[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn:] Happening now, breaking news in El Paso. President Trump's visit to a city rocked by gun violence is under way. And some protesters say he's not welcome after the brutal anti-Latino attack. CNN is on the scene, as the president's attempts to offer comfort stir controversy. Frustration in Dayton. After Mr. Trump's meeting with victims of the shooting massacre in Ohio, Democratic officials vent about the inaction on gun control, but say the president's hospital visit was well-received. Why did that prompt a new Twitter tirade aboard Air Force One? Blistering speech. Joe Biden draws a link between the president's hate filled rhetoric and the El Paso attack, the leading 2020 Democrat accusing the commander in chief of fanning the flames of white supremacy. And raw racism. That's how former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice is describing the president's views, warning of dire consequences for the country and the world. She joins us live this hour. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in
[The Situation Room. Announcer:] This is CNN breaking news.
[Blitzer:] We're following breaking news on President Trump's visit to El Paso, Texas, this hour, where the pain and anger are raw, after one of the worst attacks on Latinos in U.S. history. He's been visiting wounded shooting survivors at a local hospital, just as he did earlier during his visit to Dayton, Ohio, the other city reeling from a gun massacre. As this president attempts to fill the traditional role of comforter in chief, he's been undermining his own call for unity by tweeting political attacks as he flew from one grief-stricken community to another. I will get reaction from Texas State Representatives Cesar Blanco, who serves the El Paso area. And our correspondents and analysts are also standing by, including CNN teams covering every leg of the president's trip. First, let's go to our chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. Jim, the president has been meeting with shooting victims behind closed doors. What's the latest?
[Jim Acosta, Cnn Chief White House Correspondent:] That's right, Wolf. President Trump just arrived in El Paso, Texas, about an hour ago to meet with law enforcement officials and some of the survivors from last weekend's massacre. He is at the hospital in El Paso right now. We're waiting to find out whether he will come to the cameras in just a few moments and make a few comments. But for now, he is behind closed doors. But the president did spend much of the afternoon blasting away at his critics on Twitter while flying on Air Force One. Even when those cities of El Paso and Dayton are grieving and mourning their dead, the president is airing his grievances.
[Acosta:] Facing what is shaping to be a critical moment in his administration, President Trump arrived in El Paso, Texas, to try to comfort another U.S. city traumatized by a mass shooting. Earlier in the day, he spent time with massacre victims in Dayton, Ohio, where he was pressed by lawmakers to do something about gun violence.
[Sen. Sherrod Brown:] We can't get anything done in the Senate because Mitch McConnell and the president of the United States are in bed with the gun lobby.
[Acosta:] As the president was flying from Ohio to Texas, he was live- tweeting a speech from former Vice President Joe Biden as he ripped into Mr. Trump.
[Joseph Biden , Presidential Candidate:] How far is it from Trump saying this is an invasion to the shooter in El Paso declaring quote "This attack is a response to Hispanic invasion of Texas?" How far apart are those comments?
[Acosta:] The president tweeted he was watching and said Biden was so boring. The White House insisted the president would play the role of consoler in chief. But Mr. Trump sounded at times as though he was consoling himself.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] So, my critics are political people. They're trying to make points.
[Acosta:] Dodging questions about his incendiary rhetoric and making the head-scratching claim that his language has somehow unified the country.
[Trump:] No, I don't think my rhetoric has at all. I think my rhetoric is a very it brings people together.
[Acosta:] Mr. Trump was pressed on the El Paso gunman's manifesto, which appeared to be inspired in part by the president's use of the term invasion to describe migrants. He sidestepped that one too.
[Question:] You and the shooter in El Paso used that same language. Do you regret that?
[Trump:] I think that illegal immigration you're talking about illegal immigration, huh? I think illegal immigration is a terrible thing for this country. I think you have to come in legally.
[Acosta:] The president then proceeded to spread the blame around for the outbreak of violence under his watch.
[Trump:] I don't like it. Any group of hate, I am whether it's white supremacy, whether it's any other kind of supremacy, whether it's Antifa, whether it's any group.
[Acosta:] Just as he did after Charlottesville.
[Trump:] And you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.
[Acosta:] Despite striking a tone of unity earlier in the week, the president lashed out at Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, tweeting: "Beto phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage O'Rourke should respect the victims and law enforcement and be quiet." O'Rourke fired back: "Twenty-two people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism. El Paso will not be quiet and neither will
[I." Beto O'rourke , Presidential Candidate:] We will proudly stand together for one another and for this country. And that's what I'm doing with my community right now.
[Acosta:] After some elected leaders in El Paso urged the president to stay in the White House, the city's main newspaper published an open letter to Mr. Trump that reads, "Mr. President, the hatred of the El Paso shooting didn't come from our city." Residents in El Paso remember the president's visit to the city in February, when he painted migrants as criminals.
