#RolandMartinUnfiltered - MS Gov promises prison reform; Bolton bombshell upends Trump; #45 makes loan discrimination easier

Episode Date: February 1, 2020

1.28.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Mississippi governor promises prison reform; Former National Security Adviser, John Bolton's bombshell upends Trump; Trump Administration is trying to make it easier for banks to reject loans to black people; Why is Bernie surging ahead of Iowa? $2.5 million gift of African American Art goes to Howard University; Update in the investigation into the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and his daughter; Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Today's Tuesday, January 28th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the governor of Mississippi all of a sudden now realizes, yeah, they might want to fix the shoddy prisons in Mississippi. Now that a 12th inmate has died this year alone.

The White House and the Trump legal team, they have finished their opening arguments. They also are trying to stop the damage done by the bombs dropped in the new book by former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Will any Republicans have the guts to call witnesses now?

The Trump administration is also trying to make it easier for banks to reject loans to black people. But I thought they were doing so much for black people. And also, what's behind the Bernie Sanders surge in the polls, but also, what about the discussion that he can't beat Trump in November? Plus, a $2.5 million gift of African American art goes to Howard University.

The latest to the investigation, to the helicopter crash that killed Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and eight other people, including his 13-year-old daughter. It's time to bring the funk on Roller Mark Unfiltered. Let's go. With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's rolling Martin

Yeah, yeah Rolling with rolling now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's rolling Martin Now He's real, the best you know. He's rolling, Martin. Now. Martin. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves now says he has seen enough.

There should be changes made to the state prison system at Parchman. Well, guess what? Now the 12 people have died as a result of various conditions taking place in that prison. This, of course, is what Reeves had to say yesterday in his address to the state. I've been to Parchman. I saw it for myself just a few days ago. The problems were infuriating. There is no excuse. We can do better. We will right the wrongs of the past and we will do everything in our power to protect the dignity of every Mississippi life.

All Mississippians must be able to trust that the people in charge of this system are acting with competence to keep them safe. We must be able to trust that the corrections officers operating these prisons have the tools that they need to do their jobs and that they are compensated fairly. We must be able to trust that this system shows a baseline level of respect to those who find themselves within it. We must administer justice fairly, respecting the dignity of all within our prison walls. We have brought in an honorable, able, experienced leader with a background in corrections and law enforcement, Tommy Taylor, to serve as a steady hand in the interim. He has already made several changes that we hope will help us begin to do better.

There's a great deal more that must be done, but we are just now starting to move in the right direction. We have asked a trusted, diverse group of experts to conduct a nationwide search to provide closing Parchment's most notorious unit, Unit 29. There are many logistical questions that will need to be answered. We're working through that right now, but I have seen enough. We have to turn the page. This is the first step and I have asked the department to begin the preparations to make it happen safely, justly, and quickly. Well, isn't that grand? This is the same governor who pretty much was blaming the prisoners, and then after numerous folks died, then he decides to finally go look at what's happening at Parchman. Joining us right now is Rukia Lumumba, executive director of the People's Advocacy Institute in Jackson, Mississippi.

So, Rukia, so to hear the governor all of a sudden get religion, folks like you had to have a big protest along with Until Freedom, Yogati, Jay-Z's Team Rock. Nearly a thousand folks were there on Friday. Y'all, of course, made it clear you'd be returning to the state capitol every day. Now, all of a sudden, he wakes the hell up? Right, right. So you feel about the same way we feel, Roland. Thanks for having me back on the show,

and thanks to everybody for tuning in. You know, definitely happy that the governor is stating that he's going to take a step to close Unit 29 within Parchment. Unit 29 is not the only horrible unit in 29. We know that Unit 32 is just as bad, and we want to see people released from there. But we also want to see people moved with dignity. But most importantly, we haven't given up and we're not going to stop until the whole facility is shut down. Parchment, as I've mentioned before on your show, is a 18,000 acre former plantation. At the end of slavery, it became one of those labor camps and then later became a penitentiary. And so the images that you see that are showing across the screen now are images

that for decades, decades, we in the community have known are happening at Parchment. The conditions that lead to violence, the conditions that lead to people living in filth, in squalor, conditions of people literally having to patch up themselves because there's not medical staff on site, food and horrible food services and various things like that. So it's time to shut down this place. It has been a place of oppression for our people since it first opened up, you know, nearly 100 years ago. What was also crazy, again, is to hear the governor come out on Monday and what he was pretty much operating from the position of, I'm deaf, dumb, and blind. Don't tell me what's going on.

It's everybody else's fault. And then to come out on Monday and say, I finally went to the prisons. A real leader, the first time they hear these things and see those videos, what they do is pick up the Monday and say, I finally went to the prisons. A real leader, the first time they hear these things and see those videos, what they do is pick up the phone and say, what the hell is going on? You call your head of prisons in and say, tell me exactly what's going on. And then after a second and a third and a fourth person dies, you kind of don't wait till 12 people die for you to finally go, hmm, I think we got a problem.

Yeah. And so what people don't realize is that this governor has known the problems for decades. He was also our lieutenant governor last year and then during the last term. So he's known that these problems have been happening. This is not new news for him. And before he went in a day or two ago, you know, there were legislators, seven black legislators went in from the state black caucus and saw the same conditions that he had talked about. And they reported the same thing that he reported, but still no movement from him. Instead, what we saw was a governor that said, I'm sending in additional guards to search people for cell phones. Why are you searching people for cell phones?

Because they're using those phones to expose what's happening inside, right? And so it's basically trying to catch the whistleblowers and try to hold them accountable for telling the truth, for risking their lives to show what's going on inside. So, you know, we are cautiously optimistic that he will actually shut down Unit 29, that it will be done safely without additional harm to the people who live in Unit 29, and that he will begin to make immediate modes after shutting down Unit 29 to shut down the entire facility. It has to go. There's no question about it. What also jumps out at me here, to hear the governor say, well, there should be a baseline. Part of the problem is this attitude of, well, let's just do

the basics. Let's do the barest and minimum we can to get by. That also is problematic. Yeah, it's very problematic. When we're talking about people being able to live in healthy, humane conditions, you can't just do the baseline when we're looking at a facility that hasn't been renovated since 1971. Matter of fact, the last suit that won, well, one of the last suits that won against Parchment was a suit against protesters, black protesters in the 1970s, in 1971 to be exact, that sued Parchment for the inhumane treatment that protesters received while held captive in Parchment. They were subjected to many of the things that we hear about today, horrible food, food

that is spoiled, not good for consumption, beatings by guards and allowing other inmates to beat them. We heard instances in that lawsuit of people being humiliated and treated like animals, being required to do things that were inappropriate. And so, you know, we're seeing a replaying of this, and it never actually ended. And so now community is standing up and saying enough is enough. Enough is enough. We're not going to sit back and allow this to continue to happen. And so when we saw thousands of people come out last Friday, it wasn't just thousands of people coming out just for a few minutes.

People stayed out there for three hours rolling, protesting, saying, listen, we don't want to take this anymore. Family after family after formerly incarcerated person, black and white coming up to the stand and talking about the abuses that they endured within that facility, within Parchment, but also within other Mississippi Department of Correction

facilities. I want to be clear. Parchment is the target at this point, but the whole system is a problem. And we have to work to correct the entire system. We have to transform it. We have to create a whole new system, period. What we have here is not sufficient. It is not anything about rehabilitation. It is completely about punishment. It's completely about inhumane treatment and dehumanizing people. And all of this has to end.

