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THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER

Interview with Ohio Congressman Michael Turner; Ukraine on the Brink; Brian Williams Under Fire; Williams Apologizes for False Iraq Story; Chopper Pilot Speaks Out; 12 Missing After Plan Clips Bridge

Aired February 5, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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


JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Ukraine on the brink.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The world lead. The U.S. tells Vladimir Putin, we know exactly how many troops and tanks you're moving into Ukraine right now. Secretary of State John Kerry saying today diplomacy can still work, but, as more Ukrainians keep being killed by Russian bullets, how much longer can Kiev wait for any serious help?

Also in the world: new incredible stories. You wonder how anyone could survive. One man even saw his son, a baby, slipping away, yet he managed to breathe life back into that baby -- that story and more about the improbable survivors of that horrific plane crash.

And the national lead. One of America's most trusted storytellers, Brian Williams, under rhetorical fire after he admits he misremembered an RPG hitting his copter while in Iraq. The pilot of Brian Williams' helicopter will join us this hour with new information that may stun you.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. I am Jake Tapper.

We are going to begin today with our world lead, what the State Department calls a dire situation in Ukraine.

Today, in Kiev, Secretary of State John Kerry says American intelligence has been tracking exactly the flood of soldiers, heavy artillery and other assets pouring over Ukraine's border from Russia. Now, of course, the Kremlin denies any Russian tanks, troops or weapons crossed into Ukraine, weapons like advanced rocket systems, the same kind of surface-to-air missiles that investigators say most likely brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the plane blown out of the sky over Moscow-backed separatist-held territory last July, all 298 people on board killed.

Hours ago, Ukraine's prime minister insisted Russian President Vladimir Putin must be blind if he keeps denying Russian involvement in what is already a border war. In the past 24 hours, five more Ukrainian soldiers were killed in clashes with Russian-sponsored forces, according to Reuters.

And while Secretary Kerry vowed that the U.S. will not turn its back on Russian aggression in pretending it's not happening, the Obama administration, of course, has hesitated to provide what Ukraine says it needs, lethal military aid.

Secretary Kerry promised the president would make up his mind on that issue soon.

I want to go right to CNN chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. He's in Kiev, traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry.

Jim, how forceful was Secretary Kerry in what he said today?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, I will tell you, forceful words, certainly unequivocal assignment of blame on Russia, but in terms of the solution to this problem, the peace agreement, the economic sanction on Russia, perhaps the military aid to Ukrainian forces, that proving elusive even as Ukrainian officials, American officials, Western officials unanimous in just how dire the situation on the ground has become.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Secretary Kerry arrived in Ukraine in the midst of what State Department officials called a grave escalation on the ground, and Ukrainians describe as barbaric attacks on civilians. The culprit, they made clear, Russia, and a massive influx of Russian heavy weapons and Russian soldiers.

Moscow's most recent denials to CNN sparked a bitter response.

(on camera): The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, took particular issue with your saying that there are Russian forces inside Ukraine escalating the situation. He said: There are no Russian tanks or army in Ukraine. These accusations are not true."

I wonder if you could react to that.

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Mr. Prime Minister, is it true that, as the Kremlin just said today, there are no Russians on the ground in...

ARSENIY YATSENYUK, UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER: It seems to me that the only country who strongly denies clear military Russian boots on the ground is Russian Federation and personally President Putin. If they need, I can give them my glasses.

SCIUTTO: Following Secretary Kerry in a remarkable show of diplomatic muscle, President Hollande of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany, who met with Ukrainian leaders before they would continue on to Moscow to see President Putin.

The immediate focus, a senior State Department official tells CNN, a new, even short-term cease-fire to stem the growing bloodshed. So far, no new round of economic sanctions and no military aid for Ukrainian forces, now overpowered by Russian forces, who have captured hundreds of square miles of new territory since the failure of the Minsk peace agreement negotiated last September.

YATSENYUK: To get peace, you have to defend your country. And you have to deter Russia, not allowing Russian troops to move further and further.

SCIUTTO: The westward move raising concerns in Washington, where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing the Obama administration to answer Ukraine's call for military help.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: This aggression continues unimpeded, Moscow may feel emboldened to challenge the integrity of the NATO alliance.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: And so yet one more diplomatic mission to Moscow with an uncertain outcome, and I can tell you, at least in private, if not in public, patience among Ukrainian officials, Ukrainian citizens tonight, Jake, running thin.

TAPPER: Jim Sciutto live in Kiev, Ukraine, thanks so much for that report.

