Trump: 'Evacuate Tehran Now!'
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Attacks intensify between Israel and Iran as President Trump leaves the G7 summit early with a warning: "Get out of Tehran now." Plus: His crimes are the stuff of nightmares. Belter stalked his victims like prey.

searching for a motive in the killing of a Minnesota lawmaker, how authorities will try to get inside the mind of an alleged assassin. And later, ICE has a new quota, arrests 3,000 people a day. How have they changed their tactics to reach this goal? And is it working?

It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here is a live look at the White House. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me. And here's how we're going to begin this breaking news in the widening conflict between Israel and Iran.

The air sirens heard overnight throughout central Israel, with Iran carrying out its ninth wave of attacks. Israel reports it intercepted some 30 Iranian drones overnight. Now, it comes on the heels of Israel striking the studio of Iran's state television channel in Tehran. And that was a moment that was caught live during one of their broadcasts.

Iran's foreign minister says two workers at the TV studio were killed in the airstrike, calling the attack, quote, the height of cowardice. The back and forth launches between Israel and Iran threatened to plunge the region into a wider war with the Israelis vowing to destroy Iran's nuclear program.

We're going to continue until we remove the two existential threats, the nuclear threat and the threat of 20,000 ballistic missiles that are equivalent to two nuclear bombs. So they want to stop and keep it. But we are committed to removing those threats.

The latest escalation is also shaking up the G7 summit in Canada. After one day of meetings there, President Trump announced he was leaving early to head back to Washington as the situation in the Middle East unfolds. He spoke on Air Force One about his goals for the end of the conflict. We're looking for better policies. The government cannot have a new play with weapons. Very simple. You don't have to go too deep into it. They just can't have a new play with it.

Joining us now with the very latest CNN's White House reporter, Elena Treen. Can you talk about what the president did at the G7 to start? Because he eventually signed on to a joint statement with the other leaders regarding this crisis in particular.

Yeah, and you actually heard the president address that, Abby, when he was talking to reporters on Air Force One when he was traveling back. He essentially said that he got to a place where they agreed to what he said was the language in it that he believed was needed. Now, I do think, though, the one thing I want to emphasize here just off the top is that the president was not expectant.

to leave the G7 that early. He had another full day of events that was scheduled for today, but he did say that he was leaving early because of this escalating conflict in Iran and between Israel. And he said that he believed that he did everything he needed to do in Canada at the G7, but that he needed to get back

because he believes that it's much easier to communicate in person. He said he will be in the Situation Room early this morning to talk with his national security advisors and others, including, I was told, his vice president, J.D. Vance, and to really try to have those communications in person rather than over the phone. And I do think, you know, the reason for him coming back

and him ending his trip so abruptly is what really has a lot of people here in Washington asking questions. Because I can tell you from my conversations over the weekend and into yesterday with my sources here at the White House, they said that they still believed that the president believed that there was some sort of deal that he could work out, whether it was between Israel and Iran or even between the U.S. and Iran directly to try and de-escalate this conflict and essentially end it

overall. And there was one question, we saw this overnight as he was traveling, he posted about something that the French president Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Canada, essentially where he said that the president he believed wanted a ceasefire. The president said that that was wrong, that he has no idea why I'm now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a ceasefire, much bigger than that, Adi.

And then he said essentially that he's looking for more than a ceasefire. He said he wants something more permanent, whether that's, you know, if they can do that, great. If not, potentially giving up entirely. I have to say, Adi, this is far different rhetoric we've heard from the president than we have previously. Far less positive and optimistic, I would argue, than what we have heard him say over recent days. And it's still very early in the day. We're going to be hearing more from Elena Treen reporting from the White House. Elena, thank you.

Now, for the latest on how all of this is unfolding on the ground in Israel, I want to go live to Tel Aviv and bring in CNN's Nick Robertson. So, Nick, first, can you talk about the last couple of hours, especially after Iran promised further retaliation against these airstrikes?

