that's now caused major national blowback as it should. >> we have to go. we'll talk more about this later on. thank you so much for watching. join me back here for "the lead" at 4:00. brianna keilar will continue our coverage now. thanks for watching. hi, there. i'm brianna keilar in for wolf blitzer. it is 1:00 p.m. here in washington. 6:00 p.m. in london. 8:00 p.m. in jerusalem and 1:00 a.m. in jakarta, indonesia. wherever you're watching us from around the world, thank you for joining us. we begin with the heartbreaking discovery in the waters off of indonesia, airasia has confirmed that debris found in the java sea is from flight 8501. search crews have also recovered three bodies. 162 people were on board the plane when it lost contact with air traffic control early sunday. here are the latest headlines.

airasia officials say the focus now is on the recovery effort. the search area is about six miles from the plane's last known location. analysts say finding the cockpit voice and data recorders, the so-called black boxes, is key to trying to figure out what went wrong. a u.s. navy ship has arrived in the search area. "the uss sampson" was dispatched following a request from the indonesian government. the pentagon says another ship "the uss ft. worth" is also getting ready to deploy. the discovery of debris and bodies is devastating news for the families of the passengers and crew. while watching a live news conference on television relatives saw a body among the wreckage. one woman had to be carried away on a stretcher. hospitals in indonesia are preparing to help identify the bodies being recovered from flight 8501. in the meantime divers and ships equipped with sonar are being sent to the area where the debris was located. cnn's andrew stevens reports on

the search for answers and for more wreckage from the doomed plane. >> reporter: breaking this morning, a devastating discovery, airasia confirming a number of bodies passengers of airasia 8501 found floating in the java sea. the vicks and debris some six miles from the aircraft's last known location. >> i think the debris field confirms a catastrophic event. i expect that the plane fuselage probably split in two. >> reporter: officials saying the debris found belongs to the missing airasia flight 8501. searchers locating the debris in at least three separate locations, but so far, no survivors. a heartbreaking end to the three-day search for the plane. relatives of those on board the plane in anguish over the news screaming, crying. these loved ones set to fly over

the search area wednesday above a specially chartered airasia flight to pray for their loved ones. it's unclear if families will move forward with that flight. airasia's ceo, tony fernandez, expressing his condolences saying my heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in qz 8501. now the somber task of recovering the wreckage, the flight data and cockpit voice recorders and piecing together what caused the plane to go down. overnight, audio transmissions from airasia 8501's cockpit to air traffic control surfacing providing little to know clues. the pilots cleared for take-off from surabaya to singapore but would never arrive. >> for more now on the discovery of debris and what this could tell us i'm joined by cnn aviation correspondent richard quest, david soucie and peter

goelz. the first of the debris was found six miles from the point of last contact with the plane. what does that tell us, richard? >> it tells us that the plane as it left the sky did so pretty much intact. if it had broken up at a very high altitude there would have been a much greater spread of debris. if you look at for example, mh-17, if you look at the other examples where planes have broken up in the sky, the debris is spread far and wide. that's not the case here. >> david, does that seem close when you're talking about crash sites? do you think crews should have found the debris sooner? >> no i think that it's right on schedule with what you would expect in this. but back to richard's point, i'm a little concerned about the lack of debris, actually. there's a few of the deceased that are there. the door is there and this raft

and the tank that was with it. now, all of those things are contained. in fact the bag itself all those things are contained in the baggage compartment. and that aft baggage compartment door would have come off. the escape slide would have come out as well. and this bag is actually a flyaway kit which is used in case the aircraft has to land somewhere where there's no maintenance. it includes things like lightbulbs, oil, things like that. it's not a bag from the passengers. it's a bag that's part of the equipment on the aircraft. so i'm kind of hesitant right now to make the assumption that the aircraft broke up in-flight to the extent where it couldn't fly. at this point, all i know is the door came off and some things came out of that aft baggage compartment. >> there's that concern. and then also as -- we don't have the black boxes at this point. that's what the search continues to be. but we're able to pick up some

