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A local Texas news station got evacuated while it was broadcasting during a shooting Saturday that left multiple people dead.

Video shows the station KOSA-TV, a CBS affiliate in Odessa, getting evacuated while broadcasting its newscast amid the mass shooting that left 5 dead and over 20 people wounded.

You can hear someone telling the anchor “we probably need to go … we probably need to get off the air.”

The anchor agrees and says “we’re going to leave the set, we’re going to slip away for just a minute. We don’t know what’s going on. People are running through the mall so we need to see what this is.”

“That’s what viewers at home saw as everyone was trying to determine what was happening, who was in danger, and, you know, what they needed to do, including that long pause that came after the newscasters left the scene,” CNN anchor Ana Cabrera noted, showing the footage.

Watch above, via CNN.

Vice President Mike Pence said President Donald Trump is monitoring the shooting in West Texas from Camp David.

“I just spoke to the president, and he’s at Camp David, and he’s closely monitoring the developments and the investigation in the mass shooting in Odessa, our hearts go out to all the victims’ families who had loved ones lose their lives,” Pence said.

“We commend the law enforcement in Odessa for their swift and courageous response, but at the president’s direction, we deployed the full resources of the federal government, they’re on site,” he continued.

Trump himself said he had spoken with Attorney General Bill Barr about the shooting.

Just briefed by Attorney General Barr about the shootings in Texas. FBI and Law Enforcement is fully engaged. More to follow.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2019

Pence is heading to Poland in place of Trump, who cancelled a trip overseas to monitor Hurricane Dorian’s path toward the U.S. Current models forecast the hurricane skirting up the southern U.S. coast, potentially impacting communities across Florida and the Carolinas.

NBC News White House Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell said “there are real questions about what is the administration going to do with gun violence, and so it is notable that the vice president said that President Trump and this administration are committed to working with leaders in both parties to deal with the situation.”

“What form that will take, what will happen, of course remains to be seen,” she said.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

President Donald Trump bragged about his popularity and sought to be sheltered rom “difficult” exhibits during his 2017 visit to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, according to the soon-t0-be-released memoir A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama and Trump by former Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III.

Per excerpts of the book published in the Washington Post, Bunch, the founding director of the NMAAHC, escorted Trump on a private tour of the newly opened museum and witnessed first-hand the president’s sometimes disconnected and tone deaf reactions to it.

Upon Trump’s arrival, Bunch writes that he was told the president “was in a foul mood and that did not want to see anything ‘difficult.'” Despite this guidance, the Smithsonian secretary said he did not sugarcoat the museum’s message. “It was not my job to make the rough edges of history smooth.”

During one section where the museum explores the role the Dutch played in the global slave trade, Bunch recalls Trump lingering over the exhibit. “As he pondered the label I felt that maybe he was paying attention to the work of the museum,” the Post quotes, from Bunch’s book. “He quickly proved me wrong. As he turned from the display he said to me, ‘You know, they love me in the Netherlands.’ All I could say was let’s continue walking.”

Though Trump became animated at the museum’s exhibits about Dr. Ben Carson — his own HUD Secretary, who was also on the tour — and legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, Bunch writes that the rest of the president’s visit was an anti-climactic letdown. “There is little I remember about the rest of the hour we spent together. I was so disappointed in his response to one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history,” Bunch writes. “Here was a chance to broaden the views and the understanding of the incoming president and I had been less successful than I had expected.”

President Donald Trump (right), HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson (second from right), and Ivanka Trump (center) visiting the NMAAHC on February 21, 2017. Photo credit, Kevin Dietsch, Pool/Getty Images.

Greg Burton, executive editor of the Arizona Republic, sent out a bizarre email to his newsroom that accused pro-union reporters of “surveilling” their colleagues and implied that this behavior was akin to the targeting of journalists done by corrupt officials, murderers, and child molesters.

According to a HuffPost report, Republic executive editor sent the memo to the newsroom in an effort to calm what he called a “divisive unionization effort” drive at Phoenix newspaper. Media conglomerate Gannett currently owns the Republic and is in the process of merging with another corporate giant, Gatehouse Media. Some employees have undertaken a labor union drive to protect against possible layoffs in the aftermath of the merger.

“It has come to my attention,” Burton wrote, “that several employees, in pursuit of their goal of unionizing our newsroom, are tracking the comings and goings of a number of their co-workers (reporters, editors, producers and photographers) who do not support unionization.”