Let's bring in Republican Congressman from Ohio Mike Turner. He sits on the House Intelligence Committee and the House Armed Services Committee.

Sir, thanks so much for being here.

So, today, the White House admitted for the first time that the sanctions were not changing Moscow's behavior, although they are certainly damaging Russia's economy. You say it's long past time to give lethal aid to Ukraine. Are you not worried at all that this would essentially drag the United States into another foreign war?

REP. MICHAEL TURNER (R), OHIO: Well, it doesn't drag the United States in. It really is helping our friends and opposing those who declare themselves as our enemy.

In this instance, we have intelligence information about what the Russians are doing. We should be working more closely with Ukraine so they actually know what they are facing. And then we should be providing them both military aid, defensive and lethal.

Congress at the end of last year authorized the president to provide that lethal aid. He has all the authority to do it. Ukraine has been a NATO partner and certainly the infrastructure is there to provide that aid. The president needs to acknowledge this is an invasion and he needs to help a friend.

TAPPER: You are on the House Intelligence Committee. What can you assert as a fact in terms of what has gone over the border from Russia into Ukraine beyond arms? Obviously, they are supplying the pro- Russian separatists with arms, but what about -- are there definitely Russian tanks, are there definitely Russian soldiers?

TURNER: Well, obviously I can't tell you what we are receiving in the intelligence briefings, but, certainly, we know from the Ukrainians themselves that there are at times thousands of Russian troops that are in -- that are present in Ukraine and that the heavy equipment that is going back and forth to the border between the border represents a significant threat.

Now, if you look at what they have had outside, General Breedlove has made it very clear as to the invasion force that's on outside of the border and those Russian troops that are inside the border pose a full invasion threat.

This is Vladimir Putin not just merely being adventuresome. He intends to take a significant portion of Ukraine if we do nothing to stop him.

TAPPER: How soon do you think -- how long do we have, does the U.S. have, before it's too late to act to arm the Ukrainians, in your view?

TURNER: I was talking to one NATO general just last weekend and he was saying time is running short, since Russia has not been deterred, they have made their intentions absolutely clear. The Ukrainians both in what they have in reserves and what they are utilizing are running thin. In order to be able to turn the tide, this is something that needs to be done very quickly.

TAPPER: Bloomberg is reporting that only half of the $118 million of non-lethal assistance pledged to Ukraine has so far been delivered, only a half. So, even if the U.S. authorized lethal aid, how do we know it's even going to get there?

TURNER: Well, we know it can get there because, one, we can assist in it getting there and we know it can be utilized. I was just in Ukraine last December. I met with the commanders who were over the front line in Ukraine.

They are waiting for our assistance and they will put it to good use.

TAPPER: What is Putin's endgame here? You think he just wants to grab Eastern Ukraine? He already obviously took Crimea.

TURNER: Right.

There are a number of reports, but they look primarily to what he has said. He has in part proposed that perhaps the Ukraine could even be divided in a way that would have some of it have a sphere of influence with Europe and another be aligned to Russia.

But what we have here is Russia having violated the territorial integrity of a country where they had signed a treaty to protect it. This is the type of area where the United States needs to respond. The president needs to be clear. It's a mystery as to why the president will not declare it an invasion. And we need to provide aid.

TAPPER: Isn't the bottom line here that none of the NATO countries, and Ukraine is obviously not a member, but none of the NATO countries are willing to expend the life or risk the life of one NATO soldier? Isn't that the bottom line in why no one from the West is doing more?

TURNER: Well, that's not actually quite the case.

Again, the lethal aid issue is not providing NATO soldiers.

TAPPER: Right.

TURNER: We can do a tremendous amount and still not be in a situation where NATO troops or U.S. troops themselves are engaged in the conflict.

But this is the type of assistance that a country like Ukraine, which is allied with NATO, which is a NATO friend, deserves and we should be providing.

TAPPER: Congressman Mike Turner from Ohio, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

In national news, it's a story NBC News anchor Brian Williams has told time and again, how he feared for his life as the helicopter he was flying in over Iraq was hit by enemy fire. But several troops have come forward to say that story is not what they remember happening. Now the pilot of the helicopter will tell me what he remembers, and it might change just everything in this story. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

In other national news, a startling revelation threatening to tarnish the reputation of America's most watched TV news anchor. "NBC Nightly News" host Brian Williams now admitting that he made false claims about being in a helicopter that got shot down while covering an army mission in Iraq back in 2003.

