Texas lieutenant governor on preventing school shootings

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Texas lieutenant governor on preventing school shootings

State leaders work to prevent a repeat of deadly Santa Fe High School shooting; Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick shares insight on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," May 18, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

PETE HEGSETH, FOX NEWS HOST: Good evening and live from New York City. I am Pete Hegseth in for Laura Ingraham tonight and this is "The Ingraham Angle."

A tough day for our nation as we grapple with yet another school shooting this evening. We will bring you complete coverage from every single angle on the tragedy in Texas.

And we dissect a huge move by the Trump administration to strip Planned Parenthood of million dollars of federal funding. Long overdue.

Plus, a brand new report from the New York Times coming out just moments ago on whether team Obama spied on the trump campaign. Fresh new details on that.

As well as a possible change in strategy by President Trump towards North Korea ahead of that big meeting next month.

But we begin with the deadly events in the city of Santa Fe, Texas. Witnesses say a 17-year-old whose name I won't dignify reading on the air, walked into an art class in Santa Fe High School this morning and began shooting.

At least 10 people were killed and another 10 wounded. The suspect is in custody. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the teen told officers he planned to kill himself but admitted he didn't even have courage to pull the trigger on himself. The early morning shooting at 8 a.m. Central Time left students in shock. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were all sitting in class. We had our door open. The next thing I know we all heard a teacher ran through the hallway saying there a student in the building with a shotgun.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I heard really loud booms. I didn't know what they were at first, but when I heard the screaming, I realized what they were. I got up and I ran.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody took off. I heard three shots. I grabbed her, and we ran to the trees to get out of sight. I called mom and heard four more shots.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody just started running outside and the next thing you know everybody's looks and you hear, boom, boom, boom. I just ran as fast as I could to the nearest forest so I can hide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: For the latest let's go to Fox News reporter, Casey Stegall from Santa Fe, Texas at the scene of today's shooting -- Kasey.

CASEY STEGALL, FOX NEWS REPORTER: Pete, it doesn't matter how many times you hear those sound bites or those clips of interviews with those tearful students. It gives you goose bumps every time you hear it. You can imagine the terror they must have experienced here this morning.

We have learned that all schools in the district will be closed at least Monday and Tuesday of next week as this small and devastated community searches for answers and tries to wrap their head around what happened here.

This as the teen gunman made his first appearance in court. Let's show you that video now, 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis was charged with capital murder of multiple persons and aggravated assault of a public servant because one of the 10 injured was the school's public resource police officer shot while trying to stop the gunman.

That officer is recovering in the hospital after undergoing surgery earlier. Right now, investigators continue combing the crime scene and interviewing two other persons of interest to see is this shooter had help and now a motive is still not clear.

Investigators say there is real no digital foot print portraying a troubled teen like in other shootings, no real red flags, if you will. But it is perhaps that randomness that has really shaken this community.

Tonight, grieving students and family members and perfect strangers gathering for a prayer vigil not far from where I am at a nearby bank. Everyone coming together to pray for those who have been impacted. And frankly, it's not hard to go around this small community, southeast of Houston, and find someone who has been impacted by this. It's only a population of 13,000. One of those towns where everyone knows everyone -- Peth.

HEGSETH: Thank you very much. Great coverage all day on such a tough topic. As Texas absorbs the impact of today's events state leaders are already vowing to make changes to prevent a repeat of this event.

We are joined now by Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick in Houston. Lt. Governor, thank you for joining us on this tough evening. If you would first, give us an update on what you know that we may not know already?

DAN PATRICK, R-TEXAS LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Well, you have done a very good job of staying to the facts as Fox has all day. This school was one of 186 giving a safety course that Texas offers out of 1,000 schools because of this officer many lives were saved.

Now we grieve tonight, and I want everyone in America to pray for these families that lost their children and lost a substitute teacher as well. The officers not responded quickly, this young man with a shotgun that could hold five to eight shells could have killed or wounded many more. They did their job.

What I look for, what I look for is what can we do next to protect our schools. Governor Abbott will put together round tables and we will meet with people from all points of view, pro-gun and anti-gun. Everything to stop this from happening again.

One of the things, Pete, I want to look at. Number one, every parent out there, if you have a gun legally as I do. Lock them up and keep them away. We don't know if he broke into his father's cabinet to get these guns. We hear access to people who have guns.

