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CNN NEWSROOM

Remembering Robin Williams; Refugees Fleeing from ISIS

Aired August 12, 2014 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. This morning tributes are pouring in for Robin Williams, dead at the age of 63 after officials say he took his own life in his California home.

Williams' death sparking shock, disbelief and profound sadness among his family and his peers and his many fans, some of whom have left notes and flowers in Williams' honor at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Williams' career spanned more than three decades during which he made us laugh, he made us cry. He inspired us with his incredible talent.

Here's a look back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBIN WILLIAMS, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: Is it true, Mrs. Frisbee, that last summer you had sexual intercourse with a red headed midget during a thunderstorm?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Daddy, this is Mork. Mork, this is Mr. McConnell.

WILLIAMS: My name is T.S. Garp.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's T.S. stand for?

WILLIAMS: Terribly sexy.

Good morning, Vietnam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's the Dead Poets Society?

WILLIAMS: Dead poets dedicated to sucking the marrow out of life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Peter Pan.

WILLIAMS: Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck.

Look at this, my first day as a woman and I'm getting hot flashes.

And you do Fosse, Fosse, Fosse. You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Martha Graham. Or Twyla, Twyla, Twyla, or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna, but you keep it all inside. And then we get to choose who we let into our weird little worlds.

You are not perfect, sport. And let me save you the suspense. This girl you met, she isn't perfect either, but the question is whether or not you're perfect for each other.

Hey, let's get ready to party.

Get dressed. Put on something nice. If you don't act right at dinner, I'll stab you in the face.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir Lancelot at your service.

WILLIAMS: Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have no idea what that means.

WILLIAMS: The refrain from that 1972 spot was, you deserve a break today and today people really need a break.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That was just amazing, right?

Joining me now entertainment correspondent Nischelle Turner and Pete Dominick, comedian and host of Sirius XM "Stand Up with Pete Dominick."

Welcome to you both.

Nischelle, do you think Robin Williams realized that he had become an icon?

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: That's a good question. I think that he had such a humble spirit and such a kind spirit that maybe not, but did he know that he was super famous and a big deal in Hollywood? I think absolutely so, and when we say the word icon, I know some people always say we throw it around, those genius words or icon words, but this is a man who had a sustained career for more than four decades in Hollywood who had an Emmy, a Grammy, an Academy Award, nominated four times for an Oscar, so he wasn't just an actor.

He definitely transcended and he was a comedian, one of the funniest of his generation that actually gained fans for new generations to come and kind of reinvented himself every time he landed on the screen.

COSTELLO: And obviously, he was a complex person as most comedians are.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Well, I have found that comedians are among the most intelligent and complex people. It's why they can entertain on so many levels. Otherwise people wouldn't laugh. They seem to have the ability to tap into the dark side and make you laugh at your fears and that takes a special kind of person, Pete.

PETE DOMINICK, HOST, SIRIUS XM'S "STAND UP WITH PETE DOMINICK": Well, yes, it does. I mean, we have to be very introspective and understand what our insecurities and our vulnerabilities are, and then put them on display and the greatest comedians did just that. Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, and Dave Chappelle and so on. You know, when you think about the greats, you think so often so many of them are black or Jewish. We know the suffering -- historic suffering of those two people, right?

And so much of comedy comes from suffering. I mean, there's a disproportionate amount at war. And when you think about that, you start to understand what it is, what it takes, kind of, to become a comedian. I always thought, well, I'll never be a legendary comedian because I didn't come from a major, you know, dysfunctional household.

Comedians in my theory have always come from two categories. Those who had too many hugs and those who didn't get enough. I luckily was the product of the former. But we always want that. You'll never hear of a comedian retiring or quitting doing comedy.

COSTELLO: That's interesting because Robin Williams -- and I didn't know this until his death, that he had a tough childhood.

TURNER: Yes.

COSTELLO: He was a chubby kid. He was born into a wealthy family. He was raised in, what, near Detroit, in the suburbs there. But he always had to fight for his parents' attention and he was bullied in school. And I never knew that about Robin Williams.

TURNER: Yes, I didn't neither and I think maybe that's where his kind of giving spirit and kind soul comes from, not wanting other people to be in that situation because we also know along with being a comedian and an actor and an A-list movie star, he was a philanthropist, and he gave a lot of himself when he was battling a lot of problems within himself. He gave so much. He raised $50 million for, you know, Comic Relief.

DOMINICK: Comic Relief, yes.

TURNER: Performed for the USO. And one thing I learned yesterday, Jessica Chastain, who's one of the best actresses in Hollywood, released a statement saying Robin Williams changed my life. He gave me a scholarship and put me through college.

COSTELLO: Wow.

DOMINICK: You're going to hear a lot more on that coming out because he was so modest about his philanthropic, you know -- responsibilities, but I mean, the other thing that we really need to understand is that depression is something that we don't understand yet.

