We have to wear these goggles because the ashes coming off of there so fast, the winds are speeding up so much right now. This is the problem every afternoon here. And theres no end in sight right now. Theyre expecting these red flag warnings to continue. Stephanie, thank you. Stay safe. The news continues right now. I want to hand it over to chris and cuomo prime time. Chris . Thank you, anderson. I am chris cuomo and welcome to prime time. A roger stone confidant is facing a Contempt Charge in the Special Counsel probe. Is this about hiding the truth . His lawyer says, no, its about exposing it. Hes here to make the case to you. And looks like trump wants to give himself another tax cut. A rule that is good for him and people like him, not so good for the rest of us. One of the architects of the original trump tax plan is here to test it. And as charlottesville braces for the return of White Supremacist marchers, trump calls out wouldbe protesters. The problem is hes talking about nfl players taking a knee, not the klan. Seriously . Its friday but weve got so much news, were going to stay
late tonight. Two hours of prime time. What do you say . Lets get after it. So tonight the focus of Special Counsel bob muellers probe is on three people. They are all connected to one man, Longtime Donald Trump confidant roger stone. One of them is a radio host identified as the back channel to wikileaks. Another is a friend of stones known as the manhattan madam. The third is a former aide of stones named Andrew Miller, who refused today to comply with a subpoena. So he is now facing a Contempt Charge. Why dodge if you have nothing to hide . Lets get after it with millers lawyer, mr. Paul kamenar. Welcome to prime time, counselor. Thank you, chris. Good to be here. Good to have you. Lets test the case. Is this about hiding . Is this about ducking the truth if. Absolutely not, chris. This is a constitutional
challenge to the lawfulness of the Special Counsel mueller. What we did was challenge his constitutionality on the grounds that he was not properly appointed under article 2 of the constitution. And we said that if youre going to appoint him under the constitution, he has to be appointed by the head of the department. Right. And the head of the department is Jeff Sessions, not rod rosenstein. Right. You made that objection. It was ruled on by the judge in a 90pluspage decision that every expert that weve had on about it and that ive talked to in the reporting feels confident about it. Let me put up the key excerpt for people. This is what the judge said. Multiple statutes authorized the Special Counsels appointment, and the official who appointed the Special Counsel had power to do so. So for these reasons explained in further detail below, the witnesss motion to quash the subpoena is denied. In other words, you have made the argument. Its been weighed and measured
and found lacking. And while the a. G. Didnt appoint the Special Counsel he recused himself rod rosenstein, someone who is directly answerable to the president , did. So where is your issue . Very easy, chris. Jeff sessions recused himself from the investigation. Mmhmm. He did not recuse himself and he could not recuse himself from the constitution, which requires the head of the department to appoint the Special Counsel. But what you have on the screen there was a different argument in terms of is there even Statutory Authority to appoint a Special Counsel . The judge said yes. This judge said yes. Theres another judge who is also hearing this case in the same court, and the argument she had last week, she said these arguments are and this is her word compelling. She hasnt issued her decision yet, but you have to compelling in what context, counselor . Compelling political questions, because this judge said that too. These are interesting questions, but they are not legally sufficient. No. The judge the other judge said that the statutory argument was a compelling argument in terms of the lawfulness. In any event, chris, these are one judge in our case, and the reason we had to not appear at the grand jury was so in fact, we even asked this judge to hold our client in Contempt Of Court because under the rules of appellate procedure, you can only appeal a contempt citation. Right. So we had so you had to be in contempt in order to i get that. So were not hiding anything. Hold on. I get you on the procedural argument. Well stipulate to that for the point of this discussion. However, why isnt it about