hints from what we're seeing. for instance one of the victims, it appears -- we saw this certainly when the plane broke up over ukraine after it was shot down. many of the bodies only clad in underwear, not in clothes. that was the case with one of these bodies floating in the water. what does that tell snus. >> it might indicate that late in the accident sequence which would not be unusual, the plane started to come undone at a lower altitude and a few of the passengers -- the victims were ejected. it could indicate that. but it's far too soon. we need to look at the wreckage to see whether it shows tearing or compression damage. and we need to find the main debris field which means they have to get the sonar detectors in to pick up the pings from the black boxes as soon as possible. >> so how far do you think, david, this debris field could be spread over, then? >> well if you look at mh-17,

it was spread out over about six miles. and that was an in-flight break-up due to the missile and the impact with that missile. so it can continue to fly. the main body of the section can continue to fly or once again, it could very well be right where this debris is and just be all submerged at this point. but it's too early to tell. and the key is in the flight control, the flight data recorder and the cockpit data recorder. >> richard, how long do you think it may take to locate the wreckage of the plane? >> david, i'm sure, is correct. there's a larger debris field out there. we're looking at a few more days to actually locate it. it's done by the usual, traditional ways of reverse drifting, which way the current -- not particularly strong current here but which way the winds were blowing, which way it's likely to have gone. there's no good news here.

so i'll put it in terms of the encouraging news is the fact they have found some debris -- like with 447 -- does allow them to have great confidence in which direction to go forward. so it is a matter of days or weeks. i think probably just days before you would find a larger debris field. this isn't deep water. it's not dramatically far from land. it's not the middle of the south atlantic or the south indian ocean. >> and it is shallow, certainly compared to some of these other recoveries that we've talked about. we'll certainly be waiting to find out about those data and voice recorders. richard quest, david soucie, peter goelz, stick around. this was a violent storm that airasia 8501 flew into. it's monsoon season in this area. what kind of weather will searchers have to endure as they search for the black boxes? just how far down will they have

to look? and we want to hear from you. use #8501qs on twitter. plus was the fbi wrong to point the finger at north korea in the hack against sony? one security firm says yes. we'll tell you who they believe is behind the hack.

the water where debris from airasia 8501 has been found is relatively shallow. it's really only about 80 to 100 feet deep in some places. but searchers may have to deal with wind and currents and some rather challenging weather conditions as they move into this recovery operation. chad myers here now to walk us through it. what all are they facing chad? >> very big storms, brianna, that pick up right in the middle of the morning hours, when you want it to calm down when all the assets get there and the daylight is there, it just gets windy. and the wind creates whitecaps. you're looking for parts of a white plane with whitecaps everywhere, doesn't go very well. going to be a difficult process. every time one of these big red blobs, a clustered thunderstorm runs over the debris field,

winds pick up lightning picks up as well. and all of a sudden you're scattering that debris even more. now, eventually we're going to get the pinger locater on top of the pinger itself and we'll find it. but i'm on board with david here with this larger debris field because for so many days we've had wibdnd. and any little piece of debris that's been sticking up out of the water at all will have windage, like a sailboat. and it will float down much faster than something slightly below the surface but not sticking up very much. so you're starting with a wind of 30 miles per hour at times. you can really push some of these pieces of debris pretty far. here's the deal with this area every time it's morning, the storms pick up. tomorrow night when the sun sets it's going to be almost completely clear with very few showers. go ahead to the next morning. what happens? more storms pick up. it's in diurnal process,

opposite the process we see here in the states where our storms pick up around 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon. we think about the northern hemisphere have short days and long nights. this is the equator is the days and the nights are equal for the equator thing. very little current activity in this area at least from where the last known position was to the debris field. i think the debris is getting more spread out by wind than by current, brianna. >> chad, thank you so much. if search-and-recovery crews are able to recover the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, what do we expect to learn? joining me on the phone, we have an aviation consultant and former pilot who's actually flown this route that flight 8501 took. thanks so much for being with us, allister. we're learning there was a two-minute delay between the pilot's request to ascend and the controller's approval.