TURNER: Right. DOMINICK: Seventeen to 20 veterans are committing suicide every day

and it's so hard for people to understand why someone who brought so much laughter and life the way Robin Williams did could also take his life. That's not something that we're supposed to understand.

COSTELLO: If you run down the list of comedians who --

DOMINICK: Yes.

COSTELLO: Who's OD's, for example.

DOMINICK: Yes.

COSTELLO: Like John Belushi, right? How did John Candy died? I can't remember.

(CROSSTALK)

DOMINICK: He had a heart attack. Greg Giraldo was a very good friend of mine. Richard Jeni killed himself. Mitch Hedberg OD'd. The names go -- Chris Farley. The names go on and on. It's like every year we lose a prolific comedian.

TURNER: But you also see a lot of comedians that -- like you said medicate themselves in those ways.

DOMINICK: Yes.

TURNER: The Rich Pryors, who we see -- you know, those -- who turn to drugs. Robin Williams himself turned to drugs.

(CROSSTALK)

DOMINICK: But remarkable about those -- it's exceptional because they bring so much happiness to us, how can they be so sad? What might be interesting to note, doctors, dentists and carpenters commit themselves even -- kill themselves even more than comedians, because we don't think about that as much because comedians bring so much happiness and laughter to us. And, you know, Robin Williams touched all of our lives.

TURNER: You know what, I'm glad that we're talking about this, though.

DOMINICK: Yes.

TURNER: I'm glad --

DOMINICK: Take the stigma away from depression. It's a disease.

TURNER: And ask for help.

DOMINICK: It's a disease.

TURNER: Ask for help. DOMINICK: If you can, but to look to help to those who are dealing

with it, too. It's a disease. We need to understand that. Take the stigma off it. Men need to go to therapy. Watch "Good Will Hunting," that's why I went to therapy. And don't forget what Robin Williams told us in "Good Will Hunting," rather in "Dead Poets Society," Carpe diem, the power of now, everybody has that right this second.

COSTELLO: Live for the day.

DOMINICK: Yes.

COSTELLO: Thank to you both, Peter Dominick, Nischelle Turner.

Also this morning, join CNN for a special look-back at the life of Robin Williams, our "CNN SPOTLIGHT" is coming up 11:30 Eastern.

Robin Williams, we want to remember him this way because he always left us laughing and the Academy Awards Twitter tribute hit exactly the right note. A still from "Aladdin," the caption, "Genie, you're free."

Let's watch that scene as we head to break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Genie, you're free.

WILLIAMS: I'm free. I'm free. Quick, quick. Wish for something outrageous. I want the Nile. Wish for the Nile. Try that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish for the Nile.

WILLIAMS: No way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The only word that comes to mind is heroic. If you haven't seen the video yet, you need to watch because nothing captures the humanitarian crisis in Iraq like what you are about to see.

Tens of thousands of refugees running for their lives, trying to get away from the terrorist force of ISIS.

Ivan Watson was on board an Iraqi Air Force helicopter with fighters from Kurdistan as they dropped water and supplies to some of those -- some of the people trapped on top of that mountain, and as the crew landed, they pulled as many refugees on board as they could carry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Machine gunners unleashed bursts of hot metal. This is the crew aboard an Iraqi Air Force helicopter. They burned through cartridges and belts of ammunition while rushing an aircraft full of food, diapers, water and baby's milk over ISIS frontlines for civilians trapped on Sinjar Mountain.

(On camera): The gunners, they're opening fire at targets down below. They say they (INAUDIBLE) and they're clearly trying to defend the aircraft.

You can see the people below trapped on Sinjar Mountain. They're clustered, they're clustered under olive trees right now waving to us. They seem to have gathered in these shelters down here. A lot of women and children waving.

(Voice-over): The crew hurls packages out the door. People swarm the chopper.

(on camera): This has been one chaotic aid distribution. I mean, I really hope we didn't hurt anybody with the bottles of water we were throwing down from the height of 20, 30 feet. It's chaotic. But people were waving. They were giving thumbs up. And there are a couple -- there were a couple of people very relieved to be off the mountain and clearly very, very frightened.

(Voice-over): Then the helicopter lands one last time to pick up more passengers.

(On camera): Here they come.

(Voice-over): More desperate people throw themselves at the aircraft. Heaving their children on board. It's first come, first serve. There were some who couldn't make it.

Aboard the aircraft, shock. Exhaustion. Fear that eventually gives way to relief.

(On camera): I can't describe to you how relieved people are right now. The -- just shock and the chaos of that moment. But we've got little Aziza here, she's not happy. Because she says her father got left behind.

The gunners are opening fire on targets below. They're protecting the helicopter. But it's terrifying these little kids who are traumatized after their week trapped on that mountain.

The problem is we're flying over right these front lines. This is the only protection we have right now to protect the aircraft and its precious cargo.

