← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Confusion Swirls over Whether Trump and Iran are Negotiating
00:49:55
Confusion is swirling around Donald Trump’s war in Iran, now entering its fourth week, as Trump backs off a potentially illegal threat to “obliterate” civilian power plants. MS NOW's Ari Melber reports.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:02]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
We have a lot coming up tonight. General Wesley Clark is here as we look at the Iran war fallout, the oil price problems. Andrew Weissman joins me as we look at Trump's revenge prosecutions. And we're going to set aside time to also discuss the passing of his former boss and mentor, Bob Mueller. We can also tell you today that a lot of people, of course, have been very concerned, saddened by that tragic accident. And we are awaiting an NTSB press conference which will tell us more about what exactly happened. It was the deadly LaGuardia collision. It was on the ground but took lives of the pilot there. And we're gonna hear from the ntsb. As you can see, we are positioned to take this press conference whenever it begins. After that, of course, tragic loss of life. We know that LaGuardia Airport is back open. The New York airport is one of the nation's busiest. It was closed when an Air Canada flight collided with a fire truck. Now this occurred last night, late in the evening, about 11.40pm There is video of the incident where you see the plane speeding down the Runway and then you can see it collide there with the fire truck. The NTSB and FAA are doing the formal investigations. The crash killed the pilot and the co pilot of the plane. Approximately 40 other individuals were injured, taken to hospitals, including the two officers in the fire truck. It was quite a terrible scene. And there were, of course, accounts from people at an airport. You have people looking out the windows. People could see this. It all sort of unfolded that way in real time. One of the officers expected to be released today. The other is being kept overnight for observation Injured passengers have also been released from the hospital, some of those injuries described as minor. This is the first fatal clash at LaGuardia in over 34 years. And while people worry so much about what happens to planes in the air and in the US they have a relatively good safety record. This is an example of the other complicated ways that danger can arise. Ground collision between, of course, an airborne instrument like a plane and a ground vehicle. Now, the air traffic control audio was captured moments before the collision. And you can hear there's an air traffic controller discussing making a mistake which basically involved allegedly or apparently clearing this. This movement. And so you can hear them admit basically the mistake because they were distracted by or dealing with what they described as another emergency.
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Air Traffic Controller / Investigator
Frontier 4195 to stop there, please.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop.
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Air Traffic Controller / Investigator
Truck one, stop. Truck.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Delta 2603, go around Runway heading 2000. Just 646.
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Air Traffic Controller / Investigator
Just 646. I see you collide with vehicle here. This whole position, I know you can't move vehicles. They're responding to you now. Frontier 4195, I got the word that we're going to be close for a little while. If you want prepared to return to the ramp, let me know. Yeah, we got stuff in progress for that. Man, that was. That wasn't good to watch. Yeah, I know. I was here. I tried to reach out to my stuff and we were dealing with an emergency earlier and I messed up. Nah, man, you did the best you could.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
That is what it sounds like. Those, of course, air traffic controllers working their job and realizing what had occurred. I want to bring in George Novak. He serves as a board member of the FAA Commercial Aviation Safety Team. He's on the FAA's Rulemaking Advisory Committee and is our exper. We await and will interrupt as needed when this press conference gets underway. Your view of what happened here,
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George Novak (FAA Expert)
And these are the types of things that everybody worries about, but they really don't happen that frequently. And it is a complex system. It's a complex system in the air, as we saw in the DCA crash last year. It's a complex system on the ground. And one of the things the FAA has been working on and DOT have been working on for the past couple of are avoiding collisions. And in many cases, those are collisions between aircraft moving from taxiways onto active runways. But also these ground service vehicles and emergency vehicles that are a critical part of the airport infrastructure.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Yeah. And everyone just about as aware of the partial shutdown's impact on airports. Anyone who travels or follows the news lines at many of these airports getting long. That has to do with basically DHS and TSA security at the entry points. We're told today that the supply, if you will, the inventory of air traffic controllers is not immediately affected by that. Can you walk us through that distinction? Because obviously both stories are on people's minds right now.