If you don't have a gun safe buy one. Protect your children and also from someone breaking in your house and taking a gun. The designs of our schools. We have too many exits and entrances for shooters to get in school. In Texas we have over 8,000 campuses with multiple locations.

We don't have 30 or 40,000 law enforcement to put at every day. Maybe we need to design schools like other infrastructure where you can only go in and out one door. That might mean changing the way we think about school kids don't come all at one time but staggered.

So, we can check every student. This young man walked in with a trench coat today when it was 90 degrees. Maybe a police officer would have stopped him if he with one entry or exit. I want to look at hardening these soft targets that are our schools.

HEGSETH: But I think the lead on this is the question I was going to ask, re there steps Texas has taken since Parkland that did reduce -- 10 lives is too many -- but there were trained officers that that mitigated a larger number. You are saying there were proactive steps taken in this case?

PATRICK: Yes, because they did this training we put in place years ago. Also, Pete, in Texas, we allow teachers to carry. We leave it up to the local school board and parents to make that decision. We have school districts that allow trained teachers to carry.

When I was at a hospital with a young man, I will leave his name private for now. He was shot twice. He was in the classroom. He played dead. Thought the shooter with moved. He went to get up and shot again. He will recover but had a series injury.

I was there with Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott and there were a lot of student friends in there. They all said we want to arm our teachers. The parents all said arm the teachers. Next door to the art class was a Marine substitute teacher who heard the noise, went out and saw the shooter and locked the door and protected his students, but he was not armed.

Had that Marine been able to carry in that school district, he might have been able to stop that shooter. For those who say guns are the issue -- and we want the best background checks we can have -- but the answer is not taking away guns from people who can defend themselves and others.

I think in our schools, leave it up to the parents as we do in Texas and the superintendent. More school districts want to arm teachers who want to be armed and efficient and limit the entrances and exits into these schools. Stagger the start and end times and be sure kids like this don't get in the school house with a gun under their coat.

HEGSETH: You can either have a big government decision or big citizens with good people with guns taking down bad people with guns because you can't stop everyone. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick from Texas. We're with you tonight. Thanks for joining us.

PATRICK: Thank you, Pete.

Officials on the scene say the quick response of armed officers willing to confront the shooter probably saved many lives. Let's discuss that with a security and counterterrorism expert, Aaron Cohen, and a former Las Vegas police detective, Randy Sutton. Thank you, Gentlemen, both for joining us this evening.

Aaron, let me start with you. Does it look like the proper protocols were followed? Are we doing enough in America in your schools?

AARON COHEN, COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERT: The proper protocols was followed by responding law enforcement. That's not the problem. We got heroes in this country who are trained in active shooter response. Most of the agencies in this country go through a federal law enforcement training.

The training has been around for 25 years. The problem is it's not enough. You can't rely on the responders. To what Pete said to the lt. governor of Texas, he only named two of multiple players that need to be implemented if you're going to protect this country.

I want to speak to the governors out there and the senators. Israelis already figured out the security. Three parts to it, the first one is deter, detect and deny. You need to check the bags, Pete, at every school. You open up the bags --

HEGSETH: You know more about this than I have ever known. Are we turning our schools into prisons? I mean, do we have to take that --

COHEN: No, we are not turning our schools into prisons. We are coming up with a multi-laired viable security solution until we figure out the gun solution and the mental health problem with firearms and kids raised by parents. We have to treat this as an organic security threat. The money is there. We can put enough security at 100,000 registered schools in this country to check bags and provide an armed response. It's not a problem. We just have to do it.

HEGSETH: Randy, you have been a detective. Is more offense the answer? Getting into the lives of people and their backgrounds or is it more defense, hardening of targets as Aaron is suggesting?

RANDY SUTTON, FORMER LAS VEGAS POLICE OFFICER: Well, there needs to be a combination. There is not one simple answer to a complex problem like this. Do we need to harden the targets? Absolutely. You know, we have become very complacent in this country. We have not learned the lessons yet. And it's time.

We have to learn these lessons. It will be painful at first. It's going to take some getting used to. Unfortunately, we had way too many of these school shootings. We can no longer ignore home. However, once again, we have an individual here who didn't show the red flag, unlike the school shooter in Florida. This kid was thought to be a kind, young man.

HEGSETH: That's right.

SUTTON: He was on the football team. He didn't show any outward signs. Yet he was all described as having a certain sadness which is a sign of depression. When he was talked to by the police he said he wanted to commit suicide. There are some flags here. The access to the weapons disturbs me. As the Lt. Governor said, if you have a weapon in your home, you have to secure it.

