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hour with breaking news. there are new details this morning in this tragic midair collision between a passenger plane and a u.s. army helicopter. these right here are live images of the icy potomac river, where crews have spent the night searching for survivors. it is now a recovery mission. this morning, hope is lost. there is no sign of survivors among the 64 people on the american airlines flight, and the three soldiers aboard the black hawk helicopter. it is the deadliest air disaster in the u.s. in more than 23 years. and the next images we want to warn you may be difficult to watch. this earth cam video captures the moment of impact right here. you see it. you see the plane with

the lights. there you go. you see the helicopter approaching from the left as the american eagle flight descended to land at reagan national airport, an eyewitness describes the horror of what unfolded i was standing on the rooftop of my building with some neighbors, and we have a direct sight going down to the airport so we can see everything clearly. >> we were just talking. next thing you know, i heard a loud explosion. i looked to the left. i saw a big, just a big ball of fire and then wreckage just falling down towards the river. and my neighbor hollered out, oh, my god, that's a plane! >> we've got cnn reporters covering every angle of this breaking news. rene marsh joins us here in dc, and natasha bertrand is live from the pentagon. rene, first to you, what is the latest on the investigation? >> so, pamela, this is all just getting underway and i spoke with the ntsb this morning and

they made it clear while they are ready to go and have gotten themselves in position, what they do not want to do is impede the recovery operation, because on the other side of this crash investigation or midair collision investigation are families, and they want to see the bodies of their loved ones retrieved. so they don't want to in any way get in the way. we do expect to hear at some point from the ntsb, but they're setting the bar low. they said do not expect to to get any sort of investigative update. it will all be about process. and i can walk us through what that process will be. but i think the big question that these investigators are going to be focused on is what happened here. we do know from air traffic control audio that the pilot of that black hawk helicopter saw the commercial airliner. and in fact, we have that audio. so let's take a listen to that and then talk about it on the other side. >> james risch. pat 2-5 pam bondi sergey brin. has an

aircraft in sight. separation. separation. for 72 star, one star 32017. >> and that at the end that sound that is just an audible gasp of air traffic control when they realize what had happened from the point of the black hawk pilot saying that they saw the commercial airliner. it was about 13 seconds before you saw that impact that you just showed that video for. so what happened in that time frame? what went wrong is, is at the heart of this investigation. so how does it work? process. ntsb, the faa, the dod, the department of defense, the army, all coordinating for the investigation. we know that three pieces of the plane's fuselage has been located in

waist deep water. they're going to want to take a very close look at that, because, believe it or not, you can glean clues from that. that helps to piece together this bigger picture. the other critical piece of information is going to be those black boxes. both of these aircraft are equipped with black boxes. they're designed to withstand intense, very intense levels of heat as well as water. so the fact that this crash site is over the potomac river shouldn't be a problem as far as getting that data off, once they have found it and retrieved it, a treasure trove of information, they will then be able to begin the process of piecing together this timeline of events. pam. >> the work of those first responders, those divers who were in there right now is just so critical for so many reasons. rene marsh, thank you so much, natasha, to bring you in on this. so this black hawk helicopter was on a training mission at the time of the collision. what more can you tell us about that? >> well, pam, we're getting a little more information from secretary of defense pete

hegseth, who issued a recorded statement just about an hour or so ago, providing a little more detail on what this black hawk was actually doing. this was apparently a required night evaluation that this black hawk that belonged to the u.s. army was based out of fort belvoir in virginia, was engaged in and according to hegseth, according to national security advisor mike waltz, as well as another u.s. army official that we spoke to, this was not an inexperienced crew. this was a fairly experienced crew. there were no particularly junior pilots on board. but here's a little bit of what hegseth said in his recorded comments earlier. >> it was a fairly experienced crew, and that was doing a required annual night evaluation. they did have night vision goggles. uh, the 12th aviation battalion as of now is granted a 48 hour operational pause on contingency missions as what happened is reviewed and a

senior level aviation team, an investigative team from our aviation safety center, was deployed last night. it already is in washington, d.c., to investigate what's going on so they are going to be looking at, according to hegseth, whether this helicopter was on the appropriate flight path, whether it was at the right altitude, basically whether anything went wrong here. >> but we should note that this is extremely routine. according to former pilots in this unit that we have spoken to, according to army officials that we have spoken to, this is not out of the ordinary for these black hawk helicopters to be operating in this area. and along that route in particular. so the question will now become, was there anything that happened that impeded these pilots from being able to get out of the way of that big passenger aircraft? was this simply pilot error, or did it come down to something more technical? that is what they're going to be investigating at this point. and as hegseth said as well, the 12th aviation battalion, which is the unit that this helicopter

belongs to, that is now on an operational pause. while all of that can be investigated. pam. >> all right. natasha bertrand, rene marsh, thank you both. 17 year old jimmy maisel saw the collision firsthand and he joins us now. jimmy, i'm so sorry that you had to see that. first of all, just just bring us into that moment. >> yes, ma'am. last night i was at gravelly point park with my girlfriend. we were eating our dinner and watching the planes land and take off just as normal. and i noticed a white light falling out of the sky. um, and i wasn't sure what it was. i was very concerned to what it could be. um, shortly thereafter, there was, um, a large response of fire trucks and police cars and anything you can think about. um, it was being responded to the airport. um, so it was very, very insane.

>> yeah. and we just have video up right now showing this mid-air collision. um, did you see anything you said you saw the white light going down? did you see anything just before? did you see the potential for a collision to happen? >> uh, no, ma'am. all i saw was the white light falling out of the sky. um, last night, and. yeah, that's all i saw. >> so there must have been so much confusion when you saw that. when did you realize what had actually happened? >> yes, ma'am. um. last night, um, i was very curious to find out what happened or what was happening, and i stuck around maybe 20 or 30 minutes after. um, just to look and see what was happening and see if i could figure anything out. um, but after that, i went to alexandria, where my brother is a police officer. there. and, um, we drove to a local park there where there were news

stations, and we were starting to figure out what was happening. um, and that's where i figured out that a collision happened with a plane and a military helicopter. >> that's so traumatic. what you saw and realizing what that was. how are you doing right now um. >> i'm still shocked. i'm still a little shaken. um, my prayers go out to everybody involved. everybody involved. and it's very terrible what happened. i feel bad for everyone. um. i wish for something i could have done to help. um. but, yeah, my prayers go out to everyone. >> yeah, all of our prayers go out to them. and just so many families right now are grieving. it's just horrific. jimmy maisel, thank you very much. families and friends there trying to process this. the loss of 67 loved ones taken all too suddenly. and last night's midair collision. a pastor in kansas was at the wichita airport when news of the crash

broke, and he reflected on his community. now devastated by tragedy. >> all of us are going to know people who know people. so it's a great time to double down on caring for each other, upholding each other, holding hands maybe a little more than we used to. and continuing to pray and depend on the lord in this time cnn's ed lavandera is live in wichita. >> so much sadness there on the ground. ed. >> you can really get the sense that this is a community waiting for to kind of get a sense of the scope and the magnitude of just how painful this tragedy will be as community members start learning the names of the victims of who died in this air collision. just at the edge of reagan national airport and this morning, city officials and the

mayor held a press briefing. they talked about the care teams that were activated last night. there was one family that showed up at the airport here in wichita that was cared for by the the care teams that were there. and that going through that process and the mayor also talked about just the emotional toll that this is taking on the city here. >> we have been told that there are no survivors. we mourn with all those who have been impacted. this is a terrible tragedy that will unite those in washington, dc and wichita, kansas forever. >> and pamela, the mayor, also talked about how the city was coming off an extremely jubilant

weekend. the u.s. figure skating championship was held here over the weekend, and for several days. and the mayor talked about how the city was able to witness olympians, future olympians and the u.s. figure skating association confirms that there are obviously several members, coaches, athletes, families that were on this flight because there was a camp for young skaters held after that championship event here in wichita. so many of the victims presumably coming from this. and the mayor talked about what a joyful experience it had been for this city. pamela, to witness not just these amazing figure skaters, but being able to witness what they thought might be future olympians here in their city over the weekend. >> they were so young, had such bright futures. i've been looking at the pictures from that event there in wichita, where there was so much excitement and jubilation, and now just grief and sadness. ed lavandera thank you. much more news on this midair collision after a quick break.

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since this mid-air collision last night. now, again, we did hear from him in a statement last night as well as he posted directly on social media. i'm going to read for you some of the the post or excuse me, the statement that he first sent out. this was just roughly two hours after that crash. he said he called it a, quote, terrible accident which just took place at reagan national airport. may god bless their souls. he continued to say that he was monitoring the situation and to have, you know, as more details arrives. and then he also posted just after midnight onto truth social, his social media website. he said this, i'm going to read for you one line of it, because this is what is getting a lot of attention today. he said, quote, this is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. not good. now, one thing to note there is that we did hear this morning from transportation secretary sean duffy, who i would note was just sworn in on tuesday two days ago. he said that he, quote, absolutely

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kobe day. >> i'm rosa flores in chicago, and this is cnn. >> here in washington. rescue officials say there appears to be no survivors from that tragic midair collision between a passenger plane and an army blackhawk helicopter. joining us now is congressman tim burchett, a tennessee republican. he is on the transportation committee. actually, these are the wrong guests. we're going to go to hopefully the congressman. we're going to be with you soon, julia. oh, okay. i'm being told in my ear that i guess the congressman is not available. so i'm going to go to you right now. juliette kayyem, um, and ask you what i was going to ask the congressman is, you know, how does this happen well. >> we don't know. and i don't think anyone knows. here's here's the data points. we do know at this stage. and there will be a both the secretaries of transportation and secretaries of defense said that there will be a review. what we do know is that these were for both instances, at least so far. we know that these were normal

flight patterns for both the helicopter and the airplane. that's important for people to know because it's very common in dca for to have this sort of intersection of of both military federal aircraft as well as civilian dca is used to it. they, they, their air traffic controllers are used to it. so the weather was relatively was was clear. so every piece of this is let's just be honest is not making sense right now. and that's what the investigation is going to tell whether there was some deviation from the flight pattern by the helicopter, where you're hearing a lot of analysts, uh, aviation analysts say that that's going to be a focus as well as a communication with, uh, with the air traffic control. i'll just add, you know, d.c. is a crowded complex, multiple crossing runways, airport. it's got the best, uh, facilities. and being able to adapt to that. but this

is a very complicated system. >> yeah. no, certainly. and i want to dive a little bit deeper into that. and some of the evidence that's coming in here, greg feith is we have the video showing the moment that the collision happened and just before. and then we have this air traffic controller sound, and you hear the controller talking to the black hawk helicopter pilot just before the collision. let's listen to that and then talk. >> letitia james flight pat 2-5 pam bondi sergey brin pat 2-5 has an aircraft separation. separation for 72 washington star. one star 32017. >> you hear that? gasp. that's when they realize what happened. greg. so there was less than 13 seconds between that discussion with the air traffic controller and the black hawk helicopter

pilot. how critical are those seconds in understanding how this happened? >> they're very they're very critical. it's trying to understand what those pilots actually were reporting affirmative to. when the air traffic controller was reporting. do you see the rj? um, was that the aircraft that the crew actually saw, or did they see a different aircraft, or did they lose the aircraft in the ground lights? we had this issue in san diego with psa, a 727, when the air traffic controller had told the crew, do you see this aircraft as small training aircraft at your 1:00 position? well, there happened to be four similar aircraft. and when the crew said, yes, we have that airplane in sight, the one that they saw was not the one that the air traffic controller was referring to. and unfortunately, they collided and crashed in san diego. so that's

going to be key. um, with the communications and and really understanding what the communication was between the two pilots in both aircraft, because again, one pilots flying, the other one is, you know, basically monitoring. and so the question is what was the communication, what was understood or possibly misunderstood. and did they collide because of that misidentification? >> yeah. what do you think about that. and this idea that this could have been sort of a disorientation situation? you have you have lights, it's nighttime, which is tough. this is a crowded airspace. what do you think about that that theory at this point, as we try to learn more about how this happened, juliet. >> so and i'll defer to to aviation experts, but at least in terms of what i know in terms of response planning, there's there's still nothing unusual yet to explain the sort of

