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Zach Klein is Interviewed about Columbus Demonstrations; Kremlin Comments on Missile Launch; Chances of Trump's Picks Being Confirmed; Gaetz Fall Sparks New Questions Over Confirmations; Six Tourists Die in Laos; Clear CEO on Cutting Edge Technology. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 22, 2024 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

ZACH KLEIN, COLUMBUS, OHIO CITY ATTORNEY: March in the Short North, the same place where these Nazis walked last week. And there's dozens of congregations that are set up to stand together to march against hate.

And the second is, drawing a line in the sand and calling out the darkness that this is. And as a prosecutor, ready to pounce the moment that they move from free speech and the conduct moves to criminal law, I'm ready to prosecute. You know, we draw the line in the sand in Columbus, Ohio. And as a prosecutor, if the facts are there, and we're able to prosecute these individuals, we will do it because we will not tolerate this conduct.

It is anti-American. You know, taking a step back and like thinking about what Naziism is, you know, Naziism isn't just white supremacy, it's white supremacy and the elimination of black, brown, gay, LGBTQ, Jewish people. You know, eliminate them from earth. Like, this is such a radical, dangerous thought. It is anti-American. And people that are pursuing, you know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Naziism is anti-American because it eliminates 70 percent of America. That is not what we stand for in this country. We have to rally around and love our neighbor. And I think we get away from that sometimes. Remember that we can embrace each other and support each other. And we can do it in the rejection of hate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some of the members of this hate group, they were detained after that march on Saturday. There is an ongoing investigation. And you were talking about kind of the line in the sand when you're - and you're ready to pounce.

I saw that the police department could be releasing their findings in a report maybe this afternoon. Do you think charges could be coming?

KLEIN: Well, I don't want to get ahead of the police department. But what will be - it's my understanding in talking with the division of police, released this afternoon is public record. So, the - any reports taken, any body camera footage. And that's why I continue, as the investigation is ongoing, continue to ask our neighbors and friends that if you were part of the disturbance that was criminal in nature, if you have video evidence, if you have testimony or a victim of crime, please work with the division of police so we can hold these individuals accountable.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Columbus is a great city and this should - and this all needs to be stopped before it gets any worse.

KLEIN: It is.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Zach Klein, city attorney for the city of Columbus. We'll stay close to this. I really appreciate your time.

KLEIN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you.

Coming up for us, so now that Matt Gaetz has dropped out as one of Donald Trump's top cabinet picks, what are the chances his other picks get confirmed? Other picks like those two who are facing controversy in - in their own right. We're going to run the numbers on that.

And one of the largest no cost tuition programs in the country was just approved at a major university system, paving the way for students from families earning less than $100,000 to go to college tuition free.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:36:45]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning the Kremlin, once again, trying to put the blame on the west for what it did. Russia's spin is that its use of experimental medium range ballistic missiles was because of reckless decisions from the west. President Zelenskyy says that missile strike on Ukraine is a severe escalation of war.

CNN national security and politics correspondent Natasha Bertrand is joining us now from the Pentagon with more on this.

What can you tell us, Natasha?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, we are learning a little bit more about just what this missile was. According to multiple officials that we have spoken to, this was a medium range, intermediate range ballistic missile that was carrying multiple warheads. And it is potentially the first use of this kind of ballistic missile outside of testing. So, it is significant for that reason.

And we just got some information from Ukraine's defense intelligence agency. And they also assessed that this ballistic missile was carrying six warheads and six submunitions. Essentially, this missile was designed during the Cold War to allow it to deliver multiple nuclear warheads during a conflict. And while this missile in particular carried conventional warheads, not nuclear warheads, it is an example of the kind of nuclear saber rattling that Russia is doing right now in response to that decision by President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to use long range weapons and missile systems to launch - to attack inside Russia itself. Now, with all of that said, even given that this is a fairly new

capability that the Russians are basically trying out here, the U.S. has said that they do not believe that Russia has a large supply of these kinds of missiles. In fact, they only have a couple, according to a U.S. official. They don't carry particularly large warheads, or at least this one that attacked Ukraine yesterday did not. And, importantly, the U.S. does not believe at this point that this kind of missile would be a game changer for the conflict in Ukraine.

So, while they are assessing the implications of the use of this missile very closely, including for NATO's deterrence and its own posture, they are not overly concerned by this at the moment, saying that it's more just an attempt by the Russians to garner international attention and intimidate the Ukrainians instead of actually changing the course of the war, Sara.

SIDNER: We will have to wait and see.

Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much with your reporting there from the Pentagon for us.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, now that Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his name from consideration to be attorney general, does that change the odds that the president-elect's other picks have in terms of getting confirmed?

