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Engaging People on Climate Change; Sinking American Cities?; Rise of A.I.; Dangerous Storm Hits California; Epstein Files Fallout. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 24, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

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SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: Americans have a message for President Trump and Democrats this Christmas Eve. We have brand-new CNN polling.

Plus: A dangerous scenario is unfolding in Southern California, as a powerful storm lashes the entire state, the flash flood risk in some areas now at the highest level it's been since February of last year.

And just a bit later, he's off to a good start, but time is ticking. We're talking to NORAD's Santa trackers, who are making their list, checking it twice to make sure Santa gets to all his Christmas destinations.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN.

Merry Christmas Eve to you. I'm Sara Sidner in New York, in for Boris and our girl who is enjoying her life right now, Brianna.

President Trump, though, just a short time from now is getting ready to take calls for Santa with the NORAD tracking team. But before any festivities begin, the Trump administration in damage control this morning after salacious accusations involving Donald Trump showed up in the latest Epstein file drop.

More of those documents could drop any time now, and the fallout continues over the extreme redactions, the mixed messages and that missed deadline.

And now new polling finds most Americans are not feeling so jolly about any political leadership right now. Only 34 percent say Donald Trump cares about what they have to say, for Democratic leaders, just 36 percent.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is in Mar-a-Lago, where the president is spending the holiday.

Kevin, what more are you learning? Before we see the president today doing something quite fun, there has been a lot of fallout from these Epstein files.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: There really are. And I think it shows that the president is ending the year sort of battling on multiple fronts, including on the economy.

Yesterday, we saw a very positive economic GDP number. But this polling that we have out today, it is quite interesting. It's not a typical poll. We asked respondents, if they could tell Donald Trump or Democratic leaders one thing that would make the life in the country better, what it would be.

And I don't think it's a surprise that, on both fronts, they said it was the economy, these cost of living concerns that we have been hearing about so much over the last several months. We have heard President Trump saying that this is all kind of a hoax to distract from what he says is a good economy.

But what these respondents said is that they wanted the president and Democratic leaders to do more and say more about the economy, but also that they don't think that they're listening. Only four in 10 Americans say that -- or nearly four in 10 Americans say that neither the president or Democratic leadership is listening to people like them.

And I think it just shows that this question of the economy is going to continue to be an issue for the White House going into next year, going into those midterm elections. We have seen them try and pivot to this issue.

But it is this question of Jeffrey Epstein that remains at the top of a lot of people's minds. We know that more releases are going to be coming. Just yesterday, top Justice Department officials asked career prosecutors down here in Florida to work on this redaction effort, all of it an indication that we're going to continue to see these releases over the holiday stretch.

Now, we will see President Trump later today. He's going to be on a phone call with NORAD tracking a certain man in a sleigh as he makes his way from the North Pole. He's also going to be talking to the troops -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, Kevin Liptak there doing his duty all through the holiday weekend. We do appreciate you.

All right, this Christmas, a dangerous storm carrying what's called an atmospheric river is hitting California as we speak. Evacuation orders or warnings have been issued to thousands of residents. Now, amid a growing risk of life-threatening flooding and debris flows there -- you see some of the damage already -- this is significant flooding happening in some parts of the state.

And we just got new video from the San Bernardino County Fire Department that shows floodwaters there and debris rushing across State Route 2 in Wrightwood, California. The entire state is expected to be impacted by this system.

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CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar is tracking all of this for us.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We have that high risk issued for today. That is a level four out of four, the highest it can possibly be across portions of Southern California, you can see indicated by that pink color on the map.

Now, to emphasize, a high risk is incredibly rare. They only account for about 4 percent of the days throughout the year, but 80 percent of damages. Now, as we transition into Christmas Day, you will note we still have a higher risk. It's just a level three out of four for some of the same areas.

Now, one of the biggest concerns within these stronger-risk areas are the potential for what they could do to some of the areas where we had recent wildfires. All three of these little white specks you see here are burn scar locations. When you get heavy amounts of rain on them, most of the water just rushes right off.

It's not absorbed into the ground like it normally would be. So the concern is these next couple of waves of moisture that are going to be arriving, the first one through the overnight hours tonight, say about 1:00, 2:00 a.m., and also even as we head into the afternoon. Another round starts to slide back into portions of Southern California.

