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CNN NEWSROOM

Surgeons Describe Victims Injuries; How to Buy a Gun in Florida; Interview with Representative Mike Pompeo. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 14, 2016 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[09:31:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello, live in Orlando, Florida. Just behind me is the scene of the deadliest terror attack since 9/11.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Erin Burnett. I'm live at the hospital. A source of inspiration in the middle of this tragedy. People heroically reacting to a scene not even seen in the midst of war, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Let's get to the investigation now. Investigators in Orlando are piecing together the dark and disturbing past of the man behind the worst U.S. terror attacks since 9/11. Witnesses say he was a frequent visitor to the same gay nightclub where he killed 49 people. One club goer estimated he was there at least twice a month for the last three years. And the "L.A. Times" is reporting that the shooter reached out to a man he met there using a gay dating app.

Investigators say the shooter also visited Walt Disneyworld just hours before the attack. It is not clear whether it was an innocent visit or if he was possibly scouting the site for an attack. But that shopping area is unusual because there are no metal detectors at the entrance -- Erin.

BURNETT: And Carol, 49 lives lost, people slaughtered out on their Saturday night. Others injured, more than 50. The types of injuries are unimaginable to any of us who are covering this, to those watching.

Sanjay Gupta is here with what the hospital dealt with.

And Sanjay, I mean, this was something that you would not even see in the midst of war. So many victims with such severe gunshot wounds coming in at once.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, that's the example they all give is that this is -- these are these military style injuries. And it's not just the number of patients, but as you point out, the number of injuries the patients but as you point out the number of injuries the patients have. They have multiple gunshot wounds. And these bullets, when they get in the body, they move. So you can't even predict the pattern of injuries by simply looking and trying to assess and look at the entry points.

These doctors, they do training, they do drills for this sort of thing, but again, nothing can prepare you for real life scenario. We got a chance to go inside to see the trauma bay where these patients were initially treated and talk to the surgeons. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. CHADWICK SMITH, ORLANDO REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: Said that there was a gunshot wound coming in and they said that there were maybe a few more. The initial report was 20 gunshot wounds that were going to be coming our way. One patient came in, another patient came in, and then I realized, this was not a drill.

GUPTA (voice-over): Trauma surgeons Smith, Cheatham and Ibrahim have been operating almost nonstop since the shooting at Pulse nightclub.

MICHAEL CHEATHAM, ORLANDO REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER SURGEON: We were up to six rooms within about 90 minutes. They have 44 gunshot wounds victims come in all within a space of about an hour and a half, two hours. Certainly exceeded anything that we'd ever seen before.

GUPTA: 26 operations were performed in the first few hours. Injuries so devastating, one patient alone requiring four separate operations. 90 units of blood and counting.

(On camera): And the patients will be wheeled into this area. They'd have about a dozen people surrounding them. Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, anybody who could lend a hand. They'd make a decision really quickly in terms of, was this person going to survive or was this person going to need surgery, and how quickly was that operation going to be necessary. How much blood was the patient going to get.

You can just imagine 44 patients just within a short time coming in, bed after bed after bed, and these doctors having to make those decisions. That's what's been going on here for quite some time. They finally feel like they've got a handle on the situation, but they still have many, many patients upstairs who need their care.

(Voice-over): And then in the midst of all that, a rumor that the hospital had become a target.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is ORMC. We have the shooter currently inside ORMC. We cannot take anymore. We're on lockdown.

CHEATHAM: We actually barricaded the two doors to our trauma bay with X-ray machines and went back to focusing on the patients.

GUPTA: Patients, many of whom were still conscious, trying desperately to communicate till the very end.

SMITH: Several people asking if they were going to die, where their friends were, where their loved ones were.

[09:35:07] And, you know, just everybody kind of came together, tried to reassure them at the same time. There were some patients unfortunately that, due to their injuries, they were unable to be saved and we tried to make them as comfortable as possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: We're hearing that there are still 26 patients in the hospital. You know, initially, Erin, they didn't -- they were not that optimistic about how some of those patients were going to do, but talking to surgeons yesterday, they seemed a little bit more optimistic. There were several patients in the ICU still, but they've gotten that blood in. As you saw, so many people have been donating blood. That's been really important. And I think those patients are going to do well.