[Trump:] Murders, murders, murders, killings, murders.
[Crowd:] Build the wall! Build the wall! Build the wall!
[Trump:] We will. We will.
[Acosta:] The president, as well as White House officials over here and on the ground with the president in Texas, lashed out at Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and the mayor of Dayton earlier this afternoon, accusing those two elected leaders of quote "disgusting behavior" for not acknowledging the reception Mr. Trump received at a hospital in Ohio. But Senator Brown told reporters the president was quote "received well" and did the right thing at the hospital in comforting the survivors there. As for whether the president will take action on gun violence, a source tells CNN Mr. Trump is looking at some kind of executive action at some point to tighten up the nation's background check system. But getting back to the president and the White House criticizing Senator Brown and the mayor of Dayton, Wolf, it seems as though their beef is that those officials weren't praising the president enough Wolf.
[Blitzer:] Jim Acosta reporting for us, thank you. As the president visits Texas, we're learning more about the man charged in the El Paso shooting attack and why he's being held in a very tight lockdown. CNN's Brian Todd is on the scene for us. He's been digging into all of that. What are you hearing, Brian, from law enforcement officials?
[Brian Todd, Cnn Correspondent:] Right, Wolf. Piecing together new information tonight on investigators' efforts to track the shooter's actions and the hours and days before the massacre here at this spot and on the precautions officials are taking to keep the suspect isolated in jail.
[Todd:] Tonight, law enforcement officials tell CNN suspected shooter 21-year-old Patrick Crusius is being held on lockdown in isolation inside this detention center in downtown El Paso. A sheriff's department official says he's being held in a single 7-by- 11-foot cell away from other inmates. Law enforcement veterans tell us his possible interaction with other inmates is a major concern.
[Carlos Leon, Former El Paso Police Chief:] In just moving him from his area to another area just to make sure that he's not attacked. There's all sorts of things. When he's transferred, they have got to ensure that that person makes it to trial. So, as I understand, he's been held in an area where he will be safe from other inmates and safe from himself.
[Todd:] But a sheriff's department official tells CNN the suspect is not on suicide watch. The El Paso police lieutenant leading the team which tracked down what they believe is the shooter's racist manifesto tells CNN affiliate WOI police had to sift through a lot of false information and panic to find that clue.
[Lt. Dustin Liston, El Paso Fusion Center Director:] We were able to uncover this manifesto relatively quickly, but we weren't able to attribute it to the suspect until later.
[Todd:] Tonight, investigators are piecing together information on the shooter's alleged planning, including his 10-to-11-hour journey to El Paso. Key questions they're looking at?
[Leon:] Did he talk to anybody? Did he indicate anything at all? Do you have tape on that?
[Daniel Z. Lieberman, George Washington University:] You never know who it is, is going to see the signs. And people who see the signs might assume, well, I don't know this person very well, someone else is going to report it. That's not a great idea. If there's a problem, anyone who sees it should get involved and report it.
[Todd:] Former El Paso Police Chief Carlos Leon is confident this resilient community will recover. But he says residents will have serious security concerns going forward.
[Leon:] There will be a fear factor in all of us as we go to these larger stores, large events. Of course, we're going to be thinking in the back of our mind, hey, am I safe here? And you start looking around.
[Todd:] And, tonight, Walmart is coming under scrutiny for some of those security concerns. The retail chain is having to address the complaints about the fact that it didn't have any security guards here at all on Saturday and for its sale policy on guns. The manufacturer here, they have sold guns consistently for a number of years. They did stop selling assault-style weapons about four years ago, but they are coming under scrutiny for their gun sales. Walmart officials telling us tonight, Wolf, they are going to review the security protocols at all of their stores, and they're going to be very thoughtful and deliberate about their gun sale policy Wolf.
[Blitzer:] Brian Todd reporting for us. Good reporting, Brian. Thanks very much. Let's go to Dayton, Ohio, right now for more on the president's visit there. Randi Kaye is on the scene for us. Randi, what are you learning about the president's visit?
[Randi Kaye, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, Wolf, before the president even arrived here, protesters were lining the streets. Some were welcoming the president, some not so welcoming. There were protesters here at the scene of the shooting, where we are. They thought the president was going to come here. He did not. He went straight to the hospital to visit with patients and families and first responders and police officers there and doctors. That was a closed visit. The press pool actually never even saw him. The president didn't make any remarks. But he did spend about three hours on the ground here in Dayton before heading off to El Paso. When he left the hospital, this is where things get interesting. He spoke with the mayor of Dayton and he spoke with Senator Brown. And he said that he was going to come up with some kind of special award for the police officers who were able to take down the suspect within 30 seconds here. And they suggested to him: Don't do this award. Why don't you work on some legislation to get these powerful weapons and these assault weapons off the streets here? CNN spoke to the mayor about that conversation. And here's what she had to say about the president's reaction to that.
