Spin Cycle

Transcript of interview between interviewer Rusty Humphrey and Col William Changose, prepared by Obama campaign:

RUSTY HUMPHREY: Colonel William "Goose" Changose here. He was the pilot who flew Hillary Clinton into Bosnia. Let's hear another one of her clips. This is a reporter saying there are some differing accounts of her trip to Bosnia. Clip 9, please.

Q: There are some differing accounts of your trip to Bosnia, I'm wondering if you can clarify. You recall ducking under sniper fire, and Sinbad on his account – he was on the trip – he said the most dangerous part was remembering where he was going to eat next.

HRC: He's a comedian, you know, Jeff. He's a comedian.

RUSTY: So, there's her trying to deflect – "he's a comedian." There was some serious stuff there. Alright, let's go to the next clip here – this is where it starts getting interesting, and I want you to tell me what happened here, Goose. There is where she says she was in a C-17 because it was armored.

HRC: When we were flying into Bosnia, we had to, uh - part of the reason we were in the C-17 is because part of it is armored.

RUSTY: Stop. Okay, was that true? Is that C-17 armored?

COL. CHANGOSE: That's a true statement, and again, that's a Secret Service call. You know, plus, I will just tell you, the way the terrain is, the length of the runway and that sort of stuff, it really is not conducive for the presidential airlift planes, Air Force One or Air Force Two. So, a plane that can do short landings - and we do have onboard defensive systems in case someone should have shot a missile at us. So it's a combat plane, unlike, you know, Air Force One or Air Force Two. A C-130 would have been that way, a 141 would have been that way, a C-5 would have been that way. Any of our military planes are like that.

RUSTY: And she was accurate when she said it was a C-17?

CHANGOSE: That's a true statement, yep.

RUSTY: Okay, let's continued with her statement.

CHANGOSE: I was moved up into the cockpit. Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests.

RUSTY: Stop. Okay, now she's basically quoting you, is my guess here. Moving you into the cockpit, everybody sit on your bulletproof vest.

CHANGOSE: And what the real answer is there, is, again, this is all Secret Service directed. Because it's a cargo plane, the pilots and the crew sit up front, so that's where most of the armor is. In the back it's not armored because you're typically just carrying cargo, which doesn't need a whole lot of protection. But I can tell you that, you know, it was not under my direction or anybody I know of to have the passengers sit on their flak jackets.

RUSTY: I've never heard of that one either. I would think that you would put the flak jacket on - as a matter of fact I recall, when I landed into Iraq, that was a big deal. Get that damn thing on and put the helmet on!

CHANGOSE: Well, you know, I think, just knowing nothing else, I remember that in Apocalypse Now they sat on their flak jackets.

RUSTY: Well of course, it was in a movie, okay. But you've never heard of that before?

CHANGOSE: Nobody under my watch has ever directed somebody to sit on their flak jackets. Unless they, you know, needed to sit taller or something, I don't know. Maybe they needed a cushion to see over the steering wheel, I don't know.

RUSTY: Goose you're not in the military anymore. You don't have to give these parsed answers, you can -

CHANGOSE: So, no, we do not direct people to sit on their flak jackets.

RUSTY: Okay, thank you. All right, Let's continue.

CHANGOSE: And we came in a evasive maneuver. There was no greeting ceremony, and we were basically told to run to our cars. Now that is what happened.

RUSTY: Goose, that's what happened.

CHANGOSE: Yeah, so, no evasive maneuver. Okay? I gotta tell ya, I will give it to the commander of Air Base Eagle. He had that place - you know, not only were there no bullets flying around, there wasn't a bumblebee flying around. He had that place locked up tight. He had, uh, it was really impressive. He had tanks pointing all the way around the perimeter. He had ground troops every place. He had helicopters in the air, to make sure nobody - for any ground movement. And we did the same approach we do - we did every time. And it was a steep approach but that's because there were hills around it. But it was just what we do every time - I mean, every landing into there, was the same way.

RUSTY: So - by the way, this is an exclusive interview here on the Rusty Humphrey Show. Goose, you haven't told this story to anybody else, have you?