hiding . This guy is not some constitutional, you know, reform zealot. If he has nothing to hide, give the documents over that they say. Give the testimony. Roger stone says Andrew Miller has no knowledge or evidence of russian collusion or wikileaks collaboration or any other illegal activity. Thats right. Then testify. All right. Heres the thing, chris. He already talked to two fbi agents for a couple hours. He didnt give them everything. And then they asked for all the documents. He gave them all the documents. He didnt give them all of them because theyre asking for more documents. Well, not really, chris. Theyre not asking for more documents. Theyre just asking him to testify about this, and now he is there was a june deadline that he had to meet in handing over additional document. And he did on he did. He gave them everything they asked for . Exactly. Theres nothing outstanding. Nothing outstanding. So all thats left is, okay, go into the grand jury. And he has a principled issue here. He, himself, is a very staunch libertarian. He worked on Gary Johnsons campaign in 2016. He doesnt didnt vote for trump, doesnt like trumps policies. So he committed for a restricted government power. And what we have here with Robert Mueller is basically a super u. S. Attorney, more powerful than the regular u. S. Attorneys. And regular u. S. Attorneys hes directly answerable to rosenstein, so how is he more powerful . So are other u. S. Attorneys. Thats my point. He can file cases in any jurisdiction, in d. C. , virginia, new york. Your regular u. S. Attorney cannot. But listen to this, chris. All these u. S. Attorneys are nominated by the president , appointed by the president with the consent of the senate. So here you have Robert Mueller acting like a u. S. Attorney at large, a super u. S. Attorney, and he hasnt been gone through the confirmation process. So thats why our two arguments is that if hes an inferior officer, Jeff Sessions has to appoint him. If hes a superior officer, the senate has to confirm him. And hes not really being supervised closely by rosenstein. Hes basically given free rein. Hes indicting Russian Foreign agents. He has a specific mandate. This seems like a potential distraction of process. Its not a the constitution is never a distraction, chris. These are important principles. Right. But youre assuming its unclear under the constitution. This judge says it is not. Well, thats one judge. You have the court of appeals. You have the Supreme Court. Chris, remember in morrison versus olson, you had that case in terms of the independent counsel where the District Judge ruled he was unconstitutional, and then by the way, they were held in Contempt Of Court too. Right, but there was but you remember what the issue was in that case, right . Its not the same one that youre bringing. Its still the same issue as whether or not the special in that case, the independent counsel satisfied the separation of powers in the appointment clause. They ultimately ruled that they did, but in morrison, Justice Scalia dissented and that decision by the way is basically going to be overruled, if it already has been. Many jurists including Justice Elena kagan says that Justice Scalia was right on point on this. So that decision but you had a Majority Decision that went against what youre arguing right now. No, not on point because we had several other arguments that were not addressed in morrison and that dealt with a different issue of whether the threejudge court can be the appointing power. So it is a very weak precedent at best, and the Supreme Court has the last word on this. We think is there any case that has ever ruled the way you want to see it . Well, this is a precedentsetting case. By definition no. There isnt. But we have a lot of arguments that we make to show that we do have a good case. Right. The judge recognized it if you lose, will he testify . Hell have to testify if we lose, of course. Chris Cuomo asks the tough questions to newsmakers in Washington and around the world. Looking at the people in roger stones orbit to see what they know before they decide to call roger stone to the stand. They want to get the information, corroborate the information that they may already have, and then eventually get to roger stone and put him on the stand and ask him what he knows and what contacts he really had. So they can show that there was some activity that would equate with collusion . Well, i think theyre right. I mean thats the purpose of the investigation is to look. It was an intelligence investigation to begin with, a foreign intelligence investigation to begin with, looking at interference with the election. And there was some discussions and public statements made by stone about his relationship with julian assange. Right. And, again, he did say that was puffing. He did walk that back a bit. But the bottom line is, you know, these prosecutors are
going to verify that. Okay. Theyre going to verify that information and then call him in. So one more thing on this, laura. Go ahead. If i can just say, though, if he is a target of the investigation, he himself, and the goal is not to get to perhaps somebody more directly in with the Campaign Like donald trump, then they would never call him. They would be trying to get everyone around him to talk about the information they have. He himself may be the target. You got an indictment of those 12 gru agents where they talk about somebody who is an american citizen, who was in cahoot. And stone had said he didnt think that was him, but it was so obvious it was him. He admitted it was. On my show. Thanks for watching laura coates. I think its a little premature to label him a target. That would be rationale for not calling him. I get your point. But everything that could be speculated about, alleged about roger stone were true, whats the crime . Well, he cannot, as an american citizen, facilitate or solicit the help of a Foreign National of any kind to try to influence the election. That