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Les Abend is Interviewed about the Delta Plane that Flipped in Toronto; Presidents Zelenskyy and Erdogan Set to Meet; Social Security Resignation after DOGE Confrontation; Aircraft Safety Designs Improved Outcome of Crash; New York Governor Meeting about Adams. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired February 18, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:31:56]

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN ANCHOR: Our top story this morning, upside down and hanging like a bat. That's how one passenger describes the crash of a Delta Airlines passenger jet that came to a stop on fire and upside down at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Drop everything! Drop it! Come on!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm taking a video.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't take no videos! Put that phone away!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: There were 80 people on board the flight. Remarkably, all of them got out alive. There were at least 18 injuries and some badly frayed nerves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN NELSON, SURVIVED DELTA PLANE CRASH: We could smell like jet fuel. Even now I smell like jet fuel.

A lot of stress. It's amazing that we're still here.

PETE KOUKOV, SURVIVED DELTA PLANE CRASH IN TORONTO: Just feeling lucky and happy. I got to give the person I didn't know sitting next to me a big hug, that we were OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Retired American Airlines pilot Les Abend joins us.

Les, pilots trained for moments like these, hoping that you never encounter them. But based on what you've seen, have you drawn any conclusions about what caused this accident? LES ABEND, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "FLYING MAGAZINE", AUTHOR, "PAPER

WINGS", RETIRED AMERICAN AIRLINES PILOT, RETIRED 777 CAPTAIN: Well, I have, Kayla, to some extent. I - maybe I give you a little better perspective on what pilots would have been thinking just prior to this landing.

I would have known that this wind was gusty. We would have added a factor we called gust factor to it. Hopefully that's what they did. It's an easy mathematical formula that just adds a little bit of extra air speed to the speed that we're at over the threshold. And that would have been important. And the reason I bring that up is because, if they didn't add that speed in the gusty wind condition, it's possible what we're hearing being reported by passengers that were on that flight, that they may have just fallen very quickly from a short altitude like ten feet, which makes all the difference in the world. That aircraft may have sheared off one of the landing gear in - in a bad situation.

So, the other thing that I would have been thinking of before I started this landing was what we call the runway condition assessment matrix. What was the - what were various sections of the runway like. With blowing snow, even though it would give you a report of each section of the runway based on a number, like from one to six, with blowing snow it may have changed rapidly. So, the airplane that landed ahead of this aircraft may have had a different condition than this particular Delta regional jet that landed.

When it landed, it may have hit slippery conditions right off the bat. And if it didn't take what we call the crab out, where the airplane is cocked going down the runway, it may have caused the gear to come off, and then it hit a dry spot and then came almost - it was almost like breaking the aircraft, and then it rolled over, like we see in these pictures.

TAUSCHE: Les, talk a little bit about how a plane like this is constructed, because we've now heard some of these passengers describe them being suspended, hanging like bats, with the seats remaining intact on the floor.

[06:35:05]

How are these planes built to withstand something like this, and how remarkable is it that - that it held up?

ABEND: Well, it is remarkable. And the fact that these seats stayed where they are is part of the expert design of this particular aircraft, as with other manufacturers as well. It's designed to stay in position in an emergency evacuation or a crash situation so passengers don't go screaming forward in a sudden stop situation.

What's amazing to me, one of the things that wasn't pointed out, perhaps, was these flight attendants had the presence of mind, not only to get the passengers out, because you can see it in that video, but they may have - more than likely they disabled the slides, because when those emergency doors are opened, those slides automatically deploy. And that would have impeded the exit of these passengers with an airplane upside down. So, that's a - that's a very important factor, I think, that these investigators may be looking into.

TAUSCHE: We're going to be learning a lot more about this situation, what happened and how those 80 people were able to survive. But we appreciate your expertise this morning. Les Abend, thank you for joining us.

Happening now, top officials from the U.S. and Russia meeting behind closed doors in Saudi Arabia to begin negotiations over the Kremlin's nearly three-year war on Ukraine. Kyiv and NATO leaders conspicuously not invited to these talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says there can be no resolution without his country's involvement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Ukraine perceives any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as those with no results. We cannot recognize anything or any agreements about us without us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: He'll be meeting with the Turkish president in the coming hours. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also weighing in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): Quite frankly, people are talking about possible variants of outcomes over Ukraine's heads about the outcome of peace talks that have not taken place, about which Ukraine has not said yes and has not sat at the table. This is highly inappropriate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Joining us now, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, live from Kyiv.