CHANGOSE: No, I haven't, I haven't. Although I was talking just a little earlier to a friend of mine who was also onboard, and we didn't remember any bullets. Because, you know, we were sitting up front waiting, so we probably would have seen them.

RUSTY: Now let me ask you this. Those bullets—she says that there was no greeting ceremony and they were told to run to their cars. As the pilot, do you remember seeing anything like that? Run, run, run.

William "Goose" Changose: Nope, nope, I didn't… well let me just say, I didn't say it, and I was the aircraft commander. So if somebody said it, it was not part of my crew. And I'll be honest with you, I mean, if there would have been sniper fire going on Rusty, first of all we wouldn't have landed.

RUSTY: Okay.

Changose: That's number one. Number two, we wouldn't have let her outside of the plane. You know, we have contingencies for just incase something like that, we would have gone around and gone back or gone someplace. But the fact that we landed tells you that there's… there's nothing gonna happen. At least at that moment it was secure.

RUSTY: You know what it sounds like to me, Goose. I don't think that Hillary… And I'm…I guess they don't realize how many people put their lives on the line to make sure that her stay was smooth and flawless and nothing would go wrong. I don't think she has any idea of what you went through and what the other guys on the ground and everybody had to do to pull themselves together. And so heck, if you exaggerate a little bit, its not that big of a deal, because, you know, she's just telling a story. But this kind of story, its just silly, its just fairyland.

Changose: Yeah, it was, you know, this, this first made the blogs I think about a month ago and a friend of mine sent it to me and he said you know, "Weren't you the aircraft commander on that one?" and I said "Yeah. I don't remember any of this stuff. You know, maybe she went another time." You know…

RUSTY: [laughter]

Changose: So, but, knowing that actually she didn't. So…

RUSTY: Okay, let's hear some more of the clips of her talking about this incident. This was in Waco, February 28, 2008.

HRC: I remember particularly a trip to Bosnia, where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.

RUSTY: You know what's interesting, Goose?

Changose: What's that?

RUSTY: What's interesting to me is you're not even in the military anymore. Between you and me…

Changose: [laughter]

RUSTY: … you're not a big fan of Hillary. But even then, even though you knew that this was wrong, even then you still didn't rat her out because you thought maybe it was a kind of slam of sorts.

Changose: You know, um, people have their own remembrances of stuff. I don't claim to be a psychologist or anything. You know, so I would never call a senator.

RUSTY: Look at you, Mr. Nice Guy. I mean, you kept her, you kept her secret.

Changose: Ah, you know, let's just say there was no sniper fire on the ground. You know. Let's just say that.

RUSTY: You know what this is? This is an officer and a gentleman. That's what you're hearing right now. An officer and a gentleman. You're just doing your job and let's see…let me give you one more clip here. This is from the Today Show, January 2nd, 2008.

HRC: I was the first high-profile American to go into Bosnia after the Dayton Peace Accord.

MEREDITH VIERA: But you mention something like Bosnia, people have responded, yeah she went to Bosnia for example with Sinbad. With a performer. That…

HRC: That's right, that's right.

MEREDITH VIERA: …that that wasn't really establishing any kind of foreign policy.

HRC: Oh…

RUSTY: Okay, well you just mentioned, she says she was the first high-profile American to go into Bosnia after the Dayton Peace Accord. I don't recall…

Changose: Well except for the President. Except for the Secretary of Defense. But other than those two, she was the first.

RUSTY: [laughter]

Changose: So you know, it all depends on what your time of reference is, you know?

RUSTY: Its all the definition of "is" is. The definition of "first" is. Goose, uh… again, I always appreciate you being on the program. And I always appreciate your service to the country and again, you know of all of the guys in the military, I got to call the guy who flew her in. I just got a big kick out of that all day long.

Changose: That was pretty funny, wasn't it.

RUSTY: [laughter] So, again, for those of you just tuning in, this is Coronel William "Goose" Changose. He is the pilot who flew Hillary into Bosnia. There was no gunfire. There was no sniper fire. There were no evasive maneuvers. The greeting ceremony was there. Nobody was told to sit on their bullet-proof vest. And, anything else I'm missing there, Goose?

Changose: No, you pretty much wrapped it up.

RUSTY: That's pretty much it.