Yeah, good morning. It does seem as if Iran launched fewer missiles at Israel overnight, but again, it launched them at different times in the night. Thinking in central Israel here, people were roused from their beds to go to the shelters shortly after midnight, again at three or so in the morning. And then surprisingly, given the way Iran normally targets during the night,

about 8.30 this morning. The sirens went off again. People were advised to go to their shelters. And in central Israel, we've seen video that appears to be the interceptor rockets going up and then at least four impact

from what appear to be Iranian missiles in that vicinity. The IDF has said that the majority of incoming missiles were intercepted. A few fell in open areas. We've seen that a bus depot was hit in central Israel. A number of buses there were on fire.

I think the interesting thing about this social media video was that we really haven't seen four effectively consecutive impacts like this in such a small area. That, I think, is perhaps indicative of

is Iran being able to maybe penetrate in a way that they hadn't before. But the overall picture is that Iran didn't target Tel Aviv with a big number of strikes as they've done on previous nights. They did sort of try to change up their tactics

shift the focus, shift what they were targeting to other parts of the country. But it does leave people here feeling uneasy, if you will. And I think from Israel's perspective, again, their intelligence in Iran is delivering results. They have assassinated a top military commander who'd only been in the job a couple of days because he was replacing the guy who had that job and was assassinated in the first round of strikes by Israel. So this is still

full pace, but perhaps slightly less pace, but just as impactful. The other takeaway today so far is no known casualties directly from the missiles so far. CNN's Nick Robertson, thank you so much for your reporting. Reporting from Tel Aviv.

Now, coming up on CNN this morning, Senate Republicans are laying out their changes to that beautiful bill. What's in it? And can they get it over the finish line by July 4th? Plus, from gold bars to behind bars today, former Senator Bob Menendez reports to federal prison. And inside the mind of a suspected killer, what investigators will look for as they build a case against Vance Belter. Political assassinations are rare.

They strike at the very core of our democracy. But the details of Belder's crime are even worse. They are truly chilling.

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We are learning more about the suspect in the brazen killing of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband in the attempted murder of another. Vance Belter worked for a security company that markets police vehicles and tactical equipment. Authorities say that may have helped him pose as a police officer. You can see him here in this image wearing a silicone mask and a police-style badge as he knocked on the door of a public official.

Officials say he left behind a trove of evidence linking him to the crimes, including a hit list, weapons and footage from the homes of victims in his car. It's pretty clear from the evidence that he's been planning these attacks for quite some time. There's voluminous writings, as you've seen in the reporting, that were found both in his car and his house about his planning, lists of names and individuals.

Investigators are now working to piece together the suspect's ideology to get a full picture of what drove him to allegedly commit these crimes. Joining me now is a criminologist and behavioral analyst, Casey Jordan. Casey, good morning. Thanks for being here. You've described the suspect. It's really good to be here. I appreciate it. You've described the suspect as potentially a pseudo commando and being mission oriented. What does that mean in your world? What gives you that impression?

Well, in the world of multiside, we have mass murder, serial killing and spree killing. And spree killing is the most rare and unusual. And his typology is a bit of a mashup between a mass murderer and a serial killer. The mission oriented killer is trying to promote their own personal agenda. It's not necessarily terrorism and it doesn't necessarily represent an extremist ideology.

But they're on a mission to rid the world of a particular type of individual and send a message that the world is a better place without these people.

But the pseudo commando puts a tremendous amount of planning. They are a cop wannabe, a soldier or sniper wannabe. And all of the planning, especially the tactical evidence that we have, you know, the police car, the altering of the license plate, you know, the manifesto, the list of his victims, and of course the tactical gear, the mask, you know, the fact that he had a tricked out SUV, wanted people to think he was a cop.

This really shows that he has fantasies of being that guy in the field with the assault rifles, which they found in his car,

And a message he sent to his family simply said, you know, "Daddy's gone to war. This man thinks of himself as a commando on a mission for the greater good of his agenda." On social media, there was a lot of speculation about his alleged motives, even from other lawmakers. Talk about what we've learned from official sources and what else people like you in your line of work will be looking for, given how much he left behind.

