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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

FAA Says, Six People On Board Plane That Crashes In Philadelphia; Private Medical Flight Crashes Near Philadelphia Mall; NTSB Says, All Three Bodies Recovered From Black Hawk Helicopter; CNN Follows The Midair Collision Of American Eagle 5342 And Army Helicopter; Trump Makes Baseless Claims That DEI Led To The Crash Near Reagan National Airport. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired January 31, 2025 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip, and we begin with breaking news tonight. Another plane has crashed in another American city, and this time it is Philadelphia.

I want to reset what we know at this hour. We are told a twin engine medevac jet took off from a local airport en route to Missouri. That plane reached 1,600 feet after takeoff before plunging, 11,000 feet per minute. Six people were on board, including a child patient.

Here is another look at the crash as it happened.

You saw there the jet plummeting almost like a missile out of the sky before an explosion. It landed in a busy section of the city near a mall. It's unknown whether there are any casualties on the ground. Here, though, is how one witness described the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VADIM OSIPOV, WITNESS: I was in shock. I'm still in shock. Like this is insane. Why can this happen? And before that, to be honest, in my mind, I thought, like, what if the rocket would like -- because I'm from Ukraine, right? And there's war. There's always rockets coming in and stuff like that. And then I see like things flying, like no way, the war started again? You know, and you say, you never know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Here's the conversation also that we have now obtained from the air traffic control tower. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Medevac Med Service, Northeast Tower. Medevac Med Service 056, Northeast Tower, are you on frequency?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a lost aircraft. We're not exactly sure what happened, so we're trying to figure it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Let's go straight to Philadelphia, where Councilman Mike Driscoll, who represents that area, is with us now. Councilman, thank you very much for joining us.

I know this is a very active scene. There was just a briefing with other city officials. But I want to ask you directly about that plane, six people on it, according to the company. Do you believe that there are any survivors on that aircraft?

MIKE DRISCOLL (D), COUNCILMEMBER, PHILADELPHIA: Well, Abby, I can't say for sure, but it doesn't look good. It's a sad situation we have here in Northeast Philadelphia. We were only celebrating a couple of days ago, you know, our football team success and now we have this tonight. And it looks like not only the people that were on that plane and the person that needed medical help, they seem to be people that were doing the Lord's work.

And now we have our first responders out there en masse. Our governor, our mayor, you know, all doing all they can to not only the folks that were on that plane, but we are afraid there's more casualties on the ground. We don't know yet. It's going to take some time. We have to have some patience. We have to let our first responders do their job, but we're very nervous.

PHILLIP: Yes. I want to talk about that for a second. Can you tell us about the scene there, where this plane went down. Our understanding is that there might be cars involved, homes involved as well. Do you have a sense of what was impacted by either the direct crash or the subsequent fireball that we see in all of these videos?

DRISCOLL: So, it appears the plane went down into a parking lot area where there were cars, stores just across the street. As you mentioned, there's a giant mall with many stores and then right beyond the stores on both sides, we have residential neighborhoods. And I think what the video you just showed was a house very close that was getting a delivery and all of a sudden the explosion hit.

So, what we're going with our first responders now is door to door to see if anybody in those homes were actually, you know, injured or worse.

PHILLIP: And as of right now, do you know if anyone has been transported with any injuries at all to hospitals or other facilities?

DRISCOLL: Abby, there's first responders, vehicles moving in and out, whether they're taking them to the hospital, or just responding to the homes, or to the businesses, or to the folks that were actually in the cars when that plane hit that sort of parking lot area.

[22:05:15]

We suspect a lot will be going on as the evening progresses.

PHILLIP: And in terms of the fire, our understanding is that the fire is being described as under control, but is there still fire burning? Are there still kind of active parts of this scene that are being dealt with from a fire perspective?

DRISCOLL: Absolutely. We have a wonderful fire department here, by the way, the first fire department in the United States of America. You know, we have a highly trained first responder unit. And so, yes, they're putting the fires out. But as you can imagine, there's those tinders that are always active that the first responders and the police have to make sure that they don't become a problem when the wind hits them. And they're also near vehicles that still have fuel in them.