is this a normal amount of time in that situation and in that area? >> hello, brianna. there could be a delay for various reasons. one, the controller had to confirm that it is clear to give him a climb. there will be delay if there's another aircraft in the vicinity and he has to make quick calculations as to whether or not this aircraft climbing at its speed will get too close within the safety margins with any other aircraft passing either in the opposite direction or about in the same direction. so it's not -- i wouldn't see that as particularly unusual for a two-minute delay. but the question should really be asked as to why they were asking for a climb in the first place because if this was the flight plan level that they were hoping to achieve, that would be a normal request. if it was to climb over the top

of weather, well then you should ask whether it's a wise decision to do so. it's difficult to climb over a tropical thunderstorm. they have quite extensive vertical development and they grow at a very fast rate. it's difficult to second-guess what a very experienced crew were doing when i'm sitting here on the ground and reading through press reports. >> you have flown this route. you were an experienced pilot. if this plane did get into a stall as we think may have been the case if it was ascending and lost air speed that was needed to keep the plane flying what can you do to get out of a stall like that when -- this is a huge plane. >> well, i'll talk in general terms here. but if you do have a stall at

high altitudes, the very first thing you're going to do is lower the nose and apply more power. and that's how you would normally recover from that. if they're in a climb, probably go pretty much like full power anyway. the only thing left to do is to lower the nose. to gain speed. we're probably thinking here of the air france accident where the -- that was over the atlantic when the aircraft impacted the sea. that was because the first officer was holding the nose of the aircraft up because he was getting a false air speed indicator warning because of a faulty pitot tube that had iced up in these conditions. but that is unlikely to be the case here. because you have a different type of pitot on the a-320 or alternately, more importantly, that fault has been rectified.

so it's a question of what actually happened on the day there. but generally speaking with the stall, that recovery is as i explained. >> put the nose down and get the speed up. so you're looking now -- since we spoke yesterday, there is now new evidence having found some of the debris from this plane. with what you know about the debris that's been found, the fact that one of the bodies seen was not clothed, was only wearing undergarments, what can you determine from what happened? >> well, this is slightly outside of my field. all i can speak is from what i know from previous accidents. but if an aircraft was to break up in the air, then it's not unusual for the people on board to lose their clothing in the fall. but the same thing could happen on impact. but as i say, this is not my field of expertise. >> yeah. all right.

and certainly it's really those black boxes that we'll be waiting for to really answer all of these questions. thanks for joining us on the phone. now that some of the wreckage of airasia has been discovered crews will be able to go under water and start searching for the rest of the plane. we'll have a look at how they might be doing that next. and one security group says north korea was not behind that attack on sony. they think they know exactly who is. (vo) nourished. rescued. protected. given new hope. during the subaru "share the love" event, subaru owners feel it, too. because when you take home a new subaru we donate 250 dollars to helping those in need. we'll have given 50 million dollars over seven years. love. it's what makes a subaru a subaru.

in other news a health care worker who has been diagnosed with ebola is now in a london hospital. the woman, a nurse, was transferred there from scotland. she was a volunteer who was sent to sierra leone by the government last month. she's the first person diagnosed with ebola in the united kingdom and the second to be treated at the special isolation unit at london's royal free hospital. a cyber security firm disputes the fbi's claim that north korea was behind a huge and rather embarrassing hack of sony pictures. members of north security met with the fbi for three hours

yesterday to argue that disgruntled sony employees were probably behind this data breach, not north korea. the firm's ceo explains some of its reasoning last night on cnn. >> the suspects -- at least one had tied to -- critical knowledge of sony systems, i.p. addresses, credentials, et cetera. and also had motive for what i would say would be upset at sony due to reorganization that happened within the department. >> was the fbi wrong to point the finger at north korea? cnn justice correspondent pamela brown has been talking to the fbi about it. the fbi meets with norse. then what does the fbi say after that meeting? are they won over at all or not? >> absolutely not. the fbi stands behind its initial assessment. that north korea is the sole suspect.

they say nothing on that front has changed. there's no credible information to indicate that any other individuals were involved with the sony hack. so we talked about the fact that the fbi met with cyber experts from the company norse last night. this company actually launched its own independent investigation. and the company says it shared data with the fbi indicating that other individuals not directly linked to the north korean government were involved in the hack including a former sony employee of ten years who was laid off last may. norse contends this employee is actually the one that gave the top secret administrator credentials and handed it over to the hackers, guardians of peace, who then claimed responsibility for the hack. but the fbi is saying again, no credible information to back that up. and they say their assessment didn't just come from their own investigation but also the investigation with foreign partners, department of homeland security and others. >> so they're saying there was no disgruntled employee involved

