Hawley: Missouri voters want senator to work with Trump
Hawley: Missouri voters want senator to work with Trump
Republican candidate says Missouri voters are ready to send someone new to the Senate. Josh Hawley is seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill.
This is a rush transcript from "Your World," October 29, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHARLES PAYNE, GUEST HOST: Two developing stories this hour, first, the markets plunging again. The Dow up more than 350 points early, giving it all back, as gains in tech stocks continue their freefall, the Dow seeing a more than-900-point swing.
Boeing the biggest loser on the Dow, dropping 7 percent amid new trade tensions and the crash of a brand-new Boeing jetliner in Indonesia. Amazon, Facebook, Google all hammered and taking a dive.
A lot more on these wild markets and the way they're moving coming up.
And, also, you're looking live right now Washington, where the Department of Homeland Security and top commander for the Northern Command, General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, are about to brief reporters on plans to deploy 5,000 troops to the U.S. border.
This as a third caravan of migrants making its way to the United States, this time from El Salvador.
Welcome, everyone. I'm Charles Payne, in for Neil Cavuto.
And this is "Your World."
John Roberts at the White House with more on this major development -- John.
JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Charles, good afternoon to you, as we await the briefing there with Kirstjen Nielsen and General O'Shaughnessy.
Lucas Tomlinson from FOX News over at the Pentagon reports that 5,200 troops are soon going to be heading to the border. Some of them already on the way. These will be support troops, not combat troops, engineers, aviation, medical personnel, as well as military police there will be acting in a force protection role and not actively engaged in law enforcement on the border.
Sarah Sanders was asked to the briefing earlier today why the president needs to send active-duty military at all. Listen here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: A president's number one job and number one priority is to protect the safety and security of Americans. And he's going to do what he deems necessary in order to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Now, at the same time that the White House is sending the military down to the border, there have been meetings here at the White House about potential executive action or regulatory action to stop the migrants who are in this caravan heading to the United States from crossing the border.
One of the ideas that is being discussed is to say you can only claim asylum in the United States if you do it at a border crossing or port of entry. If you were to cross the border illegally and then try to claim asylum, you would be deemed inadmissible and would be sent back.
I asked Sarah Sanders about that idea a short time ago. Listen here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: I'm not going to get into specific policies that we're considering. There's a number of actions that we're looking at taking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: That is one of the actions, Charles, that they are looking at taking. They have not made any decisions yet.
But one thing is for sure. We keep on hearing consistently across the administration the mantra that people in this caravan will not get across the border -- Charles.
PAYNE: John, thank you very much.
So, will this be -- the presence on the border be enough to stop these caravans?
With me now, former ICE agent David Ward.
David, you understand all too well what's at stake here, but I'm not sure we have ever dealt with this sort of brazen attempt to come into the country, now three caravans back to back, thousands of people. The world is watching. How do you think it's going to play out?
DAVID WARD, FORMER ICE AGENT: It's going to be interesting to see how this goes.
The military is going to be a tremendous asset at the ports of entry to prevent the people from coming across the border -- the ports of entry. However, what we need to look at is what happens between the ports of entry and what the Border Patrol is going to have to face.
We have three tenets of problems here. We have national security, public safety and public health issues with these caravans coming to the United States.
Now, in the national security realm, we have got all sorts of people, not only from Central America, but they're coming in from Africa, from the Middle East and other places, in this caravan. It's already been documented. It's already been noted by our intel people that are down there.
Then public safety. We have already had people interviewed in this caravan that have already been deported from the United States for crimes such as attempted homicide. Now, these are prior deports that are coming in. And they will not come through the port of entry. They're going to come between the ports of entry, where it's the path of least resistance.
Then public health. We have these individuals coming from all over the world that have the -- some of the most extreme medical care in the world. And they're coming in with diseases such as smallpox and leprosy and T.B. that are going to affect our people in the United States.
Now, what's going to happen with the Border Patrol? They have not only the southern border, but the northern border as well to protect. But they have a force less, half the size of the New York City Police Department.
PAYNE: David, hold me with me, because we have got to go to the press conference.
WARD: OK.
PAYNE: And we may come back to you. Hold on one second, please.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
PAYNE: Let's go to Jennifer Griffin from the Pentagon with the latest -- Jennifer.
JENNIFER GRIFFIN, FOX NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Charles, we just heard from the commissioner for Customs and Border Patrol.
He essentially summed up the point of this mission is to deter future caravans of migrants crossing through Central America and coming to the border.
