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Supreme Court Signals It Will Uphold Ban On TikTok; Biden: "We Are Committed To Helping California's Long-Term Recovery Efforts"; Palisades Fire 8 Percent Contained. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired January 10, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:33:27]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We're following today's oral arguments. The Supreme Court appears ready to uphold a ban on TikTok that is set to take effect in nine days. The popular app is used by as many as 170 million users in the U.S.

A bipartisan law orders TikTok to shut down in nine days unless it finds a new owner that is not in China, or the Supreme Court takes action.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: To give you some background, lawmakers fear that, through TikTok, China could acquire Americans private data or could push propaganda that would sow discord.

It's a risk that TikTok's lawyer acknowledged to the nine justices this morning.

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BRETT KAVANAUGH, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: That they would use that information over time to develop spies, to turn people to blackmail people, people who, a generation from now, will be working in the FBI or the CIA or in the State Department.

Is that not a realistic assessment by Congress and the president of the risks here?

NOEL FRANCISCO, TIKTOK LAWYER: Well, Your Honor, I'm not disputing the risks. I certainly acknowledge the risks. But I think there are lots of reasons, not just the one I just gave, but there are lots of reasons why that risk still can't justify the law.

(END AUDIO FEED)

SANCHEZ: Let's get the latest on what happened today with CNN chief Supreme Court analyst, Joan Biskupic.

Joan, it looks like the justices are not going to block this ban.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: It does. But I've got a couple of caveats.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: All right.

BISKUPIC: You know, you could tell that they -- they were with the federal government here in terms of the main motivation.

But there are a couple of questions. There are actually three. First of all, you know, is this a First Amendment infringement?

[13:35:02]

And once you get past that, has the government, Congress passed a law that's narrowly tailored to kind of meet its compelling interests, to override the First Amendment free-speech interests?

And then, after that, what about timing? Because that did come up here. Could this possibly not take effect on January 19th, which is when it's scheduled to take effect, which, of course, is a day before President-Elect Donald Trump comes in?

First of all, on that exchange that you just listened to, there was so much concern about the potential for, you know, Chinese espionage.

At one point, the chief justice also said, you know, so are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is, in fact, subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?

Because Tic Tac (sic), while an American company, is owned ultimately by ByteDance, which is, you know, headquartered in Beijing. So that was a real concern.

But those two grounds that you just mentioned that Congress passed the law based on, the data collection for blackmail and other espionage, and the covert manipulation.

It was that latter grounds that the justices were really suspicious about, you know, doesn't everyone know now that TikTok is owned by a Chinese parent company? Wouldn't they know that potentially there -- that there could be some manipulation?

So I think the justices might not agree with the government on the extent of the grounds here. So bottom line, it looks like this court is ready to rule against TikTok.

But then, finally, timing. The question came up of whether there should be some postponement of the effect of the law taking place on January 19th, which is what Congress had dictated when it passed the law back in April.

President-Elect Donald Trump has said, put a pause on it. TikTok has said put a pause on it. And the justices started to ask about that.

And the solicitor general of the United States, currently the Biden administration solicitor general, said, no, if you're going to rule for us based on our national security grounds, that it looked like they we're ready to buy, there's no reason to say that that would justify any kind of postponement here.

But there was -- there seemed to be some sentiment about, should they act when we're in the middle of a transition between administrations, and what would the consequences be if they we're to do it that way?

KEILAR: All right, it's going to be so interesting --

BISKUPIC: Yes.

KEILAR: -- what happens, especially with the timing.

Joan, thank you so much for that. We do appreciate it.

And ahead, why a plane that was helping to fight the L.A. fires is grounded after a drone encounter. And what officials are doing to prevent it from happening again. Stay with us for that.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not going to be over. Even when all the fires are out. It's just going to be the beginning. And the change in insurance policy in California for these modest homes, as well as these very expensive homes and businesses. So we're going to be around a long while to go to help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: President Biden, speaking moments ago from the White House on the long-term plan to help California, as we're learning that the Palisades Fire is now 8 percent contained.

SANCHEZ: We want you to look at these before-and-after satellite images that give an even closer look at how the entire Pacific Palisades community is virtually gutted. The flames sparing only a couple of homes. You see how widespread, block after block, the devastation is.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones is in Palisades for us.

And, Julia, fire officials say the wind conditions for the moment are better. What does that mean for the effort?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, that means that, for now, they can continue to fight these flames from the air as well as from the ground. It means that there's a bit of a lull, an opportunity.

They say they're trying to get up to double-digits still today, but that will depend on whether or not those Santa Ana winds come back. There is -- for the next few days, we're expecting them to pick up a

little bit, but still stay steady. That could change at the beginning of next week, and that's where those conditions could worsen and make it harder for them to fight.

It's not just one front of this fire. If the winds go north or west or east, it all goes to different places.

But we did hear from officials today about some -- some updates that they have. We are at 20,000 acres that have been burned already on just this one fire.

The National Guard is arriving now in the Palisades shortly. They've already been present in Altadena.

And we're also seeing residents that are trying to come home. But this is what they might be coming home to. They're trying to check on their homes.

We spoke to several people in this area, who said, you know, trying to come in on foot. They're trying to come in by bike. Officials are trying to escort some of them.

We've heard that some people have been able to be escorted. They get maybe five or 10 minutes at their homes, and then they have to leave. There are efforts to try and get people to at least see if their homes are standing or not.

But it is a very complicated situation here on the ground. There's -- communication is a big issue. We don't have a signal and people don't really know where to go.

Officials are now setting up also resources for missing persons in different parts of L.A. County and in these affected areas.

[13:44:59]

There's a curfew that will be set into place, not just here in Malibu and Santa Monica, but also in all of the evacuated areas of this fire.