So, yes, we're -- nervous is the word, but confident that our wonderful governor, our wonderful mayor and our wonderful first responders will get this under control and keep the casualties to a minimum.

PHILLIP: All right. Councilman Mike Driscoll, we're going to keep close with you as we try to continue to get updates throughout the night. Thank you very much. And I'm thinking about and praying for your community tonight.

DRISCOLL: Thank you, Abby. Thanks for having us on.

PHILLIP: We have this new video just into CNN. You can hear the explosion happening in this video. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the hell? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. There's a plane, bro.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Shock and panic in that man's voice.

Joining us now to discuss this, CNN Aviation Analyst Miles O'Brien, as well as Aviation Lawyer Justin Green, both of them are pilots.

Justin, I want to start with you for a second here. Look this is a very seemingly unusual situation. The plane seems to just fall right out of the sky. What do you think happened here?

JUSTIN GREEN, AVIATION LAWYER: I mean, it's a little early to say, you know what caused it. But what you described earlier was like, it looked like a missile. And I think that's exactly what it was. It was an aircraft that was completely out of control. And it came down like a missile. And unlike the crash in D.C., this happened in a populated area. The D.C. accident happened in the Potomac. And I think that that's going to be, you know, part of what we're going to be looking at is are there survivors on the ground? Just a horrible, horrible night for America.

PHILLIP: Absolutely, and a horrible night capping a horrible week for this country.

Miles, I want to talk about what we've learned tonight, which is that this flight was actually only in the air for about 40 seconds. 40 seconds. And we were just playing the air traffic control audio just moments ago, and they didn't get a response from that cockpit. What do you think that indicates?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: This plane was in trouble from the start, Abby. We don't know, of course, yet what was going on.

Just a little context here, medevac flying, particularly with helicopters in this case, of course, fixed-wing, but medevac flying is among the most dangerous sectors of aviation there is because of the nature of the mission. The crews are often under pressure to save a life, frankly. They are oftentimes flying at night in bad weather. They often land at unfamiliar, short landing strips. There's a lot of reasons that is the case. So, medevac flying is a tough one.

This aircraft, the Learjet 55, this one was built in 1981, it's commonly used for this purpose. It's about the right size has good range and good speed.

Now, what happened immediately after takeoff, we, of course, don't know, and it will be a long time before we figure this one out, but this is an aircraft that was clearly not responding to the control inputs of the crew. What could cause that? Was there some hydraulic failure of some kind, which made it impossible for them to move the aero surfaces? Probably unlikely.

It was not great weather on departure. Was there an instrument failure, which caused them to lose their orientation? When you're flying through the clouds, you're relying on your instruments to maintain your situational awareness and it can be very confusing if you lose that.

[22:10:03]

Was there something in that preflight checklist that was overlooked that turned out to be quite crucial?

We do know this. So, this type of aircraft operating under these circumstances will have a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder. Now, it's a tremendous impact and explosion. We can only hope that they are designed to survive this kind of thing. But let's hope they do survive, so we can get some answers as to what happened here.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, that will be critical at this stage.

Justin, the plane seemed to descend, to begin to descend around 1,600 feet.

GREEN: Right.

PHILLIP: What is happening at that altitude?

GREEN: You know, they're basically on departure. So, honestly, at that altitude, they should be climbing out and having a relatively normal flight. As Miles just said, though, these flights are almost like angel flights, the people doing them are looking out for the interest of the passenger who's, you know, someone who needs medical attention.

I think one of the questions in any of these crashes is what kind of medical attention does this person need and what kind of, you know, emergency situation are they facing? Is this just a normal flight or are they really trying to get this person somewhere, you know, so they can get emergency medical treatment.

However, as Miles said, this airplane lost control. So, whether it's a hydraulics issue, whether it's a trim issue, meaning they lost the ability to control the airplane. I think that that's likely what happened here.

PHILLIP: Yes. Just real quick, Miles, there was another incident in 2023, where a Cessna plane went off course and crashed suddenly. That was due to loss of cabin pressure. Are there things like that that could have affected a plane like this on takeoff?

