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Trump Accuses Biden of Making His Transition Difficult; Trump Jr. Arrives in Greenland; Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) is Interviewed about Greenland, Meta and Smith's Report; Brutal Cold Grips Much of U.S.; Two Bodies Found in JetBlue Plane Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 07, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Officials are warning that the extremely dry air could easily fan the flames of a fire and spread dangerously fast.

So, you're on your way to the airport. You've chosen the cool new tech on the roads, a driverless car. And then things go alarmingly wrong. Chances are you have probably seen these cars out there. An Arizona man got into one of those and got stuck. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle. I'm getting dizzy. It's - look at what it's doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I understand. I'm really, really sorry, Mike. We're currently working with the situation on the vehicle. Is it circling around a parking lot, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's circling around a parking lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That is no bueno. Frustrated and, as you heard there, dizzy, passenger Mark Johns (ph) says he ordered the Waymo rideshare to catch a flight out of Scottsdale. The Waymo representative told Johns they could not control the car and that he had to resolve the issue in his app. Eventually he was, though, able to catch his flight. Waymo says the incident caused a five-minute disruption.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now, on time.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, just moments ago, Donald Trump Jr. landed in Greenland, as President-elect Trump says he wants to annex the island.

Breaking news, fact checkers be gone. A major policy shift for Facebook. Why they are ditching this safeguard against disinformation.

And an awful discovery on a JetBlue flight landing in Florida. Two bodies found in the wheel well.

I'm John Berman, with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is now 13 days until Donald Trump moves into the White House once again. And to pile on the sports metaphors for you this morning, Donald Trump seems to be on offense and defense at the same time, and possibly throwing a hail Mary pass today for Greenland. We'll get to it all.

First, the defense. The president-elect is facing a new legal fight. And we have new details on it this morning, trying to stop special counsel Jack Smith from publicly releasing his final report on his investigations into Donald Trump and the two federal cases that were dismissed. So, why is Donald Trump fighting this now? His lawyers read, we've learned, a draft of that report and are arguing in a new court filing that it contains baseless attacks, which they call an obvious effort to interfere with upcoming confirmation hearings.

Now to the offense. Donald Trump is now attacking President Biden, accusing Biden of basically sabotaging his transition into the White House. This happened in an interview and then also on Truth Social he laid into him saying that Biden is doing everything possible to make the transition as difficult as possible.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is with us now. He's got much more on this.

Let's start with this attack on Biden and the transition, because what we're hearing from Trump is not the same message we're hearing from those who are coming in to be on his staff. What's going on?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kate, good morning.

You're right, in 13 days, Donald Trump will not have Joe Biden to kick around anymore, or will he? That is the question here, because in that series of posts yesterday, as you were saying, as the Congress was certifying the victory of Donald Trump, he was still talking about Joe Biden, saying he's making the transition difficult.

Kate, you're getting the sense here that as the entire government becomes a Republican one, from the House to the Senate, soon to be the White House, if Donald Trump is looking for a foil, for someone perhaps to still hold the blame if things do not go his way, and he is starting with these executive orders that Joe Biden - that President Biden is doing on his - the waning days of his presidency. He was talking specifically about some of the environmental regulations he is putting in for a drilling off the - the coast.

But the bigger picture also is that the president-elect is saying that President Biden and his team are making things more complicated. Well, that is exactly at odds with what the incoming White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, has told reporters and other advisers, that the Biden administration, Jeff Zients, the Biden White House chief of staff in particular, has rolled out the red carpet for the Trump team, has been extraordinarily helpful with preparing them.

So, the reality here is, Donald Trump knows a lot more about what the White House and the - the duties and the challenges entail this time around than eight years ago, as we stood here in the - the early days of his - his administration as he began to take power.

So, we are going to hear more, though, from the president-elect later today. He'll be holding his first news conference here in a couple hours, really laying out his agenda.

[09:05:03]

But for now, at least, we'll see how much he talks there about President Biden. But he certainly had him on the mind yesterday, Kate.

BOLDUAN: And then Donald Trump is about to - will soon be heading to Washington, I think it's tomorrow. What's on the schedule?