So we still have a lot of moisture left to go, not just for the remainder of the day today, but also Christmas Day and even into Friday. So when we still look at some of the forecast numbers, you can see a lot of these areas still expected to get about three to five inches of rain, but some isolated pockets of six to 10 inches is not out of the question.

Remember, this six to 10 is on top of what these areas have already had, which is a substantial amount in some of these communities, also snow. We're still looking at an extra one to three feet across portions of the Sierras. This means, if you have travel plans, say, from Reno or Tahoe back over to, say, San Francisco and Sacramento, you're likely going to encounter some delays there on the roads, as that snow continues to pile back up over the next 48 hours.

We also have the potential for some strong to severe thunderstorms as well. So, in addition to the flooding threat, we also have potential for some damaging winds, some small hail. And, yes, we can't rule out the potential for an isolated tornado in some of these green shaded areas that you see through here through the overnight timeline.

One of the key things this area needs is dry weather. Unfortunately, at least for the next three days, we still have rain in the forecast for L.A., some of the surrounding areas like San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco also going to be looking at several more days of rain.

The one bit of good news is, though, once we get to the weekend, we should finally start to see things dry back out and those temperatures will also start to go back up as well.

SIDNER: All right, our thanks to Allison Chinchar.

Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching for you this hour. This is just truly awful. A major explosion at a Pennsylvania nursing home kills at least two people, and 20 others have been injured. The blast happened yesterday afternoon as utility workers were responding to reports of a gas odor.

First responders rushed to rescue trapped residents after part of that building -- you see it there -- collapsed. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro says investigators suspect it was a gas leak that was to blame.

Also, if you're playing Powerball tonight, you could receive a true Christmas Eve miracle. The jackpot is now 1.7 billion, yes, with a B, dollars after nobody won on Monday. That's the fourth largest prize in the game's history. Keep in mind, though, the odds of winning, they're not great, I mean, one out of 292 million. Good luck.

Also, new video showing Hawaii's Kilauea volcano shooting huge fountains of lava into the sky. The U.S. Geological Survey says the hot liquid shot out of its north vent, reaching roughly 900 feet in the air, while fountains spewing out of its south vent hit 1,400 feet. This is now the 39th fountain episode since the volcano began erupting a year ago.

Spectacular pictures, but it can be very dangerous.

We have much more coming your way this Christmas Eve on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, including a check-in with NORAD. And why are we checking in this time? Well, you know why. The team there has been tracking Santa since he left the North Pole early this morning.

This is a live look now at the Santa Tracker, which went live just a bit earlier today. NORAD has been doing this since 1955 -- that and more ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: From the workplace to classrooms to our homes, artificial intelligence was everywhere this year.

And, as the technology has developed, it's likely to have an even bigger influence on our lives in 2026 in ways a lot of us can't even imagine.

Laurie Segall joins us now to talk about how. She's a former CNN tech reporter, the current CEO of Mostly Human Media.

Laurie, thanks so much for being with us.

I want to start by asking you about deepfakes, because we have seen discussion about the threat that those videos pose, but you say the danger goes even further than we know.

LAURIE SEGALL, CEO, MOSTLY HUMAN MEDIA: Yes, definitely.

I think it's so important as we head into 2026 to have an updated view of where we're at on deepfakes. I think 2025 was the year we really saw the proliferation of deepfakes everywhere. We entered this world where we weren't sure what was real and what wasn't online.

And that's only going to get worse. I think we heard a lot about celebrities being deepfaked, like Taylor Swift, some of these big names having these fake accounts, being deepfaked online, having their images and consent used -- their images used without their consent.

Now, I think one of the biggest things that I'd love to say and say publicly ahead of 2026 is, I think this is going to happen to all of us, not just public figures. I think we are entering a world where we are all going to be living these fake lives on the Internet and we didn't even realize it, because it has become so easy to do.

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And there is quite a bit -- something on Facebook, they have hundred millions of fake accounts. And so this isn't just happening to celebrities. This is happening to all of us. This is happening to our children, our parents.

So this is one of the things I think we're going to have to look into going into 2026. And there are companies taking on these issues.

SANCHEZ: I wonder who is looking out for our privacy, for our well- being in that regard, if suddenly a private individual's face can be manipulated and used in ways that they can't control.