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George Novak (FAA Expert)
That's correct. I mean, the FAA and Brian Bedford, Administrator Bedford has been doing a tremendous job, as has Secretary Duffy, in attempting to backfill a lot of the empty air traffic controller slots. But this is not related to the TSA DHS funding controversy that we're seeing in Washington right now. They're completely unrelated. And from what I've seen, and the NTSB will be looking into this, but the LaGuardia towers appear to have been fully staffed by, you know, fully trained and competent air traffic controllers. It's a tragic, it's a tragic, tragic accident. But these are not related with the DHS funding, it's not related with tsa, and it does not appear to be at this time related to any shortages of air traffic controllers in that tower.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Understood. And again, that's something that everyone looks at. And these are government regulated situations. Right. The Transportation Department has said they have 33 certified controllers. They would like to have 37, but they don't describe it currently as a gap or deficiency. And there was more than one controller on duty at the time. When you listen to that audio, most people don't, don't hear it all that often. So tell us about what you heard. That was sort of standard. And then what sounds like human beings who just witnessed, I mean, they know better than a casual observer the seriousness of what they witnessed. The likely fatality of folks at the front, the pilots. Walk us through what you heard there.
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George Novak (FAA Expert)
Yeah. And I don't want to comment on where the controller said we were dealing with an earlier emergency. I think that'll come out in the NTSB investigation as to what they were dealing with, if there was any distraction. But in fact, I mean, this is what it is, a complex situation. And if you look, I think you had the graphic up at the time of the ground movements and the air movements around LaGuardia. There are a lot of aircraft coming in and out. There are vehicles on the ground for emergency, for baggage handling, for fuel. And so the controllers and different ones have different responsibilities there, are making sure that that very complex system works well together. And they also have the, they have the benefit of some automation which alerts them to potential collisions. I know, again, Administrator Bedford is taking this very seriously prior to this incident about worrying about and working on ground collisions and how do we avoid those? How do we implement a better system for that? And it's much too early to draw conclusions from a conversation that take place contemporaneously with that accident. And I think it's dangerous to draw too many. Any conclusions also from that conversation.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Yeah. As you mentioned, tragic loss of life. These events are obviously newsworthy. The government's updating on them, it affects things, we all cover them. And yet it's incumbent upon us in journalism to put the context in. LaGuardia is one of the busiest hubs in the country and it went 30 plus years without a fatal crash. From your expertise, what should viewers and citizens take from this? If they look up, they see this and think, oh, maybe flying's not safe anymore.
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George Novak (FAA Expert)
No. And you know, we frequently have to remind ourselves that flying is exponentially safer than any other means of transportation. I mean, that means automobiles, that means rail, bus. It is the safest mode of transportation that we have. And the United States is the safest airspace in the world to be operating in. So we have had two accidents. We had DCA last year. We have this one now. And those do draw attention to. And it is tragic. And people look at that and they naturally worry. But in fact, you know, this is much safer, much, much safer in the seat of an airplane, particularly commercial aircraft, than you are on any other mode of transportation anywhere else in the world.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Yeah. And that's again, that's the statistical context, which is different sometimes from, from what we see. George Novak walking us through this. We'll be coming back to you as we follow this press conference tonight. So thank you for joining me. I want to remind everyone what I said earlier. We've got a lot in the show. Obviously, this is a major event there at LaGuardia, and we're following that. We also have Andrew Weissman coming up. We want to hear what he has to say about his longtime mentor and former boss, Bob Mueller. That story, as well as what's going on at the DOJ right now, I'm also going to bring in a very important expert. As you look at the Iran planning falling apart, the pressure on Trump, General Wesley Clark will tell you what to make of what we're hearing from this Trump Pentagon. That's going to be important when we return in 90 seconds.
