, everything had been cleared out. But you know, Stephanie, I have difficulty talking about it primarily because people say that the gunman was on the roof of a building? Well, yes, he was he was on the roof of a building, you know, where we used to get our kids winter boots. He was across the street from the drugstore, where we used to go and get our kids, school supplies.
There`s a Pancake House, you know, it`s -- this isn`t supposed to happen here. And as Ali was just saying it`s happening everywhere. And I guess that`s one of the reasons why I`m wearing my HP hat tonight, because that`s what people do in this town, and high schools right over there. The school is -- all the schools are right over there where our kids grew up in this town. And yeah, it`s not supposed to happen here. And it`s not supposed to happen anywhere else. And we are devastated. And we had the Vice President come here tonight and stand right on this corner. And wouldn`t it -- wouldn`t it have been such a better occasion if the Vice President had have come here for a different reason. But that`s the way it is in our little town this evening.
RUHLE: Kevin, you wrote a letter to the New York Times, saying Highland Park is a place where people say we never thought this could happen here. Well, now it has. Tell me what it`s like there tonight. How do you feel? Where do you go from here?
TIBBLES: Well, I actually wrote the letter last evening when I was in a fit of despair as everyone -- I mean, how can you listen to that young girl who lost her mother at the age of 22, right over there on our main street and not sort of lose control of your emotions.
[23:10:09]
I wrote it last evening because, Stephanie, I have covered more of these types of incidents, than I can remember at least 20. And all over this nation, and internationally. And it always happens in someone else`s community. And now lo and behold, here it is happening in ours.
So when I wrote the letter I was trying to be as bold as I could, because it was -- listen, this is our town, and now it`s happening in our town. It happened in San Bernardino, it happened in Las Vegas, it`s happened in Chardon, Ohio. I can list off a number of the places where I was sent, when I was still doing this for a living, to talk to people in those towns, about how they feel, about the fact that happened in their town. And then of course, we would move on, and I would come back home and see my family, hug my kids, and then head off into another story. It`s now happened in this town. And it`s devastating. And we should be angry. And the people in this town are angry.
I think you could hear during the press conferences today how people started to clap when they started talking about gun control up here. This is a gun control state. This is a town that has strict regulations. But the bottom line is, is that when people are talking about red flag laws, I think a lot of people who live in this town want to know why there isn`t a red flag that goes up. Anytime somebody goes into a gun shop and asked whether or not they can buy one of those things.
RUHLE: That`s exactly where I want to go with you, Clint. If we talk about red flags, if you look at this young man`s imprint on the internet, the fact that he had been planning this, the fact that he was known to police, is it that we don`t have the right laws in place, or that our police force isn`t equipped to go after people? How does this happen?
CLINT WATTS, FORMER COUNTER TERRORISM DIVISION FORMER CONSULTANT: Yeah, some of some of those, Stephanie, two parts of this problem right now, one is the frequency of these shootings that are going on. I think we`re in the middle of a broad contagion, where we`re seeing one shooting somewhat lead to another, are they directly connected? No. But in those online environments, where this gentleman and many others attended, well late at night and commiserate with their fellow shooters, this is a big incident and attend to inspire more incidents. Like it`s separately though. It`s the impact of each of these. And that just comes down to the availability of weapons. Why do we not see these kinds of attacks repeatedly in places like Europe, it comes down to, yes, there is violence there. But no one has the ability to shoot 70 rounds. We heard that on the video right there, 70 rounds in a matter of seconds into a large crowd of people.
So you`ve got to look at both parses one, and part of it is the law. How do we restrict access to weapons for people that are obviously mentally disturbed? I think the other part in terms of frequency is we just do not investigate in a nationwide way in a consistent way. Nor do we enforce laws in a consistent way when it comes to weapons and such it leaves these enormous gaps in terms of the system.
