announcer: here is live programming for tuesday. the house needs at 10:00 a.m. eastern for morning speeches and begins legislative work at noon likely debating legislation to block oil and gas drilling in the arctic national wildlife refuge and other areas. the senate starts its session at 10:00 a.m. on c-span two. they will vote on some executive ratchet nominations including confirmation of carrie craft to be the u.s. ambassador to the united nations -- kelly kraft to be u.s. ambassador to the united nations. at 10:00 a.m. on c-span3, treasury secretary steven secretary beng, carson and others testify on housing finance reform before the senate banking committee. at 2:00 p.m., the house judiciary committee meets to consider a number of gun violence convention bills. senate minority leader chuck schumer and house speaker nancy

pelosi held a briefing on gun violence. they urged senate majority leader mitch mcconnell to bring up a house-past background check bill. this briefing is just over half an [indiscernible conversation] hour. >> here we go. senator schumer: welcome. hi. great. ok, let's get started. i'm very proud to be joined by,

of course, my friend and colleague, speaker pelosi, mayor nan whaley from dayton. good to have you here. and i want to thank my colleagues senators brown and stabenow and representative escobar from el paso, texas and representative thompson. too many americans are losing their lives to gun violence. too many families are just weeping because they have lost loved ones. i was at the airport today. a gentleman came over to me and said thank you for what you're doing, i lost my nephew to gun violence last year. americans are suffering from the abundance of gun violence in america. last month, mass shootings claimed 51 lives in el paso, dayton and odesza, to say --hing about the daily lives hundreds of lives lost my daily gun violence throughout america had enough is enough. congress is returning to session . our first order of business in the senate should be to pass the house- passed bipartisan 8.kground checks act, h r the legislation is the quickest

way to make a law that will save american lives in terms of what , itffective, and can pass is at the intersection of what is really effective and what can pass. perspective, we must close the loophole in our to makend checks system our other gun safety laws effective. i was in the house author of the brady law. you didn't know about online, so we didn't prohibit that. and gun shows in those days were to show off antique guns and these loopholes account for 40% of gun sales and the people who want to get around the background check, who are felons, spousal abusers, or adjudicated mentally ill. they go online or to gun shows. a red flag law would be largely ineffective if gaping loopholes in our background checks existed, because you

would be red flagged and go online and get a un. -- get a gun. so background checks are the base from which we must do everything. in our view, it is paramount to pass the house bill as part of any gun safety package, because seal off the most egregious loopholes that allow spousal abusers and mentally ill to get guns. two people in washington can make sure the background checks bill passes, donald trump and mitch mcconnell. it is totally up to them, totally up to them. and it is on their shoulders. they can't escape that responsibility. leader mcconnell, as you know, determines the senate's business. when he refused to bring the senate back into session after each of the three shootings, he might have been hoping the issue that the issue would fizzle out before we returned. that hasn't happened and won't

happen, unfortunately, because mass shootings are occurring virtually all the time. the issue of gun safety is going to be front and center until we do something meaningful. the question now is whether leader mcconnell will allow the senate to consider the assed background check bill on the senate floor. that is the number one question looming over this capitol as we return. for now leader mcconnell says it's up to president trump. if the president took up a position, he said, i would be happy to put it on the floor. that might seem like an attempt to pass the blame around. but truly, it means president trump is a historic opportunity to save lives by indicating his support for the house-passed bill. , hisn lead the party party, to support something that the n.r.a. has prevented

americans from supporting for years. that is why speaker pelosi and eyes sent a letter to him today urging him to give his party political cover to pass meaningful background check legislation. we have a message for president trump now. issident trump, this bill common sense. it is overwhelmingly supported by democrats, republicans, gun owners, and those who don't own guns, and it will save many, lives.any american president trump, if you announce your support, we can get something incredibl incredible e for the american people. the time to act is now. speaker pelosi. ms. pelosi: thank you very much, leader schumer, for bringing us together here this afternoon, stating that our order of first business is to save lives by passing hopefully in the senate the bill that passed in the house.

