[Jessica Dean, Cnn Newsroom:] You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Jessica Dean in for Ana Cabrera in New York this afternoon. Breaking news right now on CNN, a terrifying plane crash, at least five people are dead, several others hurt. This is in Lafayette, Louisiana, a twin engine private plane had just taken off from Lafayette's Airport when it crashed and caught fire. And officials now confirming all except one person onboard the plane is dead, the one survivor and three people who were on the ground nearby were taken to the hospital. Now, the woman who shot the video you're looking at was just a short distance away when that plane hit the ground. Alexis West is joining me now by phone from Lafayette, Louisiana. Alexis, hi and good afternoon to you. Thanks for being with us. Tell us what happened. What did you see?
[Alexis West, Witnessed Plane Crash:] Hi, yes. So what happened was I was just outside, and I saw this plane coming in, and it was really low to the ground. And I was shaking, and I didn't really you know, it looked like it was coming to land. And then it just skidded through the parking lot at the post office. And then it floated. There was like a big wave of fire that just pummeled down the yard.
[Dean:] Wow.
[West:] And it was just horrible.
[Dean:] Yes, it had to be just like incredible to see and probably just so jarring to see. What did you notice about the plane as it was crashing? Did you see where the wheels were? Was it trying to fly level or did you hear engines?
[West:] It looked like it was coming down to land because it looked like it was having a little bit of trouble. I think it was really shaky. But it looked like it was just really coming down to land, to try to make like a safe landing.
[Dean:] So it looks a plane would normally when it was going to land, like it was coming down level. And then when did it when it crashed, when it came on impact there?
[West:] Whenever it hit the concrete, it just skidded and then it was just a big explosion.
[Dean:] Okay. And tell us a little bit about that area where you were, where this plane crash happened? What does it look like there? Are you seeing homes, businesses, a lot of cars? What's it like there?
[West:] It was a lot of cars. And then I just noted they took one guy from the plane and took him out from the fire and like saved him, and he was burnt really bad, like his clothes and everything was ripped. And it was just a horrible sight to see. I've never seen something like that. And it was just the fire and cars and people trying to save the people that were in the fire.
[Dean:] Yes. And it must I mean, obviously just a horrible thing to see, heartbreaking for the families of those victims, but also for you. Listen, it's not normal to see something like that happen. How are you feeling after kind of witnessing all of this? Is it replaying in your mind?
[West:] Yes, very much so. It was just it was a lot of anxiety and it just freaked me out. I was shaking so bad. Like I didn't know it was kind of like you watching a movie but in real life.
[Dean:] Yes, very, very jarring.
[West:] It was scary.
[Dean:] So scary. All right, Alexis West from Lafayette, Louisiana, we really appreciate you being with us. You take care of yourself.
[West:] Okay. Thank you.
[Dean:] All right. Thanks, Alexis. And joining me now, CNN Aviation Analyst and former NTSB Managing Director Peter Goelz. And, Peter, given the few details, we don't know a lot right now about all of this, but the type of plane, the weather conditions at the time of the crash, the proximity to the airport, what's coming to your mind as you're getting the small details we have and where do you think investigators are going to focus on first?
[Peter Goelz, Cnn Aviation Analyst:] Well, the NTSB and the FAA have a standard investigative procedure. They're going to look at the pilot, and he appeared to be a very experience the, certified pilot. They're going to look at the company. It looked to be, you know, a well-known and well-thought-of charter company, they're going to look at the aircraft, whether there's been maintenance on it, what kind of maintenance has been performed over the past year, whether all of the air worthiness directives that govern special maintenance were followed. The weather looked like it was a little over cast but nothing too challenging, if the pilot was IFR certified, which I understand he was. And then they're going to look at the engine and see how the engine performed. There was an eyewitness report that said one of the engines was smoking, and this was a turbocharged Piper, about almost 30 years old, they'll look carefully at the engine. 30 years old is not old for one of these types of planes, but they're going to look carefully at the maintenance on those engines.