I`ll give you an example. If we were looking for al-Qaeda or ISIS inspired terrorists in the United States, that would be highly centralized, it would report up through the FBI, you would see tips and leads come in, they would all be triage, everyone would be moving in one direction, which is to try and preempt that violence from a terrorist group. We can go out and after each one of these, Stephanie, I`ll come on here probably again, in another few weeks, we`re going to see another shooter with an online presence. That`s probably just like the one we saw yesterday, just like the one we saw before Buffalo, just like the one we saw before Dayton, or El Paso or any of these locations.
And so we just don`t have that tips and lead system where we can really enable law enforcement to do anything other than react to these scenarios. And even when they do react, they are outgunned. That shooter yesterday is from an elevated position over a building, firing into a large crowd against law enforcement, who are basically just carrying a handgun and walking down the street. This is not a situation where law enforcement are going to do particularly well and that we expect them to be heroes nearly every single day out in every single street in America at this point.
RUHLE: Kevin, you said last night when you wrote --
TIBBLES: Stephanie, if I could --
RUHLE: Yes, please.
TIBBLES: Well, I was just going to add that yes, the law enforcement people here are outgunned. And they are the heroes in this case. They were all in the dark parade yesterday. And then they come up against this person that they have known -- they know nothing about. You know, Stephanie, you mentioned a little bit earlier about how are you know, are the police not managing this perhaps? Well, how do you expect the Highland Park and I`m not talking about you, Steph, but how do you expect the Highland Park Police Department to patrol the internet? When I saw that video yesterday that I had never seen before, and it was a former colleague that sent it to me of this young fellows video, basically, you know, advertising, that this was going to take place, or at least applauding the fact that these incidents take place.
[23:15:26]
I just don`t know how the police force in this little town or elsewhere -- it`s not a little town, we`re in suburban Chicago, you know, or elsewhere are going to be able to police that, and sort of bring this person. That, yes, they`ve been to his house before? Yes, they confiscated his knives. At some point, someone has to get involved. Is it -- you know, as someone has to take over from the parents, and the local police and the school system, and sort of get involved? But the bottom line is, is that you guys are absolutely right. There was a fellow with a military weapon on the roof in our downtown area right behind me here. And he was firing at will.
RUHLE: I know we`re out of time. But what Kevin is saying, Clint, I really need you to comment on, how -- what we`re asking are local police departments and our school -- our high school teachers to do, our communities, isn`t it -- how can we possibly ask local law enforcement to handle something like this? Don`t we need to take it to a different level?
WATTS: We do, Stephanie. And we did this after 911. You see something, you say someday, right? We had tips and leads, suspicious activity reports that would go into the Department of Homeland Security, the same thing would happen in the online environment where we would start to establish tips and leads. And you`d work through a Joint Terrorism Task Force. Again, this is a task force model situation where we build our network to counter their network. These mass shooters are not alone in the online environment. They may show up alone in our towns, our shopping centers in our schools, but they are not alone online. And this really comes down to human intelligence. We have done in other contexts, we could do it here in America, we just have to choose to do it. I think that`s the next step. Someone has to take the lead and really move the ball forward if we want to be preemptive. Otherwise, we`re just going to keep reacting to these incidents over and over again.
RUHLE: Thank you both, so, so much. Kevin, last word to you.
TIBBLES: We`re at war with ourselves.
RUHLE: We got to end it. Clint Watts, Kevin Tibbles. Kevin, I am so, so sorry, to you, to your family, to your community tonight.
TIBBLES: Thanks for having me.
RUHLE: Coming up, Kevin just said it. We`ve got that new reporting on a YouTube channel with videos featuring the Highland Park shooting suspect. And with the dark web is saying about it tonight, to Clint`s point, these things don`t happen in an isolated way.
And later, with these new subpoenas for Rudy Giuliani and Senator Lindsey Graham mean, not just for those guys, but for the former guy. And of next week`s January 6 hearing, THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on a busy Tuesday night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:22:49]
RUHLE: Tonight we`re learning more about the suspected gunman. NBC News reports a YouTube channel with videos featuring the suspect posted clips that implied violence, including one that appears to show the parade route that was targeted.