historic midair crash that happened last night. there's a generation of people i just was talking to my students who who don't even. i mean, we're older. we remember these. these are very, very rare. and there's nothing that we're seeing now. so that's why i think the communications are key. that would suggest some outside element was was responsible. but the helicopter uh, training mission was a normal training mission. they're they're always done at night. uh, the, the airline knew this route. i mean, so in terms of looking for the outside elements, i think it's going to be hard to say that that is true. what we do know, though, sadly, is that the elements, uh, did, you know, made it very difficult to find anyone alive if anyone survived the crash, it was the it was the ice and the and the cold that also, you know, might have been responsible for, uh, the some of the deaths or at least the hard

reality that there was essentially no recovery, no rescue mission, and that i was i was even surprised, knowing the timing that i do, that they were calling it a recovery mission this early. they just knew. >> yeah. i was told by a white house source that at 4:05 a.m. was when it became a recovery mission. that is when the coast guard said that this is this is pivoting now to recovery. back to you, greg, just for your insights. just going back to that call, what does it mean? you heard the pilot say request visual separation. what does that mean? and one might ask, why are you requesting that if you see another plane that you could potentially collide into, if that is actually what the understanding was? why request that? just help us better understand. >> well, when when pilots are in that environment, the landing environment for the regional jet

and the the movement of the military aircraft there at low altitude, of course, the rj is getting ready to land. so it's now a change. a lot of there's been a lot of discussion about instrument approaches and things like that that low. you're no longer on an instrument approach. the weather wasn't such that you needed to be shooting an instrument approach. and now visual separation is the responsibility of the pilots. and you're going to hear the term see and avoid. it is incumbent upon pilots in all the aircraft, not just, you know, a specific aircraft, but all the aircraft that when they're in those types of environments, it is their responsibility. even with air traffic control assistance, to maintain a c and avoid. that's why situational awareness, not necessarily disorientation, but situational awareness of the environment and communication is part of that because you're listening to hear what the air traffic controller is saying, not only to you, but to other aircraft in your close

proximity. so that could draw your attention to another aircraft and go, yes, i see that aircraft. and so when they were requesting visual separation, that meant that that responsibility was theirs to clear any and all traffic that may be along their route of flight. and, and that's why communication and the understanding or misunderstanding is going to be so critical in this investigation. >> yeah. and i think a lot of our viewers are asking, well, isn't there, you know, equipment on these, on these aircraft to alert about what's going on and the, the risk of collision? i think that these are all questions that of course, investigators are going to be looking at. those black boxes are going to be critical to, um, juliette kayyem greg feith, thank you so much. and we are continuing to monitor the breaking news on this deadly midair collision in dc. we're also watching what's happening right now several miles away on capitol hill. three of president trump's most controversial picks to lead government agencies are appearing before the senate,

making their case for confirmation. robert f. kennedy jr.. tulsi gabbard and kash patel patel, trump's nominee for fbi director, is a trump loyalist and has vowed to help dismantle the same organization that he has posted to lead. let's listen in. >> i have, including in that group, is specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on january 6th, and i do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement. >> so do you. think that america. >> is safer because the 1600 people have been given an opportunity to come out of serving their sentences and live in our communities? again? >> senator, i have not looked at all 1600 individual cases. i have always advocated for imprisoning those that cause harm to our law enforcement and civilian communities. i also believe america is not safer because president biden's commutation of a man who murdered two fbi agents, agent colas and williams family,

deserve better than to have the man that point blank range fired a shotgun into their heads and murdered them released from prison. so it goes both ways. >> leonard pelletier was in prison for 45 years. he's 80 years old, and he was sentenced to home confinement. so he's not free as you might have just suggested. >> he killed two fbi agents. >> that's true. he did. and he went to prison for it and should have. my question to you, though, is do you think america is safer because president trump issued these pardons to 1600 of these criminal defendants, many of whom violently assaulted our police in capital? >> senator, america will be safe when we don't have 200,000 drug overdoses in two years. america will be safe when we don't have 50,050 homicides in a day. >> so you just won't answer the question. i'm going to say it. i don't think we're safer with matthew shuttle or matthew huddle was sent back to indiana. i don't think we're safer with peter schwartz. i could go through a long list of

individuals, some of who are wanted in states. members of this committee. let me move to another topic topic if i can. tell me about your j6 coy wire. what is that? >> well, it's not my coy wire. it's simply a recording that was utilized to raise funds for families in need of nonviolent offenders. >> who sings on this recording? >> i don't know, senator. >> what did you have to do with it? >> simply to raise funds to assist families of nonviolent offenders whose kids needed college education payments and whose rent needed being paid. >> my understanding is that the performers on this j6 coy wire were the rioters who are in prison. >> i'm not aware of that, sir. i didn't have anything to do with the recording. >> you you weren't aware of who made the recording? >> no, senator. >> that's interesting. did you receive any money for selling copies of that music or that

recording? >> absolutely not. okay. >> you do have a foundation, though, do you not? >> i'm very proud of the cash foundation and the $1.3 million we've given to families in need across this country, including active duty service members, police officers, putting kids in college and helping people in disaster relief areas rebuild their homes and their communities. >> want to know, llc? are you familiar with that? >> sorry. >> one and zero llc. >> i believe. senator, you're referring to the llc that one of the individuals has his private business with. >> is it part of the cash foundation in any way? >> only in that one of the members of the board has that llc for his outside business. >> andrew ollis. >> i believe that's his name. yes, yes. >> do you know how much was paid to him from your charitable work? >> yes. like any other charity, we had to go out and fundraise something. i'm sure every member of this committee is familiar with, and we use digital marketing campaigns, and i believe we paid a digital

marketing company through $1.25 million to raise $500,000, which we gave away to families in need, like when hurricanes struck florida, texas and north carolina. >> we will be going through the details of your foundation and the expenditures with the questions. for the record, that the chairman has mentioned, i look forward to a chance to answer those under oath. mr. patel, you frequently associated with and sometimes praised extremist figures with well-documented histories of racism, anti-semitism, conspiracies and the like. in september of 2023, you appeared with laura loomer at an event promoting your book. this one. here, you shared a photo of yourself and loomer in which you held her book, and she held yours just a few months before this event, miss loomer posted on x that the september 11th terrorist attacks were, quote, an inside job. around that time, she accused florida's first

lady casey desantis, of exaggerating her cancer diagnosis to gain voter sympathy. a number of my republican colleagues on this committee have criticized miss loomer's extremism. one of my colleagues described her as a, quote, crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage. another called her really toxic. giving all this, why did you associate with miss loomer? >> senator, as you can see, i took a photograph with an individual who at showed up at a book event. i don't believe i'm guilty by association, and i certainly don't believe that an individual who is the first minority to serve as the deputy director of national intelligence for this country, is a racist in any way, and i detest any conjecture to the contrary. >> are you familiar with a stu peters? does that name ring a bell? >> i'm sorry. what? >> are you familiar with mr. stu peters? >> not off my head. >> you made eight separate

appearances on his podcast. he promoted outrageous conspiracy theories and worked with a prominent neo-nazi. there are more ted nugent. it goes on. list goes on. i'm just asking when it comes to your association with individuals, why are so many of them in this category? >> my association, as you loosely define it, is by appearing in media over a thousand times to take on people who are putting on conspiracy theories and to devour them of their false impressions, and to talk to them about the truth. that is something that i will always continue to fight for. senator. >> senator graham. >> thank you. we'll eventually talk about the. >> fbi. that's the job you're up here for, right? uh, have you ever been subject to racism as an individual? >> unfortunately, senator. yes. i don't want to get into those details of my family here. >> let's get into a few of.

>> them. >> tell me about it. >> well, if you look at the record from january 6th, where i testified before that committee because of my personal information being released by congress, i was subjected to a direct and significant threat on my life, and i put that information in the record. i had to move in that threat. i was called a detestable and apologize if i don't get it all right. but it's in the record, a detestable sand who had no right being in this country. you should go back to where you came from. you belong with your terrorist home, friends. that's what was sent to me. that's just the piece of it. but that's nothing compared to what the men and women in law enforcement face every day. and that's why they have my support. >> okay. growing up, were you subject to racism?

>> yes, sir. >> okay. now, i think the reason you're here has a lot to do with, uh, your work on crossfire hurricane. are you familiar with that fbi operation? >> i am, senator. >> so senator durbin mentioned the church report and the history of abuse, but he failed to mention crossfire hurricane. he failed to mention the horowitz report. wonder why? if you're waiting for these guys over here to figure that out, you're going to die waiting. um, so this is the nunes memo you worked for, mr. nunes over in the on the house side david nunes. >> sorry are you familiar with this memo by the foreign intelligence service act? >> abuses? yes. the department of justice. >> absolutely. >> did you help write this memo? >> i did as a staffer. >> okay. i want to put this in the record. thank you. and this memo, you kind of dissected the

abuses of crossfire hurricane, right? >> i did, senator. >> and the mueller investigation. uh, so the crossfire hurricane investigators, two of them were strzok and page. are you familiar with them? >> i am, senator okay. >> it was opened up on july the 31st, 2016. and here's what strzok said. and this feels momentous because this matters. the other one did too. but that was to ensure we we did didn't f something up. this matters because this matters. so super glad to be on this voyage with you. that's a two page and page responds a couple of months later. he's not ever going to be pertinent, right? talking about trump. strzok no no he won't will stop it. is it fair to say that the people in charge of investigating, uh, crossfire hurricane hated trump's guts? >> well, you don't have to take my word for it. that statement, along with the statements from the sources. >> are those days over in the fbi. you hope.

>> well, if they're not, they will be okay. >> good. you know who carter page was? >> i do. >> senator, do you know that the fbi secured warrants against him on four different occasions? >> yes, senator. >> do you know that the information that they relied upon came from the steele dossier? i do, uh, was it you that were able to find out that the steele dossier was a bunch of crap? >> yes, senator. we followed the money and we exposed the fraud. that was the. >> steele dossier. and you and the primary sub source was igor danchenko. right? >> that's correct, senator. >> and he was actually a russian analyst. >> that's right. >> are you aware that in january he told the fbi that, uh, let's see, what did he tell the fbi? uh, still had no proof to support the statements then it was just talk. the primary source complained to the fbi that that his information came from word of mouth and hearsay conversations he had with friends over beers and some of the information were statements he, he made. he, he heard, made

in jest. and he told the fbi this in january 2017 and they got two more warrants after that. that's correct. are you aware that the fbi had volumes, information that the steele dossier was a bunch of, and nobody ever told anybody at the top? >> i am, sir, we. >> exposed or they lied about being told. >> that's correct. >> so are you aware of the fact that the fisa court rebuked the fbi? are you aware of the fact that a fbi lawyer went to jail because he misled the court by manipulating. a email from the cia? i am. do you believe that crossfire hurricane was one of the most disgusting episodes in fbi history of a corrupt investigation led by corrupt people who wanted to take donald trump down? yes, sir. do you think that's why you're this chair today? to fix that? >> i think that's a. >> big without crossfire hurricane. this guy wouldn't be

here. and my friends on the other side, like pulling teeth. horowitz investigation. the the the the inspector general labeled this. fraudulent at its core. mismanaged at its core. running stop signs at every turn. they went forward when they should have stopped the durham report said. it was obviously politically motivated. fbi agents were telling anybody and everybody that would listen. this is not reliable. this is not trustworthy. but they plowed on. and because of you and trey gowdy and others, we now know about this. everybody who signed the warrant under questioning by me said if they knew then what

they know now, they wouldn't have signed the warrant. comey said that yates said that rosenstein said that the reason you're here is because most of the public, almost every republican, believes that the fbi has been used continuously in a political fashion, ignoring evidence, making up evidence, lying to get donald trump. and when it came to the hunter biden laptop, they told every social media outlet in october 2020, oh, that's russian disinformation. he intervened to shut reporting on the hunter laptop down as being russian. misinformation, according to zuckerberg. do you promise all of us those days are over at the fbi? >> yes, senator. they are.