[Dean:] And tell me, you mentioned it's the Piper Cheyenne is the plane that crashed here, what do you know about that particular type of plane? Do we know anything about its safety record for that specifically for that model?
[Goelz:] Yes, it's part of a family of two-engine planes, the broader family Piper probably made 5,000 of them of this specific type, maybe 450. They're considered workhorses but they have had problems with engines over the years. That will be looked at carefully. But it's a good, solid aircraft and it's a workhorse in the charter industry.
[Dean:] And the visibility at the airport this morning was less than a mile, because you mentioned there was dense fog there. In those conditions, who makes the call, go or no go? Is that the pilot, is that air traffic control? Who says it's good enough, we can do this?
[Goelz:] Well, it's the pilot's call first and foremost. And charter pilots understand that one of the gray things you've got to avoid is get their
[Dean:] All right. Peter Goelz, thanks for giving us that context, that background. We appreciate your analysis there.
[Goelz:] Thank you, Jessica.
[Dean:] Let's go now to politics, and new signs today. President Trump is growing frustrated with the uncertainty surrounding his Senate impeachment trial. Limbo it seems not to his liking. Check out his Twitter page. The president has now spent every single day of his vacation tweeting about impeachment, how unfair it is. He's been mocking the speaker of the House 20-plus times, re-tweeting bots and fan accounts of the conspiracy group, QAnon. He also re- tweeted and then have removed an attack that included the name of the purported whistleblower. And for more on all of this, we go to CNN's Kristen Holmes. She's in West Palm Beach near the president's Mar-a-Lago estate. Kristen, I'm curious what else we're learning about the president's state of mind on this Saturday.
[Kristen Holmes, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Well, Jessica, the president might physically be here in Florida but it is clear his mind is back home in Washington D.C. and on impeachment. In addition to golfing nearly every day, as you said, he has been tweeting every single day, slamming Democrats, impeachment, Nancy Pelosi. And while we know that he has spent most evenings at Mar-a-Lago, mixing, mingling with members and guests, he's also been picking their brains. President Trump asking allies on the resort who exactly should be part of his defense team when it comes to impeachment and what his defense strategy should be. And I want to note here, we have had a lot of rumors as to who exactly would play a role here. Members of the House of Representatives, some of President Trump's staunchest defenders, including Jim Jordan or Mark Meadows, are all in the mix. But the only thing that is certain is that it's going to be led, the White House defense team is going to be led by the White House lawyer, Pat Cipollone. Now, at one point, he was expected to come down here and work with the president. But as of now, that seems to be up in the air. But it's clear the president cannot put this out of his mind. And despite the fact that he's on his golf course, he's at his resort, he's surrounded by people who support him, he's clearly elsewhere.
[Dean:] His mind is still there in Washington. Do we know, Kristen, if any White House officials have been down there with him over the holiday yet?
[Holmes:] Yes. It's been really a rotating cast of characters. The first couple of nights we saw the national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, we saw his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, we actually saw his former press secretary, Sarah Sanders was there as well as his current press secretary. And half of them are leaving, more of them are coming in. And they are expected to really rotate in and out here. We know that one of the biggest concerns of his White House aides was that a long time here, numerous hours, numerous days, which is what he's slated to be here for, could lead him to be more open to outside influence. They wanted to make sure that he had people around him who kept him focused on certainly parts of the trial that Republicans agree with, like the idea of having a shorter trial and less witnesses. Jessica?
[Dean:] Yes, reinforcing that White House strategy. All right, Kristen Holmes, thanks so much for your reporting there. Let's open this up to some conversation. Joining me now is CNN Senior Political Analyst and Senior Editor for The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein, and CNN Political Commentator and former RNC Communications Director, Doug Heye. Gentlemen, nice to have both of you. Thanks for being with us this afternoon. Doug, I want to read you how one Vox reporter has summed this all up, quote, the president of the United States has today alone re-tweeted two QAnon fan accounts, a Pizzagate account, an account that compared his following to a cult and an account that described Obama as Satan's Muslim Scum. And this insanity isn't even a blip on the news radar. Doug, remember those famous accounts of Nixon talking to the paintings on the wall, that's what I think. Is this Trump's version of that? And it is a good point. I mean, it's almost like this has come to be expected from the President of the United States at this point.