is a part of collusion. Thats an Umbrella Term thats often used, and the focus has always been on members of the trump campaign. But in reality, muellers mandate is far more expansive. It also includes looking into things he discovers in the course of that campaign, of that collusion investigation. If he is somebody who solicited the help of a Foreign National, that is a crime. You think stone could get stuck for that, mr. Schultz . I dont know. We dont know what roger stone what communications he had as of yet. I mean thats clearly what theyre trying to get at here by pulling these folks in that are in his orbit, to find out what he knew and what he said and the communications he had. Next topic while i have you here. Schultz, are you okay with rudy and jay sekulow having a radio show and cohosting and beating up the probe and making their case . Look, they have a job to do as lawyers, and this probe has been in the public domain, and they have to have a pulpit in order to defend their client. And their client is in the news
nobody is barring them from having their say. Its about what coates phrase was, in this fashion. And when you are simultaneously bashing the probe, saying its unsubstantiated, shouldnt stand, there are no arguments, its unconstitutional, and asking the Special Counsel to accept your terms for an interview, how do you think those things go together . Peanut butter and jelly or Peanut Butter and sardines . It depends whether the Special Counsel is caring about the court of Public Opinion in Making Determinations as to what this interview is going to look like. Theyre human beings, right, jim . That factors into all of it, and the court of Public Opinion matters to all the folks involved in this thing. Well, to answer your question, its Peanut Butter and sardines, chris. And the actual court of law has an interest in this as well because if you think about it, they are going to try to make some argument Rudy Giuliani and jay sekulow at some point, once mueller is frustrated by the absence of good faith negotiations and is forced at some point if he chooses to issue a subpoena, theyre going to have to go before a court of law and not a court of Public Opinion and articulate that they in fact were negotiating in good faith, were not using terms like perjury trap as a pretextual reason for the president , the head of the executive branch, to thumb his nose at the Subpoena Power of a grand jury. And theyre going to be faced with the commentary on that very
show, and the court of law is not going to be receptive. Thats my hope as somebody who is a member of the court of law. I didnt play any sound from the Radio Interview theres been no allegation go ahead, jim. Make your final point. Theres been no allegation that the president s legal team is acting in bad faith in these negotiations. Certainly not out of the Special Counsels office. Its irresponsible to say it at this point in time. Theyve gone back and forth a number of times now with some conditions. Theyre narrowing the scope. Thats clearly what the
president s legal team is looking to do, and mueller wants to ask as many questions as he can. So those two parties are going to continue to argue and negotiate over this for some time to come. All right. Final point. Laura coates, defend yourself. He said what you said is indefensible. Its not irresponsible. Actually quite astute. Heres the reason why. Their comments that theyre making on the radio and other mediums in the interest of their client in the court of Public Opinion are based on their statements that they are trying to avoid the socalled perjury trap. Now, trying to evade a perjury trap, if you know as an officer of the court, which would suggest that every Single Person who goes into a court of law to answer questions either at trial or an investigation is somehow being nefariously enticed by somebody who is looking to administer justice. And so if thats their basis, thats not negotiating in good faith. And if thats their sole basis and the court hears that exclusively from the radio, then they would make that assertion. Its not irresponsible. Frankly, it is inferred by the content of their own statements. I reserve judgment on the ruling until we see more facts of what the investigation is. But i will say this right now. They dont want to put the president in that room for one main reason, jim, and i dont have to tell you this because
you have experience with the president yourself. They are afraid of him freelancing and him answering questions in a way that goes beyond the scope of what he needed to answer and getting himself in trouble. And they wont be able to help him when hes looking at a federal officer. That is their main concern no matter what else theyre arguing. We know thats what it is. And i didnt play any sound from the radio for one very selfserving but important reason. I want them to do it on this show, not without being tested. You need to be tested to get respect and legitimacy for your arguments. Theyre welcome here anytime. Laura coates, jim schultz, on a friday night, thank you very much. Thank you. The Attorney General slamming Sanctuary Cities once again. But is his case legit . I have the facts and what figures, next. honking when your craving