The list that he left in his car, the voluminous writings that authorities refer to are how we build what the motive is unless he actually wants to come out and tell us and time will tell. But the list speaks for itself. You have more than 45 Democratic leaders or people associated with pro-choice ideology. And when the list is that specific,

that they are lawmakers, that are directly opposed to everything that his friends and family confirm that he stands for, then that is the motive. He wants to rid the world of people who are out of step with his personal beliefs. The motive is pretty simple. I do not agree with these people and I think they should die. So the motive we piece together is based on the evidence. But I think, again, the evidence that we know of just so far speaks for itself with regard to his motive.

Casey, I just need to ask you one more brief question, which is his friends and family kind of expressing shock about this. Are there kind of telltale signs, things people should be thinking about in their own lives, given how the partisan sort of rage and anger there is in our culture?

Yeah, keep in mind that he was successful in this because he knew that he needed to kind of put the kibosh to cap any leakage of this ideology that he has. He knows that if he really rants and raves and exhibits extremist thinking, those would be red flags. A truly...

insidious and methodical killer like our suspect is, is going to have these very deep-seated ideologies but not really broadcast them because then it will raise red flags. So in this particular case, I don't know that there were that many clues that could be missed.

other than the planning documents and the amassing of the weapons. It really should give us pause because we never know when this is coming. Casey Jordan is a criminologist and behavioral analyst. Thank you. Straight ahead on CNN this morning, President Trump abruptly returning to Washington to monitor the conflict between Israel and Iran. Is the U.S. about to get involved? Plus, political violence on the rise in America. Can the parties come together to calm tensions?

President Trump cut his trip to the G7 in Canada short in order to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Well, I have to be back. Very important. I want to just thank our great host. Thank you. Thank you. In Canada, you probably see what I see. And I have to be back as soon as I can.

This morning, the president is back in Washington convening his National Security Council and sounding an ominous warning for Iran, posting this on social media. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran.

Now, this is a defining moment in Donald Trump's second term. CNN senior politics reporter Stephen Collinson writes, President Trump is under opposing pressure from inside Israel and his own MAGA base as he ponders the most fateful national security decision of either of his presidencies, whether to attempt a killer blow against Iran's nuclear program.

Joining me now in the group chat, Chuck Brochette, Democratic strategist, and Charlie Dent, former Pennsylvania Congressman. I'm glad you guys are both here. Both of you are sort of intimately understanding of the politics in your parties. And with Republicans, you have the isolationist wing that's broken out under Trump. But with Democrats for the last 15 years,

Post George Bush, they have moved from being an anti-war party to a little bit of a status quo world order party. So can you talk about some of the dynamics you're seeing play out? I think as we move into the midterms, I know we all talk about the big beautiful bill. I saw it on the thing coming up, but all these politics are happening now. So people are getting to primaries and they're being asked these political questions. And the old party that I joined back in the day were like,

The leftovers from the wars that they had had in Vietnam of no war. Then there was George W. Bush. To your point, though, we've kind of got back into a corner and been like, let's just keep everybody happy. Let's just make sure the status quo. But there's still internal fighting in the Democrats between like the Bernie Sanders and the AOC wing. And then I would call it the corporate Democrats. Before I bring in Charlie, can you talk about that Sanders AOC wing, which you know about? What are they saying? What are you hearing?

It's a great point. I was just mentioning earlier that I saw on Twitter that Massey, the Republican from Kentucky who would be that one Republican who votes against everything, was on Twitter this morning saying, if we're going to do anything in wars, got to come to the Congress. We're not going to have any wars. And AOC tweets at him and goes, sign me up. Put me on that. And I was like, man, we're in a weird space. Yeah. OK, Charlie, what are you seeing from your position? Well, left meets right. You know, it's a circle. As it is here. Well, look, Republicans are certainly kind of...

because if there's a defining... If you want to define Trumpism or America-first-ism, it's isolationism, protectionism, populism, at times nihilism and nativism. And so they're really having this internal debate. What does this mean? This is an isolationist wing. They want us to stay out of foreign engagements. They don't believe in interventionism. And this... The Israeli...

attack on Iran is forcing America to choose. Yes, here's an example. When I was looking for sort of some quotes from lawmakers, I want to bring you Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican, of course, and Senator Tim Kaine.