BURNETT: Such a miracle and celebrate these people that they're going to come out of this alive.

GUPTA: Yes. Absolutely. And let me just point out, you know, the hospital, ORMC, they do have a fund page as well on Twitter and Facebook.

BURNETT: Yes.

GUPTA: So people who have been wanting to help in some way, that's one way to do it.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Sanjay Gupta.

And coming up, and Sanjay is going to be with me, because we're going to hear from some of the victims and the surgeons who treated them. There's a press conference you can see actually behind me, all the people gathering. This is the press from around the world coming to hear these surgeons, the doctors, the nurses, some of the survivors, all live this morning in the next hour right here on CNN.

And still to come, along with that press conference, Carol Costello is going to go inside a gun store here in Orlando on the ground to see how easy it is to purchase a gun here in the state of Florida. And what she found out is going to surprise you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:48] COSTELLO: In the wake of the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, Democrats in Washington say they're fed up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Information technology research and for other purposes.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Those are House lawmakers, Democratic House lawmakers, chanting, "Where is the bill?" They disrupted the House Speaker Paul Ryan, demanding GOP leaders take action on stricter gun laws. As it stands right now, though, no law on the books could have

prevented the Orlando shooter from buying a gun. He had no criminal background. To buy a gun in the state of Florida, you have to fill out a background check. Here's the form. You get this form at the gun store. On it, 15 questions. Then the form is sent to the ATF. If the form comes back clean, if your background check comes back clean, you're good to go.

And I just want to read you a couple of questions on this form. Are you a fugitive? Only 15 questions. This one, have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective? Have you ever been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence? Have you ever renounced your United States citizenship?

So as I said, you fill this out and then the gun store owner sends it to the ATF.

Hector Pagan, the manager of Universal Weapons here in orlando, told me more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (on camera): What if the background check comes back inconclusive? Do I still get to take my gun out of your store that day?

HECTOR PAGAN, MANAGER, UNIVERSAL WEAPONS: If the background checks comes back, there is three possibilities. Three outcomes. Three possible outcomes. One is non-approval, which means you're being denied, so you do not take the gun.

The other possibility is conditional non-approval, which means that the FBI needs to research a little bit more on your background, maybe because there is several common names, and they need to find out, you know, make sure that they got the right person. If it is a conditional non=approval, we have to wait the three-days, which equals the amount of cooling off period.

The third is you get an approval.

COSTELLO: Gets approval. Yes.

PAGAN: And everything comes out OK and you get an approval.

COSTELLO: How many times has a background check came back and you said, I'm sorry, I can't sell you this gun?

PAGAN: It happens all the time.

COSTELLO: How often does it happen?

PAGAN: I would say maybe three out of 10 come back as non-approval or conditional non-approval.

COSTELLO: What if my name appears on a terror watch list at any point in time? Would that disqualify me from purchasing a gun? PAGAN: Honestly I don't know the answer to that question. I would

think that -- I know that there's some debate --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Is that question on here? I'm just curious.

PAGAN: No, there is nothing.

COSTELLO: There's no "I've never been on the terror watch list" question.

PAGAN: That's not in there. And I don't believe that right now they are. I think they were trying to pass something along those lines, but I'm not sure that rule has passed. Honestly --

COSTELLO: Does that bug you?

PAGAN: Yes, I'm going to on honest with you, yes, it does. Because if you are on a watch list, where you can't even fly, you shouldn't be able to buy a firearm or any type of weapon for that matter. There are things that we should be talking about, and you know, when it comes to firearms ownership. I'm a gun owner myself and it bothers me when somebody is reckless because it gives other gun owners a bad reputation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: My thanks to Mr. Pagan.

With me now to talk about this is David Rohde, CNN global affairs analyst, and national security investigations editor for Reuters, and Art Roderick, CNN law enforcement analyst and former assistant director, U.S. Marshals Office.

