Transcripts For CNNW Crossfire 20140523

Because the idea that there was you dont want to sack the captain while the boats going down. You want them to be able to sort of fix it and stay on the job until its repaired. And then, you know, frankly, push them out. Let me ask drew. Drew, nobody knows more about whats going on inside than you do right now. Youve been all over this story for months and mons and months and tried to interview secretary shinseki on many occasions. Hes rejected all your reiestqu. Do folks inside the va worried deeply about whats going on, do they believe if he were gone tomorrow, it would change . I dont think so. Many believe that shinseki was kind of caught in the dark on all this. Its this kind of midlevel bureaucracy that runs these vas all across the country. They all know each other. They all promote each other. And its that kind of entrench bureaucracy that the folks on the inside see as being the problem. But to mr. Nicholsons point, i just want to add to that, you know, we tend to talk about this in a political crisis, when out in the country, where the vets are, this is a medical crisis. All this talk about shinseki resigning or whos to blame really doesnt matter to them. They want to know whos going to get my appointment and when can i see a doctor . Right now while this political crisis gets hashed out and the blame game gets hashed out, theyre still waiting, wolf. There was an article recently, i dont know if you saw it, mr. Secretary, the National Secretary wrote an article entitled, who broke Veterans Affairs . They went back through the history and say this has been going on, delays, bureaucratic nightmares forever, if you will. Inluting while you were the secretary of Veterans Affairs. You must have been so frustrated, yourself. There are two different kinds of delays. There is a waiting list to get a disability rating. There was a waiting list when you were there as well. Actually when we came in, it was 270 days. We got it shaved to about 160 days. Which is still too long. Its still too long. The standard is 125 days but theres a real large number of veterans that are queueing up for disability mr. Secretary ill say that in my own defense and defense of the current administration. There are more and more veterans showing up there. What the current problem is not for a disability rating, its for medical care. Secretary, youre being very diplomatic. I remember when you resigned in 2007 thensenator barack obama put out a very harsh statement. He said that secretary nicholson left the va worse off than when he started and it was one of the most tumultuous periods in va history. What did you make of that statement . Was he being fair to you . He was on the Veterans Affairs committee when he was a senator. He was on the committee but never showed up. That was a political statement. I expected somebody that was running for president would take a shot like that and he would never come to the Committee Meetings so he really had no basis to know what was going on. We did not have this current problem. In fact, we instituted and bought an electronic scheduling system. I think we called it project hero. And it was to facilitate these deployments. When a veteran would call in. We integrated it into the system. 153 hospitals spread around this country and even a huge clinic in the philippines in manila. It was going relatively well, but it had some hiccups in it and when we handed off the transition thinking we were going to be giving these books to romney, we gave them instead to obama and it said this electronic scheduling system still has some wrinkles that need to be wired out. Is it fair to say that Neither Administration has been able to fix this system . The Bush Administration and the Obama Administration . Let me finish the point. They took this whole system we had and for some reason set it aside and went back to the old local laptop computer so is that secretary shins i shinsekis mistake do you think . I dont know why they ever did that. We had spent about 120 million on it and it was really starting to work. But when you resign, remind our viewers why you resigned. There was a lot of criticism. There was pressure on you as well. Well, theres to pressure on me to resign. I have no pressure. The big flap we had on my watch we had somebody that took home a laptop and a hard drive that had the names of millions of veterans and his house got broken into it and somebody stole it. But soon as i found out about that and president bush found out about that, we took Decisive Action that day, held a press conference, told every veteran in the world that this has happened and hired companies to consult them. Whats happening now is the president of the United States is not talking responsibility for this and what i think the root problem is with these hospital directors is, weve seen this dishonesty and duplicity on the part of the president. If you like this plan, keep it. If you like your doctor so when they get jammed out there and theyre all compared to each other, some of them, it appears, have succumbed, you know, to a weakness to create some kind of an offline system instead of being honest and transparent about it and saying i need help out here, i need reinforcements. If there are people at the department of Veterans Affairs who are lyinging and cheating and giving out false reports, you cant blame the president of the United States if there are some bad apples inside the system. Well, i dont know. People look up to those above them and if they see that happening, and do they see shinseki doing that . Oh, no. Hes the secretary of Veterans Affairs. I dont think hes doing anything about it. Hes the secretary of Veterans Affairs. Hes responsible, but the ultimate person responsible for this i think is the commander in chief. He is the guy who ought to now be taking that kind of Decisive