Be all in, President Trump, in helping Israel eliminate the nuclear threat. If we need to provide bombs to Israel, provide bombs. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations. But here's the bigger question. Wouldn't the world be better off if the Ayatollahs went away and replaced by something better? Wouldn't Iran be better off?

And then Tim Kaine saying, the American people have no interest in sending service members to fight another forever war in the Middle East. Familiar language on the right. This resolution will ensure that if we decide to place our nation's men and women in uniform in harm's way, we will have a debate and vote on it in Congress. This is really like

We haven't heard in a time anybody wanting to vote on anything the president is doing under this sort of term. What are you hearing, Charlie? Well, we just heard Senator Graham basically make a case for direct American intervention. That is, we would not apparently provide the means by which Israel could deliver, say, bunker busters. Yeah, which is not off-brand for Lindsey Graham. It's not off-brand for him. But at the same time, I think we just heard former Secretary Panetta lay it out pretty nicely. There are three options out there.

course, direct military, American military participation in this operation, or we just stay out of it. Right. And Donald Trump has to make a decision right now. And this is not going to be an easy one. It doesn't fall so neatly along the lines of, you know, neocons versus the isolationists. I mean, there are a lot of folks who don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. The question is, you know, once you break this... What to do about that, yeah.

And it's easy to start wars. It's a lot harder ending them. And that's what everybody's worried about, this endgame. Okay, I want to stop it there because we are going to come back to you guys in a moment. We have a lot to talk about today. Ahead on CNN this morning, is Iran possibly ready to negotiate or is it just gearing up for a bigger fight? We're going to have the latest reporting inside Tehran. And President Trump calls for ramped up ICE raids in some of America's biggest blue cities.

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Good morning, everyone. I'm Adi Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN this morning. It's half past the hour and here's what's happening right now. President Trump back at the White House after abruptly leaving the G7 summit. The White House said he needs to monitor the Israel-Iran conflict. The president says he is seeking a real end, not a ceasefire.

A US citizen has been killed in a Russian attack on Kyiv. The 62-year-old is one of the 14 people killed overnight in drones and missile attacks. Officials say it is the deadliest strike on the capital in weeks. And in just a few hours, former Senator Bob Menendez will report to prison. He was found guilty of corruption and bribery for taking gifts like gold bars, a luxury car, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.

Menendez is fighting the 11-year sentence, but an appeals court denied his latest bid for freedom last week. Turning back now to this spiraling conflict between Israel and Iran, both sides launching dozens of airstrikes. Iran reports another round of explosions in Tehran overnight. Their air defenses were activated amid a barrage of Israeli drones. These attacks coming just hours after President Trump issued a warning on social media to evacuate the Iranian capital.

Many in Tehran didn't need a warning. Video taken before Trump's post show what appears to be bumper-to-bumper traffic leaving the city.

Both my parents are stuck in Tehran. They don't have gas to leave. My dad doesn't have water right now. There are bomb- bombardments around them. And as much as they've said that they're not hitting civilian targets, civilians are being hit. We just want people to know that the Iranian people don't want this war. Our government unfortunately has also sparked this war.

joining me now to discuss holly daggers senior fellow at the washington institute for near east policy also author of the iranus newsletter correct um i want to talk to you about what we just heard there in those comments um we've seen scenes of people in tehran trying to flee the city um

And there are also people questioning the lack of warning in other ways, right? No air raid sirens, things like that? Yes, there were no air raid sirens. There are no shelters. They made make shelters and mosques and schools and metros just days after the war broke out. And metro stations don't even have bathrooms.

Iranians, those that have been staying behind, that don't have savings, that don't have a second home in another city, that are elderly, they're staying behind. And for them, they're terrified because the message that President Donald Trump put on X or Truth Social saying that

Tehran needs to evacuate. Tehran is a capital city with over 10 million people. That's roughly the size of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. So how do you tell that many people to leave with no information coming from their government? They're having to rely on intermittent internet access, diaspora satellite channels for that information, or their phone calls and text messages from family and loved ones abroad.