for gun violence prevention. thatt to remind everyone mr. schumer was a leader in the house when this legislation was passed in the 90's. the rest of us were his lieutenants will run around trying to get votes, but he took the lead on passing very progressive legislation at that time. as he indicated, since about time, i have been ways to evade some of the background checks, some predictable and some not. the online sales are a new phenomenon. just to be clear, this is a simple bill, a bill h.r. 8, so , named because it was eight years from the time gabby giffords' town meeting was assaulted by gun violence. this bill, under the leadership of mike thompson, the chair of our task force on gun violence prevention, put this bill together in a bipartisan way. he sent it, passed it and sent

it to the senate as a companion bill to h.r. 1211, which modifies the timetable. but just think, it is very simple. online sales, person-to-person sales, which is how one of the most recent gun violence episodes took place, someone somebody bought it from a person. person-to-person, online and gun shows. again, as was indicated, whose purpose was something quite different at the time. this isn't radical. it is just an expansion of what has been successful already. when we pass our bill and these incidents occurred during the break, i wrote to the president and i asked him to call the senate back immediately to pass mr. thompson's bill, h.r. 8, and mr. clyburn's legislation. he was very positive about it. he said, i am going to talk to leader schumer and talk to leader mcconnell about getting something done.

i had the impression that he understood that lives were at stake. my message to the president and to leader mcconnell is the following, there isn't anyone in this institution or anywhere else in public life whose political survival is more important than the survival of our children and the safety of our communities. we are not taking no for an answer. we are not going away. leading up to this, the first day of our session coming back after the district work period, i want to report how proud i am that across the country, hundreds of meetings were held . whether a town meeting, a press conference, whatever, to speak out to pass this legislation. least the public at supports it, including gun owners, members of the n.r.a. and the rest. so when they say that the

president's base is opposed to it, 90 some percent of the american people support it, what courage does it take to support legislation that will save lives? so here we are once again asking the grim reaper, informing the grim reaper that these bills are alive and well in the public, that the public opinion, public sentiment will weigh in. and as i have said in our meetings across the country, who -- we will make this issue too hot for him to handle. some of the gun violence prevention groups have up to the ante evenpped the further to say that if this bill is not passed, mitch mcconnell and the republicans in the senate and the president will have hell to pay. so let's save time. let's just get it done now. we have important reasons why.

we know about the mass shootings , just stunningly heartbreaking. but every single night and every single day across the country, gun violence of cars that this bill could prevent -- gun violence occurs that this bill could prevent and lives could be saved. i was so moved, the "washington post" had an article about missy and little mo, her twin brother 15 years old and so close in , spirit, honor students in high school. he left to go buy some cereal or something. never came back. i wish you would read that story . i wish the president would read about story to see how this hits home for so many of america's families. nobody can tell us a story better more recently about that than our next presenter, our v.i.p. here today, senator brown calls her the best mayor in america.

at her know if i would spread that word throughout ohio, but that is what he just said. [laughter] let us welcome the mayor of dayton, mayor nan whaley. thank you so much. >> good afternoon. i am certainly grateful for -- leader schumer and speaker pelosi for inviting me here today. always a pleasure to be with my mentor and good friend senator brown and other senators. no offense to the other senators, we believe he is the best senator from ohio. [laughter] >> you know, actually, while the senate and the house are getting back to work, i wish i was back home in dayton. but we have come, mayors from across the country, to get one thing done, and that is to get an up-or-down vote on h.r. 8. that is the reason we are here. we're meeting with the white house and meeting with anyone who will listen to us about what this has done to our community. this morning, i got a note from

monica brickhouse's mother who heard that i was coming here, she sent me a text and had a very simple message -- go get them. that's how the victims feel about this work. that is how the victims who are still trying to gather large together feel about this work. they want us to do something. that is why i'm here today and tomorrow compelling the senate to have an up-or-down on what the house passed in february. since february, gilroy, virginia beach, dayton, el paso odessa , and midland. just since what's going to february. happen next week or the week after if we could just pass a simple vote where nine out of 10 americans agree on that? i don't know anything else that 9 out of 10 americans agree on besides h.r. 8. i'm here on behalf of the citizens of dayton who called us that night to do something. this is something that can be

done, can be fast, and will save lives. i am so grateful to be here, and i hope to get back to dayton soon. thank you. senator schumer: senator brown. senator brown: you give a lot of coverage to a great midwestern mayor recently from indiana, and you should be paying attention , not to tell the media how to do its job. thank you. madam speaker, it's good to be with all my colleagues, mike, debbie, and congressman escobar. on sunday morning in early august, connie and i woke up in cleveland and checked our phones and saw what had happened in dayton. whalley may awa best mayor whaley immediately. and she said she heard from the early, your words several dozen