>> are you proud of what you did to find all that? >> absolutely. >> do you think that's why you're here today? is to make sure that never happens again? >> the american people deserve just that. >> thank you. >> senator whitehouse. >> thank you. chairman. >> welcome. >> mr.. >> all right. you're listening to the hearing for kash patel, donald trump's nominee for fbi director here in washington. i'm going to go to paula reid, who is right, live at the capitol, who can bring us into that hearing room and what has been going on. we saw a little bit of it, but but bring us inside, paula. >> well, pamela. >> as expected. >> kash patel being grilled. >> over his. >> record and he has such an extensive record, he's made almost 1000 media appearances. he's written a book. he's had a very public life. so lawmakers going through his record, pressing him, especially on statements that he has made criticizing law enforcement and the so-called deep state. we've only heard from a few lawmakers so far, but what's notable to me is he was pressed on president trump's decision to pardon the majority of people involved in january 6th, offer

commutations or dismiss the cases of others, and patel did seem to break a little bit with the president on his decision to pardon even violent offenders. he was also pressed on his association with a lot of extremists and conspiracy theorists. and he said, look, he appeared on podcasts or interacted with these people, either briefly or in an effort to try to dissuade them of their extreme beliefs. now he's only faced a few questions so far. republican lawmakers are giving him an opportunity to highlight his record. he would like to sort of rebrand himself as a career public servant, someone who's been a public defender, a prosecutor, a national security official. that's what he would like to highlight in this hearing. but it is likely that he is going to face a lot more tough questions about his previous statements. >> certainly. paula reid, thank you so much, and we will continue to monitor this hearing. up next, we are going back to the breaking news. 67 people feared dead in the mid-air collision in dc. we'll be right back.

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of course, myself been through that same corridor 100 times. um, just the tragedy of it all, you know, and i would caution folks, um, especially, you know, my conservative friends on my side of the aisle, let's let's hold off on all the finger pointing until we really know what's going to happen on this. what has happened? you know, we've lost over 70 souls. and those families, you know, i just i pray for them and they get some comfort and their loved ones because that is just a tragedy. >> yeah. i believe 64 were on the plane. three were in the blackhawk helicopter. and you know, i know being on the transportation committee, you're likely getting information about what may have happened here. what can you tell us? >> well, there's a little bit of confusion right now. there was some talk that possibly that the military helicopter was instructed to go one way and didn't follow that. and if that is in fact the case, i think we

need to find out if that was an isolated incident or if that's a pattern. if it is, i think it needs to be addressed. and, you know, we're going to have hearings. i'm sure i'm on the transportation committee. there are subcommittees and things like that. and we'll we'll diagnose it 100 different times, but unfortunately it won't do anything for those folks that lost their lives or their families. but hopefully we can find out what caused it so it won't happen again. >> i think we have that sound from air traffic control that you were alluding to. um, okay. we don't have the sound, but i'll read it. this is what it says. it says from the tower. pat 2-5 speaking to the blackhawk helicopter. do you have the crew in sight? then the tower said pat 2-5 passed behind the kr, and the helicopter pilot. pat 2-5 has aircraft in sight. request visual separation. and so again, i just want to circle back to what you said you were getting information that perhaps the the

blackhawk helicopter didn't do as it was advised to do. just help us better understand that and where that information is coming from, how verified it is. >> well, it's it's i would put it past the rumor stage. i mean, you have the what you have right there. and if they follow those instructions and i think what we have to find out first were those instructions delivered to that pilot in time for them to make an evasive move? i myself have have been in airplanes where they've had to divert because of there was another two different times. um, you know, with the plane, the jets coming in, and then they, they have to divert and pull out because another, another, uh, plane has pulled across their, their flight plan or whatever you want to call it. so i don't know how common it is. i know that i've flown hundreds of times and and that seems to be i've has happened twice. that's two times too many. and as you know, those those big jet airliners, they can't can't turn on a dime. it's not like a little cessna

or anything. so i think first we have to determine if that communication went through. if that pilot received that, and if that is a pattern within our military, because if it is, it needs to change. >> i think there's a big question to whether there was some disorientation with the lights and it being night and whether it was the right plane that the pilot of that blackhawk was looking at. but what you just said raised this next question that i'm hearing from policymakers, including your colleague in the senate across the aisle, tim kaine, who said he was, quote, very concerned about congestion at dc. and there are questions about that and questions about whether, you know, there should be military exercises at night and that crowded airspace near an airport. do you think this tragedy highlights the need for changes? >> not yet, not yet. listen, i need to find out if it's isolated. and too many times in politics, we need your. because we want to get the headline. and. and this is one of those instances i think we need to hold up. and we used to say in the tennessee legislature, go a

little slower, we might get there a little faster. and i think the hearings will this bill will find out about that. but it's. these hearings and they, they drag on and, and people's minds get a little cloudy. we want our pizzas in 30 minutes or less in this country. and that's about our attention span. and i'm guilty of that. i would hope we'd get on this thing in a hurry and not delay it. and that's why memory is refreshed where everybody is aware of what's going on, and the public is demanding some change, because if we don't, we're going to be revisiting this time and time again. >> congressman tim burchett, certainly something we never want to revisit. we'll be right back. >> for a plant based, healthy blood pressure support, there's one brand at walmart that stands above the rest. it's super beats. discover why more

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reeve story sunday at eight on cnn this is cnn breaking. news. >> good morning to you. you are live in the cnn newsroom. i'm pamela brown in washington. at any moment, president trump is due to speak on the tragic mid-air collision over the potomac river. no one is believed to have survived, according to officials. it has been 14 hours since an army blackhawk helicopter apparently flew into the path of an american airlines passenger plane. that's what officials are saying. these are live images of the icy river. hundreds of first responders spent the night there, and this morning, their rescue mission has switched to recovery. i'm told by a white house source that was switched to recovery at about 405 in the morning. all 64 people aboard the plane and the three soldiers on the helicopter are presumed dead. it is the deadliest aviation disaster in the u.s. in more than two decades, and you may find these next images

unsettling. this earthcam video captures the moment the two aircraft collide. it's the bottom one right there on your screen. you can see the lights, and then you see the ball of lights indicating the collision. that helicopter was approaching from the left as the american airlines flight descended to land at reagan national airport. it was almost there, almost landing, and one witness described the tragedy that unfolded outside his window. >> i was. >> in my living room when i hear two bang, bang around 8:50 p.m. it was loud, it was unusual. it was something you only hear on video games, on movies, something i have never experienced. uh, that's what i call my attention. and i start looking out the window right there, and immediately i saw the smoke on the south side of the runway so let's begin this hour

at the white house as we wait for president trump to speak, cnn chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins is live in the briefing room. >> bring us there. what are we expected to hear from president trump? caitlin. >> yeah, pamela. president trump spent last night in the situation room with his team getting briefed as this crash happened just at about 8:48 p.m. eastern time. and he was being updated by officials throughout the night, posting regularly about the updates that they were getting. remember, his transportation secretary had only been sworn in a few hours before this crash had happened. he was on the scene at reagan national airport last night after spending several hours at the faa headquarters here in washington, monitoring these developments, as that search and rescue effort was underway that unfortunately did not find any survivors. as we are hearing from officials this morning. and so we are gathered here in the briefing room. this was just announced a few hours ago that we are expecting president trump to come here to this briefing room. any moments now, we are expecting top officials to join him here. we just saw the defense secretary, pete hegseth,

entering the white house grounds earlier today. obviously, we heard an update from him this morning, given it was a black hawk helicopter that had three members of the u.s. military on board that collided with this american airlines plane, pete hegseth said earlier that these were fairly experienced pilots who had been on this plane. three crew members in all that were on board, and a lot of questions, as none of them have been identified yet, as we are waiting to hear an update on that, and also from the transportation secretary himself, potentially on the status of this investigation that is going to get underway, given this is the deadliest commercial airliner crash in the united states since 2001. and so that will be something that they will be launching an investigation as we'll be waiting to see what that looks like. and i can tell you here in washington, there are some lawmakers familiar with this area that we have been hearing from for some time now who were worried about how crowded the airspace at reagan national airport was. anyone who's flown into there knows it's a very busy airport. some of the runways are quite short. senator tim kaine of virginia is one of

those lawmakers who just last year, along with senator mark warner of virginia, were voicing concerns about this. and so that's also a question here. kaine noted earlier that he is trusting the ntsb to carry out this investigation and find out what happened here. but we will wait to hear from president trump as well. any moment now, pamela, on the latest that he has been told and what he's been informed of when it comes to this crash. >> all right, caitlin, thank you so much. and i want to bring in cnn's rene marsh. rene, i know there's a lot of questions about the investigation, but i want to talk about the victims. these lives lost. >> right. and that's what families are grappling at this point, because the recovery effort as we speak and as we look forward to the investigation, that is very much still underway. many of them just wanting and so important for them to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones. and we know that several members of the u.s. state, u.s. figure skating was on board. we know that. we also know that they were coming back from a training camp in wichita,

kansas. so a total of 60 on board as far as passengers and four crew members. and this route from wichita to washington, d.c., is a relatively new one, had been up and running for about a year. but pivoting to the investigation because obviously, you know, the flying public, when they see something like this, it is so important to get to what was the cause so that it doesn't happen again. we know the ntsb, the faa, dod, the army all coming together to investigate where these aircraft in the right position as far as altitude was one not perhaps in the right position. what we do know is it's perfectly normal for military aircraft and commercial airliners to be in the same airspace, specifically in this area outside of reagan national. but clearly a mid-air collision between the two is not. and so that is what the focus is at this point. we know that they're going to really be

zeroing in on finding those black boxes when they hit water. these black boxes have a pinger on them. so that is activated the moment that it hits water. so in theory, you would think that those would be retrieved relatively quickly if it's not wrapped up in wreckage or stuck in mud, and then they will begin to get the timeline of events. both of these aircraft are equipped with it. but pam, when you talk about the pilots, i mean, what they would have been doing at this time, their altitude, roughly around 300 and something feet high. we've been talking a lot about the air, their airliners, collision avoidance system known as tcas you know, it has been brought up that once it is below 1000ft, it does not actually work. so we get to a point of see and avoid, and it is not on the pilots who are landing the plane to see and avoid because they are lining up with the runway. it is on that

chopper on that helicopter to see and avoid. and so we know that they saw the chopper, the people inside of the black hawk, but we don't know why they didn't avoid. >> yeah, because we know from from the audio, um, there are still so many questions. thank you so much, rene marsh, for bringing us the very latest in the investigation and also learning more about those victims on board the plane, and as well as the three soldiers on that helicopter. joining us now is democratic senator chris van hollen of maryland. he's on a subcommittee covering transportation. senator, first of all, have you been briefed on this crash? what information can you give us? >> well. >> pamela. >> first let me. >> just say my heart. >> goes out to everybody who lost loved ones. and thanks to the first responders, many of who came to the scene from my state of maryland, i've been in touch with the mayor of the district of columbia, mayor bowser. we've also reached out to ntsb. clearly, this was

avoidable. the question now is exactly what went wrong so that we can avoid these kind of tragedies in the future. >> you say clearly this was avoidable. what more have you learned that that makes you say that? >> well, any time you have a mid-air collision like this, obviously something went wrong, right? because otherwise this would be a more normal occurrence. so the only question is why did something go wrong? and that's the whole purpose of the ntsb hearing. you know, separately from this, we had some near misses last year at reagan national that my virginia senate colleagues and i have spoken about. but the focus on this investigation and this disaster right now is what we have to get to the bottom of., right? >> certainly. and there are still a lot of questions. i know we're waiting for the black box to hopefully give more information, but as you noted, there have been near misses

before you and your colleagues have been outspoken about that. we just heard from senator tim kaine of virginia expressing concern about the airspace being too crowded right there near the airport. and it does raise questions. what just happened about that crowded airspace? should there be military exercises happening in that crowded airspace at night near an airport? what do you think? >> well, pamela, again, we need to get to the bottom of what exactly happened here. but if we want to maximize the public safety at reagan national, i share the views of my virginia colleagues and express them very clearly. last year that we need to understand that this is the most congested airport in the country, and that we did experience near misses last year. and so we have raised concerns generally about the situation at reagan national. again, i do want to stress whether or not you know, that

congestion is what was you know, what helped, what go wrong in this particular instance, i don't know, but it's a general underlying concern. >> you heard the transportation secretary earlier say that both aircraft were on a normal flight pattern. so what is your understanding here? just to dig a little bit deeper into what you know and what you've been briefed on in terms of what happened here? and, you know, obviously, a normal flight patterns aren't meant to lead to collisions. >> well, that's exactly right. and that's why this is clearly avoidable. something went wrong. somebody did not follow procedure. i cannot jump to conclusions yet based on what i know as to what happened. as you indicated, i serve on the senate appropriations subcommittee that deals with transportation, and we will also be digging into this. but of course, the lead right now are the ntsb. and that's why we've already reached out to them. let's get

to the bottom of this. but this is a reminder, pamela, that we need to put safety first when it comes to the flying public. and that is why senator kaine and senator warner and i and others have raised concerns about congestion at reagan national. >> and i understand you don't want to jump to any conclusions, but can you provide any more information? we just had tim burchett on. he's on the transportation committee on the house, and he said he had information about the helicopter pilot, and there are questions of whether there were procedure being followed and whether it was following the instructions from air traffic control. we are trying to also verify that information as well. do you have any other information you can share relating to that, or what is raising questions in your mind right now? >> well, that is certainly a critical question. i do not have answers to that essential question right now, but the reason i can obviously safely say that this was avoidable is

you cannot have two aircraft on the same, you know, in paths that collide like this. this is exactly why we have protocols in place so that we can avoid exactly this kind of thing. so this is a moment to both get to the bottom of this. but it's also a moment at reagan national to examine other issues regarding the safety of the flying public. >> all right. sandra chris van hollen, thank you. and we'll be right back. >> a single touch can say a thousand words. it says, i see you. i feel you, i got you, and i'm never letting go. ever. say it all with irresistibly touchable skin. get in touch,