With us tonight to discuss, NBC News Senior Reporter Ben Collins. He covers disinformation and extremism on the internet. Ben, here we are again, you`ve been reporting on this nonstop, what`s the latest?
BEN COLLINS, NBC NEWS SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, there`s a new batch of YouTube videos attached to the shooter where is a static shot of the parade route that he eventually went up shooting. This is four months ago on a YouTube account that was later archived on the internet. Everything that we found as a manifesto, which was not even a manifesto, was just -- the number is - - that he wanted people to decrypt. But we`re not going to do that, for obvious reasons. This guy had been planning this. That`s why we`re telling you this is because this guy had been planning this for this long. He had posted that as an Amazon ebook in February. This guy really wants to be known as a mass shooter in the burgeoning mass shooter culture that exists on the internet where he thought he had a community basically.
RUHLE: In the burgeoning mass shooter culture. The fact that that is even a thing is chilling. What has the that community, what has the dark web said since this happened? Sadly, this is what you have to cover every day you live in this?
COLLINS: Sure, so it exists within the larger hyper violent political subcultures on the Internet. In those spaces after somebody -- one of their own commits a mass murderer. They don`t admit to it, they try to pass it off onto some minority group, they don`t like personally, since the shooter was wearing women`s clothes to disguise his tattoos that it was more all over his face and his neck. They immediately said that this was a trans shooter and that this was bound to happen because for the last two months, their number one enemy on the far right, parts of the internet has been trans people. So they never look back and take responsibility. They never admit that they can be responsible for example an orphan child who is without two parents now and they don`t think about this.
[23:25:11]
You know, for all the political arguments they have about, you know, saving America and all of this stuff. They don`t think about the actual impact they have on America. They don`t look back. They just try to blame their enemies.
RUHLE: As I said, you cover this every day, this dark web, these pools within the internet. Was there something that he did, you said, he put out every available red flag. Yet this man wasn`t stopped. He wasn`t arrested. Are there not laws in place to go after what`s happening out there? Are these things legal?
COLLINS: Well, we`ve now seen over and over, people check in on these kinds of shooters, he -- you know, he had a sword taken away and knives taken away when he threatened to kill everyone`s family. The Buffalo shooter also was checked in on, he just said he was joking around in 2018, a story about a guy in New Mexico who said his name was future mass shooter on the internet, the FBI checked in on him, he said it was just trolling.
Steph, I don`t know what to say anymore. Nothing is being done. Fundamentally, from a federal level or local level, nothing is being done to stop this. This is a group of people who all think they`re cool loners hanging out, you know, trying to get as more kills than the last guy in their mass shooting, nothing`s happening. It seems like gun legislation is going backwards, if anything. I`m not sure any of that kind of legislation would have stopped any of this. There is nothing. There`s nobody checking on the spaces, they`ve just got a knock on all these malicious spaces that are very well organized. And they all wear the same costume and they all go in the same U-haul. So it`s pretty easy to get in those spaces.
With a more dynamic threat like this, nothing is being done. And we`re just going to be back here in a couple of weeks. And it`s just going to keep happening. This is what happened in 2018 with the El Paso shooting and the Christchurch shooting in the Poway shooting and all those other shootings that were there for. The Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting, they compounded on top of each other because of social contagion. That`s what happens over and over again. Nobody is paying attention to this at the federal level. And some people, it appears benefit from the status quo and the fear that gun violence brings to America.
RUHLE: You are, you are checking in on this. You are covering this every day. What is this like for you?
COLLINS: It`s difficult, because I know it`s not the last one. You know, Steph, you know, it`s not the last one. We`ve been doing this for years together, right?
RUHLE: Sadly .
