Return to Transcripts main page

Connect the World

U.S. To Designate Houthis As Terrorists; New Videos Capture Brutal Violence In Capitol Siege; Many Big Companies Sever Ties With Trump Over Capitol Riots. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired January 11, 2021 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:21]

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Next hour, Democrats will show their plan to charge the American president with incitement of

insurrection, meaning he could become the only U.S president impeached twice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SADI POPE, EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN: A few months ago, there would be times where we'd sit for a couple hours just waiting for a call in our

area, but now we're lucky if we sit for a half an hour.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: CNN rides along with exhausted ambulance workers in L.A. They respond to COVID-19 emergencies.

Plus, Washington will designate Yemen's Houthi rebels as therapists. How that will impact aid reaching the war torn country. Those stories are just

there.

A very warm welcome it is 7:00 p.m. here in Abu Dhabi. I'm Becky Anderson. Hello and welcome to CONNECT THE WORLD from the Middle East broadcasting

hub with nine days, nine days left in office. Donald Trump is facing a dishonor that would put him alone among American presidents. The U.S. House

of Representatives is on the fast track to impeach him for a second time.

Just last hour, it released its resolution for a single article of impeachment charging the President with incitement of insurrection for the

siege on the U.S. Capitol building last week. And notably, it cites his phone call to Georgia's Secretary of State urging him to find enough votes

to win a state that he lost. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says unless Vice President Mike Pence and a majority of the President's Cabinet invoke the

25th Amendment to remove him from -- an impeachment vote should happen within days.

There is little to no chance that Vice President Pence will go down the route of the 25th Amendment. We are getting new images in today showing the

level of brutality at the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday. In this video you see the writing mob beating a Capitol Hill police officer. Using flagpoles

along with fists. In another, an officer is getting crushed by the crowd. This is hard to watch.

For some insurgents into the building in military gear, some had zip tie restraints. Leading investigators to question if any of them had plans to

kidnap or kill lawmakers. Listen to this video. A riot is calling for Vice President Mike Pence to be killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Kill Mike Pence they chant. All going on while it took hours to deploy National Guard troops that mob over running Capitol Police and

President Trump sitting idly by in the White House until he instruct his followers to go home in a video that still peddled his lies about the

election. Well, a shaken Nancy Pelosi talks about it last night on CBS's 60 Minutes. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I think there was a universally accepted that what happened was a terrible,

terrible violation of what of the capital of the first branch of government, the legislative branch by the President of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: What impeachment isn't the only punishment. Democrats may seek someone to expel Republican lawmakers who continue to support the

President's bogus election fraud claims during Joe Biden's certification which of course was just hours after the insurrection. Well, Sunlen Serfaty

is on Capitol Hill with more suddenly now on the Democrats' drive to push Mr. Trump out of office including what is going to happen next hour.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Becky. Democrats up here on Capitol Hill are certainly moving with a sense of urgency. The

House floor action will start in about an hour from now. And that was where we'll see Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi essentially start the wheels

turning to put an emotion to potentially try to get President Trump out of office.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[10:05:07]

PELSOI: Well, sadly the person who's running the executive branch is a deranged, unhinged, dangerous. President of the United States.

SERFATY (voice-over): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisting President Trump be removed from office in the final days of his administration.

PELOSI: Only a number of days until we can be protected from him. But he has done something so serious that there should be prosecution against him.

SERFATY (voice-over): Pelosi will push a resolution today calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. In a letter to her

Democratic colleagues Pelosi says if Pence in the cabinet do not enact the 25th Amendment within 24 hours, the House will move ahead with impeachment.

Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reached out to Pence on this matter.

PELOSI: We would kept on the line for 20 minutes. It's going to be here in a minute, a minute a minute. Well, I never did. I was at home so I was

running the dishwasher, putting my clothes in the laundry. We're still waiting for him to return the call.

SERFATY (voice-over): One source close to the Vice President tells CNN that Pence has not ruled out invoking the 25th Amendment. But his team has

expressed concern that Trump could take some rash actions harming the country if the cabinet proceeds.

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): For all guessing until he tells us what his intentions are. I think that a lot of people at the White House that are in

this administration have noticeably noticed a real difference in the President's behavior even worse than it was.

SERFATY (voice-over): Three Democratic Congressmen have already drafted one article of impeachment, charging Trump with incitement of insurrection.

