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Zohran Mamdani To Become Nyc Mayor Thursday; A Flurry Of High- Stakes Talks, Military Action As Year Ends; Port Facility Targeted In First Known U.S. Attack Inside Venezuela; Childcare Fraud Claims Spark Dhs, Fbi Probe; Gov. Tim Walz Has Rejected Accusations State Overlooked Fraud; Nascar Star, Denny Hamlin's Father Dies After House Fire. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 30, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER & COMMUNICATION STRATEGIST: -- limiting brand, and that does not entice people who left the Democratic Party in 2024 and voted for Donald Trump and voted for Republicans, that I think it is important for both political parties to know that in the end, you don't win by appealing to the people at the extremes. You win by appealing to people in the center. And I know that that's not sexy.

I know that there'll be a ton of people writing -- complaining about that in responses to this segment. But it is a fact that the candidate and the party that does attract those centrist, non-aligned, independent voters, that's the party that governs for the next two or four years.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Frank Luntz, always great to have you. A Happy New Year to you, my friend.

LUNTZ: Same to you.

KEILAR: Next, some more on our exclusive reporting on the first known strike inside of Venezuela.

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[13:35:00]

KEILAR: A whirlwind 48 hours at Mar-a-Lago, where President Trump has been pushing for peace on two different fronts, starting Sunday with a visit from Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who discussed Trump's plan for ending Russia's war on Ukraine, but then left Florida without a breakthrough. After a second phone call with Russia's Vladimir Putin, the first was actually before the Zelenskyy meeting, President Trump met yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to discuss phase two of the Gaza ceasefire deal. And in the midst of all that, he was confirming a strike on a Venezuelan port allegedly used to traffic drugs.

I'm joined now by Leon Panetta, who served as Defense Secretary and CIA Director under President Obama. He was also formerly a member of the House of Representatives, which is going to come in handy for this conversation we're about to have. First, Mr. Director, in this case, CNN's exclusive reporting that the CIA carried out a drone strike in Venezuela. A lot to go through on this, but can you just talk initially here about the objective?

Because all presidents use covert action, that's not unique to Trump. But how do you see the objective here? Is this the right move?

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY AND CIA DIRECTOR UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, that's the fundamental question. Just exactly what is the strategy here? And what are they trying to achieve? If you're using covert CIA operations, the question is, are you using the CIA the same way you're using the military against boats and just hitting random targets? Or is there a specific strategy that's intended to put pressure on Maduro? I don't know the answer to that question.

I don't think Congress has the answer to that question. And I'm not sure the administration has the answer to that question. And so, the real question right now is where is all of this headed? Where are we going? And how are we going to get there? Because right now, it's very confusing.

KEILAR: Using this kind of covert action, it's a little bit like that movie "Fight Club." What do they say? The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club. And the second rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club. I think it's something like that. But the president was really out there talking about it, then he seemed to kind of dial it back a little bit. What do you think about how he has been so open about this? Does that create problems?

PANETTA: Well, if you're trying to undermine a covert operation, keep talking about it publicly because that's what is happening. A covert operation operates best when it is classified and when everybody keeps their mouth shut about just exactly what the operation is trying to achieve. By openly talking about it, frankly, he is undermining the effectiveness of covert operations.

You might as well just take a plane and fire a missile because covert is intended to be able to operate in the dark, so that obviously, the Venezuelans would have no idea that the CIA is operating there. That has all been blown apart by these public declarations.

KEILAR: You've been on both sides of this in terms of Congress and the CIA. You were a member of the House, as I mentioned. And I think we're still waiting to see how some members of Congress react to this. They're obviously away for the holidays. But, there may be a perception among some of them that it's being done this way to circumvent them, right, to circumvent their powers when it comes to waging war. Do you think that there is something to that?

PANETTA: Well, you know, I've really been very concerned about the failure of the administration to try to reach out and get the support of Congress. That's a terrible mistake because it basically means that everything they do raises serious questions with the Congress as to whether or not they are exercising proper authority.

The better way to go about this would be for the administration to reach out at least to the Gang of Eight in the Congress, inform them about what their operations will be, get their support, get their consensus, because the problem right now is if you're not talking to Congress, then Congress is going to raise serious questions about whether or not they ought to fund what the administration is doing in Venezuela.

[13:40:00]

That's going to be a point that ultimately, somebody is going to raise in the Congress as a way to stop what's happening.

KEILAR: Sir, one source has told CNN the strike was largely symbolic. Do you see it that way?

