Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

U.S. Official: Russian Air Defenses Possibly Mistook Plane For Drone; Azerbaijan Plane Crash Survivor Said She Heard Two Explosions; Stowaway Caught On Hawaii-Bound Delta Flight Before Takeoff In Seattle; Video Shows Inmate Fatally Beaten By Corrections Officers At NY Prison; Elon Musk Pushing For More Visas For Engineers. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired December 27, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:01:10]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Survivors of that airliner crash in Central Asia now describing their terrifying ordeal for the first time as investigators hope the plane's black boxes will give them concrete information about what was happening as that plane was brought down.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Plus, a potential rift forming in MAGA world between the billionaires, President-elect Trump tasked with making government more efficient and the members of his party who expect aggressive immigration policy from the new administration.

And dismissal denied. A judge slams Jay-Z's attempt to throw out the civil case alleging he raped a 13-year-old girl back in 2000. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

We begin this hour with new assertions over Russia's possible involvement in the Kazakhstan plane crash that killed more than half the people on board. A U.S. official telling CNN Russian air defense has potentially misidentified an Azerbaijan Airlines jet potentially mistaking it for a Ukrainian drone.

HILL: Now the airline said their preliminary findings show, quote, "external interference caused that crash." And we are now hearing from survivors. A woman from her hospital bed telling Reuters, quote, "about 20 or 30 minutes after takeoff we felt two explosions." She added: "The plane was supposed to land but didn't. Something exploded inside twice. A man's hand was injured. We panicked."

CNN National Security Analyst Beth Sanner is former Deputy Director of National Intelligence and joins us now.

So, Beth, you know, Jessica was just noting a source is telling our colleague, Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon, that the Russian air defenses potentially misidentified this jet. This, of course, when we know there had been a fair amount of Ukrainian drone activity in the area and around Grozny where the plane was supposed to land. There's been a lot of back and forth about the communication that was and was not there potentially for these airliners. How much could that potentially contribute to something like this?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, absolutely. I mean, this is an airspace that has been infiltrated by Ukrainian drones repeatedly over the past few months and it appears that there was a drone strike on this area near the airport at this very time when the Azeri jet - the Azeri civilian airliner was approaching.

And, you know, it's really - it is unfortunately easy in a kind of combat situation, a war situation for this kind of misidentification to take place. And I'll just say that, you know, the U.S. in the Red Sea, one of our most upgraded destroyers just shot down with friendly fire an F-18 jet last week, so these things happen. And, you know, even though they - both systems should have had this identification friend or foe system that would have correctly identified the aircraft.

DEAN: And Beth, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby did acknowledge on the record today the possibility that this plane was shot down by Russian air defenses. What does that tell you that that's where the official statement from Kirby on the record at this point?

SANNER: Well, I think that they know some information that probably confirms what is clearly observable by looking at the fuselage of this plane. I mean, it's pockmarked with holes that go from the outside in. It was clearly hit first by something not by birds as the Russians claim.

[15:04:59]

And then I think, you know, the U.S. does have satellite capabilities where it can use infrared and other kind of sensing devices that can identify this kind of fire. It can identify heat and moving heat that would be this interceptor missile and they can identify where it comes from and they can see that impact via satellite. So, there's probably some intelligence that backs up that the plane was struck. That's my guess.

HILL: Russia not surprisingly pretty quiet on all of this. Dmitry Peskov really tight-lipped. Our colleague Nathan Hodge who's also former CNN Moscow bureau chief was noting in some analysis that disinformation or perhaps even lack of information from the Kremlin could really be trying to hide the cause of the crash. And he pointed out Russian state TV today, for example, there was no mention of the possibility that this airliner was shot down. How long do you think especially with the amount of video evidence there is and what is coming out now and what is being said on the record? How long do you think they can maintain that in Russia in terms of that disinformation, if you will?