in this? >> they're saying there's no credible information to back up the idea that anyone outside of the north korean government was involved in this hack. now, the investigation is ongoing. it's important to -- >> and it takes time. >> yes. but i will say from very early on in this investigation, earlier than normal from what i've seen in cyber investigations there was a strong sense that the north korean government was behind it from the beginning. norse contends that the disgruntled sony employee took the credentials and the information was taken off the system and then north korea got involved later on. the fbi saying look we believe north korea's the sole suspect here. >> is norse credible are they good at this? >> norse -- there are many cyber security firms. norse wasn't brought in from the private sector is to help investigate. norse took it upon themselves to

look into this. they looked at human resources documents that were dumped online by the hackers and cross-referenced it with other information in order to come to this conclusion. but as you heard the ceo say, they're pretty convinced by their theory. >> pretty interesting. we really want to get to the bottom of this. >> absolutely. >> we'll keep digging along with you. pamela, thank you. coming up we have more on the crash of airasia flight 8501. we'll take a closer look at where the debris was found. we'll show you the different underwater devices that may be used to retrieve it. later on our panel of experts will answer your questions about flight 8501. stay with us.

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finding answers won't be an easy or quick process. but experts do have sophisticated tools to help recover the plane from the bottom of the sea. tom foreman here with more on this. this is a tough task. what's the biggest challenge in this kind of recovery tom? >> the biggest challenge in this is going to be sheer topography. but it's in their favor in this case. if you look at what we're talking about here this is some 100 miles or so offshore. that's in their favor. the depth of the water out here is in their favor in that it's only maybe 100 feet deep in that particular area. they already have debris on the surface pointing them to where they need to go. and the tools they have are the same tools we talk about in the malaysia crash, the twa crash. they will deploy all of them at some point here. it's not just a matter of looking down to see it with divers. the water level in this area is about 100 feet or so. this is easily in the range of divers.

but they'll also use pinger locaters to find out where the flight data recorders are and any sort of underwater robotics they want to look through the wreckage, to retrieve some of the wreckage. they have a lot of tools as their disposal here. they will probably deploy all f of them as they try to collect every piece of this plane that they can, along with all of the victims. >> do they use the divers and submersibles at the same time? >> not everything is created equal down here. recovery of the bodies is important. the recovery of things like the flight data recorder is very important. but this process could drag on for some time. i mentioned tw-800 that went down off long island. we're talking about ocean currents that can move things around. twa-800 went down over this kind of water.

they collected about 95% of the plane and recovered every victim even though the last one wasn't found for ten months. in these circumstances, the chances of getting it all together are pretty good. and the more they can collect all of this the more they can look to say, did something fail here did something fail here? what was the condition inside what's left of the cabin? did that indicate it hit hard or that it glided in and tore up on the water's surface? was there any effort for people to get out of the plane, were they alive after hitting the water? those things can be answered by collecting all this evidence. and that process is just starting. could take a long time. and the analysis maybe a lot longer. >> is that one of the takeaways from the flight off of long island from the twa flight? because the water depth is about the same are we able to say that the recovery prospects for 8501 are pretty good? >> i think the recovery prospects are excellent unless they find that for some reason something really unusual happened. for example, if they find evidence that the plane actually

tore up in-flight at 32,000 feet and the debris is spread over a very, very big area, then it gets more complicated. but if any way it actually is more or less intact until it hits the water, 100 feet of water, the big parts, the things you want to know about, the engines, the cockpit, the electrical systems, all those things, they're going to be right there. they're not going to go very far. a current isn't going move an airplane. it's not strong enough. >> tom, thank you so much. the ceos of airasia and malaysia airlines have one thing in common their worst nightmares came true when a major plane crash happened on their watch. what they don't have in common is the way they handled those disasters. we'll take a look at their differences in leadership and we also want to hear from you. sen your questions to #8501qs. we have our team of experts here to answer your questions later this hour.

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the ceo of airasia has been front and center since the start of the crisis involving flight 8501. tony fernandez is outspoken, a bit of a celebrity.

he's a former host of "the apprentice asia" who bought the airline for less than a buck. but now he's facing his biggest challenge. the story from cnn's poppy harlow. >> reporter: tony fernandez is living the moment every airline executive dreads. >> we are very devastated about what's happened. >> reporter: airasia's ceo since 2001 fernandez tweeted more than a dozen times in the hours following the plane's disappearance. this is my worst nightmare. we will go through this terrible ordeal together. >> our concern right now is for the relatives and for the next of kin. >> reporter: the approach of airasia's ceo thus far stands in stark contrast to that of malaysia's ceo after mh-370 disappeared. >> it is a boeing 777 wide body twin jet. >> our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members.

