hurun's report. leading the group as richest person. who is the world's richest person? that would be bill gates who will be on the show next week. thanks to all of you for being part of my program. i will see you next week. xcxxxx xxxx good morning. it's time for reliable sources. today's program is all about what's reliable. tv industry trans fixed by what is an extraordinary scandal at abc, imperilling the face of brian williams. the news anchor admitted to embellishing a story about coming under fire in iraq in 2003. that matters because, well brian williams -- let me put it this way. this country has no walter cronkite anymore, but brian williams is the closest thing to cronkite we have left. now he has benched himself, as one source said to me while nbc figures out what is true and what is not true. here is what brian williams said

in a statement yesterday to his colleagues. it has become painfully apparent to me i'm too much a part of the news due to my actions. as editor of daily news i've decided to take my self off my daily broadcast. he went on to say i will continue my career long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us. he says he will be back. to be honest others are not so sure even some people at nbc this morning. here are the latest developments. lester holt weekend "nightly news" anchor will be filling in for brian williams starting tomorrow. it's unclear for how long. meanwhile nbc's investigative unit is checking all the facts trying to figure out what really happened in iraq and new orleans. we'll get to that a little later in the program. brian williams was scheduled to be on the "late show with david letterman" thursday. cbs tells me that's going forward. i'm told by a source close to brian williams it's actually undecided whether he will appear. our experts have a lot to say whether williams -- and i hate

saying these words -- whether williams can survive this. we have the first tv interviews of two pilots there that day with williams. one who flew with the anchor and one who actually came under attack. before we get to them let's see how this story evolved from a truth to a lie. the first report was broadcast just a week or so after the beginning of the iraq war in a segment for nbc's "dateline" brian williams recount add harrowing incident under fire. the date march 26th 2003. >> our colleague brian williams is back in kuwait city tonight after a close call in the skies over iraq. >> in his report williams says he was traveling with a group of four army helicopters in kuwait large ones chinooks. they can carry troops and in this case equipment to build bridges in iraq so units can cross the river. >> on the ground a chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky.

it was a rocket prepared grenade or rpg. >> after the attack all four helicopters landed and a sandstorm grounded them for two days and three nights. army sent soldiers to guard the helicopters as well as the team. in that initial report he makes mo mention of the rpg attack or helicopter takes fire. he does say soldiers told him they saw four waex with what looks like rpg. >> what we didn't know we were north of the invasion. we were the northernmost in iraq. >> our good friend brian williams. >> ten years to the day, march 26th 2013. brian williams told that tore to david letterman, except this time saying he was on one of two army choppers that were hit both by rpgs and small arms fire. >> two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire including the one i was in. >> no kidding. >> rpg and ak-47. >> the question is what exactly happened in those 10 years to

make williams change his story? as with all war stories it's complicated. williams version slowly evolved. a few months after the helicopter incident nbc news published this book, "operation iraqui freedom." in it the account is vague, no mention of which helicopter was attacked or where exactly it took place. the story didn't resurface until a few years later when williams returned to iraq. in a blog post in 2007 williams celebrated the life of wayne downey a retired general, nbc analyst in the helicopter. williams referenced the iraq incident again. some men on the ground fired rpg through the tail rotor in front of us williams wrote. small arms fire a chopper pilot took a bullet through the earlobe. all four dropped their loads and landed quickly and hard. williams obituary for downing began with the incident. it left the impression williams

and the general were forced down by enemy fire. >> when the chinook helicopters we were trampling in at the start of the iraq war were fired on and forced down for three days in a stretch of hostile desert. >> in 2008 in a different blog post williams add add new detail. this time all four took fire. all four took fire. we were forced down and stayed down. then in 2013 to mark the 10th anniversary of the start of the iraq war, williams went on the letterman show. he also talked with actor alec baldwin about it for a radio podcast. instead of just writing about it he was telling the story of bullets fired into his helicopter. >> i've done some ridiculously stupid things like being in a helicopter i have no business being in in iraq with bullets coming into the airframe. >> did you think you would die? >> briefly. sure. >> and then this just about 10 days ago when williams was at a