COLLINS: And how do we -- what are we supposed to say, I`m supposed to give some hope here and say that there`s some actionable steps that we can take or there`s something we can do better. Or there`s a piece of legislation in the pipeline, or there`s a new tool that police are using to investigate this stuff better. None of that is happening. Nothing`s happened. So I just keep reporting on it. And that`s all I can do. I can just keep saying these people are in the same space as they were in two years ago, three years ago, four years ago now. And they`re still committing the same terror attacks. And they`re still -- their communities are growing. And the disaffected people are finding these spaces easier than ever because of how the internet works. We`re not adapting to how people consume information anymore. Like we`re just not adapting to it. And young people are finding horrible information very quickly. They`re finding bad answers very quickly. I hope the next time we talk about this, Steph, which I really hope is very, very far time from now, a very long way from now, I hope that there are some answers by then.
RUHLE: We are adapting. We`re adapting to covering more and more shootings all across America. Ben Collins, thank you for the work that you do. I really appreciate it.
COLLINS: Thanks, Stephanie.
RUHLE: Coming up, the former guy facing pressure on multiple fronts. The new subpoenas out of Georgia for key members of his inner circle ahead of another January 6 Hearing happening one week from today when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:33:54]
RUHLE: Another significant story we`re following tonight about efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Investigators in Georgia now moving in on Trump`s inner circle. Today`s subpoenas went out to Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Senator Lindsey Graham among others, as part of Fulton County`s investigation into the Trump campaign`s efforts after Joe Biden`s legitimate election win.
Joining us now former Federal Prosecutor Tali Farhadian Weinstein, and MSNBC Political Contributor Matthew Dowd.
Tali, how does this, what`s happening in Georgia differ from what the January 6 committee is doing? And I have to ask, yes, on its surface, like subpoenas to Eastman, Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani sounds big, but any chance they`re going to comply?
TALI FARHADIAN WEINSTEIN, FORMER NY FEDERAL AND STATE PROSECUTOR: Yes, and it doesn`t just sound big, Stephanie, it is big. You know, we are, at this point at least two years into watching and in some cases speculating about whether Donald Trump is going to be held accountable either in law or politics and I`ve always thought that he`s had -- he has the most exposure in Fulton County, Georgia and I`m more convinced of that today. Because these subpoenas really are significant and they`re through criminal process that`s really different from political committee, not the January 6 committee doesn`t have power to pull people in. But this is really entirely different. And it does look like it`s closing in on him. If you just pick any of them. What is the connection between John Eastman and Donald Trump - - and Fulton County? Obviously, it`s Donald Trump. He is the target here.
[23:35:25]
RUHLE: Matthew, it has been two years so far, the Georgia investigation has gotten less attention. Right now, do you see this as an annoyance for Republicans or a real big problem?
MATTHEW DOWD, MSNBC POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, take away what was just discussed about the legal situation is, and this continues to be a political problem. And every time something like this adds on, it`s more evidence that the Republicans that there is some argument to be made about the corruption they have existed in over the course of the last few years. And so we can discuss the legal on one side, but the political problem that the Republicans have, with January 6, with what`s going on in New York, with Donald Trump`s continued conversations, all sets up the Democrats to make a valid, credible argument about keeping the Republicans from power, because this is what happens. And that`s I think the greatest political problem for the Republicans is that just as a mountain of evidence has gathered to be presented to the voters that you`d Republicans cannot be trusted at the at the levers of power in America.
RUHLE: Well, before Democrats have a chance to do that, Mitt Romney did it. He wrote an op-ed in the Atlantic and he warns this. President Joe Biden is a genuinely good man. But he has yet -- but he has yet been unable to break through our national malady of denial, deceit and distrust. A return of Donald Trump would feed the sickness, probably rendering it insurable.
Mitt Romney, though he hasn`t done much to actually rid us of Donald Trump or make the country aware. He makes the point that the problems that we are facing, haven`t gone anywhere. If Democrats don`t make this case, in a real way, come November, what are we really facing here?
DOWD: This is to me or Tali?
