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Capt. Sully Rips Sen. Sinema Plan To Cut Pilot Training Hours; Pro-China Group Hired U.S. Man For Disinformation; Ohio Officer Fired After Releasing K-9 On Unarmed Black Man. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired July 27, 2023 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:32:21]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The pilot known for the Miracle on the Hudson emergency landing, retired airline captain and airline safety advocate, Sully Sullenberger, is coming for Arizona's Senator Kyrsten Sinema. He's accusing her of trying to cut and gut airline pilot safety training.
Her proposed amendment is to an airline safety bill, the FAA Reauthorization Act. Now her amendment would enable the FAA to relax training requirements for commercial airline pilots, specifically the 1,500-hour rule.
In a tweet, Sullenberger said, quote, "I have spent a lifetime dedicated to making air travel safer. But this critical and life- saving work is about to be undone with one amendment to a bill."
The deadline to pass the FAA reauthorization is on September 30th.
Joining us now is David Soucie, a CNN safety analyst and former FAA safety inspector. Also the author of "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370."
David, thanks so much for being with us.
How valid are Captain Sullenberger's concerns?
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN AVIATION SAFETY ANALYST: Very valid. I can see the damage that this bill would do. It has no credibility whatsoever. It's being touted as something that will improve safety, when, in fact, it does exactly the opposite.
SANCHEZ: And what issue specifically do you see with Kyrsten Sinema's amendment?
SOUCIE: What the pilots would be able to do is use any of their time they spend in a simulator to add towards the 1,500-hour requirement, which is preposterous.
A simulator is nothing more than a tool to aid in the training in the different scenarios you go through. It cannot replace the mindset of a pilot in control of an aircraft to get those hours in experience.
To put an inexperienced pilot in the cockpit is a very dangerous thing to do.
SANCHEZ: I want to get your thoughts on Senator Sinema's reaction when she was asked about her plan by CNN's Phoenix affiliate, 12 News.
She was asked, quote, "Senator John Thune and I are working on an amendment that would actually enhance pilot training and ensure that pilots who are in accredited schools can use some of the hours of their training in simulators towards their pilot training."
She argues that time spent in a simulator is useful because they can simulate weather conditions that aren't as common when pilots are actually training in the air routinely.
SOUCIE: There's nothing different about that. They do that right now. That training does go on. It does expose them to different scenarios.
But again, she's saying she's improving the training. That's much different than saying you're reducing the experience requirement.
[14:35:01]
You can't replace experience with training. It's two different things. They are for two different purposes entirely.
SANCHEZ: So the issue that she's trying to address here is the pilot shortage. There's something like 8,000 pilots, I think, that we're short from. And in 10 years, it's going to be 30,000 or so.
What proposed measures would you suggest to try to fix that?
SOUCIE: Increasing the age is number one. The second thing we need to do is get more pilots in the air. That requires approving things like electric airplanes that are out there now that operate at a quarter of the cost.
The other thing is the airline industry has known this was coming down the pike for many years. They knew this storm was headed this way. They did nothing about it.
Now just recently, some of the airlines are actually paying for training to get pilots into training and get them certified and start feeding the pipeline of pilots.
That needs to be expedited and it needs to be supplemented by Congress instead of reducing safety to meet this requirement. It's not the right way to go.
You have to improve safety. The only way to do that is to get more people flying.
So what I would be doing is putting together some amendments to encourage young pilots to go out and get hours and fly and become trainers and get those hours underneath them. That's the only way you're going to get these.
The airline industry has been relying on the backs of the military for so many years. We're just not getting that many pilots from the military due to the drones and due to the fact that there aren't that many military actions right now.
So that's what they have been riding on. Now the airlines must take this under their own responsibility and know that they have to start feeding the pipeline of pilots quickly.
SANCHEZ: David Soucie, thanks so much for the perspective. We appreciate it.
SOUCIE: Thank you, Boris.
SANCHEZ: Of course.
Jim?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Right now, there's growing international concern about the African nation of Niger as soldiers claim power after the president's own guards reportedly seized him.
Plus, a CNN exclusive. Our Donie O'Sullivan speaks to a Baltimore musician who says he was hired to organize a protest and never knew that his clients had links to pro-Beijing operatives.
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IMANI WJ WRIGHT, AMERICAN HIRED TO START A PROTEST: Nothing anti- American. I want to keep stressing that. Nothing anti-American?