ZELENY: We do know that the president-elect will be going to Washington tomorrow. He'll be attending the funeral, the state funeral, of Jimmy Carter on Thursday. But tomorrow we are told that he is going to be meeting with Senate Republicans.

Now, this is really the beginning of an effort to lay out his own agenda. Of course, we saw during the presidential campaign so many things from immigration to the economy to other matters that the Trump administration wants to do. The question is, how can they get that through a narrowly divided Congress?

So, the first meetings will start tomorrow. We're told the president- elect is going to meet Senate Republican leaders likely on Capitol Hill or nearby to talk about the agenda and if they're going to try and do everything in one piece or perhaps break it up. It's looking now like a one piece that's extending his tax cuts, for example, the immigration bills as well.

But, Kate, as you well know from covering Congress all those years, it is a difficult legislative task to do anything, and certainly as much as he's talking about in the campaign.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, especially when that potential one bill is being described as possibly the biggest piece of legislation in American history. That doesn't sound like something quick and easy.

ZELENY: Giant.

BOLDUAN: Yes, exactly.

Thank you, Jeff. It's great to see you.

Sara.

ZELENY: Reconciliation, right.

SIDNER: Moments ago, President-elect Donald Trump's son, Trump Jr., arrived in Greenland as his dad has been ramping up his rhetoric about the U.S. taking control of the Danish territory. Annexing Greenland has been on President-elect Trump's agenda since, you'll remember, the first term when he talked about buying Greenland. But last hour his former national security adviser, John Bolton, told our Kate Bolduan, there's a real security issue, yes, but Donald Trump may be making things worse with his rhetoric.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER UNDER TRUMP: But for all those who chuckle and say, oh, Greenland, ha, ha, ha, let me just say, you're wrong too. The security of Greenland is directly related to the security of the United States.

I'll tell you this, the one way to screw this up is to keep talking about it publicly. Officials in Greenland are elected by the people. Officials in Denmark are elected by the people. You keep talking about buying them as if it's a real estate deal. You're hardening their positions. You're pushing them into a corner that will make it very difficult to achieve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: CNN chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto is joining us now.

Jim, you heard Bolton's comments there where he basically is saying, the more you push this publicly, the worse you're making things. What do you make of this?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think two reality checks. One is that a lot of this talk in Trump's first term, annexing Greenland, et cetera, we would dismiss as just bluster. We should not. Trump is serious. His team is serious about somehow getting at least a greater role there. And you know that's true. He's sending his son there. He's talking about visiting himself.

But also to Bolton's point about the way they're talking about it. They're talking about this as a national security issue. And it was notable, I saw this a few days ago, that Trump's former national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, he tweeted, "if our great ally, Denmark, can't commit to defending the island, the U.S. will have to step in, as POTUS 47 said," referring to President-elect Donald Trump.

They are calling this a security issue and therefore laying the groundwork to say this is central to U.S. national security and we're prepared to do whatever we need to do to get greater control there. So, what does that mean? Trump talks about buying it. It doesn't seem like a realistic option. But would they put pressure on a U.S. treaty ally to allow a greater U.S. presence there? Perhaps.

But here's the other reality check, Sara, and that is that, as John Bolton said, Denmark has elected leaders, Greenland has elected leaders, and the prime ministers of both Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark, and Denmark itself, have both said, we're not interested in being bought by the United States, regardless of social media posts that Trump has been sharing of one or two people in Greenland with MAGA hats on.

SIDNER: And neither is Canada, for that matter, which he has also said should be part of the United States.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SIDNER: So, we will see how this all plays out. There are some serious issues here, though, as you point out.

SCIUTTO: And to that point, Sara, I'll just note this. The Canada piece, about making Canada our 51st state, that one, when I speak to folks in Trump's world, not particularly serious. The Panama Canal, when Trump talks about that, they're serious about the Panama Canal. And again, they're framing it as a security issue that China is involved there. They're citing treaties from 100 years ago about what would allow the U.S. to take it over again. And it all falls under their kind of new sense of a Monroe doctrine, that this is our hemisphere, America's hemisphere, and we will operate here however we like.

[09:10:06]

And we might even push close allies, whether that be Denmark, Canada, Mexico, to do what President-elect Trump wants, regardless of what those close allies want. It's a brave new world, Sara. We should prepare for it.