new york rangers hockey game and and with army sergeant major in iraq and with the helicopter unit at the time. the soldier had helped protect williams and his team. now a big change in the story. this is how he told it on nbc "nightly news." >> the story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an rpg. >> the previous version evolved to all four choppers being fired on. this latest one added the rpg. some soldiers who also were there began speaking out saying on facebook they had no memory of williams being on the one chopper that did take a rocket-propelled grenade. were all the helicopters told to land because they had been fired upon or was it because of that sandstorm? truth is a tricky thing in war. now let's hear exactly what happened on the helicopter that actually took rpg and small arms fire. don heles was one of the pilots.

he said he noticed brian williams inaccurately telling the story more than a decade ago and wrote to nbc about it. he also says he never heard anything back. he's sharing his story for the first time on television this morning. thank you for calling in from enterprise, alabama this morning. >> good morning, brian. >> tell me do you know where brian williams was at the moment your helicopter was hit by the rpg? >> well we had a lot going on but i am pretty sure he was not in our flight at all. >> meaning he must have been so far away he couldn't see the incident happen? >> yes. i mean because we had two units, each had a different mission. they are separated by time. their destination may be different from what our destination is. it can put time between the two arthritis as they are heading up north. >> when is the first time you

ever heard brian williams describe what happened inaccurately? >> when i had returned back to kuwait for repairs on the aircraft a friend of mine had alerted me of the story and basically asked me if we had brian williams on our flight which i told him not -- we did not. and then he showed me a video of it on the internet because at the time that was the first time i had seen internet in a while. >> so you were in kuwait this was, what april 2003? it was very early in the iraq war? >> yes. like we said after the sandstorm we had just gotten back. our aircraft had to go into maintenance for about two or three weeks. >> this is crucial, mr. helus, because according to the time line we've been looking at forth past search days it wasn't until about 2007 that brian williams began to embellish the

story about being nearby or on the chopper that was struck by rpg. you're saying you heard it on television in 2003? >> i'm saying i heard it on the internet that was an interview. >> an internet video of the television segment? yeah. >> yes. >> so to be clear, there's a tom brokaw interview of brian williams a couple days after the incident where he does seem to accurately say it happened to a different chopper other than his own. we don't know if there's others in the archives from 2003 where brian williams goes further. unfortunately records of those times are incomplete. there wrnt transcripts of every segment on nbc or msnbc so we haven't been able to find the video you saw. you wrote to nbc, and what did you say when you wrote in? >> i wrote to msnbc at the time because that was the website i went to. >> i'm sorry. i was just going to tell our viewers at home at the time msnbc.com was the website for

nbc news so that's why you went to msnbc.com. >> correct. >> and you wrote to nbc to do what? to get them to correct it? >> just to alert them that the facts were incorrect, because, you know, stating mr. williams was not part of our flight. he was in a different flight. >> in 2007 at fairfield university, connecticut, brian williams said a different version of the story. i want to play that sound bite for you and get your reaction. >> a few years before that you go back to iraq and i look down the tube of an rpg that had been fired at us and it hit the chopper in front of ours. >> is it possible he was able to look down the tube of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher? >> i guess if he's that close, then he's got bigger problems. the only thing you see coming off of an rpg was the smoke

trail and explosion. like i said if you're that close, you have bad luck. >> i'm trying to keep an open mind about brian williams. i have been inspired by brian williams for years. i've admired him for years. i wonder if you admire him? i wonder how you feel about him given you tried to contact nbc about this so long ago? >> i try to keep an unbiased opinion on him. granted we have embellishers in the military we have them in the civilian world that try to i guess, tell a story of their war medals and, you know, their time in combat. we have the same thing in -- i assume you as journalists have the same in yours. the fact is that mr. williams wasn't in or near our aircraft