SANNER: Well, you know, on the scene in Kazakhstan where the crash is you have Azeris and Kazakh officials investigating. The United States also offered to help in investigation if necessary. So, there's going to be an independent investigation of this that I think will clearly determine through just looking at the strikes on the plane and the damage caused that it will be pretty incontrovertible that this was hit by some kind of shrapnel and that it will be air defenses.

So, I think that this will last, you know, as long as this investigation lasts. But these relationships also are kind of complicated and Russia also doesn't want to admit anything given its own involvement in the MH17 the Malaysian airliners that were shot down over Ukraine just a decade ago and killed 298 people. Russia never accepted responsibility for that.

DEAN: All right. Beth Sanner as always great to hear from you. Thank you so much for that.

SANNER: Thank you. Happy holidays.

DEAN: You, too.

HILL: You, too.

There are new questions today about the security at the nation's airports after news of yet another stowaway who was caught on board a Delta Airlines flight. This latest incident taking place in Seattle on Christmas Eve. The plane itself was bound for Hawaii. The un-ticketed passenger was discovered just as the jet was taxiing for takeoff. A few weeks ago, you'll remember right before Thanksgiving, the woman you see here allegedly traveled all the way to Paris after getting onto a Delta flight at New York's JFK Airport without a ticket.

This latest incident, the stowaway somehow got through a TSA screening checkpoint the night before.

Let's bring in CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien to talk more about this.

Miles, Delta and TSA vowed to step up security after that first incident around Thanksgiving. What does it say to you that this has happened - a version of this - again just, about a month later?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It wasn't enough of a step up, clearly. There's no question. I - you know, I think the takeaway good news here which we shouldn't overlook is that in all cases these passengers have in fact been screened. They went through, they walked through the x-ray device or the millimeter wave device or their - and their carry-on baggage was put through x-ray devices, so they were screened.

But part of the whole process is to identify who the individuals are who are going into the TSA checkpoint. And those - your ID is checked against the no-fly list for any individual who might be a potential threat given some sort of history to the aircraft. And so, the fact that individuals got by that is a bad sign.

And then, of course, the next layer of concern is the agent at the gate who is the literally the gatekeeper for the aircraft and the door to the jetway. Now, in all cases what you have is, you know, basically a lot of people in a lot of under pressure. Passengers wanting to get on their flight, the gate agents under a lot of pressure to get that pushback on time, the TSA agents having to deal with huge volumes of people.

And ultimately, the humans are the weak point in all this. So, there are some technological solutions there. You see a lot more facial recognition being deployed by the TSA as well as Delta Airlines now using that a fair amount as you board aircraft. But, you know, the whole system is built on layers of redundancy and these two points of security failure have pointed out serious weaknesses.

HILL: So, do you think then that will lead to a reassessment or even potentially any changes?

[15:10:01]

O'BRIEN: I would hope so. I would have thought after the first event when the individual flew all the way to Paris and had to be sent back would have thought that Delta would have upped its game such that another gate agent wouldn't let that happen. But you have to imagine these scenarios. It's a busy time for travel. You have this scrum of people trying to get on and there's usually just one individual there, you know, scanning people's boarding passes.

In this case, the layer of redundancy which stopped the aircraft from taking off with the stowaway was the cabin crew. They were able to determine on a full flight that there was one additional person and that is an important thing. So, I think each step of the way individuals have to - who are in that chain of security have got to be reminded of the importance of their work even though it is, in many cases, an overwhelming one, a pressure on them to do their job and not make a single mistake. And all it takes is one mistake.

DEAN: Yes. No, and I hear that. And look we've all been boarding a plane when everyone gathers around ...

HILL: Yes.

DEAN: ... and they can't sit down. They can't wait for their zone to be called and they're all elbowing each other. It's not exactly pleasant for the gate agent that tries to, you know, get everybody in line. But what do you think that they can do? Is it streamlining that process more? What can they actually do to tighten that security at that particular point?

O'BRIEN: Yes. It would be nice if people just listen to their zones and kind of follow the rules a little.