PANETTA: You know, without further information about just exactly what the overall strategy is here, what targets are they after, then almost every time you strike something, it becomes more symbolic than something that is part of a planned strategy. These boat strikes, I think they are 29 now, over 100 people have been killed, and now we're suddenly moving to these other attacks taking place.

I mean, the problem is that the administration appears to be swatting at flies rather than trying to direct its attention at making sure that Maduro steps down. To do that, you need to not only use military operations, you need to build a coalition of other countries that can put political pressure on Maduro to step down.

There has to be a clearer strategy here that will work in terms of, ultimately, having Maduro step down. If that's the goal, this administration is going about it in a very strange and unproductive way.

KEILAR: Former CIA Director, former Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, thank you so much for being with us.

PANETTA: Good to be with you, and Happy New Year.

KEILAR: Happy New Year to you as well. And ahead, the Trump administration is now surging resources to Minnesota after a video alleging child care fraud goes viral. The new details that we're learning next.

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[13:46:30]

KEILAR: FBI and DHS officials say they're surging resources to Minnesota to investigate allegations of fraud. They're doing so just days after YouTube creator, Nick Shirley posted a now viral video where he claims to find widespread fraud at Somali-run daycares. The video was boosted by Vice President, J.D. Vance, but critics say his accusations were made without proof.

Still today, some Republican state lawmakers in Minnesota are calling on Governor Tim Walz to resign over accusations that as much as $9 billion paid through state services during his administration could be fraudulent. Governor Walz's office responded to the accusations saying, "The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and asked the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action. He has strengthened oversight, including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed."

The statement continues. "He has hired an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, shut down the housing stabilization services program entirely, announced a new statewide program integrity director, and supported criminal prosecutions." CNN's Hadas Gold is with us now. All right, Hadas, first things first here. Tell us a little bit about this video that sparked all of this.

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, so it's important to note that this fraud issue is known in Minnesota. It's actually been covered by other outlets, especially local news outlets. But it seems that this video by Nick Shirley, he's a young, early-20s YouTuber. It's his video that has really vaulted this into a much bigger stage with the help of Vice President, J.D. Vance and X-owner, Elon Musk.

Now, Shirley has made a name for himself in recent years doing these sort of expose videos, a lot of them on political issues, especially around illegal immigration. Now this video, it's about 40 minutes long. In the video, he teams up with somebody he calls a local investigator. He only gives his first name, says his name is David. Doesn't give us a lot of other information on David other than says that he has investigated this for many years.

And he highlights a lot of what seems to be David's own notes, not necessarily official files. And what they do is they go to all of these centers, some of them are daycare centers, that they say receive millions in federal funding, and they say they see no children. In some cases, they have some confrontations with some of the workers, some other people there, and they also have some confrontations with local officials as well.

Now, again, I should note, other outlets have been covering this. In fact, in January of 2025, the local ABC Channel 5 did something very similar, where their local reporter also knocked on the doors of these daycares and saw that there were seemingly no kids there, investigating these allegations of fraud. The Minnesota Star Tribune has written nearly 300 stories on Medicaid fraud in the state. CBS News did a piece just earlier this month about fraud in Minnesota, and the FBI, as FBI Director Kash Patel has said, they've been actively investigating this.

But it is this video, this viral piece of content posted on the day after Christmas, traditionally a very slow news day, and really amplified by the likes of the Vice President and, of course, X-owner Elon Musk, that has just vaulted this to new heights.

KEILAR: And Hadas, you have a new story that's up on CNN.com right now that is about who Nick Shirley is, and I think a lot of people will want to familiarize themselves with that in light of this video. What did you find? GOLD: Yeah. So in early December, Nick Shirley had about 200,000 followers on X. Now he's reaching a million followers as a direct result of this video. So Nick Shirley, he's in his early-20s. He started posting on YouTube as a teenager actually, with kind of these shock videos. As a 16-year-old, one of his first videos was about him flying to New York without parental consent.

[13:50:00]

For the next couple years, there was a lot of these sort of just kind of pranky, fun content videos, in one he tricked TikTokers into auditioning for a Justin Bieber video. In 2021, he quit to go on a mission as part of a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints. Then in 2023, he returned, and that's when you see his current style of content. It's much more political.