at the time. it saddens me that you have so many other combat journalists out there that are in that type of situation. you know seeing those things happen. more than likely they probably don't tell the story like that, you know with embellishment. >> mr. helus, thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you. >> brian williams says what happened was an innocent series of mistakes. so where was he that day? well he was on board another chopper in iraq. he was taking a risk by being embedded with the troops. he was not on the chopper that was hit. that's according to the soldiers on board that chopper as you heard from mr. helus. now for his first tv interview a pilot of williams is speaking out. he joined me earlier from minneapolis. chief allan kelly, thanks for

joining me. >> thank you for having me. >> is it right to say brian williams was aboard your helicopter and not aboard the helicopter shot at in iraq that day? >> that's correct. he was aboard my aircraft that day in march. >> what was your aircraft doing? was it ever within sight of the chinook that was shot at? >> my aircraft with chalk one, flight of two chinooks carrying bridge pieces to the euphrates. we were afraid they were google to blow the bridges and we wanted to make sure third id had the capability of crossing the euphrates. as far as chinook that was shot down we were not within visual range of them. they would have to be almost on top of us with the sandstorm we were flying through to get up there. >> what sort of distance was there between your helicopter with brian williams aboard and the helicopter that did take

fire? >> that would be difficult to ascertain. we both took off in separate cereals. the big windy crew my understanding two aircraft and they hooked up with their loads ahead of us. initially we were probably a half hour behind them. but with the sandstorms the weather we ran into we had to slow up. i'm sure they did as well. so it's anybody's guess the exact distance but i'd say probably somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes. >> do you think it's possible that williams and his crew thought they were being shot at? is there anything that happened on your flight that made it seem like there was an attack? >> thing is possible. they are sitting in the back. i don't remember if they were hooked up on headsets and could hear what was going on. we had a lot of stuff going on in the radios. we had aircraft calling for help being shot down big windy being one of them. so mr. williams in the back

he's free to look out the windows back there. he wouldn't see much. if he was on headsets and heard radio calls over guard, it's possible he could have thought that i suppose. >> i do want to give him and his crew the benefit of the doubt here but since you've heard the apology he gave on air. how do you feel about the kpanlg reagans? are you personally offended by it? >> i don't make any judgments on that. everybody has to live with the life they choose to lead. i was there to do a job, part of a volunteer army. i did my job. part of that mission was to carry mr. williams and his crew with him up to be objective rams. if he made mistakes i mean we're all human. but i make no judgments on him in that regard. >> chief kelly, thanks for sharing what you remember that day. i appreciate it. >> it's my pleasure. thank you for having me.

>> nbc has not responded to my request for comment about these soldier's accounts but nbc investigators have been in touch with helus and kelly as part of an effort to fact check what happened. now, next this question. is another storm heading toward mr. williams? with the media scrutinizing every detail in his reporting from iraq some journalists are asking did he also exaggerate his stories from hurricane katrina. the general joins me on this next. [ susan ] my promotion allowed me to start investing for my retirement. transamerica made it easy. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. transform tomorrow. meet the world's newest energy superpower. surprised? in fact, america is now the world's number one natural gas producer... and we could soon become number one in oil. because hydraulic fracturing technology is safely recovering lots more oil and natural gas. supporting millions of new jobs. billions in tax revenue... and a new century of american energy

