Here’s What Police Found in the Las Vegas Shooter’s Room and Car

October 03, 2017

WRITER

We still don’t know why Stephen Paddock decided to kill dozens of people by firing into a crowd at a Las Vegas music festival. Police haven’t yet pointed to a motive, and the horrifying event left his own family “dumbfounded.”

But we’re learning more about how terrifyingly overprepared the gunman was and how the situation could have been even worse. It’s possible he was trying to prepare a bomb based on what police discovered in his vehicle that was parked at the Mandalay Bay hotel.

Standing in for Glenn on today’s show, Doc and Kris talked about the list and covered what we know so far about the shooting.

23 weapons were stashed in the gunman’s room.

Two tripods were positioned at the hotel windows and described as a “sniper’s nest.”

Hundreds of rounds of ammunition were also at the ready.

10 suitcases were also in the room; police believe they were used to bring in the weapons.

Ammonium nitrate, which is used in bomb-making, was found in his car.

"We don’t know how far along he was in a bomb-making process," Doc said.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

DOC: First an update on what happened yesterday. Fifty-nine people now dead. The death toll at 59. The number injured 527. Five hundred twenty-seven people injured. Fifty-nine people dead at the hands of 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, who began shooting Sunday night from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel.

His brother said he was a millionaire and recently even won a $40,000 jackpot. The FBI said there's no apparent tie to international terrorism. Twenty-three guns were found inside the room, including at least one handgun. Some of the guns even had scopes. Thousands of rounds of ammunition still found there.

He had a camera mounted in the hotel room to record himself. Now, we've not heard reports if he actually recorded himself, if a video exists. Likely, we would never see if it is.

KRIS: I think that's a big fail. Not showing -- if there is a video out there, not showing that video is a big fail.

DOC: I think you're right.

KRIS: Just like they did not release the audio from the Pulse Nightclub, when he called. They show you just a little bit, but they don't actually show that he actually stayed on the line and you could hear back and forth.

DOC: Right. I think that actually helps make the case that this is a problem and we need to think this through and do some things.

KRIS: It does.

DOC: I don't think it's insensitive. But he did have a camera mounted in there.

Ammonium nitrate was found in his automobile. Ammonium nitrate is a component of some fertilizers. That's what this was, a fertilizer of ammonium nitrate. And that's also what was used partially to take down the federal building in Oklahoma City, at the hands of Tim McVeigh. It was ammonium nitrate fertilizer and also kerosene. We don't know how far along he was in a bomb-making process. I think it's fairly safe to say that if you shoot 600 people, that you probably -- if you had ammonium nitrate in your car, you probably were going to use it to create a bomb. It wasn't like, no, I just happened to have ammonium nitrate. It had nothing to do with that.

KRIS: I went to the store Lowe's.

DOC: On my way to kill people.

KRIS: I forgot to unload that up at the house.

DOC: The fertilizer, it should have been. I was going to garden tomorrow. I don't think that's what happened.

Inside his home in Mesquite, Nevada, about 80 miles from Las Vegas, they found another 18 firearms, several thousands rounds of ammunition, and more explosives.

His 62-year-old live-in girlfriend was in Asia at the time. Now, we had heard reports early on, Monday morning, that she was arrested, she was a person of interest, and that they had arrested her. That is not the case.

Law enforcement in Las Vegas says, if she returns to the United States, they, of course, will have some questions for her. But at this point, they say she was in Asia. We don't know if she had any knowledge of this. But she wasn't there when it happened. Officers, as they approached the hotel room to investigate what was going on, he opened fire on them. But these were Las Vegas police officers.

The officers that broke in and found him dead were S.W.A.T. officers. So it was a different team. So at first he did fire on them. He hit one officer in the leg. But then they backed off, waited for S.W.A.T. In the meantime, he killed himself. S.W.A.T. goes in and takes him down.

There was some confusion. And Kris and I all day yesterday afternoon could not understand why there were two windows out in the hotel.

Well, we know -- we knew that he was likely shooting out of them because it gave him an advantage. But was it two rooms? They were pretty far apart.