DEAN: That's a novel idea.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it's a novel approach. Maybe there's a way to incentivize them in a better way or maybe there should be additional personnel there to you know help these gate agents do what they need to do. Ultimately, the airlines are all very cost-conscious operation, of course. I think, you know, when you think about some of the technology that's being deployed by the TSA, you see in many airports now as you exit the bubble the security bubble these triple doors which make it very difficult for people to get back in. Maybe these gates and the access to the jetways need to have a little more fortification to limit the number of people going on at any given time, because I do think these gate agents get completely overwhelmed, you know, trying to scan everybody in and people are kind of moving in together and it's hard to keep track of everything. They're making those announcements the whole time. They're making announcements telling people to wait their turn.

DEAN: Yes, we should listen to them.

HILL: Yes.

DEAN: Miles O'Brien ...

O'BRIEN: (INAUDIBLE) ...

HILL: As always.

DEAN: I know, we ...

HILL: Always.

DEAN: Thank you so much we really appreciate it.

All right. New into CNN today, a brutal body cam video showing a handcuffed inmate being fatally beaten by corrections officers at a New York prison. And we want to warn you that this video is disturbing. It is very hard to watch.

HILL: The body cam video also shows several corrections officers standing around as this is happening doing nothing to stop this attack on Brooks.

New York's Attorney General, Letitia James, just releasing the video of the beating. CNN's Jason Carroll is following these developments for us.

So, Jason, what more do we know about what happened here?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you just saw some of it there, Erica. It's really very difficult video to watch. New York's governor has now called for 14 workers there at the Marcy Correctional Facility to be fired. New York's Attorney General, Letitia James, has opened an investigation into Robert Brooks' death to try and find out what happened here, what led up to this.

Her office has reviewed the body cam videos calling what she saw shocking. Now, we again want to caution viewers the video is terribly disturbing. We're going to show some of it to you now.

The body cam video shows what happened on actually on December 9th. That's when Robert Brooks was transferred to the Marcy Correctional Facility there in Utica, New York. It's a medium security state prison. He was transferred from another facility and was taken into the examination room that you see there, carried into the examination room. He is restrained. He appears to be handcuffed behind his back.

And then, as he's there in the room he's just randomly beaten by correction officers over the course of several minutes. Once he's there in the room - and again, we're not showing all of the video to you, but some of what we can tell you is that he was punched in the face. He was punched in the stomach. He was punched in the buttocks punched several times.

And at one point, an officer shoves something - it looks like some sort of a rag or something in his mouth and then lifts him up by the neck. We see there on the video that we were able to see that his face is bloodied. He appears to be weak. At one point, can't even stand on his own. He's dragged to another part of the room because he cannot stand on his own.

Again, that was on December 9th. He died the very next day on December 10th. He was 43 years old. He'd been serving a 12-year sentence for assault.

Again, New York's Attorney General has opened an investigation into his death to ensure what she called transparency and accountability.

[15:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LETITIA JAMES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, NEW YORK: As in every case, the attorneys and investigators in my office are conducting an exhaustive review of the facts and the evidence. As Attorney General, you have my word that we will use every possible tool available to us to investigate this death thoroughly and swiftly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: So, let me give you an update in terms of what's happened as a result of what went on. There are 13 employees, including correction officers, sergeants and a nurse have been suspended without pay. The labor union that actually represents these correction officers had said this in part: "What we witnessed is incomprehensible to say the least and is certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day."

An attorney for Brooks' family has also weighed in on this saying, "As expected, watching the horrific and violent final moments of Robert's life was devastating for his loved ones and will be disturbing to anyone who views the video following its release by the Attorney General's office. We will not rest until we have secure justice for Robert's memory and safety for prisoners at Marcy Correctional Facility."

Brooks' family, of course, is now awaiting the outcome of the AG's investigation, all this now as they make funeral arrangements. Guys, back to you.