And we have some solution in ways that we see this problem being cured. Rekia Lumumba, Executive Director of the People's Advocacy Institute in Jackson, Mississippi. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. If folks are interested in following and joining us in this work, we ask them to please follow

the Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition on Facebook. We have very clear action items that people can take to engage in this process, including calling the governor and state legislators, as well as signing the petition that the Color of Change has placed for us, has created for us. All right, we certainly appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland. All right, let's go to our panel here. Kelly Bethea, communications strategist Malik Malik Abdul, Republican strategist and also Teresa Lundy, principal founder. T.M.L. Communications. Join me via Skype is Dr. Jason Nichols, Department of African-American Studies, University of Maryland. Malik, I start with you. Glad to see the governor finally woke the hell up. Absolutely. You know, and better late than never. You know, I was critical of... I won't say better late than never when 12 people are dead. Yeah, well... So being late... The fact is, is that he's doing what we

wanted him to do now. So that he's late doing it, I'm glad that he's coming around because for me, I'm less concerned about the governor than the inmates who were actually there and have to suffer from that. So if the governor deserves to be criticized for this late effort, I'm actually not surprised that he's just going,

because we know how it is with executives. You send your people down, and they kind of filter stuff up, and some of that stuff may get back to you or not, but I'm glad that he actually went, because that actually meant him going to the actual prison, and I think the prison opened in 1901. So we can imagine just how old the prison is. But I'm glad that he actually went there because it's clear by going there, it's harder to deny what the reality is. Kelly, it shouldn't take 12 people

dying for a governor to all of a sudden realize there's a problem in our state prisons. These videos have been circulating since December and and january here we are towards the end of the month his early uh attitude was oh uh let's fight the cell phones i mean so he was critical of them sneaking cell phones in saying that was the problem when it was actually the cell phones which allowed people to actually see what was actually happening in the prisons exactly and i can't help but wonder just how many other people have died. These are just 12 people that we know about that have been confirmed not suicide for the most part. Even like some of the most recent deaths, they are saying, quote unquote, apparent suicide.

And something tells me that's not even the case. So it's disturbing. Disturbing is an understatement as to how egregious this situation is. I also can't help but think that, you know, one or two white people that I know of were of the 12 who have been deceased in this short amount of time. And I can't help but wonder if it's because of those few

that this is now a national issue. I mean, it's Mississippi. I understand there's a deep-rooted history of racism, bigotry, and white supremacy there. But at the end of the day, this is just basic human rights, and not just black people are in those prisons. So even if you are looking from a white supremacist mindset, you should still be considerate of who's in those prisons because that's not a good look on you either.

Jason, again, 12 folks dying. Governor finally weighs up, you know, says, ah, we got to confront this problem on Monday. A crisis in leadership, and this is what happens when you talk about leaders. You know what? If one inmate dies in a prison, then you go, okay, that's unfortunate.

But then when it became two, then three, then four, then five, then six, then seven, then eight, then nine, 10, 11, 12. Now you step up. That to me is a failure of leadership. I would agree. And, you know, I wouldn't have had to count that far.

I think once you got to about three, this should have been a thorough investigation. I'm really glad that, you know, Jay-Z and Yo Gotti shined a light on this. In addition, of course, the most important people are the activists on the ground, like the woman that you just had on. They are really important. And then you have the people who shined a light from the outside. And one of the things that I was reading in Yo Gotti's letter, him talking about that this is more widespread than just Parchment and then Unit 29, that this is more ubiquitous in Mississippi and that they need to investigate more.

So I wouldn't even claim victory right now because there may be other dead people or people who are very sick or their well-being is in jeopardy in other parts of the state and other prisons. Teresa, yes, glad to see the governor stepping up. But as Rukia says, a whole lot of work you got to deal with when you have significant problems with conditions across the state prison system.

I think, yes, absolutely. But I also think there was a lot of pressure that was given to the governor. Oh, pressure bust pipes. Yes. But because of that pressure that he was given and him trying to silence people's voices, if it wasn't for Jay-Z and Yo Gotti's amplification of the situation, and if it wasn't for advocacy groups then following up from the 12 that were pretty much murdered inside, I think the governor wouldn't have came out the way he did. And thus, I'm not sure if this is an actual victory, because there should have been an analysis, a full analysis of the inside of the prison, the decisions that were being made. I honestly disagree with having three people,

once three people died, we should have looked into it. No, I believe there should have, the first person died, there should have been a full blown investigation. But the reason why there was an investigation is because the way Mississippi law has been handled in past decades, people have been swiping issues and these civil rights right under the floor mat and not allowing Mississippians to actually really amplify, you know, their rights as citizens. So overall, the governor should have done his job as governor, as lieutenant governor before he came became governor. But it shouldn't have taken the likes of Jay-Z and Yo Gotti to get it across. Well, again, you had activists who were on the ground who were driving this issue. When they came in, they then said they were going to help file the federal lawsuit. That actually took

place as well. So all those different things took place that were part of this. And so that's, and so... And social media. And so glad to see them stepping up. But again, this is just a speech on Monday. The question now is, what do you do after the speech? That's what matters. All right, folks, let's go to what's happening here in Capitol Hill today.

The Trump lawyer stopped, well, finished their opening testimony laying out the case, of course, on why senators should acquit Donald Trump. The Associated Press, though, reported literally just two minutes ago that Senator Mitch McConnell, according to sources, has admitted he does not have the Republican votes needed to block witnesses from testifying. This, of course, comes on the heels of the New York Times reporting about the book from John Bolton, where he wrote that Donald that Trump was using his office to help autocrats in other countries. So the question now is, when you look at these various Republicans, Jason, they are not too particularly pleased because, one, they were highly critical of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for delaying sending over the article's impeachment. I THINK THE SENATE IS NOTHING BUT A LITTLE BIT DANGEROUS.

I THINK THE SENATE IS NOTHING BUT A LITTLE BIT DANGEROUS. THEY WERE HIGHLY CRITICAL FOR DELAYING SENDING OVER THE ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT. THAT NOW SEEMS TO BE A STROKE OF GENIUS BECAUSE IF SHE DID

NOT HOLD THAT BACK, THE SENATE BY THIS POINT WOULD HAVE EASILY FOUND DONALD TRUMP, EASILY ACQUITTED DONALD TRUMP. YOU WOULD HAVE NOT HEARD OF LEV PARTNERS, WOULD NOT KNOW have not heard of lead partners, would not know about this here. Now they are forced to a reckoning as to whether or not they're going to call the former national security advisor for Donald Trump, John Bolton, to testify before the Senate. Trust me, the White House is not particularly happy right now. Absolutely. And, you know, I think it was all not just Nancy Pelosi and her holding the articles. And, you know, of course, I have my own conspiracy theory that I believe she was in touch with Lev Parnas' attorneys before she actually turned those articles over.

She was biding them time so that they could actually produce the documentation, which is more important, certainly, than Lev Parnas' work. But I think, you know, in terms of not having to vote, John Bolton was an important piece to this. And, you know, hopefully if they can't get John Bolton, at least they will be able to get his book and subpoena the publisher to get the actual manuscript and see what it is that he wrote, which is, you know, just as important as necessarily hearing from him. And I honestly would have called the Republican bluff the entire time and would have said, sure, we'll give you Hunter Biden. We'll give you Joe Biden if you give us the witnesses that we want. Because, number one, we know he was going to claim executive privilege.

That was all up front. There was no way, even if they gave them Hunter Biden, they were not going to allow Mick Mulvaney and Flair and Duffy and Bolton and many others. But that's why you don't play the game of saying we'll give up, we'll say Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, because the reality is Hunter Biden and Joe Biden have absolutely nothing to do

with Donald Trump asking Ukraine to investigate them and him withholding the money. And so going down that road plays right in the Republicans' hands, that they would love nothing more to have the leading, based upon the poll, Democratic nominee to be testifying in an impeachment trial. That has nothing to do with it.

But, yeah, but my disagreement is that would never happen. I think you're calling a bluff. No, you're not calling a bluff. What you're doing is you are... Here's the deal. You play that game and then the Republicans, well, fine, let's do this person and that person. No. You force them to stick

to what's at hand, what's the deal. Now that this memoir comes out, now that there's this transcript, now they have to contend with not whether you call Hunter Biden or Joe Biden. They got to first deal with, do you call John Bolton? And if John Bolton does indeed come testify, what will he say that will force Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, will then force Mick Mulvaney? And so if you played their game, oh, they would love to have the tit-for-tat game.

Now it's the whole emphasis on Bolton and whether or not they're going to totally ignore his book, which will be out in six weeks. And now you've got Lindsey Graham saying, oh, let's go to a skiff to read his book. Why in the hell do you need to go to a place to read classified material when it's a book that is being printed as we speak? Yeah. So, no, we agree that Hunter Biden is a distraction. There's no question about that, that he is not a fact or material witness in this case. All I'm saying is that I don't believe that they would have allowed Bolton to testify. That was all a front.