SEGALL: Yes, I spoke to the founder of a company called Umanitek recently.

And he said, in the past, it was data is the gold for tech companies. Now trust is gold, knowing what's real and what's not and how we protect people. Umanitek, who I just mentioned, this is a company. There are others like this that are popping up.

Umanitek actually has an A.I. agent. They're using A.I. to help protect people. So A.I. to fight A.I., which is I think what you're going to hear a lot more. It's called Guardian Agent. You can actually connect your social media profiles. I did this. It was kind of alarming, I'm not going to lie, Boris.

And it'll tell how many fake you's re out there, how many fake accounts are out there. It'll show you a risk threat. Then it'll go a step further. They will show these fake profiles and they will help you create an evidence pack, so you can try to get these profiles taken down and try to decrease that risk.

And this seems like something niche, but it really isn't when we are increasingly entering this world. I did have multiple Lauries on Instagram and TikTok, which hopefully it's better now that I know they're there and it was easy to do.

But A.I. to fight A.I., A.I. to thwart these threats is going to be increasingly important in this world where we're not sure what to trust online.

SANCHEZ: Yes, on that note, we have seen some interesting stories over the past year about people getting into emotional relationships with A.I.

And your argument is that, in 2026, it's going to get even more serious. How do you see that unfolding?

SEGALL: Yes, I think it's going to get really complicated. And I think it's important to talk about, because, in 2025, we saw more and more people who were falling for these chatbots.

And, by the way, I say it as, like, these are powerful. This is powerful technology. This is technology that is always on. It is created to see you, to remember you, and to provide and to almost simulate empathy. And so we can't be shocked when people are drawn towards that. And a lot of people are.

According to a study in 2025, a Common Sense Media survey of teenagers, three in four have used A.I. companions. And one in three say these chats are as satisfying as with people. And that is really eye-opening. And I think we have to look at the downsides before we can talk about some of the upsides.

The downsides is, without the right guardrails -- and we saw this in 2025 -- people are developing unhealthy attachments. They're getting too attached. They're becoming even more lonely and more isolated. Without the correct guardrail, some of these chatbots were sexually explicit, putting that type of content out there in front of our teenagers.

And we told the story in the last years of a young man who ended his life.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SEGALL: And we're seeing more and more of these types of things. So I think, as we enter 2026, when it comes to teenagers and our children, A.I. is the new social media.

And we have to start treating it as such, with that type of seriousness.

SANCHEZ: Yes, and it's notable that, this month, we saw Australia ban social media for kids under 16, while a new study shows that a third of American teens interact with chatbots every single day. It's going to be really difficult for parents to police this sort of new world of A.I. relationships.

SEGALL: Yes, I think about it a lot.

I have a 10-month-old. Granted, he is not going anywhere near artificial intelligence, but he is going to be -- he is growing up in a world where it's all around him. And it's going to be in the classrooms, it's going to be everywhere.

And I think, for parents, what we can know is, I do think, in 2026, there should be more pressure on these tech companies to have stronger parental controls around these chatbots and treat them as such. I think we will see some interesting legislation over the next year on emotional chatbots and this type of thing.

But I also think it's important to say that there are some positives here.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SEGALL: I mean, A.I. is going to be entering the classroom that my son Charlie's going to grow up in a really interesting way.

And Google actually has an experiment that they have been doing in some different school districts with a way to enhance learning through artificial intelligence. They have something called Learn Your Way that they have put out there. And it's basically, how do you bring a textbook to life and how do you personalize it to the way a child learns, whether it's text or audio or visual?

And they have actually seen a bit of promise with that. They had a study in Chicago that showed students scoring 8 percent higher in some of their assessments after utilizing this tool. So I don't think it's all bad. I think we just have to arm ourselves with information to know how we can harness this for good.

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SANCHEZ: Yes, maximize the benefit, while mitigating the bad stuff.

Laurie Segall, great to see you. Thanks so much for the perspective.

SEGALL: Good to see you.

SANCHEZ: We will be right back.

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SANCHEZ: What if I told you the ground beneath your feet could be sinking right now? In dozens of American cities, that is the reality, and that can impact a lot of things, from home values to threats from climate change.

In many places, it's a problem with no real solution.

Imagine this. You buy a home and soon get a sinking feeling that something isn't right. This slow and gradual sinking of an area of land is called subsidence, and it's putting a strain on the very foundation of infrastructure around the world.