DEAN: All right. Jason Carroll, thanks for that reporting.

Let's bring in former NYPD detective, Michael Alcazar, now.

And Michael, thanks for being here with us. Look, we're just getting our first look at this very disturbing video. As you see it, as you hear these new details that we're getting, what is standing out to you?

MICHAEL ALCAZAR, RETIRED NYPD DETECTIVE: It's just horrible to watch. I'm watching it. I'm getting angry watching it. I can't believe the excessive force that these corrections officers use. It was in humane. It was unnecessary. I mean, really disturbing to watch.

HILL: Inhumane, unnecessary, as Jason just mentioned, the union called it incomprehensible. The other thing, and Jessica and I were talking about this during the break, that stood out to us is that there were cameras there, right? And they must have known there were cameras there, which brings up, I guess, two questions.

Number one, this happened with the cameras on. What could happen with the cameras off? And also, the fact that this was happening with the cameras on and they knew the cameras were on. What does that suggest to you, that they would potentially think that this was the correct course of action?

ALCAZAR: It could be two scenarios. It could be that they totally forgot they had body cams on. In the heat of the moment, they seemed pretty angry that caught (ph) officers and, you know, they lost their mind. And the other thing is maybe they thought it was justified. I'm not saying it was, but maybe they thought it was justified, their action, because the prisoner was resisting.

What's more disturbing is that there were sergeants on the scene that didn't stop their actions. You know, you're a supervisor, you have to control your corrections officer. When you see it's getting out of hand and excessive, they should have stepped in and stopped them immediately.

You can even see one of them looking at the camera, which to me acknowledges that he knew there was a body cam. So, it could be some kind of training flaw, or again, they just forgot that the body cams were on or they just didn't care.

DEAN: Are they culpable, too, the people who stood to the side and didn't intervene? Will they be held accountable legally?

ALCAZAR: Oh, yes, absolutely. You are a uniformed member of service. If there's excessive violent force being used, especially as a supervisor, but anybody in a uniform capacity should stop the officers from, you know, doing further damage, further injury to the prisoner.

HILL: Is it your sense that this is more widespread than we know?

ALCAZAR: I'm not sure if it's widespread. I mean, the video sure makes it look like it's pretty common, like they're pretty comfortable doing this, especially with a supervisor there. So, I would definitely have the AG look into it to see if it's something - hopefully that's not common practice, but two sergeants, I believe, were on the scene and so many corrections officers and nobody stopped this from happening. It could be something that they really have to investigate and find out if it is widespread. DEAN: Yes, no doubt about it. Michael Alcazar, thank you so much for giving us some context around that. We appreciate it.

HILL: Still to come this hour, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy sparking a mega backlash over a proposal involving foreign workers.

DEAN: Plus, requests denied. A New York judge scolds Jay-Z and his lawyer over their efforts to dismiss the rape case against him.

And people across the country hoping for a belated Christmas gift during tonight's Mega Millions drawing. The jackpot soaring to above a billion dollars. That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

[15:20:04]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:23:56]

HILL: Just over three weeks ago now until the inauguration, President- elect Donald Trump, though, may have the first Republican fight of the new year on his hands a little early. A debate that started - where else - online, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The two men tasked with making the government more efficient were making the kind of argument you don't hear a lot right now from Republicans for more immigration, specifically for expanding the visa program for highly skilled workers.

Musk posting on his platform X, quote, "The number of people who are super talented engineers and super motivated in the U.S.A. is far too low. Think of it like a pro sports team: if you want your team to win the championship you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be."

Those comments led to a backlash from the MAGA faithful who want to see immigration curbed. So, we'll put a pin there bring in Pete Seat former White House spokesperson under president George W. Bush and vice president of Bose Public Affairs Group. And Nomiki Konst, former Bernie Sanders surrogate and DNC reform commissioner.

Good to have both of you here.

And Pete, we pick it back up now. Obviously, Musk and Ramaswamy are from big tech, that's an industry that's long dependent on talent from overseas, bringing in the best and the brightest.