- [10:43]
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- [11:14]
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
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NTSB Representative
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gift when you subscribe at prolonlife.com PandoraPro. We are keeping an eye on that news conference I mentioned to you that's supposed to come out about the terrible crash day at LaGuardia. We are going to be covering a lot of other news in this hour, though, including Donald Trump's troubled endgame on Iran this morning. Trump was backing down from a public vow to obliterate civilian power plants in Iran. The laws of war tend to regulate that type of thing, to say the least. He says the US Is also in high level talks with Iran. That's what the president says. Iran's pushing back on that, trump said. The Iranian counterpart in the talks, however, is not the supreme Leader. He won't say who he claims to be negotiating with. Iran's Foreign Ministry said there's, quote, no dialogue between the two nations. Now in war, there can be, of course, many conflicting claims. The problem for Donald Trump is he doesn't have credibility on this issue any more than the way he said that they'd previously obliterated other parts of Iran's weapons last year, only to claim those same weapons as part of the reason they started this war. The two sides are at odds over whether there are truce talks happening. That's how Bloomberg puts it. It could be secret truce talks. We just don't have a lot of credibility from this White House on this war. The street of Hormuz, however, remains closed. Everyone can see that. Oil prices up. Crude oil up about 39%. Gas prices now in America up similarly, 38%. People go to the pump, they see this affect their lives. The spillover is huge when you look at the overall economy and all the other things that involve gas prices. And a question now on Wall street over whether Trump's war, above everything else, could actually trigger a recession. Fertilizer also up 25%. There's a contingent of over 4,000 sailors and marines en route to the region. And questions about what that means. An Israeli official, meanwhile, says the Marines aren't coming for decoration. Trump was pressed on all of this today.
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NTSB Representative
What about the state of Hormuz? Who's going to be in control of that?
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
That'll be opened very soon. If this works, how soon and who's
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NTSB Representative
in control of it?
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Will Iran still be able to control the flow, be jointly controlled by who? Maybe me. Maybe me.
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George Novak (FAA Expert)
Me and the ayatollah.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Whoever the ayatollah is, whoever the next ayatollah. Look. And it'll also be a form of a, a very serious form of a regime change. We're joined now by General Wesley Clark, the retired four star army general who also was the supreme allied commander of NATO, relevant to so many of these stories. Welcome back, General. I mentioned that while there can be strategic opacity in communications during war, Donald Trump has withered away much of the credibility of his administration on this and other topics. The New York Times sang, quote, lying about war is uniquely corrosive. When a president signals the truth, doesn't matter in wartime. He encourages his cabinet and his generals to mislead the country. Makes it harder to win, hiding the realities of conflict. Allies become wary of joining the fight. And he undermines American values and interest. Your view on the president's credibility and the war planning that is evident here, or lack thereof.
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General Wesley Clark
There's no doubt President Trump says a lot of things. He goes from one side to the other, from, we're winning, we need allies. We don't need allies. We don't want to talk now we're talking. But in war, communications like this are part of the, is part of the process. And it's incumbent on the Iranians, if they want to drive a tough bargain, to deny that there's any communication. And at the same time, President Trump is trying to do something with the markets and oil price. And he says there are negotiations. So, you know, it got us through. One day the stock market went up, oil prices went down. There was a little bit of credibility left there. How many times can he play the same card? That's a question. But for one on one throw of the card, it worked. Now we just don't know what the end game is. Ari, on this, you have to do three things simultaneously if you're the United States. Number one, you got to continue the air campaign. Number two, at the same time, you got to find a way to talk about it, because the air campaign is leveraged, but it's not the way you're going to end the war. You've got to have some kind of a settlement at the end of the war, and you got to get the Strait of Hormuz open, and that means troops, and that means lots of troops and more than two mews. So there's 1.8 million people, approximately, that live within, let's say, 50 miles of the. Of the Strait of Hormuz or the northern shore of the Persian Gulf. 1.8 million. And any of those could be terrorists. If we were to put Marines ashore. You're talking about urban conflict. You're talking about something that's far greater than the capacity of two Marine landing teams to be able to handle and provide security. So we don't want to do that, but you may have to do it, and you certainly need to be preparing for it. And in the midst of all this, when you.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Let me ask you, though, to slow you down, how do you do it? Just to slow down. When you say. When you say you may, quote, have to do it, that means because of the decisions the Trump administration has made and the problem in the Strait, you have to resolve it one way or the other. You're saying you either militarily resolve it, which is an escalation, or you get them to reopen it. Because we got an agreement, but you're saying, status quo. We can't just be like this for years.