Now, it's not just Williams' claim right now but also his apology that is under a rhetorical fire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN WILLIAMS, "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS" ANCHOR: We knew there was risk involved. We knew we would be flying over Iraq.

TAPPER (voice-over): The risks of reporting from a war zone are unquestionable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We took fire on the way in.

TAPPER: But America's number one network news anchor, NBC's Brian Williams, may have put himself in some career risk by telling this untrue story about his experience in Iraq in 2003.

WILLIAMS: The helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG.

TAPPER: That was Williams last Friday, saying his helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Not true. After NBC posted the report on Facebook, the troops who were there and actually fired upon by the RPG objected. Flight Engineer Lance Reynolds wrote, "Sorry, dude, I don't remember

you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened."

Sergeant First Class Joseph Miller who was on Williams' helicopter wrote, "I have been calling him out on this for a long time with no response."

WILLIAMS: Though the chopper pilots are too shaken to let us interview them, we learned they were shot at.

TAPPER: Reynolds told "Stars and Stripes" it felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn't deserve to participate in.

WILLIAMS: It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert.

TAPPER: Last night, Williams apologized for his mistake.

WILLIAMS: I hope they know they have my greatest respect and also now my apology.

TAPPER: He wrote to Reynolds and Miller and others more directly on Facebook citing, quote, "the fog of memory." In 2003, Williams filed this story from the war zone.

WILLIAMS: The Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky.

TAPPER: And now, critics are poring over every time he has told the story since. With Alec Baldwin in 2013.

WILLIAMS: I have done some ridiculously stupid things like being in a helicopter I had no business being in in Iraq with rounds coming into the airframe. But --

ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR: Did you think you would die?

WILLIAMS: Briefly. Sure.

BALDWIN: And with David Letterman that same year.

WILLIAMS: Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the one I was in.

DAVID LETTERMAN, TV HOST/COMEDIAN: No kidding.

WILLIAMS: RPG and AK-47.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Williams has been blasted today for not telling the truth about the RPG hitting his helicopter and rightly so.

But what about everything else he has said about that day? Was it all false? What happened to that Chinook? We figured the pilot who actually flew Brian Williams that day, he might know.

Joining me on the phone right now is former Chief Warrant Officer 4 Rich Krell, the pilot of the Chinook helicopter on which Williams was traveling back in 2003.

Rich, tell us what happened that day. Did the helicopter you were in that brian Williams was in, take any RPG fire, did it take any small arms fire?

RICH KRELL, FORMER CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER (via telephone): We were a flight of three, and I was on the second aircraft. And Mr. Williams was aboard my aircraft. We took small arms fire. All I know is one RPG was fired. It struck the lead aircraft which was about what we call six rotor discs in front of me.

TAPPER: I have been on a helicopter before. I know you can't hear anything, really, especially if you are in the back. Would he have been able to have heard the small arms fire?

KRELL: He would have been aware of it because of the activity of the crew. The gunners were returning fire. M-60s are very loud. The pinging of the bullets hitting us, there were only a few but it's a distinct sound so whether he heard it or not, I'm not sure. But he was aware something was going on because the door gunners were returning fire.

TAPPER: And just to reiterate this point, your helicopter did take fire. Did it come into the helicopter at all?

KRELL: It struck the belly up in the forward cabin area and one, two other side hits but it didn't cause any major damage, just some minor damage to electronic components.

TAPPER: There is also a question of when your helicopter arrived on the scene. A lot of the troops objecting to his version of the story say he didn't show up even until 30 to 45 minutes after the fact. Why would that have been?

KRELL: Well, we were a flight of three. After we broke up with the fire, we did evasive maneuvers, I can't remember for sure if we kept the load or not. We were hauling bridge extensions, very large heavy metal bridges we drop over rivers, and we kept, myself and the third aircraft kept our loads. Once we got out of that area, we continued the mission, we dropped the bridge extensions where they belonged and we rendezvoused a few minutes later and sat down because of incoming bad weather.

TAPPER: A lot of the troops on Facebook who are objecting to Brian Williams' story say that he has been embellishing this story for years. Obviously, when he claimed last week his helicopter had been hit by an RPG, that's obviously not true. But do you take issue with other parts of the story that he has been telling for years, that the helicopter took small arms fire and that he was scared?

KRELL: Well, no. I mean, we were all scared. That's the truth. You know, there's minor details here and there. Once we landed, we set up a perimeter, the three Chinooks. He talked about the Bradley 3rd ID guys coming in. They were a great help but they didn't show up until almost a day and a half later. You know, they were just passing by and happened luckily to see us through the dust storm.