HEGSETH: Aaron, as you heard the lt. governor talked about arming teachers and the fact that the armed guard likely prevented a lot more deaths. So, in addition to hardening targets, do you think it's a viable option?

COHEN: Absolutely.

HEGSETH: (Inaudible) to arm teachers.

COHEN: Pete, I have been training law enforcement for 25 years and trained military units around the world. There is no problem teaching people to run into a crowd with a weapon, but you have to give them 40 to 80 hours of training.

We can take the most important pieces of law enforcement active shooting training and give it to able and physically capable teachers, instructors. In Israel, we allow parents who served in combat units to respond to our schools in addition to armed security in front of the school.

HEGSETH: Israel is different than the U.S. size and scope wise. The TSA has a huge job of guarding airports. In July of 2017, the Minneapolis TSA failed 95 percent of the time during an inspection. Can we really believe that --

COHEN: Pete, that's a good point. The TSA is an over-bloated billion dollars company that should have been disbanded five years ago. It's a waste of taxpayer's money. They still check breast milk and make me take off my shoes. They are not profiling behavior, looking for terrorists and detecting weapons and not doing a good job of that --

HEGSETH: No, they are not.

COHEN: We need to deploy the model that allows us to train guards. One properly trained guard is more useful than 10 TSA people. That's what we need to focus on. We have $600 billion that's given to the Department of Defense every year. This is a national security issue. Let's treat it as one. Let's train our veterans. Arm the teachers in the states that want it. Give the blue states the option.

HEGSETH: Give the local control (inaudible) turn it over to a federal behemoth and then you get a giant that can't actually --

COHEN: Let's spend on the money on the training. Anyone listening, this is doable. We have the money. Let's take it from DOD --

HEGSETH: We hear you.

COHEN: Let's get these people trained. Start putting security and taking it seriously.

HEGSETH: Aaron, you're bringing the seriousness and the urgency we need on this situation. Aaron and Randy, thank you very much for your time.

All right. Well, what causes a young person -- this is a big question tonight -- to do the unimaginable. Mow down his classmates. Two experts will join us to piece together what we know about the suspect even if we don't want to know it and what could have pushed him over the edge. Stay right there. We'll be back with that and so much more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEGSETH: Welcome back. Whenever there is a mass shooting, the big question is always why? Why would someone do something so depraved? The question is more difficult when the suspect and the shooter and the victims are high school teenagers. What we know about the suspect in today's school shooting in Texas and his background.

In San Antonio, Ron Martinelli is a forensic criminologist and in Kansas City, Dr. Brian Russell is a psychologist and an attorney. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us. Ron, let me start with you. Is there a single part of his background that would give you a look into motivation why he walked in and started shooting people?

RON MARTINELLI, PH.D., FORENSIC CRIMINOLOGIST: Sure. The first thing to keep in mind is discount the people that are telling you there is no red flags because as we begin to unpack this bag psychologically, we will find there were red flags. Some of them might be a little sublime, but they were certainly there.

We are starting to see perhaps a ticking time bomb when I have written about extensively. This person probably felt isolated. He was certainly suicidal. When I am seeing in active shooters, 40 percent of which commit suicide or suicide by cop, is that they do experience suicidal ideations.

So, the reason for suicide is to end pain, emotional and psychological. This person was probably experiencing some sort of pain. It could have been bullying coming from a variety of areas. We are looking for now a precipitating event that caused this person to explode.

HEGSETH: Talking about being bullied potentially, here's some sound referring to the shooter that might give us some insight. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUSTIN SEVERIN, JUNIOR AT SANTA FE HIGH SCHOOL: He was really quiet and mostly kept to himself. He was picked on by coaches and other students. Didn't really talk to anyone. My friends from the football team told me their coaches say that he smelled right in front of his face. Other kids would laugh at him and talk about him. Nothing like physical, but emotionally bullied him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: We heard from other classmates say he was cool and quiet and kept to himself but seemed fairly normal. I mean, bullying happens all over the place and doesn't lead people to pull triggers on other folks. What do you make of that?

MARTINELLI: Well, people process stress differently. Some people commit suicide. Some people commit homicide and some people do both. So, every person has a different psyche that can trigger an emotional and behavioral response. This is a very severe response. As we unpack this bag, we will find out more about this young man. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says I will go out and kill 10 people and wound 10 other people and plant a bunch of bombs at the school. This was a planned event.