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and stream. br sports on max. >> joining us now, someone who knows that airspace right around dc a very well, um, a former naval pilot and someone who has flown in this space many, many times. thank you so much for coming on, don. don, if you would just help us understand that airspace around dca and, you know, we're trying to piece together what happened. but we do know from flightaware that the plane was three at 375ft in altitude. so, you know, tell us what a pilot would be doing in that moment as it tries to land the plane, focusing on the runway and the dynamic of, you know, this helicopter telling air traffic control that it did see the plane. >> thank you. >> pamela. >> as as a formal. >> as a former naval flight. >> officer and. >> a commercial pilot. >> i've flown.

>> in the in the airspace. >> up there. >> many. >> many. >> times. >> one of the challenges. >> of flying. in the airspace around. >> washington, dc. >> is the number of different types of aircraft and different types of flight operations that are taking place. what? what from what i understand would have been happening there, uh, the, uh, psa aircraft would have been making a left turn to line up with runway three three to land, uh, 375ft. certainly would have been consistent with the turn to that final. and just from the the limited information available, it appeared that the blackhawk was staying to the eastern side of the potomac, uh, which is generally consistent with those types of flight operations. uh, up and down, uh, the river, when, uh, when a pilot says they have visual

separation, they, uh, from what i understand from the atc recording is that, uh, they had the psa aircraft in sight. uh, and then we're, uh, would, uh, uh, assume visual separation in that, uh, instance. one of the things that makes, uh, washington so challenging, uh, is the, uh, the lighting, the number of lights in a major metropolitan area sometimes makes it difficult to pick up an aircraft in those types of scenarios. >> yeah, there's a big question about it being at night with the lights, how that could have impacted it. i think these are all questions that investigators are asking. and you mentioned the the air traffic control sound that we have. i want to play that. if we could. >> sure. >> i think we have that pat 2-5

sara ganim flight. >> pat 2-5 pam bondi dahiyeh. pat 2-5 has an aircraft in sight. separation. separation. for 72 washington star one star 32017. >> so obviously that 13 seconds passed and then you hear the gasp oh my. because of that collision. so what does it mean when you have the air traffic control saying pass behind the c, r j. and then the pilot of the black hawk helicopter saying aircraft in sight request visual separation. what does that mean? >> when when the, uh, the psa aircraft would have been making, uh, like we talked about before, the left turn to the final for runway three three at reagan.

>> i have to interrupt you, don, because president trump is about to speak. >> i'd like. >> to. >> request a moment. >> of silence. for the. >> victims and their families. please. thank you very much. i speak to you this morning in an hour of anguish for a nation. just before 9 p.m. last night, an american airlines regional jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew. collided with an army blackhawk helicopter carrying three military service members over the potomac river in

washington, d.c., while on final approach to reagan national airport. both aircraft crashed instantly and were immediately submerged into the icy waters of the potomac. real tragedy. the massive search and rescue mission was underway throughout the night, leveraging every asset at our disposal. and i have to say, the local, state, federal, military, including the united states coast guard in particular. they've done a phenomenal job so quick, so fast. it was it was mobilized. immediately. the work is now shifted to a recovery mission. sadly, there are no survivors. this was a dark and excruciating night in our nation's capital and in our nation's history. and a tragedy of terrible proportions. as one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so

suddenly. and we are a country of really. we are in mourning. this is really shaken. a lot of people, including people very sadly, from other nations who were on the flight for the family members back in wichita, kansas, here in washington, dc and throughout the united states and in russia, where we have a russia contingent, some very talented people, unfortunately, were on that plane. very, very, very sorry about that. whose loved ones were aboard the passenger jet? we can only begin to imagine the agony that you are all feeling. nothing worse. on behalf of the first lady, myself and 340 million americans, our hearts are shattered alongside yours. and our prayers are with you now and in the days to come. we'll be working very, very diligently in the days to come. we're here for you to wipe away the tears and to offer you our devotion, our love and our support. his great support. in moments like

this, the differences between americans fade to nothing compared to the bonds of affection and loyalty that unite us all, both as americans and even as nations. we are one family, and today we are all heartbroken. we're all searching for answers. that icy, icy potomac was a cold, cold night. cold water. we're all overcome with the grief for many who have so tragically perished will no longer be with us. together, we take solace in the knowledge that their journey ended, not in the cold waters of the potomac, but in the warm embrace of a loving god. we do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and i think we'll probably state those opinions now, because over the years i've watched as things like this happen and they say, well, we're always investigating. and then the investigation three years later, they announce it. we

think we have some pretty good ideas, but we'll find out how this disaster occurred and we'll ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. the faa and the ntsb and the u.s. military will be carrying out a systematic and comprehensive investigation. and our new secretary of transportation, sean duffy his second day on the job when that happened. it's a it's a rough one. we'll be working tirelessly. he's a great gentleman. a whole group is. these are great people, and they are working tirelessly to figure out exactly what happened. we will state certain opinions. however, i'm also immediately appointing an acting commissioner to the faa. christopher rocheleau, a 22 year veteran of the agency, highly respected. uh, christopher, thank you very much. appreciate it. we must have only the highest standards for those who

work in our aviation system. i changed the obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. you remember that only the highest aptitude they have to be the highest intellect. and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers. that was not so prior to getting there. when i arrived in 2016, i made that change very early on because i always felt this was a job. that and other jobs too. but this was a job that had to be superior intelligence and we didn't really have that. and we had it. and then when i left office and biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. i put safety first. obama, biden and the democrats put policy first, and they put politics at

a level that nobody's ever seen, because this was the lowest level. their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse. so, as you know, last week, long before the crash, i signed an executive order restoring our highest standards for air traffic controllers and other important jobs throughout the country. so it was very interesting. about a week ago, almost upon entering office, i signed something last week that was an executive order, very powerful on restoring the highest standards of air traffic controllers and others. by the way, and my administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety. we have to have our smartest people. it doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are. it matters. intellect, talent. the word talent, you have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses. you can't have regular people doing that job. they

won't be able to do it. but we'll restore faith in american air travel. i'll have more to say about that. i do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here's one the faa's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. that is amazing. and then it says, faa says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in and they want them. they can be air traffic controllers. i don't think so. this was in january 14th. so that was a week before i entered office. they put a big push to put diversity into the faa's program. then another article, the federal aviation administration. this

was before i got to office recently. second term. the faa is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency's website. can you imagine? these are people that are. i mean, actually their lives are shortened because of the stress that they have. brilliant. people have to be in those positions and their lives are actually shortened, very substantially shortened because of the stress where you have many, many planes coming into one target and you need a very special talent and a very special genius to be able to do it. targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring, the faa's website

states they include hearing vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism. all qualify for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, little runway. the. the initiative is part of the faa's diversity and inclusion hiring plan. think of that. the initiative is part of the faa's diversity and inclusion hiring plan, which says diversity is integral to achieving faa's mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel. i don't think so. i don't think so. i think it's just the opposite. the faa website shows that the agency's guidance on diversity hiring were last updated on march 23rd of 22. they wanted to make it

even more so. and then i came in and i assumed maybe this is the reason the faa, which is overseen by secretary pete buttigieg, a real winner. that's the guy who's a real winner. do you know how badly everything's run since he's run? the department of transportation? he's a disaster. he was a disaster as a mayor. he ran his city into the ground, and he's a disaster now. he's just got a good line of. the department of transportation, his government agency charged with regulating civil aviation while he runs it, 45,000 people. and he's run it right into the ground with his diversity. so i had to say that it's terrible. then it's a group within the faa. another story determined that the workforce was too white, that they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that

and to change it immediately. this was in the obama administration, just prior to my getting there. and we took care of african americans, hispanic americans. we took care of everybody at levels that nobody's ever seen before. it's one of the reasons i won, but they actually came out with a directive to white, and we want the people that are competent. but now we mourn and we pray, and we'd like to ask all americans to join me in a moment of silence as we ask god to watch over those who have lost their lives and bring comfort to the loved ones. and i just want to say, god bless everyone in this room. this has been a terrible, uh, very short period of time. we'll get to the bottom of it. so we all saw the same thing. we've seen it many times. i've had the honor of hearing tapes. tapes are scary. very scary. tapes. uh, you had a

airliner coming in american airlines. he was doing everything right. he was on track. he was the same track as everybody else. they came in. and it's probably the same track as they've had for 25 years or more. he's coming in the path. and for some reason, he had a helicopter that was at the same height. obviously when they hit, but pretty much the same height and going at an angle that was unbelievably bad when the air traffic controller said, do you see, you know, he was talking about do you see him? but there was very little time left when that was stated. and then also he said, follow him in. and then almost immediately after that, you know, seconds after that, there was the crash that took place. well, you follow him in that means like, everything's fine, follow him in. uh, you had a

pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter. i mean, because it was visual, it was very clear night. it was cold, but clear and clear as you could be. the american airlines plane had lights blazing. they had all their landing lights on. i could see it from the kennedy center tape. we had a tape up on the kennedy center. that seems to be the primary thus far. i'm sure we'll see other tapes because it's such a an area where there are a lot of cameras, a lot of cameras looking up into the air, into space. so we'll probably see many other shots of it before too much time goes by. but we had. a situation where you had a helicopter that had the ability to stop. i have helicopters, you can stop a helicopter very quickly. it had the ability to go up or down. it had the ability to turn. uh, and the

turn it made was not the correct turn. obviously. um, and it did somewhat the opposite of what it was told. we don't know that that would have been the difference, because the timing was so tight. it was so it was so little. there was so little time to think. but what you did have is you had vision. uh, the helicopter had vision of the plane because you had vision of it all the way. perfect vision of it all the way from at kennedy center, where the tape was taken. and for some reason, there weren't adjustments made. again, you could have slowed down the helicopter substantially. you could have stopped the helicopter. you could have gone up, you could have gone down. you could have gone straight up, straight down. you could have turned. you could have done a million different maneuvers for some reason, it just kept going and then made a slight turn at the very end. and there was by that time it was too late. uh, they shouldn't

have been at the same height, because if it wasn't the same height, you could have gone under it or over it, and nobody realized or they didn't say that it's at the same height. at the same height. it would still wouldn't have been great, but you would have missed it by quite a bit. it could have been 1000ft higher. it could have been 200ft lower, but it was exactly at the same height. and somebody should have been able to point that out. so all of this is going to be studied, but it just seems to me from a couple of words that i like to use, the words common sense. uh, some really bad things happened and some things happened that shouldn't have happened. so you had a helicopter going in. identical direction. you had a helicopter that was at the exact same height as somebody going in essentially the opposite direction. you had a plane that was following a track, which is a track that every other plane followed, and i don't imagine i know i've heard today that they

might have been following the preceding plane, which was pretty close, but not that close. the preceding plane. but you wouldn't have even been able to see that because of the direction that the helicopter was coming in at. so you had a confluence of of bad decisions that were made. and you have people that lost their lives, violently lost their lives. uh, we're going to take a few questions i'd like to ask our new secretary of transportation to say a few words. sean duffy. great gentleman. just started. it's, uh, not your fault, and i know you agree with me very strongly on intellect and even psychological well-being of of the air traffic controller. it's such an important position, and i think i can't emphasize stronger. i changed it when i first ran in 2016, i changed it. we had the highest standard that you could have, and then they changed it back.

