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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Shots Fired At Two LAPD Officers; Number Three House Republican Likely Spoke To White Power Group; "The Interview" Makes $15 Million Online

Aired December 29, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, HOST: Welcome back to "THE LEAD." I'm Jake Tapper. We are going to continue now with more coverage of our world lead and mysterious disappearance of AirAsia flight 8501, which took off from Indonesia headed for Singapore and vanished less than an hour later.

2014 has been a tragic year in aviation. Now, if you crunch the numbers, according to the Bureau of Accident archives, there have been 111 plane crashes this year. And that's the lowest number in decades. That's the good news. But when it comes to the number of fatalities, well, that's another matter entirely. 1,320 people were killed in aviation disasters this year. And that is the highest number since 2005. CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott is here with more. Elise, Malaysia-based air carriers were involved in three of the deadliest incidents this year.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake. Even though these airlines had very good safety records, still many people are asking if there's a connection to these tragedies or whether Malaysia is just having a terrible run of bad luck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LABOTT: For the third time this year, an agonizing wait as loved ones brace for news of the fate of the 162 passengers aboard AirAsia flight 8501. It's been a record year for aviation safety worldwide with the lowest number of crashes in more than 80 years. But for Malaysian carriers, the disasters in 2014 have been unthinkable. If all aboard the missing AirAsia flight have perished, Malaysian-based carriers will have suffered 699 deaths, more than half of aviation deaths this year.

PETER GOETZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: AirAsia has an unblemished record up until this tragedy. They were considered a pioneer in bringing low-cost, high-quality air service to the Indonesian/Malaysian area. There was no question about their safety.

LABOTT: It started March 8th with the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. The Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 people aboard. Authorities believe the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean and questioned links to terrorism. Ten months later, not a trace of the plane and no answers as to the cause of the crash. July 17th, just four months after flight 370 vanished, disaster would strike again for Malaysian airlines. Russian-backed rebels blamed for shooting down flight 17 with a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 aboard. And now, grim prospects for AirAsia flight 8501 could put Malaysia-based airlines at the center of the world's three deadliest aviation tragedies this year.

GOETZ: It's really impossible to draw any kind of connection between these events. Given the Malaysian Airlines shootdown over the Ukraine, I mean it just as easily could have been a Singaporean airliner that was five miles flying in front of it. I mean these were just terrible coincidences.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LABOTT: Now, the disappearance of the AirAsia flight comes as Southeast Asia is dealing with terrible monsoons. Malaysia has been particularly bad hit with epic flooding and landslides. At least ten people killed and more than 160,000 people forced from their homes. So 2014 has not just been bad in the skies, Jake. Malaysia has been severely tested this year.

TAPPER: Elise Labott, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Well, the mystery and geography have led to easy comparisons between the disappearances of the AirAsia flight and Malaysian Airlines flight 370 from earlier this year, there are also some distinct differences. For starters, the search area for flight 370 was much deeper in the southern Indian Ocean compared to the more shallow and heavily trafficked Java Sea. Then there are the sizes of the search areas, for flight 370, it was about the size of West Virginia ultimately. For AirAsia, at least right now, it's about the size of West Virginia and South Carolina combined. Of course, it is early yet in that search. And then there are the circumstances under which both planes went down, such as the weather. It was crystal clear for the Malaysian Air flight. I'm joined now by Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the Department of Transportation along with David Soucie, CNN safety analyst and the author of "Why Planes Crash."

Mary, this flight AirAsia disappeared during a storm that seems to suggest what might have caused any disappearance.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I think that the storm - I think it will come out that the storm was certainly a contributing factor. I doubt it will be the only factor just because I've worked so many accidents were the storm was a part of it. But it led to a cascade of an events, I think that there will probably be a close scrutiny of the pilot's behavior, maybe some problems with the plane - I don't know, there is no evidence of that now. But certainly there will be scrutiny of the airline, what was the airline's decision- making process for dispatching the planes, did they consider the weather and what were their alternative plans when trying to circumvent monsoons? I think they're in for a heap of criticism for that.