[Nan Whaley , Mayor Of Dayton, Ohio:] He was kind of intimating that President Obama didn't get the assault weapon passed. He said, well, why didn't Obama get this done? And Senator Brown said, look, he didn't have the votes. And I said, but Governor DeWine voted for the assault weapon ban when he was a senator. And the governor was there and said, yes. And I said, maybe you can get the votes, President Mr. President. You can do something that Obama couldn't do. How about you get the votes for the assault weapon ban?
[Kaye:] And now the president is accusing the mayor of Dayton and Senator Brown of misrepresenting his visit here. He was tweeting, as you know, that this was a warm and wonderful visit he had at the hospital. His social media director called him a rock star at the hospital. And this is all sort of a head-scratcher, because the mayor and the center both said that he was welcomed here, that he was received well, that has visit at the hospital was comforting to some of the people. Certainly, Senator Brown did say that there were some who are not great admirers of the president, but they still treated him with respect. So, certainly a little back and forth, Wolf, following the president's visit here and a little bit of a he saidshe said going on.
[Blitzer:] Yes, very strange. Randi, I understand you have some new information about the Dayton gunman?
[Kaye:] Yes, we do. CNN has been able to talk to somebody who used to hang out with him, a friend of his, has known him for about 10 years. And he's told CNN that this is not the first time that this Dayton shooter had a weapon in his hands. In fact, he told us that he had been going to this local firing range here called the Shoot Point Blank range, that he owns about three or four weapons, including an AR-15 pistol. He said, also, when they were together, they would play basketball, they would drink, they would smoke pot together, but he never imagined that he was capable of something like this Wolf.
[Blitzer:] All right, Randi, thanks very much, Randi Kaye in Dayton for. Joining us now, the former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice. She also served as the United States ambassador to the United Nations. She has a new book coming out fairly soon entitled there you see the cover "Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For." Susan, thanks so for joining us. You have also just written a very powerful opinion piece in "The New York Times." And let me read a sentence or two from the article that you wrote. "It's hard to calculate the damage that President Trump's overt racism and almost daily attacks on black and brown people are having on the fabric of our nation." In light of the president's rhetoric, what's the impact of the president's trip, for example, today to El Paso?
[Susan Rice, Former U.s. National Security Adviser:] Well, Wolf, it's good to be with you. The president's trip to El Paso is a sort of normal thing for a normal president to do. The problem is, we don't have a normal president. In normal times, as Vice President Biden reminded us today, the president would be comforting and healing and unifying the nation. Instead, he goes to visit victims in Dayton and in El Paso, and then comes out and attacks the mayor and the senators from the states that he visited. He continues to divide us, most profoundly along racial lines, and to suggest that those who come to this country as immigrants, those who have skin that looks like mine are somehow less than human. He has likened us to an invasion, an infestation, uses terms that they liken us to rodents. This is horrific language. In fact, Wolf, it's the language that I recall, as national security adviser and then early in my career, as the kind of language that dictators and people who incite violence and genocide have used. So this is really quite dangerous. And a trip to visit towns that have been deeply impacted by this kind of violence that has been stoked by hateful rhetoric don't solve the fundamental problem, which is that we are a divided society and we need healing and unification from the president of the United States, not pitting us against one another.
[Blitzer:] You mentioned former Vice President Biden's very strong speech today. Let me play a little clip of that. Listen to this.
[Biden:] How far apart are those comments? How far is it from white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Trump's very fine people chanting, "You will replace us," to the shooter at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh saying, we're committing genocide Jews are committing genocide on his people? I don't think it's that far at all. It's both clear language and in code. This president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation.
[Blitzer:] You agree with that assessment?
[Rice:] Absolutely. It's a horrible thing to have to say about the man who is leading the United States and is our current president, but it's absolutely true.
[Blitzer:] Our Jake Tapper has been reporting that the White House actually rebuffed efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to make domestic terror threats a greater priority, one source saying the White House had major ideological blinders on. How concerning is that, as someone who used to deal with these kinds of issues when you were President Obama's national security adviser?
[Rice:] It's deeply concerning, Wolf. We have had the FBI director repeatedly testify that the white supremacist, white nationalist threat is now much more frequent and likely to occur in this country and manifest itself in the form of terrorism than any other form of extremism. And yet the president of the United States and his administration are cutting resources to deal with that threat. It's very telling that I worked in an administration that fought and put ISIS on the path to defeat. We now face a similar kind of threat that, left untended, could have enormous implications. It's already resulted in the deaths of people in various parts of this country, from Pittsburgh to Gilroy, and now to El Paso. And what we need is the president of the United States and an administration in Washington that is prepared to use all of the elements of our power to defeat this threat, just as we have worked to defeat the threat from ISIS and the threat from al Qaeda. Now, they are not eradicated completely. We have to remain vigilant. But what we're doing is leaving our home front, our primary flank, completely untended, because we have a president and people in his administration who don't seem to care.