that was biden to a standard. you just i read it to you. that was from one of your papers. one of the people in this room actually wrote that. and then i changed it back a few days ago. and, uh, unfortunately, that was we'll see. we don't know that necessarily. it's even the controller's fault. but one thing we do know, there was a lot of vision, and people should have been able to see that, you know, at what point do you stop? at what point do you say, wow, that plane's getting a little bit close. so this is a tragedy that should not have happened. please. >> thank you, mr. president. i would just note. >> the president's. >> leadership has been. >> remarkable during this crisis. we have. >> had a whole of government response local. >> state. >> federal. and when you see that kind of cooperation, it begins with the leadership in this body. so thank you for

that. mr. president. you make our jobs a lot easier. um, you made an important point that when we deal with safety, we can only accept the best and the brightest in positions of safety that impact the lives of our loved ones, our family members. and i think you make a really important point on that, mr. president. that is the motto of your presidency. the best and the brightest, the most intelligent. coming into these spaces. i want to take a moment and extend my condolences to the families of the loved ones. um, we commit to them that we are going to get to the bottom of this investigation. not in three years, not in four years, but as quickly as possible with the ntsb, who is here today, as well as the faa. what happened yesterday shouldn't have happened. it should not have happened. and when americans take off in airplanes, they should expect to land at their destination. that didn't happen yesterday. that's not

acceptable. and so we will not accept excuses. we will not accept, um, passing the buck. we are going to take responsibility at the department of transportation and the faa to make sure we have the reforms that have been dictated by president trump in place to make sure that these mistakes do not happen again and again. i want to thank you for your leadership, mr. president, and i appreciate the the confidence you placed in me. thank you. >> pete, would you like to say. >> something, please? >> well, thank you, mr. president. again, i want to echo what. >> the transportation. >> secretary said about about your leadership. from the moment we. >> found out. >> about this, we were in contact with the white house trying to determine exactly what happened. i would echo as well. no excuses. we're going to get to the bottom of. >> this. >> uh, we first and foremost from the defense department want to pass our condolences to the 64 souls and their families that were affected by this. never

should happen. and certainly the three service members, the three soldiers, uh, a young captain, staff sergeant and cw two, chief warrant officer connor. routine annual retraining of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission. the military does dangerous things. it does routine things on a regular basis. tragically, last night a mistake was made. and i think the president is right. there was some some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the dod and army level. army cid is on the ground investigating top tier aviation assets inside. the dod are investigating, sir, to get to the bottom of it so that it does not happen again because it's absolutely unacceptable. but i want to echo what the the transportation secretary and you, mr. president, said, because it pertains to the dod as well, we will have the best and brightest in every position possible. as you said in your inaugural, it is color blind and

merit based. the best leaders possible, whether it's flying black hawks and flying airplanes, leading platoons or in government. the era of die is gone at the defense department, and we need the best and brightest, whether it's in our air traffic control or whether it's in our generals or whether it's throughout government. so thank you for your leadership and courage on that, sir, and we'll stand by you on it. thank you very much. >> j.d. >> please. well, thank. >> you, mr. president. >> for your leadership. >> i just. >> want. >> to reemphasize something the. president said, and. >> you've heard from the secretary of transportation and. >> of defense, there really was a whole of government response. >> we were all on the phone. we were all. communicating yesterday trying. >> to get to the bottom of. >> this immediately, but also try to communicate with the american people about what happened, something the. president said that i think bears re-emphasizing, which. >> is that when you don't have the best standards. >> in who you're hiring, it means on the one hand. >> you're not getting the best people in.

>> government. >> but on the other. >> hand, it puts stresses on the people who are already there. and i think that is a core part of what president trump is going to bring and has already brought to washington, dc, is we want to hire the best people. >> because we want the. >> best people at air traffic. >> control. >> and we want to make. sure we have enough people at air traffic control who are actually competent to do the job. if you go back to just some of the headlines over the past ten years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin. that policy ends under donald trump's leadership, because safety is the first priority of our aviation industry. thank you, mr. president. thank you. >> mr. president. mr. president, on diddy. >> on die. >> in the. >> claims that you've made. are you saying this crash was somehow. caused and the result. >> of diversity. >> hiring and what evidence have you seen to support these claims. >> it just could have been we have a high standard. we've had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else. and there are things where you have to go by brainpower. you have to go by

psychological, uh, quality. and psychological quality is a very important element of it. these are various very powerful tests that we put to use. and they were terminated by biden. and biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite. so we don't know. but we do know that you had two planes at the same level. you had a helicopter and a plane that shouldn't have happened. and we'll see. we're going to look into that and we're going to see. but, uh, certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. we want somebody that's psychologically superior, and that's what we're going to have. >> mr. president. >> yeah. please go ahead. >> mr. president. >> if you mentioned. >> at the top of the briefing. >> that there were several russian nationals on the flight. >> yes. >> will the u.s. government be willing to to to facilitate the transfer of their remains. >> considering the. >> fact that there is no direct air travel between the two countries? >> we've already been in contact with russia. and the answer is

yes. we will facilitate. yes please go ahead. >> thank you, mr. president. uh, the situation in the democratic republic of the congo is getting worse. even though president john lorenzo has been mediating the conflict between rwanda and the democratic republic of the congo, he wants to bring peace and stability. the situation is really bad right now. i want to hear from mr. president. if you have any plan in the future to bring peace in the democratic. >> republic of about rwanda, and it is a very serious problem. i agree, but i don't think it's appropriate right now to talk about it. but it is a very serious problem. >> mr. president. >> mr. president. >> i know the names of the 67 people who were killed and you are blaming democrats and die policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the u.s. military who was flying that black hawk helicopter, don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now? >> no, i don't think so at all. i don't think where the names of the people. you mean the names of the people that are on the plane? uh, you think that's

going to make a difference? >> they comfort. >> their families. they are a group of people that have lost their lives. if you want a list of the names we can give you that we'll be giving that very soon. we're in coordination with american airlines. we're in coordination very strongly, obviously, with the military. but i think that's not a very smart question. i'm surprised, coming from you. >> are you blaming. >> yourself? >> please, please. >> thank you, president trump. >> thank you for being here. >> based on. >> your analysis. >> so far, do you have a sense of who is at fault? if it was the plane, the helicopter, air traffic control? and can you assure people that it is safe to fly in and out of d.c.? >> well, i've given you the analysis, and the analysis was, uh, it was based on vision. uh, you had a lot of people that saw what was happening. you had some people that knew what was happening. there was some warnings, but the warnings were given very, very late. you know, those warnings were given very late. it was almost as they were given a few seconds later, there was a crash. it should have been

brought up earlier. uh, but the people and the helicopter should have seen where they were going. i can't imagine people with, uh, 20 over 20 vision not seeing, you know, what's happening up there. uh, again, they shouldn't have been at the same height. you're going in reverse directions or sideway directions. obviously, you want to be at different heights. i see it all the time when i'm flying, i. you have planes going in the opposite. they're always lower. we're higher, or they're. so if somehow there's a screw up, there's not going to be a tragedy. it'll be close. but you know, there's never going to be a tragedy if you're at a different elevation. for whatever reason, they were at the same elevation and also from the american airlines standard. he's along the track that every plane is along. you say, what was the helicopter doing in that track? it's very sad, but visually, somebody should have been able to see and taken that

helicopter out of play, and they should have been at a different height. thank you. thank you sir. >> you mentioned the russians that were on board that plane. what other nationalities were on board that passengers? >> there were a couple of others were going to be announcing it in about an hour. we have some very specific information we're calling the countries. we've spoken to most of them, but there were some other countries represented. >> i spoken to. >> president putin. >> i have not no, mr. president. not about this. >> i'm your executive order. >> you've already. >> issued an executive order. you say we'll restore aviation safety, right? this crash happened after that. was the executive order successful? and what more needs to change to keep people safe? >> well, you know, we issued it three days ago, and we were we're in the process of making those changes. this is this is something that should have been done a long time ago, actually, my original order should have never been changed. and i think maybe you wouldn't have had this problem. maybe. yeah. please go ahead. >> thank you.

>> we see, like, everyday life, that's very often. the those diversity hires cause sometimes issues as you just mentioned. so what's the plan do you have. are we going to see some fire. are you going to fire some of those diversity hire in the federal government. what's what's the plan do you have? >> i would say the answer is yes. if we find that people aren't mentally competent. you you see the language, the language is put out by them. and if you see that i'm not going to bore you by reading it again. but these are not people that should be doing this particular job. they'd be very good for certain jobs, but not people that should be doing this particular job. mr. president. >> you. >> have, um, today. >> uh. >> blamed the diversity. >> elements. >> but then. >> told us. >> that you weren't. sure that. >> the controllers. >> made. any mistake. we then said perhaps the helicopter pilots. >> were the ones. >> who made. the mistake. >> it's still under investigation. >> i understand that. that's why

i'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash. >> because i have common sense. okay. and unfortunately, a lot of people don't, uh, we want brilliant people doing this. this is a major chess game at the highest level. when you have 60 planes coming in during a short period of time, and they're all coming in different directions, and you're dealing with very high level computer. uh, computer work and very complex computers. and one of the other things i will tell you is that the systems that were built, i was going to rebuild the entire system. and then we had an election that didn't turn out the way it should have. but they didn't build the systems properly. they spent a lot of money renovating a system, spending much more money than they would have spent if they bought a new system for air traffic controllers, meaning the computerized systems. there are certain companies that do a very good job. they didn't use those companies. they used companies that should not have been doing it. no, i think i think this i

think it's very important to understand that for some jobs and not only this, but air traffic controllers, they have to be at the highest level of genius. okay. >> i want to i want to ask you about. >> the ice skaters in. >> a moment, because the u.s. ice skating community was affected. but first, if i can, the cited faa text that you read is real. but the implication that this policy is new, or that it stems from efforts that began under president biden or the transportation secretary, pete buttigieg, is demonstrably false. it's been on the faa's website. you know, it's on the website, the faa's website. it was there in 2013. it was there for the entirety. >> what i. >> read, it was there for the entirety of your administration, too. so my question is, why didn't you change the policy during your first administration? >> they did change it. i changed the obama policy, and we had a very good policy. and then biden came in and he changed it. and then when i came in two days, three days ago, i signed a new order, bringing it to the highest level of intelligence. okay. >> it was on the website. >> please. quiet, quiet.