He said, that's the point of asking the DOD to come in. We have just learned that 800 U.S. active-duty personnel are already down along the border. They have been moved there in the -- in the last 24 hours, another 200 expected to arrive tomorrow. There will be a total of 5,200 U.S. troops who will eventually be deployed to the border in the next week or so.
That, we learned from General O'Shaughnessy, who is leading the effort for U.S. Northern Command. He will be overseeing the effort for the Pentagon.
What's important to point out is that these U.S. troops, while they may be armed for self-defense, they are there in support of Customs and Border Patrol. They are going to be building camps for those Border Patrol. They are -- they are not supposed to be coming into contact with migrants and with protesters.
They are not there in a law enforcement capacity. They are engineers. They are medical personnel. And they are providing airlift for Customs and Border Patrol agents. They will set up three command post, we have learned.
We also know that there are helicopter companies that will be -- that will be deployed to provide some of that airlift, so that there's maneuverability along the border. We learned that they have enough concertina wire for 22 miles of the border.
Remember, the border is 2,000-miles-long. So that's just a start, but they are attempting to harden the border. But these U.S. troops who are being sent, DOD will be paying for it, we have learned, not DHS, even though the request came from DHS. And it could cost several hundred million dollars to send these troops to the border.
But they have already begun deploying, and that's what we learned from this press conference, Charles.
PAYNE: Jennifer, thank you very much.
Joining me now, attorney Emily Compagno on the legal fallout and A.B. Stoddard with the political fallout.
Emily, let me start with you, because it's already a very confusing situation from a legal point of view. We understand the administration probably working on new rules, perhaps executive orders, to even beef up the ability to legally vet folks who want to come into our country, particularly from these caravans.
EMILY COMPAGNO, ATTORNEY: Exactly.
And I want to point out there's two issues here. So there's the legality being worked out about what exactly happens in terms of navigating asylum laws, what happens when these migrants actually cross the border.
That right now is being hashed out, hopefully, in a bipartisan fashion. But, as we heard today, Sarah Sanders said they're exploring administrative actions to do so if they don't have bipartisan support. And then the second issue is the legality of deploying those active-duty military to the border.
Now, National Guard is obviously within the purview of each governor separately, although the president can federalize them. This is active- duty, which is why it's so important, as Jennifer Griffin just highlighted, that their roles are in support.
That is the exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that provides it illegal for them to support border activity. It's that it is support activity, not law enforcement.
PAYNE: A.B., last week, we heard former President Barack Obama characterize the caravan as a bunch of folks who were malnutritioned, impoverished and pose no threat to the United States.
How much will this play out in the midterms?
A.B. STODDARD, REALCLEARPOLITICS: Well, Charles, I do think that this caravan, all the video and all of the president's discussion of the caravan is not something that Democrats want to talk about.
They have been silent on this issue on the campaign trail and continue to basically talk about health care for the most part. So they're not excited about the caravan generating support among their voters.
President Trump believes that this is going to generate support among his voters to help Republicans defend their majority in the House. And it very well could be in the end that it's a factor.
What's interesting about today and the decision and all the discussion around it is that they basically admit they're spending all this money and spending all these -- sending all these people down to really make a statement they hope will act as a deterrent.
The separation of families did not. But they are talking a lot in commanding tones with very official language about riot gear and things that they will be doing to basically make this a more orderly process.
The laws have not changed.
PAYNE: Right.
STODDARD: The criteria for asylum has not changed. The same number of people might still come in here.
So while they might be able to stop riots and fires and ravaging diseases, none of which we saw in the past, it doesn't exactly mean that they're limiting the number of people who are coming in. They're trying to send a message to future caravans.
Again, this looks like the administration is doing something. That's a political statement. That could help. But, in the end, we could be looking at the same type of activity in the spring, with not much difference.
PAYNE: Well, Emily, to that point, we were -- in this press conference, we learned that the second caravan, which is 3,000-strong right now, that they have used violent tactics to illegally cross international borders.
You talked about the -- between these ports, where you could have actual showdowns. How many of these folks are going to actually go through the asylum system as it set up, and how many are just going to simply cross at vulnerable points?
I mean, it brings up a serious legal and political quagmire.
COMPAGNO: You're right.
And I think what's important to note about these caravans now is that they're highlighting the issue that hasn't changed at all that preceded this caravan by years, that every day there are hundreds of illegal border crossings, in part because or mostly due to the transnational cartel chokehold that they have over a lot of the corrupt Mexican and local governments, as well as those migrants trying to cross the border.