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4 4. on wednesday brian williams apologized for misremembering what happened to him in iraq. by thursday the internet was abuzz with allegations of another embellishment from the nbc anchor. this time it was about hurricane katrina. right now there is no clear proof williams exaggerated or lied about his experiences there but nbc is reviewing his accounts. williams once said that he watched a man commit suicide at the superdome, and he also said this -- >> reporter: when you look out of your hotel room window in the french quarter and watch a man float by face down when you see bodies that you last saw in

banda aceh, indonesia and swore to yourself you would never see in your country -- i accidentally ingested floodwater, i had disintary. the hotel overrun with gangs. >> hurricane katrina was a horror story. is it possible he saw a body floating there. general who led task force for katrina, thank you for joining me. good morning. >> good morning. >> the account he describes ritz carlton hotel on the edge of the french quarter. is it possible there was enough water in that part of new orleans that a body could float by. >> very suspect but anything is possible brian. there are many stories from katrina, and everybody have their story from where they stood. more than likely that happened

on tuesday from looking at date times when he filed that report. for a brief moment there might have been some water that could have possibly got than high by ritz carlton, by and large it was knee level around ritz car carlton. >> did you yourself come across bodies. >> there was a body when i arrived on wednesday morning of katrina week there was a body on wednesday, just as you come off the ramp at the superdome. i stayed there at the superdome for about five days about 18 hours a day. but that's the only body i saw in that particular area of new orleans. we had that body immediately removed. >> i don't want to dance around this. do you think he has overstated

his role in his experience in new orleans? >> i think the thing that gives the story suspect, he violated one of the rules of old soldiers war stories. that is you tell war stories about the adventures of others that you observe. many of his war stories are about him. he became a part of the story. that being said the majority of my time in new orleans, when we were not actually giving orders supervising orders was going around telling the american people that breaking news that they had heard, that had been reported on national television was not true such as someone blew the levee, we had snipers operating. there was rape and murder happening in the superdome and convention center. so breaking news sometimes broke without being corroborated by other sources. >> there was a lot of misinformation. still to this day folks still don't understand what happened with the levee. there was real problems at the

levees and this was in some way man made disasters. there's still misunderstanding. we should give brian williams credit, he was there, he was in new orleans. >> absolutely. i'll tell you what he beat me -- he was in new orleans before i got there. i would like him to just verify. if he was a newsman and saw a body floating by his hotel, why didn't he go grab it? why didn't he get somebody and report it. >> grab a camera. >> right, grab a camera. either report it which you're supposed to do or as a human being go out and try to assist that person or get somebody. the other thing, the gangs. there was a lot of reports, and one of his reports was about gangs. that reported in new orleans you would think the city was under siege. while there were some reports, some shootings happened much of that has been exaggerated and

confirmed by not only local reporters but reporters from other parts of the country. >> lieutenant general, thank you for joining me here. >> let me know what you think about this story on twitter and facebook. when we come back the big question now, will brian williams return to anchor chair from self-imposed benching. he says he will but should he and can he? we'll look at those key questions when we come back. it's a fact. kind of like shopping hungry equals overshopping.

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kind of like mute buttons equal danger. ...that sound good? not being on this phone call sounds good. it's not muted. was that you jason? it was geoffrey! it was jason. it could've been brenda. . welcome back. brian williams is the most watched news anchor in the united states but he will not be in his anchor chair tomorrow after a self-imposed leave of absence of the the big question everybody is asking i mean everybody in the tv industry is will he ever sit in that chair again. some people at nbc asking me this question texting,

chatting williams made it clear in his statement yesterday. he says he will be back. several people i trust at nbc, high-ranking people acknowledge it's quite possible he will not. no one knows. top anchor at another network pointed out literally no one knows the answer or not. there's like a finger in the air. i'm going to ask great minds, columnist for daily beast and contributor to pbs news hours, fresno bureau chief, director for gw school of meddey and public affairs and dozier former correspondent for news and now nbc contributor. start with you as someone who has been on multiple tours in iraq reporting there, embedded there. do you think this could be a career ending offense for brian williams? >> i think what he has to do is reach back in his mind and remember what actually happened. i wrote a book about our team getting hit by a car bomb. i interviewed afterwards everyone who had been at the scene to try to piece together