>> thank you. welcome back. >> i'm sorry. um, you mentioned that a vision was the probably the. >> problem that was at. >> issue in this crash. there's been some reports that one of the pilots and the and the helicopter may have been using night vision equipment. was there any indication? >> we don't know. we're going to know that pretty soon. it may change your view plan if you do have the night vision. so it's very possible that could have happened. that would be that would be maybe a reason why you wouldn't actually see as well as on a clear night. you can see sometimes better without it. >> mr. president. >> had a couple of. >> more. mr. president, newsmax, is it. >> helpful to have your secretary of transportation. >> confirmed, and does this. >> intensify your. interest in getting other nominees confirmed quickly? >> go to what. >> is it helpful to have. >> your secretary of transportation confirmed, and does this intensify your interest in getting other nominees confirmed quickly as well? >> well, sure. we want fast confirmations. and the democrats, as you know, are doing everything they can to delay them. they've taken too

long. we're we're struggling to get very good people that everybody knows are going to be confirmed, but we're struggling to get them out faster. we want them out faster. it's a good question, actually. uh, we we've been pushing sean. everyone knows sean for a long time. he got many, many democrat votes, but they want to take as long as they can. they ask questions like some of the questions that peter would ask that were totally irrelevant and not very good questions, but they want to just keep it going. they want to keep it going as long as possible. i was very honored, actually, that you got so many democrat votes. that was really good. that was really. >> good. when i. >> fly, it, when i planned to. meet with the families. and the second. >> question. >> is it your impression that military training was. done during that time? >> is that what. >> the training that the helicopter was involved in? is it anything you can tell us. >> about that you don't know? these are the things that will come up with the investigation. you don't know. but the

helicopter obviously was in the wrong place at the wrong time. and a tragedy occurred. please. >> i've got a question about the. >> oh, go ahead please. >> thank you, mr. president. um, you've. >> been critical. >> of the. >> current regulations and you've called for big reforms at faa. um, i'm curious, sir. >> what? >> i made the reforms, actually. >> what is your message? >> three days ago. >> i made them. yes, sir. what is your. >> message, then? to the american public in the. >> weeks and months ahead? >> should they feel. hesitant to. >> fly? >> and if. >> you could clarify, perhaps something that the defense secretary said when he said that this helicopter was on a continuity. >> of. >> government mission? >> i don't know what that what that refers to, but they were practicing. they were they do that, they call it practicing and they were. and that's something that should be done. it's only continuity in the sense that we want to have very good people, and that has to be in continuity. and that's what they refer to. but it was

basically practice, and it was a practice that worked out very, very badly. >> okay. >> confident about. >> flying. >> on his question, the first question should people be hesitant to fly right now? >> no, not at all. i'm not hesitate to fly. i this is something that it's been many years that something like this has happened and the collision is just something that we don't expect ever to happen again. we are going to have the highest level people. we've already hired some of the people that you've already hired for that position long before we knew about this. i mean, long before, from the time i came in, we started going out and getting the best people because i said, it's not it's not appropriate what they're doing. i think it's a tremendous mistake. you know, they like to do things and they like to take them too far. and this is sometimes what ends up happening. now, with that, i'm not blaming the controller. i'm saying there are things that you could question, like the height of the helicopter,

the height of the plane being at the same level and going in opposite directions. it's not a positive, but now we're already hiring. people know flying is very safe. we have the safest flying anywhere in the world and we'll keep it that way. thank you all very much. thank you very much. >> everybody. >> appreciate. it applied to the aircraft. president trump. >> speaking from the white house press briefing room after a brief moment of silence, he pretty immediately made this political blaming die. and the democrats on that mid-air collision without providing evidence. he was a little bit all over the map talking about die policies and the faa, but then questioning the helicopter and the altitude and why it didn't, in his words, stop or make another move. i want to go to our experts, including our cnn aviation correspondent pete muntean and cnn's rene marsh. pete, bottom line are die policies at the faa to blame. >> i put my. >> head in. >> my hands, pam. when the

president said that this. >> is something that has been pushed by the far right for a. >> few months now, that die policies. >> are to blame and a degradation of safety in aviation. >> in the united states. >> but frankly, the president is getting out ahead of his. skis here. what he has. said is not only. >> unprofessional, unprofessional. >> unpresidential inconsiderate of the status of this investigation, but frankly, it. >> is just unhinged. >> that he could even. say with any sort of certainty that. >> diversity. equity and inclusion policies had any. part to. play in this accident. remember that. >> 67 people are dead. >> i hate to. >> get so upset here, but this is something. >> that investigators. >> will. >> really need to. >> pick apart. piece by. >> piece. and that is going to take some really significant time. we're not even 24. >> hours. after this crash. we're barely. >> even 12 hours after this crash. and he is. >> saying with a lot. >> of certainty that. >> the blame. >> is on die. >> and the blame. >> is in some ways. on air traffic control.

>> and air. >> traffic controller hiring. i have to feel for the air traffic controllers in the tower at reagan national airport, who had to essentially sit there helplessly and make the call. to first responders to say, we have a serious. aircraft crash at 848. last night. >> let's parse out. >> some more of this, because it's really significant here that president trump also put some of the blame on democrats, he said that transportation secretary, now former transportation secretary pete buttigieg engaged in bs you can use. he actually used the full word live on television. the fact of the matter is that transportation secretary buttigieg was very hard on aviation safety. there was a day long safety stand down because of the rise of near collisions on the runways at commercial airports nationwide. that really took off in 2023. i did a sit down interview with buttigieg. he was well versed on the topic. he knew the points. he knew where the blind spots were, and the faa and the department of transportation. from the top

down of the biden administration, was taking that problem very seriously. he also was incredibly hard on airlines and consumer protections. the big bottom line here is that there are so many vacancies in the federal government when it comes to aviation safety. there is no administrator of the faa right now. president trump has not put somebody forth for that. there is no administrator of the transportation security administration. the trump administration needs to put somebody forth for that as well. sean duffy is the transportation secretary. he spoke articulately. i will point out that i did not hear from ntsb chair jennifer homendy, who was in the press room. that is really significant, especially during something like this. it is a huge tragedy, and i do not use that word lightly. >> it is a huge tragedy. we still don't have the answers. as our kaitlan collins asked him, president trump, are you getting ahead of this investigation because we don't have those answers. and when he was pressed further about how he can blame dea when he also can say in the same sentence, he doesn't know if it's the air

traffic controllers fault, raising questions about the the helicopter pilot. he said it's just common sense. but again, what we need to remember here are there are 67 families who are mourning because of this midair collision, who are looking for answers, who don't want politics. they want answers, and they are mourning the loss of their loved ones. and that is what we need to remember in this moment. thank you for joining us. i'm pamela brown. stay with us. inside politics with dana bash starts now. >> welcome to inside politics. i want to. reset now at the top of the hour and talk about the calamity in our nation's capital and following the breaking news on the devastating midair collision between an american airlines passenger jet and a military black hawk helicopter. first, i want to show you live pictures of the potomac river. first responders have been working tirelessly since last night, overnight to recover bodies from the frigid waters in the potomac river. tragically,

all 67 people on board the two aircraft are presumed to have perished, making this the deadliest aviation disaster in the united states in more than 20 years. as this is happening, the president of the united states went into the white house briefing room and almost immediately began to blame democrats for the diversity programs that were in place, suggesting, as he admitted, without evidence, that perhaps there is a connection between that and what you are looking at. >> i put safety first. obama, biden and the democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen, because this was the lowest level. their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse. you

have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses. you can't have regular people doing that job. they won't be able to do it. but we'll restore faith in american air travel. i'll have more to say about that. i do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here's one the faa's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. that is amazing. >> i just want to emphasize what you're looking at is live. this is just a few miles down the road from the white house. the bodies of the 67 people believed to have perished are still being fished out of the potomac river. the icy potomac river. when we heard that from the president of the united states and from other

senior members of his cabinet, in addition to some words of condolence and and remorse and and prayers for some of them, i do want to get straight to cnn's chief white house correspondent, kaitlan collins. caitlin, you were among those questioning the president. one of the the things that really struck me was when some. >> of the really. >> legitimate, important questions about. what basis he had for. calling out these die programs in general, but particularly at this time. and his answer was common sense. >> yeah, dana, this is president trump's first time inside the white house briefing room since he took office this time. and he came out here, took a moment of silence for the victims here. we know there are 67 people who were on board both of these aircraft. neither are expected to have any survivors. and moments after that, though, the president cast a wide array of blame on multiple targets,

including his his the person who was in office before him. president biden, the former transportation secretary pete buttigieg, democrats generally dei policies and also on multiple occasions, the pilot of that u.s. military blackhawk helicopter, essentially arguing that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and saying that something could have been done differently. there. now, i should note, we were sitting in here in the briefing room. we heard from the vice president, jd vance, the newly sworn in transportation secretary, sean duffy, the defense secretary, pete hegseth. we did not hear from the chair of the national transportation safety board, jennifer homendy, who was sitting right there in those chairs, or the new acting faa administrator who has been named, presumably in the last few hours, because before that there had been no administrator at the faa in this position, the person who was in that position before left before trump took office. and right now the head of the faa is vacant. the deputy head of the faa is vacant. the head of the tsa is vacant, and the deputy head of the tsa is

also vacant. and so all of these questions about staffing and what could have played a factor here, is very much still under investigation. dana, as the president came out here and was casting blame, one thing i noted was that there are still bodies being pulled from the water of the potomac right now. we know from officials that we heard from earlier that that rescue and that recovery operation is very much still underway and some really difficult conditions that first responders were dealing with last night. now, there are big questions about about what this investigation looks like going forward and what happens next here. but but the president using this moment to also cast blame on multiple targets, including hiring practices. he said within the air traffic control system. now, this investigation to state the obvious is nowhere near done yet, and we do not have any indication. and we did not hear from the head of the ntsb during this briefing on what they believe could have been here. when trump was asked if he had seen any evidence to back up what he was saying, he said, dana, that he was just using common sense.

>> that's exactly right, caitlin. thank you so much. and you couldn't see, i don't think what we were showing on the screen, but just to sort of underscore your point, is the same one that i made at the top. and i think we need to keep doing this. we showed the pictures and this is live as we speak of these first responders trying to find the remains of the passengers on this commercial flight, in addition to those who have not yet been pulled out from that black hawk helicopter jeff zeleny, i want to go to you. you also are have been covering this and you're watching and talking to sources about the the approach that president trump. and again, i just want to say it wasn't just president trump. it was also the vice president and the defense secretary who were talking about, in addition to the need for questions to be answered.

but before we have those answers, casting the blame on the policies of the biden administration. >> dana. >> we are. >> entering a. >> period here where. government matters. competency matters. >> and that is. >> going to be a central theme throughout. >> this investigation. >> but there was little talk. >> of the investigation. >> and much. >> more speculation. >> in the briefing room there. but that hour of anguish, the president started talking about just instantaneously. turned into. a period of blame, blaming former secretary of transportation pete buttigieg, blaming former president barack obama, blaming former president joe biden. the buck clearly does not stop with this president. the blame begins with him. but the bottom line of this is, once again, as we enter in this second trump administration, using some muscle memory, perhaps from the first, the calibration of this will be important. the dei programs that he talked about and railed against, we have zero idea if they had anything to do with this. most certainly they did not. but you are so right to say

on screen there, as we are seeing, the bodies are still being pulled from that frigid potomac, like the president said. but that did not stop him, of course, from launching into a laundry list and pointing the blame and fingers elsewhere. we are going to learn a lot more about this investigation. i think that's where the focus should be. certainly it was a tragedy and it could have been a failure in many respects. but what the president was talking about, there certainly is not only getting ahead of it, but most likely talking in the wrong direction. but what peter alexander from nbc news asked specifically, i thought was a very interesting question there, pointing to the fact that most of these programs and the qualifications for being air traffic controllers were in place during the trump administration as well. but never mind all of that right now. for this moment, at least before the victims are even identified. i think that is where the focus should be with the president clearly turned to

blaming his rivals. but this is his watch now, dana. this is his government. >> yeah, it sure is. thank you so much, jeff. appreciate it. i want to go here to pete muntean, who is our aviation correspondent, and also a very experienced pilot yourself. in this context, i do want you to talk about what we know about. and let me also just say, um, this is not the the conversation that i expected to have with you. i wanted to have a conversation and we will about what we know about this crash, what we know about what went wrong. obviously, something did in a very tragic way. but because the president of the united states brought all of these programs up, i need you to explain to our viewers the reality of what these programs are, and were. >> let's let's talk about the press conference for a second, because it is just so, so soon, way too soon to make any sort of

indictment or insinuation that air traffic control was to blame here, that hiring policies were to blame here, that the pilots of the black hawk were to blame here. this is something that investigators will have to go through not only on the scene, and they are there now doing the lord's work. it is hard to do, but they will have to do this for months and years after this. there will be hearings. there will be lots of questions to be asked. this is only the precipice. and so for the families that are going through hell right now, and i know this because i've lost my mother to a plane crash, uh, this made it even more hellish. what was that? i just cannot i'm sorry to get angry, but what is the point of of making some sort of speculative, wide ranging, rudderless claim about anything about hiring at the faa? the facts are this. the policies have changed at the faa, and

they were doing more off the street hires starting back in the obama administration. >> what does. >> that mean? meaning hiring people not from the traditional pipeline of going to air traffic control? uh, schools, academies, going to colleges that specialize in that, that hiring people from the street, taking them to the faa academy and then putting them into facilities across the country. the bottom line is this the air traffic control system in the united states is facing an incredible shortage of controllers, and that is something that the biden administration, to their credit, really tried to shore up. they hired 1800 controllers in the last year. their goal is to hire about. another was to hire another 1500 this year. i cannot imagine after that press conference if any air traffic controller wants to go to work for this government, but it's beside the point. the first priority of transportation secretary sean duffy has not really been aviation safety, and i'm looking at a press release and i have the receipts an hour and 48 minutes before the first call for this crash went out.