[Doug Heye, Cnn Political Commentator:] Yes. I'm a bit reminded of George Costanza, the sea was angry that day, my friends.
[Dean:] Yes.
[Heye:] And we see Trump do this so often where he goes down into a tweet mode where that's all he does, sending some disturbing messages, that ultimately, as a Republican, I would say, don't help the president best make his case. It allows for a lot of re-tweets, it may be distracts from conversations he doesn't like, but shows him potentially as being unstable at a time where he needs to not only be stable but project stability and put forth the best case that he can as this process hopefully moves to the Senate.
[Dean:] Right, that he's in control of what's going on and moving forward in a meaningful way. Ron, for a man downplaying the process, the president talks about impeachment a lot. Do you think there should be somebody in his orbit or do you think there are people in his orbit that plead with him to focus on the economy, the focus on the Nasdaq soaring past 9,000, some of these things that he could go to the broader Republican Party out there, not just his core base, and say, look at all these great things the economy is doing?
[Ron Brownstein, Cnn Senior Political Analyst:] Look, I think we're long past the point where anyone can plausibly say that there's really any force within the administration over that matter within the Republican Party that is willing to truly try to constrain Trump's behavior. And you point to the economy and it really does kind of encapsulate why this political situation and this election is so on the nice edge. On the one hand, the president does have this enormous tailwind. I mean, in the CNN poll, the Quinnipiac poll this week, three-quarters of Americans call the economy excellent or good. And yet, despite that, there's this enormous headwind, which is these widespread doubts about his behavior and his values and the way he comports himself as president. I mean, the thought that his approval rating is somewhere around 43, 45 percent at a time when three-quarters of Americans say the economy is excellent or is good is really unprecedented. And as I said before on the air, I mean, if you want to know the cost of Trump's behavior, look at the way he is viewed by people who are satisfied with the economy. People who call it excellent or good in 2004, 90 percent of them voted for Bush, the incumbent president. 2012, same thing, roughly 90 percent of the people who have called the economy excellent or good went for Obama. Today in our latest CNN poll, Trump is polling only 55 percent against Biden among people who the economy excellent or good. And that really is the delta, that is the price of his behavior, and it is why we are kind of on this knife's edge between this powerful tailwind of the economy and this headwind, the doubts about the way he has conducted himself as president.
[Dean:] Yes, it's such an important point because to your broader point there, if this was any other president, they would be headed toward a massive re-election with these sort of economic numbers. Doug, we're still at an impasse over what the looming Senate trial is going to look like. It's not clear what Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell are willing to budge on. In the end, who do you think is going to blink here? What's the way forward?
[Heye:] I think we've learned one thing over the past decades. Is that when Mitch McConnell has a plan of action, he executes it, it's successful, he does not blink. So as this process, if it moves to the Senate, ultimately, it may not. If it moves to the Senate, it is in Mitch McConnell's hands and he'll proceed as I think we all expect, which is there's not going to be the there won't be the votes to convict Donald Trump. So we will have a trial, however it all shakes out, whatever the subpoenas may be, and I would say that Joe Biden made a strategic mistake by not saying, of course, I'm going to show up because subpoenas aren't optional and really put it back on the Trump administration and Trump officials who denied subpoenas. But, ultimately, Mitch McConnell, when he holds the cards, he plays them well.
[Dean:] Okay. So that's an interesting point you make. I want to talk about Joe Biden and the subpoena for just a second, because he did have to clarify a comment that he made to the Des Moines Register that he wouldn't comply with a Senate subpoena during Trump's impeachment trial. But today and just a few minutes ago this is what he said. Take a listen.
[Joe Biden , Presidential Candidate:] Anyone subpoenaed relating to this investigation of a president has to be able to have some knowledge to shed on whether or not he committed the offenses he is accused of committing. I have no firsthand knowledge. There's no basis for that. So my point was there would be no basis upon which to call me as a witness.