Nick, President Zelenskyy will meet with Turkish President Erdogan today. What are the goals for that meeting against this broader backdrop?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, certainly the meeting with the Turkish president is, I think, going again to another potential intermediary who in the past three years has been able to provide a kind of window into backdoor negotiations with Moscow. But it's not clear if that's really what's on the table here at all. I think it may be regional allies and the support of a key NATO member, like Turkey, that Zelenskyy is trying to find.

But he is in an extraordinarily tight spot right now simply because the conversation in Riyadh, according to a senior Russian diplomat, is about normalizing U.S. and Russian relations foremost. And a peace deal in Ukraine, essentially part of that. And that, of course, leaves many in Kyiv here extremely nervous that in the larger trade between Washington and Moscow, they may essentially be being asked in the future, not being at the table right now to make concessions that are completely incompatible with keeping Ukraine the way it is.

Now, we do know that Zelenskyy is in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. That was a preplanned bilateral visit. I have to say, it's a pretty extraordinary coincidence that it's happening at the same time that the Americans and the Russians are meeting there. No indication that Vladimir Putin will be anywhere near that.

Zelenskyy has recently suggested he might, in extremists, be potentially open to face-to-face meetings with the Kremlin heads. And the Kremlin have suggested that, too. But we're far away from that right now.

And I think the shock you heard there from Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, is what's loudest at the moment, certainly amongst Ukraine's allies, many of them still reeling from the speech that Vice President J.D. Vance gave in Munich at the weekend where he essentially called all of America's western democracy allies essentially totalitarians who were afraid of their own voters, calling them an enemy within. A remarkable statement to hear from a serving U.S. vice president. That, I think, compounded the shock that many European NATO members felt after hearing U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, just earlier that week as well, saying that America was no longer wishing to be the guarantor of European security, talking about how Ukraine could never be part of NATO. Really pulling the carpet under decades of security infrastructure across all of Europe.

And now that is the context and the background for this exceptionally complex piece that Kyiv, frankly exhausted, needs.

[06:40:05]

Russia, it seems to need, as well. But it's being negotiated between the United States and Russia, at first. It seems it may indeed be that that meeting yields a forum or a ground in which Ukraine is able to have its voice heard, and even Europe brought to the table, too. But right now the Russians are saying Europe shouldn't be there. Keith Kellogg, the presidential envoy of Trump, is saying that the Europeans shouldn't be at the table.

TAUSCHE: Yes.

WALSH: And the Europeans, frankly, are looking from the outside in on this quite stunned.

TAUSCHE: And frantically holding their own meetings amongst themselves as they wait to see what happens in Riyadh.

Nick Paton Walsh, we appreciate your reporting. Nick, thank you.

Turning now to this.

Yet another high-ranking official has resigned after a run-in with the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency. "The Associated Press" reporting the acting head of the Social Security Administration stepped down over the weekend after refusing to provide DOGE staffers with sensitive, personal information about Americans who receive Social Security benefits. In just the last few weeks, Elon Musk's DOGE staffers have also accessed a critical Treasury payment system and have attempted to get access to the Internal Revenue System's taxpayer data. Many of these moves have encountered pushback from career officials, and many of those officials have found themselves out of a job.

And that's all separate from the widespread layoffs targeting workers in positions the Trump administration considers unnecessary or wasteful. Among those impacted, hundreds of employees from the National Nuclear Security Administration. That's the agency in charge of managing the nation's nuclear weapons. Sources tell CNN the move prompted swift backlash and all but about 25 staffers have since been rehired, and they could be back on the job as early as today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): I mean over the weekend hundreds of people who guard our nuclear stockpiles were let go and fired. And then they realized, oops, that might be really dangerous, and brought them back. I mean, this is what's going on when you do things like this, instead of simply saying, OK, we want to make some budget cuts, we want to make things more efficient, let's work to do this. Let's have some goals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: That was Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar weighing in on that.