O'BRIEN: Well, at 1,600 feet. You wouldn't be looking at a loss of pressurization as a cause. Really, this aircraft was barely off the ground. When you consider its rate of climb, it was barely flying. So, something very fundamental was wrong.

And there have been cases in the past where aircraft have been involved in crashes on departure when the flight crew forgot or didn't go through the checklist properly and forgot to remove certain pieces covers on the pitot tubes, which are the tubes which measure air speed. There are, in some cases, ways that the control surfaces are locked when they're on the ground so that the wind doesn't make them flap around. If you're not careful about your checklist, those things can get omitted.

And in both of those cases, if you lose the airspeed, you would lose your situational awareness. You might get disoriented in the clouds if you don't have the ability to control the control surfaces. You know, that clearly would be a significant problem.

So, these are some of the things that the investigators will be looking at. Obviously, way too early for me to speculate on that, but those are -- if you look at the history, those are the kinds of things that happen in this scenario.

PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, stand by for me.

Coming up next, we're going to speak with the witness who saw this fireball explosion happen and is on the ground.

Plus, more breaking news on the other deadly crash in D.C., including what search teams are discovering in the water.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:15:00]

PHILLIP: More on our breaking news out of Philadelphia, a medevac jet has crashed near a mall in the city. Six people were on board, including a pediatric patient. We're waiting on word about whether there are any casualties on the ground in the surrounding neighborhood.

Joining us now is Ryan Tian, an eyewitness to the crash. Ryan first of all, tell us, what did you see?

RYAN TIAN, WITNESSED PHILADELPHIA PLANE CRASH: Yes. So, I first noticed the sky just being lit this like bright orange. And then it just -- after looking up, I turned around and was faced with this massive mushroom cloud.

PHILLIP: And where were you at the time?

TIAN: I think I was like, in the P.C. Richard and Sons parking lot around 2420 Cotman Ave. I was just getting food.

PHILLIP: Yes. And so when you saw that happen, and this massive fireball, what did you think was going on? Did you see the plane fall out of the sky?

TIAN: No, I didn't. But when I like turned around and saw the massive mushroom cloud, I just -- my first assumption is like we were being attacked by, you know, God knows who.

PHILLIP: And what was your instinct to do at that point? And what were other people around you doing?

TIAN: The first thing I did was like I pull out my phone to take a picture and then everyone else, which is kind of in a panic. First thing, like right after or right during the explosion, like the first thing you heard was like sirens and then people yelling. It was total chaos.

PHILLIP: At that point, everyone is panicking understandably because of what just occurred. Did you leave the area? I don't know if you live nearby or work nearby, but do you have any sense of whether there were people on the ground who were injured as a result of this?

[22:20:06]

TIAN: Definitely. From my perspective, the plane hit right -- like I saw the explosion come from like right behind a bunch of homes. So, I naturally assume people were hit.

PHILLIP: Ryan -- go ahead.

TIAN: Yes. But I -- yes, right after I saw that, I kind of just left the area. I got the hell out of there, but --

PHILLIP: Understandably so. We're glad to hear that you're okay. I cannot imagine what it's like to see something like that and not really know exactly what happened. But thank you very much for sharing that with us.

TIAN: Definitely. Thank you for having me on.

PHILLIP: For more on this medevac jet and company, I want to bring in CNN's Tom Foreman. Tom, what are you learning about this company and what they do?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jet Rescue is an air ambulance service, meaning it operates very specialized types of planes here. What they build them as is basically intensive care units that are flying. So, it has all sorts of equipment. They have medical experts on board as part of one of these flights. They're licensed and insured in both the United States and Mexico. This company, Jet Rescue, they've been around for a little over 20 years with some kind of operating hubs in both Mexico City and Miami, or at least they have had those at times, more than 20 years experience, as I cited there.

They call themselves the premier provider of international critical care ambulance services from Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean, to the USA, Canada, and worldwide. Although it seems like it's truly focused mainly in the North American space here. And they cite some specialty in handling pediatric patients, obviously from babies on up. That's a lot of what they do as part of their work.