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General Wesley Clark
That's right, you can't. If you do, it is. It is a loss because you've basically ceded control of 20% of the world's fuel to Iran. So one of the things you need to do probably right away is close the strait by preventing any Iranian ships from leaving. One of the things that's happened to us is we're now trying to do everything at once. So we've relaxed sanctions on Russia. We've told the Iranians, you can sell what's at sea. And all of this in an effort to make the price of gasoline $0.10 less at the pump or $0.15 less at the pump. I understand the politics of it because the politics in America are what drive the foreign policy. And if President Trump loses the support of the Republican Party, the MAGA wing for this because of they're driving pickup trucks or whatever and they're paying too much for gasoline, well, that's a very bad thing for the country. For the country. We don't want to lose this as America. So politics at home are important, but you've got to prioritize things. So we don't want to be giving Russia $100 billion here where they can continue to fight in Ukraine. We need to shut the Strait of Hormuz. You Iranians think you can control it, you're wrong. We control it on the outside. You're not going to get any of your ships out. And I know you're trying to be nice to India. India, why don't you be nice to the world and tell the IR to open the straits completely? And so we're going to have to do things like that, that leverage before we have to commit tens of thousands of U.S. marines and soldiers. I don't want to see that happen. But that's the position that we're in.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Yeah, you lay it out there, including some of the apparent problems that were sparked by choosing to go into this war. General Clark, thank you so much, sir.
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General Wesley Clark
Thank you, Rory.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
Appreciate it. I want to tell folks that coming up, we will reflect on a great American that we lost. Bob Mueller passed away this weekend. And Andrew Weissman, who was his general counsel at the FBI, who was his deputy at the Mueller probe, who knows him as a mentor and a friend, he will get the floor to reflect on that next.
- [20:26]
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- [20:56]
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- [21:27]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Why have I asked my electrician I
- [21:28]
General Wesley Clark
found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster?
- [21:30]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires.
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Air Traffic Controller / Investigator
I knew I could trust him to
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end.
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George Novak (FAA Expert)
This is very strange, Angie.
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Ibram X. Kendi
The one you trust.
- [21:38]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Define the ones you trust.
- [21:39]
Ibram X. Kendi
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- [21:46]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
We're back and joined by Andrew Weissman, who was FBI general counsel and deputy to Bob Mueller in the Mueller probe in the Russia case. Andrew, thanks for being with me and sorry to you for your loss, the nation's loss. Andrew's going to reflect on this tonight, which is something we wanted to do. I want to tell viewers about Mueller, who died late Friday at the age of 81. He was FBI director a week before the September 11th attacks. He stayed on that job for 12 years across two presidents he served whichever president appointed him, regardless of party. Let's show this in full, folks. Andrew, I want everyone to see just one photos, one set of photos we put together appointed by George Bush. And in that key period after 9, 11, fighting terrorism at home and reforming intelligence. And then when President Obama asked him to stay on, he did, to serve his country. I put this on the screen because you can't capture Bob Mueller's 81 years or his many decades in public service, not in five minutes, not in an hour. But this split screen is so different from how some presidents operate today and how different from how many people currently in this Justice Department but across the government operate. That willingness, that expectation, that nonpartisan upholding of the oath in its fullest sense. This is Bob Mueller's legacy here on the screen. In Trump's first term, many Americans learned again about the prosecutor when he was appointed precisely because of that nonpartisan independence. Remember, it was a Republican Justice Department and it was a Republican deputy attorney general who said, we need someone who is independent and unassailable. And that was Bob Mueller. And he approached the Trump Russia probe without fear or favor. They looked at those early incidents. If everyone remembers the firing of James Comey, the questions about Russia, the questions about possible obstruction inside the White House, they did not establish through that report, which, of course, Andrew worked on a criminal level of what was sometimes called collusion or a criminal international conspiracy with the Russian government. And so that report, whatever people felt about it politically, also lived up to Mueller's legacy. He looked at everything and he found what he found. The Times described him as a, quote, button down lock jawed, rock ribbed exemplar of a vanishing cast, what they called the liberal Republican.
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General Wesley Clark
Is my honor to nominate Robert S. Mueller of California to become the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI must remain independent of politics and uncompromising in its mission. When Bob's term was up, I asked Congress to give him two more years. And given the threats facing our nation,
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Ibram X. Kendi
we felt it was critical to have Bob's steady hand and strong leadership at the Bureau.
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
They are wonderful group of individuals.
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George Novak (FAA Expert)
It is the people that has made
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
the Bureau in the past and I'm proud to be a part of it.