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): One of the issues that I have right now, whether it's the 25th Amendment, whether it's impeachment right now is further

dividing the country and pouring gasoline on a fire. And I worry about that because the impeachment articles if it passes with a simple majority in the

House, it needs two-thirds in the Senate. I don't know that there's an appetite for it there.

SERFATY (voice-over): Congressman Jim Clyburn has floated the idea of waiting to send any articles of impeachment to the Senate until after

President-elect Joe Biden completes his first 100 days in office.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (R-SC): Let's give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get this agenda off and running. And maybe we'll send the articles

sometimes after that.

SERFATY (voice-over): This as two Republican senators have called on the President to resign.

SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA): I think the President did commit impeachable offenses. There's little doubt in my mind about that. But certainly he

could resign and that would be a very good outcome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY (on camera): And Democrats and Republicans separately will each beginning on a conference call later today within their House conference to

work through exactly what steps they are going to take next, Becky's. Certainly a huge moment up here on Capitol Hill and all week. Becky?

ANDERSON: Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that. Well, my next guest writes in the Washington Post, and I quote here, this last week's events, and

indeed all of the President's abuses during the election cycle and the last year are a consequence of their referring to the U.S. Senate refusal to

convict him in his impeachment trial. And Norman Eisen would know. He was a special counsel in that trial. He joins us now live from Washington. Can

Donald Trump incite a riot? And get off scot free, sir?

NORMAN EISEN, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL, TRUMP IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: Becky, thanks for having me on the program. And no, Donald Trump cannot incite a

riot and get off scot free. We have mechanisms to hold him accountable. And those, of course include impeachment and removal and disqualification from

ever running again.

ANDERSON: So, what will happen at this point? It doesn't look as if Vice President Mike Pence has got the stomach for the 25th Amendment at this

point, there seems to be a sort of, you know, a disconnect in the Democratic Party, you know, not least about whether those impeachment

articles which I think everybody agrees with it should be -- it should be invoked now or at the end of, you know, 100 days of Joe Biden's you know,

the beginning of his administration, and then people say, well, you should just resign. What do you believe will happen next?

EISEN: Well, Becky, I think it's important to control Donald Trump's erratic behavior that he knows he's facing consequences. So, whether it's

impeachment, whether it's the calls for him to be forcibly removed because of incapacity, because he's not right in his mind under our 25th Amendment.

Whether it's any of the other vehicles, it does seem to be freezing his behavior. We saw that in the last impeachment.

What do I think will happen? It's up to Mitch McConnell. This is not a complicated case. The facts are clear we have is audiotape inciting riots.

We have that proof of the riot. The law is clear. Of course, this is impeachable.

[10:10:04]

EISEN: Mitch McConnell could call back the Senate and we could have a trial and a conviction before the 20th. If that doesn't happen, let's be

perfectly clear. The exposure to risk will be on one person and one person alone. The Republican -- current Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, once

the 20th comes, it does not have to be done immediately because the immediate threat is over.

Trump is out of office, then we need to disqualify him, again, using the impeachment trial in the Senate. He can be disqualified for running for

future office. So, that takes the time pressure off, but my goodness, Mitch McConnell should convene the Senate at once.

ANDERSON: There will be people watching around the world who say my goodness, you know, what -- why not just bring those lawmakers back? The

19th, of course, is the day before inauguration. I mean, you know, what's the point at that point, they will say, listen, staying on the train of

thought from your op-ed that I quoted you on at the beginning of this. I want to play a clip of Senator Susan Collins from last year surrounding

President Trump's first impeachment trial. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I believe that the President has learned from this case.

NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS ANCHOR: What do you believe the President has learned?

COLLINS: The President has been impeached. That's a pretty big glass.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: What big lesson Do you believe Donald Trump learned? And how do you think anything he might have learned might have led to the events of

last week?

EISEN: The lesson that Donald learned -- and he did learn one. The lesson he learned was he can get away with high crimes and misdemeanors because

his own party is scared to hold him accountable. They are culpable, Becky. For what happened last week, they had the chance to remove him when we did

the impeachment trial in the Senate. And they refuse. Hopefully they will have learned the lesson now.