So it's certainly not new to have an influx or just a regular flow of those migrants across the border attempting to either seek asylum or simply by paying those transnational border cartels.
And then, secondly, I want to point out the fact that, just as your -- A.B. said, the laws have not changed, exactly.
PAYNE: Right.
COMPAGNO: And so it is important to focus our attention on the fact that what can change moving forward and thus diminish the attraction that those migrants have, as well as the ability the cartels have to navigate this broken system, is to actually change those laws, to have that hard line, and to make it clear about the ports of entry and the asylum seeking and what exactly suffices.
PAYNE: Yes, that would be a -- that seems like that should be order number one for Congress. Let's get -- address that, so we don't have these embarrassing showdowns anymore, because we know a lot of this is political fodder as well.
Thank you, ladies. Appreciate it.
Well, the synagogue shooting suspect making his first court appearance today -- the very latest from Pittsburgh.
And a key race eight days away. Talking about Missouri -- the polls showing Republican Josh Hawley ahead a Democrat incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill in the Show Me State.
Well, we couldn't get her, but we did get him -- coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAYNE: Another wild day of selling on Wall Street.
The question now, are voters going to be thinking about all that red when they head to the polls? The volatility has been breathtaking. Will it affect the markets and the voting?
Sixty seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAYNE: President Trump and the first lady heading to Pittsburgh tomorrow in the wake of the synagogue shooting.
The suspect making his first court appearance. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty for Robert Bowers, as 11 shooting victims are remembered.
Matt Finn is in Pittsburgh with the very latest -- Matt.
MATT FINN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Charles, 46-year-old Robert Bowers was brought into the federal courthouse behind me in a wheelchair.
He is still recovering from the gunshot wounds he sustained during his shoot-out with police after the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue here in Pittsburgh. Inside the courtroom, the judge read Bowers all of the 29 federal charges against him, including using a firearm to commit murder, injury to a public safety officer -- officer and hate crimes.
Bowers was in court in hospital- or jail-issued garb. He seemed alert and of clear mind, answering yes-or-no questions when asked by the judge.
Bowers acknowledged that he received a copy of the criminal complaint filed against him by an FBI agent. And that criminal complaint reveals disturbing details about the day of the synagogue massacre.
A portion of the complaint reads that: "During the course of his deadly assault on people at the synagogue, and simultaneously with his gunfight with responding officers, Bowers made statements advancing an animus towards people of Jewish faith. For example, Bowers commented to one law enforcement officer in substance, 'They're committing genocide to my people. I just want to kill Jews.'
"Bowers repeated comments regarding genocide, his desire to kill Jewish people, and that Jewish people needed to die.."
Right now, Bowers is being held in custody without bail. He's scheduled to appear next in court on Thursday. And the U.S. attorney's office is seeking the death penalty -- Charles.
PAYNE: Thank you very much.
So the question is, now that the suspect has been charged, what are officials going to do to try to prevent things like this from happening again?
Let's talk to former FBI Assistant Director Ron Hosko.
Ron, obviously, we ask ourselves this question every single time. I'm not sure -- there's all kinds of suggestions that are always in the air. It feels like we never really act on any of them. What do you see coming out of this one?
RONALD HOSKO, FORMER ASSISTANT FBI DIRECTOR: Well, from my perspective, I hope a couple of things, Charles.
And I have been -- I'm going to rip my response right out of today's headlines. First, we have social media sites, the New York Times' reporting on Gab. That is a magnet for extremist views.
So what's Congress' responsibility? To hold hearings to assess how trade is between the states, how commerce is engaged in. How do we react to all the vile hate speech and negativity that often doesn't rise to a criminal offense? How do we manage that in a world full of social media with dozens of platforms? I think Congress has a role in that. There's -- that can include attorneys talking about First Amendment protections, law enforcement talking about the damage, victims like we have seen in this synagogue disaster over the weekend, talking about the roles and responsibilities of the tech firms to not propagate or not be platforms for hate.
Number two...
PAYNE: So, Ron, before you go, let me just...
HOSKO: Go ahead.
PAYNE: Are you suggesting, sort of like interstate commerce laws were used to push forward civil rights laws in this country, perhaps they're implemented too, to not -- not dismiss the First Amendment, but to curb hate speech?