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Air Traffic Controller / Investigator
There aren't very many people for whom
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Rory (Host/Anchor)
I would say this, but it is
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NTSB Representative
the end of an era. I mean, Robert Mueller is the last in a line of people that I don't think we'll ever see the likes of again. There just aren't very many figures like
- [25:08]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
that in American public life anymore. There are not many. And at this moment in time, within this government, you could say there are none. Maybe some will come again. Maybe we will have an ebb and a flow in our traditions of justice and nonpartisan adherence to the rule of law in this country. But we would be honoring and remembering Bob Mueller at any time for his contributions. We cannot ignore the fact that we honor him at this time when it is exactly his leadership, his contributions, his non partisan commitment to justice, rule of law and facts wherever they may lead. Something that we sorely still need right now. That's our word on it on this program. I want to bring in Andrew Weissman who as mentioned, worked so closely with Robert Mueller. I'm sorry for your loss and wanted to give you the floor tonight to reflect.
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Air Traffic Controller / Investigator
Well, one thing that I agree and disagree with Rachel about is it is true that we are not likely to see in public service the likes of him. I hope we do. But it's worth remembering that he has left a legacy for I would say thousands of people, career people at the Department of Justice and in the FBI who revere him. And in many ways that is his legacy. The model, he said, is something that you may not see maybe in leaders in Washington, but for career people in the Department of Justice and the FBI and elsewhere in the government, in the intelligence community, he was looked up to so strongly for his decades of experience. I mean, of course there's his resume. He was somebody born into privilege who when graduating from Princeton, volunteered to go to the Marines and served for decades in public service. He did not so called cash in. He was somebody who believed strongly in public service. And he pushed himself and people around him to give their absolute best as a matter of the privilege that he felt for being in public service and what was owed to the public. I can give a quick story that I think gives you some sense of what I'm talking about. There was, when I was general counsel, there was some training material that people in the FBI had prepared that was really erroneous and said things about the Muslim community and was training about the Muslim community in ways that was really wrong and horrific. And he insisted that there be a thorough investigation, that that be accounted for, that he own up to it. And he met with Muslim leaders himself. He wasn't going to pass this off to anyone. I remember him canceling everything that day to meet with people in a room where he said, I am going to sit there and I am going to explain exact what happened. I'm going to own it. I'm going to tell them what went wrong, what we're doing about it. He also instituted a policy that new FBI agents, in addition to what Louis Freeh, a former FBI director, had done, which was that new FBI agents had to go, as part of their training, to the Holocaust Museum with the idea of seeing what an authoritarian regime could become. He insisted that they also go to a mosque, say that this religion was not as foreign to and people weren't afraid of what it meant. And I remember he would not be interrupted until everybody, every Muslim leader who was in that room had every single answer to every question they had and took ownership of it. And he just took that so much as part of what he owed. When there was something that went wrong, that you don't hide it, that you don't make other people do it, that you hold yourself to account, and it's what you owe the public, that honesty and truthfulness, and that you figure out how you're going to correct it and tell people what you're doing about it. And that's just a vignette of the model. And I think it's why people like me just revered him so much, because he lived his principles.
- [29:49]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Yeah, and you mentioned principles. We hear words like courage and service. We hear about public service a lot in covering government. And I wonder what you saw behind closed doors that you recall about him. Because some people go into this field for one reason and it mutates into another. Some go into it from the beginning with thoughts about leveraging it, enriching themselves, power, attention, all that. And this was someone who we know, and we saw this over the years and I covered him in the legal side on FBI doj, and then of course, the Mueller report. This was someone who didn't seem to pursue any limelight and did very little, quote, leveraging. That's what we see in the revolving doors of Washington. What did you see of those qualities behind the scenes?
- [30:41]
Air Traffic Controller / Investigator
Well, remember also here's somebody who has, he sort of had a natural shyness. He had an aversion to the press. He's somebody who at one point just said, I want to become a line prosecutor again and work on homicide cases as a line prosecutor in D.C. after having a very high level position in Washington as a sense of what, what, what he was about. I also think that the image of him as somebody who was brusque or cold could not be further from the truth. When I was working on the Mueller investigation, there were two times where I had been attacked in the press and I was very concerned about being, being sort of a distraction. And, and I went in to resign twice to tell him that I really didn't want in any way distract from the success and the apparent success of it. And, you know, he, if we joked around with you, you knew you were just fine. And he was like, oh, don't worry, as soon as I don't need you, you're gone. But the third time there was an article, an op ed that was calling on me to essentially have to be fired or leave. And it actually, really, really did hurt. And I get to the office that morning and Robert Mueller is outside my office waiting for me. And I go in and I start to resign again. And he said to me, I just want to make sure you know that, that your last day in this office will be my last day. And I started and he just walked out. That was, I mean, he is, he understood how I would feel. He understood the difference between sort of when he was joking around and when he, when he needed to be supportive. And he was so loyal to his people and so supportive and that the image that you saw from the outside of somebody who could seem all business and he was, in terms of the work and what he demanded of himself and of us also was so loyal.
