Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Southwest Flight Diverted; Military Cargo Plane Crashes in Georgia; Rosenstein Fires Back; Trump-Mueller Interview. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired May 02, 2018 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:13] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Dana Bash, in for John King.

And we start the hour with breaking news. A Southwest Airlines jet, just moments ago that was bound from Chicago to Newark, was diverted to Cleveland. And that after a passenger window, you see this photo right there, cracked. The airline says Flight 957 landed safely and uneventfully.

Let's get straight to CNN's Alison Kosik, who's joining me now.

Alison, what do we know about this flight and, more importantly, about how and when that window cracked?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK, so, yes, just to go over where the flight was coming from and going to. It took off from Midway International in Chicago, heading to Newark, in New Jersey, making that emergency landing at Hopkins International in Cleveland. That's after from what we can see, from what we're seeing on Twitter at least, the window cracked during flight.

In fact, we are hearing from one of the passengers through texts that she made to her son. She said she was sitting -- that the cracked window was right behind where she was sitting and across the aisle. She had said that she heard a loud noise, a very large crack with a piece of window missing at the bottom.

She went on to tell her son Ryan that she had just landed. Everything is OK. And that Southwest Airlines was making arrangements for the 76 passengers on this flight to get other flights out.

Southwest Airlines coming out with its own statement saying that the crew of Flight 957, with service from Midway to Newark, made the decision to divert the plane to Cleveland for maintenance review of one of the multiple layers of a window pane. The flight landed uneventfully in Cleveland. The aircraft has been taken out of service for maintenance review and our local Cleveland employees are working diligently to accommodate the 76 passengers.

You notice in that statement, though, we're not hearing about the window being cracked. But we're seeing in those pictures, it is cracked. We are trying to confirm if it actually -- if there's a hole, if there's something missing at the bottom of that window.

Of course, this is very scary, coming less than a month after the other Southwest incident happening April 17th when an engine exploded, shrapnel going through a window, blowing that window out and sucking -- partially sucking a woman out of the plane. In fact, just yesterday, Dana, the pilot of that plane, in April, along with some customers who were -- who heroically tried to save that woman, they were recognized at the White House for -- for what they did during that flight and how calmly that pilot was able to land that plane in Philadelphia. But this is scary news again because, again, a window cracked during flight.

Dana.

BASH: Beyond scary, Alison.

KOSIK: Yes.

BASH: And, obviously, as you noted, it's coming on the heels of what happened last month. Thank goodness this was -- appears not to be deadly or certainly as scary for the passengers. But a lot of unanswered questions.

And I want to talk about that with CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo, who also was a former inspector general at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mary Schiavo, this statement from Southwest talks a couple of times about maintenance review. I mean it sounds like, you know, that they needed to put gas in the plane. It's very benign, when, obviously, we're looking at a photo and hearing from passengers that it was anything but benign, especially again given what happened last month with this very same airline and the very same issue, a broken window.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: And it's not benign. There are federal regulations concerning the condition of the windows and the window housing. And when you have a cracked window, you must land. The plane is not airworthy with a cracked window. And here it's beyond a crack with a piece missing. Your windows must be intact, particularly on a pressurized plane, as this one is, because as the whole world saw last month, if you lose a window, you have a rapid decompression and the oxygen masks will fall and people and things can be sucked out of the plane. So while they're saying they're doing a maintenance check, in fact, they have to, because at this point, with a cracked and partially missing window, the aircraft is un-airworthy by law.

And so now what they have to find out is why. It's not, you know, completely uncommon. These things do happen. But it's a very serious event. So it couldn't be a bird strike. It's on the side of the plane. So they have to find out if there were any warnings on these windows for perhaps manufacturing flaws or there was something wrong with the housing around that window. And so they're going to need to find that out.

BASH: Mary Schiavo, thank you so much.

Stand by because we're also tracking a plane crash in Georgia. We have some live photos of smoke coming from the crash site of a military cargo plane. Forgive me, we don't have the pictures now. We'll get to them soon. There you go. Wow, pretty unbelievable video there, smoke billowing out of this cargo plane that crashed a short time ago in Savannah, Georgia. According to a manager at a nearby Savannah airport, emergency crews, as you see there, they are responding.

[12:05:25] We're getting more information about this.

Let's go straight to CNN's Kaylee Hartung, live in Atlanta.

Kaylee, what do we know?

KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dana, we don't know much. Those pictures you're seeing there taken just a few moments ago, not far from the Savannah Hilton Head Airport. We're told a military plane has crashed. Emergency crews are responding to the scene.

We don't, at this time, yet have much more information than that. An official from the Savannah Hilton Head International Airport telling CNN, this crash not happening on their property, but just a few miles away, off of Highway 21.