“If organized surveillance and spying are already occurring in the face of a divisive unionization effort. I hope you carefully consider the consequences of bringing the Guild into our workplace,” Burton’s email said, in a barely disguised warning against unionization. “We are targets on social media. We are targets when we stand firm on a story that unmasks a murderer running for office, a teacher who molests children, an appointee who bulldozes indigenous artifacts or stockpiles weapons, a mobster who doesn’t much like being called a scam artist or a dirty trickster intent on DOXing a critic.”

Stephanie Basile, a NewsGuild representative, called the spying claims “absurd” and condemned Burton’s attempt at implicitly analogizing the newsroom’s pro-union journalists with murderers and child molesters who would attack press freedom.

Photo credit: Nicholas Kamm, AFP/Getty Images.

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis is speaking out after his high-profile departure from the Trump administration, with a book book Call Sign Chaos. He made it clear he will not “speak ill of a sitting president,” but he described President Donald Trump as an “unusual president” and there are a few veiled criticisms in his book.

Laura Ingraham Friday night brought up one excerpt in which Mattis says, “When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign.”

She asked her panel, “What’s Mattis really trying to do here other than sell his book?”

Ret. Col. Douglas Macgregor said Mattis is trying to paint himself as a heroic figure, but called that t “tough sell” because “For two years while he was in the administration, he did everything he could to subvert the president.”

Ret. Lt. Col. Daniel Davis called Mattis “the absolute embodiment of establishment Washington” and said, “[He] didn’t want to change anything from this neocon status quo, which undercut President Trump.”

Ingraham had said back in November 2016 that Mattis would be “the best candidate for SecDef.” By the time Mattis left the Trump administration, she remarked that his resignation letter was “unnecessarily petty.”

Tonight Ingraham said appointing Mattis in the first place was a “mistake,” adding, “Trump should not have appointed someone who disagreed with his fundamental non-interventionist outlook.”

She also remarked that it looks like Mattis is “stabbing the president in the back” in his “non-tell-all tell-all.”

You can watch above, via Fox News.

Democratic Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (Calif.) blasted the Trump administration for sending out deportation orders to sick immigrants who are getting life-saving medical treatment in the US and said “We have a sociopath in the White House.”

Speaking with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, the California Congressman, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, pointed to the case of 24-year-old Guatemalan immigrant Maria Isabel Bueso. Seventeen years ago, Bueso was invited to the US by the federal government to get treatment for her rare and chronic genetic disease and her years-long participation in treatment and clinical trials eventually helped the Food and Drug Administration develop a medication to treat it. But the Trump administration has now ended the previous immigration policy of medical deferred action, jeopardizing Bueso’s legal status in the country.

“She can’t get the treatment if she’s forced to go back to Guatemala,” DeSaulnier noted. “The [deportation] letter said they would be forced to go back to Guatemala by September 14. We are running against that time. Trying to get information from these departments has been very frustrating to say the least.”

Reid put the situation in stark terms. “If someone dies as a result of this policy, what will Congress do about it?”

“We are introducing a bill on Monday specifically for her,” DeSaulnier explained. “Mostly, we’re trying to get attention to somebody in leadership in the White House to realize what they’re doing. They are sentencing this young woman, who has been here legally and was invited by the federal government, they are sentencing her to death.”

The Congressman noted that the House also tried to withhold funding for ICE deportations, but a compromise Senate version passed instead.

“We got in a battle over that. We have to try to hold them accountable,” he told Reid. “I’m of the opinion that until a federal judge holds the [acting DHS] Secretary in contempt of a federal court and puts them in jail, nothing is going to happen. We have a sociopath in the White House. He acts like a mobster rather than a president.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

Congressman Trey Gowdy trashed former FBI director James Comey tonight and said there’s no way he’d apologize to him.

Gowdy spoke with former House colleague Jason Chaffetz, filling in for Sean Hannity, about the IG report. Comey was not charged for leaking, but he was reprimanded for setting a “dangerous example” for FBI employees.

Comey tweeted his critics should apologize:

DOJ IG "found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media." I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a “sorry we lied about you” would be nice.

— James Comey (@Comey) August 29, 2019

Gowdy said tonight, “I’m certainly not going to apologize to anyone who violated FBI and Department of Justice policies, who violated an employment agreement, who shared sensitive information about an ongoing investigation, who sent classified information to an unauthorized person, and then had amnesia when the FBI came to his home to try to retrieve government property.”

He mockingly advised Comey that he should aim for a higher goal in life than “simply skating by without having been indicted.”