(Voice-over): Tensions ease when we cross into Kurdish controlled territory. And for a moment, there are even smiles as these children realize their ordeal on the mountain is finally over.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: It's just -- it's just unbelievable, right? Ivan Watson is near the border of Iraq where busloads of refugees continue to come down that mountain. We're trying to get him up live for you. When we get him, of course, we'll bring him to you live. And we got to take a break to do that. I'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. As promised, Ivan Watson now joins us from the Iraqi-Syrian border.

I've been seeing some incredible pictures behind you when we were on break, Ivan. Where are these people coming from?

WATSON: OK. Carol, these are Iraqis who fled from the ISIS advance in predominantly the Sinjar region and they fled to Syria which is behind me across the river right here, to a Kurdish controlled part of Syria. Controlled by a group commonly known as the Kurdistan Workers Party. And now they are using this bridge here to come back into Iraq, into Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish controlled region of the north of Iraq, and for the most part, these people are coming on foot with nothing more than the clothes on their back.

And it's not -- it's difficult to watch because we just saw a very emotional reunion here of a young man who clearly was seeing his family being reunited and they were weeping right in front of us just minutes ago. So this is -- this is a displacement of hundreds of thousands of people on the move, instantly made homeless, fleeing for their lives.

Earlier, you may have seen a report where we flew by helicopter to a place called Sinjar Mountain where many of these people have taken shelter. Moments ago I spoke with a family who had been camping on that mountain for more than a week and they then fled on foot from the mountain, more than 10 hours and I was talking to a grandfather who made that journey with his grandchildren and his elderly wife and his children, his adult children on foot more than 10 hours to the safe haven in Syria and then they've now made this journey across this bridge on foot here to Iraqi Kurdistan.

And I asked him, how could you possibly walk with these babies more than 10 hours? And he said, if you are running for your life, you'll do it. You have no other choice. So this is part of the humanitarian crisis unfolding here, part of the ethnic and sectarian cleansing being committed by the ISIS militants as we speak in Iraq.

And I'm just going to get out of the way so that Mark Phillips can show you just these kind of bedraggled people streaming across the bridge here from Kurdish controlled Syria into Kurdish controlled Iraq, coming with little more than the clothes on their backs.

And they are going to be most likely, Carol, camping on the side of the road here in Iraqi Kurdistan tonight. Because we've already seen tens of thousands of people doing it -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I was just wondering where they are going to get food or water.

WATSON: We do see that there are some volunteers. There are a few aid organizations here. There are representatives of the Kurdistan regional government who sometimes meet them with sandwiches, with bottles of water. There's an affiliate of the United Nations that has buses to transport them from this place to town, but for the most part, these people have to figure it out for themselves. They are homeless now. And it's part of a much --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: As of now, Ivan --

WATSON: Yes.

COSTELLO: As of now, Ivan, the Kurds can protect them, but how long might that last?

WATSON: Well, I think that the American airstrikes, every Kurdish leader has told me, has injected some new morale and some new courage into the Kurdish Peshmerga militia. There also have been reports of American weapons or at the very least ammunition, coming to the Peshmerga. So that's going to help and we've seen the Peshmerga make some military advances in the past three days, capturing back territory that they lost last week.

But they are facing two substantial challenges. They are fighting a war on one front while dealing with a mass of humanity that's coming to them -- that's coming to them in some cases across this bridge. You can see here a backlit by the sun here, the Fishkhabur River, these are people who are coming here because they've got no place else to go and they are going to be living on roadsides, trying to find some shelter wherever possible.

One family that I talked to that walked 10 hours from Sinjar Mountain to Syria and then came here, they just -- they're going to camp on the side of this river because they've got no place else to go -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And I just want to inform our viewers that there have been more American airstrikes in northern Iraq. In fact, we just got an urgent wire right now, U.S. military forces successfully conducted an airstrike against an ISIS mortar position north of Sinjar in Iraq, that's according to the U.S. Central Command. So American airstrikes are ongoing so hopefully more people, well, will be freed by this.

I want to talk to you, Ivan, about that harrowing helicopter ride you took. It was extremely dangerous. Only a couple of dozen people were able to get on board that helicopter. How many missions like that are being flown?

WATSON: There were at least -- at least four helicopters that made that journey on Monday, and I'm told that more helicopters are doing it today. So there is an effort under way. For the most part, aside for the American and British deliveries of humanitarian aid, and the airdrops over Sinjar Mountain, for the most part this -- no, entirely, I'm sorry.

This evacuation effort is entirely being assisted by the Kurdistan regional government that rules northern Iraq and across the border by the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, which is a Kurdish faction that has carved out an enclave amid the bloody civil war of Syria over the past three years, and they control that side of the border. And I'm told by the refugees who are coming across that they have been

helped by PKK fighters to escape ISIS in Iraq. In some cases they've been escorted on foot for miles to the Syrian border, where they are then met with vehicles organized by the PKK that eventually bring them to this border so that they can come back into what is technically part of Iraq, though it's an autonomous region ruled by Iraqi Kurdistan.