SIDNER: Certainly a confusing one from someone who has said he doesn't want to get involved in, for example, international issues.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SIDNER: And here we are talking about annexing other countries.

Jim Sciutto, it is always, always a pleasure. Thank you for coming on this morning.

SCIUTTO: Thanks a lot.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: With me now is the governor of New Hampshire, Republican Chris Sununu, in his second to last full day in office.

GOV. CHRIS SUNUNU (R-NH): Forty-eight hours to go.

BERMAN: We're honored that you chose to spend it with us here.

SUNUNU: All day. I'll be here - I'll be here (INAUDIBLE).

BERMAN: Did you ever imagine that on your second to last day in office you'd be talking about Greenland?

SUNUNU: No, I didn't. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's a big tourist destination, as well as a strategic place for the United States and the North Atlantic. So, we'll see what - what comes of it. I don't think anyone in America is really worried about Greenland. If something comes of it, it comes of it. But there's a lot more pressing issues right now. Yes. BERMAN: Well, if no one's worried about Greenland -

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: Why is the president-elect of the United States focusing on it, talking about annexing a sovereign territory?

SUNUNU: Look, I firmly believe Trump is focusing on a bigger international strategy. And there's reasons for that. Obviously, Israel and Ukraine, getting those things settled. And I think you will see a lot of progress there in the next six months.

He's going to throw the Greenland thing in there. He's throwing the Canada thing in there. You know, it's a bit tongue in cheek, obviously, but he's making a point that there is changes and there is a place for the United States as being that world leader.

And the reason, again, is then to provide leverage for the tariffs. The tariffs are the big challenge next. So, if he can find that - that piece, if you will, in Israel and Ukraine, leverage some of the - the other opportunities internationally, reestablish America as really being the world power that ensures peace, then he can go after the tariffs and, you know, subsequently build some strength within the - the U.S. economy.

BERMAN: I want to ask you a Meta question, no pun intended here. Maybe pun intended. How do you feel about facts?

SUNUNU: How do I - I'm pro facts.

BERMAN: Right.

SUNUNU: I mean, yes, look, I'm an engineer. I'm a numbers guy. I'm a spreadsheet guy. I'm a firm believer that you look at the data, you make decisions, you be super transparent, especially for those who hold public office. Explain to folks why you're making the decisions you are based on data and you move forward.

BERMAN: So, some things are objectively true. Other things are objectively not true.

SUNUNU: Last time I checked, yes.

BERMAN: OK. So the reason I'm asking is because Meta -

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: The parent company to Facebook, announced this morning that it's getting rid of its fact checkers.

SUNUNU: Great. Good. Nobody believes them. No - I - they're - in their own words there was severe political bias there. If there was a conservative group that had fact checkers, I'd say there's political bias. If there's a liberal group, if there's social media groups, if there's - there's always going to be a bias in what you do.

I think in the social media world, the political bias got very, very heavy. They acknowledge it. They're going to make a change.

BERMAN: Can you get better fact checkers then, rather than getting rid of them altogether?

SUNUNU: How about not worry about fact checking? How about -

BERMAN: How - well, you just told me that there are things that are objectively true and objectively not true.

SUNUNU: There are, but is that the role - is social media's role to prove to you what is true and what is not, or is its role to be an open - an open platform for discussion, debate, opinion. You know, whether folks believe something or not believe something. I would say that's really where social - communication. That's the - more of the role of social media, not to be the police of what's true.

BERMAN: And without using words like police.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: And I'm glad we're having this discussion because it's an important one here.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: Whose responsibility is it then to - to talk about what's true and not true?

SUNUNU: Yours. Mine. My kids. Our communities. We all have that personal responsibility. It's not the governments. There's a freedom of speech aspect to this, of course. But it's not the government's role to - to necessarily tell you absolutely what is true and what is not true, what you should believe, judge you on what you believe and how you're vote -

BERMAN: (INAUDIBLE) teacher (ph).

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: We're not talking about the government.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: We're talking about Facebook.

SUNUNU: Right. It's a private business, right?