strikes, you need your wing nut. no one can totally satisfy a craving, quite like your wing nut. No one can totally satisfy a craving, with i get rewarded explowherever i go. Going out for a bite. Rewarded going new places. Rewarded learn more at theexplorercard. Com this is not a screensaver. Game. This is the destruction of a cancer cell by the bodys own immune system, thanks to medicine that didnt exist until now. And today can save your life. Yeah, i got some financialbody guidance a while ago. Howd that go . He kept spelling my name with an i but its bryan with a y. yeah, since birth. That drives me crazy. Yes. Its on all your email. Yes. They should know this . Yeah. The guy was my brotherinlaw. Thats ridiculous. Well, i happen to know some people. Do they listen . What . Theyre amazing listeners. Nice. Guidance from professionals who take their time to get to know you. Its a revolution in sleep. The new sleep number 360 smart bed, from 999. Intelligently senses your movement and automatically adjusts on each side to keep you both comfortable. And snoring . How smart is that . Smarter sleep. To help you lose your dad bod, train for that marathon, and wake up with the patience of a saint. And now, save up to 500 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. Plus, no interest until january 2021. Ends wednesday. The federal government does. Semantics, says sessions. If a city doesnt help or releases bad guys, thats bad enough. But is that a fair legal analysis . Here are the facts. Trump didnt start this fire. Hes just blowing on it. Both the bush and obama administrations basically deputized local Law Enforcement to help catch people in the country. So what happened . The cities kept getting sued for profiling, Holding People too long while waiting for federal officials or getting them for the wrong reasons because they often didnt have the full case jacket, the information from the feds. And they kept losing cases and being fined and it got expensive. So what they did was start passing laws saying the federal government needs to do this job itself, okay . So those are the facts. Then theres the administrations main policy
argument. This is about public safety. Collecting immigrants who come here illegally is essential to crimefighting. Thats what Jeff Sessions says. This should be obvious, but if you want to reduce Violent Crime, then we have to get serious about illegal immigrant crime. Why . What is his argument . Illegal entrants are a significant aspect of crime overall. But that is wrong. Even if you count all those who are caught for entering illegally, they are still not a significant part of our Crime Problem. Proof. Okay. First, a study found in march that Violent Crime actually falls more when immigrants are living in a community, especially if they are here illegally. Why . Because people who are here illegally have a tendency to stay under the radar. It makes them less willing to commit crimes. Thats the theory of the study. More proof. The cato institute, not a liberal place, right . They looked at texas, which ironically is where Jeff Sessions was making his argument today. And they found that people there illegally were 25 less likely to be convicted of homicide as people who were born here. Why . Well, again, two factors. The first one is that entering here illegally does not mean you are automatically a killer, okay . We keep hearing that from some of our friends and not friends on the right. Theyre selling it, but its untrue. And, again, when you are here illegally, you want to hide from Law Enforcement. How do you hide most
effectively . By not committing crimes. So this is a reality that im not making up and isnt just owned by the cato institute. The white house Chief Of Staff john kelly admitted this in april. The vast majority of the people that move illegally into the United States are not bad people. Theyre not criminals. Theyre not ms13. If theyre not, theyre not, theyre not, then why do we keep hearing it . Do you know why . Why do we hear that they sell drugs, they rape, they gangbang, as if it were the rule and not the exception . Because theyre not gang bangers, but you know what this was . Fear. Selling fear works. It just happens to be fake fear in this situation. It is fear that drives support for harsh treatment and walls and other things that trump can deliver on and look good. Thats sad. Sadder still is that there is a real Crime Problem in this country that sessions could be spending a lot of energy on in this speech and otherwise. But that doesnt seem to be as important, and that leaves us with a question. Why not . Okay. Were going to take a break. When we come back, President Trump wants to give another tax cut to himself, and this time he wants to bypass congress. Our next guest is the man who helped trump secure the first round of tax cuts. Marc short is here to make the case. Stay with us. Salads should look like this. Crisp leaves of lettuce. Freshly made dressing. Clean food that looks this good. Delivered to your desk. Now delivering to home or office. Panera. Food as it should be. Panera. P3 its meat, cheese and nuts. I keep my protein interesting. Oh yea, me too. I have cheese and uh these herbs. P3 snacks. The more interesting way to get your protein. Centerpiece of the partys message in the midterms. But not so much, at least at this point. Why . And what is up with this latest cut that cuts out congress . Perfect guest, trumps former legislative director marc short is here. Welcome to prime time. Chris, thanks for having me on. Its good to have you. Lets talk about this tax cut. First of all, my suggestion there in the introduction that the gop was supposed to go long and strong with this tax cut, but we havent been hearing much about it. Is that because you know that it doesnt help the same people that put the president in office as much as it helps people like me . Oh, no, i dont think thats the case, chris. I think if you look at the overall tax benefits of the 1. 