As we learn more, we will keep you posted. This, a very developing situation. Those pictures again of that smoke billowing taken just moments ago.

BASH: And as you mentioned, a military cargo plane. We weren't sure at the beginning whether it was military or civilian. But, as you said, you're reporting there, it is, in fact, military. As we get more information about that, we will bring it to you.

Thank you so much for that report.

Turning back now to politics. The president versus his own Justice Department. We're going to talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:10:38] BASH: Now the suddenly public dispute between a powerful Republican congressman and the deputy attorney general. Rod Rosenstein is firing back at members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, who have drafted articles of impeachment to have him removed as deputy attorney general. They say he failed to hand over documents on high profile investigations, including the Russia meddling probe. Democrats say the caucus simply wants to protect the president. Rosenstein, who rarely speaks out, is doing so now. He says he'll follow the law and he won't be bullied.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: I just don't have anything to say about documents like that, that nobody has the courage to put their name on and that they leak in that way. But I can tell you, the different people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time, and I think they should understand by now, the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted. We're going to do what's required by the rule of law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: The people or person he was talking about, Freedom Caucus Chairman Congressman Mark Meadows lashed out at Rosenstein after those remarks. He said, quote, if he believes being asked to do his job is extortion, then Rod Rosenstein should step aside and allow us to find a new deputy attorney general, preferably one who is interested in transparency. The president reinforcing that pressure by tweeting again that the system is rigged, and that he may have to, quote, use the powers of the presidency to get involved.

Let's go now -- excuse me, I want to add that we've learned that Congressman Meadows and the Freedom Caucus were told yesterday that the DOJ would not be handing over documents they requested.

With that new information, let's get straight to CNN's senior congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, who joins us from The Hill.

And, Manu, you're hearing about new details about what Mark Meadows and Him Jordan are asking Rosenstein for.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. We are learning that in a private meeting last month, Meadows and Jim Jordan asked Rosenstein to provide a key document, an August memo that detailed the scope of the Mueller investigation. That memo was turned over in court filings earlier this year. But you'll recall that was heavily redacted and the details of exactly what Mueller was allowed to investigate are not known to the public. Well, both Meadows and Jordan demanded that they (INAUDIBLE) get access to that document. That's something that Rosenstein resisted in that private meeting according to Jordan.

Now, just -- we're learning now that the Justice Department said no to that request officially. And that comes as both Meadows and Jordan, and other House Republicans, are demanding scores of documents, thousands and thousands of documents that they believe may show some impropriety in how the FBI handled the Clinton e-mail investigation and how it handled the Russia investigation.

So far the Justice Department has relented on a number of those demands, has turned over documents, but not to the satisfaction of these Republicans and not -- certainly not to the satisfaction of President Trump. And this all comes as Democrats are concerned this effort to go after Rosenstein, to criticize Rosenstein, to threaten him with impeachment will all be a pretext for the president to ultimately fire Rosenstein and perhaps put in a new person in charge of the Mueller investigation, something that the Republicans say that needs to be wrapped up sometime soon here, Dana.

BASH: And, Manu, that final point is the key here, why are we even talking about Rod Rosenstein, why are these Republicans going after him? For the most part, let's be frank, it's because he is the guy in charge of the Mueller investigation right now.

Thanks for that great reporting, Manu.

And here with me at the table to share their reporting and their insights is CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson, CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Carl Hulse with "The New York Times," and Karoun Demirjian with "The Washington Post."

Thanks, everyone. Good to see you.

I mean let's just start with that last point. It's really heating up, this sort of back and forth between the president's allies, who the White House says that they're not doing the president's bidding but, you know --

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: They -- they're doing the president's bidding.

BASH: They're doing the president's bidding -- and Rod Rosenstein. What are you hearing from your perch on The Hill?

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I think the interesting thing, one, it's just phenomenal, this -- the clash between Republicans and a Republican Justice Department. That always just sort of throws me for a loop.

But Democrats are really worried about this because while all the attention is on, will the president fire Bob Mueller, that they believe this is just being built up to get rid of the deputy attorney general, which won't get as much attention, but has more impact because a new deputy -- he oversees the investigation, which is the clash with Mark Meadows and the Freedom Caucus, demanding transparency. And if they replace him, someone else can come in and then limit the scope of Mueller's investigation. Keep him in place, and it will look like it's proceeding.

[12:15:20] HULSE: So, you know, these kind of things often happen when Congress is on recess, as they are now too, because, you know, it's easy. There's not -- the Congress isn't there to make noise about this.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And one thing is clear, I mean I think we should make this point, there's no member of Congress that I'm aware of who the president talks to more often than Mark Meadows. They talk all the time.