BERMAN: So -

SUNUNU: So, is that - is that - is it - is it in their business model that we are going to be the police of truth in America? And when people say something that isn't true, we're going to immediately correct it or ban them. No, of course not. That's - I'm going to guess - I haven't seen the business plan for Facebook, but I'm' guessing that Meta doesn't have it in there. So, yes.

BERMAN: How do you know when you go on Facebook whether what you're reading is true?

SUNUNU: You don't. You don't. And that's why you shouldn't use Facebook or just Truth, or just social media or just CNN or just ABC. You - you - you use your experiences to understand that what you're getting - and I'll say this, I think the next generation, I think we have this tough debate on it because social media is new for us, right? Our generation invented social media. We didn't have the maturity and the responsibility to handle it appropriately.

I think the next generation does. I think they know the vast majority of what they're seeing online isn't necessarily truthful. There is bias on both sides. So, my hope is that the next generation is a little more responsible with the tools they're given.

BERMAN: Very quickly, Donald Trump is trying to fight the release of special counsel Jack Smith's report in the classified documents case.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: Doesn't want it to come out. Special counsels always releasing reports at the end.

SUNUNU: Sure.

BERMAN: It's actually part of the special counsel code.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: You're supposed to release a report. The attorney general decides whether it goes public.

SUNUNU: You bet.

BERMAN: Liz Cheney wrote a note just a few minutes ago saying that Trump is already doing what despots do, he's trying to conceal the truth.

[09:15:00]

And then in this post, Liz Cheney says, "Garland now has a duty to release the Justice Department report and prevent its evidence from being destroyed. The truth must prevail."

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: What do you think?

SUNUNU: I'm a big transparency guy. Let it all out on everybody. I don't think Liz Cheney is the - is the arbiter of - necessarily should be the arbiter of what's going on here.

I appreciate everyone's going to have an opinion, but I'm a big transparency guy, whether it's on a report or whether it's internal or external, unless there's real, clear reasons where personal information is, you know, truly harmful or, you know, medical information, things of that nature.

I'm from the live free or - live free or die state. We're all about openness, transparency and, you know, that that freedom of speech, if you will, and the freedom of access to information that comes with it.

BERMAN: And no sales tax.

SUNUNU: Or income tax.

BERMAN: But - so you want the - you want the special - you want the special council -

SUNUNU: Or congestion tolls. What is going on in the city -

BERMAN: You want - you want - you want the special - I'm sure you didn't have to pay it. You want the special council report released?

SUNUNU: Sure. Why not.

BERMAN: OK. Last question. Like I said, second to last day in office.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: What's next? I know you've been asked.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: You can't tell me you're not looking at the Senate seat in New Hampshire, which I think is up in 2026.

SUNUNU: I'm not.

BERMAN: No, not at all.

SUNUNU: No, look, I'm not - no, I'm - I'm truly not. I will not be running for the U.S. Senate anytime soon. I'm not looking at public office. It is public service, not public career. I've done four terms. I've done my eight years. I'm excited to get back into the private sector, back into business and engineering, and helping businesses understand regulatory processes so they can be more profitable. Maybe spend more time in New York.

BERMAN: Good. We would welcome you.

Look, I've been at this a little while. When someone says I'm not looking at it -

SUNUNU: Yes.

BERMAN: That's different than saying I -

SUNUNU: Well, I'm not running.

BERMAN: You are not going to run for Senate in New Hampshire in 2026?

SUNUNU: No. God, no. No, no. I'll have no family left. I mean my family is so excited about me getting out of the public sphere for a while. I mean, really. You got to take a break.

Now I'm 50 years old. I kind of feel like I probably have two more lifetimes to go. Who knows what happens way down the road, but nothing in the immediate future.

BERMAN: All right.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, which we can still say for another two days.

SUNUNU: You're right.

BERMAN: Very nice to see you. Maybe we'll see more of you.

SUNUNU: I would love to.

BERMAN: All right. Thanks so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: John, did - did you just offer him a job?

BERMAN: I'm just saying. Maybe we'll see more of him.

SIDNER: I feel you said - I feel like you said, we'd love to have him.

SUNUNU: I dropped my resume off up front. So.

BERMAN: He's got time on his hands. So.

SIDNER: There you are. All right, cool.