7 trillion estimated, 1. 1 million is going to individuals. 600 million for companies and businesses. So i think the reality is that
people across the country are benefiting from it. Unemployments at an alltime low. Unemployment for particularly africanamerican and hispanicamericans is at an alltime low. Estimates say for a family of four earning 70,000, they get a tax benefit of over 2,000. So, no, i think the vast majority of americans are benefiting from the tax relief plan. But its about which people. First of all, unemployment, very low. Underemployment, not as low. A more specific problem. What kinds of jobs . How many hours . What is the pay . Wages are not moving the way we need them to. People in the middle class have not grown in any way near to what those in the top 1 have. 80plus cents of every dollar of this tax cut go to the wealthy, not the people who put trump in office. Defend. Chris, i think that the reality again is that those that are taxpayers across the country, the ones benefiting, as i just said, a family of four that is earning 07,000 is getting a 2,500 tax break. Some. If youre talking about families or individuals that are
earning exceedingly higher than that, then prorating that, of course theres going to get a higher tax benefit than why of course . You called it a middle class tax cut. Doesnt that mean its talking about a percentage. If youre a family of four and youre earning 72,000, that 2,500 is pretty significant to you. I like that argument. Its a Shaming Argument that, hey, youre saying 2,500 is like chicken scratch, but its not when you make 70. Not on my watch, my friend. What im saying is if its a middle class tax cut, then give me the 80 cents of every dollar as a middle class family and not the 20 that youre giving. If youre going to call it middle class, take care of them the most. You didnt. No, thats not true, chris. 80 cents. Thats what the cbo scored it. I can walk through this for you again. Youre distorting the analysis. The reality is the top 1 or 2 pay roughly 40 of the taxes in america. So naturally if youre going to look at it that way, then youre going to say that theyre going to get a higher percentage. But if youre looking at what the actual income is for an individual in middle income, then theyre getting a larger percent not everybody who makes 70 grand got that cut. There are a lot of different demographic figures that went into it. But if you make a lot of money, you did. What theyre trying to do now with the Capital Gains cut going around congress, but, again, 80 plus cents of every dollar of that cut is going to go to the 1 . I thought you wanted to help the middle class the most. Then help them the most. Dont help me. Chris, the middle class is the one thats benefiting from this not the most. Theyre the one that got the larger percentage in the tax rate from what they were paying to what theyre paying now. Theyre also the ones benefiting the most from the Child Tax Credit because this is a much more significant deduction for them that theyre receiving from the tax plan. So, yes, the middle class is the one thats benefitting from this tax plan, significantly so. Its why youre seeing such tremendous Economic Growth in our country, why youre seeing gdp at 4. 1 . I know you want to talk about what it was during the obama years, which was 1. 8 averaged across those eight years. So, yes, the economy is growing because of that tax plan, and those that are benefiting from it are the middle class. There are a lot of Different Reasons the economy could be growing, but ill give you that point for the sake of argument that theres no question right now the economy is growing in robust fashion, and well debate why as we get closer to the elections. Let me ask you Something Else while i have you here. So you were on the inside with trump. When he would bash the media, what did you say to him about it . When he would attack the media, when he would attack situations and lie about them, who around him said because you were in the room, so i want to know. Did anybody around him say, you know, thats not true by the way . Chris, im not sure that the president was looking for my opinion about the way he handles his interactions with the media. I think that by and large you see that roughly 90plus percent of the coverage of the president has been negative, and i think hes anxious to find a day when he actually gets a fair shake in the mainstream media. Its about what he says and