united states, this is the first press release from sean duffy. secretary sean duffy takes action to rescind woke dea policies so that the number one day, one priority for this administration has been die. and it seems like an incredible distraction from what is taking place in our aviation system right now. this is symptomatic of something that has been going on for years. there have been runway incursions and near-misses at airports across the country. that happened in big numbers in 2023, because the system is just pushed to the limit. and, you know, we're talking about 3 million people. the population of los angeles flying in one day this sunday after this past thanksgiving. i mean, it is incredibly huge. and there's been a huge demand for air travel on the commercial side and beyond. and so things are really, really bursting at the seams. and, and the warnings have been flashing in orange and red and even more to say that this could happen. and this is the story that, you know, i never wanted to cover. and my,

my airline pilot buddies in a group chat today, they feared that this could happen. and so we now are transitioning a bit from the conversation, from what happened to how this could happen. but for the president to slink in and and provide his own narrative of this, that the commander in chief, the person who shows up most of the facts, it's beyond me. >> i want to get david in on this in a second. but but i just want to underscore that last point, because what we want to do here is provide the facts as we know them, the as we know them. part of this is really key because the answer is we don't know a lot of the facts yet. he is. >> too early. >> he is the president of the united states. presumably he has more information than you and i have. having said that, just going back to the di of it, because if i'm somebody watching in the world who is just trying to get information about this, wondering, do i take my flight tomorrow? and i hear him saying that these are diversity and equity programs, talking about the specifics about people with

disabilities being hired, so on and so forth. can you just please, based on your reporting, based on the facts explain the veracity of that and the. potential impact of any of these programs on how the system works? >> air traffic controllers are faced with challenges every day, and right now they are working, most of them mandatory six day weeks of 12 hour shifts. it is not a glamorous job. it is very hard. i know some controllers. it's a tough gig and so for for the president to say that they are some, for some reason, a workforce that is not up to snuff. i think that's not totally emblematic of the totality of the truth here. there there are a lot of good people doing a lot of good work. and the bottom line is aviation up until this point, and there have been blips on the radar, has been incredibly safe in the united states. and the last time we saw a major fatal commercial crash in the u.s. was 2009. so

we have not seen something that happened with a lot of regularity in the 70s. 80s and 90s. we are the gold standard of aviation safety worldwide. >> but you did say there were a lot of near misses. and i know we have. >> no. >> doubt some guests, including mayor scavino here. excuse me. schiavo here to talk about that. but first, i do want to just continue on this conversation about president trump and that press conference. cnn's washington bureau chief political director, david chalian, is here. david, what are your thoughts? >> well, as you said, you want to just go through the facts that we know. and here here's something that the president himself said at that press conference. he said, quote, we don't know necessarily that it was the controller's fault. and then proceeded to speak at length, at something directly at odds with that which he said, which is, we don't know, is the controller's fault. and then went on to talk about diversity programs and how it relates to

potentially hiring air traffic controllers because he wanted to put one of his pet issues in the first ten days of this administration, front and center. nobody, as you know, dana has a larger microphone or megaphone than the president of united states and him walking into the briefing room and trying to dominate and shift and create and craft the narrative around this tragedy that occurred last night was clear for everyone to see. and the other fact that we should just put out there is as this investigation is unfolding and in its early hours, as families are still grieving, as they receive the news of what happened, it is a fact that president trump came to the briefing room and injected politics directly into this, not only by trying to tie one of his pet issues, you know, trying to go after dei programs in the government up front, but just outright blaming barack obama and joe biden and pete buttigieg

for a whole bunch of stuff. and so he chose, after a minute or so of a unifying message of trying to say that what binds us together as a nation in moments like this really overwhelms all our differences. and then he went right on to inject partisan politics directly at the center of it, where it simply there's no evidence to suggest it belongs. there. >> yes, that is definitely a true a true fact, as they say. david, thank you so much. it's always really important to have your observations, your analysis and your reporting. i do want to go back to the conversation that we plan to have before the president's news conference, which is what happened, what went wrong? pete muntean is still here. cnn aviation analyst and former inspector general for the u.s. department of transportation. mary schiavo is here, as is sean lutnick, a

former commercial pilot and accident investigator. i want to start with you here at the table. uh, can you just kind of give us your broad look at this? and if you were still in the job, what you would be looking at first, second and third right now? sure. >> uh. >> and condolences to the families. >> so first of. >> all. >> in terms of sorting out the facts, the national transportation safety board and the military investigation board, there will be two on this one. and they will both, you know, do their investigations. >> the ntsb. >> will have precedence. and i have worked in aviation since 1974 to reassure people. >> the ntsb is not. >> political. >> that, in. >> fact, the board is chosen that way intentionally. >> it's their their. >> two chosen. >> by each side. and then the the chairman is is. >> chosen and was reappointed. and these accident. >> investigations are not political. i mean, i have participated in in.

>> many including. >> in private practice. >> and you have to. >> sort through wreckage. you literally, in some cases put planes back together. and so i want people to be assured that the ntsb will sort out the facts. >> and they're very. >> you know, they will be very objective. um, so in, in, in going through all that, i mean, i flew into dc last night at 730 on psa american airlines psa flight just ahead of them. it was cold. it was choppy. there was light chop and but the weather didn't have anything to do with it but had been busy. the flights had been delayed. there were a lot of planes out there trying to get in. so the facts thatnd 't repeat everything pete said. but pete laid out the facts that have been released so far that the aircraft was under air traffic control. it has to be. it's commercial passenger service aircraft. it was cleared into land. it had that airspace. it the aircraft, the passenger aircraft was cleared in and had that airspace. so so far we don't know anything more than that about the aircraft itself.

it was where it was supposed to be. and so far we know following the orders, when the air traffic control asked the helicopter if they had the plane inside, that gave us another big clue. we now know that they were visual flight rules that they were expected to see and avoid that aircraft, and that they were expected to look for it and stay away from it. by looking at some of the radar. and it's it's just public radar. the ntsb and the military investigators will have much better. it looked like this was at 350ft. the helicopter. >> is very low. >> yes, but the helicopter was supposed to be lower. there are certain corridors and certain altitudes at which the helicopters are allowed to operate. they obviously have to be in coordination with air traffic control, but it appears that it was higher than what ordinarily they would be operating at that particular point. and in terms of facts, i mean, the rest, they're going to have to sort out the bigger picture. the, you know, the

thousand foot view as opposed to the ten foot view is pete was absolutely right. this problem with congested airspace and near misses has been brewing for several years. and and we have reached record levels and it's many different things. it's near misses in the air, tremendous numbers of near misses at the airport and runway incursions. we have equipment that some equipment is installed in many airports, but we have much more equipment that we could put in place and we could put it in many airports. so that's something that has to be worked out, will be worked out. and again, that's not political. it's technical. and it can be expensive and it's important to be done. the other thing that we have that's a big issue is we have 5000 commercial public use airports in this country approximately. and yet we stuff most of our traffic in about 30 airports. and so dca is congested. dca was supposed to close when when dulles opened. i'm old enough to remember that, um, because of the dangers

and the congestion, et cetera. but we all love dca, so it's open, but we stuff more and more flights, and a few years back we even decreased some of the separations between the aircraft. so we have set up a couple trends that are not going in the right direction through drones. and on top of that, and we have very congested airspace without enough, you know, proper separations, equipment, et cetera. and we need to spread out the aviation and somebody's going to have to make that hard decision of what's too much. >> yeah, it certainly is a hard decision. i want to get. sean lutnick in. and, sean, just before you begin, i want to play for our viewers. just a short bit of what we heard from the air traffic control center. >> james risch. pat 2-5 pam bondi dahiyeh pat 2-5 has an aircraft separation. separation. >> and then silence. sean, your

thoughts? >> well. >> the primary. >> thing that comes, comes to mind. >> is that if the helicopter was and, you know, we have to be careful with that video that we saw from the kennedy center. but, you know, there's some suggestion here that the helicopter was coming from behind the rj. is that as the, you know, with visual separation, when you're coming from behind an airplane, it's much more difficult to keep visual separation when you're in front of an airplane, as we saw when you could see the airplane coming at you. it's very obvious. there was that very bright light that we saw. right? but as as a former airline pilot, when you're behind one, especially at night, especially when the airplane is descending toward a very bright lighted area like the airport terminal area would be, it is easier to

lose sight and relative closure speeds. so that is something that the ntsb is going to have to look at that, that that could have been a possibility that they could have seen it and they could have lost sight of it a few moments later. and as they were trying to regain sight, the collision occurred. i'm certainly not speculating saying that had that happened, that will be something the ntsb is going to look at. >> and pete, let's get back to what you have been hearing from your sources. it is early. they're going to get the black box. they're going to do investigations, as you said, that will last for months and years. but just in the short term. >> it's obviously going to be about how the the incident was able to sort of pass through the holes in the swiss cheese and the redundancies in aviation and how this came to be. but the real question, and i want to see if we can take the map one more time, because that is so telling about the flight path of american airlines. there you go. the flight coming in from the south from wichita, kansas, was

lined up to land on runway one, which is the busiest single runway in the national airspace system. that's the main runway at national that runs north to south and then did a sidestep maneuver that is relatively common to land on runway three three. that's one of the crisscrossing runways that points to the northwest, sort of toward the pentagon. that is over the shores of maryland on the east side of the potomac. it's a relatively common maneuver typically used by regional jets like this. they're small enough that they can use that slightly shorter runway, but it is quite close to the route that is commonly used by military helicopters and government helicopters that transit the d.c. airspace all the time. they are supposed to talk to air traffic control. we have that on the audiotape from liveatc.net that they were speaking to air traffic control. they were under the positive control of the controller in the tower. there you could hear both sides of the conversation. they're supposed to at least be monitoring, and they should be

having two way communication. the real question now is, why is that helicopter route there so close to innocent paying passengers who were flying in all of the time at national airport? why does it need to be so close to the final approach there? and that is the question that i'm hearing emerging in the aviation industry right. >> now is this should they have been there? is this a typical route for a test flight for these black hawk helicopters? >> it begs the question, why do training in some of the most congested airspace in the country? and i know as a flight instructor there is a laundry list of airports. when you are a relatively new pilot that you cannot go into. and this, i think, should maybe be considered maybe something where the military does not do training and they use a special piece of airspace, some other place that is a bit more sanitized. i don't use the term tragedy lightly. this is my 15th year as a reporter. i reserve it for really few things. this is indeed a tragedy and it is something that was so preventable and should not have happened.