HEGSETH: It sure was. Dr. Russell, there is a new headline out that might have another particular detail. In the Houston Chronicle it says that the 17-year-old admitting gunning down his classmates, according to police. He spared the students that he liked so he could have his story told. What does that tell you about him? He wanted his story told and ultimately did not commit suicide at the end of the day.

BRIAN RUSSELL, PH.D., PSYCHOLOGIST AND ATTORNEY: Sadly, Pete, there are people in this world and there are high school students for whom this role that has been created in our culture since Columbine is for some of them the only role they can see themselves playing that gives them any power or any meaning as individuals.

It's very important to think about what was the first word that went through your mind when you heard about this. A lot of people will say sicko, psycho. If you look the calculations, conniving and the concealment. All of this conscious decision making that went into it, you can see that is there a mentally healthy kid? Obviously not. That's not mental illness. What is it?

It's a narcissistic phenomenon where somebody becomes so wrapped up -- it could be they think they are superior to everybody or inferior and want to get some power, notoriety, whatever. But they feel entitled to indulge that at the expense of other people's very lives. That's not mental illness. That's sociopathy, psychopathy rooted in narcissism.

As we have discussed, there are always precursors to that, always signs and we will find some here. We have to heed those signs. For the few people where the signs are not enough, and they slip through the cracks, we have to harden the targets.

HEGSETH: Ron, only a couple of seconds, we have not heard much about the parents. Someone close to him knew something.

MARTINELLI: Yes, I agree. Somebody will come up sooner or later and tell us a lot more about this person. You might get indications from the parents. Probably the friends closest to him will be the people that provide you with the motive for this crime. Right now, there are five motives to active shooting. One of which is revenge.

This is not anti-government sentiment or anti-religious or an act of terrorism as we know terrorism to be. We will take a look at the revenge motive. The other motive would be pure evil. It may be a combination of both.

HEGSETH: Motivation does matter in our society today. Thank you both. Appreciate it.

Meanwhile, a new bombshell New York Times article. There is a big debate raging. Did the special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, have it all wrong and all backwards? Should Mueller really be investigating the Obama administration for spying on the Trump campaign? We'll bring you breaking details on that coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEGSETH: Welcome back. The big guessing game in Washington right now. It's an open secret the identity of the spy or informant that the FBI may have had inside the Trump presidential campaign. Speculation is running rampant after a story in Wednesday's New York Times revealed this --

"At least one government informant met several times with Carter Page and George Papadopoulos." We'll learning of another name as well, Sam Clovis, this evening and that's coming from current and former officials.

Well, President Trump tweeted that if true, this is bigger than Watergate. He just might be right. Now the Times published a follow-up story saying, "FBI used informant to investigate Russia ties to campaign not to spy as Trump claims."

A little editorializing in the headline there of the New York Times, it gets away with every once in a while. Still allies of the president are pushing to find out what role the informant may have played in the Russia investigation.

Let's discuss this with Retired FBI Agent Bobby Chacon, along with Democratic strategist, Richard Goldstein, and former Delta Force officer, Jeff Beddie (ph), who is a CIA counterterrorism center case officer and hostage rescue adviser to the FBI.

These guys know what they are talking about. Gentlemen, all, thanks for being here. So, Bobby, let me start with you, this headline from the New York Times saying the FBI used the informant to investigate Russia ties and not spying on Trump. What do you make of that?

BOBBY CHACON, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: In my reading of it it's disturbing and that it's the direction they took with this informant. They had a source and heard there may be ties with Papadopoulos and Russia and they ran this source at several members of the Trump campaign, Papadopoulos, Page, Flynn, they ran them pretty hard.

He lured Papadopoulos over to London for a meeting. He had a young woman with him. Now some of our other guests can tell you, I didn't work counterterrorism. I have friends that do. Having a new young woman at a meeting that later on invited Papadopoulos to a separate meeting alone with just the two of them, that's a recruitment type tool. So they were using pretty aggressive tactics to go after and look at Papadopoulos and Carter Page and to a lesser extent General Flynn.

So I think that during the time he was run at Page the FISA was up, so we call that tickling the wire, trying to get conversation generated that you may overhear on your wiretap, in this case FISA. They didn't run this informant at the Russian side of the rumors that they had. They ran him at the Trump side of the thing. And they ran him in my estimation, and I worked a lot of informants in my time, they ran them pretty aggressively at these guys, and they came up with nothing.