The Democrats in the House of Representatives are doing everything they can to move this fast. Let the Republicans in the Senate they're in control

immediately come in and remove this man who knows what he'll do next. The lesson he's learned is he can get away with anything.

ANDERSON: Impeaching Donald Trump after he has left office and that is an option. Perhaps the most likely at this point, would of course be more than

symbolic. There will be ramifications, of course, such as blocking him from a 2024 run. If he is not impeached, I wonder what message you believe that

would send to America and the world.

EISEN: Well, it will send a message if he's not impeached and convicted and disqualified. And remember, impeachment happens in the House. That's the

charges controlled by the Democrats now and the trial of the impeachment, the conviction removal disqualification will happen in the Senate. If his

own party gives him a pass on this, there will have to be other vehicles for accountability such as criminal prosecution of Donald Trump.

Civil litigation against him and his followers and his enablers coconspirators in the insurrection, and those other things will happen but

I fear it will send a message of impunity. That is not how democracy is supposed to work. And they had better -- those Republicans had better get

back to the Senate, get back to Washington and put that trial on right now. We can't afford to wait. Although it still will be important, even if they

don't do that, to have the trial to attempt to disqualify him.

And we've done that in the past with -- in both the 18th and the 19th century where we've had impeachment trials after the individual has left

office, not presidents, others.

ANDERSON: Norman Eisen, it's a pleasure having you on, sir. Good to get your analysis. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Well, Donald

Trump taking on big tech during his final days in office. Now this comes after some of the world's biggest tech companies took action to silence

Trump and some of his supporters following last week's capital riot. Sources tell CNN that Mr. Trump wants to punish companies like Facebook and

Twitter with executive actions.

Meanwhile, Parler which is the social media site favored by conservatives has been forced offline for allowing violent and hateful comments on its

platform. Well, my next guest says and I quote, a sick brew -- excuse me, let me start again. A sick brew of information and hate cooked up for years

by pro-Trump media and enabled by big tech.

[10:15:10]

ANDERSON: Culminated last week in the siege of the U.S. Capitol. The symbol of American democracy. The words of CNN's chief media correspondent and

host of Reliable Sources. Brian Stelter, it's always good to have you in the house. So too late, too little too late some will say the damage

already done by these platforms being available over the last four, five, six years to Donald Trump.

What do you make of these social media platforms now disassociating themselves from Donald Trump once and for all?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN'S CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Right. These platforms are partly culpable. They are partly responsible for this online radicalization

that manifested in real life in Washington last week. In the same way these platforms have been partly responsible for massacres and genocides, and

uprisings and civil wars around the world, where we have seen these cases of social media, inflaming tensions and causing violence.

Now, it's happening in the United States. It's happening in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. I think these platforms now have something of a hangover,

they're waking up looking around realizing what they've done or what they've helped to do. Of course, it's -- look, it's all about the

individual users at the end of the day, right? But these users have access to each other, to organize to radicalize.

And now these platforms are stepping in. You see all the logos there on screen, all of those companies have distanced from Trump, but basically by

banning him or suspending him or cutting him off from using their services. I'm really interested in the one over there in the corner Shopify, that's

an e-commerce Web site that still longer letting Trump sell products. So, this is sweeping. that's everything from Twitter to Twitch, Reddit, to

YouTube.

It's nothing like it in terms of bands in the past, you know, to see an American president basically banned from social media is an astonishing

thing.

ANDERSON: Brian, thank you. Stay with CNN for complete coverage of the effort in the United States Congress to remove Donald Trump from office.

That starts in less an hour. And on the show, the COVID crisis in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A couple hours just waiting for a call in our area. But now we're lucky if we sit for a half an hour.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: CNN rides along with ambulance workers in L.A. The new American epicenter for this deadly disease.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: Since the start of the year, the year The United States has already seen 28,000 deaths from coronavirus. Last week the country

surpassed 4000 deaths in a single day in 10 months. That is more than 374,000 Americans dying from this disease.

[10:20:08]

ANDERSON: That is more than the number of Americans who died in battle during World War I and World War II combined. Well, the desperation, the

crisis, overwhelming places like Los Angeles County. Paramedics there were told last week not to bring in most patients who can't be revived in the

field. A triage measure to try to conserve hospital resources. Well, let's get you to CNN's Josh Campbell for more on that. Josh?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning to you, Becky. Here in Los Angeles County. They continue to deal with this crush of patients at

the county's hospitals dealing with this pandemic to get a sense of just how dire the situation is. We spent the day with the first responders who

are on the frontlines of battling to save lives. They tell us that the surge in 911 calls in the last month is unlike anything they've ever seen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL (voice-over): A grueling 10-hour shift and an ambulance in Los Angeles.