what he does, right . Its not like you have to cherry pick. I mean thats the point. Its just weird, marc. Youre there. Hes saying all these things. You dont say anything. But then you came and join the enemy. You say nothing then, but now youre with us. Why . Were glad to have you by the way. Glad to have you. I can tell you are. I appreciate the invitation to be on your network. Im excited to be able to provide a perspective that perhaps your network was missing as far as advocating for the Trump Administration policies. So i think that will be hopefully beneficial to your viewers to get a different side of the conversation as well. 100 . But i want the perspective of somebody who was in that room. So youre saying that people who were there felt that it was so unfair to him, that it was okay for him to attack the coverage. And if he tells the truth, he tells the truth. If he doesnt chris, youve heard me say previous will i was asked this question on a different network, i said the free and fair press is a cornerstone of democracy. Its whats essential to
democracy. I think youll hear me protect the right and Freedom Of Press every time you ask me that question. So, yeah, i think there are plenty of us who believe the press is not the Enemy Of The State or enemy of the people. But at the same time, i do think the president has had an unfair representation in the media in the coverage that hes received, and i dont think theres any doubt about that. I think you can believe both of those things at the same time obviously, and the president doesnt. Thats why i asked you about it because you know what . Your perspective on economics but also the mind set and the tactics of the president are going to be invaluable to the office to the audience, and thats why im happy to have you on the show. You are welcome back again anytime. Thanks, chris. Marc short, appreciate it. Welcome to the team. All right. So turns out we have problems with north korea. President trump said the threat was gone, but the only thing that is gone for sure seems to be any positive momentum. So the question becomes why . Do these things just generally go this way, or did we take the wrong approach . Phil mudd says he can feed your mind on this in just three
points. Feed your mind. Thats what i meant, phil. Dont make that face. It made sense. Next. So the kim regime in north
so the kim regime in north korea is now calling american proposals to give up its Nuclear Weapons gangsterlike. Thats not good. Lets discuss it with cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd who is here. You say you can take care of this, clarify in three points, and they go to pace, posture, and progress. Lets start with pace. Is this the way it usually goes, that it seems ugly early . No way. Look, you got to go into this with an understanding of what your adversary wants. In this case we went in misunderstanding our adversary. We go in with what we call a rational actor, model, chris. That is he cant feed his own people. He must be willing to give up nukes so we can relieve sanctions and he can feed his own people. Kim is sitting there saying, if they want this so bad, they must be willing to give me something up front, and we of course said no. We both went in with a common problem. We misunderstood our adversary. All right. That takes us to how we went in, posture. They had the summit. Was that the right move . I believe it was the right move to figure out after years of mistakes, after years of misunderstandings what our adversary thought about. We should have walked out and said, okay, now we understand they may not be willing to move on denuclearization. Whats The Next Step . We havent gotten there yet. The way they came out of summit and what the president said, is that the right move . Of course not. You go into this saying the primary thing the north koreans want is to protect the securiy of a regime for a dictator. The primary thing we want is to get Nuclear Weapons off the table and to tell the north koreans the response if you take Nuclear Weapons off the table is sanctions relief. If you go into that misunderstanding what your adversary wants, you dont know what the goal is, you never score a goal. How do you make progress in this . I hate to tell you this, but we got to make two assumptions that nobodys going to like. Number one, are we going to show some leg going in. Are we going to tell them well
relieve some sanctions before your denuclearize . Nobody here wants to do that. There are other things on the table here. The second thing are we going to give them Security Assurances of north korea if they dont move on nukes. I dont think well do that. Did you just say show some leg . What you do every time we go out for beers. You show me leg. Phil mudd, as your friend, stay off the drugs. White power protests this weekend. It is the oneyear anniversary of that deadly horror show. President trump says the protesters should be called out and forced to stop what theyre doing. Heres the problem. Hes not talking about the White Supremacists. Hes talking about the nfl players. Why . Closing argument next. Dont stop me now. If you want to have a good time. Just give me a call. Dont. Stop. Me. Now. because im having a good time. dont. Stop. Me. Now. yes im having a good time.