what actually happened. it was amazing there were two soldiers that were both convinced they threw the one red smoke grenade that brought rescuers to our location. talk to either of them and they will swear to you it was them. actually i finally found a medic later who said each of them thought they were throwing it but in the end they got in a fight with each other and someone else had to throw smoke grenade. they don't seem to remember that. memories in times of stress are plastic. when you look back things you thought you remembered well he could make a virtue out of exploring that. >> earlier i interviewed a pilot who said he had him aboard his aircraft. turns out he did not. we have to be careful reporting and talking about this story. jeff do you think it's possible that brian williams innocently made a series of memory

mistakes? >> i think it's possible. but what has struck me in this whole story is that one of the beliefs of people who really are hostile to mainstream media, wagons get circled and the elite protect their own, boy, has that not happened. this goes to the question of can he survive. you see things like the new yorker magazine ground zero of coastal liberalism with savage satire. maureen's column in "new york times." whether joe klein of "time" magazine there has not been any notion of giving williams the benefit of the doubt. i'm not talking about places like "new york post" whom schadenfreude is a given. >> sure. >> but in the people you've talked to at the networks legacy media, who don't seem to feel that there's any chance that there's a relatively okay

explanation. what kimberly dozer said, and this is somebody who almost lost her life in combat is what you hear general belief general impression given even by elite media is this guy is a fab allows at best. that's what he has to overcome if he's to survive. >> you mentioned joe klein, let me read his column shauden floyd circus overwrought and unnecessarily brutal. he went on to say the judgment whether he should be fired from pundits who never saw inside of chinook helicopter he finds to be self-righteous and gagging. none of us are wearing pitch forks. is it possible the collective amount of saturation coverage causes a bunch of pitch forks to be up in the area. >> here you are 33 minutes into your broadcast and this is what you've been doing. this is taking place on other

networks and the internet. that is the world we live in. the silence from nbc has been deafening and the silence from williams defenders has been deafening. the investigation whatever it is and whatever shape it takes from nbc and from all the bloggers and others already investigating brian williams are going to be investigating for other places he has misspoken or exaggerated, not other places he's done great journalism. as time passes this becomes more difficult. you're right, this big, giant media maw out there is at work now. we see it with politicians. we see it with people in the entertainment industry sports and elsewhere, when there's a big, outsized personality and something comes along that counters the prevailing narrative and is a surprise or canal or something, people jump on. then it becomes -- takes on a dynamic all its own. >> kim, i have about 30 seconds

left. is this a natural outcome of a star making television system that has to build its anchors up to be more than reporters but stars and celebrities mostly fair i think it's the natural outcome of having gone through something fairly traumatic and retelling it over the years and it changes and getting called out. remember hillary clinton had a similar experience when she said she was fired on when she landed in bosnia. then cbs news pulled out the video and proved that wasn't true. well who is to say that's not how she remembered it. stress does funny things. this is what brian williams now has to figure out and really share with all of us before we come on. >> kim, thank you for being here. frank, please stick around. i'll take a quick break. before this mess nbc suggest from a series of high-profile blunders. is this a case of systemic failure at the network? more of my reporting after this.

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>> we are talking about brian williams his embellishments in 2003. this is surely the biggest controversy nbc news faced recently but certainly not the only one. it's hurting something nbc values more than anything more than awful us in journalism value more than anything trust. check out these promos that ran just two months ago for brian williams 10 year anniversary in the anchor chair. ♪ >> it's a thing you build slowly over time. it can happen in big moments. more often it's the day to day things. what you build if you work hard enough if you respect it is a powerful thing called trust. >> it says he's been there, he'll be there, he renewed his contract in december. it goes almost through the end of the decade. let's be honest cnn makes