You know what I mean? I don't believe, I think he would have claimed executive privilege on all of the people I just named, and there's no way that he would have given you Duffy and Blair either. So, you know, particularly with the high-level people like Pompeo and Fulton and Esper

and all of those people, there's no way that they would have given them up because they knew that he had done something wrong. And there's no way that they would have let them testify. That was just, this is all just talk. So, in my opinion, again, if you say, all right, we'll just

call witnesses. You can call your witnesses, we'll call ours, I think they would have said, we'll hold the phone. You know, you got to go to court. This, that, and the third, they would have avoided it. Well, I tell you what, Teresa, the issue you're now facing is this here. These Republicans are going to look real silly saying, nah, let's not call John Bolton when the book is coming out. And all Americans are going to be able to read what a former national security advisor will be saying.

Donald Trump did do this. Yeah. And you know what? We have to remember that John Bolton isn't, you know, just some appointee from yesterday's administration. He's been around for decades. He has been decorated. And they loved him up until 48 hours ago.

Exactly. Now he's a Democrat. That's laughable. And so when we see, you know, the type of frame that's happening right now with John Bolton, it makes you really want to look at your Republican elected officials. Because if we say we stand for patriotism and conservatism and for our country, then whatever our former national security advisor has to say, then I think we should, the American people, would like to know what he has to say

because in six weeks, you know, the book will be out. So, I mean, and then for me, I think my question is once the book is out or, you know, because it'll probably, once it's out to the public in six weeks, we'll probably obviously get something earlier than that. So it may be probably less than a month because it'll probably, once it's out to the public in six weeks, we'll probably obviously get something earlier than that. So it may be probably less than a month where we'll start to hear leaks and everything else coming down the pike. So I think we, you know, every, you know, person that's living in a state

where there's a Republican senator, they have to, like right now, reach out and, you know, stress the need and the importance of having John Bolton as a witness. I find it hilarious, Malik, that all of a sudden John Bolton is a Democrat. And then you've got the folks who are now threatening him. You've got Timmy Bruce, who's on Fox News, basically saying, don't you dare be a snitch.

And you've got people, now they're railing on him. One of the Trump lawyers said, an unverified source. I mean, it's laughable that all of a sudden, now he has a scarlet letter on him because he's coming out making these statements. Yeah, well, we really shouldn't be that surprised that that's a response from a number of people in the party. I think that it doesn't matter which president it is. When you have a national security advisor come out and essentially divulge information about conversations with the president of the United States,

I think that that in itself, as we see, that's already a huge story. But you have someone like John Bolton who many people, not just inside the administration, but many people considered a hawk and did not much care for John Bolton. Now, the only thing that I have to say about that, I'm one of those who said that John Bolton should testify, sure, bring him on in there. And it seems as if that McConnell may not have, may not, those four people that everyone was looking at as far as who may end up voting for witnesses, seems like he can't meet that threshold. But, you know, one of the things that concerns me about it is that this information, this is information John Bolton has known. So this is information that John Bolton had through the House hearings and it's the information that he has now.

It's also information that the White House has had since December 30th. No, no, no, no. It's not the White House. It's actually because I followed that on the news today. So that information, the manuscript itself was actually given over to the National Security Council. Where are they housed? And the follow up to that... Where are they housed? They very well may be housed in the White House. I'm not sure. No, no, no. It's the National Security Council for whom?

For the White House? Right. So when I say... Well, I don't know where they're housed. No, no, no. So when I say, how long has the White House known, the NSC is a part of the White House. But I just want to draw a distinction based on the reporting today that the White House,

the actual Oval Office, Trump, Mulvaney, and all of those, that information was not... The manuscript was not shared to them. Now, we can say, well, we don't believe that it is, but according to everything that I've heard today... Who reported that?

Well, I saw that on Fox News today. I saw that on a segment on CNN today. I didn't watch MSNBC. That Trump, Mulvaney, and all of them didn't know about the manuscript. No, that the information was given to the National Security Council and that the White House was not giving copies of that.

Now, that may be false reporting, but again, that's the reporting that's actually out there. Right, that's what they were told by the White House. No, no, no. We have to go with what we've heard. No, actually, no, but see, we also are used to this being the most lying-ass White House we've seen in modern history.

So, and it comes out of their mouth, I don't automatically believe. And that's fine. We can choose not to believe it. No, I'm just stating what's fact. And that's fine, but basically, they lie. Recording the White House,

the Oval Office, Trump and his advisors did not have copies. And the reason that that was shared with the National Security Council is because of security, because of their... It's just like when you work the CIA.

Right. It's a process when you write a book, you send through the process so they can vet to ensure no classified materials are actually placed in the book. Right. Now, Bolton wrote the book because what he knows wasn't classified material. Now, if you say, well, that's covered under executive privilege, that's a whole different conversation. But that's not actually classified material, just like, Kelly,

when Bob Gates wrote his book and he talked about conversations with President Barack Obama. Those are not classified conversations. So Trump can exert executive privilege, but also, to be perfectly honest, executive privilege doesn't apply to a book.

Can I just say this very quickly? I wish that John Bolton had agreed to testify during the House hearing. And I understand now this has kind of helped this book, but John Bolton should have been sitting in that seat. He shouldn't have had to wait for a subpoena if he wanted to. I mean, he's coming out with the information in the book, so why not

sit yourself right there in front of the House without them having to subpoena you? Because you can write it in a book, Kelly, but when you're under oath, it's a different deal. And I'm going to tell you something right now. I said this on the ABC this week on Sunday. That's why these are fake-ass patriots. They're not real

because if you want to talk about doing what's right for the country, doing what's right for justice, then you don't need a subpoena to testify. That's what he said. Oh, if you, if the court mandates that I testify, I will. That's what John Bolton says. No, no. Why don't your ass voluntarily say, call me and I'll be there. And my thing is the only reason I see him even doing that is because he's protecting somebody and that somebody is not the United States. He's protecting himself.

He's protecting 45. But he's not doing anything in the best interest of us, the citizens of the United States. Going back to Jason's point about him thinking about this bluff working or not, I, like you, Roland, I definitely disagreed with that, not because of necessarily executive privilege per se, but I feel like the Republicans would have called the bluff and said, OK, we want the Bidens. And all of a sudden, when the Democrats are supposed to get their witnesses, all of a sudden they're going to hide behind executive privilege. And the way that this trial is working out, because the Democrats are going first in terms of opening statements, and if we have a real trial, witnesses going first or whatever, the Democrats' witnesses would be going first because they're on the offensive.

They're not going to have any witnesses because all of a sudden they're hiding behind executive privilege. And the Bidens are going to be out there hung to dry for what? You understand what I'm saying? Like, they're not even part of the case. They're wholly irrelevant to everything. And, you know, absent them, Trump still did what he did. And that's what's supposed to be on trial. Well, it is laughable when you look at how the Trump lawyers,

you know, what they laid out. I can't even talk about just how shameful Alan Dershowitz was. Like, well, even if these things happen, even if it's just still an abuse of power. He basically suggested that nothing can qualify as an abuse of power. Well, he contradicted all of his books in that statement.

Like, and I have a couple of them. And then he said, oh, Becky and I was wrong. Now I'm right. You made millions of dollars off of being wrong. Like, all these people in law school reading your books for a grade. Right. And you wrong.

But if you look at the Democrats, if you look at whether it's Nadler, Chuck Schumer, even when they were congressmen, you know, the arguments, and it's something that they talked about, because at the end of Cipollone's defense there today before he rested, he played a montage of Democrats essentially saying the same thing that Republicans are saying now. But the context was wholly different. But whether the context was different, what they said as far as the very high bar to high crimes and misdemeanors, meeting that high bar to high crimes

and misdemeanors, it's the very same thing that Republicans are saying now. What they're saying now is not applicable to this case. What the Democrats were saying back then was the fact that Bill Clinton in his egregious era did whatever he did

that did not rise to that. And that's the same thing that the Republicans are saying, that calling another country to basically have us, you know, calling another country to investigate your political rival when you could have called for your

own Department of Justice to launch an investigation. But you didn't. It was a valid source of inquiry. But you didn't. It was a valid source of inquiry. What was? Hunter Biden and the Burisma connection. I'm sorry, hold up. Hold up. What was valid? Well, that's exactly

what Vovonovich said. That's exactly what Sondland said. What was valid? That there were questions about whether Hunter Biden, that it did seem like that there was some favoritism as far as him getting the contract with Burisma. Okay, here's the thing.

Stop, stop, stop. That's nothing illegal. Stop. There's absolutely nothing illegal or immoral about a company choosing to hire anybody that they want. But the issue here, again, is not Hunter Biden.