TAPPER: David, are there any lessons that the community has learned from the search for flight 370 that will help with this investigation?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, there's a lot of lessons that have been learned. The challenge is that none of them have been really acted on, lessons that we learned back in Air France 447 about tracking of aircraft in real time, things about once the aircraft has hit the water, are there proper ways of identifying where the aircraft is at that point. None of those things have actually been enacted by regulatory authorities to push this forward. And those are lessons that have been learned and it's incredibly painful to see that these lessons were learned. We know what the fix is. In some cases, it's a free fix, if you look at Inmarsat offering free flight following and flight tracking for many of the aircraft. So, it's just incredibly painful to see these lessons being learned, but the inability to actually act on them from a regulatory basis.

TAPPER: Mary, is there anything about where the AirAsia plane is believed to have gone down that will make wreckage potentially easier to locate than flight 370?

SCHIAVO: Potentially. And I have to say, by the way, amen to what David Soucie just said. Couldn't agree more. But yes, because the water is not as deep, they won't have to call in submersibles. They can use divers to do some of it. In some places, the water is so clear and if it isn't stirred up by all the ships, it's so clear you can actually see down into the water. It's a well-trafficked area. So there will be lots of eyes on the wreckage. In fact, probably so well-trafficked, that it could make it difficult because there will be a lot of traffic that they'll have to reroute out of the search areas and make other provisions for it on the water. So there's the potential to have a lot of people looking. And of course there's still the potential that it could be in the adjoining land mass area, which is a jungle. So it should be quicker. I'm not going to say easier, it should be quicker to find this one.

TAPPER: And David, you just - you just were referring to Inmarsat, the technology that search crews rely on, using the pings. People remember that from the search for flight 370. But in this case, they won't even have the pings.

SOUCIE: No, they won't, because this aircraft wasn't equipped with the satcom. If you look at the antennas on the aircraft, which is the only way that we would know whether they do or not, at this point, because the information hasn't been released, but if you look at the aircraft, there is no sitcom antennas, so from that - saying that there was not a satcom, there was no satellite antenna on this aircraft, which is not uncommon for aircraft that have short flight legs. So, it's not a one size fits all for how to track airplanes, but in this case we won't have that information. So, that's why the search area is so large at this time.

TAPPER: David Soucie and Mary Schiavo, thank you so much.

Tonight on CNN, we'll look back at the mystery of Malaysian Airlines flight 370. Months later, there are still so many unanswered questions, what happened on that plane, have investigators given up on ever finding it? Watch "Vanished: the Mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370" tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.

Coming up, it happened again. Police officers targeted, this time in Los Angeles. The search happening right now to find a gunman presumed armed and dangerous. Plus, what police are saying about a possible motive.

Plus, digital distribution now paying off for Sony. The chances of retaliation by hackers now that "The Interview" can be seen around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to "THE LEAD." I'm Jake Tapper. In our national lead, police under fire. There's been a lot of attention this year given to incidents and accusations of excessive force used by police. But this has also been a particularly dangerous year for police themselves. In 2014, 123 officers have been killed, compared to 100 last year. 49 of those deaths were by firearms.

Most recently just days after two New York City cops were gunned down in broad daylight in their patrol cars, officers in two other states have been fired upon, the latest near Tampa, Florida and in Los Angeles, California.

And that is where CNN's Sara Sidner joins us live. Sara, one of the suspects in the L.A. shooting is at large and potentially armed?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, armed and dangerous. I think what we're hearing now from the police is that they have let people go ahead and come out of their homes. At first, they had them sheltering in place for quite a few hours.

Last night, it happened just here on the street behind me, on Hoover Street here, in south L.A. What we're told from police is a couple of officers in their black-and-white police car were responding to a call when suddenly they saw a flash of a muzzle and they came under fire.

