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New Info Emerges in Navy SEAL Case; Bek Air Plane Crash Kills 12; Crisis in Syria. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 27, 2019 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: The Syrian government, backed by Russian airpower, is trying to seize control of the last major region in Syria still held by rebels. That's Idlib province, home to more than three million Syrians. And it is now under heavy siege from airstrikes and ground fighting.

President Trump tweeting this -- quote -- "Russia, Syria and Iran are killing or are on their way to killing thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib province. Don't do it. Turkey is working hard to stop this carnage."

It was just two months ago President Trump pulled nearly all U.S. troops from Northern Syria, as Turkey prepared to go into the country. And he said this to the American people then:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let someone else fight over this long, bloodstained sand. How many Americans must die in the Middle East in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts?

After all of the precious blood and treasure America has poured into the deserts of the Middle East, I am committed to pursuing a different course.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN White House reporter Sarah Westwood is in West Palm Beach, Florida, where President Trump is spending the holidays. And CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is in Istanbul.

Sarah, let's start with you first.

The president tweeting this warning to Syria, Russia and Iran, but he's not explicitly threatening any particular retaliation.

SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Jessica, President Trump laying out no consequences for the Syrian government and its allies, Russia and Iran, if the violence continues.

But he did tweet out this warning this week, while he's down here in Mar-a-Lago celebrating the holidays, saying that Russia, Syria and Iran are on their way to killing thousands of civilians, warning them, don't do it, and then adding, as you mentioned, Turkey is working hard to stop this carnage.

Now, Turkey so far has been unable to stop the violence in the Idlib province. And Turkish President Erdogan said this week that Turkey is not able to handle a fresh wave of migrants. Thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people could be displaced from Idlib if this assault from the Syrian government continues, but, again, Turkey saying they are not willing to accept those migrants, Erdogan arguing that Turkey is already home to the largest number of people who have been displaced from this conflict, the Syrian government.

Now, this isn't the first time that President Trump has weighed in on the Syrian government's attack on civilians. In June, he weighed in on what was another assault from the Syrian government against civilians in Idlib. The president at the time said he was unhappy, said to Assad, a message to the Syrian president, that the world is watching.

Keep in mind, this also comes just months after the president withdrew U.S. forces from the northern border between Syria and Turkey, a decision for which she faced an enormous backlash at the time, but, since then, in a White House visit last week, has reaffirmed the U.S. relationship with Erdogan, who he's repeatedly praised, Jessica.

DEAN: Right, and also, Sarah, this coming amid these reports that the president is looking for a potential replacement for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

WESTWOOD: That's right.

There are increasingly pointed signs that perhaps Secretary of State Mike Pompeo could be looking ahead to a Senate run in Kansas. That's been a rumor floating around Washington for months now. And it was stoked when Pompeo just a few weeks ago created a personal Twitter account. Our colleague Kylie Atwood reported that the State Department consulted with the White House about forming that Twitter account.

That has stoked rumors. Of course, there has been talk in Washington about a number of senior-level staff changes, but it doesn't appear that the White House is willing to shake up the staff until after the impeachment trial.

So we may not see movement on the position of the nation's top diplomat until after the president gets through his trial, Jessica.

DEAN: All right, Sarah, thank you.

And I want to go to Istanbul now and Arwa Damon.

Arwa, tell us more about the situation right now in Syria's Idlib province.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you have this very intense bombardment happening. And Idlib province is home to more than three million people. Half of them are displaced from other parts of Syria and from within the province itself. But this space that they're able to run away to is increasingly shrinking, because they can't go into regime-controlled territory, and Turkey has closed its border.

And so they literally have nowhere safe to go.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAMON (voice-over): Abut Imsayah's (ph) children don't need an explanation anymore. They have done this so many times that the notion of a home, a warm bed to feel safe and snug, that ceased to exist long ago.

"We go, we come back," Abut Imsayah says. "We don't know where to go or where we will end up."

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It's an existence on the move, trying, praying that the bombs won't catch up to them, or when they do, that they will somehow survive.

But, this time, it feels different. The bombing's more intense, final, deliberate. Entire areas in and around Idlib province are emptying out again. Upwards of 230,000 people are on the move.

"The children couldn't sleep through the night. They were crying every hour," Abu Usama (ph) says, holding his daughter, so young, this is all she knows.