Harry Enten is back with us. He's been running the numbers on this one.

Ahoy, matey.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Shalom.

BOLDUAN: Literally.

The - let's start with Defense secretary.

ENTEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Pete Hegseth.

ENTEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Has - have his chances changed in the last week?

ENTEN: They absolutely have. You know, based upon that sexual assault allegation. Look at this, the chance that he gets confirmed as Defense secretary. A week ago we were looking at an 82 percent chance, according to the betting markets. Now we're down to just a 54 percent chance. So, those odds have dropped dramatically.

Now, this is still a little bit north of 50 percent, but we're basically looking at a 50/50 proposition here. Of course, Matt Gaetz, before he actually stepped back, his chances were well south of 50 percent. So, Hegseth is doing better than Gaetz was, but far worse than he was doing just a week ago, Kate.

[08:40:03]

BOLDUAN: What about some of the other nominations that we're hearing a lot of bellyaching and concern about amongst even the senators who need to potentially confirm them, which would be Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr.

ENTEN: Yes, so right now Hegseth has the worst odds at 54 percent. But Gabbard and RFK Jr. are not shoe-ins by any stretch of the imagination. So, the national intel director, National Intelligence Director, look at this, Gabbard's at 70 percent. So, there's a 30 percent chance that this could go the other way. Many of the more secure nominations, like Stefanik to be U.N. ambassador, that's well up into the 90s.

How about RFK Jr.? He's standing at 73 percent. Which, again, is well above 50 percent, but well south of a sure thing.

And, Kate, you were asking me before we got on set, has RFK Jr.'s odds gone down? In fact, they have.

BOLDUAN: OK.

ENTEN: I was looking at them. They were close to about 90 percent when his first - when his name was first getting floated. So, as some of the more controversial stances of RFK, whether they -

BOLDUAN: Well, and as many in the - big names in the medical community are speaking out against him as well.

ENTEN: Correct. As many of the big names in the medical community have been speaking out against him, his odds have definitely been falling. Again, still north of 50 percent. But this is far from a sure thing. I would not be surprised if one of these end up going adios amigos. Both of them being confirmed, most likely. But at this particular point, at least one of them not getting confirmed, there's a pretty decent chance of that.

BOLDUAN: Let's see what another week brings.

This is - you're talking about getting confirmed.

ENTEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Then there is the added question and possibility of recess appointments we've been talking so much about. What about this?

ENTEN: Yes. So, the idea would be that maybe, if you couldn't get someone confirmed, maybe you could get them through a recess appointment. Trump is trying - have been working GOOP senators to say, hey, would you be amenable to this? At this particular point, the betting markets not necessarily seeing that as a particularly high possibility, just a 17 percent chance of, yes. The vast majority here saying no. One of Trump's picks is going to get through, or all of them are going to get through, it's most likely going to be through the traditional process of getting confirmed.

Of course, with Donald Trump, we just have to wait and see. Untraditional is the name of the game. But at this particular point, it looks like tradition in the Senate, which, of course, is a body of tradition, is going to win out.

BOLDUAN: Yes. All right. Stand by to see what another week brings.

ENTEN: Stand by, because, you know, a week ago, Matt Gaetz's nomination was still alive, and no longer is at this point. We'll see if Gabbard, RFK and Pete Hegseth's nominations are still alive come a week from now.

BOLDUAN: Exactly.

Good to see you, Harry. Thank you.

ENTEN: Nice to see you.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor at "The Atlantic," and great mind, Ron Brownstein is joining us now.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, good morning.

SIDNER: You heard Harry there sort of going through the other potential issues and what people are seeing when it comes to whether or not those other nominees will run into problems. But there's a couple of trains of thought when you look at what happened to Matt Gaetz, considering that the Senate was not going to confirm him, and then he dropped out. One, and I want to get your thoughts on this.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SINDER: One is that the senators will now not push back as hard on others because they've sort of won this one battle and they are afraid that Trump will, you know, send folks after them to try to keep them from being reelected in 2022. Those who will be up. The other sentiment though is that it might encourage them to stand by their standards and not be pushed around by Donald Trump for these nominees.

Where do you stand on this?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, I think - I think it's more toward the encouraging them for one key reason here, they did not have to publicly vote against Matt Gaetz and he withdrew. You know, it is very rare for a president to lose a Senate vote on confirmation of a cabinet nominee when his party controls the Senate. I think the last time it happened was roughly a century ago. Usually when a president with his party in control of the Senate is forced to back off, it's exactly what happened here, the nominee withdraws without a vote.