HOSKO: I think to be more forward-leaning in regulating some of this hate speech, and not giving the lowest common denominator of our society, which is always going to be with us, not giving them a place to roost, to share, and to inspire others.
So how do we shut that down? Do we hold the tech firms more responsible?
PAYNE: All right. Go with the second point.
HOSKO: Let's go second point.
Databases. So, Virginia -- today's report, Virginia criminal database was missing three-quarters-of-a-million cases. Those are cases from which fingerprints should be in a repository with the FBI, other databases, crime reports, reports of convictions.
If the FBI doesn't have the right data, then if they're doing a national instant background search for a gun check, and they don't know that a person trying to buy a guy is a convicted felon or has a mental health history that would be -- make them a prohibited possessor, if they don't have access to that, then that weapon or those weapons can walk out of that store.
And, hopefully, they're later retrieved, but sometimes not. So law enforcement has to get its act together to get these records into the central repositories in a huge way.
(CROSSTALK)
PAYNE: Right.
Ron, we have only got a minute left.
HOSKO: OK.
PAYNE: I do want to ask you about sentencing, not necessarily with the Pittsburgh killer, but the guy who's charged with the bombing, the pipe bombs, and the bomb -- mail bombs and other things.
It always seems that many of them have an extensive criminal record. The average person seems, if you see felony after felony after felony, should we have harder sentencing guidelines for some of these people?
HOSKO: Well, I think that the guidelines, certainly on the federal side, Charles, are -- are largely there.
Based on court rulings not too long ago, now the federal guidelines are discretionary. So the judges have to weigh all that information, pro and con, and they can deviate up from what is the recommended sentence or they can go down.
PAYNE: Yes.
HOSKO: But I think we ought to hold them to account too for putting on meaningful sentences.
PAYNE: I mean, 20-, 30-year rap sheets, and felony after felony after felony...
HOSKO: That part is outrageous.
PAYNE: ... we can't feign shock when something -- some of these things happen.
HOSKO: Absolutely.
PAYNE: Ron, always appreciate talking to you. Thank you.
HOSKO: My pleasure.
PAYNE: We're also, of course, watching the volatility of Wall Street -- the fallout on that right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PAYNE: Well, just eight days until the midterms, and only a couple days until the end of a very rough month for the stock market.
And the end, well, it just can't come soon enough, the Dow down another 245 points, this after being up more than 350 points early in the session.
So will this be in the back of voters' minds as they head to the polls?
Let's ask market watcher Gary Kaltbaum and Democratic strategist Danielle McLaughlin.
Gary, I know you're not a big fan of tariffs, one of the culprits in today's sell-off, but the market itself has been unusually weak, when the economy has been unusually strong. Impact on the elections?
GARY KALTBAUM, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I have been telling you, I think the market is flushing out something to come in the next few months. And that is slower growth definitely around the globe and probably here.
Look, we're only eight days away. And unless we drop another 1,000 or 2,000 points on the Dow, I don't think it's going to matter much. I think people already know what they're going to do.
But let me be clear for the Republicans. Every couple of hundred points down doesn't help them. So it'd be behoove them to do everything they can to try and get markets moving the other way, and right now just ain't happening.
PAYNE: Of course, Danielle, the folks in the Trump administration believe part of this anxiety has to do with the possibility that Democrats may win the House and/or Senate, and Wall Street is sending a message to America, don't let that happen.
DANIELLE MCLAUGHLIN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, that's what I would say if I was a Republican, honestly.
But I do agree with Gary. I think unless the bottom drops out, I'm not sure that this is going to change people's votes. Markets abhor uncertainty. And I think the tariffs are one big problem here.
Obviously, corporations and the stock market have gained incredibly well because of the tax cuts from a year ago. But, again, I don't think we're going to see people changing from red to blue or blue to red on the basis of this, unless something really terrible happens in the next week or so.
PAYNE: Although I got to say, Gary, true the Democrats haven't talked much about the markets. They may if they continue to go down, to your point.
Some have tried to use the tariffs, although every administration's complained about China. What do you think in the heartland, where you have some very low unemployment rates, some states under 3 percent, where, OK, the farmers may be suffering, but people believe in their heart of hearts that President Trump is fighting for them?
KALTBAUM: Well, look, votes are based on beliefs. And if the voters believe that what the president is doing is good and right and in longer term is going to do great things for the country, I would suspect they're going to vote on the right.
And, obviously, on the other end, you know what's going to happen. Look, the big issue at this point in time is, I'm not so worried about markets for the elections. All I can tell you is, it is a midterm election. I think the House is gone. I think they're going to keep the Senate.