What we're told is that it was completely unprovoked. They weren't going after these two individuals who fired upon them. They had nothing to do with the call they were going to. They weren't planning on arresting these two individuals, but they came under fire anyway.

They were able to apprehend one of the suspects. The other is still at large. We also know because we were on the scene, we saw them taking some of the evidence and we're told that they took a rifle into evidence.

We saw them taking away a large white box, which we think was that rifle. They were out here for quite a few hours, but that is the scene. Now it's clear but they are still looking for that suspect -- Jake.

TAPPER: Sara, are officials there concerned that officers are becoming targets even more than they were before possibly as a result of a lot of the issues we've seen and the protests we've seen over the last several months?

SIDNER: You know, we asked that very question to the detective who was out here speaking to the media as to whether officers feel like targets, considering some of the sentiments in some of the protests. And what their response was with that in this particular instance, they don't think it has anything to do with the protest.

But they are concerned about a slim minority of people who are not so much anti-police brutality but more anti-police. Here's the answer the detective gave us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DETECTIVE MEGAN AGUILAR, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: I don't know that they necessarily feel that they're becoming targets because of what's going on around the nation, although, you know, last week we had two New York police officers that were killed. So it's undeniable that we're aware that there are a very small, small, small percentage of people out there that are so angry at the police that they're willing to hurt them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And this is a neighborhood that has seen its fair share of gang activity. We talked to some of the residents here. They say there have been quite a few shootings around here.

But there is a general suspicion in some of these homes of police officers considering the relationship that exists between those here and the police department -- Jake.

TAPPER: Sara Sidner reporting from Los Angeles, thank you so much.

Meanwhile tensions between the NYPD and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio show no signs of cooling off. During the funeral for slain Police Officer Rafael Ramos on Saturday, hundreds of police officers turned their backs on a large television screen showing the mayor's live eulogy inside the church. And take a look at this from today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The mayor of the city of New York, Bill De Blasio.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK: Congratulations, Officers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Applause and some boos. Earlier today, Mayor De Blasio was greeted with that mixed perception by cadets at a graduation ceremony for the department's newest class of officers. Not surprisingly divisions in the U.S. have provided its enemies opportunities to slam this country.

Over the weekend, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei compared Jesus' struggle to protest against alleged police brutality in the black community tweeting, quote, "It's expected that followers of #jesus follow him in his fight against arrogant and in his support for the oppressed, #blacklivesmatter."

Of course, one might observe that if an Iranian were to tweet similar criticism of the supreme leader or his henchmen, one can only imagine whether we would ever hear from or see that person again #iranianlivesmatter.

Now to breaking news in our Politics Lead, the third most powerful Republican in the House, Congressman Steve Scalise, accused of giving a speech to a vehement hate group, one founded by notorious, David Duke, the former grand wizard of Kuhn Klux Klan, who has overt ties to neo-Nazis.

This is a story that first showed up on a Louisiana politics blog run by Lamar White Jr., under the headline, Steve Scalise and White Supremacy. Then today, Scalise source says yes, it is likely that he did speak to that white supremacist group.

CNN's Athena Jones has more on this story. Athena, what can you tell us? What happened?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is not a headline anyone wants to see, certainly not someone who is number three in the Republican leadership and a powerful person in the House of Representatives.

But a Scalise source says that back in 2002, the representative, then a state representative, with only one staffer was traveling all around the state of Louisiana touting his opposition to a tax increase that would affect the middle class.

And also his desire to eliminate what he called a slush fund that was benefiting state politicians. So here I want to read for you part of the statement that his communications director gave to us.

She said that in every case, he, Representative Scalise, was building support for his policies not the other way around. In 2002, he made himself available to anyone who wanted to hear his proposal to eliminate slush funds that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars as well as his opposition to a proposed tax increase on middle class families.