And I think that, you know, any senator, no matter Republican senator, no matter how resistant to Trump's gravitational pull, they have a - probably a number in their head about how often they can publicly oppose him without, you know, kind of provoking the kind of consequences that you talk about. So, I would think this leaves them with more freedom, not less, to vote against one of the other nominees that many of them consider, you know, by historic measures, entirely unfit for these positions.

Tulsi Gabbard, after the broadside that Nikki Haley delivered against her this week, I think would be vulnerable. RFK Jr., obviously. Pete Hegseth. These are nominees that, you know, in the before times would have faced, I think, broad resistance among Republicans. But I think this - the way that Gaetz got out gives them the room to at least oppose - to oppose at least one of them.

SIDNER: Ron, so often, though, we hear that they're - you know, they were going to oppose someone, oppose someone. But when it comes to, when the rubber meets the road and they're put in a position to do it publicly -

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SIDNER: And they've been threatened, they tend to capitulate, don't they?

[08:45:03]

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Totally. I mean, yes, that's the - that is the dynamic we saw in Trump's first term on most key issues.

But, Sara, we are talking about nominees that are way beyond the last buoys, you know. And - and particularly in the case of RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard in terms of what Senate Republicans, I think, would have considered acceptable for these positions, you know, at any point. Donald Trump just won a stunning comeback victory. They don't want to oppose him very often.

But, you know, I think what Haley - particularly the kind of arguments that Haley leveled against Tulsi Gabbard, which shows how you could oppose her from the right, or Mike Pence's arguments against RFK Jr. on abortion, which shows how you could oppose him from the right. No guarantee. But I think that creates more space potentially for a few Republicans to say no.

You know, they've established a boundary, right? The - Trump's nominations of Gaetz in particular, I think, was meant to send the message that there is nothing he could do that - that Senate Republicans would kind of stiffen their backs against and resist. They've established that's not right. There is at least some boundary. And now we'll see - we'll have to see whether it encompasses any of these other nominees that, as I said, by traditional metrics, never would have gotten off the ground.

SIDNER: Ron Brownstein, great to speak with you, going through what is going to be a very interesting process of trying to get through all of these nominees. Appreciate it. We'll certainly have you back.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me. SIDNER: All right, this morning, an international warning after

tainted alcohol is linked to now six deaths in southeast Asia. New details on the investigation into the source of that drink.

And why is this football field glowing? What is that?

Now, over the next few weeks we will be introducing you to our top five CNN heroes. This week's hero has always had a passion for math and engineering. When she went to study engineering at MIT, she was one of the only two black women in her class. Now she's fighting to help make the industry more diverse by bringing STEM and dance together for young girls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YAMILEE TOUSSAINT, CNN HERO: We bring STEM and dance together by allowing the girls to create dance performances that combine the two so they can work on costumes that light up as they move, and they're learning how to program the circuits so that when they press a button on the circuit, the lights turn blue, or whatever effect that they want to be able to convey a message.

We're going to talk about song structure today.

They can create their own song through computer science and AI.

So, these are the poses in the beginning?

And then be able to make a dance routine to that song that they created.

Love it. This is going to be so fly.

We're normalizing that girls of color can do computer science and create something together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:52:19]

BOLDUAN: New this morning, at least six tourists are now dead, including one American, all apparent victims of suspected methanol poisoning in Laos. An Australian teenager is the latest person to die from the suspected poisoning. And the state media says they believe it was tainted alcohol could be the cause of at least three of the deaths.

CNN's Marc Stewart is following this investigation.

And it seems, Marc, there are just a lot of questions about what happened here. What are you learning?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, this is very curious because the government is calling this a case of tainted alcohol, yet if you listen to the U.S. and New Zealand, for example, they are saying they suspect methanol poisoning. So, there are some - there are some nuance here.

Nonetheless, it is important to point out that no one has been charged, yet it is prompting a number of governments, including the United States, to send out this warning to people, tourists who may be in Laos, to be careful where they get their alcohol. To go to a licensed bar, a licensed hotel, and to avoid homemade beverages.

And that leads to this other question, was this something that happened deliberately, or was this an accident? It's not uncommon for people to drink homemade drinks. Perhaps something went wrong. We just don't know at this point.

It's also mysterious when we look at methanol because this is a substance that you can't necessarily see. It's clear. So, if it's in a drink, you really don't know. But it can do a lot of damage. It can do a lot of brain damage.

And, Kate, in 20 to 40 percent of these cases, they turn out to be fatal depending on exactly how much is actually consumed.

BOLDUAN: And, Marc, this also highlights kind of the draw to Laos by so many young people kind of heading to Laos. What is the draw?