HEGSETH: So Richard, Bobby, a retired FBI agent, is saying they were aggressive at the Trump folks. Here's one quote from the brand new article in The New York Times as well that really caught our eye. Listen to this and we'll get you to respond, Richard.

It said Mr. Papadopoulos replied that he had no insight, he's talking to the informant here, no insight into the Russian campaign despite being told months earlier that the Russian had dirt on Mrs. Clinton in the form of thousands of her emails. His response clearly annoyed the informant who tried to press Mr. Papadopoulos about what he might know about the Russian effort according to the person. So would you feel the same way you do right now, which I know you don't agree necessarily with some of the previous assessment, but what if this had been the Obama campaign and the FBI had been aggressively pushing informants to gather information on that campaign? Wouldn't you look at that sideways?

RICHARD GOODSTEIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: For starters, if we can, Pete, let's take the word "spy" and "embedded" and "implanted" out of this discussion because that's not at all what happened. What the president and what Rudy Giuliani are saying.

HEGSETH: We don't know that for sure. People are looking into it.

GOODSTEIN: Here's what we don't know. We have no evidence to believe it did happen. And the assertion is being made over and over and over again that it did. So I will concede that I know no more than you know do which is what the New York Times is saying.

What I would say to your question is this, if the Obama campaign had two of its five foreign policy advisors -- remember when Donald Trump was asked during the campaign --

HEGSETH: But you know these guys are backbenchers, come on.

GOODSTEIN: He said he could name five people, Papadopoulos and Page were two of them, and the FBI had reason to believe they were consorting with Russians. This made them feel quite uneasy. So when you say they ran an informant, yes, I think if you had with a presidential candidate two of his five foreign policy advisers somebody who had these contacts that are suspicious according to this article with Russians, yes, that's exactly the kind of thing. If they had them with the mafia, do you think that might be something they would want to get to the bottom of and we'd be all alarmed if we had an informant? That's good law enforcement practice. We are talking to two guys in Jeff and Bobby who did this for a living.

HEGSETH: Of course, so let's go to one of those guys. Jeff, is this good law enforcement or is this surveillance that looks a little too political for an agency that says it doesn't do politics?

JEFF BEATTY, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, I think it all depends on where you are sitting. Right now we have limited information. The information that has come out today that you just briefed us on does talk about the fact that it has been stated that there was some information about Russian contacts with the Trump campaign that were a concern.

I think it's interesting as to who might have provided that information or how that information came about. But nonetheless, the thing your viewers should be aware of, to do a confidential informant, to run an operation like that, you don't need to go to a judge. You don't need to get a search warrant. You don't need to prove probable cause. In fact it's a very preliminary step that's designed to try to generate probable cause.

So there is no judge involved. It's simply administratively approved, although this would certainly be a very sensitive one and be maybe approved at a very high level which brings into question the motivations of some of the senior FBI leadership. They may have used a confidential informant tactic here as a fig leaf about the Russian connection as the fig leaf to do what they wanted to do. But that fig leaf is going to be pretty hard to shake loose.

HEGSETH: Absolutely. Bobby, the guy at the center of a lot of this, Clapper, has been doing a lot fo talking. Listen to what he say and I'm going to get your response. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: They may have someone who was talking to them in the campaign. The FBI gains a lot of valuable information from informants. So to me this is incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: He also said it's a good thing they had an informant inside the Trump campaign. One thing that is missing is the evidence of a crime. We knew that Hillary Clinton committed crimes with her email server so an investigation could be conducted. If you don't have a crime but you're searching for one, you go in ways where you don't have to get a warrant.

CHACON: I agree. I think the crucial word in this article, in this reporting by the Times is they thought the contacts with the Russians was suspicious. What was that contact and what made it suspicious? Because they're saying that because they thought it was suspicious they then operated this source and ran him pretty hard at these three individuals in the Trump campaign. What was that information that the contact, because the contacts alone are not improper.

It depends on the contact. So what made those contacts suspicious? Why are they using that word "suspicious"? For full transparency we've got to get down to why they thought it was suspicious, what information they had that those contacts were suspicious, because after they ran this informant at them, it produced no results, no tangible results. They didn't give up anything, didn't say anything, didn't incriminate himself. Carter Page certainly didn't, and after a FISA, if there was anything on that FISA that incriminated him in any crimes, he's be in jail by now.

GOODSTEIN: Bobby, you'd agree that outing the identity of this informant is dangerous. You couldn't have done your job, the FBI can't do it's job, the CIA if informants think they're going to be outed for political purposes. You have to agree with that.