- [32:59]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
In the spirit of keeping an eye on everything going on today, I'm going to jump in. We're going to listen. Thank you to Andrew Weissman. We're going to listen in to this NTSB presentation, newest board member at the
- [33:10]
NTSB Representative
National Transportation Safety Board. And this is his training launch. Also with me today is Doug Brazy. Doug B R A Z Y Doug Brazy is our investigator in charge, or IIC, as we refer to the investigator in charge. He is a senior aviation accident investigator and he has been with the NTSB for 34 years. NTSB, as some of you may know, is an independent federal agency that's charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States as well as significant events in other modes of transportation. We are independent. We are not part of the U.S. department of Transportation. And why that is important to mention is that as part of our investigation, we also have oversight authority in the investigation over the Federal Aviation Administration. We're here to investigate a collision between a Bombardier CRJ900 with an aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle while the aircraft was landing at LaGuardia last night around 11:37pm Eastern Daylight Time. The airplane was operated by Jazz Aviation doing business as Air Canada Express Flight 8646. It had 72 passengers on board and four crew on board. Two firefighters were in the firefighting vehicle. I want to just take a moment and on behalf of the entire National Transportation Safety Board, express our deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy. We also know others have suffered injury and our sympathies are with each of you as well. I will mention we have five members of our Transportation Disaster Assistance Team here on scene as well as the chief of our Transportation Disaster Assistance Division. They work in concert with the American Red Cross and thank you to the American Red Cross to provide resources and information about our investigation and what we are doing to those who lost loved or those survivors or families of survivors throughout the investigation, not just here on scene, but as we move forward with our investigation through the final board meeting and sometimes after. We also expect to have around 25 specialists on site here on scene. That is in addition to many employees at the NTSB who are supporting this investigation. Back at headquarters in Washington, D.C. the team in total began to arrive at 3:10am Some are still en route, which means that we have not had a full day of investigation here today. And I think that's important because there are a lot of questions and I understand there are a lot of questions. I've heard them on air traffic control. I've heard questions on the tower. I've heard questions on air traffic control communications. I've heard questions on the vehicle, many questions. And I know that you all have those questions, but I just want to set expectations. We have LaGuardia that was shut down. We had a ground stop at Newark today. And then we have DHS that shut down. And we have long TSA lines. We have1, our eighth air traffic control specialist who was in line with TSA for three hours until we called in Houston to beg to see if we can get her through so we can get her here. So it's been a really, really big challenge to get the entire team here. And they're still arriving as I speak, right up until about, I think the latest I saw was midnight, maybe 1am tomorrow morning. So is a long travel day for many of those, and many are arriving by sure plane. We have had many that have come here by train and certainly automobile. We drove up a number of us. So with that said, I do want to talk a little bit about what we were able to do today. We did a walking inspection of the scene and we have a site commander doing a really important job, which is a safety walkthrough of the scene to make sure that our safety investigators or our investigators are safe while they are on scene. There is a tremendous, tremendous amount of debris from taxiway Delta across Runway four into some other areas. It's pretty expansive. And we want to make sure, because as you're walking around, you can get injured. There's also hazardous materials, of course, on the firefighting vehicle itself. So we want to make sure their safety. In addition, obviously, the tail of this aircraft is on the ground and in order to get to the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, we, the Port Authority and the emergency responders cut a hole on the roof of the aircraft, dropped down and was able to get the CVR and FDR for us, which then one of our investigators drove back to our labs in Washington, D.C. today, where they've been able to at least verify that the cockpit voice recorder was not damaged. They'll begin work on the fdr, the flight data recorder, tomorrow. Tomorrow, and hopefully we'll have information to share. My hope is that we'll have information to share on that tomorrow in a press conference. We also began to collect information from FAA and others, certainly on air traffic control staffing, in the tower, communications training. We're looking for information today from the Fire and Rescue Department on their crew and on their vehicles, what the capabilities were of their vehicles and, you know, everything from how much they weighed to what they were carrying. And then we began to form our investigative groups for this investigation. So we have an operations group that we have formed and that will look at the operator itself as well as procedures and training for the aircraft. We will have a systems investigative group. That group will examine the components of the airplane's