POPE: 6413 more full cone available.

CAMPBELL (voice-over): That's what's in store for EMT Sadi Pope. In a county where health officials say a person is dying from COVID every eight

minutes.

POPE: It's definitely shifted in the last month.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 2218 (INAUDIBLE)

POPE: Just with the call volumes, like constantly just were running and running.

CAMPBELL (voice-over): Pope a mother of three and former stay-at-home mom has been doing this the last six months. A job she loves, but it's taking a

toll.

POPE: A few months ago, there would be times where we'd sit for a couple hours just waiting for a call in our area. But now we're lucky if we sit

for a half an hour.

CAMPBELL (voice-over): Her partner Kyle Dojillo has been an EMT for about a year.

KYLE DOJILLO, EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN: Every time I come back to work every week, it just gets worse and worse.

CAMPBELL (voice-over): Daily deaths here at times are exceeding all the homicides in the City of Los Angeles in 2019 combined. ICU beds are

extremely hard to find some EMTs say they've waited outside hospitals with patients for six to eight hours.

CAMPBELL (on camera): How has this impacted you?

MATT HERMAN, EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN: A lot of times I'm just exhausted and I go straight home, eat dinner and go to bed. So, it's doing

everything I can to get my rest, eat as much as I can and then try to stay healthy so I can keep going.

CAMPBELL: Ambulance Supervisor Carolyn Caraway (ph) allowed CNN to ride along with their teams while helping them endure the crushing hospital

weights.

CAROLYN CARAWAY, AMBULANCE SUPERVISOR: I'm constantly talking to them, you know, checking in on them seeing how they're doing. My truck is full of

snacks and Gatorades just to help, you know.6 get them through the day.

CAMPBELL: Where are they going?

CARAWAY: Let's see.

CAMPBELL: There's no let up today. A new 911 call is in. You know what their call is?

CARAWAY: This one is going to be a COVID positive patient.

CAMPBELL: At the scene, the EMTs quickly put on full personal protective equipment. With the patient placed on a gurney they are rushed to a nearby

hospital, where according to caraway eight care ambulances are already standing by with other patients. Care tells us the patient we want them

transport will eventually wait more than three hours before getting a hospital bed.

Five hours into a shift we catch up with Sadie Pope after transporting a COVID patient.

Did you ever think going into this field that you would be in a place where you're taking these kind of precautions for yourself as you're also trying

to help other people?

POPE: I wasn't expecting anything like this. But yes, it's a big deal because I'm with these patients all day and then I go home to my kids. So,

I'm just definitely trying to be aware of the people around me and be smart about what I'm doing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMPBELL (on camera): Now experts here in the United States and around the world are warning about the so-called COVID fatigue and that is after a

world has been gripped for a year by this deadly pandemic. Some people are just at a breaking point. Now, although these vaccines are giving people

hope and we're still months away from actually having mass vaccinations.

That is the reason why these first responders that we spoke to are imploring the public to just hold on to follow the guidance of medical

experts. They don't want the next ambulance call to be for you. Becky?

ANDERSON: That's griming screaming stuff, Josh. Thank you him. And we are hearing some really tough numbers out of the United Kingdom as well as

Britain's death toll from the virus tops 81,000. Health officials say around one in 50 people in England are infected with COVID-19 and about one

in 30 are infected in London. With all that going on, England's chief doctor has a grim warning for the United Kingdom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WHITTY, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER FOR ENGLAND: The next few weeks are going to be the worst weeks of this pandemic turns in numbers into the NHS.

[10:25:03]

WHITTY: What we need to do before the vaccines have had their effect because it's going to take several weeks before that happens is we need to

really double down. This is everybody's problem. Any single unnecessary contact with someone is a potential link in a chain of transmission that

will lead to a vulnerable person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: But Dr. Chris Whitty doesn't think it's terminal. I want you to hear this as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITTY: Once the vaccination has rolled out across a wide enough part of the population, so that the most vulnerable are protected but also so that

enough people are protected, to actually reduce the risk for the whole society. That's going to take a rather long period of time, but months not

years.