RUHLE: Matthew, to you.
DOWD: So I mean, I congratulate Romney to a degree on actually lending a weak voice to the efforts to push back against the attacks on democracy. The problem I have with that op-ed, that Mitt Romney wrote is fundamentally Mitt Romney hasn`t addressed the real problem with which is the elephant in the room, which is the GOP. Removing Donald Trump, he`s down in Mar-a-Lago, even if he never shows up in another election again, this election denials, election denialism, and the attacks on democracy have become part of the Republican Party. And so unless Mitt Romney says the Republican Party no longer is a pro-Democracy Party, which isn`t right now, then he is just sort of weakly saying, yeah, we don`t want Donald Trump. But oh, by the way, the Republican Party is fine.
And the other thing that I -- if that I would argue with Mitt Romney with is, if he is successful in the Republicans, and he wants to be successful in becoming part of the majority party, it puts all of those elections deniers that he`s talked about in power in the aftermath of the midterm, and so yes, congratulate on a weak point he`s makes and he joins the pro- democracy group. But fundamentally, this isn`t about Donald Trump. This is about an anti-democratic team that now exists within the Republican Party. And that`s where Mitt Romney should be addressing his concern.
RUHLE: Then Tali, this isn`t about politics, how urgent is it, to hold those legally accountable for their actions here around the election?
WEINSTEIN: Stephanie, it`s always urgent to bring accountability as soon as possible. And that`s why I think the Georgia case is so important, because that`s actually a case that can move pretty quickly. It started with an excellent piece of evidence Donald Trump on tape saying find me those votes. And now it looks like it really is building out lining up with a number of Georgia statutes about election fraud, and even a racketeering charge. And, you know, accountability from anywhere right now I think would be incredibly meaningful in law and politics.
RUHLE: Accountability, anywhere. We`re going to leave on that note. Tali Farhadian Weinstein, Matthew Dowd, thank you both.
Coming up, he`s an Afghan war vet and was once considered the next big thing in the Democratic party until he sidelined himself to fight a battle of an entirely different kind. We`re going to have one on one with Jason Kander when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
[23:40:13]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
RUHLE: My next guest was once considered a rising star in the Democratic Party. Jason Kander was a former intelligence officer while he was serving in Afghanistan. Once back at home, he was elected to Missouri State Legislature and then became Missouri Secretary of State. In 2018, Kander was considering a run for the White House and met with then President Obama who called him unnatural.
[23:45:14]
But suddenly, he put on the brakes. First, he left the presidential field to run for mayor of Kansas City. And he dropped out of that race, saying he was seeking help for PTSD from his time in Afghanistan. And today, his new memoir is out. It is a tell all about his secretly dealing with this serious condition for 11 years, all while in the national spotlight.
I`m happy to welcome Jason Kander. He is the first millennial ever elected to Missouri State Office. And now he helps fight veteran suicide and homelessness at the veterans community project, his new book, The Invisible Storm: A Soldier`s Memoir of Politics, and PTSD.
Jason, I am grateful that you wrote this, I`m grateful that you`re here. You are at the top of your game, when you reveal to the country, I need help. Why did you decide to do this in such a public way, and then tell your story?
JASON KANDER, "INVISIBLE STORM" AUTHOR: Well, I decided to do it in a public way because I felt like there was somebody out there who was like me, who is telling themselves. Well, you know, what I did was no big deal. Because that`s the thing is, at least in my case, with the army, the way that they get us to go in and you know, do the scary jobs or the difficult jobs is to tell you over and over again, what you`re doing, it`s no big deal. And I don`t really fault the army for that. Because to get me to keep going into rooms where I might be kidnapped and killed. I had to believe this is no big deal. The problem is, is nobody flips that switch off when you`re done.
And I think throughout our country right now, there are people who are telling themselves, look, it`s no big deal. I saw it on the news, like it`s no big deal. I was I was a town over from that shooting. And we are dealing with this national trauma. And that made me feel like, you know, if I can tell people my journey as to how I confronted my trauma got through it to a place of post traumatic growth, and would very possibly help a lot of people.