But it - we were talking during the break, there's this idea in Silicon Valley about moving fast and breaking things. It's a mantra that's worked for many of the biggest tech companies. But what happens when you're the federal government and you find you moved fast and you broke things, and you need to put it back together?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. We can agree to two things, that the government could be shrunk, is too large, and I think we - everybody at this table, the three of us would agree with that in some way. I think we should also agree that the government is not a business, and tactics that you would use for making a business smaller or more efficient do not and should not work in government. And this idea of a group of employees, number one, who nobody knows who they are, number two, are not accountable, number three, aren't going to testify before Congress about what they're doing, number four, aren't really getting much scrutiny, number five, seem to be operating in secret, that's the problem, not the fundamental goal of making government smaller.

TAUSCHE: And we heard that criticism from Senator Klobuchar. But do you feel that Democrats, Kendra, have appropriately responded to what they see as a major fallacy by the DOGE team?

KENDRA BARKOFF, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY TO JOE BIDEN: I think they can be doing a lot more, to be honest with you. And I - and I fundamentally think that the Social Security Administration, them going in there trying to access these records, might be the most troubling of all because there's such private information that's in there. People put their medical records to get their benefits.

And we don't know who these people are. They are - the government is just basically saying, trust us because we're going to make your life better, because we're going to cut and make it smaller. The reality is, there's no transparency and there's no - no accountability for what I can tell at this point in time.

TAUSCHE: Brad, what accountability do you think there should be?

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first off, let's go back. In the Biden administration, 5,000 contractors had access to this data, 450 people had unmasked access, meaning they could look at the individual records. Twenty of those people were students. Would - we also know that the inspector general in the Biden administration noted that there has been $8 billion of wages reported for people over age 100.

WILLIAMS: Brad.

TODD: That's not true. That's not true.

WILLIAMS: Brad, without saying the word "Biden" answer this question, how many employees does DOGE have?

TODD: Well, I - your question.

WILLIAMS: But, no, no, I'm serious.

TODD: But the American people are glad to see the president moving fast. And they're glad to see - bringing in contractors is nothing new.

WILLIAMS: The - I - I think the American people are glad with the fundamental idea of looking at how big government is. People taking a hatchet to the federal government without any accountability or scrutiny as to who they are or what they're doing cannot be (INAUDIBLE).

[06:45:00]

TODD: No, wait a minute. The -

BARKOFF: And - and you've seen the consequences of this. They - they - they fired the nuclear safety workers. They couldn't find them for a while. It took -

TODD: They found them. It's - we're talking about a day. We're talking about a day.

BARKOFF: But they still don't have them - but a day could - something could have happened.

WILLIAMS: Yes, I'm pretty good with nuclear information not being gone for more than a day.

TODD: Let me address Elliot's point here. WILLIAMS: Yes.

TAUSCHE: You would - you would think for all the data that DOGE has access to, they would at least have these peoples Gmails or some way to reach them.

TODD: Hold on just a second though. Look, Elliot - to Elliot's point about who's in DOGE, right? The DOGE is created as (ph) the U.S. Digital Service.

WILLIAMS: Sure.

TODD: Barack Obama did it. It was to bring in Silicon Valley experts to make the government more efficient. Guess what? Thats what's happening. We have Silicon Valley experts making the government more efficient. Thats what the whole purpose of this U.S. Digital Service was designed to do.

WILLIAMS: You and I -

TODD: It's just being done more robustly.

WILLIAMS: You and I both know - OK, if Barack Obama - if - with the U.S. Digital Service had George Soros standing next to him in the Oval Office giving comments and speaking to reporters, your head would be the first that would explode.

TODD: Would the American people have elected George Soros explicitly, knowing they were electing that expertise?

TAUSCHE: Would they have elected Elon Musk?

TODD: They did. They - Donald Trump said on the campaign trail, he's going to be right by my side. The voters -

TAUSCHE: But the Soros - the Soros Musk equivalency is - is not quite there. But - but I do see that point, and I understand that it's one that's been used quite frequently.

I do want to play what Stephen Miller, who's a deputy chief of staff to Trump, said recently when asked by Fox News about whether he could provide assurances to the American people that they wouldn't just be going willy nilly through some of this very sensitive user information for American taxpayers. Here is what Stephen Miller said in that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Can you give assurances to people who faithfully pay their taxes in this country that DOGE isn't just going to go randomly sifting through the records and maybe come across the personal private records of a lot of Americans?

STEPHEN MILLER, TRUMP ADVISER: I can give absolute, 100 percent assurance. I give you complete and total assurance on that point. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Complete and total assurance. Do you -

TODD: Of course. Why -

TAUSCHE: Do you subscribe to that?