hydraulic, electrical, navigational, pneumatic and associated systems, including instruments and flight control system. We have a structures group that will be documenting the airframe wreckage and the accident scene, including calculating impact angles. And we have an air traffic control investigative group as well, as I mentioned, a cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder group. And finally, we'll have an airport operations and survival factors combined group. That group will look at the airport rescue and firefighting operations at the airport and they will look at injuries to occupants as it relates to the dynamics of this crash I mentioned. We have the CVR and fdr. We've also collected and have continued to collect surveillance video. We've asked the Federal Aviation Administration who will be providing that a ASDE replay of the event as the airport surface detection equipment replay of the event. And that is actually looking at the ASDE display that was provided to the controller. And so we will be looking at that where we can see where the aircraft was at certain times and whether the truck was visible on ASDE. We'll also be getting an ASDE analysis from the FAA's Tech center that will provide us information on whether alerts were generated and other data, including distance of the aircraft that was landing on Runway four as the firefighting vehicle was approaching the Runway from taxiway Delta. With that, I'm going to take some questions, but again, I just want to be clear. I know you have a lot of questions. You have a lot of detailed questions and you want that information. I hope to provide more of that information tomorrow. I won't be able to provide a lot of that information tonight. We have a lot of data right now, a lot of information, including information on tower staffing. But the NTSB deals in facts. We don't speculate. We don't take one person at their word. We verify that information carefully before we provide it. So that is something we still have to do with that. I'll take that. Can you provide your name and affiliation?
- [43:52]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Can you articulate.
- [44:01]
NTSB Representative
Can I articulate some of the remaining questions that we have particularly well for this investigation, for the accident itself, and particularly related to air traffic control? You know, at this stage of the investigation, we don't limit ourselves. So we have questions on everything and we look for everything. We collect everything. We may have information that comes our way that we didn't expect. So we don't rule anything out until later. So we have a lot of questions on everything. Yes.
- [44:38]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
On this tower tab, can you please tell us how many controllers were in the tower? Was that aircraft? Have we ever all now boat that audio. So was that man also doing ground control and aircraft control at the same time?
- [44:59]
NTSB Representative
Yeah. The question is can I provide information regarding staffing in the tower? Can I provide information on who the or what, what position the controller held that was communicating and can I provide information about the pilot backgrounds at this time? The not at this time. I will have that information tomorrow. Do we have information? Yes, but we need to verify that information before we provide it. It's just preliminary information and we aren't able to provide it yet. We still have to do. The question is how do we go about verifying it. We have to look at records. There's sign in sheets. We have to do interviews. We have to look at timecards. There's a lot of information that we and then official records from the airline. So that is information we have to corroborate. David and then I'm going to come over here.
- [45:57]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
We've been listening to this NTSB update. We got the full briefing. They are taking some questions as you hear. We're going to keep monitoring this as they're briefing on that crash at LaGuardia and we'll have more Ms. Now coverage when we return.
- [46:11]
NTSB Representative
The question.
- [46:19]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
There's a lot going on. Republicans are nervous clearly about losing the midterms. And rather than adjust their message or their policies, President Trump is pushing a voter suppression bill. Many critics point out that it does not safeguard voting but rather puts up all kinds of impediments and would discriminate against minorities, which follows a long ugly history in this country. Widen out and you see that some on the right are embracing more direct and virulent forms of hate. The great replacement theory ideology, which is something that we've warned about for years on this program, including how Tucker Carlson, back when he was on Fox was mainlining a kind of a right wing ancient French castle reboot of antisemitism, anti immigrant and anti minority propaganda. You can consider it a quote, political theory that argues powerful elites enable people of color to steal the lives, livelihoods, culture, electoral power and freedoms of white people. And that then according to some justifies their need for authoritarian protection. I'm quoting this book, which I'll explain in a moment. But let me assure you something that was totally fringe has been migrating towards the center right of the MAGA media universe where there's also a clash over Tucker Carlson and others platforming anti Semites and other hate mongers and a question of what is really valid to discuss these days. Take a look. You've heard a lot about the Great
- [47:55]
George Novak (FAA Expert)
Replacement Theory recently, it's everywhere.