>> all right, i'm going to have to sneak in a quick break. thank you so much. coming up, i'm going to talk to a top kansas lawmaker who sits on a critical aviation subcommittee about the doomed airliner that took off from her home state. >> every weekday morning. >> here are the five things you need to know. >> to start your day. >> get the news you need. >> how about this for an earnings call headline. >> in. >> five minutes or less. >> bravo. >> cnn's five things with kate bolduan now streaming on max. >> land. >> why are you screaming? >> because you're screaming. are you hiding from used car shopping? >> yeah. >> what if i overpay? >> i get it, nearly half of all used cars have been in an accident. but that's nothing to be afraid of. >> mm. >> show me carfax. >> knowing how a car's. >> accident history impacts. >> price means you don't have to. >> overpay. >> way better. popcorn. >> definitely no fear. just fox. say, show me a carfax com. >> you deserve more from your

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turning a national tragedy that left 67 people dead into a time to take aim at diversity programs in the federal government. i want to bring in cnn's rene marsh, who has been talking to your sources. rene, nice to see you in the aviation world and specifically in the government about the president's remarks. what are you hearing? >> well, dan, i will say i was watching the president's press conference live. and as i was watching, i received a couple of text messages. one notable one from a former crash investigator, plane crash investigator with decades of experience saying just simply, absolutely insane, irresponsible. because the thing that everyone knows working within the aviation safety industry is that there is no room for politics. the two just don't go together. it is seen as taboo. and they will tell you that the reason why the u.s. is

the safest when it comes to air safety throughout the world, is because they have been able to operate void of politics. and so something to watch, and that i'm going to be watching is it is clear that the president and his cabinet members, department of secretary of transportation and dod, department of defense secretary, are starting to craft a narrative around the cause of this crash. and it is an important time to remind everyone that the ntsb is an independent entity. they will investigate this based on the facts. and we should remind folks there are still bodies literally in the water that they are recovering. the ntsb has yet to recover the black boxes, and those are the pieces of evidence that is going to lead them to the root cause. so again, something to watch as the president, um, you know, plays in politics and starts to craft a narrative around the cause here. the ntsb will have the

answers, and they are an independent entity charged with doing that. dana. >> renee, thank you so much. appreciate that reporting. joining me now is democratic congresswoman sharice davids from the state of kansas. she sits on the house transportation committee and aviation subcommittee. first and foremost, we are just so sorry for the loss that many people in your state are feeling right now and your state of kansas. let's start there. there are 67 people that are believed to be dead, including 64 on that commercial passenger flight from kansas. what are you hearing at this point from your constituents? >> um, well. >> thank you. >> for. >> um, expressing that this is absolutely heartbreaking. uh. every single kansan, uh, we're we're we're a pretty small state, uh, every single kansan is going to be impacted in one

way or another by this. and, um, and certainly all of us are praying for the families and the the loved ones and friends and community of all the people, um, who who have been impacted by this, i, i will say that, um, you know, i've been hearing from, uh, from so many folks, you know, we've also had a lot of people nationally just reaching out to everyone in our delegation to make sure that, um, that, that everyone in kansas and everyone else who's been impacted, including our, our military personnel, including the first responders and the people who are out there trying to do everything they can to, um, to do the recovery operations. um, there's there's a lot of, uh, outpouring of, of love during this heartbreaking time. >> so you have several jobs right now. one is to constituent services to the people in your

district, and the other is oversight, particularly given the fact that, as i mentioned, you do sit on the house transportation committee and the aviation subcommittee, given that i want you to please respond to the allegations that we heard from president trump saying that this is because of the diversity and equity programs in the faa, that people who were who were hired are not the best and the brightest, and specifically, well, we can leave pete buttigieg aside for a second. just talk about that, because, you know, about the nuts and bolts of, uh, all of how the faa hires, because that's your job on the oversight committee. but inside of that is the way that these dei programs, which, by the way, don't exist anymore because donald trump got rid of them. but how they did work yeah. >> can i just, um, i feel like i need to acknowledge that right now. there are so many people

who are are both heartbroken, but, um, when we see a tragedy like this, people get scared and have anxiety. and i think it is it's such a human thing for folks to want to, to understand as quickly as possible why this happened, how this happened. and so in some ways, i do think there is, you know, there's a natural human response to start grasping for answers. what i can tell you right now is, um, i do think it is irresponsible for, for anyone in the government to be making, um, to, to be trying to come up with reasons for, for how this tragedy happened. we absolutely owe it to every single person impacted to the to the families, the loved ones, the victims, the first responders, the um, everybody who's impacted to allow a thorough investigation to take place. i, i also think it's really important for folks to

know that the national transportation safety board or ntsb, you guys are going to be hearing about them so much. um, in the coming weeks, months, probably years. they are they are they're career professionals. they're folks who know what they're doing. they are they are working closely. i literally just got done with a briefing from folks with ntsb. they're working with the faa, they're working with the military. uh, they're working with the fbi because that's a standard. process. uh, the american airspace is safe because we try not to ever have tragedies. when we do have them, we take a hard look. and then those of us in congress, and when we do our oversight, we're going to be checking to make sure, based on the investigation and the facts that that we change processes if necessary. but right now, it's so early. yes, we have to let this investigation play out. >> yes. totally understand. thank you so much for being on, particularly at this very tough

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>> gloriana jewelry. >> you'll love. find us in store and online. >> with all this other news, it may be easy to not understand that there are other really important things happening in washington, including and especially to really key senate confirmation hearings that are going on right now. it's kash patel who is the president's pick to lead the fbi? he's been testifying in front of the senate judiciary committee and donald trump's choice for the director of national intelligence, tulsi gabbard, has been facing questions from members of the senate intelligence committee. cnn's david chalian is here with me now, along with evan perez and john miller. john, i want to start with you. and first, i want to just run a bit of what went on in the intelligence committee, an exchange between the top democrat on the committee and tulsi gabbard. >> these are your quotes.

>> brave. >> please join my. >> bipartisan legislation calling for charges to be dropped against him. >> do you disagree. >> that legislation was not appropriate? do you believe he is brave or not? yeah. those those words. >> once again, senator edward snowden broke the law. he also. >> released information. >> we agree. >> that edward snowden that exposed. >> the united states government's. >> illegal legislation. and your words are still your beliefs, yes or no? please. >> i'm making myself very clear. edward snowden broke the law. >> he released information about the united. >> states government's illegal activity. >> i. >> if i may just finish. >> my thought. >> senator. >> in this role that i've. been nominated for. >> if. >> confirmed as director of national intelligence, i will be responsible for protecting our nation's secrets. and i have four immediate steps that i would take to prevent another

snowden like leak. >> ma'am. >> i would simply ask. >> you again, i don't think you're going to answer. i agree with tom cotton. he's a traitor. you for years, until you got chosen by president trump, have celebrated this guy as brave. you've called for him to be pardoned for his charges to be dropped. i cannot imagine a director of national intelligence that would say that kind of behavior is okay. >> now, john, i don't know about you, but the issue that i hear more than any other from republicans who will decide whether to vote for her or not, is this edward snowden issue and the fact that she did support through legislation the notion of dropping the charges against snowden? >> well, dana, first of all, in full disclosure, i'm a former assistant deputy director of national intelligence. so i served in the place where she is proposed to be the leader at a

time when the snowden business was unfolding, where we had had another massive leak from another member of the military prior to snowden. so i think what we saw today at the hearing was fascinating, which is this became a where you stand is where you sit moment where she was not committed to her former legislation, that snowden should be pardoned or her language that he was a hero. but you saw that again when they talked about 702 collection. so you can see that there was some backpedaling here. and even under pressure, although she did maintain poise and control throughout the entire hearing, even when pressed, what she didn't do was answer those questions directly about, have you changed your mind about things you tried to to make law? >> yeah, you're exactly right. she was very prepared to say the things that she wanted to say. her four points on going forward, but not about whether

she explicitly dismisses what she believed in the past. evan, i want to ask you now about kash patel, because this got i mean, both of these hearings got heated. this one especially because the thrust of the questions from democrats is not only qualification, but support for people involved in the january 6th insurrection and other questions about retribution and the list goes on and on. let's just listen again to some of what happened in that hearing. >> we will go. >> out and. >> find the conspirators. not just in. >> government. >> but in the media. we're going to come after you, whether it's criminally. or civilly. is that a correct quotation? mr. patel? >> senator, that's a partial quotation. >> but it's correct. >> in part.

>> regarding his publication of his enemies list. mr. patel proclaimed the manhunt starts tomorrow. and reposted a video depicting him taking a chainsaw to his political enemies. is that you, kash patel truist reposting that at the top of that page senator, i had nothing to do with the creation of that. is that you reposting? it was my. >> question and that's me at the top. if president trump were to order you to open an investigation into any of these individuals, let's say vice president harris, would you any law enforcement investigation, if i'm confirmed that the fbi will only be launched on the following qualification a factual, articulable legal basis to do so? the president has said publicly that he will allow the fbi to remain independent. and i have said as much as well. >> evan.

>> look, i mean, there's a time. >> honored tradition in washington. to when you go before the. >> senate for a. >> confirmation that. you distance yourself. from all of. >> the wild things that you may have said. >> on social media. >> and in interviews. >> you know. >> kash patel. >> though. has done thousands. >> of appearances on. >> podcasts. and. >> you know, part of. >> his persona has been to be. >> as provocative as possible. >> so what they're doing is they're just playing all of the things that. >> he has said. >> and he is basically, as you can see there, he is trying to. say that that is not him, does not represent him, and that, you know, he's trying to pivot back to his own experiences. and so at this point, it does appear that republicans are pretty much firmly in line to to confirm him, despite all of those things that you heard him say. and also, by the way, i mean, he is now the boss is someone himself who has said, really, you know, outrageous things. and he got elected president of the united states. so, i mean, what is what is supposed to happen at kash patel, right? >> i mean, with both of the

nominees that you've put forward there, tulsi gabbard and kash patel, we're getting at the core of what you said about the boss, which is, you know, the fbi and the intelligence services in this country. this is the very heart of the so-called deep state that donald trump believes was against him from the start back in 2016 and onward. he blames these universes of government workers for a lot of his own personal legal jeopardy and pain and and all that he has had grievances about very publicly, and he clearly is putting in people who are aiming to be real disrupters to those organizations. here's the difference. you just noted it. republicans. they're not bringing up kash patel past statements that they some of them in private, will tell you they thought were a little off the wall, too. they are sort of lining up behind patel and believe bringing that kind of disruption to the fbi is critical. gabbard is another question right now as as you saw mark warner allude to chairman of the intelligence committee, tom cotton, and his thoughts about gabbard and what what has

been made clear that if gabbard doesn't buy john thune the majority leader, if gabbard doesn't get out of committee, he doesn't see her getting a vote on the floor for full confirmation. so this is now about not just republicans broadly, but the republicans sitting on the senate intelligence committee, if they are fully aligned to take someone they have questions about in this role and advance her because she is trump's nominee. >> and, john miller, just to bring you back in, you mentioned your experience in the intelligence community. you also were an assistant director of the fbi. you have years of experience in both of these areas where these individuals are being nominated. as david said very clearly, to disrupt them in various ways. each of them explicitly said that they believe that they are the right person or people for the job, because they believe that they were victims of. i'm going to use the word deep state. they words deep state. they didn't necessarily use them. although

kash patel did in his book. but that's sort of the thrust of that. can you talk about their nominations through that lens? >> so we're looking at the same thing in both cases when it comes to the core questions that are being asked by people in the law enforcement community, people in the intelligence community, and, frankly, between the fbi and the odni, where those communities cross over a large part of what the fbi does is intelligence based the the summary of that kind of question was enunciated by senator mark warner at the beginning of the gabbard hearing, when he said he cited the law that said that the intelligence community, dni needs to have significant experience in the intelligence community. it's in the statute that created the job. and he said, and i quote, we need serious people with sufficient experience raising the question was that her with kash patel, you switch over to the same

question, which is robert mueller was the head of the criminal division at the department of justice. before he became the fbi director, he had been a prosecutor, a line prosecutor before that, and a significant attorney. louis freeh had been a federal prosecutor and then a federal judge. the same with william webster. so when you have somebody who is coming out of a number of government jobs and policy positions coming into the fbi director or someone with no significant experience in the intelligence community as dni, the core question and david has mentioned this before, is are we picking people who donald trump feels will be intensely loyal, even if they are very barely qualified when compared to others? >> you have some new reporting. i think we have like 15 seconds. i want everybody to look at it online. but real quick. >> real quick. i mean, we know the fbi agents association met with kash patel recently to ask him to essentially to spare agents who were assigned to the january 6th cases of the trump

cases. he didn't give any reassurances that he would not target those people once he got confirmed. >> i mean, that's okay. i've said it was quick, but apparently we have 20 more seconds. that's really key because people are part of the big theme here is retribution, including people who are going to be working. >> for him. spoken about in the past. and, you know, today he was asked a question about this, and he said fbi agents will be held to absolute same standard and no one will be terminated for case assignments. agents have already been getting threats for working on cases related to trump. so we'll see what happens. >> thank you so much. thank you to john miller. thank you for joining inside politics today, cnn news central starts after a break we handcraft every stearns and. >> foster using the finest. materials like indulgent memory foam and ultra conforming. >> inner springs for a beautiful mattress and indescribable comfort. save up to $800. >> on select. >> adjustable mattress sets at stearns. >> and foster.com.

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