KRIS: Yeah, and one thing I told you, like, I don't want nobody from the FBI to search my computer, because it was three hours of searching floor plans. So I was -- Mandalay Bay floor plans. Thirty-second floor. Corner window.

DOC: Then followed up -- then different firearms and ammonium nitrate and Tim McVeigh. Yeah, we're on a bunch of radar screens today.

KRIS: Yeah, we triggered.

DOC: So we looked it up, and as it turns out, he had a suite that was at one end of the hotel, facing the north end of the strip. So if you were looking out his windows across diagonally at the venue that he fired upon, the window to the left -- again, looking out at the hotel looks north down the street. Then he had the window that was due east. The venue that he fired on would have been to the northeast of the building. The reason it was two buildings, it was either one giant suite with two bedrooms or a connecting room. Now, that's important because I had questions about, okay, if those are two separate rooms, which they even led with in some of the news, did he run down the hall? What was going on? How did --

KRIS: Yeah, then it goes back to, this is a 64-year-old man. Does he have the stamina to go back and forth?

DOC: To go back and forth. And what's going on? So they were at least connected. And he did set up -- they said he broke the glass of the windows, likely with a hammer-like device, which I don't know why he wouldn't just shoot through it, but okay. What is a hammer-like device, Kris?

KRIS: From what I'm thinking, you know those tactical hammers that police use when they're trying to break into a window? That's what I think.

But, you know, I want to give it to this guy. He was trying to be classy.

DOC: He didn't just through it. He wasn't a barbarian when he executed 59 people? Gotcha.

KRIS: No, no, no. He wanted to go out and do it the proper way.

DOC: Here's the bizarre and strange part of this: Still, we have no motive. What was his motive in this thing? It's really important. What was his motive?

While a lot of people are focusing on the method of murder, the guns. And melting down about the method. The how.

The why is much more important. The why is more important because that's how we stop future mass murderers like this. The how, you're never going to stop every way you can mass murder people. Take away all guns. What about the knives? Take away the knives. What about the golf clubs? Take away the golf clubs.

What about baseball bats? Take all of those away. What about heavy, blunt objects? What about -- what about rocks? What about your fists? You can pummel someone to death.

There are limitless ways you can murder, even on large scales. Remember, the most significant mass murders on American soil took place without guns.

9/11, it was box-cutters. Tim McVeigh, it was ammonium nitrate and kerosene. The attack on the school in Bathe, Michigan. The most deadly attack on a school in American history was a bomb. It was not guns. You can murder countless ways. So the how is not really as important as the why.

When you get the why, then you can start determining how we change it in the future. What makes somebody do something like this? Why do you do it?

This guy -- this dirtbag Stephen Paddock, does not fit any of the traditional profile. None of the obvious. What are the traditional profiles of a mass murderer like this?

KRIS: Loner.

DOC: Loner. Brooding Loner. Adam Lanza. Sandy Hook, right? The crazy, brooding loner. Everyone knew he had problems. Stole the gun from his mom.

KRIS: Crazy eyes.

DOC: Oh, crazy eyes. James Holmes in Aurora, right? He was a loner. And also had the crazy eyes. This guy is not a loner. He had a live-in girlfriend. He got along. He was social.

KRIS: He was a millionaire. You know, an alleged millionaire.

DOC: Okay. That brings up something else. A lot of these people, especially the ones that are radicalized, based on faith from the Middle East, the radical Muslims, are people that are radicalized partially because they are poor. They look at poverty and their own and they want to pretend -- why try to help everybody, it's not fair that some people -- what they really mean is, it's not fair that I don't have what other people have.

This guy may -- according to his brother -- was a millionaire. So he wasn't that. Young. That's another one. A lot of the Muslim terrorists, the extremist Muslims, they're young guys. Adam Lanza, James Holmes, young. This guy is 64.

KRIS: Yeah.