They had nine Lear jets in their fleet prior to this accident, or it seems to be the count there, and the company makes quite a point of the degree to which their pilots are routinely going into simulators, keeping their skills up, working on the way they address these craft, how well they know these crafts, so a very experienced company. And as far as I can see, Abby, I can't find anything in the past that implies they've had any other serious incidents along the way.

So, a big shock here for a company that obviously many, many people have relied on for medical transit many times before.

PHILLIP: Tom Foreman, thank you very much.

More breaking news in the deadly other crash that happened in Washington, D.C., we are getting word that teams have now recovered three bodies from the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with the American Airlines flight. More on that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:25:00]

PHILLIP: More breaking news tonight in the other deadly plane crash on the East Coast, the deadliest in a generation for commercial air flying. Here is what we know at this hour about that collision of an American Airlines plane and a military helicopter. 41 bodies have now been recovered from the waters of the Potomac and divers are continuing to search those icy waters for others.

The Black Hawk's voice recorder has been found and there is no damage to that. One of the plane's black boxes has water intrusion, though, which we are told is a common issue. Meantime, the FAA has indefinitely suspended helicopter routes near Reagan National Airport. And President Trump tonight is doubling down on his baseless claims that DEI caused this crash. We'll have more on that in a moment.

But first CNN's Danny Freeman joins us live from Reagan Airport with more on this investigation. Danny, there are some new details that we're learning about the flight path of the helicopter and what was going on there.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Abby, the flight path of the helicopter has been one of the biggest questions for the past 24 hours, certainly, but also since this crash happened, and we may be closer to getting some answers about that flight path after these developments today.

I was in that NTSB press conference earlier this afternoon. You said that news right up top that three black boxes have now been found. We knew that the passenger jet black boxes had been found. That's the cockpit voice recorder and then the flight data recorder. Some had water intrusion. Like you noted, the NTSB said today they actually had to put it in a vacuum oven to try and get the moisture out. But they're confident, the NTSB is, that they're going to be able to get data from there.

But then we learned that a black box from that Black Hawk helicopter had been recovered as well. That's so important because this can really help the NTSB investigators literally put together. They could put together an animation perhaps with a number of data points as to exactly what happened in those final moments. That's important, Abby, because we learned today from the company, FlightRadar24, that the Blackhawk helicopter actually may have been flying, it appears 100 feet above the maximum level that it should have been flying in that area around the Potomac. It also seemed to be veering off its course at some point.

Now, the NTSB, though, they would not specifically comment on if they viewed the pilots of that helicopter to have made any mistake. They say it's too early, but make no mistake, that black box from the Black Hawk should be able to give some of those answers.

One of the other things we learned also, Abby, is that the interviews have begun of some of those air traffic controllers that were working on the night of that crash.

[22:30:00]

Take a listen to how the NTSB characterized what they're going to be looking for in those interviews.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD INMAN, NTSB BOARD MEMBER: We will go back and look at any air traffic controller that was involved in this. We'll go back and look at their past probably 72 hours, even two or three weeks, we'll look at their training, their hiring, everything. What they probably ate that day, what job functions they were doing, were they being combined. Controller that was working at the time has been interviewed and his interviews are ongoing throughout the day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Abby, you noted at the top at least 41 bodies now have been recovered and we learned this evening that includes now all three U.S. Army soldiers that were on that Black Hawk, but D.C. local officials say their job is not done. They're still working to salvage the bodies of every victim in the Potomac. Abby?

PHILLIP: Danny Freeman, thank you very much for that report. Justin Green is back with us. Justin, 100 miles above the maximum altitude and also off course. What questions do you have about that?

GREEN: Well, I think it's 100 feet.

PHILLIP: Oh, 100 feet. Sorry. Yeah.

GREEN: But so there's two issues. And honestly, at this point, it looks like the helicopter was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the helicopter is supposed to be flying a route -- a helicopter route, that the maximum altitude was 200 feet. If the helicopter is above 200 feet, that pilots are doing the wrong thing and causing a problem.

The second issue is the air traffic controller expected that the helicopter would visually avoid the CRJ, the American Eagle flight by -- horizontally, as well. So, there's essentially two issues. One is were they at the wrong altitude and were they at the wrong place? Obviously they were. Obviously the airplanes collided. If the airplanes collided at 300 feet, the helicopter is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

PHILLIP: So, we learned that there is a voice recorder for the Black Hawk, which would be critical. What would you want to know from that?