BASH: That's an important point.

ZELENY: If they're on recess or not. So I was sitting in the White House briefing yesterday and Sarah Sanders was basically saying, oh, we're not involved in that. I've not looked at that information. The reality, the president has. So the president talked to Mark Meadows often several times a week. So it's clear that -- that they are sort of doing this bidding. Not saying that they don't believe it and agree with it, but that is what is happening here. The president is trying to game the refs a little bit through these members of Congress. BASH: And it's the members of Congress and also kind of the -- the,

you know, let's go get 'em chorus on television.

HENDERSON: Right.

BASH: The president's supporters in the legal community, like Joe diGenova, who, by the way, was in line to maybe work for the president's legal team and then it didn't happen. That's a different story. But he is certainly trying to help the president on TV. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH DIGENOVA, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: That is a firing offense, by the way, for saying that, because it shows an ignorance of the Constitution that a deputy attorney general would say that Congress is acting extortionately, because they are demanding to see documents that they have a right to see under the Constitution is so outrageous and so unacceptable from a constitutional officer like that, that it shows that he is unfit -- unfit legally and professionally to continue in the office of deputy attorney general, and he should resign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, you can almost see the sort of circularity between this, right? I mean he -- something happens on Fox and the president tweets it. He talks to Mark Meadows. Mark Meadows talks about it. And this is where the president, in some ways, is at his best. The sort of fighting against everyone. Basically Donald Trump versus everybody, to paraphrase Eminem. And that seems to be what's happening. I mean it works for him in the campaign and it seems like the footing that he's on now.

And also you have this new kind of fighter in his camp in Rudy Giuliani. And we've seen some changes and some kind of movement happen since Giuliani has gotten into his camp. And he's, obviously, a fighter. He's kind of a television presence as well, or has been. Hasn't been so much since he's joined the team.

But, yes, this is where they are right now and I think it's going to continue.

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": And I think it's actually -- look, it's kind of a smart strategy, too.

HENDERSON: Yes.

DEMIRJIAN: Because if you're going to go after Mueller, you're going to lose a lot of people in the GOP. That's really a third rail that you can't touch right now but there's too many people that are defensive of the legal process. But the idea of government transparency and Congress having its weight, you know, respected at the table, this goes back to what you were saying, I mean, they're choosing Rosenstein because it's actually a much more legitimate target. And Rosenstein is screwing up a little bit when he's saying this is extortion. He's just handing them the next talking point basically. So, yes, it's feeding back into this feedback with this circle. But it's the smarter tact to take if you are the conservative GOP right now, which wants to destabilize at least what's going on with the Mueller probe to go in this direction.

ZELENY: I mean, and it's also trying to discredit the whole investigation. But it may be smart at the moment, but what it -- I think we have to sit back and ask ourselves, the president's lawyers have convinced him that this wasn't a big deal, the scope wasn't big, it's going to end at any moment. It is a big deal when you look at the list of questions there. So it may be sort of keeping him occupied, which I think is probably important as well. But at some point, you know, this is a major, real investigation. He can say it's a hoax on Twitter. At some point they have to make the decision, and that's the clash that we're watching for here is, you know, when the president and his lawyers probably say he won't sit down with Mueller, then what happens?

BASH: And when -- yes and when Rudy Giuliani, the day that it was announced that he was joining the legal team, he said to me, this whole notion of firing Rosenstein, firing Mueller, it's not going to happen. Mueller is the best we're going to get and it will just make it go longer.

BASH: Everybody stand by because we have some more information about that military crash, the cargo plane crash in Georgia. We're going to give that to you right after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:23:49] BASH: We're keeping an eye on that military cargo plane crash in Savannah, Georgia. You're looking at a video from just a few moments ago. Thick smoke billowing from the crash site. A local eyewitness who works nearby described it this way, the ground shook like a bomb was going off. All the people in the building started panicking. It was absolutely horrible.

Let's get straight to CNN's Kylie Hartung, who is in Atlanta. And -- excuse me, Kaylee.

What do you know now about that plane?

HARTUNG: Well, Dana, the U.S. Air Force has confirmed that was a U.S. Air National Guard C-130 that crashed in Savannah. This is a military cargo plane. We're unsure at this time if the plane was coming or going from the vicinity. There is a base nearby. A spokesperson from the Savannah Hilton Head International Airport explaining this crash didn't happen on airport property, but rather offsite, a couple of miles, Highway 21, we're told, near Gulf Stream Road.

The Savannah Firefighter's Association now saying that highway is shut down until further notice. Emergency crews, as you can see through this eyewitness video, they are on the scene responding to this crash that happened within the last hour.