The issue here is Donald Trump asking a foreign entity to investigate a political rival. Who happens to be a political rival. I think Donald Trump would have passed for that investigation. No, he wouldn't. Even if Bill Biden wasn't running. Are you trying to say that... Are you actually trying to say that Donald Trump would ask for the investigation against...

Regardless of anybody, he would have done that. Well, if we go down the list of people, he's called for investigations of Eric Holder, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. Those are all political rivals. But they're... Those are all political rivals. Right.

How is Eric Holder a political rival? Because Eric Holder was attorney general. In fact, how is Obama a political rival? Wait, because Eric Holder was considering running for president of the United States. Second, first of all, we realize that Donald Trump sees President Barack Obama as a rival. But that's really any Democrat then now. So now you're saying that any Democrat. No, no, no. Malik, look,'re saying that any Democrat. No, no, no. Look, that dog won't hunt.

No, no. The reality is here. Donald Trump sees Joe Biden as his biggest threat. Maybe. No, ain't no maybe. Maybe so. Ain't no maybe. Maybe so. No, no. It's not maybe. It's a fact. We can say what he sees.

We can give our analysis of that. And what he's dealing with is he wanted Jason to do anything to take his leading rival out. Who happens to be his leading rival. That's the fact. Yeah, it is. Who happens to be his leading rival. I love Malik, but there's no way that we can win that because of the fact that,

number one, Joe Biden takes a large portion of his state, you know, or challenges for them. And he certainly beats them in a lot of important states like Pennsylvania. So there is no question that he has seen Joe Biden as a rival. This is one of the reasons, even though I'm more of a Bernie guy than I am a Biden guy, you know, this is one of the reasons why you hear the president even pushing the narrative that Bernie's being done wrong, that Bernie's being mistreated, because he would rather face Bernie Sanders and call him a socialist than to face Joe Biden, who can get more of the, you know, working-class, white, Midwestern, and Rust Belt vote.

So there's no question that he sees Joe Biden as his primary political rival. Well, Obama is here. Republicans now got to make a serious decision as to whether or not they're going to call witnesses, and they are not too particularly happy that this book has been at the White House since December 30th, and they only found out because of a New York Times story on Sunday.

Got to go to a break right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. When we come back, we'll talk about, again, the latest on the Kobe Bryant investigation and still the reaction to his tragic death and that of eight others, including his daughter, right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You wanna check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered. Like, name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered. Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin.

And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. Martin! All right, folks. Join Reverend Dr. Jackie Hood Martin as she engages others to think like a leader. Are you looking to enhance your leadership or that of your team in 2020?

You can join her newest online course and mastermind group, How Successful People Think. to think like a leader. Are you looking to enhance your leadership or that of your team in 2020? You can join her newest online course and mastermind group, How Successful People Think. She'll be your guide as you learn timeless leadership principles to apply to daily living. The offer expires February 28th. To register, go to www.livetolead.com forward slash Leesburg. www.livetolead.com forward slash Leesburg, www.live2lead.com forward slash Leesburg. All right, folks, all nine bodies that were killed

in the crash, the plane crash of Kobe Bryant, those bodies have been recovered. Of course, all nine victims, the names have been released, yet people are still just shocked and stunned by what took place with the death of Kobe Bryant. Kerry Champion, of course, formerly of ESPN. Kerry is a huge Los Angeles Lakers fan. This is what she posted a short while ago

on her Instagram channel. Hey, y'all. It's been a crazy, crazy few days. Finally, somebody hasn't shed a tear, and I'll tell you that they don't have a heart. I wanted to post something, which I think I will. I'll write something. Just don't have the words.

Like everybody's been saying, it just doesn't make sense. Like, how? And the more details we get, the more we hear about the families involved. And we think about what could have been. For the little girls, for the mother, the fathers, then obviously for Kobe, his next chapter, his next year was going to be special. I will go through the day and I'll have good moments.

And then I'll have these moments where I just break down. Like I'm sure everyone can relate to. Kobe for me narrates a very significant part of my life. He was in LA for 20 years, born and raised here. I remember when he immediately came to the Lakers and he would come up to UCLA and I would just see him around and there was the idea of, oh, there's the next one. Been a diehard Laker fan since I was in the womb, right?

So to see him on my campus at UCLA was a big deal, but even bigger deal for me to actually meet him and forge a friendship. And I wouldn't call it a friendship, a worship. But for me to know that he provided so many good highlights in my life, my family's life, my grandmother's life. It was special. And I feel like the reason why this is so hard for so many of us

is because Kobe is supposed to be invincible. This is not supposed to happen to him this way. He's a superhero, right? A lot of our athletes are. But the stories, all the stories I hear, there are so many people being like, I met him. He did this for me. He did that for me. When I see these fans talk about moments in their lives when their parents gave them their first Kobe jersey or when they went to their first Laker game and Kobe walked

past them or when they saw Kobe eating at a certain restaurant near his home and they got to talk to him for a few seconds. I mean, his reach is global, obviously. But 20 years in one city, it almost just feels like he could touch everyone here in Los Angeles, or he has touched everyone here in Los Angeles in some way. So just imagine, if you're 10 years old and you've been a Kobe fan since you were 10 years old, you're now 30. If you were 30 years old when Kobe came here and you were a Laker fan, you're now 50. So you could see why everyone is so, so devastated.

It's hard. It is hard. I think none of it makes sense. And I don't know whether it makes sense. And then you hear about his daughter, her friends. Oh yeah. This one just, this one hits differently, right? I don't know if it was the manner in which it happened. But there's a lot of pain here.

And I don't think that we can ask questions. I don't think that we can figure out why. I know I'm doing all of that. But I will tell you this. Tomorrow is my last day on ESPN, right? It's my last day. And I feel blessed to have been able to cover him and honor him. Even in this tragedy, one of those moments you'll never forget. Where were you when? What can you share? But more than ever, I think of the quote that we're seeing a lot and I posted it earlier. It is, the biggest mistake that we can make is to think that we have time.

That solidifies for me my choice to go and fly. I am going to miss my colleagues. And it'll be an understated farewell because I think so many of us are grieving. But I'm closing one chapter in more ways than one and starting a new one. I still don't know why I don't have any answers.

I wish I did. I think we always need answers to make us feel like it makes sense. It may never make sense. But I'm encouraging Laker Nation to stay strong. Fans, friends, family. I know it hurts. Like a family member. It hurts like, yo, I Like a family member. It hurts like, yo, I lost a family member.

But all we can do is try to push through. That's all I got. Certainly, it's emotional for a lot of folks. We showed you yesterday the video of LeBron James as he got off of the plane on Sunday, shedding tears. And he did release a statement where he talked about what this was about, what it felt like. I'm going to go ahead and read that. You can go to my iPad. This is what LeBron James posted. I'm not ready to be, I'm not ready, but here I go.

Man, I'm sitting here trying to write something for this post, but every time I try, I begin crying again, just thinking about you, niece Gigi, and the friendship, bond, brotherhood we had. I literally just heard your voice Sunday morning before I left Philly to head back to L.A. Didn't think for one bit in a million years that would be the last conversation we'd have.

WTF, I'm heartbroken and devastated, my brother. Man, I love you, big bro. My heart goes to Vanessa and the kids. I promise you I'll continue your legacy, man. You mean so much to us all here, especially Laker Nation. It's my responsibility to put this shit on my back and keep it going. Please give me the strength from the heavens above and watch over me. I got

us here. There's so much more I want to say, but just can't right now because I can't get through it until we meet again, my brother. Now, the Lakers and the Clippers were supposed to play tonight, but the NBA postponed that game, saying that the Lakers are so devastated, not only the team, but also the entire organization,

that they wanted to give them additional time to grieve this loss. In terms of the latest news, as I said, all nine bodies have been recovered and then have gone to the morgue for them to do autopsies on those bodies. They also, NTSB, they also are on the scene as well. They're, of course, investigating. They're also looking at the flight. There's a video that I saw earlier

that someone posted of the plane, excuse me, the helicopter as it was circling because they were actually delayed from landing. And so that was taking place. Reports also indicate that the helicopter was going about 185 miles an hour. And apparently, the pilot was trying to descend. And based upon those reports,

they simply slammed right into the mountains. And folks are... So there was a news... You said there was a news conference? Okay, let's go right to it. The parties to the investigation are the Federal Aviation Administration, Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney Canada,

Island Express, and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. We also established investigative groups. We take our investigators and the parties to the investigation, and we establish smaller groups to drill down to get the factual information that we need. The investigative groups we formed are operations and human performance. They will look at the pilot, the organizational structure, the company, how the company is regulated. Air traffic

control, which will look at the history of the flight. Airworthiness, which will look at the airframe, instruments, wreckage, seat configuration, and flight controls. Power plants, which will look at the engines. There were two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboshaft engines, and the power plants groups will focus on that. We also have a weather investigator. And speaking of weather, we have a request for the public. We're looking for photos of the weather in the area of the crash.