mistakes i make mistakes nbc, abc, cbs, they all make mistakes. is there something more. back one involving whetherbowe bergdahl? do you think there's something systemic at nbc involving these embarrassing errors along the way? >> maybe. we say great news organizations need great editors, people in charge. another way of putting it is we need adult people in supervision. one of the problems we have in media in particularly and television in particular you get these outsized characters these outsized profiles brian williams on "30 rock," brian williams on david letterman, and you have a fundamental conflict of interest here. your interest there is to build up your own personality, your own brand when the brand of the organization and network needs

to be just what they are trying to promote, which is trust. there's so many hours in a day. so there has to be great editing. there has to be great leadership. nbc has been churning. you know you have to conclude that the sorts of things you're talking about reflect that churn at some level. >> jeff let me put a tweet on screen from bill moyers. he's linking to a colleague of his what he wrote online yesterday. it says brian williams helicopter lie is nothing compared to misinformation by u.s. press lead up to iraq war. there's been a lot of jokes saying brian williams only one punished with lies involving iraq. is there some truth to the idea we're focusing so much on this and ignoring some of those bigger issues? >> there's a great irony here that one of the legitimate, many legitimate crit ex-iques of the media they tend to focus more on personalities in a political campaign than fundamental issues. certainly if you compare damage apart from the damage done by

nbc, from brian williams misstatements or lies or whatever they are compared to what the consequences were bad, inaccurate reporting of the run-up to the war in iraq it's geometric, it's enormous gap. this one other quick point i think worth making one of the reasons brian is in trouble, this fits a familiar narrative of on outsized personality who may not be what they want us to think they are. for instance the liberal who votes for school busing and sending kids to private school war with five draft, environmentalist who flies a private jet to climate change rally. traditional moralist who procures an abortion for his mistress. in this sense, what i'm getting at is it was very important for nbc to paint brian williams a lot of people in the news business as someone who hasn't

forgotten his roots. >> are you calling brian williams a fraud? >> no i'm saying it's giving the opening to people to call him a fraud. "the washington post" has been calling him lying brian. that's what it opened up to. >> before we wrap up a one sentence answer do you think brian williams will be back in his anchor chair? >> are you asking me? my one sentence answer is we don't know. semicolon, it depends where the investigation leads. too much up in the air right now. >> yeah a sentence journalists should say more often. i don't know. >> you know, i had an nbc employee say to me on thursday brian williams is too big to fail. now it's sunday it doesn't feel like it's necessarily true anymore. as we're saying none of us know the answer to this. jeff and frank, thanks for being here. >> thanks brian. >> people on twitter asking what about the other nbc employees who were in that chopper.

i've been asking that too. we've been trying to reach them. so far nbc has not allowed them to speak on what happened. take a pause on the story, now bruce jenner olympic hero now supermarket fodder. now yesterday a deadly car crash with speculation ongoing about his gender transition i have a guest standing by who knows what jenner is going through and she will join me next. [guy] i know what you're thinking- you're thinking beneful. [announcer]beneful has wholesome grains,real beef,even accents of spinach,carrots and peas. [guy] you love it so much.

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welcome back. yesterday bruce jenner was involved in a horrific four-car accident in malibu, california it left one person dead and five injured. former olympic medalist and more recently kardashian reality tv star left unharmed. now l.a. cannot sheriff is launching vehicular manslaughter criminal investigator. there are reports jenner told his lawyer he was being chased by paparazzi. while we don't know that to be true we know jenner has been in the spotlight for months with speculation running rampant jenner is transitioning from a man to a woman. all the speculation and gossip has made his photograph the most wanted in hollywood. joining me sarah, what's >> reporter: we were listening to you a lieutenant who was talking to us about whether or not the paparazzi had any hand

in this their reaction was there is no indication at this time that bruce jenner was trying to escape from the paparazzi or doing any sort of maneuver to get away from the paparazzi. but, however, that the paparazzi was likely there. if you look at some of the pictures that's come out from the scene, you can see that there were people definitely taking pictures of him because they have a picture of before the crash, while the crash is happening, and after the crash happened. it was a horrific crash. when you see these pictures you can see the car that bruce jenner according to police hit from behind and pushed into oncoming traffic which was then hit by a hummer. the person in that car, a woman, we're told by the coroner, was killed. as you mentioned, seven people headed to the hospital because of this very very bad accident. but right now according to officials, there is no vehicular manslaughter case being looked at. it is simply a traffic accident with a fatality. we are hearing officially that is the word from the sheriff's department this morning.