DOC: Sixty-four. That doesn't apply. Oh. Crazy. Certifiable -- no. Never been determined yet. A pilot's license. Which means he at least had a review of his mental state in order to get a pilot's license.

KRIS: Well, not just that, he was able to purchase guns from different salesmen. So how do you able -- if you're that crazy, how are you able to get different guns from different dealers?

DOC: The people who sold it to him, his family, his friends, anybody who knew him, nobody has come forth and said, "Oh, yeah. That guy was crazy."

KRIS: What about this one? Caring. He called his brother to check on his mom.

DOC: Check on his mom. How is mom doing? He doesn't fit any of the profiles. So what is going on? What happened?

I've come up with a couple of basic thoughts on this, as far as motive goes. That unless there's something we don't know -- remember the guy who shot up the tower in 1966 in Texas, in Austin. He had a tumor in his head, I think. Had been fairly normal. Wrote that even he didn't know why he was having these crazy thoughts --

KRIS: He started questioning himself.

DOC: Right. Outside of something like that or aliens or some grand conspiracy theory that he wasn't really responsible, the government did it, and just pinned it on him or something -- outside of that, likely the information we've gotten from his brother and everyone else is inaccurate. Maybe he had financial trouble. Oh, his brother said, no rabid political or religious viewpoint.

KRIS: Church.

DOC: Church, religion, none of those. Well, maybe his brother didn't know him as well. He was leading a double life or something. Maybe he had fallen on hard times financially.

Likely, some of the information we've gotten is not accurate.

I think he did it for political reasons. Purely, my speculation at this point. But we don't know why.

I want to get some of your calls on that. And tell me, what do you think it is? We'll speculate a little bit.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

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Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

POLL: Are foreign hackers behind 2025 bridge crash?

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A Mexican Navy ship crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge has left the nation stunned, and Glenn is demanding answers.

Are recent devastating ship collisions—first Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024, now Brooklyn in 2025—really just accidents, or is something far more sinister at play? Glenn recently warned that these incidents, both involving foreign vessels losing power near critical U.S. infrastructure, could be “shark bumps” by foreign adversaries testing our defenses through cyber sabotage. With the government and media quick to dismiss concerns, Glenn is calling for urgent investigations into possible hacking, independent audits of our ports and bridges, and a serious look at whether our enemies are exploiting vulnerabilities in our digitized systems.

Glenn wants to know what you think: Are these crashes coincidental, or are we under attack? Let us know in the poll below:

Could the recent ship crashes into American bridges be the result of cyber attacks by foreign adversaries?

Should the US government investigate these incidents for possible foreign interference?

Is our critical infrastructure adequately protected from cyber threats?

Are you concerned that foreign adversaries might be targeting US infrastructure through cyber means?

Do you think the media and government are properly addressing the security concerns raised by these incidents?

Glenn: Biden’s autopen scandal rocks White House

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Top Democrats knew Biden’s health was deteriorating but covered it up to keep power. Jake Tapper’s book finally lifts the lid on their deception.

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book confirms what we suspected all along: Joe Biden’s health was rapidly declining, and the Democratic Party establishment knew it. Rather than be honest with the American people, they chose to cover it up, to prop up Biden just long enough to survive the election cycle. And the media helped them do it.

For years, any mention of Biden’s cognitive decline was framed as a “right-wing smear,” a baseless conspiracy theory. But now, Tapper and Thompson reveal that Biden’s top aides privately discussed the need for a wheelchair after the election — because the man can hardly walk.

We had no functioning president for much of the past administration.

And while Biden’s closest aides were planning that, they and their allies in the press were publicly spinning the fantasy that Joe Biden’s halting gait was due to a heroic foot fracture from a dog-related incident four years ago. They said his frailty was due to his “vigor.” That’s not a joke. That’s a quote.

And while they said this, they were having special shoes made for him with custom-made soles to help him stand. They weren’t planning for a second term. They were planning how to prop him up — literally — just long enough to survive the election. That is a cover-up.

It doesn’t bother me that Biden might need a wheelchair. What bothers me — what should bother every American — is that his aides talked about hiding it until after the election.