KEILAR: All right, Julia Vargas Jones, thank you so much for that.

The FAA is investigating a mid-air collision that happened between an aircraft, a key aircraft obviously used in fighting the Palisades Fire, and a drone that shouldn't have been where it was. It was flying in restricted airspace.

And as a result, one of these -- it's one of two so-called Super Scooper planes -- has been taken out of commission for repairs.

These are planes that are so essential in this fight. They can scoop up more than 1,500 gallons of ocean water and drop it on active fires.

SANCHEZ: And they work with almost surgical accuracy.

CNN's Pete Muntean joins us now. Pete, what exactly happened here?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, to put it simply, this was pretty brazen and could have been a whole heck of a lot worse.

The restricted airspace has been in place over the L.A. fire since Tuesday. A safe space for aerial firefighting by effectively creating a no-fly zone for other aircraft. And now the FAA wants to know how a drone ended up in there.

It was hit by one of the air tankers helping out from Canada, a Canadair CL-415, better known as the Super Scooper, that has been vital to this air attack.

They fly out to the Pacific Ocean, load up on about 1,500 gallons of water, then swoop back in and drop that water on their target fire.

This is the exact plane in question known as Quebec 1. And these are the photos from the Los Angeles Fire Department. You can see the hole in the leading edge of the wing there. That is where the drone apparently impacted this plane.

The latest update from the Los Angeles Fire Department says the plane remains out of service right now.

And I want you to listen now to police who say the search is on to find out who was operating that drone in restricted airspace.

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ANTHONY C. MARRONE, CHIEF, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: Flying a drone in the fire traffic area is not only dangerous, but it's illegal.

We do have our federal partners, behind the scenes, are going to be implementing procedures to be able to follow drones in -- in our two large fire areas. And they will be -- they will be able to identify who the operator of that drone is.

The most important thing to know is that if you fly a drone at one of these brush fires, all aerial operations will be shut down. And we certainly don't want to have that happen.

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MUNTEAN: Here is the good news. The pilots did a good job of getting that plane back on the ground safely. Nobody was hurt.

The Federal Aviation Administration says this: "The FAA treats these violations seriously and immediately considers swift enforcement action for these offenses."

It is a federal crime to interfere with fighting of a wildfire. You could face up to 12 months in prison. And the FAA can also impose a civil fine of $75,000. The LAFD says, for a time, this caused the airspace over the fires to

be cleared out of an abundance of caution. So all the aircraft on the wildfire had to be grounded. And the FAA says that slows the fire response and could cost lives.

Drones are really this emerging hazard right now. And we have seen it interfere with commercial air travel -- travel. We've seen it interfere with NFL football games. Now we've seen it interfere with a wildfire. And the FAA really not joking around with its punishment here.

KEILAR: Yes. This is so terrible to see this happen.

When can that plane get back up in the air?

MUNTEAN: It seems like it should be a relatively easy fix. It looks mostly like just sheet metal, maybe superficial to me. So hopefully, they'll be able to get it back up in the air soon.

More and more help is arriving all the time. And the good news is, California is pretty well equipped to do this. And the crews, these Canadian crews, who often help out with wildfires like this, from British Columbia and Quebec, they're so experienced with the wildfires there.

They really know what they're doing. And they can drop water right on the target. It's almost like watching a great sports game when they really nail it. It's pretty amazing.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it is impressive work. And so silly for somebody to be up there in the air when they don't need to be, when these delicate operations are taking place.

Pete Muntean, thanks so much for the update.

[13:49:10]

So we are keeping an eye on Wall Street today where there is a sharp selloff following the final jobs report of 2024. We're going to explain why in just a few minutes.

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SANCHEZ: So the final jobs report for 2024 was released today, showing very strong job growth in December. But those numbers were actually not what investors wanted to see.

KEILAR: Counterintuitive.

But we have CNN's Matt Egan to join us and break it down.

What did the report say, Matt?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Boris and Brianna, this was a blockbuster report. It painted the picture of a relentless jobs market that just continues to defy expectations. And for Main Street, this is good news because it shows that workers

are very much in demand.

So the numbers show that the economy added 256,000 jobs in December. Now that is a seven-month high. That's 100,000 more than expected.

And that chart shows that, yes, hiring slowed dramatically in October, but that was really just a blip. And it was a blip caused by hurricanes and worker strikes.

And the economy has bounced back. The jobs market ended the year with a bang. And for 2024, the U.S. added 2.2 million jobs. That is twice as much as economists had expected when the year started.

[13:55:01]

You can see the unemployment rate remains low, 4.1 percent. It unexpectedly went lower in December.

And I know that when people think about the economy, they think about the cost of living. But this report also showed that paychecks went up at a faster pace than price.

So, yes, the big question is, of course, why is the market down? Well, that's because investors were really hoping for a Goldilocks report, not too hot and not too cold. And really this report did come in on the hot side.

And so economists say that this effectively shuts the door on an interest rate cut later this month. It also lowers the odds of interest rate cuts later this year.

Bank of America even came out and said they think the Fed is done cutting interest rates and may have to at least debate starting to raise interest rates.

It's too early to say whether or not the Fed is going to reverse course, but it is telling that they're even talking about this.

Big picture, this is good news on the economy and the jobs market. But there is a tradeoff here because it might mean higher interest rates for longer. And perhaps a bumpier ride in the stock market -- Boris and Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Matt Egan, with the news, not the good news, the news. Thanks so much, Matt. We appreciate it.

EGAN: Thank you.

KEILAR: President-Elect Donald Trump sentenced in court today for his 34 felony convictions. But that legal battle may not be over. We'll have much more on that just ahead.

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