i dont want to stop at all. I do. Check out the new united explorer card. Saving on this saving on this saving in here. Rewarded learn more at theexplorercard. Com you never listen to your dad when youre a teenager. My dad he always gave me two pieces of advice. One was to always be humble. And the second was to always do the right thing. Now that im the new ceo of uber, ive taken that advice to heart. And im using that advice to change our company. Moving forward, were taking into consideration whats good for our driver partners, our riders, and the cities that we operate in. And its going to make us a much, much better service. With advil liquigels, what bad shoulder . What headache . Advil is relief thats fast strength that lasts youll ask. What pain . With advil liquigels sharper vision, without limits. Days that go from sun up to sun down. A whole world in all its beauty. Three Innovative Technologies for our ultimate in vision, clarity, and protection. Together in a single lens. Essilor ultimate lens package. Purchase the Essilor Ultimate Lens Package and get a second pair of qualifying lenses free. Essilor. Better sight. Better life. Now tmobile has unlimited for the rest of us. Unlimited ways to be you. Unlimited ways share with others. Unlimited ways to live for the moment. All for as low as 30 bucks a line. Unlimited for you. For them. For all. Get unlimited for as low at 30 bucks per line for four lines at tmobile. Closing argument. The Nfl Preseason kicked off last night this is cnn breaking news. All right. Breaking news. This is just coming in to us here at cnn. Alaska Airlines Says they are investigating the unauthorized takeoff of one of its partners planes at seattles main airport friday evening. Thats according to a tweet from the airline. Now it crashed in Pierce County not far from the airport. These are the pictures we can bring you at this stage. Of course, it is nighttime in washington state, just about 10 00 p. M. Local. The plane was reportedly from horizon air. It was a q400. This is a very popular commuter aircraft, which seats around 75 people on a normal flight. So not a small plane. Cnn Law Enforcement analyst Josh Campbell joins us on the film from Coronado Island in california. Josh, we dont know. We dont have a whole lot of details at this stage, but just tell me your first reaction when you hear the news that a plane has somehow been taken control
of and that somebody takes off an an International Airport . Obviously we have a very serious Security Breach here. There will be two aspects that we have to look at and analyze, the first being the access. So the person got access to the aircraft, was able to take off, which there are obviously a number of steps that are involved there. This isnt just somebody who wanders on to an airplane and has the wherewithal and knowledge to get it off the ground that is something to look at. What type of access did this person half. The second question, were there any passengers obviously . That would escalate things greatly there are a lot of details we dont have right now as far as the aircraft itself. Was it empty . Was this person working on the eight . So many questions we have. Thats something were going drill down on. The second issue here becomes even more serious, and that is what were the circumstances here that actually led to the grounding . Was this something that was
accidental, that the person was operating the aircraft and either didnt have the knowledge to actually bring to it a safe landing, or was this something that was done internally, either by the pilot or by military folks in the area . There were a lot of unconfirmed reports right now. There have been a lot of videos on social media where we saw what looked to be a Military Aircraft that was trailing this commercial aircraft. So again, there are a lot of questions we dont know the answers to. Was this an aircraft that was brought down by the military . Was this something that was brought down accidentally . Was it an aircraft that ran out of fuel. So many questions that we dont have right now. Those are the two key issues. First of all, the access and what actually led to the pictures were seeing right now on the screen. This appears to be an inferno where the aircraft has actually crashed. So, again, we dont have a whole lot of information right now. Were going to try to fill these in and bring these to our viewers as soon as we have them. Youre telling me no, let me
first get to this. What would protocol be in a situation like this. You mentioned possible Military Jets that were scrambled. We cant confirm whether or not that was the case. What would protocol be . There are two issues. How the airplane gets off the ground. This would be someone who was familiar with an aircraft. And we all know based on history and a lot of the issues weve seen, its easier to take off an aircraft than it is to bring one to a safe landing. If this is someone who had a grievance, we dont know what the motivation. But it would have been a lot easier to take off the aircraft with minimal knowledge of flight than it would be to take it to a safe conclusion. The second being a lot of unconfirmed reports. Were going on based on what we see as far as some of the social media reports of what appears to be a military jet that is