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[14:41:49]
SCIUTTO: Now to some of the headlines we're watching this hour.
New developments in Niger where a military coup appears to be taking place. Men in military fatigues claimed to have taken over power in the country. This comes a day after members of the president's own guard reportedly seized him.
Just hours ago, Reuters reports supporters of the coup set fire to the ruling party's headquarters. Police are reportedly using tear gas to disperse the crowd there.
Back home, a controversial pipeline project in West Virginia is now moving forward. This morning, the Supreme Court allowed the Mountain Valley Pipeline project to continue, lifting a lower court order that halted the project amid several legal challenges.
Climate activists argue the pipeline harms the environment. The Biden administration actually supports the project. And new video out of California shows a FedEx driver pull a man away
from a burning car. CNN affiliate there, KGTV, captured the harrowing brave rescue.
The hero delivery driver tells he immediately jumped into action while another driver helped put the fire out. Officials say the victim suffered major but non-life-threatening injuries.
Boris?
SANCHEZ: This could be one of scariest things to hear for Americans ahead of a presidential election. A Google-owned cybersecurity company found that pro-China operatives copied Russia disinformation tactics to try to disrupt democracy here in the United States.
CNN spoke exclusively with an American who admits that he was doing the operative's work, but he says he had no clue who his real boss was.
More now from CNN's Donie O'Sullivan.
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(CHANTING)
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This protest in Washington, D.C., last summer looked like any other demonstration. But according to cyber experts at Google, all is not quite what it seems.
They were reportedly hired by a P.R. group with links to Chinese state media.
JOHN HULTQUIST, MANDIANT CHIEF ANALYST, GOOGLE CLOUD: They're essentially a pro-PRC propaganda operation.
O'SULLIVAN: John Holmquist is chief analyst at Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm owned by Google.
This week, they released a report alleging a P.R. firm that says its content partners include Chinese state media had hired unwitting Americans to organize protests in Washington, D.C.
HULTQUIST: For a long time, they were essentially a troll factory, but they have really escalated their tactics.
They were able to get essentially roving protests to happen and ended up in front of the White House. This is a really aggressive tactic.
O'SULLIVAN: The aim of the firm, according to Hultquist, is to spread pro-China propaganda and stoke division in the US.
WRIGHT: We did a demonstration that dealt directly with Black Lives Matter and also pro-choice.
O'SULLIVAN: The American hired to stage a protest is Imani Wj Wright, a 24-year-old from Baltimore who told CNN he was hired through the popular freelancing website, Upwork.
WRIGHT: It felt like no different than anything I was contracted for. You know, go to this event, get some info, take some photos, get some video, do some transcribing.
O'SULLIVAN: Wright says he was first asked to cover the International Freedom Summit as a journalist, and the protest requests came later. But he said he had no idea he was working for an entity pushing pro- China messaging.
[14:45:05]
WRIGHT: Nothing anti-American. I just want to keep stressing that. Nothing anti-America.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
WRIGHT: But they said, hey, what kind of demonstrations could you possibly put on? Would you be down to doing something like that? Or do you have any ideas?
And I said, hey, two things that matter to me are Black Lives Matter and this abortion situation that just happened with the Supreme Court.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Wright is an entrepreneur, musician, and activist. He runs his own company and has even performed at the Kennedy Center.
Like many Americans working in the gig economy, he sells freelance services on platforms like Upwork, where transactions are sometimes anonymous.
(on camera): In this case, did you speak to anybody on the phone?
WRIGHT: I did not. But that's nothing out of the ordinary.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): That ability for buyers to remain anonymous is a boom for people running covert influence operations.
HULTQUIST: I think, in most cases, people just had no idea who they are working for.
Covert influence has always been around. But there's really been an explosion of that capability over the last decade.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Three months after this protest, Wright says the same contact asked him to stage another one.
This time against a U.S. ban on goods produced in China's Xinjiang region, where China has been accused of human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims.
WRIGHT: When we were asked about that project, I personally, and a lot of people on my team, felt that America was doing the right thing by stopping production in that region of the world. So what my counter was, I said, listen, unequivocally, we're not
telling the story from one side. We're going to tell a neutral story about this.
O'SULLIVAN: Wright said he staged a fake protest to use as a reenactment video for a documentary. But that documentary never came to fruition. And the Chinese group posted these images to social media, making it look like a real protest.
(on camera): Clearly, you're a smart guy. This whole thing about staging a protest for B roll for a documentary, surely, something about this must not have smelled right to you.