I want to talk about how the airstrikes are taking out so many of the leaders in the government. One, because it is happening sometimes in their homes, right, which means in civilian areas. But two, there is a dwindling...

there was an opposition to the Iranian leadership. So what is the reaction as these airstrikes are happening? Are people feeling like they are glad those leaders are taken out? As you heard that person say, we didn't want this war. What are you hearing? - Well, Iranians have not wanted this regime for a long time. In 2022, we had something called the Women Life Freedom Uprising that was not successful in its goal of ousting this regime.

And Iranians have been disappointed. The international community didn't support them in their push for positive change. And now we're in a situation where they have a regime that's made decisions for them that they didn't want. They are being held hostage by them. 46 million people have been living under a regime that's been at war with them. And now they're in a war that they never asked for.

they're having to fight for their survival in the capital right now. And so, you know, we talk about opposition. There's many Nelson Mandela's in Tehran's notorious Avin prison. And you know what those-- - So meaning there's opposition leaders in Iran, but they're in prisons right now. - It's the best and the brightest are in this prison. And a lot of these political prisoners, including Western hostages, some of which are US hostages are in these prisons. They're not being let out. They don't have access to information.

And so this is what's happening on the ground right now. - Can you talk about this decision for President Trump, something we've been hearing about all day, covered today, tug of war. I mean, they're presenting it as destroy the last Iran nuclear site or somehow get back to talks. From the position, what you're hearing out of Iran,

What is the decision being seen as well? There's a lot of confusing reporting because Axios this morning had reported that there were talks of ceasefire and actually just moments before I met with you I was reading that President Donald Trump had tweeted or posted on truth social that he actually was not there was no ceasefire talks and that all the reporting has been inaccurate Iran has not approached him and

and that if they would, they would be saving many lives. Again, this emphasis on many lives and evacuating Tehran, the U.S. and Israel want to say that they're not at war with the Iranian people. But when you're talking like that, it doesn't seem to suggest otherwise that you're just targeting the regime. All right, Holly Daggers, I hope to talk to you soon as this unfolds. Thank you so much. Holly is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Now, you've seen the footage of plainclothes ICE officers wearing masks and making arrests and the protests over President Trump's immigration policies. But tough immigration enforcement didn't actually start with him. It's the latest in a long line of measures carried out by both Republican and Democratic administrations. And while Trump deported more than 1.5 million people in his first term, that's about half of the nearly 3 million deported during Obama's first term.

And it's a fact that earned Obama the nickname Deporter-in-Chief. So with ICE stepping up enforcement and arrests under Trump, how new is what we're seeing? Joining me now to discuss is John Sandweg, a former acting director at ICE. Welcome to the program.

Yeah, thanks for having me. You know, on social media, people have taken a lot of videos of ICE officers approaching people in masks, maybe doing everyday things, maybe at schools. Is there something to be said about the tactics or approaches that ICE is deploying now to do their jobs?

You know, this is a fundamentally different operational tactics we're seeing from this administration than any prior administration. Although this administration spent a lot of time in rhetoric saying we're going to focus on criminals and transnational gang members, the reality is what they're doing here is a volume-based approach.

They're going after work sites, targeting places where they can find large numbers of migrants congregated. The problem, though, is when you do those kind of operations, you're not finding your criminals, right? Typically, your criminals are not the ones going to work. But, John, can I interrupt for a second? The reason why I'm asking you about this is because you've actually had to do this job.

Right. And doing these kinds of deportations is not unusual. But people are making a big deal and really rebelling against the visual of it. The tactical gear, the face coverings. Are people overreacting to that?

I don't think so. Look, I understand why that's troubling. Frankly, it raises all sorts of issues from an officer safety perspective. Right. You advise officers wearing masks where you can. You know, they're doing it to protect their identity. And I'm sympathetic to that. The tactics and the you know, this mass deportation effort is triggering a lot of controversy. So these officers feel vulnerable. So I'm sympathetic to the idea that they want to wear masks to protect their identity. On the other hand, though,

You know, we have we don't you don't those visuals are terrible, right? You have these officers wearing masks and people. It also creates officer safety risks whereby, you know, people, third parties might not know these are ICE agents who are making these arrests. So in a sense, this is all a byproduct of this administration's policies in terms of the focus on these non-criminal populations. Well,

We're also hearing reporting, for instance, in Axios that it's part of a cash crisis that the agency has amid this crackdown. The reporting out of Axios says that they're burning through cash so quickly that the agency charged with arresting, detaining and removing unauthorized immigrants could run out of money next month. What's your reaction to that, having kind of managed a budget like this?

