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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Interview with Bradley Cooper, Taya Kyle; Officials Closer To Learning Cause Of Crash; Woody Allen To Create Amazon TV Series

Aired January 13, 2015 - 16:30   ET

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

TAPPER: And people - I don't know how many people have read the book - a lot -- but you also wrote part of the book. He hands it over to you and lets you have your say. And one of the things is the distance. When he comes back and how tough it is for him to adjust to, quote unquote, "normal life." And you're very honest about that.

KYLE: Yes, it's a real thing. And the biggest blessings in the book and the movie is that military couples are saying they identify, they've had the same conversations. And sometimes stepping outside of yourself and seeing somebody else have the conversation is eye- opening. And I hope that it continues to help that dialogue between couples because we all go through it at some point.

TAPPER: Bradley, I have to say the transformation was pretty remarkable. You're a fancy boy from Germantown Academy ...

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: -- in Philadelphia.

COOPER: Wow, you just asked me where I went to high school and then was just waiting to use it later. That's nice.

TAPPER: Well, I'm just saying -

COOPER: Let's talk about (INAUDIBLE).

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: But you - but that's my point. You are so convincing in this role --

KYLE: Not so fancy.

TAPPER: -- as this badass from Texas. You put on 30 pounds of muscle. Your schedule was -- 6,000 calories a day.

COOPER: Upwards of, yeah.

TAPPER: And you took dialect coaching?

COOPER: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, Chris had a wonderful way of talking. And I know that so many people who knew Chris and also his family were going to be watching this movie and his children. And I wanted to be as accurate as possible. And also, it was a big part of who he was and why we loved this story so much. I mean, you have Taya and Chris, two very charismatic individuals and just ripe for cinema.

And the thing that made Chris so great is this huge, imposing, massive physical presence with this sort of great lilt of a voice that made you put you at ease. And then also he had this great sense of humor. But if we didn't have the big, massive structure to then interject the humor, it wouldn't have played the same.

So I had no choice. I had to get that big-

TAPPER: And how did he do? Because obviously he's playing someone that you loved very much.

KYLE: Right. You know, Bradley did an amazing job. I truly don't believe there's anybody who could have done better. I just -- the mannerisms, the little - the way he was holding his head in certain ways where he would walk a certain stride, everything.

TAPPER: Walking? Didn't you give him a pair of Chris' shoes?

KYLE: Yes. He had his own that were like Chris', like hiking boots and cowboy boots. But truly - and I don't want to embarrass Bradley by going on too much, but I really --

TAPPER: Embarrass him.

KYLE: Yeah, OK, all right. But when people see the movie, Chris' friends, the word that keeps coming up is eerie. They say it's eerie how much it felt like Chris. And I think that's because it wasn't just the words and it wasn't just the actions. It's like the spirit of Chris is exuding from Bradley as he's playing this role, and --

TAPPER: You've said that the spirit of Chris was in you and left you a few weeks after.

COOPER: Well, I mean, not to get too hokey about it, but I mean, it definitely felt like somebody was watching over the whole production of the movie. And I felt - you know, it was a very daunting task to play the legend. And a lot of people came up and were very clear that they didn't think I could do it. And I thought, wow, every day I'm going to be so scared that I'm not really Chris. Because there were real vets who knew Chris that were on set.

TAPPER: Chris' dad said he was going to drag you behind it.

COOPER: As well as Chris. And one time I talked to him on the phone, Chris said that, too. That was just to drag the pretty out of me. That wasn't a threat.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: That was just part of the process. But I've got to say the first day I showed up on set, I felt

completely at ease. Everybody that I met that knew Chris that came on set that day, I actually felt like Chris was right next to me the whole time. I really did. And everybody -- I never felt anyone ever sort of treat me in a way that I wasn't Chris while they were shooting the movie.