[12:25:00] There are still many questions. How many people were on board? Did anyone survive? But, Dana, we will continue monitor this situation and keep you

updated.

BASH: Thank you so much for that update.

And we're going to move back to politics now and another very busy day. We're in Donald Trump's Washington, a Wednesday.

There are dramatic, new developments in the Russian investigation thanks to a tweet this morning from the president going beyond his standard, there was no collusion it's a hoax line, the president publically taunted the special counsel, Robert Mueller, saying, there is no obstruction of justice. That is a setup and trap. He punctuated the tweet with "witch hunt" for good measure.

This is all about a looming legal showdown with the special counsel and the president's legal team. That's according to several sources. Two of them say that Mueller raised the possibility of subpoenaing President Trump in at least one meeting with the president's lawyers. Those lawyers are careful to say that he hasn't shut the door entirely on sitting voluntarily with Mueller. But sources tell CNN, the slim chances that he would do so just got even slimmer.

Back with our panel.

And as we've been on the air, the -- one of the president's lawyers, Ty Cobb, did an interview with ABC News and here's what he said. It's certainly not -- it meaning the interview with the president -- is certainly not off the table and people are working hard to make decisions and work towards an interview. And assuming that can be concluded favorably, there will be an interview. Assuming it can't be, assuming an agreement can't be reached, you know that it will go a different route.

Now, Nia, Ty Cobb, as Gloria Borger has been reporting, is in the distinct minority --

HENDERSON: Yes.

BASH: In terms of the president's legal team trying to continue to push the notion of the president sitting down with Mueller. Most people in the legal team and in the president's orbit say it would be a disaster.

HENDERSON: Yes, and it -- almost anyone who comments on this, asked if, you know, the president should sit down, you see those lists of questions, asking very detailed information about incidents. And you see that list and then you hear the president, who has a tendency to go off script, to not really talk in truthful ways about any number of things. So you understand why there's great fear about him sitting down with Bob Mueller. He himself in some ways has shifted, right? Initially he said, sure, I'd love to do this. Why not? And at this point it does seem to seem very, very unlikely, setting up probably a pretty protracted fight in terms of get thing president to talk. Will he be subpoenaed? If he's forced to testify, does he plead the fifth?

BASH: Yes.

HENDERSON: And then, what does that mean?

BASH: And it seems to me, Jeff, that this new Ty Cobb statement -- by the way, he doesn't talk to the press very much, so let's start there.

ZELENY: Right.

BASH: It's not just about him pushing his own agenda or his own view, I should say, that maybe the president should talk. It seems like maybe he's trying to clean up what the president did this morning, as I mentioned, taunting the special counsel, more than ever before.

ZELENY: I think that's right. And trying to, you know, perhaps bring the temperature down a little bit. It's getting pretty hot this week in Washington in many ways. And I think the president is clearly agitated as we've been reporting about this. But the more he learns and sees and realizes about this investigation, the more it frustrates him that he is sort of in this position. So he now is lashing out, going after everyone. So that's what it seems to me that, Ty Cobb, trying to be the voice of reason. Oh, it's still possible. We're still thinking about an interview.

When I asked Sarah Sanders about this yesterday, she wouldn't say, wouldn't answer. But the president has always said there's one reason to do it, which is to speed this investigation up and bring it to a close. It seems it would be, you know, hard to imagine him doing that now. But he'll make the decision. So it seems that Ty Cobb is trying to cool things down, but who knows?

BASH: We have something -- a new quote from that interview again that just came out. He added that it's still an open question as to whether a special counsel can compel a president to testify, which goes back to the whole question of a subpoena, which was reported by your paper this morning. And John Dowd, a former member of the president's legal team, said this isn't some game. You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States. That, combined with what we just heard from Ty Cobb, the whole legal question about whether you can compel him, if they're going to have this fight, it's going to go straight to the Supreme Court.

DEMIRJIAN: Yes, it's definitely going to be a really, really high profile -- I mean it already is that high profile, right?

BASH: Right.

DEMIRJIAN: And, yes, you can say this is messing up the work of the president, but it's also an investigation that involves the president. So, I mean, it's six and one, half dozen or the other really if you're trying to define how big of a deal it is.

If it gets to that point where they're actually having a real legal fight over what the president can and can't be forced to do, then, yes, it's going to go to the highest court. It's going to be a very, very all-consuming -- in terms of headlines and what we discussion on the air issue as well. [12:59:55] And just to kind of go back to what you were saying, Jeff,

the question is, is this a good thing or a bad thing for the president to draw it out is way, right? I mean, yes, his lawyers don't really trust that he can go into an interview like that and not perjure himself or somehow otherwise complicate his standing, visa vis the investigation. But in a way the president, we've seen, likes to kind of use the Russia probe to --