GREEN: I mean, we already have most of the communications outside the helicopter with their traffic controller. So, we're really looking to see what was the communications inside the helicopter. Also, if the helicopter is at the wrong altitude, you know, one of the things, it's not going to be on the cockpit voice recorder.

But one of the things you're going to look at is what were the instruments telling the pilots? You know, were they at the wrong altitude and their instruments were telling them that they were at the wrong altitude or were their instruments telling them something else?

I believe honestly that you know, there's two different altitude, you know, instruments, you know, the above ground, the radio altimeter, and a parametric altimeter, so it's very unlikely. But as I think you've heard, the NTSB's going to look at every single thing. And so every piece of evidence --

PHILLIP: You think it's unlikely that they would not have known that they were at the wrong altitude?

GREEN: They would not have had information to tell them that they were at the wrong altitude.

PHILLIP: All right, Justin Green, thank you very much for joining us.

GREEN: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And a programming note, Anderson Cooper has a deeper look into the safety of our skies in a special episode of "The Whole Story". It airs this Sunday at 7 P.M. on CNN. And coming up next, as investigators try to unlock this mystery, President Trump is doubling down on blaming DEI for the crash without a shred of evidence. And now, minority pilots are being falsely targeted with attacks. This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:38:05]

PHILLIP: As we follow the breaking news of the crashes both in Philly and in D.C., the president tonight is not letting go of his baseless claims that DEI led to that crash near Reagan National Airport.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Were you at all concerned about opining about the Army and the conduct of that aircraft when you are commander in chief and these are the people who report to you and there is an investigation on that?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: No, this was all caused by bad rules, regulations and other things by Biden administration. And when you look at the way they ran things, in fact, if you look, we hired, one of the first things I told them to do is get talented people in those -- in those beautiful towers overlooking runways. You better get them in there fast because we don't have people that are qualified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Trump's blame game may be a way for him to distract from the other very serious questions about his own actions, from the absence of a named FAA administrator at the time of the crash to his firings of the TSA chief and aviation safety committee. But the villainizing and politicizing of diversity has sparked a conversation in this country. Here is a provocative take from podcast host Van Lathan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN LATHAN, "HIGHER LEARNING" PODCAST HOST: The term DEI right now has become the worst slur in American history. It's worse than anywhere. The term DEI or DEI hire is not just being used to undermine the qualifications, capability and the readiness of black people and women and other people in all of these different sectors. It's not just making -- it's not just minimizing them. DEI is placing the blame of all of society's ills at the feet of these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[22:40:09]

PHILLIP: It's not just about meritocracy, really, because it sounds like based on what a lot of these folks are saying, the idea that there are not enough white people in certain roles is the problem, according to some of these folks pushing this. MONDAIRE JONES (D) FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN, NEW YORK: Yeah, look, this

is a completely bad faith effort on the part of the Trump administration and Trump's allies. And you know they don't care about qualifications because you can just look at the qualifications of the white people who Donald Trump has nominated to lead departments and agencies. I mean, these are among the least qualified people that the Senate has ever considered.

When you look at a guy like Pete Hegseth who ran two non-profits into the ground and had to be fired from, you know, from those roles, who has, you know, confessed to alcohol abuse and certainly has never done anything close to running the Department of Defense, a department of its size.

When you look at Tulsi Gabbard, who, you know, is literally someone who many people, I think, accurately describe as a national security threat, now poised to become the director of National Intelligence. You know, when you look at a guy like RFK, who's supposed to be over public health in this country, but doesn't believe in science and pushes dangerous conspiracy theories.

PHILLIP: And doesn't know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, according to his confirmation hearing. You know, Pete, I don't understand why, well, actually, I do. I get it. It's a distraction. It's a way to get us talking about it. But I also want to just highlight for a second the human consequences of this. There were three people aboard that Black Hawk. We don't know what happened on that aircraft.