i just checked with them. however, they are still investigating this case trying to figure out exactly what the sequence of events were. but several cars involved in this. one of them got the brunt of it killing the driver. brian? >> sara that's important. so there is no criminal investigation ongoing at this moment. >> reporter: at this moment we're told -- this is the official word. there is a lot. as you know this town has a lot of sources and there's always a lot of rumors going on. but officially right now we are told it is just a traffic incident that had a fatality. but there is still an open investigation right now into what happened exactly at the scene. >> got it. sara thanks very much. describing rumors that happened in legal context. there are many, many in the entertainment contexts. gossip magazines have been claiming bruce jenner is transitioning from a male to female for a while now. in controversial photo shopped

picture with lipstick. with reports jenner is documenting his transition for a reality tv show this possibility is getting a lot of media coverage. i want to bring in someone who knows firsthand what it is like when the media takes a very private matter and turns it into a very public spectacle. rene richards won the right to play tennis mass a woman after her re-assignment surgery in 1985. she's now an eye surgeon and coached some tennis greats. author of "spy night and other memories," a collection of stories from dick and rene. rene thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me brian. >> i'm trying to imagine what bruce jenner may be going through. he hasn't said anything publicly. i find myself wondering which pronoun i should use, he or she, given that the photos seem to be significant evidence. do you think this should be fair game for journalists before he says something publicly about it? >> well from a personal standpoint i would say no because i was very upset when i

went through my transformation and tried to do it privately, as was done in those days. so-called woodworking. i moved 3,000 miles away changed my name. and then i was outed when i played in a tennis tournament and won it in la jolla, and forever after i was a household word. so from my standpoint yes, i don't think the public has any right to know. but on the other hand bruce jenner is a quasi public figure and tens of millions of people know about him and his family and i would think it would be almost impossible for him to keep almost anything he's doing, especially like an eventual-coming sex change operation could be a problem.

>> especially considering he's apparently working on a reality show about this. that could be a really important educational moment for viewers. right? >> well? i don't know. i suppose it might. there is a lot now going on in terms of education of the public about people who have the transgender condition. but anything new and forthright and correct would be helpful. and coming from somebody like bruce jenner who was an olympic decathlon champion i think two count for something. >> do you think there's anything you'd like to tell him at this moment when he's maybe preparing to do his first television interview? there's rumors that diane sawyer will be talking to him shortly. >> i think it would be

preposterous for me to try to advise bruce jenner. >> but based on your experience in the '70s nothing that you would take away from that for him. >> i learned my lesson when every time a transgender athlete tried to compete in his or her sport, i would get the call from all over the world to give my opinion on it. and i gave one once at a canadian mountain biker and i said i didn't think that she should play on the national team, but maybe she'd just play in club events. and the headline in the canadian newspaper the next day was, "doc says do as i say, not as i do." >> the press has a warping effect sometimes. it can be troubling. >> renee, thank you for being here. we'll take a quick break but we'll be back with more reliable sources in just a minute.

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we are out of time here on "reliable sources." we we have lots more news on cnn.com, including buzzfeed's interview with president obama. i'll see you right here next week. "state of the union" starts right now. a triple threat to u.s. security. atrocities from isis, a land grab by vladimir putin and washington politics that could shut down the department charged with keeping america safe. this is "state of the union." of this is stun "state of the union." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. good morning. i'm dana bash. we begin with the war on isis. jordan carrying out new airstrikes on isis targets inside syria. on the ground there's a tense standoff between the isis fighters and the kurdish