And that's -- and we're going to have gridlock for a couple more years. And if you think all the back and forth has been nasty for the last two years, wait until the investigations start to show up on a daily basis from the -- from the House.
PAYNE: Danielle, Dems, what are they going to run on, or what are they got to focus on for these last eight days?
MCLAUGHLIN: I think it's going to be health care, health care, and then health care again.
A recent poll showed actually that Obamacare was more popular than the Trump tax cuts, which tells you something about the way that this is hitting people's pockets.
PAYNE: Was that the McLaughlin household poll?
(LAUGHTER)
MCLAUGHLIN: No, a real poll, a real poll, honestly.
I don't see that these tax cuts have really done an enormous amount for Middle America, for the working class. And that's just not me speaking. That's plenty of policy institutes.
We're going to see what happens if Democrats do take the House.
Again, Gary, I'm agreeing with you again. I don't even believe this is happening. I think probably the House is...
(CROSSTALK)
KALTBAUM: Great minds think alike.
(LAUGHTER)
MCLAUGHLIN: Well, you keep -- yes, I'm with you on that.
PAYNE: All right.
MCLAUGHLIN: We're just going to have to see what happens, what, six days?
PAYNE: Eight days to go. It's going to be one heck of a...
MCLAUGHLIN: Eight.
KALTBAUM: Yay.
(LAUGHTER)
PAYNE: Yes. All right, thank you both very, very much.
KALTBAUM: You got it.
PAYNE: Again, eight days to go until the election.
Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley is making his final push to unseat incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in Missouri. And he joins me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAYNE: Battling it out in the battleground state.
The race for Missouri Senate is as close as they come, with GOP challenger Josh Hawley leaning Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill by a slim two-point margin.
He joins me now.
We do have a call out, by the way, for Senator McCaskill, who has yet to respond.
All right, Josh, hi.
Tell us. We got eight days to go. You have got some momentum on your side. How do you see it all playing up?
JOSH HAWLEY , R-MISSOURI SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Hey, we have got a lot of momentum on our side.
And I'll tell you what. We just had Senator Lindsey Graham with us here in the state today, huge crowd to hear about the significance of the Kavanaugh hearings, the attempted smear by the Democrats and Claire McCaskill.
People are still livid about that. And they're just livid about how things have gone in Washington and what these Senate Democrats have done. They're tired of party-line liberals like Claire McCaskill, and they're ready to send somebody new to the Senate.
PAYNE: Are there state-specific issues that you're focused on as well?
HAWLEY: I think the big issue here is what has happened in Washington, D.C., and Senator McCaskill's 12-year record in Washington, 36 years in politics.
She hasn't been independent. She's voting with Chuck Schumer 90 percent of the time against the tax cuts, against Justice Gorsuch, against Justice Kavanaugh.
She hasn't heard anything the people of my state told her in 2016. And that's going to be the decisive thing in this election.
PAYNE: What did they tell her that she missed?
HAWLEY: They told her to work with the president, to support an agenda that will rebuild this country and make America strong again.
And, instead, she has voted against this president on judges. She's voted against him on a border wall. She's voted against him on tax cuts. Every time, on every priority that matters, Senator McCaskill has been with the liberal Democrats and against this president, which is really just to say against what the people of Missouri voted for.
And that's going to cost her.
PAYNE: Josh, if you get to Washington, D.C., what kind of role do you expect to play with respect to healing the divisions in this country?
I mean, it's just mind-boggling. It -- many people say they have never seen it this bad, or, if they did, they would have to go back a few decades.
And a lot of folks are looking to leadership, particularly new young leadership, to sort of help fix this.
HAWLEY: You know, I have to say, I have never been part of the old battles in Washington.
I think we need more people like that, who don't owe anything to anybody in Washington, and who also realize that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.
And I could say that's for sure true in Missouri. In Missouri, we are united by a common way of life, a way of life centered on our churches and on our schools and on our families.
People here want to protect that way of life. They want somebody to go fight for that way of life. And I think we need to raise our voices in defense of it and in defense of the values and traditions that we Americans hold in common and that bind us together.
PAYNE: All right, is there a palpable fear that those rights are being taken away or at least being targeted?
HAWLEY: Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I think a lot of this election is about -- in my state is about fear that our way of life, the heartland way of life, the middle-class way of life is in serious danger.