CHACON: That's not right, though.

(CROSSTALK)

CHACON: I work criminal matters. There is a confrontation clause in our constitution. When I brought somebody into a criminal court he has the constitutional right --

GOODSTEIN: Fine, then let it happen there. But if every informant for the U.S. around the world knows that for political purposes some member in Congress or somebody in the White House can basically expose them --

HEGSETH: The White House hasn't exposed them. It's been the DOJ and the FBI and others.

BEATTY: Having worked the CIA angle on this before, I think there is some subtly here that needs to be brought out. People talked about early articles that talked about this individual had provided in the past reliable information to the CIA and the FBI. So I think we're going to see more of a CIA rollout of what their involvement might be in the early stages of this.

Second, the information that's in that New York Times, we talk about protecting sources. The information that's in that New York Times series of articles, certainly the ones coming out tonight, is sufficient.

HEGSETH: Might as well give it away.

BEATTY: For a halfway decent foreign intelligence service to I.D. the individual. But what it's not necessarily sufficient for is if this individual had contact with sub-state entities where he was help of help to the United States. And that may be where the greatest danger to the source and to the people the source was in contact with, that may be where it lies, if there's a sub-state entity involved in this.

HEGSETH: And you know there is more flexibility in the CIA starting an investigation, if they were involved early that could point to John Brennan, his name coming up a lot as the former CIA director. We will see where this goes, but late breaking news tonight. We'll continue to follow it. Bobby, Richard, Jeff, thanks for your time, appreciate it.

The Trump administration unveiled a plan today that could cost, thankfully, Planned Parenthood millions of dollars in federal fund. We will talk how they are doing it and debate the practicality as well as the moralist of this bold move. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEGSETH: Well, the Trump administration is proposing a change that could cut deeply into federal funding for Planned Parenthood and abortions. A new rule would make family planning clinics that provide abortion services or referrals for abortions ineligible for Title 10 government funding. The
$260 million program is for family planning, and the administration's position, it's that abortion is not family planning. It's ending. Predictably abortion supporters and activists are outraged by the rule change. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you remove the federal funding and women do not have access to contraception or legal and safe abortions, unsafe abortions happen. Women die.

DAWN LAGUENS, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: It removes the guarantees we all count on that our doctors are going to do the best for us that they possibly can and not what politicians and government censors tell them to say.

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-NEW YORK: This is an issue that should enrage the American public, particularly women, because it's an attack on them. I don't know why members of Congress feel like it's their job to tell women what to do with their health care.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: It's an attack. Here to debate the effects of the change are conservative columnist Kristin Tate, she's in Houston, and Fox News contributor Jehmu Greene in Austin. Thank you both for being here. Appreciate it.

So Kristin, let me start with you. I presume you are excited by this change. And George W. Bush was prolife. Is there a reason that administration did not make this move and this one did?

KRISTIN TATE, COLUMNIST, THE HILL: They should have, Pete. But I just want to make a quick point. This is not about making abortion illegal or stripping women of their rights. This is simply about separating taxpayer funds from abortion operations. In fact, Planned Parenthood wouldn't even be stripped of their funds if they simply agreed to disentangle their taxpayer money from abortions has family planning. But nobody actually things Planned Parenthood is going to stop with their abortions. This is a group that calls itself a woman's health organization but performs an increasingly small number of actual health services and make the vast majority of its money from abortions.

Last year alone they performed well over 300,000 abortions and they are able to mask their true priorities of course with the help of Democrats and the mainstream media. Meanwhile, millions of Christians are being forced to subsidize this group even though they think abortion is wrong and murder. This is a good move by Trump.

HEGSETH: Jehmu, is that simply the argument, that Planned Parenthood can, a lot of us believe unfortunately, conduct abortions, but they can't do it on the taxpayer dime, and that's the line that we are drawing here.

JEHMU GREENE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, Pete, they are not doing it on the taxpayers' dime. There is a law in place, the Hyde amendment, that makes it very clear --

HEGSETH: Yes, but this effectively the enforcement of the Hyde amendment. I want to clarify, this is the enforcement of the Hyde amendment.

GREENE: The Hyde amendment is enforced, and Planned Parenthood meticulously makes sure that they are following those rules.

But to your first question around the outrage I guess that you mentioned is coming from the left. I think what is outrageous here is that no one would be surprised if president Trump himself hadn't personally funded multiple abortions.