If you have photos that can help us, again, in the area of the crash, if you could send those photos to witness at ntsb.gov. That's witness at ntsb.gov. We're not just focusing on weather here though. We take a broad look at everything around an investigation, around an accident. We look at man, machine, and the environment, and weather is just a small

portion of that. So we would appreciate the public's assistance. If you have that, please send that in, again, to witness at ntsb.gov. Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Congressman Harley Rudolph, California, led the members of the California delegation in the moment of silence on the House floor today. Mr. Speaker, I stand today on behalf of all Californians and certainly the entire city of Los Angeles and millions of fans worldwide who are mourning the sudden and tragic loss of one of the greatest athletes we've ever known, Kobe Bryant. Celebrated as a king in Los Angeles, Kobe's death is deeply painful for our city and his millions of fans everywhere.

For decades, he dazzled generations of fans and aspiring athletes, leaving a legacy as a prolific athlete, devoted husband, loving father, and philanthropist that will never be forgotten. This tragic event is made worse by the death of his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna Bryant, a beautiful young lady who was so full of life and potential. Our hearts go out to his wife, Vanessa, surviving daughters, Bianca, Natalia, and Capri, relatives, teammates, and friends. On behalf of the California delegation, we lift up the names of Kobe Bryant, his beloved daughter Gianna, and all the victims, all of the victims of this horrible tragedy in prayer and reverence and send our deepest condolences to their loved ones now and

forever. I yield back to Congressman Ruda. I ask that all members and guests in the gallery rise for a moment of silence Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield back. Now, folks, National Transportation Safety Board, they've actually released video that they shot of the crash scene. It was on their YouTube channel. This is the video here that they shot on yesterday. And it includes drone footage of the crash scene as well.

Also, People Magazine in their special edition on the death of Kobe Bryant, also reported that a source said that Kobe and his wife, Vanessa, had a deal that they would not fly together on a helicopter, that if one was flying, the other one would not be on that helicopter. They didn't give a reason why. The reality is this here, there are a lot of families of families to be honest who do the exact same thing but they said they don't they don't have two parents uh who are flying or are traveling together i know some folks who do that as i said so this is from the ntsb uh this is the actual drone footage uh of the wreckage uh that is the you see the blue, that's one of the DGI drones there.

Investigators have cordoned off a five-mile radius. In addition, they've also set a 5,000-foot ceiling, preventing helicopters or drones or planes or anyone else flying over this crash scene as they continue to investigate. They will comb through all of this wreckage and what they will do is then try to put what they normally do that people don't realize is that they will remove the entire helicopter and all the parts and then take it to a hangar or a warehouse and literally reconstruct the helicopter. They do this when they have plane crashes as well, but they will reconstruct to then go through to figure out exactly what caused this accident to the life of Kobe Bryant, and eight others. And so certainly people are still reeling from this. There have been thousands of fans who have been flocking to the Staples Center in Los Angeles for no reason.

It's not like no planned memorial. They've been creating memorials at the Staples Center, also at the crash site. The FBI has been trying to tell people do not also at the crash site. The FBI has been trying to tell people, do not come to the crash site. In addition to that, folks have also set up makeshift memorials at his high school, where he went to school in Philadelphia. Joining me right now is sports reporter Kelsey Nicole Nelson. She is in Miami for the Super Bowl. And earlier, Kelsey, I saw some video of a moment of silence

that was taking place at one of the NFL events there. And so, I mean, this tragic death of Kobe Bryant, today was media day. There were, I mean, all the different players on the San Francisco 49ers, as well as the Kansas City Chiefs were asked about this. I mean, that gives you an indication that the death of Kobe Bryant is not just a basketball story. It is a global story.

Correct, Roland. And I will tell you, every single interview that I've had here, and you talked about it, every single press conference has mentioned the name Kobe Bryant because that's what he meant. And yes, this is a football arena, but Kobe touched so many. All of the young athletes here have said they were inspired by Kobe, his competitiveness, his athleticism. He always wanted to be the greatest. And of course, that's what most athletes want to be. And everybody is still in a state of shock. Kobe seemed invincible. We weren't ready to let Kobe go. It wasn't supposed to happen. And everyone has truly paid their respects. But it hurts. It hurts. And everyone's still hurting inside. And yes, we're in South Beach. We're in Miami. But everyone said it's just not the same this year

because unfortunately, the passing of Kobe Bryant just hangs a cloud over all of us here at the Super Bowl. Well, folks, I'm looking at some comments here where people who are saying, well, you know, why didn't he just drive? One of the stories here from the Los Angeles Daily News said that from his home to where practice was, his mama academy was 78 miles. And what people don't realize is that Kobe Bryant traveled by helicopter every single day to practice and to games in the latter part of his career.

And then, according to the LA Daily News, he also would only fly with this particular pilot. Kylie Jenner, I think, posted something where she often had flown on a helicopter. So this was an extremely experienced pilot who was on this plane as well. And so obviously people have so many questions about what took place and are shocked by it,

but there really are no answers until the investigation is complete. Right. And I feel like we're all still asking why, what happened. And I was just in L.A. before I came here. And I have to just say, I can just imagine just the state of shock and grief. And as you said, Kobe had been doing this for a long time. This was not new. You talked about the pilot's experience. Again, more questions why it happened. And I think now we're just all hoping the investigation hopefully soon comes to a close because we all just want to know what led to our star's death. And people have to understand, I mean, Kobe was L.A. L.A. was Kobe. So that's why they're investing so many resources and everything into figuring out what happened. And of course, also for the other young lives who lost. It's just, it's still hard to grasp around, but I think people are appreciating all that LA is putting

into it. But I feel like still the answers aren't coming fast enough because again, gone too soon, Roland, just gone too soon for Kobe. And again, I mean, look, according to this daily news story, it says the Sikorsky made what appeared to be a, quote, panic climb at a rate of 1,406 feet per minute, about 30 seconds before it stopped sending data, said Robert Katz, a Dallas-based commercial airplane pilot and certified flight instructor who had been flying since 1981. Quote, this helicopter is probably the best machine money can buy. The weak link in the chain is going to be the pilot,

but this also was a very experienced pilot. But look, I think what people have to understand is that, I mean, look, we can go down the line in history. Otis Redding was flying, piloting his own plane when it crashed in Wisconsin, killing him and nearly all the members of his band, the Barcays. You look at the Big Bopper, the movie, the song La Bamba. And, you know, what was the, Buddy Holly. You know, three folks, three folks who died in plane crashes. So it's not, I mean, not only that, there was a NASCAR driver who died in a helicopter crash. And so, I mean, and look, we've known about other plane crashes.

I mean, you know, the minister Miles Monroe was killed on his private plane and others were on that plane when it was going to his conference in the Bahamas. And so the reality is, I mean, yes, people are shocked that it's Kobe Bryant who died in his helicopter crash, but there have been other examples where this car crashes, a helicopter crashes, a plane crashes, where the cause was a variety of things, mechanical or even pilot error. Right. And as you said, I mean, it's throughout history. So many have been taken from us. And let's be honest, that's why some people just simply don't fly or, you know, are just afraid to step foot on a plane. And it just seemed like even though still we knew about the safety

concerns and we knew everything, but still, Roland, it was Kobe. Kobe, I think, had that invincibility that we all just, we knew him. We welcomed him into our homes every time we watched him play. We wore his stuff. We wore the jersey. We wore everything that he did. So I think still, even though people know all of those different things, it just was not supposed to be Kobe. And unfortunately, again, you talked about it.

So many celebrities used flying as a way to get around. I mean, if you look at the reports and everybody that's been to L.A. knows how bad traffic is. And I think Kobe just trying to be responsible, you know, was trying to get everybody on that plane to a destination in a safe manner and in a quicker manner. But unfortunately, we know what took place. But he was no stranger to it. He had been doing it for a long time. He did everything right, essentially. You know, he trusted in his pilot that he had always flied with.