It's a cycle they all know well, one that starts with renewed intense bombings, then the panicked packing up, the overwhelming sense of feeling lost, not knowing where to go, but having to flee, finding some sort of makeshift shelter.

"I'm taking my family and we're heading to a tent," Ibrahim Eltar (ph) says. "Whether or not we can have a tent is still unknown."

The province, Syria's last rebel stronghold, has never been able to meet the humanitarian needs of the growing displaced population. One of the few aid organizations, the Turkish IHH that operates in Idlib, says they don't have the resources.

"The first night we came, we slept on the ground. We didn't even have blankets," this woman says, begging for a tent, a stove, anything.

Many end up just establishing themselves along the road once they think they have reached safety. But, as the regime with Russian backing closes in, that may not be far enough.

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DAMON: And, Jessica, you now have aid organizations also warning of a looming humanitarian catastrophe. You have various condemnations. You have that warning that was issued

by President Trump. But that's really all just rhetoric at this stage.

And what is especially painful for Syrians, despite all of the heartbreak at losing people who they love, despite all of the trauma, is really when they look at the global apathy. That, for them, is very, very bitter and very difficult to cope with.

They simply don't understand how, for years, the world has simply watched and let them suffer.

DEAN: Vital reporting from you, Arwa Damon in Istanbul. Thank you so much for bringing that to us.

Let's go now to Kazakstan. The Central Asian nation will hold a day of mourning tomorrow for the 12 people killed there in a horrific plane crash. The Bek Air jet went down just 19 seconds after taking off from the airport in the country's largest city.

It tore through a fence, then slammed into a building.

CNN's Nathan Hodge is joining me now from Moscow.

And, Nathan, what do investigators think may have caused this crash? Do they know yet?

NATHAN HODGE, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Jessica, just a few hours ago, Kazakstan's deputy prime minister told reporters that a preliminary investigation had shown that there were two possible causes.

One would have been pilot error, and the other would have been some kind of technical malfunction. Now, while that may sound very -- rather broad, he also added that the plane, on takeoff, its tail struck the runway twice.

And this may provide some kind of vital clue to investigators as they proceed forward with the investigation. And, of course, the Kazakh government has held -- has called together a high-level investigation to probe this accident.

It has also ordered a halt to the operations of Bek Air, the carrier that was operating this aircraft. It's ordered that all of the Fokker 100 aircraft, this airframe that was involved in the accident, also be grounded.

And Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the president of Kazakstan, has ordered a sweeping review of airport and airline security throughout his country. So, certainly, we're seeing a very, very broad response, Jessica.

DEAN: Yes.

And also too, as you would imagine, an outpouring of grief over all of this there. How are you finding that people are responding in Kazakstan?

HODGE: Well, Jessica, I think like many people do around the world, people have taken to social media to express an outpouring of grief and shock over this.

For instance, one of the victims of who died, one of the 12 who died in this, was a journalist. CNN obtained a statement from the editor in chief of her publication praising her work and expressing grief over the loss.

As well, people have been expressing outright surprise that, despite this horrific and catastrophic accident, where the fuselage was literally torn apart, the plane did not catch on fire, and while 12 died, dozens were rescued by first responders -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes. And that is absolutely remarkable.

[15:10:01]

All right, Nathan Hodge for us, thank you very much.

Hawaii's governor is vowing to do everything possible to find a tourist helicopter that's gone missing for nearly a day now. It went missing with seven people on board, including two children.

The governor of Hawaii tweeting this: "We are currently coordinating with federal and local agencies and are ready to deploy state resources as needed to help in the search effort."

That chopper disappeared Thursday while off the coast of Hawaii, one of the Hawaiian islands most popular with tourists. That Coast Guard says multiple crews were to begin searching the area at first light this morning. The U.S. Navy and Kauai Fire Department are also helping in that search effort.

We have some new details in the case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher. Leaked videos paint a disturbing picture of the platoon leader -- what the men in his platoon had to say about their commander.

Plus, fuming in Florida -- President Trump spending his holiday on the attack and focused on Nancy Pelosi.

And immigration judges quitting in protest -- what's being said about the toxic environment they're leaving behind.

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DEAN: For the first time, the public is hearing from the Navy SEALs who turned in Eddie Gallagher. He's the convicted war veteran whose punishment was reduced by President Trump.

