Confusion Swirls over Whether Trump and Iran are Negotiating

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1:30We have a lot coming up tonight. General Wesley Clark is here as we look at the Iran war fallout, the oil price problems. Andrew Weissman joins me as we look at Trump's revenge prosecutions. And we're going to set aside time to also discuss the passing of his former boss and mentor, Bob Mueller. We can also tell you today that a lot of people, of course, have been very concerned, saddened by that tragic accident. And we are awaiting an NTSB press conference, which will tell us more about what exactly happened. It was the deadly LaGuardia collision. It was on the ground, but took lives of the pilot there.

2:05And we're going to hear from the NTSB. As you can see, we are positioned to take this press conference whenever it begins after that, of course, tragic loss of life. We know that LaGuardia Airport is back open. The New York Airport is one of the nation's busiest. It was closed when an Air Canada flight collided with a fire truck. Now, this occurred last night, late in the evening, about 1140 p.m. There is video of the incident where you see the plane speeding down the runway. And then you can see it collide there with the fire truck. The NTSB and FAA are doing the formal investigations. The crash killed the pilot and the co-pilot of the plane.

2:44Approximately 40 other individuals were injured, taken to hospitals, including the two officers in the fire truck. It was quite a terrible scene. And there were, of course, accounts from people at an airport. You have people looking out the windows. People could see this. It all sort of unfolded that way in real time. One of the officers expected to be released today. The other is being kept overnight for observation. Injured passengers have also been released from the hospital. Some of those injuries described as minor. This is the first fatal clash at LaGuardia in over 34 years. And while people worry so much about what happens to planes in the air, and in the U.S.

3:20they have a relatively good safety record, this is an example of the other complicated ways that danger can arise. A ground collision between, of course, an airborne instrument like a plane and a ground vehicle. Now, the air traffic control audio was captured moments before the collision, And you can hear there's an aircraft, a controller discussing making a mistake, which basically involved allegedly or apparently clearing this this movement. And so you can hear them admit basically the mistake because they were distracted by or dealing with what they described as another emergency.

3:59Frontier 4195 to stop there, please. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, truck one. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Go 2603, go around, runway heading 2000 Shot 646 Shot 646, I see you collide with vehicle agents Hold position, I know you can't move The vehicle's there responding to you now Frontier 4195, I got the word that we're going to be close for a little while If you want to prepare to return to the ramp, let me know Yeah, we got stuff in progress for that, man That wasn't good to watch Yeah, I know I was here I tried to reach out to my stuff And we were dealing with an emergency earlier And I messed up No, man, you did the best you could.

4:42That is what it sounds like. Those, of course, air traffic controllers working their job and realizing what had occurred. I want to bring in George Novak. He serves as a board member of the FAA Commercial Aviation Safety Team. He's on the FAA's rulemaking advisory committee and is our expert as we await and will interrupt as needed when this press conference gets underway. Your view of what happened here?

5:07and these are the types of things that everybody worries about but they they really don't happen that frequently and and it is a complex system it's a complex system in the air as we saw in the dca crash last year it's a complex system on the ground and one of the things the faa has been working on and dot have been working on for the past couple of years are avoiding collisions and And in many cases, those are collisions between aircraft moving from taxiways onto active runways, but also these ground service vehicles and emergency vehicles that are a critical part of the airport infrastructure.

5:44Yeah. And everyone just about is aware of the partial shutdowns impact on airports. Anyone who travels or follows the news lines at many of these airports getting long, that has to do with basically DHS and TSA security at the entry points. were told today that the supply, if you will, the inventory of air traffic controllers is not immediately affected by that. Can you walk us through that distinction? Because obviously, both stories are on people's minds right now. That's correct. I mean, the FAA and Brian Bedford, Administrator Bedford, has been doing a tremendous job, as has Secretary Duffy, in attempting to backfill a lot of the empty air traffic controller slots.