You know, there are just minor details but that's 12 years ago. But he was there at the time of the attack.

TAPPER: So, you don't take -- you don't sound like you are taking issue with him like some of the others have taken issue with his story?

KRELL: Not particularly, no.

The lead crew, the one the RPG went through, those guys were very lucky. They are professional, they are excellent guys. The pilot in command is a friend of mine from way back. They were shook up. That's a life/death situation they walked away from. I can understand why they take issue with it.

I don't think it was anything derogatory towards them. I agree he needs to apologize and get the record set straight, but I don't take offense to it personally, no.

TAPPER: But there are a lot of people right now combing through other things he said. He has been telling -- he has been talking about this since it happened and you are saying whenever he told the story in the past and talked about his helicopter taking fire, you're saying that's accurate.

KRELL: That is a true statement. Yes.

TAPPER: All right. Chief Warrant Officer Rich Krell, thank you for your time. More importantly, sir -- thank you for your service.

KRELL: Thank you. Have a good day.

TAPPER: Coming up, passengers trapped in their seat belts hanging upside down as the water began to rise. Stories of survival from this horrific plane crash. Investigators now one step closer to finding out just what brought the plane down.

Plus, five infants diagnosed with measles at a suburban Chicago day care. Health officials right now saying they do not know how they were infected. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD.

We turn now to Taiwan, where right now rescue workers are using special equipment to try and find those passengers still missing after that plane crash that you saw captured on dash cam. We almost never get to see how these deadly accidents happen but in the video, of course, you can see the TransAsia flight quickly turn sideways, clip a bridge, then plunge into a river below. Tragically, at least 32 people were killed, 12 others are missing. Divers put a net into the river to hopefully catch bodies that may have drifted downstream.

But, amazingly, 14 people did survive this horrific crash just moments after takeoff. One man said he simply had a hunch something was wrong.

CNN's aviation correspondent Rene Marsh joins me.

Rene, some fascinating stories coming from these survivors.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Really, a bunch of stories about determination and a will to live. Tonight, some amazing stories of survival are emerging, including a desperate father who reportedly revives his son after plucking him from the river where this plane went down.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): This is what grief over losing family in a plane crash looks like.

TransAsia Flight 235's end was caught on dashboard camera after takeoff from Taipei Airport in Taiwan.

PILOT: Mayday, mayday, engine flameout.

MARSH: The crippled jet narrowly avoided slamming into buildings before landing upside down in a river. At least 32 people died but miraculously, 14 survived.

HUANG CHIN-SHUN, PLANE CRASH SURVIVOR (through translator): Shortly after takeoff I felt something wasn't right. I felt something was wrong with the engine because I always take this flight.

MARSH: From a hospital bed, this 72-year-old survivor tells how he helped fellow passengers escape.

CHIN-SHUN: I told the girl beside me to quickly release her seat belt, hold on to the chair in front and cover her head with clothes. Not long after, the plane went down.

MARSH: He unbuckled seat belts as the water rose in the cabin. Lin Ming-wei fought his way out of the wreckage, then searched the murky water for his son seen here. After three minutes, he found the toddler. Local media reported his lips were blue, his heart not beating.

Ming-wei performed CPR. His son survived.

This father credits a last minute seat change for their survival after hearing a strange sound, his family moved to the rear right side of the plane. You can see the aircraft dips left before the crash. That side sustained the most damage.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Oftentimes, your seating and where the plane breaks open and whether you can get out of the plane from where you're seated can determine whether or not you survive. Having your seat near the greatest concentration of exits so you can get out if there's an opportunity to do so.

MARSH: Inside this taxi, two more survival stories. The plane's wing smashed the windshield. The 52-year-old driver and his passenger injured but alive. Just after the crash, he reported to his dispatcher a plane clipped his taxi. The details, hard for even the dispatcher to believe.

OPERATOR: A remote-controlled model plane?

DRIVER: Not a remote-controlled model plane, a small manned plane.

OPERATOR: Huh?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: Well, investigators have secured the wreckage at Taipei airport for examination. Both of the plane's recorders have been downloaded. A transcript of the pilot's full conversation is now being drafted. In the meantime, all models of this plane have been grounded for a thorough safety inspection. They are paying special attention to the engines.

TAPPER: One would hope.

MARSH: Yes.

TAPPER: Rene Marsh, thank you so much.