He has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question. The hate-fueled ignorance and intolerance that group projects is in stark contradiction to what Mr. Scalise believes and practices as a father, a husband and a devoted Catholic.

And so they say this is just not who he is. He was not aware that this group, which is called, "The European American Unity and Rights Organization or Euro for short. He was not aware of their white supremacist aims or mission. And if he had been aware, he wouldn't have spoken to the group.

TAPPER: And he noted in that statement, his spokesman noted that he's a Catholic. Of course, the Klan is historically not a fan of Catholics either. What else are they saying?

JONES: They say they were taken aback by this. They believe it's a hit piece by a liberal blogger in Louisiana and focused on the fact that this group had a fairly in innocuous name. He has never affiliated with white supremacist and would never. They of course are also stressing his Catholic faith. This comes as a surprise to them. TAPPER: Lots more that is going to come out on this, I would imagine. If David Duke is associated with this group, he's been a notorious neo-Nazi and Klansman since the '80s. If he was affiliated, it shouldn't any surprise with who is in that group. Athena Jones, thank you so much for getting us up to speed on that.

In other world news, is North Korea really the only country behind the Sony cyber hack. Why some are at least considering other suspects. That's next on THE LEAD.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. In other world news, over this holiday break, millions of Americans got to see a first-run blockbuster from the comfort of their own sofas and obtained it in a way many never thought of before.

We may all have a little known Hollywood consultant named Kim Jong-Un to thank for this. Sony Pictures says "The Interview" was legally downloaded 2 million times in the first four days it was available.

It's already Sony's top online film ever. That was before iTunes picked it up yesterday. Meanwhile, North Korea which was upset over a couple of hours of poo jokes directed at dear leader, that country is firing back with flat-out racist insults.

CNN's Pamela Brown has all the latest for us -- Pamela.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, the blame game continues. Needless to say as you point out there and as millions of dollars roll in for Sony's "The Interview" on the big screen and online, tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, which the FBI blames for the hack on the studio remain.

Over the weekend, the reclusive country released a scathing statement pointed the finger back at the U.S. and even making racist remarks about President Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Sony's unprecedented move to release "The Interview" online and at independent theaters simultaneously is paying off. Many moviegoers saying it was their patriotic duty to see the film. So far, the controversial comedy has raked in about $18 million. Most of it online with more than 2 million downloads.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I went to see it as quickly as I could. Just to show my support.

BROWN: Now Apple iTunes is jumping on board the distribution bandwagon.

(VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: As Sony cashes in, the question looms, will the hackers who the U.S. says were working for the North Korean government strike back?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that's almost a certainty.

BROWN: Law enforcement sources say even though Sony believes its systems are now secure, the concern is that the hackers will release more confidential information they've already stolen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Running sources inside the country is virtually impossible. Their plans and intentions are completely opaque to us.

BROWN: Over the weekend, the blame game between the U.S. and North Korea escalated. North Korea claiming the U.S. cut off its internet last week and calling President Obama a monkey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end of the day, have we deterred North Korea?

BROWN: Senator Lindsey Graham on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" suggested aggressive measures against North Korea and hinted at China's possible involvement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put them back on the state sponsor of terrorism list and attack their infrastructure. I can't imagine anything this massive happening in North Korea without China being involved.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And FBI officials I spoke with today reiterated that absent any additional information, it doesn't believe any other countries are involved in the hack. The official says some of the more incriminating information the FBI has against North Korea was not publicly disclosed because of operational sensitivities.

The official said you don't want to tip off the country so that they can make changes and knowing how they're onto you and adjust accordingly. That's why they're not releasing all the information.

TAPPER: There are experts who have been skeptical this is from North Korea, but we'll have more on that in another time. Pamela Brown, thank you so much.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter @jaketapper and also @theleadcnn. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I now turn you over to Brianna Keilar who's in for Wolf Blitzer and she's in "THE SITUATION ROOM."