But the family of one of the people, this is our reporting at CNN, it says, "At the request of the family, the name of the third soldier will not be released at this time," -- according to -- "the Army said. "Though the third soldier's name is not being released at the request of her family, CNN was told she was co-piloting the Black Hawk and had about 500 flight hours."

So, there were three people on the Black Hawk. One of them was a woman. That woman's family is afraid to put her name out there because they know that she will be blamed for this crash despite there being absolutely no evidence one way or another.

PETE SEAT, FORMER WH SPOKESMAN FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I think this is very simple. Donald Trump doesn't like the appearance of not being in control and he doesn't like the appearance or the implication that he may have been at fault. Now, you can like that or dislike that, it doesn't matter. That is the clear analysis and why he jumps to conclusions.

But I would say, and you know, brace yourself for a sweeping generational attack. I hear every baby boomer dad that I know when I hear Donald Trump say it's just common sense, not speaking specifically to DEI, but any conclusion you would reach on something that happens. It's common sense. I already know what happened. I don't need an investigation. I don't need people to look into this. I know how it happened.

PHILLIP: But he's the president of the United States.

SEAT: But that's why he's the president is because he connects with that mentality.

PHILLIP: But hang on, he is the president of the United States. He's got access to information. I don't have access or your dad, or your dad, or whoever's dad has, does not have access to the information he has access to.

MELIK ABDUL, RADIO HOST & GOP POLITICAL STRATEGIST: So, here's what I know. Instead of, I know a number of people who voted for Donald Trump for the first time, they were so disgusted then what they felt was happening in the Biden administration. I talked to many of them this week.

Instead of talking about the economy, I was fielding questions on whether or not the Trump administration wanted to stop commemorating Black History Month, Women's History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month.

PHILLIP: This is the directive at a lot of the agencies, but DOD today put out a memo saying no more celebration of History Months.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR: Or Holocaust Remembrance Day or MLK.

ABDUL: I was fielding all of these questions. When people said that they voted for Donald Trump because they were concerned about, you know, the price of eggs and all of these type of things. Because of Donald Trump's own doing, we're having to have this conversation about DEI. DEI, for many people, and I call them the woke right, it has become a stand-in for being black and unqualified.

And what I would like for the Trump administration to do, Susie Wiles, I love her, never met her, want to meet her one day, I want them to ask the team. What was our message coming out of this week? And if they say that they felt as if it was successful, then we're going to have a very long four-year hiatus.

PHILLIP: Can I make a provocative argument here? What if Donald Trump also won because of the people who think that black people and trans people and women are taking things that belong to them?

[22:45:00]

Isn't it possible that he actually won for that reason? And that they don't think that this is a messaging, you know, change of course. But this is the course.

ABDUL: But it doesn't represent the majority of those who --

PHILLIP: But they could very well think that this is the course that they are supposed to be on.

RAMPELL: Yes, I think this is what economic anxiety has sometimes been euphemized to refer to that people feel like they're losing their status in society and maybe their ability to climb up the socioeconomic ladder and the easy scapegoat is the black and brown and people and women who are taking their place, who are robbing them of their opportunities.

One thing I want to add to this discussion, besides the, you know, the career effects on people of color and women and other groups, other underrepresented groups in government, among other positions, who may suffer because of the comments that Trump made about DEI causing these plane crashes, is that Trump surrounds himself with lackeys who have historically been shown that they are motivated to sort of backfill and retrofit evidence to fit whatever his predetermined conclusion is.

So, if we want to prevent tragedies like this from happening again, I would not trust whatever investigation they put together because Trump has already determined that the cause of this problem is DEI. If there is something else that's lurking here that could put people at risk again, we may not find out.

PHILLIP: I, you know, I actually do, I've talked to a lot of aviation experts this week. I have confidence in the NTSB. That is a gold standard agency in this country and honestly in the entire world of aviation. But I mean, to her point, you know, I think there are questions about whether this is going to be a, you know, a witch hunt for the evidence to support this claim. They are going to be hunting down the people who fit the DEI narrative in order to prove, He was right all along.