RUHLE: Then are we as a country right now experiencing our own PTSD, the mass shootings, the political divide, I mean, all that works with, are we experiencing our own sort of trauma?
KANDER: I believe so, like, I`m not a clinician, I`m just a guy who`s been doing a lot of therapy in the last few years. But yeah, I think so. I mean, look, I guess I would gauge it this way. And it`s hard for me to separate my own experience as a combat veteran that might lend to some hypervigilance. But I imagine you agree that I feel right now, like, if there`s a parade next week in my town, I`m going to think twice about taking my kids to it. That`s not natural. That`s the point of terrorism, is what they`re trying to do is to inflict that sort of trauma on all of us. And we have a tendency, just as the army taught me to at a lesser level, maybe, tell ourselves, why haven`t earned the right to refer to that as trauma. And so therefore, if it`s costing me sleep, if it`s making me -- if it`s disrupting me in some way, I`m not going to deal with that. And I don`t want people to treat it that way.
RUHLE: In the book you write, and you say, it`s not that civilians don`t want to hear about the experiences of war, it`s more likely, they`re just not equipped to respond. And they feel bad about that. So what do we do? Because most people, we don`t have military experience? How do we not just show our appreciation for the military, but how do we help you?
KANDER: Yeah. Well, I can tell you, individuals, and I can`t tell you society as a whole, right? So individuals, you know, it`s about getting involved with veterans causes in a way, that is not for brand association, right? I mean, it`s not just a matter of like, you know, every commercial you see is a soldier coming home to their dog, and then they`re like, so buy this car, right? Like, that`s fine. But like, if you`re going to do that, some of those proceeds better go that direction, and you better be out there with your employees. And you better be in the case of my organization, building tiny houses for homeless veterans, right? See, I got that in there. But I can still be a little politics.
RUHLE: There you go.
KANDER: But on the other side, like as a society, one of the things I read about in the book is that, you know, if you look at a lot of other cultures, when the warrior comes home, there`s a bringing the warrior back in, right? So a lot of Native American cultures would have a ceremony where they allowed the warrior to come in and tell their stories of what happened in battle, so that everybody could hear it. And the warrior didn`t feel separate from the tribe within the tribe. And what we do is what, like we say, OK, you`re going to get a free chicken boti roll up at Applebee`s. And then we`d like you to just be the same person you were before the war. And it doesn`t really work that way. We have to work to listen to veterans, hear about their stories on an individual level and at a larger level and not recoil from them. Because I can tell you, as a veteran, you kind of learn which stories you can tell to people who weren`t in the service, and which ones you can`t, without them, you know, kind of changing how they see you. And if we were just all more exposed to it, I think it wouldn`t be that way.
RUHLE: You just said kind of jokingly, see, I can still do a little politics.
KANDER: Oh, I fed you that.
[23:50:00]
RUHLE: What about a lot of politics because now you have experienced so much, don`t you think that right now you actually have more to offer than you did four or five years ago?
KANDER: I definitely do think I would have more to offer. But that`s just because I think I`ve grown like I`m a better father. I`m a better husband. I`m a pretty good little league coach. And I love doing all that stuff.
RUHLE: Well, the country needs help.
KANDER: Yeah. So one of the big -- Well, let me just answer it this way, I would just say, first, people should read the book for very full answer on this. And I`m plugging the book really hard, but I should also let people know that all of my royalties go to veterans community project to fight veteran suicide, veteran homelessness, which allows me to plug this book like super hard, but to actually answer your question, because old politician we might not have. The difference between me now and me then is, I had to constantly think about the future and plan the future, because the present was pretty intolerable. I was having violent night terrors, I felt like myself and my family were in danger all the time, I had a lot of shame and self-loathing. And so thinking about what I might do next, or chasing a sort of a redemption goal, you know, if I could save the country from this, that became a little bit of my self-medication, a lot of my self- medication.