Biden wasn’t leading

Needing a wheelchair in your 80s is not a moral failing. It’s human. I own President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wheelchair — it sits in my museum. That chair represents the strength and resilience of a man who, despite paralysis, led this nation through World War II against a dictator who was gassing the disabled and infirm. He hid his disability out of fear the public wouldn’t accept a leader who couldn’t walk. But he led.

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But Joe Biden wasn’t leading. He was a puppet played by faceless swamp creatures whose only concern was maintaining their iron grip on power.

Whatever you think of Tapper, the book reveals the chilling reality that we had no functioning president for much of Biden’s administration. Our commander-in-chief wasn’t just aging — he was declining. And the people around him — government employees, funded by your tax dollars — weren’t honest with you. They lied to you repeatedly and willfully because the truth would have guaranteed a second Trump term. That’s what this was all about.

Who signed the pardons?

Consider the implications of this revelation. We had a president signing documents he didn’t read — or even know about. We had an autopen affixing his name to executive actions. Who operated that autopen? Who decided what got signed or who got pardoned? Who was in charge while the president didn’t even know what he was doing?

Those are not minor questions. That is the stuff of a constitutional crisis.

The problem isn’t Biden’s age. The problem is that the people you elected didn’t run the country. You were governed by unelected aides covering up your elected president’s rapid cognitive decline. You were fed a lie — over and over again. And if anyone tried to blow the whistle, they got buried.

Don’t get distracted by the wheelchair. The chair itself is not the scandal. The scandal is that people inside your government didn’t want you to know about it.

They made a bet: Lie until November, and deal with the fallout later. That is an insult to the American people — and a threat to the republic itself. Because if your government can lie about who’s running the country, what else are they lying about?

We need further investigation and to hold these crooks accountable. If we don’t, it will happen over and over again.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Woodrow Wilson Mother's Day loophole

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I’ve got a potentially helpful revelation that’s gonna blow the lid off your plans for this Sunday. It’s Mother’s Day.

Yeah, that sacred day where you’re guilt-tripped into buying flowers, braving crowded brunch buffets, and pretending you didn’t forget to mail the card. But what if I told you… you don’t have to do it? That’s right, there’s a loophole, a get-out-of-Mother’s-Day-free card, and it’s stamped with the name of none other than… Woodrow Wilson (I hate that guy).

Back in 1914, ol’ Woody Wilson signed a proclamation that officially made Mother’s Day a national holiday. Second Sunday in May, every year. He said it was a day to “publicly express our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” Sounds sweet, right? Until you peel back the curtain.

See, Wilson wasn’t some sentimental guy sitting around knitting doilies for his mom. No, no, no. This was a calculated move.

The idea for Mother’s Day had been floating around for decades, pushed by influential voices like Julia Ward Howe. By 1911, states were jumping on the bandwagon, but it took Wilson to make it federal. Why? Because he was a master of optics. This guy loved big, symbolic gestures to distract from the real stuff he was up to, like, oh, I don’t know, reshaping the entire federal government!

So here’s the deal: if you’re looking for an excuse to skip Mother’s Day, just lean into this. Say, “Sorry, Mom, I’m not celebrating a holiday cooked up by Woodrow Wilson!” I mean, think about it – this is the guy who gave us the Federal Reserve, the income tax, and don’t even get me started on his assault on basic liberties during World War I. You wanna trust THAT guy with your Sunday plans? I don’t think so! You tell your mom, “Look, I love you, but I’m not observing a Progressive holiday. I’m keeping my brunch money in protest.”

Now, I know what you might be thinking.

“Glenn, my mom’s gonna kill me if I try this.” Fair point. Moms can be scary. But hear me out: you can spin this. Tell her you’re honoring her EVERY DAY instead of some government-mandated holiday. You don’t need Wilson’s permission to love your mom! You can bake her a cake in June, call her in July, or, here’s a wild idea, visit her WITHOUT a Woodrow Wilson federal proclamation guilting you into it.

Glenn's Show Prep