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATION STRATEGIST: I think I'm alone in this group. I think I'm kind of afraid to be alone in this group. I surveyed these people. I focus group them. And they are really, really tired of being accused of either racism or sexism because they voted for Donald Trump. And it's one of the reasons why so many of them did.

I sat on this stage with you and got chewed out when I suggested there's a better language to reach out to voters that there's -- the Harris campaign is missing what they're looking for. And I say the same thing here. Americans just want to be Americans, not hyphenated Americans. Not female Americans, black Americans, Jewish Americans. They just want to be Americans.

PHILLIP: How do you think it makes people feel -- black people, women, any person who has immutable characteristics about themselves, to be told every time that something happens that because they exist in a particular role, it is their fault? How does it make them feel?

LUNTZ: How does it make people feel when they're told that they're a racist?

PHILLIP: No, no, I mean, answer, no, but answer my question.

LUNTZ: I am, because these are pre-determined considerations.

PHILLIP: No, no.

LUNTZ: You were going to do --

PHILLIP: You're telling me I'm calling -- LUNTZ: Do you want an answer?

PHILLIP: Well, you're not answering my question. You're telling me --

LUNTZ: Yes, I'm trying to.

PHILLIP: You were telling me that --

JONES: Your response is in bad faith. I mean, what she is saying is something you're not responding to, because it doesn't address why Donald Trump immediately went to DEI as an explanation without any evidence whatsoever for what looks to be an inexcusable and certainly a very devastating and tragic plane and helicopter crash a couple of days ago.

And instead, you pivot to talking about how terrible it is that some people who voted for Donald Trump are being called racist and sexist. You're refusing to grapple with the central tension.

PHILLIP: It's also an option for Trump --

LUNTZ: It's my understanding because -- hold on. Because my understanding is of the voter.

PHILLIP: Frank, it is an option for Donald Trump.

LUNTZ: That is what I do.

JONES: What about the immorality --

PHILLIP: Hold on. Frank, it is an option for Donald Trump --

JONES: -- and the incompetence of blaming DEI for what happened?

LUNTZ: You guys can all jump on me. That's fine.

PHILLIP: No, no, I'm not jumping on you. I'm trying to have a conversation with you. OK, look. It is an option for Donald Trump to respect his voters and not scapegoat race in a situation like that. He chooses not to every time. Why?

LUNTZ: He is saying, and I do not defend him, and I've not defended him on this program, because there are things that are more important than Republican and Democrat, and it's why some people lost primaries and some people are not members of Congress anymore. I'm trying to tell you the truth.

JONES: Look, you don't have to, listen, I just won my primary. You don't have to lecture me.

PHILLIP: Mondaire. Hold on, Mondaire.

LUNTZ: Let me finish.

JONES: I mean, if you're going to throw shots --

PHILLIP: Mondaire, just a second. Let me let him finish.

LUNTZ: This is why this show is such a challenge for me, because I really am, and I've been on this show and criticized him many times. I've been on this show and praised him. In the end, how do we get beyond how we look?

[22:50:02]

How do we get beyond how we sound? Because in the end, we all have a right to a point of view and I respect yours.

JONES: I just don't respect the gaslighting and the bad faith conversation.

PHILLIP: I also think you cannot talk about getting beyond all of those things -- race, hyphens, whatever it is, when at the highest offices of the land, you have someone saying, because there is diversity, there is a lack of merit, there is a lack of quality, there is a lack of experience.

That is a racist view, that people who have characteristics that they cannot change about them, that don't tell you anything about their intellect, about their experience, are by definition not experienced. Do you understand that?

LUNTZ: I actually -- I do, because I listen to this. I hear this and I internalize it. And for those who feel like they're being marginalized, we have to do more. I agree with you.

PHILLIP: It's not even just about being marginalized. It's just about recognizing that --

LUNTZ: I just said I agree with you.

PHILLIP: I know, I'm saying, but look, I'm not trying to use academic language to talk about this. I'm just saying that there are people, look, a couple days ago there was a Harvard educated Olympic track star was told that she wasn't qualified to have gone to Harvard, that she was basically a DEI admit to Harvard.

LUNTZ: This is --

PHILLIP: I mean, that's just from a human perspective.