One of the most extreme cases in the United States was in California's San Joaquin Valley, where, between the 1920s to the 1970s, the ground in certain areas dropped up to 30 feet.

Here, subsidence was due to the booming growth of agriculture in the valley. The aggressive pumping of groundwater known as aquifer depletion removes water from the ground, resulting in open pore spaces that caused the sediment to compact and the ground above to sink.

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So, say your new home is in this subsidence-affected area. The value of it likely just sank too. A study from U.C. Riverside estimates the cost could have dropped over $16,000. You add up the lost aggregate housing value across the Central Valley, and that is nearly $2 billion.

And subsidence isn't just affecting rural areas. New research finds that 25 of America's 28 biggest cities are sinking. Of these, the fastest-sinking city in the U.S. right now is Houston, Texas.

Houston is dealing with severe depletion of groundwater, like parts of California. But, here, oil and gas extraction adds another layer to the problem. Some parts of Houston are sinking by as much as two inches a year.

And while other areas are sinking slower, that uneven subsiding puts major stress on roads, buildings and other parts of the city's critical infrastructure. The process happens slowly, often invisible to the human eye, but it has the potential to impact infrastructure in nearly 90 percent of America's largest cities.

Over time, subsidence is literally reshaping the ground we live on.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: For environmentalists, 2025 may be the year they would just as soon forget.

President Trump has suggested that climate change is a hoax, and he's wasted no time rolling back rules intended to protect the environment. But there are reasons for optimism for anyone concerned about the planet.

Adam Met is among them. He's the founder of Planet Reimagined. He's also a U.N. sustainability advocate, a professor at Columbia University, and a member of the band AJR. And he's the author of a new book, "Amplify: How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World."

Adam, I think you must have more hours in your day than I do, but, nonetheless, that's for another segment. We're here to talk about hope in the new year.

So what makes you optimistic that we will make progress fighting climate change in 2023?

ADAM MET, FOUNDER, PLANET REIMAGINED: Thank you so much for having me.

You know, what's funny is that, throughout 2025, while people have been hating on climate change, I have been embracing this idea of hating the framing of climate change. In 2025, 2026, and even before then, my philosophy is that we should not be using the framing of climate change, because nobody really knows what that is.

No one knows what sustainability is. No one knows what 1.5 degrees is, right? One-point-five degrees is in Celsius. In the U.S., we use Fahrenheit. It's not something that's accessible to people. However, this year, there's been so much progress at the city and state level focusing on things like housing and transportation and waste and zoning, which secretly are all climate issues.

So if we're addressing all of those issues anyway at the city and state level, why should we be pushing this climate change framing on people that they don't actually care about?

KEILAR: Yes. No, and it's interesting, making that cognitive leap, even converting Celsius to Fahrenheit.

And I know you believe that creating a movement to heal the planet isn't so different from the ways that pop stars like Taylor Swift or your own band grow their own fan base. Tell us about that.

MET: Yes, so at my organization, Planet Reimagined, we did a massive study with Ticketmaster to understand how to do better advocacy at concerts.

And I'm not talking about changing the kind of straw you're using or pledging to go vegan one meal a week. I'm talking about actual civic and political participation. People are signing up to volunteer with local organizations or literally phone banking on site, calling their representatives to actually ask them to vote a certain way on a certain issue.

And we figured out a way to do this. And then we partnered with a lot of other organizations. And we were on Billie Eilish's tour in the U.K. We were on Tyler Childers' tour in the U.S. And then we just finished up working with Renee Rapp on her tour.

And so if you can build this advocacy into these concerts, then you have a way of reaching people that you wouldn't be able to before. If you think about it, when I'm rolling out an album, that's the same kind of campaign as when we're trying to build a better climate movement.

It's how do you figure out who your audience is? What are those levers in order to push them? And then how do you see if you're doing a good job or not? That's the same idea for building a movement.

KEILAR: Yes, and you're telling a story. And you do as well in your book, which is all about strategies for people to take action and build a better world.

I think a lot of people get stymied by the first step. So what is the first step as you see it?

MET: Yes.

The first step for me is understanding the change that you want to see in the world. And so many people say, oh, climate change is so big. It's so existential. It's not something that I can wrap my mind around. And that's true.

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