And it just seems like, unfortunately, that small error, that short second, you know, took Kobe from us. And you said it, though, it just seems like all the time we keep losing our stars to this. And it just makes you question and wonder, you know, I mean, you don't want to say who's next, but it's just, it's still just, it's a lot rolling. It's still a lot to process. And it's just still heavy on all of our hearts. Kelsey, Nicole, Nelson, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. Jason, look, I know people, again, they, people want answers and ask these questions. Sorry, we don't have Jason there. All right, so I'll

go to our panel here. Oh, he is there. Okay. All right. They told me you weren't there. Okay, you're all there. Not at all. So, you know, Jason, I know people want to know why, oh, why, oh, why, but you look at Brian Shaw, who was one of the coaches on the L.A. Lakers when Kobe played there. He was on NBA TV on Sunday.

In 93, he lost his parents and sister to a car crash. And he talked about grief. Monty Williams, who is now the head coach of the Phoenix Suns, lost his wife to a car crash when he was a coach in Oklahoma City. And so the reality is, I mean, there have been accidents that have failed. I mean, look, Dale Earnhardt, one of the greatest NASCAR drivers in history, was killed in the Daytona 500, the Super Bowl of NASCAR, on the final lap or the final two laps. And so tragedy strikes, and it has happened before. It's certainly unfortunate, but people still just are in shock. Yeah, no, absolutely.

And, you know, just because I'm a history buff, I just want to say the name you were thinking of was Richie Valen. He was the guy who wrote La Bamba. Right. So any, or he didn't write it, he performed it. But, yeah, I mean, these things unfortunately happen. And I always think that there is a larger purpose. I'm a believer, so I believe that, you know,

there is something that is in the larger plan, you know, for society, that they are serving them, you know, in their passing, you know, doing a good for society, that we may learn something from this, that, you know, there's something we can take from it rather than just saying, you know, oh, that they were taken too soon. And I'll tell you, I know this doesn't come out the wrong way,

but I don't believe we died too soon. We died at an appointed time. And there's a larger purpose and a larger goal. And Kobe was an incredible competitor, an incredible husband and father, someone who was able to learn from his mistakes and grow, which is something that all of us want or that we should want. So, you know, with Kobe Bryant and his passing, it's really hard for his fans.

It's ten times harder for his family. But I like to believe that there's a larger plan out there and that there's some way that Kobe's death is going to serve a larger purpose. And I joined with everybody else in grieving his passing. It seemed like he was headed to newer things and doing things in the business world and in the world of philanthropy. And I believe maybe Vanessa Bryant is going to take on a lot of that and change the world in places that, you know, Kobe is missing now. Kelly, it is still interesting when you look at the reaction. There are some players who literally are changing their numbers.

Even though, you know, his numbers retired number 8, number 24 with Los Angeles Lakers, some players are voluntarily swapping out. And the NBA actually does not allow that to happen. But the fact that they're allowing it to happen in season says a lot about how they feel about Kobe Bryant. Absolutely. I'm not the biggest basketball fan out there, but you can't deny the legacy that Kobe Bryant has left, even in his 41 years.

That just is a testimony to his greatness, to his work ethic, to his drive. Again, I wasn't a basketball fan, but I was a Kobe fan. And I was even more of a Kobe fan after retirement, because I was actually able to follow him a little bit better. You know, I got to see who he was holistically outside of a sport that I frankly just don't understand nearly as well as others. So for me, I am grieving the human being. I want to interrupt you for one second. NTSB is having a live news conference as we speak.

Please go right to it. Interviews are ongoing and we haven't been able to connect. They are working on setting up other interviews for the next several days. At 3 p.m., I held a family briefing by conference call. We do that with every accident investigation. Either we hold a family briefing to update them on the investigation, make sure they're aware of information before we provide it publicly, and go through the process, the NTSB's investigative process and what they can expect over the next several weeks and months.

I'm not going to discuss the family briefing. You're going to get asked if I get questions about who was on the call, what was discussed, I'm not going to answer that out of respect for the families. I am going to provide you some information for some questions that were asked yesterday and the day before and over the past couple hours. With respect to the pilot, I mentioned that on the second class medical certificate, which was dated July 2019, the pilot had 8,200 hours of flight time. Obviously, that was July, so the pilot has more flight time because it's been some time since then. Out of that, the pilot had 1,250 hours of flight time on the S-76 helicopter. So 1,250 hours on the helicopter. So that's

a good amount of experience. He's also been with the company for 10 years. We do know that the day before the accident, he flew from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo, and the weather was clear. It was a different flight path, more direct, and occurred about an hour later than the one on Sunday. I was asked about the descent rate of the helicopter. We know that the helicopter was at 2300 feet when it lost communications with air traffic control. The descent rate for the helicopter was over 2000 feet a minute. THE DESCENT RATE FOR THE HELICOPTER WAS OVER 2,000 FEET A MINUTE. SO WE KNOW THAT THIS WAS A HIGH ENERGY IMPACT CRASH.

AND THE HELICOPTER WAS IN A DESCENDING LEFT BANK. NOW, ONE THING I WANT TO MENTION IS SOME OF OUR RECOMMENDATIONS. IN 10 DAYS, WE'RE GOING TO ISSUE A PRELIMINARY REPORT. THAT IS GOING TO CONTAIN FACTUAL INFORMATION. IT'S NOT GOING TO CONTAIN OUR FINDINGS, OUR ANALYSIS, IT'S NOT GOING TO CONTAIN ANY SAFETY RECOMMENDATIONS OR A PROBABLE CAUSE, BUT IT'S GOING TO PROVIDE SOME FACTUAL INFORMATION, MORE THAN WE HAVE NOW, BUT JUST THE FACTS. or a probable cause, but it's going to provide some factual information, more than we have now, but just the facts. In about 12 to 18 months, we hope to have a final report, which will include findings, recommendations, and a probable cause.

In that time, we could issue urgent safety recommendations so at the end when we issue a final report we issue safety recommendations that we hope will be implemented by the recipients and the goal is to prevent a similar accident from happening again two recommendations that have been issued in the past that the FAA has failed to act on, I want to talk about. I was asked about Terrain Awareness and Warning System, or TAUS, which provides terrain information to the pilot. I was asked whether that was on this helicopter. We have verified it was not. In 2004, the NTSB investigated a crash involving an S-76A in Galveston, Texas, which killed 10 people. We issued a recommendation to the Federal Aviation Administration that stated, require all existing and new U.S.-registered turbine- powered rotorcraft, certificated for six or more passenger seats

to be equipped with a terrain awareness and warning system. They did not implement the recommendation. In 2014, we closed the recommendation as unacceptable. In 2005, we assisted in an investigation involving an S-76C helicopter, which crashed in the Baltic Sea, killing 12 people. We issued a recommendation to the Federal Aviation Administration to require all rotorcraft operating under parts 91 and 135 to be equipped with a CVR and an FDR. The FAA failed to implement that recommendation, so we closed that unacceptable. And for this accident, it was operating under part 135 charter.

So with that, I want to state this is the last press conference that we're going to have. We are not leaving the scene. Our investigators still have work to do. We again will provide a preliminary report in ten days that will contain factual information. We'll have a final report in 12 to 18 months, and again, we could issue urgent safety recommendations in that time. For investigative updates, please monitor our Twitter feed at ntsb underscore newsroom,

and of course, feel free to contact us if you have additional questions. I'm going to take some questions, and please raise your hand, state your name and your affiliation. Thank you. Hi, Jennifer. Dante Matillion. Hi. Nick Watt, CNN.

You mentioned the 135 Charter. Correct. As I understand it, Island Express was certified just as an IFR. Is that correct? Sorry, a VFR. Was that correct? Sorry, a VFR. Was that correct? And did that mean that the instrumentation on that aircraft was not maintained up to a IFR standard? Do you want to take that? So, yes, you're correct. They have a Part 135 VFR certificate as to how the instruments were maintained and if they were kept to IFR standards.

That's something we'll be looking into in the maintenance records. We haven't got that for you. But is the fact that they were classified that way, is that part of the investigation? Yes, sir. Jennifer, on the record of TMZ, how far from the top of the hillside was the impact? As in, how much did they miss during the mountain high? And also, was Kobe on that same flight on Saturday? I don't have information on the passenger manifest for Saturday. But the crash site was 1,085 feet. There were other hills in the area.