>> reporter: but malaysia airlines didn't tell families flight 370 was missing until after it was supposed to have arrived in beijing, many hours after it vanished. and there was the disastrous text message sent from malaysia airlines to family members saying none of those on board survived. malaysia air ceo defended the move saying it was the best way to tell those it could not reach by phone or in person. but it led to some demanding his resignation. >> they are different men with different strategies but it doesn't mean one's better than the other when it comes to running an airline. whether you have tony coming out in front, leading, a.j. was much more behind he was much more the government's leading the way forward, we're dealing with it in that way. that does not mean that behind the scenes he wasn't as involved with his staff and with the

airline. >> reporter: how much do you think tony fernandez has learned from really the communications debacle after mh-370? >> i think every ceo of an airline around the world has learned something from the malaysia airline situation. that was impersonal, disorganized. it was really a checklist of all the bad things that an airline could do. >> reporter: malaysia airlines is replacing its ceo as part of the company's recovery plan. as for airasia's fernandez, the outspoken ceo may have managed to turn around a failing airline, but his biggest challenge is ahead. >> we have carried 220 million people up to this point. of course there's going to be some reaction. but we are confident in our ability to fly people. >> reporter: the question now, will flyers feel as confident?

>> there is still time to get your questions in. use #8501qs on twitter. we'll ask your questions to our team of experts next. and we'll tell you how the number three house republican is responding to a revelation that he gave a speech to a white supremacist group.

now that the wreckage of flight 8501 have been found, the questions have been shifted from where is it to how did it happen? many of you have submitted your questions on twitter. and we have richard quest and peter goelz here also david soucie to provide some answers for it. peter, do you first. shelly trent tweeted, she wants to know were the passengers aware of what was happening or would rapid descend make them pass out? i hope they weren't awake, she says. >> that's a tough question and it's often asked by family members and others. unfortunately, unless the plane broke up in midflight, the pressurization would have kept people alive and it would have been a dreadful descent. >> and that's what happened with air france 447, right? >> that's correct. it's just a tough, tough

situation. >> it's horrible to think about. david, philip hall wants to know, debris seems to be southeast of the last known location, does this imply that the pilot tried to turn around or is this due to currents? >> there's actually three options. one would be because of current. the other would be that he chose to turn around as being the most safe path to get through what he was going through. the third would be that he incurred a deep stall. in a deep stall recovery the aircraft is intent on getting -- or the pilot is intent on getting air over the top of the wings so he doesn't really pay attention to which direction he's going at that point. he's going to go the direction the plane wants to go. >> that's certainly good to know. richard, david writes is it possible that in an attempt to recover from a stall that a vertical stabilizer failure occurred? he's referencing american flight 587.

>> not terribly likely. and if it did happen that would have been just compounding the other events that were already -- any stall that was so dramatic that the plane was doomed i wouldn't have necessarily worried about anything else that happened. this was the stall that took -- if it was a stall, that's what took the plane down. it wouldn't have been something like the rutter or the fin or something else falling off. if anything did fall off the aircraft it would be because this plane was falling out of the sky. >> at such a force. david, glenn marshall is asking could this plane have flown direct into a large microburst and not recovered? is that a possibility? >> it's certainly a possibility when you look at those weather charts and where it is. it's certainly possible. there are two parts to that question. but what i would say is that anything is possible in these thunderstorms. i've worked several aircraft accidents. but with smaller aircraft

literally torn apart by these storms but in this case it would have had to sneak up on him. or he misinterpreted the information or didn't get the accurate information through his instruments to make the proper choice. >> peter, david asks a question that i think harkens back to air france 447, he says is it possible the pilot had to use the bathroom and left the less-experienced co-pilot in control? what's the protocol? >> well, sure, that has happened on occasion -- >> did that happen on air france? something like this? >> well the lead captain was taking a rest period. and it's happened in egypt air as well where the lead captain was out of the cockpit. but in this case where you're approaching a line of threatening thunderstorms, both crew members, i'm sure were in the cockpit trying to diagnose what was the best way to get through. so i'd find that highly unlikely. but we'll know once we get the data recorders back. >> and this was a relatively