TAPPER: I don't know your personal politics at all, but Chris was very conservative person. It comes across in his book, his view of the Iraqis, his view of patriotism and the United States of America. And the movie doesn't gloss over that at all. It's Chris through and through; the voice in his book is the voice in the movie. Was it easy to get it made in Hollywood, which is not exactly not known for promoting conservative values?

COOPER: Well, I don't see this movie as a movie that promotes conservative values at all. It was nothing Clint and I ever spoke about. And in fact, even more than the book, because Chris even talked about the book openly. I really focused on the source material that Taya gave us and all the interviews that Chris did. So many things that you could find with him and all the home videos.

And the thing that Clint and I always wanted to make was a character study. And if someone wants to take this movie and use it for their own political agenda, that's up to them.

TAPPER: I don't mean it in that way.

COOPER: But I'm just saying - Because we really just - It's not a movie about the Iraqi war.

TAPPER: It's about one man.

COOPER: It's about one man. And hopefully if we tell it accurately, other servicemen and women will say, wow, that's actually something that I can relate to. And it's about the struggles that people go through being at war and being at home. Because more and more military vets are coming back than ever before because of medical advancements. And we have to take care of them. And that's -- if there's any message at all, that would be a little keyhole into the world of a vet. And their family as importantly.

TAPPER: And just so people know if they don't, when you talk about Clint, you're talking about Clint Eastwood, who's the director of the film.

There's a great scene in the book and the movie where you are driving in the pickup truck with Chris, and he's talking about -- he's so frustrated with the American people. I think he just got back from his first deployment to Iraq. And he's so frustrated because the radio and the TV and everyone is talking about nonsense in his view. No one is talking about the war and the sacrifices being made.

I've heard that complaint from soldiers time and time again. A friend of mine who served in Afghanistan, talking about how mad he was, somebody was getting mad because there wasn't enough foam on their latte at Starbucks. And it's like, can you believe that this person is talking about that? That's part of his life.

KYLE: Well, it is. I mean, that saying, you know, America is at war and the people are at the mall. You know, there's a disconnect.

But I would have to agree with Bradley that there is no - there really isn't any political slant. There wasn't even in the book I didn't feel and I know Chris didn't feel. There's just a universal experience.

And my feeling is it doesn't matter what country you're from and it doesn't matter what decade you're from. If you're a human being and you're going to fight for your country and you have somebody who loves you, some of this experience is going to be relatable. It's just - it's sort of a picture of humanity and what we go through when we fight for something we believe in and are affected by it, and then have to fight to find our way back to each other. In my opinion.

COOPER: One quick thing about Chris, just about that latte thing.

KYLE: Yes.

COOPER: You know, it's interesting. I loved, you know, studying him the way I did, which is - you know, you never get the opportunity to do that about a human being.

TAPPER: Yeah.

COOPER: I loved to see how his views changed because he talked very much about that exact subject. You know, when he first got home how irate he would be at this. And then he- then like a year later, two years later - because, you know, for two years he was not in such a great place. Then he started realizing -- correct me if I'm wrong about this -- that he goes, you know what? I was fighting for people's ability to worry about the latte. That's actually - that's a beautiful thing.

KYLE: Right.

COOPER: That we could be over there doing something to allow civilization to occur in a way that people can think about other things.

KYLE: Right.

TAPPER: Well, it's a very important movie. And I hope everybody goes to see it. KYLE: Thank you.

TAPPER: It's such an honor to have you here, Taya. And Bradley, thank you.

COOPER: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: Really appreciate it. Good luck on everything for both of you.

COOPER: Thank you. TAPPER: You should read the book, too.