6:28But this is not related to the TSA DHS funding controversy that we're seeing in Washington right now. They're completely unrelated. And from what I've seen, and the NTSB will be looking into this, but the LaGuardia Towers appear to have been fully staffed by, you know, fully trained and competent air traffic controllers. It's a tragic, it's a tragic, tragic accident. But These are not related with the DHS funding. It's not related with TSA. And it does not appear to be at this time related to any shortages of air traffic controllers in that tower. Understood. And again, that's something that everyone looks at.

7:09And these are government regulated situations. Right. The Transportation Department has said they have 33 certified controllers. They would like to have 37, but they don't describe it currently as a gap or deficiency. and there was more than one controller on duty at the time. When you listen to that audio, you know, most people don't hear it all that often. So tell us about what you heard that was sort of standard and then what sounds like human beings who just witnessed, I mean, they know better than a casual observer, the seriousness of what they witnessed, the likely fatality of folks at the front, the pilots.

7:47Walk us through what you heard there. Yeah, and I don't want to comment on where the controller said we were dealing with an earlier emergency. I think that'll come out in the NTSB investigation as to what they were dealing with, if there was any distraction. But in fact, I mean, this is what it is, a complex situation. And if you look, I think you had the graphic up at the time of the ground movements and the air movements around LaGuardia. There are a lot of aircraft coming in and out. There are ground, there are vehicles on the ground for emergency, for baggage handling, for fuel. And so the controllers and different ones have different responsibilities there are making sure that that very complex system works well together.

8:31And they also have the benefit of some automation, which alerts them to potential collisions. I know, again, Administrator Bedford is taking this very seriously prior to this incident about worrying about and working on ground collisions. And how do we avoid those? How do we implement a better system for that? And it's much too early to draw conclusions from the conversation that take place contemporaneously with that accident. And I think it's dangerous to draw too many conclusions also from that conversation. Yeah, as you mentioned, tragic loss of life. These events are obviously newsworthy.

9:11The government's updating on them. It affects things. We all cover them. And yet it's incumbent upon us in journalism to put the context in. And LaGuardia is one of the busiest hubs in the country, and it went 30 plus years without a fatal crash. From your expertise, what should viewers and citizens take from this? If they look up, they see this and think, oh, maybe flying is not safe anymore. No, and, you know, we frequently have to remind ourselves that flying is exponentially safer than any other means of transportation. I mean, that means automobiles, that means rail, bus. It is the safest mode of transportation that we have.

9:52And the United States is the safest airspace in the world to be operating in. So we have had two accidents. We had DCA last year. We have this one now. And those do draw attention to, and it is tragic. And people look at that and they naturally worry. But in fact, you know, this is much safer, much, much safer in the seat of an airplane, particularly commercial aircraft. than you are on any other mode of transportation anywhere else in the world. Yeah. And that's, again, that's the statistical context, which is different sometimes from what we see. George Novak walking us through this. We'll be coming back to you as we follow this press conference tonight.

10:34So thank you for joining me. I want to remind everyone what I said earlier. We've got a lot in the show. Obviously, this is a major event there at LaGuardia, and we're following that. We also have Andrew Weissman coming up. We want to hear what he has to say about his longtime mentor and former boss Bob Mueller. That story as well as what's going on at the DOJ right now. I'm also going to bring in a very important expert as you look at the Iran planning, falling apart, the pressure on Trump. General Wesley Clark will tell you what to make of what we're hearing from this Trump Pentagon. That's going to be important when we return in 90 seconds.

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13:16We are keeping an eye on that news conference I mentioned to you that's supposed to come out about the terrible crash day at LaGuardia. We are going to be covering a lot of other news in this hour, though, including Donald Trump's troubled endgame on Iran. This morning, Trump was backing down from a public vow to obliterate civilian power plants in Iran. The laws of war tend to regulate that type of thing, to say the least. He says the U.S. is also in high-level talks with Iran. That's what the president says. Iran's pushing back on that. Trump said the Iranian counterpart in the talks, however, is not the supreme leader.