HEGSETH: Do you have evidence of that? Hold on?

GREENE: No, I don't have in evidence. Would you be surprised?

TATE: Jehmu, how you can go on national TV and say that without evidence?

GREENE: Would you be surprised, Kristin?

HEGSETH: Why would you speculate about that background about anybody, Jehmu? It's inappropriate.

GREENE: Would you be surprised, Pete?

TATE: Hold on. This is the height of irresponsibility.

GREENE: This man, President Trump has made a ruling that is going to take away women's access to basic health care.

TATE: Jehmu, stop spreading misinformation. This is ridiculous.

GREENE: He's done it for political reasons to turn out Republicans in the midterm elections. So there's an understanding I have from that part. But when you look at the consequences of that decision, consequences that he probably did not have to face in his position where he said he went through the Vietnam War era --

HEGSETH: So now you are talking about the Vietnam War. I don't know how we got to Vietnam.

(CROSSTALK)

GREENE: His Vietnam was escaping STDs. His Vietnam was escaping STDs.

HEGSETH: Kristin, go ahead, please.

TATE: If I could just get a word in here. So every time we talk about defunding Planned Parenthood, Jehmu and her friends on the left, they launch these irresponsible misinformation campaigns. For example in 2011 when Texas defunded Planned Parenthood.

GREENE: Women lost access to health care.

TATE: Hold on. Hold on, Jehmu. They looked tirelessly for nonexistent information about a public health crisis in the state when in fact since 2011 public health has been on the upswing in Texas. We've seen fewer teen abortions, fewer teen pregnancies, and there has been no wave of unwanted or unexpected pregnancies.

GREENE: I'm so glad --

(CROSSTALK)

TATE: This is all part of a narrative on the left to scare women --

GREENE: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

TATE: -- to scare women and treat them as though they are some sort of special interest group. It's a shallow attempt by the left to get women voters.

GREENE: Kristin, I am so glad --

HEGSETH: Jehmu, we've got 20 seconds.

GREENE: I am glad she brought up the fact we are at a 30 year low for unintended pregnancies and a historic low for teenage pregnancies. And through this rule, I don't understand. The president and this administration that really cares about records so much, they are going to walk that progress back that has come through the health care that Planned Parenthood provides to low income women, the STD testing, the cancer screening, the breast exams. This is a serious impact that we've seen --

HEGSETH: Planned Parenthood do less than two percent of cancer screening in America today. They do less than two percent of breast exams in America today. It turns out women are smart enough to get those things when necessary. Just because taxpayer dollars --

GREENE: Peter, 41 percent of the women who receive Title 10 funding go to Planned Parenthood centers for health care. That's a fact.

(CROSSTALK)

TATE: Jehmu is correct that abortions have not declined, but abortions have not declined over the last few decades because of Planned Parenthood. They have declined because of public sentiment and also we have seen people as a whole in this country turn more to the prolife movement.

GREENE: No, that's not.

HEGSETH: And technology has shown us what a fetus looks like and a life.

Thank you both very much.

GREENE: Planned Parenthood has done a good job with sex education. That's why.

HEGSETH: We're going to have to leave it right there. The debate wil rage on, we know that.

Has President Trump suddenly made a big change in his approach to North Korea? We've got some details for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEGSETH: Well, President Trump has made what some are saying may be his first public concession to North Korea, cancelling an annual U.S. military training exercise with South Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un strongly complained about the exercise and had threatened to cancel the summit with Trump planned for June 12th in Singapore. The question now is whether Kim will see Trump's move as a sign of good faith or as a sign of weakness.

Joining us now with reaction is Michael Malice, the author of the book "Dear Reader, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong-il." Thank you very much for being here Michigan.

MALICE: Thanks, Pete.

HEGSETH: So that's the key question. He had been talking time and time again about we don't want to make concessions up front. But is this the type of thing that brings them to the table and makes a deal more possible?

MICHAEL MALICE, AUTHOR, "DEAR READER": They've already been brought to the table. These war games are happening every year since four decades. The fact that they are complaining publicly and abruptly is what is unfair. It would be as if I'd called you up on October 30th and said why are you having a Halloween party tomorrow.

HEGSETH: For 30 years.

MALICE: For 30 years. They have back door negotiations. Mike Pompeo, America's head spy, met secretly with Kim Jong-un without public notification about this, so we do have backchannels. So the fact they are doing this publicly is to humiliate us. But frankly it's a small price to pay. If they say we're giving up nuke testing and you're giving up these war exercises, that's fine.