- [47:58]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
The strategy is to change the demographics of the country. You disempower the people who live here, you take their votes away. The Democrats want to invite caravan after caravan of illegal aliens into our country. Total demographic change. Now some have called this replacement the Save America Act. It's very simple. All voters must show the act voter id. They know if we get this, they probably won't win an election for 50 years. I'm now joined by the professor I quoted, Ibram X Kendi from Howard. He's also been named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People MacArthur Genius winner. He's written 17 books. The new one, his chain of Ideas, the Origins of Our Authoritarian Age. Out now. Welcome.
- [48:53]
Ibram X. Kendi
Thank you for having me.
- [48:55]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
What do you document in this new book?
- [48:57]
Air Traffic Controller / Investigator
Look.
- [49:00]
Ibram X. Kendi
Well, I document frankly the reemergence of Great Replacement Theory not only in the United States, but around the world. And certainly as you defined it, this notion that powerful elites are enabling peoples of color to displace the lives and livelihoods of white people. And this is justifying the building of authoritarian states because you have authoritarian politicians like Trump claiming that he is here to protect white Americans when his policies are harming white Americans and the rest of us.
- [49:37]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Why do these type of repressive efforts or governments make such a point of trying to convince the public that a certain group is a victim? They're not the groups you thought were the victim. It's the men or it's the rich white people or you name it. Why does that function in these systems?
- [49:57]
Ibram X. Kendi
Because they're using Great Replacement Theory to get people, get everyday people to consent to their own domination. Which is to say they want people to feel that they need this all powerful protector in order to save their lives, save their jobs, so that they can have a justification for authoritarianism. And it also allows those super wealthy Americans like an Elon Musk who has spoken about Great Replacement Theory multiple times, to distract from how his work is actually leading to people losing their jobs or not getting the type of status that they want.
- [50:42]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Do you view this as an exercise in documentation and reportage or do you have some idea reform for people who read this and agree with you and say what do we do?
- [50:56]
Ibram X. Kendi
Well, it's mainly a history. It's mainly documenting this theory's re emergence. Because I first and foremost think that we can't even begin to resist this theory that I argue is animating our politics. That's become the most dominant political theory of our time. A conspiracy theory if we can't recognize it, if we don't understand it, if we don't understand the ideas that are forming its foundation.
- [51:26]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Is there anything you found in your research that really sort of surprised you or shocked you, even though you've been steeped in some of this material for quite some time?
- [51:36]
Ibram X. Kendi
I think there's many things. But one thing I'll mention is so much of the playbook that the Trump administration has been using over the last last year was written and refined and tested by authoritarians in other countries. And I think many Americans are going to be frankly shocked by how much that's happened in the United States, literally has happened in other countries. The terms that are being used like invader, that's a term that Renaud Camus used in 2011 when he wrote the book the Great Replacement and he's a French novelist. List?
- [52:17]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Yeah. And what are your tips for media literacy or how to be informed during a time where these conspiracy theories involve a lot of misinformation? That's how they spread, especially online.
- [52:33]
Ibram X. Kendi
Well, first and foremost, when you are being told that that other group is coming for you, coming to harm you is the problem is the internal enemy. You're hear great replacement theory. And this is a theory that is trying to get you to believe that the problem are those other people as opposed to those actual politicians and their and their benefactors who are actually likely the cause of your own pain.
- [53:06]
Rory (Host/Anchor)
Yeah, I mean that's, that's a fair point. There is just giving people a heads up about how they're being marketed or politically sold. So you're kind of alert or ready for it or your uncle or whoever it is in your life that's repeating this stuff back to you. A lot going on today. Ibram. Kendi, thanks for joining us. We wanted to get this conversation in and I want to tell folks the book is Chain of the Origins of Our Authoritarian Age. You can check it out, Google for that or go on wherever you get your books to look up. Kendi and stay informed. That does it for us. The weeknight is up next.
- [53:40]
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