We will begin stage by stage, over the next period, people will be able to have the restrictions lifted and it won't happen in one go. And at a

certain point, hopefully, we'll get back to a life that is basically exactly the same as it was before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: That's Chris Whitty. Well, even though it might feel for so many people there in England and around the world, that hope is dragging its

heels certainly in the U.K. The country's saying its mass vaccination program should have most people inoculated by the autumn.

Well, Britain's Prince Charles has said that, however massive this pandemic is, it will be dwarfed by the global crisis of climate change. Prince

Charles on a mission to set the planet on a more sustainable trajectory. And he's asking huge corporations to help out. CNN's Richard Quest spoke to

him in an exclusive interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES PHILIP ARTHUR GEORGE, PRINCE OF WALES: It's only literally in the last 18 months or so that I think that the mood has changed. And people

have become much more concerned suddenly about the situation we face, both from a global warming climate change perspective, and of course, the loss

of biodiversity because with both these threats and huge challenges. We are faced with an existential situation a threat.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The problem you've -- we've now got, of course, is the pandemic which is the most immediate crisis on our

doorstep, if not the existential crisis that you refer to it with climate change, but I wonder how much more difficult it is to get people to make

concessions and to get people to make the necessary commitments when they are -- if you like, tied up with the pandemic. Or do you see them as two

sides of the same coin?

GEORGE: Planetary health. And nature's health is intimately linked to our own health. And the more we destroy, the natural world around us and

biodiversity on which we depend in its infinite variety. And the more we encourage mass extinctions of species that we don't always realize we

depend on because each of us are interconnected with the rest of nature, then we are making ourselves evermore vulnerable to all sorts of diseases

and problems.

So, this pandemic went with it the last one, if we're not very careful, so that's why it's critical to heal the natural world as well as ourselves.

And this is why we can't ignore it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Keep it right here on CNN. Richard's interview of Prince of Wales in tonight's "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS." That is 8:00 p.m. London time 12 a.m.

if you are watching here in this region of Abu Dhabi in the UAE. Right here on this show up next, Yemen's Houthi rebels are under more political heat

from the United States. Some say that peace efforts and aid could be the casualties of Washington's latest move.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: You're watching CONNECT THE WORLD with me Becky Anderson live from our Middle East broadcasting hub here in Abu Dhabi. And with days

left, only days left the Trump administration making a new policy move in this region of the Gulf fiddle target Yemen's Houthi rebels whom the White

House plans to designate as a foreign terrorist organization. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the plan on Sunday, the rebels backed by

Iran, and they've been fighting a Saudi-led coalition for years.

But sources say the U.S. designation could backfire and impede aid deliveries to Yemen, where four out of five people need it for that very

survival. While we are covering this development for you from the region and from Washington, Sam Kiley with Houthi reaction. He tonight is in

Jerusalem and Kylie Atwood is at the State Department. Let me start with you, Kylie. Mike Pompeo has said he will notify Congress of his intent to

designate the Houthi's terrorists despite it has to be said quite significant pushback from U.S. diplomats. What does this designation mean

effectively on the ground?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, effectively what this means is that anyone on the ground in Yemen is going to be prohibited

from working with the Houthis. Because if they do, they could potentially be subject to U.S. sanctions. Now, what a Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is

saying is that the Houthis have carried out terrorist acts and they should be held accountable for those acts.

Now, no one would deny that the Houthi rebels have been an impediment to peace in Yemen. But the question here is why do this now because aid groups

need to get aid into the country. It's a humanitarian crisis right now. And there are also fears that this could be an impediment to U.N.-led effort on

peace talks. So, there are a lot of questions as to why the Secretary is doing this. And I've been reporting this out, I can tell you for a few

months here.

There are diplomats at the State Department who told the Secretary that this was not a good move. It was not just the U.N. and the aid groups in

the region, but it was U.S. diplomats who didn't think that this was a good idea. Secretary Pompeo declaring that they're going to do it in the 11th

hour here of the Trump administration.

ANDERSON: Well, we have spoken to most of the heads of those agencies who categorically and together I think this is a -- this is a terrible idea.