TODD: Again, why - the American public is happy to see this fraud, waste and abuse be routed out. We have found, even in the Biden administration, they found that one Social Security Number was used by 400 different people illegally. We found $8 billion of wages reported for people over age 100. That's in the Biden administration. Nothing was done.

So, if we shine a light on it in this administration, and something's actually done to clean up the Social Security records, that will be a great thing.

TAUSCHE: What's the risk of collateral damage?

WILLIAMS: With personal data, I think pretty great. And I just think -

TODD: Contractors have always had access to data.

WILLIAMS: I - I - I - look you and I, but we all know that the - and I used the word hatchet before, they are taking - operating with a hatchet when they ought to be operating with a scalpel. And I think it's entirely fair to say, the level of care that we ought to want, and even shrinking the government, is simply not there with the work that's being done (INAUDIBLE).

TODD: Every election people come to Washington and they promise the people they were going to shrink government or find waste, fraud and abuse. It almost never happens. It's happening this time. That's why President Trump's approval ratings are better than they've ever been.

WILLIAMS: Yes, at 47 percent. I mean it's not exactly - he's not exactly blowing the lights off with that.

BARKOFF: Yet. Yet.

TAUSCHE: We'll leave it - we need to leave the conversation there for now.

WILLIAMS: Sorry.

TAUSCHE: But the panel will stay. We'll be back after the break on CNN THIS MORNING.

A complex clinical picture. Pope Francis remaining hospitalized this morning.

Plus, could New York's embattled mayor be removed from his post? The state's governor is convening city leaders today to discuss it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK CITY: I took a pledge to the flag of the United States of America. I didn't take a flag to our party. I took a pledge to the people of this city. And I'm going to fight for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:52:44]

TAUSCHE: We are going live to Rome this morning where the pope, Pope Francis, is suffering from a polymicrobial respiratory infection. According to the Vatican, that will require a change to his hospital treatment, with tests indicating a, quote, "complex clinical picture." The 88-year-old pope is in stable condition and is conducting some work activities and reading texts.

Turning now to this.

Pure chaos. That's how passengers described the crash that left a Delta Airlines plane upside down on the runway.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It happened so quickly, right? You hit - there's this like giant like pop, crack. You know, it's this like super loud bang kind of thing happens, and then everything just goes literally sideways. And it happened so fast that I just remember, like, kind of pulling myself in and trying not to hit my head against anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Well, at least 18 people were injured in the incident. All 80 passengers and crew miraculously survived. One aviation safety expert said that advancements in the aircraft prevented the crash from being much worse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: The wings broke loose and - and that's a good thing. That's by design. When an aircraft goes there, you don't want that wing ripping the fuselage in half. You want to make sure that it breaks away, as it's supposed to, to let that aircraft slowly come to a stop and really saved a lot of lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Joining us live from Toronto is CNN correspondent Michael Yoshida.

Michael, what is the latest on the investigation here?

MICHAEL YOSHIDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Kayla. At this point you can see Toronto's Pearson Airport back open. We've

seen flights taking off on the runway behind me as that investigation now is ongoing to really figure out exactly what led to this crash landing. We know the National Transportation Safety Board for Canada leading this investigation, being assisted by the NTSB, as well as other officials, investigators from the FAA as well.

And listening to updates from officials as they start to really try and piece this together, we know from previous incidents they'll be looking at the mechanical, the environmental. Obviously, we heard a lot about wind gusts that were happening here at the airport yesterday. Still very windy today, as well as all these investigators will be getting on the scene to, again, really start trying to piece together everything that was at play in those final moments as that landing was happening.

[06:55:09]

We do know that parts of the airport, two runways where this crashlanding happened, remain closed. They are expected to remain closed over the next few days as investigators start to go through the debris and the wreckage, start working to recover all of the key clues, including those data and voice recorders.

We are expecting an update, from talking with officials earlier this morning, later today, hopefully again as we start to get more of those answers and piece together what led to this crash. But again, the remarkable thing here, all 80 on board, those 76 passengers, those four crew members able to make it out of there, once it had flipped over, able to safely unbuckle. Some minor injuries as they were making their way out, but really a remarkable ending.

And now we just need to figure out exactly what led to it.

TAUSCHE: Yes. We are still searching for those answers. We appreciate your reporting. Michael Yoshida, thank you.