Chaffetz asked if justice is being done here, noting “the criticism here… that if somebody else had done this, they would be in handcuffs.”

Gowdy said he understands that people are concerned about a two-tiered justice system, but said there are other ways of holding people accountable sans indictments. He said Comey will ultimately be judged that “he got dinged on both of the major investigations he was handling in 2016 by the inspector general — that will be the accountability and that’s what history will remember about Jim Comey.”

Chaffetz amusedly asked Gowdy if he plans on apologizing to Comey.

“What temperature is it in Hell right now? Is it snowing? When it snows in hell, you let me know,” Gowdy responded. “Why would I apologize to somebody who has been dinged on both of the major investigations by a guy like Michael Horowitz, who is hardly a Republican!”

You can watch above, via Fox News.

Online critics erupted after Bret Stephens included a not-so-subtle — and highly dubious — “bedbugs” quote in his latest New York Times column, just days after deactivating his Twitter account for trying to bully and professionally intimidate a professor who jokingly called him a “bedbug” on Twitter.

Topped with a massive photo of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, Stephens’ latest column, entitled “World War II and the Ingredients of Slaughter,” cited an alleged quote from Polish Nazi sympathizer watching Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto burn: “The bedbugs are on fire. The Germans are doing a great job.” Some quick online sleuthing, however, suggested that Stephens may have carelessly misinterpreted the line.

But it was the broader implication of Stephens’ argument that inflamed his online critics, who were aghast at its audacious framing and exceedingly self-defensive nature.

My jaw is on the floor pic.twitter.com/repnmcL2Ud

— David Klion (@DavidKlion) August 30, 2019

This article comparing his critics to Nazis was inevitable from Bret Stephens. Absurd. https://t.co/t4a7T4sNJB

— Mark Gottlieb (@MarkGottliebFOX) August 30, 2019

Bret Stephens’ skin is sub-atomic in thickness

— Brandon Finnigan (@B_M_Finnigan) August 31, 2019

Can’t wait for Bret Stephens’s next column: “People who laugh in my face are Stalin”

— Paul Musgrave (@profmusgrave) August 31, 2019

I didn’t think I could get more shocked by Bret Stephens misread and mishandling of this situation, but here we are. https://t.co/i5eUKEUhdr

— Emily M. Farris (@emayfarris) August 31, 2019

Bret Stephens latest column just went up and as expected… pic.twitter.com/eEh9KIPAx5

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) August 31, 2019

Poor, powerless civility champion Bret Stephens: An obscure prof tweets a joke about the bedbugs in the NYT newsroom being a metaphor for him (which got no retweets) so he wrote a column for a paper with 3mln readers comparing the prof to the Nazi overseers of the Warsaw Ghetto. pic.twitter.com/yn8B2mgGDE

— Dan Murphy (@bungdan) August 31, 2019

Bret Stephens is now equating being called a metaphorical ‘bedbug’ to Nazi Germany.

This guy is unbelievable!

— Harry Cherry (@TheHarryCherry) August 31, 2019

Shorter Bret Stephens: “Actually, when I tried to get that professor fired, what I was really doing was preventing WWIII. You’ll thank me later.” https://t.co/x7YgEYM3Cl

— Elizabeth Picciuto (@epicciuto) August 30, 2019

I’ve had Twitter kick the shit out of me. It sucks. But when you’re lucky enough to have a great media gig, you accept that taking incoming heat is part of the job. You don’t narc on critics. You don’t use your privileged perch to compare yourself to Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto.

— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) August 31, 2019

Still don’t get why some publishers of great newspapers tolerate opinion sections with such lax standards that would never fly in their newsroom. Many wonderful opinion columnists out there! But the bad ones do a lot of entirely avoidable damage to their publication’s reputation.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 31, 2019

Bret Stephens is fucking dull and I usually hate it when people post about him, but saying the holocaust 2 will be triggered by very mild mannered NY media people saying he is a bug is the first funny thing he has done. encouraged by his growth

— noah baumbach movie about jeffrey epstein (@ByYourLogic) August 30, 2019

In which Bret Stephens attempts to go a week without humiliating himself. https://t.co/z1J4IrCfxu pic.twitter.com/4SHpHtir7p

— Andrew Barker (@barkerrant) August 31, 2019

As some pointed out after a cursory Google Books search, Stephens use of the “bedbugs” quote as a reference to Jews is of dubious credibility.

