Bay Area lawmakers receive suspicious envelopes

There's a troubling and dangerous trend developing here in the Bay Area and around the country. Congressman Mike Thompson says an envelope containing an unknown white powder arrived at his office in Napa on Monday. As the congressman shared a photo of the envelope, it's the latest in a series of suspicious deliveries sent to lawmakers all over the country. On Friday, Bay Area Congress members Mark DeSaulnier, Ro Khanna, Zoe Lofgren, and Jimmy Panetta, all reported receiving similar envelopes containing threatening letters in a white powdery substance. Both the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service are investigating. And to talk more about that this morning, we're joined now by David McEwen, our political science professor from Sonoma State. David, good morning. Good morning, Dave. Pleasure to join you. Good. I'm glad you're here. This is troubling. What's your immediate reaction? It's not the first time we've heard this type of thing but what's your reaction well it does harken back to what happened in the wake of 9-11 in september october 2001 there were 22 cases of white powder that involved anthrax Bacillus anthracis those 22 cases 11 that were cutaneous anthrax that's anthrax spread through a touch like it's called the wool sorters disease and then 11 cases that were inhalational anthrax. Of those 22 cases, there were five deaths. Two senators were targeted, Senator Daschle and Senator Leahy. But news organizations, ABC, CBS, NBC News, all were targeted. There was an American who was involved in medical research at US Army Lab in Maryland. He was suspected of plotting those attacks. He committed suicide in 2008. But these developments with members of Congress, especially in a set of close elections, midterm elections, all harkened back to that time in October, September 2001, where things were very scary because of what was happening through the mail across the country. It takes me back. I remember it very, very clearly. So looking ahead in this political process, what do you see? And is there a way to try to stop it? Yeah, I mean, look, there are practices that are put in place, not just by members of Congress and their offices for their staffs and the protection of the public in those offices, but also by the USPS. And obviously, the Postal Service has received a lot of attention this election relative to absentee ballots or what's going with VBM, what's going on with vote by mail. All of this has placed a lot of pressure and a lot of attention on how the Postal Service handles the mail. There is a worry that this slows down the processing of mail. That affects ballots. So that's why, again, as we talked about yesterday, people need to have a plan to vote early, to make sure that their ballot is processed. And this gives further impetus to getting out there and voting early. We're seeing this in other states. So also something to watch nationally, because the more than three dozen offices that have received these white substances are all across the country in battleground states, mostly Democrats, two Republicans, Senator Collins of Maine and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas have also received these letters. We'll be watching. Hopefully it will stop. David McEwen, our political science professor from Sonoma State, always good to see you on Mornings on 2. Always a pleasure to join you, Dave. Thank you.