Breaking a code of silence, the SEALs call Gallagher, their platoon leader -- quote -- "toxic and evil" in videos taken before Gallagher's trial as part of the Navy's investigation.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guy got crazier and crazier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You could tell he was perfectly OK with killing anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Gallagher was tried on murder, later acquitted, but convicted on a lesser crime for posing with a dead ISIS fighter.

President Trump then reversed Gallagher's demotion, a move that ultimately led to the resignation of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer over his handling of Gallagher's case.

Gallagher said he was surprised and disgusted by -- quote -- "the blatant lies." He also says -- quote -- "I never got to see these videos until well after I had been charged. Soon after I got to the brig at Miramar, one of these guys came to visit me and apologized for what they did, but that they had to stick with the fake stories or be charged with making false statements. The videos also gave me confidence because I knew that their lives would never hold up under real questioning, and the jury would see through it.

"Their lies and NCIS' refusal to ask hard questions or corroborate their stories strengthened my resolve to go to trial and clear my name."

Retired Rear Admiral John Kirby is a former spokesman for the Pentagon and State Department. He's now CNN's military and diplomatic analyst.

And, Admiral, what's your reaction to seeing these SEALs talking about the man who used to lead them?

JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Yes, it's pretty disturbing details that they're putting out there.

And, obviously, this couldn't have been an easy thing for them to do to go to investigators and to talk about what they saw, what they believed Chief Gallagher did.

But the thing that struck me was, first of all, the leak of these interviews and these videos coming after Gallagher appeared at Mar-a- Lago with President Trump recently and at a fund-raiser. That seems a bit suspicious.

And the other thing that really strikes you when you listen to these accounts is that this is a very complicated case, very difficult. You got Gallagher obviously refuting everything they said. Everything they said seems to be corroborated amongst themselves, very complicated, which makes it all the more important for the president not to have intervened the way he did.

He got involved at a very, very early phase of the trial and never really let up after that. And that was a -- I think, an inappropriate use of his power as commander in chief.

And it's not making the SEAL community, making their efforts any easier to try to get at good order and discipline inside their ranks.

DEAN: And talk to me about the code of silence and really what it takes for these -- or what it took for these men to come forward.

KIRBY: There is a code of silence in the Navy SEALs. They're very proud of that.

But there's also a code of honor. So whether you believe what these SEALs said or you believe Chief Gallagher, that they came forward together as a group -- and the text messages show that they didn't sort of corroborate or didn't try to coordinate all the details. They simply said, hey, we got to tell the truth.

That they did that, I think, speaks well of this code of honor that the SEALs do observe. Yes, there are discipline problems in the SEALs, that the SEAL commander out in California is trying to address that. But 99.9 percent of them are honorable, ethical, very honest men doing a very, very difficult job under difficult circumstances.

And I think that showed this.

DEAN: And what does any SEAL now do if they see their platoon chief doing something wrong? What happens now, in this environment?

KIRBY: The SEALs are no different than anybody else in the military.

And when you see wrongdoing, you're expected to stop it, if you can, and certainly report it when you can. And that's going to be the case here.

Now, they have had -- in the SEAL community, they have had some discipline and some ethical issues over the last several months and to a year or so more back, and they are trying to get their hands around that. And they will. There's no question in my mind that Admiral Green and his leadership will come to grips with all that.

But it doesn't change the very basic nature of the fact that they are military men doing a tough job in difficult circumstances. Many of them have deployed multiple times, combat deployments, not just average deployments, but they're seeing combat every single day overseas.

And there -- and they -- but they're doing it under honorable conditions, and they know what the right thing is to do. And they did that here.

DEAN: And how do you think it impacts the SEALs going forward, how they operate, and also their morale?

KIRBY: I don't think it's going to change the way they operate. We still have lots of Navy SEALs in harm's way as you and I are speaking right here over the holidays doing work on behalf of the American people. I don't think it's going to change the way they operate. This will,

however, bringing this up again, this leak of these interviews, is going to make it -- I think, going to make it more difficult for Admiral Green to get his arms around this problem inside his community and really try to look after SEALs and their families going forward and getting the standards and conduct and ethics were where he wants them to be.

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It's going to make it a little bit more difficult for him. But I don't think it's going to change the way that they that they operate as a community going forward.

DEAN: Yes, some great perspective there for us, putting it into context.