And it's in danger from people who are taking our jobs overseas, danger from wages that have been too low for too long. And now, when we're starting to see some progress, wage growth finally getting the -- getting going, we have got unemployment at its lowest rate in decades in Missouri, now Senator McCaskill wants to raise taxes and take that all the way.
And I think people say, we don't want that.
PAYNE: Real quick, Josh, when you hear Wall Streeters say they -- speaking for your state, saying they don't like President Trump doing tax -- fighting China, rather, with these tariffs, is that popular or unpopular in your state?
HAWLEY: I think that Missourians want somebody who's actually going to stand up and fight for our workers and fight for our farmers.
We're in a trade war that the United States didn't start.
PAYNE: Right.
HAWLEY: It was started years ago by China. And we need to win it.
PAYNE: Josh Hawley, thank you very much. We will see what happens just eight days away. Thank you.
HAWLEY: Thank you.
PAYNE: You know, earlier in this hour, one of our guests said some of the people in the caravan may have diseases like leprosy and T.B.
Well, we want to say we have no way of independently confirming this. And we wanted to clarify that point for you.
Now, Saturday's shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh weighing heavily on the minds of Americans across the nation. How do we move forward?
We have got the perfect guest to discuss it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: Today, America grieves for the precious lives that were truly stolen.
Our hearts ache for every person who lost a loved one. Tomorrow, the president and first lady will travel to Pennsylvania to express the support of the American people and grieve with the Pittsburgh community.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAYNE: White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders getting emotional while condemning the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue doing a press briefing earlier today.
Joining me now to discuss how we move forward, Father Jonathan Morris.
Father Morris, it's so great to see you.
FATHER JONATHAN MORRIS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you, Charles.
PAYNE: Perfect day for you.
We have been here before, but it's getting worse, ugly. This is the worst attack on people of the Jewish faith in history of this country.
MORRIS: Just as we have made the point many times -- I know I have and so many others -- when there is an Islamist attack on our nation based on ideology, Islamic ideology, radical, and it's very important to do so.
Likewise, it's very important to right now say, this wasn't just violence. This wasn't just an attack by somebody who was crazy. This was ideologically driven hatred towards Jews. We call it anti-Semitism. We have to call it out for what it is, because it helps us to be able to deal with it.
And this is -- it's hard to even imagine somebody having hatred towards a whole 'nother group of people. In my -- from my experience, I just can't even imagine it.
But especially through the Internet now, here in the Midwest, where perhaps this guy was able to be on his computer spreading hatred, but also receiving hatred from around the world, the old, the ageless lies against the Jews in this case are now as prevalent in the Midwest, in Pittsburgh, as they are perhaps in some parts of Europe.
PAYNE: So how do we combat that? It's -- it's -- it's festering. It's like a dynamo. Everyone's on their phones. Everyone's on social media. Everyone wants to fit in somewhere.
And then, of course, you have people like this who find like-minded folks, and that -- then that just bubbles it up to the surface even more.
MORRIS: I think one thing to keep in mind is that maybe it seems very innocent that I go on the Internet or on Twitter, on Facebook and express my anger to somebody who posts something.
Maybe that's completely innocent. I know I'm not going to do anything with that anger, but somebody else's watching. And there's people who are not balanced, people who are sick, but who need to attach themselves to a cause.
And this is what we're seeing here, somebody who actually believed that he had to kill all the Jews. How could somebody possibly think that?
Well, he might have been unbalanced, but he got a hold of an idea of hatred and that festered in his heart. And it was probably through the Internet.
PAYNE: Do we make a mistake as a society after these sort of horrific incidents when we start to -- to assign blame to others, to say, hey, this happened because of you, this happened because of your people, your organization, what you have said? Does that help or hurt the situation?
MORRIS: Well, certainly, in the short term, there's no -- there's no place for laying blame on an organization or group, a politician, and say, you did this.
No, the person who did it was the one who carried it out. Of course, long- term, we have to say whether or not my actions -- I say this in my own church and my own neighborhood -- are my actions in any way being able to be misinterpreted by some people who will -- are going to take those things and do something that I don't want them to do with?
And politicians have to be careful of that as well, to make sure that unbalanced people are not taking what they're trying to get across, and then converting it into something that they never would have imagined that they would do with it.
PAYNE: Father Jonathan Morris, thank you very much.
MORRIS: Thank you, Charles.
PAYNE: We got a very sad situation, the worst attack on the Jewish faith in our history.
"The Five" is next.
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