Welcome to you both.

Art, I want to start with you. There is no question about being on a terror watch list because you actually can be on a terror watch list and purchase a handgun or any other type of gun legally, correct?

ART RODERICK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Absolutely. That's one of the gaps we've recognized in this particular case.

COSTELLO: So you say that's a terror gap.

RODERICK: That's a terror gap. That form -- that's standard form that's not only used in Florida, but all across the country. That form really, all it does is provide a background check, where when it goes to FDLE or ATF all they do is run a criminal history on you.

[09:45:09] If you're a convicted felon, then you can't purchase the firearm. Those other questions regarding drug use, regarding mental stability, there's no way to check that information.

COSTELLO: And David, in your mind, should there be? Should this form be more all inclusive? I mean, sometimes it can take six minutes and it comes back and you can walk out with an AR-15.

DAVID ROHDE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: There clearly seems to be a problem with the system if many of the questions aren't being checked out. There is all kinds of holes and lessons from this case. One thing we found is that the employer of this private security firm that was employing Mateen, the shooter in this case, they didn't even know that the FBI had investigated him twice for terrorism charges. So they had complaints from his coworkers that he seemed to be radicalizing, but they didn't know the FBI was investigating him.

And you know, he was clearly able to buy these weapons very easily. So it's -- the fact that the questions on the form aren't answered as part of the check, it is just a criminal background check, it seems like a huge loophole.

COSTELLO: OK. So Republicans would say the reason that you can be on a terror watch list and legally purchase a gun is because, you know, they mistakenly put a lot of names on the terror watch list of perfectly innocent people, and why shouldn't they have a right to buy a gun?

RODERICK: We know that has happened. But obviously at this point in time, you know, I go back to San Bernardino, that showed a crack in our system also regarding the fiance visas weren't really being checked out as well as they should have been checked. In this particular instance, we're finding this gap here, where there is no coordination between what the FBI is doing and when they close a case or somebody on a watch list, and purchasing a handgun.

That's shown a gap in this particular instance. But that gap is not a law enforcement issue. That is a legislative issue. It's got to be taken care of by the Senate and by the Congress in order to pass a law that would close that gap.

COSTELLO: David, something else I found out. There's a three-day waiting period. You have to wait three days before you can take a gun out of a store here in the state of Florida. But not for an AR-15, which is a longer gun. And the reason for that is that it's a gun that's hard to conceal, so, you know, I just don't really understand the logic there because the shooter in Orlando concealed his AR-15, the gun that he brought in to kill 49 people.

ROHDE: I mean, it's -- you know, this is a core issue for the -- for gun rights movement and the NRA. They don't want to see any restrictions whatsoever on any access to guns. So they argue that even a long rifle, there should not be this waiting period. They see this as encroachment, and eventually it will reduce people's -- you know, what they feel is people's constitutional right to bear arms.

I mean, I agree with Art. This is about legislature. This is about people voting. If, you know, Congress has not acted on these laws, state legislators are not acting on these things and if people are serious about it, you know, the electoral map has to change. And people can be frustrated with the current system where you can buy an assault rifle, but that's what most members of Congress support.

The NRA in a sense has won this battle politically, and if people want to change that, they have to reengage the NRA politically.

COSTELLO: All right. David Rohde, Art Roderick, thanks to both of you. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:53:06] BURNETT: This has happened before, tragedy striking, calls for stricter gun control get louder. They then fade away. On Monday Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both weighed in. Trump renewing his call for a Muslim ban on immigration. Hillary Clinton proposing tightening regulations on assault weapons.

In Congress, Democratic senators like Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer calling on lawmakers to act. The NRA responding, tweeting this, "To suggest that all we need is a new ban on assault weapons provides nothing but a dangerous sense of false security. And law-abiding gun owners are done with being blamed for the acts of mad men and terrorists."

Amid all of this, many now asking whether major red flag were missed about the shooter himself. Joining me now Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, thank you very much for being with me.