LUNTZ: Yes, that's wrong. We all agree that's wrong.

RAMPELL: May I ask you a question about this?

LUNTZ: We all agree with that, but there's nothing I can say to you on this panel, for any of you, that's going to satisfy you.

RAMPELL: No, no. May I ask you a question about this?

LUNTZ: And that's the problem.

RAMPELL: So, you're saying Americans felt alienated by the way Democrats talked about some of these things.

LUNTZ: And -- yes.

RAMPELL: Okay. But do you think that this is the antidote that -- I think that's the question here. I mean, it's -- you can be critical of terms that Democrats have used. But it's not clear to me how this approach is better.

In fact, it seems exponentially worse to be scapegoating, whether it's hyphenated Americans or otherwise, any group of Americans for this tragedy, to be purging government data from websites under the guise of DEI and rooting out wokeness. I guess that's where I think there's a bit of a disconnect here. It's like --

LUNTZ: I agree with you.

RAMPELL: Okay. '

LUNTZ: I agree with you. And you're probably surprised. That's the goal in all of this. How do we get to the point where you're judged by our merit, when you're judged by our performance? I've had two experiences. Number one is my house almost burned down in Brentwood. I wasn't even there to see it. And I want the best people possible to be on the front lines fighting that fire.

I was -- I landed 55 minutes before this plane landed. I could have been on it. So I feel it. I hear this and I get it. And you're correct and you're correct. The question is, do we beat up on it and yell about it and complain? Or do you try to get a solution? Do you try to get beyond it? And the problem is, there's nothing I can say that's going to convince you.

ABDUL: But in order for us to get beyond it, Donald Trump and the woke right, they have to stop talking about it.

RAMPELL: Yes.

ADDUL: The reason that we're talking about it is because it was a deliberate decision that the Trump administration made. I would much rather be talking about the economy. And some of the other things that I know that the Donald Trump administration is going to do, but we're not in the now second week administration, we are ending it talking about DEI because this was a decision that they made.

JONES: And to be clear, our discussion of it is not out of nowhere. It's not something we created out of whole cloth. It doesn't mean that we're harping on something that the American people would rather we not talk about. It is responding directly to something that happened.

PHILLIP: And the only person who injected, to your point, injected race into this is Donald Trump. We could be having a very normal investigation into a national tragedy, comforting these families. But this is the conversation that not only do they want to have, but they are making it the only conversation around what happened here. And that is not just wrong from a moral perspective but it's also a missed opportunity to keep Americans safe. SEAT: Well, both the President and Secretary Hegseth, I believe, said

in that press conference in the briefing room that elevation was probably the issue here. It seems to be the case with the helicopter. And to your point, I mean, they were likely right in the moment, immediately after. And here it has been completely hijacked by something else. I do think though --

RAMPELL: That's a nice use of the passive.

PHILLIP: Can I just say one thing about that, just because we just had a whole conversation about this crash. The elevation is a fact, right? They were at the wrong elevation. The question is, and what the investigation will find out, is what actually caused that to happen?

[22:55:03]

And yes, he did say, oh, the elevation is the problem. But then he said, it's because of DEI and because of a lack of standards as a result of diversity initiatives. So, Trump is diagnosing the problem by saying that the blame is actually on this thing that we don't know had anything at all to do with it.

SEAT: Right, which is the part where I said then he hijacked the point that he was trying to make about the elevation. But you know, Frank, you're the master of language, so you probably have a better way of articulating this than I do.

The conversation that I do think needs to be taking place in this country, and unfortunately Donald Trump uses DEI as the euphemism for it, is we have lowered standards across the board. We have lowered standards across the board in the name of entertainment, in the name of whatever, and it's happening.

It's happening in education, it's happening in sports, it's happening in the workplace, and that is a conversation that I think is legitimate and needs to be had.

PHILLIP: All right, everyone.

LUNTZ: That's exactly what the public says.

PHILLIP: Thank you very much for that very interesting and important conversation. We have much more on our breaking news out of Philadelphia where a medevac flight crashed near a mall in the city with six people on board. We're expecting to hear from officials again tonight about whether there are any casualties on the ground in that city. Stand by.

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