It's a lot of these sort of on-the-ground reporting, as he says. He went to the border a lot to talk to who he says were illegal immigrants. He's been to Rio, Brazil. He's been into the CECOT prison, and as a result, he became sort of well-known in the MAGA universe. And in fact, in October, he was invited to the White House to speak alongside several other independent content creators, independent journalists, to speak with President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and others about the Antifa movement, about the anti- fascist movement.

So he's been pretty well-known in that sphere. His videos, some of them get a million, some of them get four million views, but he's not as well-known as he's become now. This latest video, it has gone completely viral. More than 126 million views on X, hugely viral, and I really think that it encapsulates the sort of perfect moment in our political and media environment where trust and the audience in mainstream media is at historic lows.

Most people are getting their news from social media and YouTube, and his style of reporting is what people tend to like. It's very authentic. It's very engaging. It's a bit shocking. They're uncovering something right before your eyes, and this particular video is a passion of some of the biggest influencers in the world. It has to do with illegal immigration and fraud. That's like catnip to Elon Musk. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yeah, certainly, certainly is. Hadas Gold, thank you so much. And now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour.

Officials say the father of NASCAR driver, Denny Hamlin, died and his mother was critically injured in a fire at their North Carolina home. The house was mostly engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived Sunday night. You see it there.

His father, Dennis Hamlin, and his mother, Mary Lou, were outside of the home at the time. Dennis later died from his injuries at a hospital. Mary Lou remains in critical condition, and the cause of that fire is under investigation.

Denny Hamlin is a superstar in NASCAR's top circuit. He has won 60 NASCAR Cup Series races, including three Daytona 500s and twice at Talladega Superspeedway.

Also, China is encircling Taiwan in a huge show of force for a second day. More than 130 warplanes, 22 ships have been deployed around the island since yesterday, with rockets landing nearby in waters there. Taiwan's military said it's monitoring the situation with fighter jets and naval vessels ready to respond.

Hundreds of commercial flights have been delayed or canceled, affecting roughly 100,000 travelers. In the meantime, when asked whether the military exercises concerned him, President Trump touted his great relationship with Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, and said nothing worries me.

And actor George Clooney and his family are now officially French citizens. Government records show Clooney, his wife Amal, and their twin children were granted citizenship. The actor has mentioned looking for a quieter life away from Hollywood and praised French policies when it comes to paparazzi.

Ahead in 2025, we all witnessed how A.I. transformed lives, especially the way people communicate and work. So, what will the New Year bring? We'll discuss next.

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[13:57:45]

KEILAR: Love it or hate it, 2025 was a watershed year for A.I. From the rise in chatbots like ChatGPT to the real everyday concerns over jobs and mental health, Artificial Intelligence is certainly making its mark. So, what's in store for 2026 and beyond?

CNN Tech Editor Lisa Eadicicco is here to tell us that. All right, Lisa, first, A.I. transformed the world in 2025. What did we see?

LISA EADICICCO, CNN BUSINESS TECH EDITOR: So A.I. has played a really important role in technology for years, but ChatGPT really took A.I. from being something that was behind the scenes and kind of pushed it to the forefront. And what we saw in 2025 in particular was A.I. becoming more than just something that maybe changes the way you find information or communicate with people, but that really is kind of impacting these bigger conversations around national policy, mental health concerns, the future of jobs.

For example, President Donald Trump has made A.I. a really significant part of his second term so far by signing executive orders related to A.I. and introducing the AI Action Plan. There's also been a growing number of reports from people who say that they've suffered mental issues or have grown detached from loved ones because of over-reliance on A.I. emotionally.

And these are just conversations that, you know, maybe were happening before 2025, but really did kind of come to the forefront this year and I think are now kind of in the national conversation and the spotlight moving forward. KEILAR: Yeah, young people saying they use it because it is always reliably there for them. When you're looking towards 2026, what are you expecting?

EADICICCO: I think a lot of companies in the industry are going to have to grapple with this ongoing challenge of facing pressure to move quickly and innovate and be fast and win, while also being aware of these safety issues and these risks that have come up in this past year. I think there's going to be equal parts scrutiny on whether they're navigating these risks safely and being responsible and whether they're moving fast enough.

You have to remember, it was almost a year ago now, we were talking about DeepSeek, the A.I. company from China, that really kind of shook Wall Street and called into question whether companies were moving quickly enough and whether there was really a need for that much money and hardware to train A.I., right? So the industry is constantly changing.

It's really hard to predict. And I think at the same time, you're going to see a lot of competition for technology, a lot of competition for talent and we're already seeing that leading up to 2026 with some acquisitions this week. So, it's definitely going to be a busy --