, mayoral colleagues many of them had shootings, many of them were giving instructions and ideas and thoughts about what nan should do, mayor whaley should do as a result. that is the story too often in our country. connie and i drove the three and half hours to go to dayton that day, spent the day in day in the with nan. we didn't see the victims' families that day. three days later, i came back when the president of the united states landed air force one at wright-patterson air force base. mayor whaley and i greeted him, as did other elected officials -- senator portman and governor dewine and congressman turner at bottom of the steps of air force one. nan and i looked at him in the eye and said, mr. president, please call the senate. please call senator mcconnell and ask him to bring the senate back. please promise, senator mcconnell that you will sign the bill. the president said he would do something. later that day nan and i and , others joined the president at

the hospital as he met with families, with some people who were in their hospital beds, injured, some with very serious injuries. a number of people who came back that had a less serious injuries. we know that 40 gunshots were fired in those 31 seconds. after the president left the room, the president and all of us left the room, where the six dayton police officers were heralded as heroes, which they heroes 31 seconds , from the first shot until they killed the shooter saving dozens more lives, after the president left that room, i said to the president, the most -- he said, we are going to have the biggest honors ever and congressional medal ever, the biggest congressional medal ever for these heroes. i said mr. president, the most important way that you could honor them is to pass the

legislation the house has passed , and get this through, and help us pass it, and call senator mcconnell and do it this week. mayor whalely said the same thing to the president. again, he said he was going to do something big. but we know that afterwards, he came back to washington and met with the gun lobby, we know what happened. that night at a rally in dayton, dayton,mptu vigil in people began to chant do , something. do something. do something. this is our chance for the senate to do something this week and chance for the country to do something. it chance for the president to pass commonsense gun legislation. it starts with background checks. other things we need to do in terms of commonsense legislation. there was no reason to delay. we need to do something now. it is my pleasure to introduce congresswoman escobar. i have only known her from afar,

i only met her today, but i have seen her on tv. i have seen her in the space of only eight months play a significant national role in this debate and on immigration issues and other issues. my pleasure to present congresswoman escobar. rep. escobar: thank you. thank you for being here, and madam speaker and leader schumer, thank you for calling us together on this first day back from our in-district work period. representative thompson, thank you for h.r. 8 and the leadership you have shown. you know, i returned to el paso ready for a very productive and ,mportant district work period where i intended to spend all of august meeting with my constituents about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, about health care, about immigration, about all the things that my community has been talking about, and that we have been discussing at town hall meetings and at various community events. and instead of being able to do

that, the first saturday back from washington in el paso, texas, as i was at a town hall meeting with my constituents, i learned that there was an active shooter at walmart. the three weeks that followed that were three weeks of funerals, sitting by people's bedsides, praying with families, talking to constituents who are squared and who don't understand why this had to happen. and what i kept hearing over and over and over again from el pasoans was why. why did this happen. why haven't you done something to stop this? why hasn't the senate majority leader felt our pain? i have had constituents ask me, what it is going to take for

mitch mcconnell to see the blood that we saw spilled in our community, and to feel the pain that we have felt as we have tried to recover from something that has deeply traumatized a beautiful, vibrant, magical community. and it is a very difficult question to answer, because truly, as the speaker mentioned, when the vast majority of americans agree on something, and it doesn't take tremendous courage to take action on what people are demanding of us, we have to wonder why. what is stopping action from happening? how many more lives have to be taken in my state? days after el paso, when we got the notice that someone who failed a background check, and

who purchased a gun through a loophole that could have been 8, thatith h.r. there was more blood on the streets in texas. more blood in the hands of those who choose not to take action. we have to do something. and the american people are demanding that of us. and we deserve to take that action. you know, i have heard people tell me while h.r. 8 could have prevented odessa, it would not have prevented el paso. h.r. 8 is the beginning of what americans want from their congress. it is the beginning of what they want from their government. and perhaps that is why mr. mcconnell is so afraid, because it is the beginning of what the american people want over the long-term. they want change. they want a country that is safe.

they want communities where they can walk without fear of assault weapons or people who should not have access to guns. we are going to be unrelenting. we are not going to stop until we deliver the safety that this country deserves and until people in my community know that their government works for them and the special interest groups. know that their government works and not the special interest groups -- >> the house judiciary committee tuesday to consider several gun violence prevention bills including measures that high capacity magazines while urging states to create a process that stops individuals from buying firearms. life coverage begins at 2:00 3.m. eastern on c-span also online at c-span.org and on c-span radio app. copyright national cable

corp c2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> chairman johns, ranking i'm the president and c.e.o. of the 9/11 memorial and museum. of everyone associated with the memorial and museum, i warm welcome a and express our sincere gratitude for your said fast the tment to securing safety of our nation. we're deeply honored to have chertoff, napolitano and johnson here this morning and i want to thank each of you dedicated service to the nation. the decision to hold this