In other national news, an American cartoonist on al Qaeda's hit list after jokingly urging others to draw cartoons of Muhammad. She's been in hiding for quite some time on the advice of the FBI. What is U.S. law enforcement doing to protect her, if anything? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to "THE LEAD." I'm Jake Tapper. In other national news, it was a moving sight to witness in France as 3 million people across the country regardless of race or class or creed they marched to show they will not be silenced by threats of terrorism. It's still unclear whether something so powerful might inspire another cartoonists to come out of the shadows after more than four years. Molly Norris, a cartoonist on advice from the FBI disappeared back in 2010 after she started a Facebook page rooting on people to draw Muhammad to defend the First Amendment. It was a response to a controversy over the time about cartoons of the prophet and "South Park" at the time. Her cartoons even led to a court order in Pakistan blocking parts of Facebook. She ended up having a fatwa, a religious edict placed on her by Anwar al Awlaki, the American-born al Qaeda leader in Yemen who was killed in a drone attack in 2011. He may have had contact, of course, with one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen.

Joining us now is Larry Kelley who runs the Free Molly Norris foundation. Thanks so much for joining us. First of all, how is she doing?

LARRY KELLEY, FOUNDER FREE MOLLY NORRIS FOUNDATION: Well, thanks very much Jake for having me on. I really don't know. I came across her story shortly after I finished my book. I wrote a book which is my response, Jake, to 9/11. It was a ten-year odyssey, and I, in my research, I found out about her. And by the way, my book is "Lessons from Fallen Civilizations: Can a Bankrupt America Survive the Current Islamic threat".

TAPPER: So how did you get involved with Molly's situation? You read about her.

KELLEY: Yes. I just in my research writing the book I came across it, and I think it was like a lot of Americans I was shocked that -- to think that she, the first American journalist forced into hiding by radical Islam, could happen in the United States.

TAPPER: What do you think Molly was trying to accomplish with the Everyone Draw Muhammad day? Was she trying to offend people or was she taking a stand for the right to offend people, which we have in this country?

KELLEY: That, but she actually said and the research that I've done, she actually said that she was encouraging people to expand the pool of targets, Jake. And that's something that I really want to stress. And that's why I keep - I try to keep her story alive. What she means by that is, let's everybody become a target. Let's not let them pick us off singly. TAPPER: The FBI took the threat seriously enough to urge her into

hiding. Awlaki is now dead, but you say that you don't think U.S. law enforcement has done enough to protect her. Why not?

KELLEY: No, I don't. I contacted the FBI, and I told them that I was raising money through my book sales, a portion of each of my books will go into the Molly Norris fund. And I was just attempting to find a way to talk to a case officer that maybe there would be a conduit so that we could get the money to her. They would not help me.

Moreover, when they went to her, they said, look, you're getting so many death threats that you just need to go ghost, their term. So what that meant was that she had to leave her family and her friends, her livelihood and disappear because the FBI either wouldn't or couldn't protect her.

And I think that one of the things we learn from this Snowden event is that the government has the tools, in my opinion, Jake, to -- if I were to receive a death threat and I send that e-mail over to the FBI office, I think that the government should and probably does have the tools to put that FBI office on offense.

That's another thing that I think that we just failed to do in her case. I think it needs to be corrected.

TAPPER: Larry Kelley from the Free Molly Norris Foundation, thank you so much.

Coming up, what were pilots doing in the moments before Airasia Flight 8501 crashed? Investigators now one step closer to finding that out after the cockpit voice recorder was found. New details in the investigation next.

Plus, it's just one measly little second, but it could mean Armageddon for the Internet. Why companies are frantically looking for ways to avert disaster. What kind of disaster, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. We have some other world news for you today. Officials in Indonesia may be closer to finding out what exactly brought down Airasia 8501 last month.

Divers retrieved the cockpit voice recorder from the Java Sea today not far from where the flight data recorder was found 24 hours earlier. CNN's aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh joins us live with the latest.

Rene, both black boxes have now been recovered, obviously an enormous step towards finding out what happened so authorities can make sure it doesn't happen again.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT: It certainly is. If you think of this as pieces of a jig saw puzzle throughout the Java Sea, the discovery of the black boxes is a huge piece in solving the puzzle. And now families are closer to learning what brought this plane down some two weeks ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): This mangled, twisted metal is wreckage from Airasia Flight 8501, key evidence for investigators, along with the two flight recorders pulled from the Java Sea.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The recorders really are the key to understanding what happened in this tragedy.