I just followed Bret’s own link. What are we doing here? https://t.co/vUoxKZFYDI pic.twitter.com/iyd2UvNcqp

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 30, 2019

Bret Stephens apparently just googled “Jews as bedbugs,” didn’t even bother checking the source, and the fucking @nytimes published it and at no point throughout the entire process did anyone involved think “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

— jordan (@JordanUhl) August 31, 2019

How is Bret Stephens just allowed to publish whatever he wants all the time? It’s really unbelievable how irresponsible he is. https://t.co/CiTnb6K2US

— Ian Hest (@IanHest) August 31, 2019

Others called out the Times editors for abetting Stephens’ stubborn grudge-holding and not saving the columnist from himself.

Do opinions editors ever get to ask, “Uh… are you sure you want to do that?” Understanding that you want to give your writers latitude to expresss themselves, there’s no part of that Bret Stephens article that isn’t obviously and spectacularly ill-advised and embarrassing.

— Scott Tobias (@scott_tobias) August 31, 2019

Shoutout to Bret Stephens’ editors who said “This is gold, Bret, would not change a word” and “No, no reason to do anything about the link” and are in a bar checking Twitter and laughing their asses off.

— Tabatha Southey (@TabathaSouthey) August 31, 2019

A scrupulous editor would have told Bret Stephens, “No. Just no. Get over it, Bret.”

Instead they actually went full Goebbels with it.

— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 31, 2019

You all know that your attacks on Bret Stephens are only seen as a positive by his editors, right?

It means he’s “provocative.”

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) August 31, 2019

I guess @nytopinion reasons that no matter what stupid thing Bret Stephens does, any attention is good attention? Is that where they’ve set the bar?

— Matt Goldberg (@MattGoldberg) August 31, 2019

A responsible editor would have asked Bret Stephens to respond to the actual arguments Dave Karpf made. Says a lot that that didn’t happen. https://t.co/6aeuYKZ3J7

— Aaron Huertas (@aaronhuertas) August 31, 2019

Bret Stephens’s politics are obviously bad but the crowning insult is really his mediocrity as a writer and thinker. It’s like the Times is playing a big joke on everyone

— Sarah Jones (@onesarahjones) August 30, 2019

But Stephens lashing out at his critics was not at all a surprise to some.

here’s at least five different people predicting the full arc of Bret Stephen’s latest column on August 27th pic.twitter.com/p4Yre5sCOe

— Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) August 30, 2019

A responsible editor would have asked Bret Stephens to respond to the actual arguments Dave Karpf made. Says a lot that that didn’t happen. https://t.co/6aeuYKZ3J7

— Aaron Huertas (@aaronhuertas) August 31, 2019

And even the original target of Stephens’ ire, George Washington media studies professor Dave Karpf, weighed in, with a more sorrowful than sarcastic reaction.

WHY DOES HE WANT THIS ARGUMENT TO KEEP GOING?????#bretbug

— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 30, 2019

Okay, look, I have two things to say right now.

(1) this just stopped being funny. The New York Times is the paper of record. The entire internet knows who Bret Stephens just subtweeted with his column. He should know better. He doesn’t. That’s not okay anymore.

— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 30, 2019

(2) I’m attending the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association right now. I have an actual job that doesn’t leave me with endless time to pursue pointless online vendettas.

So I’m going to try to take the night off from this. I’ll have more to say tomorrow.

— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 31, 2019

Screengrab via MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes opened his live show Friday night defending the criticisms of the electoral college raised by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week.

Ocasio-Cortez posted a Twitter thread about abolishing the electoral college and received a response from Republican colleague Dan Crenshaw:

2) This common claim about “if we don’t have the Electoral College then a handful of states will determine the presidency” is BS.
a. It’s the *EC itself* that breaks down power by state, pop vote decentralizes it

b. The EC makes it so a handful of states DO determine elections

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 23, 2019

4) We do not give electoral affirmative action to any other group in America. Do Black Americans have their votes count more bc they have been disenfranchised for 100s of years? Do Reservations get an electoral vote? Does Puerto Rico and US territories get them? No. They don’t.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 23, 2019

5) The Electoral College isn’t about fairness at all; it’s about empowering some voters over others.

Every vote should be = in America, no matter who you are or where you come from. The right thing to do is establish a Popular Vote. & GOP will do everything they can to fight it.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 23, 2019

https://t.co/lMgxXvY9Zr

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 25, 2019

Hayes dove into that debate tonight and argued that “a major fault line” in American politics right now is whether “we actually, really believe in democracy.”