But the impact area is at 1,085 feet. How much did they clear that mountain by? How much did they clear missing the mountain by? I mean, what do we need? Oh, yeah, 20 feet, 30 feet. Maybe 20, 30 feet. Over here. The question was on the weather and the weather information we were and the question is specific THE QUESTION WAS ON THE WEATHER INFORMATION. THE QUESTION IS SPECIFIC TO INFORMATION WE REQUESTED FROM THE PUBLIC, PHOTOS AND VIDEOS THAT WERE SENT IN TO WITNESS AT

NTSB.GOV AND WHETHER WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO ANALYZE ANY OF THOSE. WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF LOOKING THROUGH ALL THE PHOTOS AND VIDEOS. I WILL STATE A BIG THANK YOU TO THE PUBLIC. EVERY TIME WE ASK FOR INFORMATION, YOU SEND IT IN AND process of looking through all the photos and videos, I will state a big thank you to the public. Every time we ask for information, you send it in, and it's very helpful to our investigation. With that said, we have received video and photos that are not of this helicopter or even in this country. So I will state that takes our investigators time to verify that and that takes away from the investigative work that they need to do. So while I do appreciate a lot of what we received and a majority of what we received is fantastic, but in other areas it does waste our investigators time. Tom.

Tom Costello with NBC News. You mentioned that TOS was not on board with this chopper. But did the chopper have some sort of a derivative of TOS, or some co-man's TOS that may have linked GPS into some sort of a terrain avoidance system. You're asking if the aircraft had any type of GPS based terrain avoidance system. Again, as mentioned, we're going to be going through all the equipage that's on the aircraft so that we can understand that. That'll be part of developing the sequence.

Right now, that doesn't look to be part of the scenario that we're looking at, but we'll definitely be documenting all of the equipment that's on board, certified or not. Well, I mean, we'll have to see what's on the iPad. I mean, we don't know right now. That's part of any investigation. I'm sorry. Let me repeat the iPad. I mean, we don't know right now that's part of any investigation. I'm sorry, let me repeat the question. And the question is, what sort of information do we hope to glean from the iPad?

There could be a lot of information on the iPad with respect to terrain, weather briefings that the pilot may have gotten, notice to airmen, flight path information. We'll have to look at ENVIRONMENT, FLIGHT PATH INFORMATION, WE'LL HAVE TO LOOK AT ALL OF THAT. BUT I'M NOT SURE WE HAVE ANY OF THAT YET. SO THAT'S SOMETHING WE HAVE TO ANALYZE AND WE'VE SENT THAT INFORMATION BACK OR THE ELECTRONICS BACK TO OUR LAB. JENNIFER, CHRIS FENKLEY, CBS NEWS. DO YOU HAVE A SENSE THAT THE HELICOPTER CAME DOWN ALL IN ONE PIECE OR IS THERE EVIDENCE THAT IT PERHAPS BROKE UP AS IT WAS COMING DOWN? AND I'M GOING TO ASK A SECOND QUESTION WHILE I'VE GOT YOU. all in one piece, or is there evidence that it perhaps broke up as it was coming down? And if I may ask a second question while I've got you. It was in a steep dive, basically, steep descent.

Was that recovery? The question is, did we, well, first, did we locate all the significant components? Yes. So that would seem to, that indicates to us, preliminary information is that the helicopter was in one piece when it impacted the terrain. The second question is, was the helicopter crash survivable? No. Was the dive recoverable? I mean, that we're going to have to look at as part of the accident investigation.

That requires further analysis. Just a follow-up on that. You mentioned the 2,000 feet per minute descent rate. Is that within the normal operating range for that helicopter, or is that considered an out-of-control situation? Is that a normal descent range for this Sikorsky? I mean, this is a pretty steep descent at high speed, so it wouldn't be a normal landing speed.

Is that beyond the realm of the helicopter to handle? Do flight controls still work? Does the bridge still control that? That's something we're going to have to... Can the helicopter handle this? And that's something we're going to have to evaluate as part of the investigation. Steve. I'd like to ask you an elementary question.

I apologize for it being so elementary, but can you talk about how you attempt to determine pilot judgment in your investigation? I mean, how do we determine pilot judgment? That's a difficult part of the investigation, and we look at the facts in the investigation, and that's what we're focused on. We can't make any assumptions about what somebody is thinking. So our investigation is strictly focused on the facts and then those facts will lead us to an analysis.

I'll come back to that. Stephanie. The question is what did the drone, what did we learn from the drone from the flight path information that we put in the drone today. I mean, we were looking at the flight path, so the angle it took coming in. We didn't fly it low because that would be a problem and there were people working in that area. So we just wanted to look at part of the flight path. And we want to document the wreckage with it. You had a second question? On the 20 to 30 feet that I just mentioned? The question is on the 20 to 30 feet. Somebody just asked where the impact site was. It was 1,085 feet up. And he asked what the height of the hill was. And it was about 20, 30 feet above that. The question was how much did the helicopter miss the hill? It's important to realize that there's not one hill.

It's a ravine with undulating terrain. So the small outcropping that had the main impact in it, the main impact was about 20 to 30 feet from the top of that small hill. But there are actually other higher hills surrounding it, if that makes sense to you. It's in this canyon with small hills within it. There's other hills right close by, correct? Well, and I don't know that we can say it probably would have hit another hill either. I mean, that's just, that's an assumption, so we can't state that.

Hey. The question is on the grounding of the L.A. Sheriff's helicopters that morning. And it is an apples-to-oranges comparison. It's a different helicopter, different operations. They have a four-person helicopter. This is outfitted for for more than that so you know we have to look at this specific crash and we and this specific helicopter we can't compare that to others safely fly this type of helicopter in thick fog? Is there any way to safely fly this helicopter in thick fog? I mean, I think there's a lot of variabilities there.

And so we're focused on what the weather conditions were for this, on Sunday for this flight, and we have a weather expert on staff currently looking at the weather and decision making for flying in the weather that day. How common is it for a pilot to request to fly under these special visual flight rules? The question is how common it is for a pilot to request to fly under special visual flight rules. It's very common. This is not out of the ordinary. I have two more questions.

Why would the helicopter go up to 2,000 feet and then go down to 1,700 feet? And also, is there anything that they would have gotten that would have been comparable to a terrain warning, like an audible alarm? The question is on the terrain warning. It didn't have a terrain warning and awareness system. No, it did not have that. What was your first question? Why would the helicopter go up to 2,000 feet and then go down to 1,700 feet? He was trying to climb out.

Go ahead. He was trying to climb out of the cloud layer at the time. So, yes. layer at the time so yes no the question is if our recommendations were implemented would this crash not have happened well certainly taws could have helped to provide information to the pilot on what terrain the pilot was flying in. But one of those recommendations on the helicopter having a CVR and an FDR, that would have helped us significantly in this investigation and other investigations. And it's something we've recommended several times

over a number of years. The question is, at what point would TAWS have alerted the pilot? There's many variables here and we don't even have a conclusion that TAUS and this scenario are related to each other. So that's a lot of speculation in that question. So that really can't be answered. Is it too soon to say whether or not the pilot was still in control of the helicopter when it started that abrupt descent? That it is too soon to state whether the helicopter was still in control,

or the pilot was still in control of the helicopter at that point. Is that consistent with controlled flight? What you have overseen? Is what consistent? The climbing, the bank, steep decline, does that sound like controlled flight? You want to answer that? The question is, does the bank and dissent sound like controlled flight? That would be asking us to draw a conclusion at this point,

and until we put together all the information, we can't make that kind of conclusion. Last question. Jennifer? On past investigations, whether lack of visibility was going to look, what evidence do we look at to help make the determination of whether he should have been flying in this kind of weather? Well, we are going to look at the weather conditions. We're going to talk to air traffic control. We're going to talk to the company. And we're going to look at records. From the descent?

The time from the descent to impact was probably about a minute. That's it. Thank you. All right, folks. That was the NTSB live news conference there in Los Angeles describing the state of their investigation into the helicopter crash that killed Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and eight others. It was interesting, Kelly, we had some questions here, and literally as we were asking those questions,

they're answering those questions in that news conference. I think it's very, very telling how NTSB advised FAA twice now in the past five years to update the regulations and equip their helicopters with necessary life-saving measures for such times as this, and they have virtually ignored them at every step of the way. There is no excuse. There is no excuse. I don't want any narratives of anybody blaming the pilot

or blaming this or blaming that. The fact of the matter is, some things could have happened beforehand, such as the fact of the matter is, some things... could have happened beforehand, such as the recommendations of NTSB quipping these helicopters and... Yeah, but typically, though, to be perfectly honest, in most crashes...