STEWART: Right. This is a go-to spot, especially for backpackers, young backpackers. As we've seen from some of the video, I mean the terrain there is just stunning. Blue water, big green trees, big cliffs. It's got a very young atmosphere. It's very cheap. There are a lot of youth hostels. So, it's why young people from the United States and other parts of the world are drawn there.

But some important context to this story. This is a very poor country. One of the poorest countries in all of southeast Asia. Tourism is a big part. So, Kate, this tourism aspect is perhaps why we are seeing so much sensitivity here.

[08:55:00]

BOLDUAN: Good point. It's great to see you, Marc. Much more to come on this one. I really appreciate the reporting.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, on our radar, to northern California, where people are dealing with this insane weather. A massive storm dumped nearly two feet of snow in the mountains. Mind you, it is, you know, not even Thanksgiving yet. There are whiteout conditions. It's beautiful though. The same storm also, though, dumped record rain in some areas. You can see the flooded vineyards in Sonoma, California. Yes, the place that makes the wine. Officials near San Francisco warn now of rockslides. The storm also triggered scores of flight cancellations.

Also today, Blue Origin is set to launch its ninth space tourism flight, Mission NS-28 will launch six people into space with the entire flight lasting just a bit more than ten minutes. The crew will include some familiar faces like Emily Calandrelli, also known as the space gal. She is an MIT grad, bestselling author, and host of the Netflix show "Emily's Wonder Lab," where she works to inspire younger girls to see themselves in STEM.

And meet Major League Baseball MVP Dodgers Shohei Ohtani and Yankee Aaron Judge. Ohtani is only the second player to ever win MVP honors in both leagues, but it's his beloved pup Decoy that is the one who stole the show. Whoo-hoo, take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 2024 most valuable player goes to my teammate, Shohei Ohtani.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Oh, there he goes. What a cutie. Come on over here, Decoy. Decoy has done a lot of work for the Dodgers himself, throwing out the first pitch, for example, and being in their World Series parade.

All right, as you well have heard, this is expected to be the busiest travel for the Thanksgiving holiday on record. Airports will be a crush of people. On average, did you know this, that you wait about 30 minutes in the standard screening at an airport? And then if you have TSA precheck, about ten minutes. But that is not during the holiday crush. And you know the drill, it can be way longer.

One company is trying out new technology that could get you cleared in seconds. And not just at the airport. Their grand plan is to make your face your ID, and even payment everywhere. The CEO of Clear says she is about to change the game, making life just a little bit easier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice over): Caryn Seidman-Becker is the CEO of Clear. You know the company with the kiosks at the airport that allows you to skip the other lines for a fee.

SIDNER: So, your company is really sort of a disruptor type of company. It's there. It's different. You go. You get your eye scanned. You get your finger scanned. But once it got really popular, then we, as customers, started getting frustrated because the lines started getting long. What are you doing about that?

CARYN SEIDMAN-BECKER, CEO, CLEAR: I always say, we're obsessed with the member experience. We look at data all day long. We can see tons of trends. This has been a period of improved member experience over 2024. We expect to see that accelerate over the next 12 months as we roll out our Face First technology, which is really awesome. It's in about 12 airports today. It's been two weeks, and it is, you know, five times as fast.

SIDNER (voice over): We asked to see that new tech.

SIDNER: So, you're in line somewhere.

SEIDMAN-BECKER: It was too fast. I'm done.

SIDNER (voice over): We clocked it. Less than two seconds.

She has more big plans for Clear customers.

SEIDMAN-BECKER: We're also rolling out new products, like Assist, where you can have a Clear ambassador help you to your gate, where we have Scout, if you lose something, you can call member care and they help you find it, right? This is a period of rethinking the customer experience with technology and with people with innovation. And that's exactly what we're doing. And there's so much more to come. I think the coolest thing that we're working on is really the concept of the secure identity network.

SIDNER: How could this end up making life easier, not just at the airport?

SEIDMAN-BECKER: Not only can it make life easier, it is making life easier. So, we want to go from using it multiple times a year in airports, to multiple times a day. Today let's just say you live in L.A. You could use it getting into an Uber for rider verification within the rider app. And then let's say you're going to the Intuit Dome to watch a Clippers game. You can buy beer at the Clippers game with just your face and Clear, right, because you are your age and your payment. You could check in at a doctor's office with your face. You're there for your appointment. What I see as the ultimate check in at the doctor's office is, your face is your appointment, it's your insurance card that's verified and validated, and then it is also your copay and your credit card.

SIDNER (voice over): Becker had no idea when she started venturing into trying to make doctor's visits a more seamless experience that it would become searingly personal.

[09:00:02]

SIDNER: You were running a company. You are a mom to three kids, and, obviously, you're a wife. What happens to your family?