[15:25:04]

It's probably not a surprise that they feel the way they do, but it is interesting to see them come up against the mega faithful on this.

PETE SEAT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, it is the nature of political coalitions that folks rally around the big message the big argument of a campaign and kind of suppress some of the detailed disagreements that they might have and now you have one of those bubbling to the surface. And I got to say, I love this. I love a good passionate substantive policy debate where both the proponents and the opponents are making good arguments.

Elon Musk is right, if we want America to win in this global economy, in this global environment, then we need to attract the best and the brightest. They're not always here just because this is America. They're not necessarily born here.

Vivek Ramaswamy makes a good point that we have. We have erred on the side of mediocrity over meritocracy over the years. Look at education and athletics in the workplace where we've moved the bar to make things easier, far too easy at times rather than going for full-on success.

And the opponents are making a good point too that the H-1B visa program is anti-competitive and it is exploitative of workers who are stuck in jobs cannot negotiate higher salaries and wages and it needs some reform. So, this is a great debate to be having.

HILL: So, if this could be that substantive solid policy debate that you're hoping it would be, Pete, Nomiki, could this be an area, right, where we could actually see Democrats come to the table, could there be an actual substantive debate between both sides of the aisle here moving forward to look at a program that maybe could use a little bit of reform.

NOMIKI KONST, FORMER BERNIE SANDERS SURROGATE: Yes, that would happen if Donald Trump hadn't built his entire brand, the Maga brand, off of being anti-immigrant. He could have gone another path and said, you know, America is great because we thrive off of our immigrant population who when you look at regions across the country, the areas with more immigrants correlate with more innovation, more economic growth.

When it's restricted there's less R&D, tech companies aren't as successful. There's less growth and wage are low. So, we know that immigrants are a key ingredient to the United States exceptionalism and Elon Musk himself a recipient of the H-1B visa knows very well. The problem is it goes against the entire brand Donald Trump built his political campaigns on which was anti-immigrant. It's their fault that you're not making money.

And so, when MAGA hears that these two want to expand the H-1B visa program, they hear we Americans are not good enough. You want to go find other people because we're not good enough. But the real issue here is - as was mentioned by Pete is there's actually a backlog in the green card process right now and the pipeline with the green cards is slowing down the H-1B visa program.

So even though a hundred percent of - this is from the Cato Institute - a hundred percent of the recipients of H-1B visas are receiving market rate or more wages, they're staying in those jobs because we don't have enough visas available and they're not moving into green card programs. So, there's some institutional stuff that needs to be dealt with as well.

DEAN: And so Nomiki, how - like you're talking about the technical part of it, how do you think then if Musk convinces Trump that this is what needs to be done, how do they appropriately message that to so many people who voted for them on - as you note - an anti-immigration platform?

KONST: I mean, that is going to be very difficult you have to re- educate a large swath of their base into understanding that we actually are a pretty inclusive society and that immigrants did build this country up, unlike what Laura Loomer said saying that it was white Europeans who built the United States. We know very well it was formerly enslaved people and, of course, immigrants who have built the American exceptionalism that we see and feel today.

So, you know, it's going to be difficult because we have midterms coming up and there are members of congress especially from the MAGA right who are going to have a difficult time messaging this pro- immigrant policy to their base that they depend on. And I think that actually fares better for Democrats and there's a little bit of a wedge there in terms of where Democrats, yes, can negotiate but also use it as a campaign mechanism where, you know, the base is going to be very much against this key - the key issue that Donald Trump built his entire brand on.

HILL: Pete, there was always going to be some divide that was going to happen at some point, right? There was going to be some division which happens no matter how seemingly in lockstep folks are with the President-elect, is this the start though of a rift?

SEAT: Well, I think it's the start of a healthy conversation within the Trump built coalition.

[15:30:00]

And a couple of points on what was said, number one, Donald Trump ran against illegal immigration.