“It is not surprising the Republicans are defending the electoral college, right?” Hayes continued. “There’s a very obvious reason for that. Since 1992, we have had seven presidential elections. Republicans have won the popular vote one time. But they’ve gotten three presidents out of it. Which is a very sweet deal if you’re the Republican Party.”

At one point he said it’s “preposterous” that this system is still in place when “if you run for class president in the fourth grade, you are elected if and only if you get the most votes.”

In response to Crenshaw arguing “we live in a republic, which means 51% of the population doesn’t get to boss around the other 49%,” Hayes said, “What he and his party are advocating is a world in which the 49% boss around the 51%.”

He concluded that “it’s time to do something totally radical, and that is this — run the presidential election the way we run every other election. The person with the most votes wins.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

During an impromptu press conference on the White House lawn, President Donald Trump defended his “absolute right” to release a highly detailed, possibly classified photo of the aftermath of a missile explosion at an Iranian launch site.

On Thursday, an Iranian Safir SLV set to launch a satellite into orbit exploded on the ground at the Semnan Site One facility in northern Iran prior to liftoff. NPR acquired commercial satellite imagery showing the destruction not long after incident. But the resolution of that photo was markedly less detailed than the apparent aerial reconnaissance image Trump Tweeted out on Friday afternoon, which appeared to be a cellphone snapshot of a printed-out photo.

The United States of America was not involved in the catastrophic accident during final launch preparations for the Safir SLV Launch at Semnan Launch Site One in Iran. I wish Iran best wishes and good luck in determining what happened at Site One. pic.twitter.com/z0iDj2L0Y3

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2019

Immediately after posting the photo, online observers noted the small, blacked out section in the upper left corner of the image, which suggested the president or someone else in the White House may have redacted a classification marker that typically appears on intelligence materials.

Trump hinted at, but did not confirm, the image was classified with his comments to the press, as the president’s declassification powers are absolute. However, CNBC has reported that the image did come from the National Reconnaissance Office and was part of a classified intel briefing given to the president.

“We had a photo and I released it, which I have the absolute right to do,” Trump told the press. When asked off-screen by another reporter where he got the image from, he demurred. “You’ll have to figure that one out yourself. But we’ll see what happens. They had a big mishap. It’s unfortunate. So Iran, as you probably know, they were going to set off a big missile and it didn’t work out too well. It had nothing to do with us.”

Even if the image was de facto declassified by Trump, many national security observers were concerned that its release could have recklessly compromised a classified platform or other secret US intelligence spying capability.

This looks like the worst high-level national OPSEC disaster in recent history, but we’re all doomed anyway so it’s kinda ok too.. (i guess) https://t.co/3IjUJDAIGN

— Akin Unver (@AkinUnver) August 30, 2019

This is apparently a photo Trump got during a presidential intelligence briefing (and almost certainly TS), from which Iran can draw valuable inferences about our aerial surveillance capabilities. Heck of a job, Donnie. https://t.co/jVL8ygcCki

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) August 30, 2019

Experts say this image is higher resolution than is available outside government. Does it come from a White House intelligence briefing? Did POTUS declassify it? (he has the legal right but is that wise?) Is he suggesting some other country could have sabotaged Iran’s launch? https://t.co/Eb1uxnmU4t

— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) August 30, 2019

Compare commercial imagery of Iran’s failed SLV launch (right) with what Trump tweeted (left). Who knows where the latter came from, but one thing seems clear: the technology that imaged it is much more advanced, and the analysts who annotated have a good deal of insight. pic.twitter.com/HuozqRmXcA

— Ned Price (@nedprice) August 30, 2019

This is huge and breaking. Career professionals who look at satellite photography for a living are stunned. https://t.co/ukdpIzWmd1

— alex lockie (@alexjlockie) August 30, 2019

Watch the video above, via CNN.

According to the New York Times, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal assistant, Madeline Westerhout, abruptly resigned after the president learned that she had recently divulged personal details about the First Family to reporters.

Per the Times story, Trump recently became aware that Westerhout revealed intimate details about his family and the White House with the press at an off-the-record dinner during the president’s recent vacation in Bedminster, New Jersey. Upon hearing of her comments, she was immediately barred from the White House grounds and labeled a “separated employee.” She officially resigned from her job on Thursday.

Westerhout had served as a key personal aide to Trump since he came into office.

The White House did not comment to the Times for the story.

Photo credit: Dominick Reuter, AFP/Getty Images.