MARSH: Indonesian investigators will download and analyze the black boxes to find out why the Airbus A-320 crashed. The flight data recorder will tell investigators what was happening with the plane, how fast and which altitude it was flying and if systems failed. The cockpit voice recorder will reveal what the pilots were saying and which warning alarms were going off in the cockpit.

GOELZ: Were they responding appropriately? What was their decision making, their state of mind when they were making decisions? That's why the voice recorder is so critical.

MARSH: The Airbus A-320's recorders are located in this section of the plane where they are less likely to be damaged. But when Flight 8501's tail was hoisted out of the sea, the black boxes were not inside. They were found about a mile and a half away.

Divers may have also located the plane's fuselage. Many of the passengers' bodies could still be inside, 48 have been recovered. They were originally seated throughout the cabin. More than 100 passengers are still missing.

JONAN IGNASIUS, INDONESIAN TRANSPORT MINISTER: We expect that people continue to search the passengers, which is quite important.

MARSH: And with thousands of A-320s in the sky, the CEO of Airbus says finding out what went wrong is critical.

FABRICE BRAGIER, CEO, AIRBUS: We will do whatever we can to support these investigations and make sure that all the lessons are drawn for the future.

MARSH: America's top aviation official says the FAA also needs answers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly everyone in aviation is monitoring this including us to ensure that, as more information is learned and as we learn more as a result of the investigation, should there be things that we should take a look at here in the United States, absolutely.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: While, the voice recorder has enough space on it to record everything that was said, every sound in the cockpit from the time the plane took off to the time it crashed. The same goes for the flight data recorder. Now, downloading all of that data is easy, it takes about an hour or so. But analyzing it takes a bit log longer. Investigators expect that we will receive a preliminary report by the end of the month, but, of course, a final report would take much longer.

TAPPER: All right, but still some good news they found both of these things. Thank you so much, Rene Marsh.

When we come back, he's a legend if a controversial one on the big screen. But can he attain that status on the small screen? Woody Allen now teaming up with Amazon for a new television series and there's only one way you can see it. Will it succeed? What about those controversies about him? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. The Money Lead now, the recent terrorist killings in Paris have sparked such a profound reaction that Apple moved to quickly approve a special app called Je Suis Charlie.

A French news agency created the app after the attack at "Charlie Hebdo" magazines. Users can pinpoint their location on a map and label it "Je Suis Charlie."

According to Britain's "Telegraph" newspaper, the app's creators say they e-mailed Apple's CEO Tim Cook directly and got a reply 10 minutes later and the app was available within the hour. Typically that process takes a little longer.

Remember Y2K and all those fears about super computers crashing? Well, now the movement of time could break the Internet, we're told. This all started when the people who monitor time said that the earth's rotation had actually slowed down so they planned to add a second in June.

But that's where computer software may freak out when time keepers made a similar adjustment in 2012 sites like Yelp and Linkedin and Four Square crashed. Leave it to Google to save the day. Back in 2005, Google created a system to gradually add milliseconds to its clock so disaster is averted. Maybe other sites should Google how that process works.

Amazon is one step closer to world domination. It just teamed up with Woody Allen to create a new TV series. Right now the creative name for the project, it's untitled. He will write and direct a half hour comedy series. Allen seems thrilled about the project.

When asked about, he responded, I don't know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I'm not sure where to begin. The news comes almost a year after new child abuse allegations surfaced against the director. Amazon picked up pick awards for its series "Transparent" at the Golden Globes.

That's it for THE LEAD. I am Jake Tapper. "Je Suis Charlie." I turn you over to Wolf Blitzer. He is right next door in "THE SITUATION ROOM."