HEGSETH: So you think he is talking more to his domestic audience, to his people, saying we are still in a strong spot here?

MALICE: No, I think he is talking to us and making it clear that if I need to stamp my foot, I'm going to stamp my foot. And don't forget just because I am playing nice, I can also play not so nice.

HEGSETH: How do we not get sucked into that game? That's the game they have playing for decades. Give a little, get a little, ultimately we build our nukes.

MALICE: Because President Trump has already explicitly said repeatedly I have no problem getting up and walking away from the table. So if he comes in expecting nothing, we've already got three hostages, so as far as I'm concerned that already a huge win.

HEGSETH: What is the thing Kim Jong-un care about the most?

MALICE: Maintaining his hold on power at all costs.

HEGSETH: So he is going to need that assurance. He's not giving up a thing unless he knows we're going to back him or China can back him?

MALICE: Because he doesn't want to end up like Hussein.

HEGSETH: Or Gadhafi.

MALICE: Or Gadhafi, even worse.

HEGSETH: That is his biggest fear?

MALICE: Yes.

HEGSETH: What do you put the percentage likelihood of successful June 12 meeting that creates an actual path to denuclearization that's verifiable?

MALICE: Quite low because they regard themselves as a hedgehog with spines going in every direction, and they need those nukes to make sure that the U.S. imperialists, as they call us, can't invade.

HEGSETH: So they believe their propaganda. Do they believe Kim Jong-un when he golfs every time he gets a hole in one in every hole?

MALICE: No, but they believe nukes are an effective deterrent against invasion. And that's factual.

HEGSETH: They do. And that's the leadership and the people, and they've been told that.

MALICE: And it's the truth. It's much harder to invade a country with nukes than a certainly with slingshots.

HEGSETH: That's true.

(LAUGHTER)

HEGSETH: Bringing some facts and knowledge. Michael, thank you very much.

MALICE: Thank you, Pete.

HEGSETH: Appreciate it, great stuff.

Up next, we head back to Texas with a new update on today's tragic school shooting. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEGSETH: Finally tonight, let's get caught up on the very latest on today's deadly school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. FOX's KRIV reporter Natasha Geigel is on the scene with a live update. Natasha?

NATASHA GEIGEL, KRIV REPORTER: Well, it has quieted down quite a bit here at this candlelight vigil where earlier this evening hundreds of people came out to support and pray for each other during this tragic event. It was before 8:00 this morning when the shooter entered an arts classroom and opened fire striking multiple students. That shooter was identified as 17- year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, a student and member of the football team. He is charged with capital murder and was denied bond after being seen by a judge.

Ten people are dead and 10 others injured including a school police officer named John Barnes. He is now in stable condition. One of the victims killed was a foreign exchange student from Pakistan. Students who were in the classroom said that they saw their fellow classmate with a pistol and a shotgun. We learned that both weapons came from Pagourtzis' father who owned them illegally. Multiple law enforcement agencies had to locate explosive devices on school grounds and in surrounding areas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT, R-TEXAS: Various different kinds of explosive devices have already been detected. One was a CO-2 device. Another was a Molotov cocktail, and there are various other types of explosive devices that have been identified both in a home as well as in a vehicle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GEIGEL: Governor Greg Abbott also said that Pagourtzis planned on committing suicide but was not successful in carrying out that act. We are also told that resources will be coming out here tomorrow to help those friends and family members find comfort during this time.

Reporting live in Santa Fe, Texas, Natasha Geigel, Fox News.

HEGSETH: Natasha, thank you very much for your time. Tough stuff, and hopefully tomorrow we learn more about the family and more information about what in the world could have motivated him. Natasha, thank you time, we appreciate it.

That's all we have time for tonight. If you are up early tomorrow morning, you can join yours truly from 5:00 to 10:00 a.m. on "Fox & Friends." We'll have every angle of the royal wedding covered for you, special coverage. Not my cup of tea, but it might be yours, and if it is be up early with "Fox & Friends." I will be there at 5:00 a.m. eastern time covering it. I have to learn a little bit about them both before I do that coverage. I plan to my homework tonight.

I am Pete Hegseth in for Laura Ingraham. Don't worry, she will be back on Monday. If you want to follow me on Twitter you can follow me @PeteHegseth. And that's all we have got from New York City. Shannon Bream, the one and the only, the wonderful, she is up next.

END

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