[Blitzer:] So, Susan, what should the president, the White House, the administration be doing now to deal with this terror threat emanating from white supremacists?
[Rice:] Well, in the first instance, you have got to stop throwing fuel on the fire. The president is daily throwing fuel on this fire. He can't even for 24 hours after a speech yesterday in which he tried to pretend that he's against hatred and bigotry, hold his fire and act dignified long enough to visit the scenes of these terrible tragedies. We need leadership and steadfastness in the White House of the sort that I'm not even sure this president knows how to deliver. But, beyond that, we need the Justice Department and the FBI and our intelligence community and our local law enforcement all fixated on this as an emergingly serious threat to our national security. And we don't have that. And just as we work to combat terrorism abroad where it threatens our interests, we need to be even more vigilant on the home front, where Americans with increasing frequency are at risk.
[Blitzer:] In your article in "The New York Times" you say the ramifications internationally of what's happening in the United States right now are enormous, and they're not good. Tell us what you have in mind.
[Rice:] Well, Wolf, the problem is that, as bad as it is inside America's shores at the present, it also has international ramifications. Our allies, from Britain to Canada to Germany, are questioning and condemning the president's rhetoric when he attacks members of Congress who happen to be women of color. We have dictators around the world who find comfort in Washington, who see a fellow trafficker in the repression of minorities in President Trump, and gives them license and cover to do the same in their own countries. How can we credibly condemn violence and oppression against the Uyghurs in China or Christians in the Middle East when we have a president who's demeaning and denigrating and targeting minorities in this country? We have a fundamental threat, Wolf, that Americans, I hope, by now are well aware of, which is that Russia is trying to divide us internally and pit Americans against each other, undermine our democracy. And when we have a divided society, and the president who traffics in exacerbating those divisions, he is doing the Russians' bidding for them. And it's a very dangerous thing. Our domestic political divisions, Wolf, are arguably our greatest national security challenge at the moment. And what we have in the White House is a president that preys on those divisions, throws salt in the wounds of our most painful historical rifts, and does so to the benefit of our adversaries, who want nothing more than to see us divided and weakened from within.
[Blitzer:] I don't know if you know this, but the FOX News personality Tucker Carlson says the idea that the country has a problem with white supremacy, in his words, is a hoax, just like the Russia hoax. What are the ramifications of talk like that?
[Rice:] He's a disgrace. And so let's move on.
[Blitzer:] You don't even want to discuss that, because there are people who believe there are people out there who believe those kinds of lies.
[Rice:] I'm not going to well, Wolf, let's talk about the lies. Let's not talk about Tucker Carlson. The mentality that thinks that we have no problem in this country with white nationalism and white supremacy is completely ahistorical and missing the moment that we are living in. And we see it manifest with extraordinary frequency. Just look at what the killer in El Paso wrote and look at what the killer in Pittsburgh wrote. One attacked Jews. The other attacked immigrant communities. This kind of hate is very real. And it has got very long and deep historical roots in this country. We deny it at our peril. And I think most Americans are much, much more witting of what is going on. They dismiss that kind of blinders that we see from commentators who think that this is not a threat. All they have to do, sadly, is turn on their television sets and see that this is a very real and, in fact, growing problem.
[Blitzer:] Or listen to the secretary of homeland security, the current one, appointed by the president, or Christopher Wray, the FBI director, who says this white supremacy terror threat is a huge threat to the country right now that's got to be dealt with in a very serious way. Before I let you go, Susan, give us a preview a little bit about your new book that's coming out.
[Rice:] Thank you, Wolf. "Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For," it's a very personal story that goes back to my family history, my parents and grandparents, the way I was raised. But it tells the story of how I became who I am and the issues that I worked on, both in the Clinton and the Obama administrations. It's, at its root, a story of resilience and of fighting for the values that we share as Americans.
[Blitzer:] I have an advance copy of that book. And it's a powerful memoir, and I know our viewers will certainly enjoy it. Susan Rice, thanks so much for joining us.
[Rice:] Thank you, Wolf. Good to be with you.
[Blitzer:] CNN is investigating the explosion of white supremacy, by the way, in a special report, "State of Hate." Be sure to join our Fareed Zakaria for that this Friday, Friday, 10:00 p.m. Eastern. And more breaking news just ahead on the president's trip and the shooting massacres that rocked two cities over the weekend. And we have exclusive new information about the White House's response to domestic terrorism. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.