Thanks so much, Admiral John Kirby. We appreciate you.

KIRBY: My pleasure. You bet.

DEAN: President Trump may be golfing and throwing parties at Mar-a- Lago, but it seems the sting of impeachment may be ruining his holiday break.

The response from Capitol Hill, that's up next.

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DEAN: It has been exactly one week since President Trump went on vacation. And for seven consecutive days, he's been taking swings at Democrats and the impeachment process on Twitter through Christmas Eve, Christmas Day.

And now today comes this, the president quoting a commentator who accuses Democratic leaders of rigging the impeachment trial that's to come in the Senate.

Now, the start date for that trial remains unknown, since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is delaying handing over the articles of impeachment to the Senate amid concerns Republicans will not oversee an impartial trial.

It could, though, could happen as early as the first full week in January. On Tuesday, January 7, the House will be back in session, and members could vote on impeachment managers and then send the articles of impeachment over to begin a trial on Wednesday, January 8.

CNN's congressional reporter Lauren Fox joins me now from Capitol Hill

And, Lauren, even if Nancy Pelosi handed over those articles tomorrow, right now, the party leaders in the Senate are at an impasse on just how this trial should be run. So it appears January 8 is probably going to be a far reach. But are some House staffers preparing just in case?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, I think there's certainly a campaign behind the scenes for those House members who want to be managers.

And those are, of course, the Democrats who would make the case on the Senate floor. And I have been told by aides that that has to be a very specific kind of skill set.

Members have to basically be very good at cross-examining. They have to be able to make the case. So Nancy Pelosi has not tipped her hat about who those managers would be.

But you can expect that that certainly is part of the negotiations happening behind the scenes.

But, Jessica, when we get to the Senate trial, there are very few ideas of how this will exactly go. But there are some basic rules. Essentially, there's 1986 Senate rules on impeachment.

That's likely the path that McConnell will have to take, especially if he and Chuck Schumer don't come to an agreement, because once Nancy Pelosi sends those articles of impeachment to the Senate, McConnell can go to the floor and start this process.

He's been very clear that he doesn't plan to do it before she sends over those articles of impeachment. So he's made that clear. But, basically, he will go to the floor. He will start this trial. And you can expect that the House managers will make their case, the White House counsel will make their case.

And then it's very unclear where things go from there. Anything that they want to do, whether it be witnesses or voting on the actual articles of impeachment, Jessica, would require a simple majority, 51 votes.

Now, McConnell has those votes. He has 53 Republicans, but he can't afford to lose many members. So, concerns from people like Lisa Murkowski could be coming problematic for the majority leader -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes, it's going to be really interesting to see about that.

And White House counsel Pat Cipollone is expected to lead Trump's defense in that Senate impeachment trial. Have you heard anything on Capitol Hill, anyone reacting to that on Capitol Hill?

FOX: Well, Cipollone is no stranger to Capitol Hill. He's someone who's signed most of the letters rejecting Democratic subpoenas all year long in the House of Representatives.

He's also somebody who has been meeting with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He was up on Capitol Hill just last week, essentially touring what the Senate trial chambers will look like, both the floor of the Senate and the office space. So it's no surprise that he would be leading the president's defense.

I will also tell you that there might be some relief from some senators, especially those in leadership, who want to make sure that the president picks people who are very level-headed, like Cipollone, somebody who does most of his work behind a desk, not somebody who's on cable news all of the time.

That could become very problematic. There have been some questions about whether Rudy Giuliani would be part of the president's defense, Giuliani, of course, making that clear in the "New York Magazine" interview that he's good at cross-examining.

That would be problematic for a lot of Republicans, who argue that he has undermined their talking points in the past, Jessica.

DEAN: And they feel more comfortable with someone like Cipollone.

Well, it's definitely interesting. We may be at an impasse, Lauren, but it sounds like preparations are still forging ahead there on Capitol Hill.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Well, now to the reported campaign inside the Trump administration for a job that's not even vacant yet. It's now currently held by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, "The Washington Post" reporting, while Pompeo is leaning against running for U.S. Senate in Kansas, there's some jockeying going on for his -- to be his replacement.

The favorite, reportedly, is National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien. Other potential candidates include Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, and Pompeo's newly confirmed deputy, Steve Biegun.

"The Post" writes that Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing Pompeo into a Senate bid, out of fear the GOP might lose that seat.

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