short flight. two hours, 45 minutes or so in. >> unlikely. >> unlikely. this is for you, richard, dante carter writes airasia 8501 seems to have had the same fate as air france. pilots have to become experts in recovering airplanes from a stall. so this is more of a statement. but the idea being, if it was a stall, we know it's difficult to recover from but he's saying they need to be better at it. what do you think? >> well pilots are extremely well-trained at recovering from stalls. it's the one thing that they train more than anything else to do. it's not the stall as such. it's the circumstances of the stall. what's known as a high-altitude stall when the plane is traveling -- when there are very unusual circumstances, either weather or speed or -- as in 447, unreliable air speed. these sudden panic moments, the startle effect and that's really what they're learning how

to do. what the experts say and what airbus and boeing both agree on privately and what many people in the industry will say privately is that the quality of airmanship the ability to hand-fly the plane and not simply rely on the technology of the aircraft that is what has to be improved upon. they are monitors of systems, in many cases. and what we've seen right away as recently with asiana there has to be a better training in handling the aircraft. >> is it part of it though david, just the keeping your cool if you're a pilot? >> it certainly is. i've spent thousands and thousands of hours observing pilots in situations some of which were in thunderstorm situations such as this. but it was a good point richard had made about the simulation and the training that goes on in those stall situations.

the problem is -- we found this with flight 447. that training is done in a simulator. not a live aircraft. that can feel very, very different to be in that simulator. no simulator can simulate what it's like. i've felt it and it's not pleasant to be in that cockpit when this sort of thing happens. it's difficult to train the feel of what that feels like to be in this situation. >> what is that just the severity of the feeling of this? >> and you also know psychologically you're in a simulator and your job's on the line sometimes -- >> you're walking away. >> right. but the pressure of the actual situation and understanding the logic of your flight control system and all its permutations is a real challenge these days. >> you're doing in it a life-or-death situation and not a simulator. gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. really appreciate your input in

letting our viewers who tweeted at us have answers to their questions. next up high up in the gop, one powerful republican congressman now says yes, it was likely that he spoke to a white supremacist group. but only likely. more on that in a moment. (vo) nourished. rescued. protected. given new hope. during the subaru "share the love" event, subaru owners feel it, too. because when you take home a new subaru we donate 250 dollars to helping those in need. we'll have given 50 million dollars over seven years. love. it's what makes a subaru a subaru. we needed 30 new hires for our call center. i'm spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. [ female announcer ] need to hire fast? go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job to over 30 of the web's leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. you put up one post and the

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and an update on former president george h.w. bush.

a family spokesman said he was released from the hospital today. he's now resting at home. bush 41 as he is known, was taken to houston methodist hospital last week after experiencing shortness of breath. he stayed in the hospital through the christmas holiday. the former president is 90. the family spokesman says he's quote, grateful to the doctors and nurses for their superb care. and to politics now. new york republican congressman michael grimm is resigning. his decision comes a week after he pleaded guilty to a felony tax evasion charge. he was indicted on 20 counts back in april but still won a close race for re-election, vowed to stay in office. but the "new york daily news" reports grimm changed his mind after a meeting with john boehner. a special election will be held to fill grimm's seat. and another republican in the house is facing some heat. louisiana congressman steve scalise being criticized for a speech he gave. he issued a new statement.

he says, quote, 12 years ago, i spoke to many different louisiana groups as a state representative trying to build support for legislation that focused on cutting wasteful state spending eliminating government corruption and stopping tax hikes. congressman said quote, one of the many groups i spoke to regarding this critical legislation was a group whose views i whole heartedly condemn. it was a mistake, i regret. and i emphatically oppose the religious views groups like these hold. i'm disappointed anyone would try to infer otherwise for political gain. and i reject that kind of hateful bigotry. those who know me best know i have always been passionate about helping, serving and fighting for every family that i represent, and i will continue to do so. our hill producer also reports the congressman has been calling house members personally trying to do damage control, gauge