Action to see that we take care of these veterans out there who still there are maybe more of these valdezes out there because if they were jammed then and cant make the appointments in 12 days, they cant now. Let me let drew get into this conversation. Drew, you have a question for the secretary . Im hearing the political crisis instead of the real crisis. I wanted to ask mr. Nicholson this question. It seems to me for a long time no matter who was in power, we had a lot of trouble bureaucratically running the va. When you were in that position, did anybody step back and say, why are we doing this . Why dont we let these vets use their vet card as more or less an insurance card and go out into the Public Sector and get the health care that we need . Why are we running a separate medical system just for veterans . Well, that question does come up. And thats a fair question, i think, but, you know, we have a sacred trust with veterans in this country, started with Abraham Lincoln who said we have to take care of him who fell and his widow and orphan. We created this absolutely fabulous system. Theres no country in the world that takes care of veterans like the United States, but its very big. We have 21 million veterans in our country, and we used to see about a million of them every week. Theyre now seeing more, according to the statistics that i read. So its a very big spread out system and you have people out there remotely at those hospitals and have to act responsibly and act with integrity. I want to remind our viewers you not only a former secretary of veterans affair, not only a u. S. Ambassador to the vatican, but also a former chairman of the Republican National committee. Right . Yes, sir. Just want to remind our viewers of that as well. Im also a graduate of west point. We salute you for that, especially on this memorial day weekend. Thanks very much for coming in. A vietnam vet. Yes. A vietnam vet. Youre very committed to the veterans. Theres a lot of work. All aftof us need to do right n. I want to make sure we dont get into too much politics right now because theres a serious issue. Veterans lives are on the line as drew griffin has been reporting. We got to do whatever we can to help those vets. Secretary, thanks very much. Brian, thanks to you. And drew, of course, thanks to you as well. Just ahead, a massive fire ruining the memorial day weekend in one of the most beautiful parts of arizona. Were live at the firefighters command post. Plus Vladimir Putins latest challenge to the u. S. His brand new finger pointing on this, the Bloodiest Day so far in the ukraine crisis. Hey, razor. Check this out. Listen up, thunder dragons, its time to get a hotel. We can save big on killer hotels with priceline express deals. Somewhere with a Fitness Center . Hey you know what man, these guys aint no dragons. Theyre cool. These deals are legit. Yeah, were cool. Shes cool. Were cool. Im cool. Hey, isnt that razors old lady . Not anymore. Priceline savings without the bidding. Honestly, the offseason isnt ive got a lot to do. Thats why i got my surface. Its great for watching game film and drawing up plays. Its got onenote, so i can stay on top of my todo list, which has been absolutely absurd since the big game. With skype, its just really easy to stay in touch with the kids i work with. Alright, russell you are good to go alright, fellas. Alright, russ. Back to work hammer that in. Nice. Wrench . What . Aflac so this is who you brought to help us out . Oh yeah, hes the best. He doesnt look like hes seen a tool in his life. Oh, he doesnt know anything about tools. Aflacacacacacacac but when i broke my arm, he lent a hand. He paid my claim in just four days. Four days . Wow find out how fast aflac can pay you at aflac. Com. Better. This just coming in to cnn. The pentagon reporting smallscale pullbacks of Russian Troops near the ukrainian border. That still leaves tens of thousands of Russian Troops, though, in place. This weekend could bring a new flashpoint in the crisis as ukrainians are voting for a new president. Today has been the deadliest day of the crisis. Lets go to Senior International correspondent Nick Paton Walsh on the ground with the very latest. What is the latest, nick . Reporter wolf, simply in the last 24 hours, yesterday 16 ukrainian soldiers killed in an ambush. Today two separate incidents which killed well over 30 people, many prorussian militants. People looking at the vie vens for this coming weekend rather than the possibility for anyone to actually cast a vote. This is the sound of president ial elections in the separatist city, slovyansk. Were told periodically the Ukrainian Army fire heavy weapons artillery toward militant checkpoints and barricades on the outskirts of this town and those explosions really for weeks now have been the only presence people in this town have seen of the kiev government. If there were president ial elections at all here, theyd be run out of the building where the selfdeclared mayor now lives pledges to me that anyone who tries to stage a vote will be arrested. He shows me something remarkable in his backroom. Missile launches, he said, seeking possibly operational got in lawless 90s, now, he says to fight y ukrainian jets. To get the birds, he jokes. A ukrainian prisoner taken hostage 30 days ago. She agreed to talk to us, said she was unharmed but terrified. All the time you think the building will be bombed she says and all the time people are waiting around with the siege of the building youre on your knees all night praying. Thats how you live. The whole night you pray and during the day, you try to sleep. As the separatists fight gets harder and they are digging in around slavyansk, the separatists seem to be fa fracturing. Their main leader isnt spoken well of here. From the start i knew who he was he says a temporary fig wr year, no political