Thank you, John.

All right, breaking overnight, the two bodies found in the landing gear of a JetBlue flight in Florida.

Plus, McDonald's becomes the latest company to roll back its diversity goals, but the company says it is still committed to inclusion.

And as a deadly winter storm moves out, a wave of frigid, cold temperatures moving in. More than 250 million people are feeling below freezing temperatures now. We will talk about all of this, yikes, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:02]

SIDNER: So, this morning, at least five people have died after the powerful winter storm that hit several states. Officials in Missouri said at least 1,700 drivers were stranded due to the extreme conditions. The city of Chapman, Kansas, saw more than 20 inches of snow, the storm's top snow total.

And right now crews in several states, basically all of them, are now scrambling, working to clear roads and restore power before brutally cold temperatures set in.

CNN's Derek Van Dam tracking all of this for us.

You told us this storm was going to be bad. It was. And now you've got something else. They've got - everyone's got something else to contend with. How cold are we talking?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. That's right. So - so the cold air is going to stick around for a while. And it's actually going to set the stage for what could potentially be another significant snow and ice event. I'll highlight that in just one moment.

But right now we've got, over the next week, roughly 75 percent of the American public under freezing temperatures. So, that is really saying something.

And this morning, with wind chill values at negative one, you are really feeling it in Kansas City, especially with that fresh snowpack on the ground. In Boston, the actual temperature was roughly 18 degrees this morning, but the wind chill value was at one degree. So, you've got to dress like it's one degree Fahrenheit outside, because that's what it feels like on your exposed skin.

And it's all thanks to this snowpack. There was a 1,000 mile plus wide swathe of six inches or more from this most recent snowfall. So, that's locking in the cold, not to mention the direction of the wind just funneling the cold air from the arctic. And, of course, with all the wind and energy behind this, and all the snow and ice that accumulated, we have knocked out power for nearly 200,000 customers across the mid-Atlantic and into the southern portions of the Midwest.

So, the cold air, it's not going anywhere. Neither is the snow. So, like I said before, this is going to lay the groundwork, the cold air, for the potential for another snowstorm that is actually picking up steam come Thursday into Friday and potentially into the weekend.

Look how it evolves. Dallas, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, you have the potential for some significant snow and icing depending on where that freezing line sets up. Atlanta, Birmingham, you also have the potential for some wintry weather. And then on the East Coast, where it goes from there, that's still to be determined for the weekend.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, stand by to potentially get more bad news on the weather front. Stand by.

VAN DAM: Yes. Reality in the (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Derek. Thanks for tracking it all. That's exactly right. Thanks, buddy.

John.

BERMAN: All right, breaking this morning, JetBlue says the bodies of two people were found in the wheel well of one of its planes after it landed in Fort Lauderdale from New York.

Let's get right to CNN's Carlos Suarez, who's at the airport in Fort Lauderdale for the latest on this.

Carlos, great to have you there on scene. What are you learning?

[09:25:02]

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning.

So, we know that the medical examiner has taken the bodies and that the Broward Sheriff's Office here in Fort Lauderdale are the ones that are handling this investigation. As you noted, that JetBlue flight landed here at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport from New York City a little after 11:00 last night.

Now, according to the airline, sometime after that, during a post- flight inspection of that aircraft, the two bodies were found in the wheel well of this aircraft.

Now, the details surrounding just how the victims were able to access the aircraft out of New York City is still unclear at this hour. We're told that no one that was on this flight apparently knew of what happened. The identities of these two victims have not been released.

And this discovery comes just two weeks after a body was found on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Maui. Now, the details surrounding that incident is still being investigated.

Again, John, this morning, the Broward medical examiner has taken these two bodies. They are in the process of trying to identify them. The FAA is also investigating the incident. And, of course, JetBlue is still trying to sort out the details, just how these two victims were able to access the wheel well of this aircraft.

John.

BERMAN: All right, Carlos Suarez, just arriving on the scene in Fort Lauderdale. Great to have you there. Obviously, a lot of questions still in this story.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, look out for this. There are some changes coming to Meta, and they're major. Of course, the parent company of Facebook. What's replacing the company's fact checkers? We will discuss, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)