And now this. Today, New York Governor Kathy Hochul set to convene top New York City leaders at her Manhattan office. The group will discuss the current state of the city, considering everything going on with the current mayor, Eric Adams. Adams was facing corruption charges, but the Trump administration's Justice Department dropped those charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK CITY: You know the largest voices out there that is calling for me to step down is the public advocate. I still don't know what he does, because it's hard to really serve the city when you wake up at noon and then try to go out. If I step down, the public advocate becomes the mayor. You know, so, can you imagine turning the city over to him?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: There's been a growing number of calls for Adams himself to resign. Hochul can remove him, but she said she hasn't committed to taking any action.

And just yesterday, four top deputies in Adams' administration submitted their resignations.

The panel is back here.

Kendra, if you are Governor Hochul, what would you advise her to do?

BARKOFF: Pressure her as much as she can to leave, because, look, at the end of the day, none of this is good for the New York City people who live in Manhattan. And you can't govern - the mayor can't govern when he has a knife to his neck. Trump, at the end of the day, has a lot of power and a lot of leverage over the mayor. And fundamentally speaking, this is not good for the city, and this is not good for the people who live there. And so, as you've seen, more and more people are calling for him to resign. I do think it's time for him to go based on everything we've seen.

TAUSCHE: And you think she should be the one to do that?

BARKOFF: I think she should continue to pressure him to do that as much as she can.

TAUSCHE: Elliot, what are some of the legal developments that we could still see here?

WILLIAMS: Yes, OK, number one, it's highly unlikely that he ends up getting prosecuted just because the Justice Department would have to be the body to prosecute him. And the folks in Washington have already said that that's likely not to happen. Now, the judge does not have to accept the Justice Department's decision to drop the case. That doesn't really happen. So, the case is probably going to die.

Now, with respect to her removing him, the governor, it's never been done in the state of New York. It's tremendous power that the governor of New York has. It's highly unlikely I think that she does. I think, to Kendra's point, the better thing for her to do is get the people around him to tell him to resign. The decision has to be his, not hers.

TAUSCHE: But then, Brad, all the while you have resignations from the Southern District of New York, you have resignations from the Department of Justice here in Washington. Now you have resignations from Mayor Adams' own administration. If you're the Trump administration, are - is that welcome news?

TODD: Well, I'll tell you what, as a - I think the New York state politics, which most mostly is confined to the Democrat Party, is almost like another planet to a lot of us on the Republican side and people in the rest of the country. And watching Kathy Hochul and Eric Adams fight, it's like watching a fight between a skunk and a weasel. I can't figure out who I want to win. And so, I think this will continue to play out with ramifications mostly on the left.

TAUSCHE: We will let that be the last word, because how could we top that phrase? BARKOFF: Skunks and weasels.

TAUSCHE: Skunks and weasels.

BARKOFF: That is -

TAUSCHE: Brad, you always - you always bring it.

One more thing before we go here on CNN THIS MORNING. We have a new member of the CNN THIS MORNING team. Copy editor Eliana Moreno has welcomed a healthy baby boy to her family. Ariel made his debut last week, awe, with a full head of hair as well. He is the third baby boy to join the family. Congratulations to Eliana and the rest of her family on the newest addition. He is absolutely beautiful. Congratulations to that entire family.

Thank you to my panel for joining me. And thank you to the CNN THIS MORNING team for having me as well.

What are you watching for today?

WILLIAMS: Just babies. I mean, honestly, like, I can't think. I - still - my kids are seven and 11 and I'm still sort of baby crazy. I'm not having any more, but that - it's hard to top that.

TAUSCHE: Although my youngest is one, so that still makes me tired to look at that. It's still too close to home.

[07:00:02]

Brad.

TODD: I have - I have teenagers. So, you know, the world is a little bit different than with babies, but with many of the same anxieties.

TAUSCHE: Kendra.

BARKOFF: I - my kids are going to school today. I'm just very excited about that.

TAUSCHE: Finally.

WILLLIAMS: I ruined it. I - you asked a sincere question about the news, and I'm sorry I - by just talking babies. So, I -

TAUSCHE: It's as good a place as any to leave it.

TODD: It's morning television.

WILLIAMS: Morning television.

TAUSCHE: Elliot, Kendra, Brad, we appreciate all of you this morning. Thank you again to the team and for Kasie for having me.

I'm Kayla Tausche. "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.