WRIGHT: That was my idea.
O'SULLIVAN: But when they came to you and said, hey, do a demonstration that's about a policy and energy policy that relates to China and national security?
WRIGHT: No. In no way shape or form. That would sound odd to me.
O'SULLIVAN: Nothing went off in your mind to set off alarm bells?
WRIGHT: No. And if it did, I wouldn't put my organization or myself in a situation that felt odd.
O'SULLIVAN: Does it matter to you if this is some kind of operation run that is tied to Beijing or not? If --
WRIGHT: Of course. If this is an organization that is anti-American, that is going to impede or disrupt or cause harm to the American people, then I 100 percent care. How can I not care?
O'SULLIVAN: This appears to be a pretty sophisticated campaign. For its part, the Chinese government is denying that it has anything to do with any of this.
A spokesperson for the embassy here in Washington, D.C., told CNN on Monday that it was not aware of this companies' report. And said, quote, "I want to stress that China has always adhered to noninterference in other countries' internal affairs."
The platform where Imani was hired by this group told CNN in a statement that this kind of behavior from this alleged Chinese group is a clear violation of its terms of service.
I just want to show you one more thing. This is a screen shot from a report on AZ Central, the Web site of the Arizona Republic.
This alleged Chinese group managed to get an article published on Arizona Republic's Web site about the protest that it paid to stage in Washington, D.C. The group leveraged a kind of automated news wire service to get this onto a real American news Web site.
The publication has since removed that article and has informed the wire service of the misinformation. But this is really a sign of some sophisticated stuff and really
something to keep in mind as we go into the 2024 U.S. election campaign season.
Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, Washington.
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SCIUTTO: Important story there. Disinformation is still alive and well.
[14:49:02]
Well, a police canine handler was fired after he was caught on camera releasing a dog on an unarmed black man after a pursuit. What the officer is heard saying in new video just released from that incident. That's coming up next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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SCIUTTO: The Ohio police officer who released a police K-9 dog on an unarmed black driver has now been removed from his position.
Newly obtained bodycam footage shows that handler, Circleville Police Officer Ryan Speakman, pacing back and forth as troopers administer first aid to Jadarrius Rose after he was attacked.
A warning, this footage is upsetting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Did I not say -- did I not say --
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RYAN SPEAKMAN, FORMER CIRCLEVILLE POLICE OFFICER: Yes.
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SPEAKMAN: I think it's a justifiable --
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SCIUTTO: The police department there says the decision to fire that officer came following a review of the incident, which found that Speakman did not meet the department's standards and expectations.
CNN's Polo Sandoval joins us with more details.
Polo, there were a lot of things from this encounter, from start to finish. This one, of course, the most disturbing of all of them.
Is this where it stops there? He loses his job? Are there any other repercussions?
[14:54:59]
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Jim, this video that I recently obtained, it gives you a clear picture of the chaos that unfolded on the side of that Ohio highway that comes to light. And you see how it will all play out.
As you mentioned, Circleville P.D. yesterday announcing the termination of K-9 officer Ryan Speakman.
Interesting, though, they say, though it seems that the K-9 policy was followed, as you point out, as they said, his actions simply did not meet the standards of their police officers.
You'll see why. This video I obtained from the Pickaway County Sheriff's Office. They were there to support the Ohio state troopers.
I'm going to play you the exact portion of it that was considered by investigators.
It's extremely disturbing to see.
You will see Ohio state troopers keeping Mr. Rose at gunpoint. Seems to be under control. But then Officer Speakman arrives and things take a very disturbing turn in only seconds.
Take a look.
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(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Get on the ground or get bit.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Final chance or you'll get bit.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: All right. All right. Hold on, hold on. Do not -- do not --
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: No, no, no, no.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Dog. Dog.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: That scramble from state troopers, it's very clear at this new angle, Jim.
As for our reach out to the attorney of the police officer, we have done that. The union that's defending him immediately filed a grievance after his determination, saying he was fired without just cause. SCIUTTO: You know, it's interesting watching that video for the second
time. I did not realize he was on his knees, actually when the dog attacked.
SANDOVAL: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
SCIUTTO: -- with his hands up. Then he went down to his knees. Just remarkable.
Polo Sandoval, thanks so much.
Boris?
SANCHEZ: Still ahead, Trump's legal team meeting with the special counsel. But is an indictment coming and when? We'll take you live outside the federal courthouse when we come back.
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