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Two Dead in 55-car pileup in Maryland; China Steals U.S. Navy Drone; Obama Told Vladimir Putin to Stop Hack; Trump Makes Final Stop on Thank you Tour;; Russian Response To Hacking Claims: "Prove It"; U.S. Offers $25 Million Reward For Capture Of ISIS Leader; Ceasefire Resumes In Aleppo. Aired 11a-Noon ET
Aired December 17, 2016 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:00] ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Nazi neighborhood. She whips out her can of red spray paint and gets to work.
This graffiti war is a never-ending battle. But Schramm seems happy to continue the fight one heart at a time.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Berlin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL: That's some productive work there. Hey, thank you so much for spending your time with us. We hope you make great memories.
BLACKWELL: We'll send it over now to our colleague Boris Sanchez.
Hey, Boris.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, guys. How's it going?
BLACKWELL: Great. Not so well for the people on the roads.
SANCHEZ: Crazy, crazy weather out there. We're going to talk all about it in just a moment.
It's 11:00 on the East Coast. I'm Boris Sanchez in for Fredricka Whitfield. NEWSROOM starts right now.
Just in to CNN snow and ice creating a deadly situation in Maryland right now. You're looking at pictures of I-95 in Baltimore. This is it. At least two people were killed in a 55-car pileup. Another person was killed in an accident in Virginia. That brings the total to three people dead because of the weather just today. Freezing rain as much of the area is at a standstill there.
This is a live picture near I-395. And you can see on the bottom left corner of your screen, extremely poor visibility. You could hardly see anything.
In Indiana there were nearly 200 accidents due to icy conditions. Indianapolis firefighters actually had to rescue people from I-465 via ladder because the road was so slick. You see the images there. Nationwide right now, 157 million people are under winter weather
alerts. Right now we have the mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, joining us over the phone.
Mayor, any updates you can provide us with, with the situation there right now?
MAYOR CATHERINE PUGH, BALTIMORE: I think you're absolutely correct on the numbers, the 55-car pileup. We've had 15 people transported to hospitals, you mentioned the two fatalities. A fuel truck did overturn and explode creating -- helping to create this pileup. But more importantly, I'm proud of our first responders here in Baltimore and in the state of Maryland. The governor has made available to us all of the state units that could be of assistance. I'm also proud of the surrounding counties that have responded so quickly.
This is the worst accident that we've seen, thank God that some of the people are in the hospital and we are looking forward to them being released from the hospital. But I think it was also some Good Samaritans out there to help to relieve some of what could have possibly happened to the individuals, people reaching in and helping to pull people out of cars. I think that the response has been excellent.
But what we're warning people to do is to stay off the streets. I'm not just talking about the cars, I'm talking about people walking out of their house. I almost fell down the steps this morning coming out of my own home. So I'm again encouraging people please just stay off the roads, stay off the streets. Be careful if you have to go out. Be conscious of the fact that this is not snow, this is ice. And we've not risen above the freezing, and so we're very, very concerned about all of our residents.
But thank you for being concerned, America, about our city. We're moving forward but more importantly we're so grateful to all the people who pitched in.
SANCHEZ: Mayor, speaking of moving forward, how is the city planning to clear the highway to make sure that there are no more accidents or injuries? It seems like a tough task.
PUGH: Yes, so let me just say this was not just because of the ice. The responders responded very quickly and we still are. The surrounding jurisdictions, our streets are salted. We've used over 2,000 pounds of salt just in Baltimore City alone just to make sure that our roads are clear. And understand, this area that we're talking about is coming in and out of the highway. So this is just not about what people in Baltimore are doing. It's about people traveling in and out of our city.
And so again, that's why we're so grateful to the surrounding counties, the governor for his support. And our first time responders in Baltimore City. I talked to our fire chief and I've talked to our police department and the transit, you know, we have what we call a war room when these kinds of situations. They've been in here since 3:00 a.m. this morning making sure the streets were appropriately salted. So we've -- they've done their part. We need our citizens to do their part to stay off the roads.
SANCHEZ: Certainly the message from Mayor Catherine Pugh of the city of Baltimore to everyone, stay at home. Don't even open your doors and stay safe.
Mayor Pugh, thank you so much for the time.
PUGH: Thanks. Thank you so much.
SANCHEZ: Turning now to some international news. The escalating tensions between China and the United States, it all started on Thursday when China seized an underwater U.S. Navy research drone from international waters in the South China Sea. The U.S. is demanding its immediate return. And now the Chinese government released a statement saying that the U.S. is, quote, "hyping up the drone issue," and that they will return the drone in what they call an appropriate manner.
[11:05:01] Meantime President-elect Donald Trump is weighing in this morning. He sent out this tweet writing, quote, "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters, rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act."