Certainly these type of operations and the volume of mainly detention, the detention numbers are through the roof. That is very expensive for us. They're not budgeted. They're budgeted for 40,000 beds. We're currently at a population of about 50,000. So right now, this is a budgeting game. I think the administration is banking on this bill coming through, giving supplemental resources. I also anticipate that they're moving money around from other DHS priorities. Of course, the problem is as you move money around, that means it's something else you're not doing. Right.

Right. There's some other national security or law enforcement priority that you're now pulling money from to fund immigration enforcement. But as it relates to budgeting, I've no doubt that they're having a budget crisis right now. But it's more of one managing the timing and really banking on this supplemental funding that's coming in. Congress is kicking around on the big, beautiful bill. Can they make the number, the quota they're talking about by just going to major cities?

They can, Adi. The problem is, first of all, two things. One is you don't have enough resource officers to make these volume of arrests. But two really is this how you do it is so critically important. And I know at the beginning you talked about the Obama administration, but during the Obama administration, we had a very targeted approach. We are focused solely on people inside the country who had a criminal history.

a serious criminal history, as well as people at the border. Now, this administration doesn't have the border. Numbers have dropped. That impacts the number of arrests that ISIS make. But the other issue here is, so what's happened is ISIS pivoting and forced to go away from this targeted approach,

Getting away from doing all those investigations and finding that at-large criminal, where you might spend 100 hours to get one arrest, but it's a high-quality arrest. Instead, they have to look for places where immigrants congregate. And that means work sites. That means Home Depot parking lots.

So while those type of tactics can allow ICE to really surge up the number of arrests, this 3,000 a day quota that the administration has put on them is just not sustainable. But again, more disturbingly about it is it diverts the agency's attention away from this criminal population to the people who are working and making a living. And what we know about that population is they've been here a long time. They're integrated into our society and they're really generally more frequently than not criminals.

John Sandweg was former acting director of ICE. Thank you. Thank you.

Senate Republicans have revealed their version of President Trump's spending and tax bill. The Finance Committee's framework makes significant changes to that measure that narrowly passed the House. And one point of contention, deeper cuts to Medicaid through the so-called provider tax, which is how states raise money to pay for their portion of the program. Senator Josh Hawley says it would effectively defund hospitals. Democrats are echoing that concern.

I've actually been traveling into red states to talk to the people there about what they're going to lose. Missouri is going to lose 400,000 people will be kicked off Medicaid's rolls. I talked to the hospital and that National Hospital Association. 30% of our safety net hospitals, most of which are in red states, will shut down if you actually these Medicaid cuts go through.

Pat is back. Chuck, I want to go to you. Late night couch mentioning Missouri. In terms of messaging, it's pretty clear what's happening here, saying, look, red states, look, Republican voters, this is hitting you. Should we expect to see more of this? I think so. And what you're going to see is messaging centered around rural hospitals. They take the

brunt of this. And it's one of those issues that Democrats and Republicans can come together on. In rural America, health care is hard to find. I grew up on a farm in East Texas. We had to drive 18 miles to go to the nearest hospital. There's a lot of other folks that are like that. And Democrats see it as a place where they could bring in some of these rural Republicans and say, like, hey, this is too much. Is that remotely possible, Charlie Dunn?

Well, look, the politics of Medicaid have changed a lot since 2017. Republicans recognize that many of their base voters are on Medicaid and benefit from it, probably more so than the Democrats, and particularly in these rural areas Chuck just mentioned. So I think that the Senate's going to have a tough time enacting these Medicaid changes.