Sam, how the Houthis responded?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they have condemned it, they put out a brief statement over Twitter saying that they

condemn this move and reserve the right to take action, as they call it against this decision and any other decision, another government may take.

I think we should also stress here that this is a bilateral decision by the United States.

United States designates Hezbollah both politically and of course, the military and part of the organization as terrorist organizations. Europeans

do not agree with that. And many European nations consider Hezbollah a political party and one that they're uncomfortable with but a political

party in Yemen. So, it's not a universal ban on or designation, it's just an American one, but what it does is catastrophically inhibit in many ways.

The diplomatic process because it does make it difficult for people designated by the United States of traveler's terrorists, so it's difficult

enough to get the Houthis around the negotiating table. They're going to be even more reluctant to participate now.

[10:35:03]

KILEY: And then on a humanitarian level, one of the major programs that you've been covering here on (INAUDIBLE) in the past has been the U.N.

effort to try to get salaries paid to government employees on all sides in this war to avoid the sort of gouging that CNN and others have reported on,

particularly of aid projects by the Houthis themselves. They're already facing with the Yemen is already facing severe cutbacks in terms of the

amount of money being given for the humanitarian effort and this is going to make life a lot harder.

ANDERSON: Sam Kiley, normally base here, of course in the UAE, with me out of Jerusalem on assignment tonight. And Kiley, thank you. The perspective

out of Washington as well. No official word yet from Saudi Arabia on that designation, even though the Saudis have been attacked by cross border

Houthi missiles and drones today. However, Riyadh has its mind on the future, a zero carbon city called The Line.

It's the first major construction project for its flagship business zone and it is big, covering 170 kilometers and wood house a million people.

There is big money to be made. This city built from scratch expected to add $48 billion to the Saudi economy by the end of the decade. That is the

idea. The idea is to diversify the economy at the world's largest oil exporter. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took the wraps of the plan

on Sunday.

You're watching CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Becky Anderson. We will be right back after this short break for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: You're watching CONNECT THE WORLD with me Becky Anderson. Spain's capital city dealing with the aftermath of its heaviest snowfall in 50

years. People in Madrid turned out in droves to play in the wintery weather with dancing and snowball fighting erupting throughout. What are these

bundled up crowds? Well, the storm did though prove deadly for others. Spain's interior minister says three people lost their lives over the

weekend.

Well, here at CNN, we don't only report news, we also aim to inspire. What we mean by that is to motivate prospective journalists to pursue the career

that we are so proud of. On that note, we launched CNN Academy right here in Abu Dhabi. At the weekend, the goal is to share our knowledge with those

who may just pick up the mantle from us at some point and give them the opportunity to cut their teeth in our profession. I hope you are all raring

to go. You're our first class, our class of '21.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL GARIN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TWOFOUR54 ABU DHABI: Your vision, which extends far beyond the academy because who could have imagined when

you first arrived in Abu Dhabi, that you and your team would play such a critical role.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My name is (INAUDIBLE)

LEAN: My name is Lean (ph). I'm originally Syrian.

JULERIA: My name is Juleria (ph) and I am originally from Pakistan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am (INAUDIBLE) I work for the (INAUDIBLE) executive office. My biggest outcome I'm seeking from this -- support hub is to learn

from the best.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Very excited about the launch. Many of my colleagues involved in that across the entire spectrum here at CNN. It is so important to invest

in those who will be the future.

Well, most people know the story of Tiger Woods golf progeny rising to the worldwide fame as one of the best golfers in history later hitting. Well, a

sudden low and then a spectacular comeback. But a two-part documentary from HBO takes a deeper look at Tiger. Tom Riddell is in the house with this. Is

it true that HBO didn't even interview Tiger Woods for this documentary? Tell me about it.

TOM RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Hey, Becky. Yes, that is true. Not for the one of trying. They did approach him actually on two separate occasions,

and he declined to be involved. But it aired or part one of it aired on Sunday night on HBO. It's very good. It's fascinating. And actually, the

directors were very keen to involve Tiger Woods, his voice throughout the whole story. And there is of course, no shortage of archive material to

draw on. So, it's very good and amazing story, as you all know.

ANDERSON: WORLD SPORTS up after this. It's always a pleasure. And that's it from us tonight, because we will hand you over to our colleagues for the

news out of the U.S. after (INAUDIBLE).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(CNN WORLD SPORTS)

END