support. and joining me now to talk more about this is cnn senior digital correspondent chris moody as well as cnn political commentator tara setmeier. this was a group founded by david duke. so you know chris, can he really say, i didn't know who this group was? does that defense work here? >> well first of all, politicians speak to a wide range of groups. that's true. however, and this could have been a staff mix-up, however. steve scalise had been in politics since 1996 in this game for six years, he should very well know better. and so to go ahead and do this really is very little if not no excuse for this. also this group's organization, their confab had been in the news for a long time. a baseball team had voiced concern about the minority players staying in the hotel where this group was located. this was in the newspapers locally. he should've known about this

and someone on his staff or he himself should have called it out earlier. >> and now this report "the washington post," forced to report david duke saying that scalise was invited by his aide with whom scalise was acquainted with. so presumably you would expect that scalise knows who this guy works for. what do you make of that? >> yeah i think this was clearly a misstep by scalise. i'm not going to defend him speaking in front of this group. i think that as a state rep, yeah he probably put electability and trying to get votes over principle, which is something eric erickson wrote today in his blog. and i happen to agree with that. this is what politicians do unfortunately, and this happens on both sides of the aisle. unfortunately, right now, race is the hot button issue, and it's a slow news cycle. and now this has blown up and this is what we've got. this is a nightmare for speaker boehner and for the republican leadership going into the new congress. this is the last thing they need

is a controversy like this. it distracts from what the new republican congress is going to do. and i do not see how steve scalise survives this. whether it's fair, or not, i don't believe steve scalise is a racist. i worked on capitol hill for several years as a communications director. the office i worked for we worked with him on issues. and seddrick richmond democrat from louisiana said i don't believe scalise has a racist bone in his body. i think that's probably true. what this does show though, it was probably poor judgment and yeah i think his explanation for it needs to be desired. and the statement he issued just now, that statement should have been issued yesterday. that level of emphasis. >> can we dissect that a little bit? i think, chris, between what he did just issue and certainly weigh in as well tara. what we were hearing from his staff before was that he didn't know. and you're sort of explaining

you're giving context to okay if he's saying he didn't know he sure should've known. i mean this was a group that people know about at this time in louisiana. that statement that was just put out that we just read as it came out, it doesn't say he didn't know. it's his words he's not saying i didn't know who they were. he's saying i spoke to a wide range of groups. do you make anything of that? or am i just reading? am i getting -- >> communication staff is not doing a good job communicating with their staff here. and with the member himself. they issued a statement -- >> well, many of them wouldn't have been working for him. is. >> he only had one legislative staffer at that time. and it is a much smaller shop when you're working with state legislator -- as a state legislator as opposed to someone in congress. but, again, he wasn't brand new. he had been in this game for a long time and knew the players in it. and so if he knew who this group was, it seems to be he did. that's a different story. he was just talking to a bunch of groups.

>> and certainly was well aware. yeah. go on. he was well aware of who david duke was. >> that's, i expressed cynicism on that excuse of ignorance of i had no idea given how close knit louisiana politics are, the neighbor was the chief of -- i think campaign aide to david duke. i find it hard to believe he had no idea whatsoever who this group was. possible probably unlikely. but as far as from a communications perspective, like i said i was a communications director for congressman for almost seven years. and with something like this his staff, scalise's staff should've come out with an emphatic statement like this yesterday condemning this saying yes, i did, it was a mistake. i don't support any of those -- any of what that group espouse and kept it running, but unfortunately, he sat back and went back and forth, did he remember? maybe not, i don't know. and it allowed this to gain traction. and i don't see how he can walk this back now as part of leadership.

i don't think he should resign his seat in congress. >> maybe not as leadership. >> moving forward, it's very important to have credibility with your conference as the whip that's his job is to get votes. and this is going to reignite now, another conversation about the establishment versus conservatives. and this is a headache that boehner does not need going into the new congress. >> all right. this is going to keep on going, i am sure. i will say this speaker saying he has my full confidence as our whip. we'll see where this goes. thanks to both of you. that's it for me. i'll be back at 5:00 eastern on the "situation room." for our viewers in north america and around the world, "newsroom" with ana cabrera starts now. hello. thanks for being here. and i want to welcome our viewers here in the u.s. and around the world. this is cnn's special breaking news coverage as flight 8501 has been found. alongside the wreckage luggage and bodies spotted floating