[Dean:] He went on to say that he will do whatever is legally asked of him, but his whole point that he was trying to get to there is that he doesn't think it's going to get to that. Ron, what is your reaction to his clarification?
[Brownstein:] Well, I mean, I think as a reasonable argument he's making. But like Doug, I also think he should have waited to see whether in fact there would be 51 votes to subpoena him before ruling it out, complying with a subpoena. I mean, the idea that we would go through something as momentous as a Senate trial on whether to remove the president, something we've never done, we've never removed a president, we've had two previous trials, without hearing from John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Mick Mulvaney, officials that would be the people who were directly involved in this. It's still astounding. I mean, the Republicans in the House uniformly were willing to support the administration's complete stonewall of the investigative process, Senate Republicans may be equally willing to do that. I mean, they are establishing precedents that will come back to haunt them unquestionably. There will be another Democratic president someday and maybe as soon as 2021. And Republicans m Congress are going to warrant to do oversight if they have a majority. They are essentially saying hear that they are willing to put their partisan loyalty over their institutional obligations and responsibility. And I think they are laying down some examples that will come back to haunt them in the years ahead.
[Dean:] The pendulum swings back and forth. Doug, going fully into 2020 here, there was an encouraging for the Biden campaign in The New York Times recently, the, But I Would Vote for Joe Biden, Republicans. It included several Republicans who were formerly in office all acknowledging his appeal. Former GOP Congressman Carlos Curbelo says Biden is one of the few candidates who could attract disaffected and centrist Republicans. Obama defense secretary, former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, saying other Republicans have actively told him, quote, if Biden is the nominee, I'll vote for him. What's your reaction to that? Do you think that's a real thing? Because back in present 2016 too, Hillary Clinton had some centrist Republican support, and we see how that worked out.
[Heye:] Yes, I think it's real, not just for Republicans but also for independents. We're talking about very small slivers of independents and very small slivers, excuse me, of Republicans. But why it's significant is if you look at some of those states that Trump flipped, he flipped them by small margins. And so if you're able to peel off a thousand votes here or 2,000 votes there from Republicans or independents who switch from Trump to Biden, well, then you get to a win maybe in Wisconsin or Michigan and that's how you beat Trump if Biden is the nominee.
[Dean:] Yes, I mean, when you break it down like that. And, Ron, Biden has been the consistent frontrunner and Bloomberg is going to have his billions and he has money forever. But for Buttigieg, Warren, Standers, is it must-win out of the gate for their survival or do you think that some of them can hang on? How does that work for them financially moving forward, Biden for that matter?
[Brownstein:] Right. I mean, that's a really good point. I mean, the ability to raise money online and the existence of all of us on cable and the internet covering these primaries has changed the dynamics of the primaries. It used used to be campaigns expire because they ran out of money and they ran out of attention. Now, if you're a reasonably plausible candidate, you have almost an infinite supply of both. So it's going to be harder to drive people from the race. What hasn't changed though, Jessica, is that voters don't like to waste their votes. And if you by definition, someone is going to come in fourth in Iowa, someone is going to come in fourth in New Hampshire. Biden probably has a second bite of the apple because he has a very strong base of African-American support that doesn't weigh in until South Carolina. But I think for other candidates, there is going to be a winnowing process. Bernie Sanders similarly has a strong base particularly among young people. But for Buttigieg and Warren, it's hard for me to see both of them being seen as fully viable after Iowa and New Hampshire unless they finish 1-2 in those states. So we have the potential for a longer race than in the past but it's not clear to me that all four will be viable by Super Tuesday.
[Dean:] We will see what 2020 brings us. Ron Brownstein and Doug Heye, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.
[Brownstein:] Thank you.
[Heye:] Thank you.
[Dean:] Coming up, a jaw-dropping crash as emergency crews run for their lives as a semi-truck barrels out of control there in Texas. Plus, tragedy in paradise, search teams find that wreckage of a helicopter that crashed with tourists onboard, a recovery mission now underway. And that's 12 feet long, almost a thousand pounds, and hanging near South Florida? That would be ironbound, the great white shark.