13:49He won't say who he claims to be negotiating with. Iran's foreign ministry said there's, quote, no dialogue between the two nations. Now, in war, there can be, of course, many conflicting claims. The problem for Donald Trump is he doesn't have credibility on this issue any more than the way he said that they'd previously obliterated other parts of Iran's weapons last year, only to claim those same weapons as part of the reason they started this war. The two sides are at odds over whether there are truce talks happening. That's how Bloomberg puts it. It could be secret truce talks. We just don't have a lot of credibility from this White House on this war.

14:25The Strait of Hormuz, however, remains closed. Everyone can see that. Oil prices up, crude oil up about 39 percent. Gas prices now in America up similarly 38 percent. People go to the pump. They see this affect their lives. The spillover is huge when you look at the overall economy and all the other things that involve gas prices. And a question now on Wall Street over whether Trump's war, above everything else, could actually trigger a recession. Fertilizer also up 25 percent. There's a contingent of over 4 ,000 sailors and Marines en route to the region and questions about what that means. An Israeli official, meanwhile, says the Marines aren't coming for decoration.

15:03Trump was pressed on all of this today. What about the state of Hormuz? Who's going to be in control of that? That will be opened very soon, if this works. How soon? And who's in control of it? Will Iran still be able to control the quote? Be jointly controlled. Like who? Maybe me. Maybe me. About the United States. Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah. Look, and there'll also be a form of a, a very serious form of a regime change. We're joined now by General Wesley Clark, the retired four-star Army general, who also was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, relevant to so many of these stories.

15:46Welcome back, General. I mentioned that while there can be strategic opacity in communications during war, Donald Trump has withered away much of the credibility of his administration on this and other topics. The New York Times saying, quote, lying about war is uniquely corrosive. When a president signals the truth doesn't matter in wartime, he encourages his cabinet and his generals to mislead the country, makes it harder to win, hiding the reality of the conflict. Allies become wary of joining the fight and he undermines American values and interests. Your view on the president's credibility and the war planning that is evident here or lack thereof.

16:31There's no doubt President Trump says a lot of things. He goes from one side to the other, from we're winning, we need allies, we don't need allies, we don't want to talk, now we're talking. But in war, communications like this is part of the process. And it's incumbent on the Iranians, if they want to drive a tough bargain, to deny that there's any communication. And at the same time, President Trump is trying to do something with the markets and oil price. And he says there are negotiations. So, you know, it got us through one day. The stock market went up, oil prices went down. There was a little bit of credibility left there.

17:16How many times can he play the same card? That's a question. But for one on one throw of the card, it worked. Now, we just don't know what the end game is, Ari, on this. You have to do three things simultaneously if you're the United States. Number one, you've got to continue the air campaign. Number two, at the same time, you've got to find a way to talk about it because the air campaign is leveraged. But it's not the way you're going to end the war. You've got to have some kind of a settlement at the end of the war. And you've got to get the Strait of Hormuz open. And that means troops. And that means lots of troops and more than two mews.

17:57So there's 1.8 million people approximately that live within, let's say, 50 miles of the Strait of Hormuz or the northern shore of the Persian Gulf. 1.8 million. And any of those could be terrorists. If we were to put Marines ashore, you're talking about urban conflict. You're talking about something that's far greater than the capacity of two marine landing teams to be able to handle and provide security. So we don't want to do that, but you may have to do it and you certainly need to be preparing for it. And in the midst of all this, the American American— Let me ask you, though, to slow you down.

18:41You do it. When you say you may, quote, have to do it, that means because of the decisions the Trump administration has made and the problem in the strait, you have to resolve it one way or the other. You're saying you either militarily resolve it, which is an escalation, or you get them to reopen it because we got an agreement. But you're saying status quo, we can't just be like this for years. That's right. You can't. If you do, it is a loss because you've basically ceded control of 20 percent of the world's fuel to Iran. So one of the things you need to do probably right away is close the strait by preventing any Iranian ships from leaving.