There are other problems with this bill, too, that we haven't even gotten into yet. They just kept the SALT deduction at $10,000. That's going to upset House members. But I assume that's because some people have already kind of said, okay, fine, they're going to waffle on that. It feels like this Medicaid thing has become a bit of a sticking point. It is. And a rallying issue for Hawley, of all people. Well, for Hawley, I suspect Senators Murkowski and Collins and others are going to have some difficulty with this. You may remember in 2017...

We tried, I said Republicans tried, I voted against it, but Republicans tried to block-grant Medicaid with a cut. And that couldn't get through. And now we're talking about limiting the provider tax from 6 to 3.5%, which is the way the state's drawn on money. I want to leave you guys with one last image, which is this poll where nearly two-thirds of the American public disapproves of the one big, beautiful bill.

All right, group chat, stay right there. We have a lot more to talk about when CNN this morning returns. A dangerous trend in the U.S., a deadly uptick in political violence. Why is it happening? Can Congress stop it? Plus, a rift in the Republican Party. Why longtime Senate leader Mitch McConnell's calling out Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. More from our friends in the group chat after this.

We just can't allow the violence to permeate and skew our political process. In the wake of Saturday's shootings, Capitol Police are enhancing security for members of Congress impacted by the incident. In just a few hours, Senators will get a security briefing from Capitol Police and the Senate Sergeant at Arms. The attack is also bringing up paychecks.

painful memories of other politically motivated shootings, including the shooting of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords during an event in her home district in Arizona that was more than a decade ago. Her husband, Senator Mark Kelly, now speaking out about yet another act of violence.

the gun violence in our nation today is not like any other developed nation and now it's political i mean gabby was assassinate or there was an attempt on an ass of an assassination in her life because she was a member of congress with melissa hortman and her husband and john hoffman you know though and his spouse those were attempts too because they were serving in the legislature in minnesota

And this kind of violence has to stop. And there are things that we can do about it as legislators, both at the federal and state level. It's a horrific, horrific act.

Joining me now to talk about his personal experience with this issue, Daniel Hernandez. He's credited with helping save Congresswoman Giffords' life back in 2011. He's also now running for Congress himself in Arizona's 7th District. You were there with the Congresswoman that day in 2011 when the attempt on her life was committed. I can't imagine your feelings over the weekend. Were you getting texts, calls? What were people saying? Yeah.

Political violence is unfortunately something that I'm very familiar with. I'm running for Congress right now in Arizona. And last Thursday, someone shot at the door of one of the staff in my campaign outside my home. And I moved into the home that I share with my sister, a state legislator who received a lot of death threats about two years ago. So this is unfortunately something that I've been dealing with for over 14 years since the shooting in Tucson and just saw

personally on saturday when i woke up to tons of missed calls from my mom and my sister who were freaking out because my sister and i both overslept and weren't picking up and in light of what happened in minnesota they were worried that something had happened because just days before we had had someone shoot out out at in front of our house so this is unfortunately something that i've had to deal with for a long time and even more so now that i have two sisters that are legislators

We heard the senator just say it's worse somehow in this moment. How do you hear that? Do you feel the same?

I do. And, you know, this is something where we've seen our political rhetoric get very heated and the temperature keeps going up and up and up. But I think what we need to be doing is making sure that we're focusing on policy and ideas, not on people. And yet too often times our politics is focused on attacking other people, destroying other people. And that's not where we need to be focused on. We need to be talking about how we're going to actually solve problems, not how we're just going to destroy the other side.

What are you going to be doing in the coming months? I mean, you talk about people in your family being legislators. You are currently running for office. How do you even begin to think about protecting yourself?

The first thing was changing how we operate. So we've had to move our campaign headquarters from my home. We're now at a new place. We're going to be looking at hiring security when we're doing public events. But this is not something that is covered by other folks. So we're going to have to find in our budget the ability to be able to hire additional people to be able to just help protect ourselves because it's not just about me, but making sure my staff, my family, my mom and my four staff were feet away from where the shooting happened.

And if anything had happened to them, I would have never been able to forgive myself. So I think that's the thing that we have to completely adjust how we operate just to make sure we're keeping everybody safe. Arizona congressional candidate Daniel Hernandez, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me.