And the difference now is, I`m enjoying the heck out of my life. And the present is pretty great for me. I`m playing baseball on like amateur men`s team like baseball and softball. I`m hurt all the time. But it`s great. And I`m coaching Little League, and I`m a huge part of my family`s life. And I`m the -- largely the guy that I was before I deployed but just with a lot more wisdom, which is to say, yeah, at some point, I think it`s very possible that I might run for something again. But I`m just having a lot of fun right now. And I guess I just feel like I`ve earned the right to do that. And I didn`t used to feel that way.
RUHLE: Well, I`m grateful that you were the guy here with us tonight, Jason.
KANDER: Thank you.
RUHLE: Thank you, so very much. His book out today. "Invisible Storm: A Soldier`s Memoir of Politics and PTSD." Seriously, go out tomorrow and get it. It`s worth a read.
Coming up, something we find ourselves doing all too often these days. We honor those who needlessly lost their lives in yet another senseless mass shooting, when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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[23:56:25]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRAIG GOLDSTEIN, HUSBAND OF SHOOTING VICTIM: I have been talking to people on the phone today, and I can`t believe how many best friends Katie has, how many people who said she was my best friend.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: The last thing before we go tonight, remembering lives stolen. And you know the drill. We have done this far too many times before. But this time, it happened on the Fourth of July, a uniquely horrific event on a uniquely American holiday.
So this evening, we honor those who lost their lives in Highland Park simply because they went to a parade yesterday. There`s 63-year-old Jacki Sundheim, she was a beloved member of the North Shore Congregation Israel, where she taught preschool and coordinated Bar & Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. The synagogue wrote Jacki`s work, kindness and warmth touched us all.
Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza was a 78-year-old father of eight and grandfather to many. Although he lived in Mexico, he`d been visiting family in Highland Park. And according to reports, he didn`t want to go to yesterday`s parade, but his family didn`t want to leave him home alone. So they brought him along. His granddaughter told the Chicago Sun Times that in his final moments, he was happy and living in the moment, watching a band go by.
88-year-old Stephen Straus was also a grandfather and a financial adviser who still committed to his job at a brokerage firm in Chicago, a lifelong Highland Park resident, his son said, Stephen went to the Fourth of July parade every year.
Then there`s Irina and Kevin McCarthy, a couple in their mid-30s, who brought their two and a half year old son Aiden to the parade. Irina`s father tells the Chicago Sun Times that Kevin died shielding his young son, saying he had Aiden under his body when he was shot.
A GoFundMe page has been set up for little Aiden and already has more than $1.5 million in donations.
There`s also 64-year-old Katherine Goldstein, a married mother of two who was there yesterday with her family. Lester Holt spoke with Katherine`s daughter, Casey, who`s next to her when she was shot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASSIE GOLDSTEIN, DAUGHTER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: I looked up and I saw the shooter shooting down the kids. And I told her that it was a shooter and that she had to run. So I started running with her and we were next to each other. And he shot her in the chest, and she fell down. And I knew she was dead. So I just told her that I loved her but I couldn`t stop because he was still shooting everyone next to me the memory.
LESTER HOLT, MSNBC HOST: What`s the memory that you want to share with us about your mom?
GOLDSTEIN: I want to share how she was before she died. She was waving to the floats. Every float that went by she waved to them. And --
HOLT: She was having fun?
GOLDSTEIN: Yep. She was just a good mom. And I got 22 years with her. And I got to have 22 years the best mom in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: The seventh victim has yet to be identified. That just means there`s another family somewhere tonight dealing with the unthinkable and tonight we will think about them. And sadly imagined soon I will be back in this chair with a new list of lives stolen, all because of this deadly and uniquely American problem of gun violence.
And on that note, on that very sad note, I wish you all a very good night. From all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News. Thanks for staying up late with us. I will see you at the end of tomorrow.