GLENN: It was exactly one week ago that James T. Hodgkinson opened fire on 30 Republican congressmen as they practiced for a charity baseball game in Virginia.
Witnesses say -- and police now confirm 50 to 100 shots were fired. It took nine minutes for the police to officially respond, after which they engaged Hodgkinson in a five-minute shoot-out. That means the assassin had 14 total minutes to get off as many shots as possible. And anyone can see the Republicans were sitting ducks.
In the end, after between 50 and 100 shots, 14 minutes and 30 targets, only five people were injured. Only one of them was injured critically and is recovering.
We know that the Majority House Whip Steve Scalise, you know, went under the knife several times. Had multiple surgeries over the weekend. But his condition has now been upgraded from critical to severe. And it wasn't for the truly heroic actions of two Capitol police officers who were there in the security detail, all of this would have been much, much worse. In fact, I'm going to go beyond that.
We spent a week talking about, wow, how lucky these congressmen were. How lucky they all were to -- to have the security there, to be able to minimize the damage that was received.
How do you explain how a shooter with two guns, who fired 50 to 100 rounds, firing 14 minutes into a crowd of 30 people not only didn't kill anyone, but only managed to injure five people, how do you explain that? We know now that the act was premeditated. A week ago, we didn't know if this guy just walked up and said to congressmen, "Hey, are these Republicans or Democrats?" And then just happened to have a gun with him.
No, no. We know now that this was premeditated. We know that he was an assassin because he had a list of all of the Republicans he was planning on killing.
The planning alone -- the level of planning that was involved -- he had the means. He had the motivation. He had the will. He was willing to give his life to kill as many Republican congressmen as he could.
How did this guy fail? Is it perhaps Divine Providence?
Now, to answer this, I want to -- I wanted to come up with a way to show you what I think we need to imagine here. We need to see in our mind's eye what the world would be like today, a week later, as we were finally putting the last coffin in the ground.
What would our country look like during the next hours, the next few days, and the next weeks? What would be happening today, if he would have been successful in taking out 30 Republican congressmen?
So here's what I did. Over the weekend, I reached out to security experts. I wrote out to a to a few fiction writers. A few businesspeople. Some actual lawmakers. Some senators. Some congressmen. And I said, "Look, I'm not asking you to tell me exactly. I'm asking you to tell me what your gut says, knowing the situation and your area of expertise. What do you think would have happened in a realistic scenario?"
I have taken them and folded them all into one cohesive story line, to show you what these many experts all believe, in their area of expertise, would have happened.
The next day, a week from tomorrow, the opening bell -- or, a week last Thursday. The opening bell for the New York Stock Exchange would be set to ring. But the futures would be down so far, that we probably would have closed it and waited until the following Monday. So the stock exchange, just like it did on 9/11, we hold it until the following Monday, until we can get our sea legs.
When we rang the bell Monday morning, we needed to have a rally in the stock market. The president probably would have said, "Go spend money."
The futures would be way down, leading into the open as the rest of the world would believe America had finally cracked. Within five minutes, experts tell me they think the New York Stock Exchange, the circuit breakers would have been tripped, and the markets would have been shut down. They would have tried to open those circuit breakers two more times to open the markets, only to have even bigger drops as people all rushed in to get out of the stock market.
They would have then announced some Orwellian week of mourning that was going to be announced. Would give the markets a chance to remain closed until the following week. Behind the scenes, the Federal Reserve would enact massive, highly secretive futures manipulation to help inject stability.
This is what happened after 9/11. This is what has happened before the Great Depression. They close the market. They get everybody who has big money and say, "You have to get in on these futures."
As the markets remain closed, the dollar would go into a free fall. Countries owning large amounts of US debt would begin to contemplate dumping their sovereign funds and their dollar reserves.
In the end, we believe they would decided to wait and see if things would worsen for the United States in the next few weeks. Partisan media would begin to stir the pot.
In response, the violent leftists, such as Antifa would take their movements to an entirely new level. Far right counterprotests would engage them in the streets. And this would happen in most metropolitan areas of the country. But the rest of the country would be frightened watching it and not know what to do.
Then copycat attacks would begin on more local and federal lawmakers, possibly on the media as well. Congress would then go into action to decide, we need to update the Patriot Act. A new Patriot Act-style law, that would enable the NSA to go after Americans planning riots and attacks. Hate speech laws would crack down on Facebook and Twitter.
The American president would make a speech calling for quick action. We need to act right now on health care reform, tax reform, and the balance of the Trump agenda. We need to send a message to the country and to those who oppose that the Donald J. Trump administration will not be deterred. We also need to provide security detail for every member of Congress and/or a concealed carry permit for every member of Congress.
Special elections would be called to replace the 30 congressmen that were killed so all of the legislation could be fast-tracked. Rioting would intensify. Polling areas would be threatened with firebombing if they opened as scheduled. Martial law would be declared to declare peaceful elections.
Countries such as China, Brazil, and India, all the BRICS nations would see their chance and begin dumping US sovereign funds. Worse case scenario, the dollar would nose dive. Martial law would stay in effect until the economy would stabilize. Our enemies abroad would look to capitalize on our weakness and the preoccupation with our internal problems. Iran would close the Straits of Hormuz, China, mobilizing on the North Korean border, and Russia would finally fully invade the Ukraine.
This -- this, the experts that I went to, all agreed would happen in the first month. Some have said that if Hodgkins (sic) would have been successful, it would have created the largest social and political shift in modern history. I believe that's true. But in 14 minutes, with two guns, 50 to 100 shots, a plan, rehearsal in the woods, a kill list, how was it he was only able to shoot and hit five people and not kill any of them?
We were at the doorstep to what could have been the largest flash point in our nation's history. What happened a week ago?
Most of us don't even care a week later. Most of us now look at this as old news. What we were all talking about last week and we were all saying we have to have more tolerance for one -- that's long forgotten. That happened before last weekend.
I believe this was Divine Providence. I fully believe that God intervened in this. Perhaps those capital police officers, this was the -- this was the day they were born to live. Perhaps the flight paths of the bullets were changed. More likely, vision and fear was intensified in him, as he squeezed the trigger.
But I believe in, just as much as I did in the American Revolution, it was God that made that happen. I believe, in many ways, as Thomas Jefferson said, when I realized that God is just, I tremble for my country because we wouldn't stop slavery. We were not worthy of his divine protection while we were enslaving people. We're not really worthy of his divine providence and protection now. But for some reason, I am very grateful that he gave it to us last week, after looking at what could have been happening today.