Okay, gentlemen, so one of the things that happens after these shootings, and I saw this when Steve Scalise was shot at that congressional softball game, everyone talks about the rhetoric. Everyone talks about that language. But it's like a drug they can't give up. It's not like it goes away. So just help. I don't have a question here. How do you think about it?

- I think about it as thinking of the history of going back to the '90s when I worked for Ann Richards. There's always been folks who disagreed. And there's Democrats, Republicans, folks that, and we would get in each other's face and have arguments about policy. Me and Charlie could have an argument about policy, but it never turned to where it was this hateful side of us that I'll say I blame on the internet because now people literally make money

being hateful on the internet and they make a living doing that. So now we've monetized that hate and I think that's the real difference of where we are now than when I first started campaigns. - Yeah, that's an interesting point. Charlie? - Yeah, the rhetoric has gotten to the point now. I agree with you. I think a lot of this is driven by social media, the internet, people are saying things

online that they would never say in a million years to your face in a public setting. It's gotten so bad that, you know, I was in Congress after Gabby Giffords was shot. We noticed every public meeting we had and always made sure that there was security there, a police officer.

That's how seriously we took this back then. And it's only gotten worse. We're in a moment of political instability and turbulence right now, like nothing like we've seen since the war. But I like you bringing up the point about rage farming and clickbait means. But also, you have a voting base. You do have voters who want a pure...

a pugilistic language from their lawmakers. How do you appease that element of the base? I was taught what pugilistic means because I was a good fighter growing up. And if there's a pugilist up here, it's me. I've got scars on my face to prove that. You have somebody like me who's a proven fighter, go and look at

the camera and go, we can have a disagreement. It don't mean being a man is going and hitting a child or going and shooting somebody. That's not being a man. Being a man is standing up and saying what's right and what's wrong without violence. Sometimes it's more to do that without violence to prove that you're a man or that you're a pugilist than doing something ignorant. And we're seeing the lawmakers be very upset. Some reporting out of Congress today about the lawmaker, Minnesota lawmakers upset with Senator Mike Lee, who kind of jumped to conclusions early in the process at

the shooter's motivations and made some comments that implied somehow it was politically deserved, so to speak. So again, like, is this a moment of reflection? Do you think we'll actually see any of that in Congress? Well, I hope there's some reflection and frankly, some restraint. There's not enough of that in this country. And we're showing this tweet. I think he has since made comments kind of dialing it back, but it had its impact.

Well, he had to. And this has been the problem. After Steve Scalise was shot at the baseball practice, I mean, I didn't say Bernie Sanders was responsible. He was horrified like the rest of us. But that's a very common comment. I mean, I immediately saw, I think it was the actor James Wood who was blaming Governor Waltz for his language. There's this quick, it's someone's fault.

Yeah, and I think we have to really refrain from that. I mean, we have terrible acts of political violence, too many. We've always had acts of political violence in this country, sadly, but it seems that there are many more now. The country is more divided and fractured, I think, at any time since the Civil War.

And it's incumbent upon leaders to dial down the rhetoric, stop all the inflammatory, incendiary rhetoric, and try to talk about the issues. Talk about why you disagree with a person. Not that that person is evil. If we dehumanize our opponents,

then there are going to be people out there who are going to take that as a signal. Yeah, and maybe even ending the whataboutism about that conversation. Usually you try and bring it up and someone says, well, someone said this, someone said that. I feel like I'm talking to my kids who are arguing. It'll be interesting to see if lawmakers start to deal with this because as we saw, this violence fell at the state level. Yes.

And we heard the congressman say, I'm not protected. I don't have that money. So it's an interesting moment. You guys, thank you for being with me, just the three of us. I appreciate it. Thank you for being with us as well. I'm Adi Cornish and CNN News Central starts right now.

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This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish. It's been about a full week of protests and demonstrations against the ongoing immigration raids in L.A. Leah Greenberg is a co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive group The Indivisible Project.

We want people to bring their kids. We want people to bring their dogs. We want to create in these moments a sense of community and support and care for each other. How are they preparing? Are they changing their strategy in light of President Trump's willingness to use military force on U.S. soil? Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app.