significance. I met him once and said hello and goodbye. Falling out amongst themselves under siege, the russia they wanted to join distancing itself but the government they oppose unable to assert control, isolated but still here. Now, across ukraine, theyll vote on sunday but many will not vote here. That probably is enough to make moscow able to say these elections havent been the legitimate chance for everyone in ukraine to express their opini opinion. Whether or not, though, the disruption were seeing by prorussian militants is enough for washington to say thats reason to bring in sectoral sanctions, wider sanctions against parts of the russian economy. We have to wait and see, wolf. Critical hours coming up this weekend. Thank you. Just ahead, the massive fire is ruining the memorial day weekend in one of the most beautiful parts of arizona. Well go there. All stations come over to mission a for a final go. This is for real this time. Step seven point two one two. Verify and lock. Command is locked. Five seconds. Three, two, one. Standing by for capture. The most Innovative Software on the planet. Dragon is captured. Is connecting todays leading companies to places beyond it. Siemens. Answers. Humans. Even when we cross our ts and dot our is, we still run into problems. Thats why Liberty Mutual insurance offers accident forgiveness with our auto policies. If you qualify, your rates wont go up due to your first accident. 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Better hurry the Memorial Day Sale ends monday. Mattress discounters massive out of control wildfires changing everyones weekend plans in one of the most beautiful parts of northern arizona. Cnns ana cabrera is on the scene for us. What is the latest there . Well, you can see the fire still burning very strong based on all the smoke and the haze in the air behind me. We had a chance to go into the fire zone to get a better look at some of the firefighting in action today. As this fire has charred now 7500 acres and is just 5 contained. And one of the reasons its been so challenging for firefighters to get this fire under control is because the very steep and rocky, rugged terrain as this fire burns through some very heavy and dry fuel, a combination of ponderosa pines, pine needles. So theyre having to use a lot of the air support, helicopters making huge dumps of water, fire retardant, and theyre pucksing their fire lines on the burnout operation. So basically, controlled burns where theyre able to sort of get ahead of the fire, put fires there, get the fuel out of the way. And thats going to be the key as this firefight continues, wolf. Ana cabrera, thanks very much. Just ahead, incredible pictures of a mountain climbers escape from death. But first, this impact your world. He has photographed president s, heads of state and celebrities, but marco grobbs passion lies with a different subject matter, land mine victims. Land mines you find pretty much everywhere where a conflict ends there is not much i can do as a photographer, really. But the one thingy do is give those people affected a face and a name. Reporter grobb travels to mine areas alongside the United Nations mine action service, or unmas. Unfortunately boys are often victim to especially cost ammunition which still look like toys. Then there is the aspect and unexploded ordnance. Piles of ammunition. What is in afghanistan right now could show up at some Sunny Afternoon at times square. Unthinkable. Grob wants the portraits to speak for those with the fear of land mines every day. I would like people look at these stories and think of how even when we have our to deal with our daily problems, at least we dont have to be scared to take a step. Captain this is a tip. Bellman thanks, captain obvious. Captain and heres a tip. When you save money on hotel rooms, its just like saving money on anything else that costs money. Like shoes, textiles, foreign investments, spatulas, bounty hunters, javelins. Cmon, you want heartburn . When your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast, with tums. Heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact. And goes to work in seconds. Tum, tum tum tum. Tums i couldnt lay down it was a i couldnt sit up because it burned so much. As first lady of our church we have meetings. We have activities. And i couldnt do any of that. Any time anything brushed up against this rash it would seem like it would set it on fire again. It was the worst pain i ever had. The restless never stop. They just change boots. Thats why we made the allnew Jeep Cherokee. With an exclusive 9speed transmission and 31 miles per gallon highway. So you can keep going. Wellqualified lessees get a low mileage lease on the 2014 Jeep Cherokee sport front wheel drive for 199 a month. A mountain climbers Research Expedition turned into a life or death struggle. On monday in the himalayas, he fell into a crevasse in a mountain ice sheet. He was injured and bleeding. The only way out was a climb of about seven stories. After some five hours of struggle, not only did he make it, he brought this incredible video with him. Ill be speaking with him later tonight 8 00 p. M. Eastern when i fill in for anderson cooper. Also i want to remind you about a special show coming up soon on cnn, a new series from executive producers tom hanks and gary gutsman, the 60s. Set premier for next tuesday night only here on cnn. Thats it for me. See you in one hour. Erin Burnett Outfront starts right now. Next, nightmare in the sky. Two United Airlines flights full of passengers come within seconds of a midair collision. Plus, ten years after she vanished, a woman reappears. She says she was kidnapped. But some who know her dont buy it. And another nba owner under fire for comments about race. It is because he you used the word hoodie . Lets go outfront. Good evening, im Brianna Keilar in for erin