Yeah. ...it's largely pilot error. I mean, but I mean... What I'm saying is... Once they go through... It's not solely his... Like, other things could have happened. I'm not saying... But again, though, we don't... Here's the piece, though.

That was a recommendation. The FAA rejected it. Once they go through the investigation... First of all, while we're sitting here talking, go to my iPad, please. Journalist Michael Adi is actually outside the Staples Center live streaming. Of course, folks who are gathered there.

So let's just... As we talk, we'll talk over this. Just want to give people a sense of what's happening with these memorials at Staples. I mean, the reality is people, they go to the investigation, they determine exactly what happened. Right. You know, what took place.

And, you know, they'll go through it and look at those flight records and was it pilot error? Did he make a mistake in terms of coming out of that cloud layer? I mean, all of those things will come into it. I do believe, Malik, that what happens in cases like this, people learn far more about rules and regulations than they even thought about. Yeah. Because, again, when you hear them say that a helicopter, one of the top-of-the-line helicopters did not have a terrain warning on it,

you would think, wait a minute, you're flying around mountains. How in the world you wouldn't have that? Yeah, I mean, and it's a very good point. This is, you know, now the NTSB, and I'm glad that. Yeah, I mean, and it's a very good point. This is, you know, now in the NTSB, and I'm glad that they're actually on, you know, this is an example of our government actually at work. This is what the NTSB does. And as we heard, they made a recommendation in 2014 and 2005 that the director there, she said that she believed that it actually could have helped in this particular situation. Now, the way that she believed that it actually could have helped in this particular

situation. Now, the way that government works is that you have these agencies, these independent agencies, make recommendations to the larger agencies. So if it's the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission making recommendations to OSHA or NTSB making recommendations to FAA, you know, sometimes they accept these recommendations and sometimes they don't. You actually raised a very good point, is that in far too many of these instances where we're talking about regulations, you have lobbyists involved. And so lobbyists are the people who are pushing back on some of this.

But just overall, I mean, of course, everyone wants an answer and they want the answer right now. I like what you said on, I think it was, oh, you were on Facebook and you were just saying, hold up, you know, I'm not just going to believe every single story that came out, you know, but I think we, in our fervor, you know, we want to know the answer. So we kind of make up things to fit whatever narrative. But one thing that can't be denied here is that Kobe was loved, you know, beloved. And I've seen people on, you know, the left and people on the right, you know, these, well, why aren't we talking about this person?

Well, why aren't we talking about that person? The fact is, is that this is what happens when there is a national tragedy, whether it's Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, you know, Prince. You know, we get these type of conversations because people are genuinely affected by it. You know, a lot of people have been affected by it, and we've seen everyone from Barack Obama to Donald Trump really just wishing the family well. And it is sad. It took everyone by surprise.

But these type of things, they shock the conscience of Americans. And so this is, you know, the reason that we're talking about it is because it is a story that we should be talking about. But Teresa, also, I think that what people will glean from this is that when you look at what they're going through, all these people out here who hate government, hmm, all the people who talk about, oh, I can't get government out of our lives. Guess what?

There's a reason you want federal safety inspectors. Absolutely. There's a reason you don't want cuts in food inspectors, transportation inspectors, individuals that regulate airlines and trains, uh, and-and highway transpl-transportation as well, because, and I'll be perfectly honest, I believe, uh, one of the fundamental problems

in this country is that we are a reactionary country. Mm-hmm. That's true. Today is the anniversary of Space Shuttle Challenger exploding. Oh, wow. In 1985. Wow. And they knew there was a problem with the O-rings.

Right. Folks are, you know, we'll just keep flying, no big deal. Then all of a sudden, Space Shuttle blows up. Oh, damn, we need to talk about those O-rings. Right.

They knew when, I think it was Columbia when it exploded, the space shuttle. If there was a problem with debris chipping off of the space shuttle.

One thought, oh, that debris might puncture one of the wings and upon re-entry, leads to exploding. And the bottom line is when we take government out of the responsibility of making sure that they are protecting us

and making sure that the right safety measures and procedures and the right laws are being guided to protect us from these freak accidents, we then start to remove government from their responsibility of what we're actually paying for, right? It's to make sure government is hold accountable, but also, like I said, protecting our rights. So I think the most important part here is we got to, you know, we got to, I know technology is really big right now. And I think when we start to look at a lot of algorithms and a lot of the technological components where they feel like man is not

important or to be in some of those jobs where those recommendations actually can happen. So what do I mean by that? I think, you know, when we start to see people lose their jobs and somebody's automation and the automations in some of these entities and they're not putting a critical eye and they're just looking at the data points That's when we start to really have that divide and that disconnect and we start to have these accidents because The human interest is not no longer there. Look, the Trump administration They just announced a rollback a couple weeks ago on regulating pigs and other animals.

And again, this is... I want people to understand that I'm not saying that had the FAA put that rule in place, this crash would never happen. We don't know. We don't know that. Because again, it could have been mechanical, could have been pilot error.

We have no idea, okay? But what I will say is that when people complain, this always happens in this country. I remember when that bridge collapsed in Minnesota. Oh, my God, I remember that. And dozens of folks died. All the people were like, oh, my God, how did this happen? Easy.

You know how it happened. Because our infrastructure is crumbling. And that is the thing. And I've always said that one of the biggest problems in this country is that we are reactionary. We wait until somebody dies and then go, oh, wow. Someone said we should do something about that. Okay. Now let's do it.

So we'll race to do it. I remember the gas explosions that were happening with pipelines, a gas company in California. And then it's like, well, company new for 10 years. This was the case. Pepco filed for bankruptcy as a result of the fires raging in California last year. Then we find out, oh, folks have been new for a result of the fires take raging in California last year then we find out oh folks haven't been new for a number of years these things I mean and so in this country like even if I brought in you know climate change to it

it's amazing why here people who go oh no no look that's that's just gonna cost you it's gonna cost us too much money. We too often in this country wait for tragedy to strike, then go, yeah, we might want to... We don't care about it until then. We might want to do something about that. It's not even about not caring about it until something happens. It's not caring about it until you are forced to do something about it. You know, it's one of those things where it's like you have...

If we don't have to pay for it up front, we're not going to. Right. You know, it really is about money. Everything. You would rather have, you know, a piggy bank full of money than a country full of people. Oh, I mean, look. And that's really all it is.

The big three automakers. The big three automakers did cost-benefit analysis. Well, do we really need to put all these safety features in? So if X number of people die, it's going to cost us this, but it would cost us this if we had to add these safety features. We would rather just pay these settlements if folks die. I mean, even with the lettuce going on, with the romaine lettuce and the rollback.

Same thing. Like, everything. And when going on, with the romaine lettuce in the rollback... Same thing. Everything. And when people die, then people go, oh, my God, government, where were you? Then you go, oh, I didn't realize that there were cutbacks in the FDA and the USDA. Yeah, because guess what?

When people start hollering, smaller government, smaller government, get government out of our lives, too much regulation. These are examples where regulation is important. We can say the same thing in our schools, especially in public schools. Literally every aspect of our schools. We're dealing with asbestos. We're dealing with older buildings,

late 70s. Lead and playgrounds. It amazes me when people, I just watch the people all the time. Don't give me that BS about smaller government. Right. I don't want government in my life. And I say, there's not a single example that somebody can raise to me where government does not have a place in your life.

Just can't. I mean, hell, the moment you born, that birth certificate is a government document. When your ass die, that death certificate is a government document. Yeah, and if you think about it and what people don't realize, so that you see guys, you know, cleaning windows in your city or something. They're up on the 15th floor. You know, there are different fall protection standards that these companies have to abide by. It's called regulations. Regulations.

All right, folks, what you're seeing, this is Michael Adi, who is a travel journalist. He is outside of the Staples Center as we speak. And he has been live streaming for the past 20 or so minutes. People who are just simply congregating there with this makeshift memorial for Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gigi. We are out of time.

We've actually gone over time. I want to thank Jason. Just keep it on that, folks, while we're live. So I want to thank Jason, Kelly, Malik, as well as Teresa for being on the show today. We have some other subjects we're supposed to get to, but because of the breaking news with the NTSB, we went to that instead.

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