19:23One of the things that's happened to us is we're now trying to do everything at once. So we've relaxed sanctions on Russia. We've told the Iranians you can sell what's at sea. And all of this in an effort to make the price of gasoline 10 cents less at the pump or 15 cents less at the pump. I understand the politics of it because the politics in America are what drive the foreign policy. And if President Trump loses the support of the Republican Party, the MAGA wing for this because of they're driving pickup trucks or whatever and they're paying too much for gasoline. Well, that's a very bad thing for the country, for the country.

20:00We don't want to lose this as America. So politics at home are important, but you've got to prioritize things. So we don't want to be giving Russia$100 billion here where they can continue to fight in Ukraine. We need to shut the Strait of Hormuz. You Iranians think you can control it. You're wrong. We control it. On the outside, you're not going to get any of your ships out. So and I know you're trying to be nice to India. India, why don't you be nice to the world and tell the Iranians to open the straits completely? And so we're going to have to do things like that, that leverage before we have to commit tens of thousands of U.S.

20:43Marines and soldiers. I don't want to see that happen, but that's the position that we're in. Yeah, you lay it out there, including some of the apparent problems that were sparked by choosing to go into this war. General Clark, thank you so much, sir. Thank you, all right. Appreciate it. I want to tell folks that coming up, we will reflect on a great American that we lost. Bob Mueller passed away this weekend. And Andrew Weissman, who was his general counsel at the FBI, who was his deputy at the Mueller probe, who knows him as a mentor and a friend. He will get the floor to reflect on that next.

21:49We'll be right back. Restrictions apply. I'm Cindy Lauper with fellow Cosentix advocate, Chef Michelle Bernstein. We'll share our experiences with plaque psoriasis, with psoriatic arthritis, and Dr. Panico will talk about the possible connection. Cosentix Secukinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis 300 milligram dose and adults with active psoriatic arthritis 150 milligram dose. Don't use if you're allergic to Cosentix. before starting get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections.

22:29Some are fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough, had a vaccine or planned to, or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-COSENTICS or cosintix.com slash Cindy.

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23:28We're back and joined by Andrew Weissman, who was FBI general counsel and deputy to Bob Mueller in the Mueller probe in the Russia case. Andrew, thanks for being with me and sorry to you for your loss, the nation's loss. Andrew's going to reflect on this tonight, which is something we wanted to do. I want to tell viewers about Mueller, who died late Friday at the age of 81. He was FBI director a week before the September 11th attacks. He stayed on that job for 12 years. Across two presidents he served, whichever president appointed him, regardless of party. Let's show this in full, folks. Andrew, I want everyone to see just one set of photos we put together, appointed by George Bush and in that key period after 9-11, fighting terrorism at home and reforming intelligence.

24:16And then when President Obama asked him to stay on, he did to serve his country. I put this on the screen because you can't capture Bob Mueller's 81 years or his many decades in public service, not in five minutes, not in an hour. But this split screen is so different from how some presidents operate today and how different from how many people currently in this Justice Department, but across the government operate. That willingness, that expectation, that nonpartisan upholding of the oath in its fullest sense. This is Bob Mueller's legacy here on the screen. In Trump's first term, many Americans learned again about the prosecutor when he was appointed precisely because of that nonpartisan independence.

25:03Remember, it was a Republican Justice Department and it was a Republican deputy attorney general who said, we need someone who is independent, unassailable. And that was Bob Mueller. And he approached the Trump-Russia probe without fear or favor. They looked at those early incidents, if everyone remembers, the firing of James Comey, the questions about Russia, the questions about possible obstruction inside the White House. They did not establish through that report, which, of course, Andrew worked on, a criminal level of what was sometimes called collusion or a criminal international conspiracy with the Russian government.

25:40And so that report, whatever people felt about it politically, also lived up to Mueller's legacy. He looked at everything and he found what he found. The Times described him as a, quote, buttoned-down, lock-jawed, rock-ribbed exemplar of a vanishing caste, what they called the liberal Republican It is my honor to nominate Robert S. Mueller of California to become the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation The FBI must remain independent of politics and uncompromising in its mission When Bob's term was up, I asked Congress to give him two more years. And given the threats facing our nation, we felt it was critical to have Bob's steady hand and strong leadership at the Bureau.