I want to bring in CNN's Matt Rivers who's following the story for us from Beijing. And Gordon Chang, he is the author of "The Coming Collapse of China," and a columnist at the "Daily Beast."
Matt, to you first. What's the latest that we're hearing?
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Ministry of Defense as you mentioned finally came out late Saturday evening here local time with this statement saying that it confirmed that it did take this drone and that it took the drone out of the water because, as they put it, they wanted to prevent the device from harming navigational and personnel safety of passing ships. But that once they realized what they had taken out of the water that they then said oh, we have something that belongs to the United States, now we're going to contact them which they say they have. And now they are planning on returning it.
But they did -- they went on to say it's inappropriate and unhelpful for a resolution that the U.S. has unilaterally hyped the issue. As you mentioned it all happened on Thursday when this USNS Bowditch was conducting this research with these two drones. When they went to go pick them out of the water a Chinese naval ship that was following close behind actually dispatched a smaller boat and picked one of the two drones out of the water before the U.S. ship could get it back.
And while this might seem like not that big of a deal, Boris, the fact of the matter is that this kind of close encounters between the U.S. and Chinese navies are rare. And the fact that China seized U.S. naval property is rarer still. So it might seem like oh, they say they're only doing this because of navigational safety issues, but I think what most experts will tell you that when China picked that drone out of the water they knew they were going to be sending a very message to the United States about their unhappiness with naval operations in the South China Sea.
SANCHEZ: Yes. One of many messages, Matt, we'll get to that in a second. Thank you so much for the time.
Gordon, let's turn over to you. As I said, this is really only the latest point of friction between the U.S. and China. We've clearly seen an escalation first of a discovery of anti-aircraft weapons on those manmade islands in the South China Sea. That's something that President Xi Jin Ping promised he wouldn't do. And then this week we also saw nuclear armed planes flying over that areas. Now the seizure of this drone. Why is this escalation happening?
GORDON CHANG, AUTHOR, "THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA": Well, we really don't know why the Chinese are doing this. You know, many people have speculated, and this could perhaps be correct -- excuse me -- that this is in reaction to Donald Trump's call with Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen on December 2nd and also his interview where he said he was not bound by the One China policy.
But, you know, we don't know. And we also know that over the course of decades China has been interfering with sovereign U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force assets in the region. So this is just only the latest in a series of very provocative events.
SANCHEZ: Yes. Certainly. I want to show you a statement that Senator John McCain put out. It says in part, quote, "China had no right to seize this vehicle and the United States must not stand for such outrageous conduct. This brazen provocation fits a pattern of increasingly destabilizing Chinese behavior, including bullying its neighbors and militarizing the South China Sea. This behavior will continue until it's met with a strong and determined U.S. response, which until now the Obama administration has failed to provide."
Is this just more posturing or do you think a Donald Trump presidency could potentially respond to these escalating incidents in a way that could make things much worse?
CHANG: Well, first of all on Senator McCain's statement, he's correct. But he also should have stated that there was a weak response on the part of President Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, because in September 2002 the Chinese challenged the Bowditch and they said they actually rammed it. Now I don't think that they did. But this is a series of events that goes back over the course of two administrations.
You know, with regard to Donald Trump, of course he could make the situation worse. But we need to change our policy. Because as Senator McCain implies, what we're doing now is not working. The Chinese don't see any push back, so they've continued a series of acts. And indeed this act is an act of piracy. And it's -- you know, China maintains its outrageous nine dash line claim to the South China Sea which was invalidated by the Hague ruling on July 12th.
But this seizure was outside the nine dash line area which means that it was especially contemptuous of the United States and the international system in general.
SANCHEZ: President-elect Trump calling this unprecedented. We'll see what his response is moving forward.
Gordon Chang, thank you so much for spending some time with us this weekend.
[11:10:03] Up next, President Obama all but names Vladimir Putin as the man behind Russia's alleged attempts to meddle in the U.S. election. And now Russia is responding. We'll take you live to Moscow for the latest details after this quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: President Obama in his final news conference of the year called out Russia and the alleged attempt to meddle in the U.S. election.
CNN's chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto has more.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Boris, the CIA director seeking to dismiss accusations from GOP lawmakers and the president-elect himself that the agency is somehow politicizing the intelligence on Russian hacking of the U.S. election, writing the entire CIA work force that the U.S. intelligence community and law enforcement are in full agreement on the seriousness and intent of the cyber attacks.
This as President Obama accusing, it seems, Vladimir Putin directly for the first time of ordering the cyber attack.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I told Russia to stop it.
SCIUTTO (voice-over): President Obama, for the first time, publicly blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for hacking the 2016 U.S. election.
OBAMA: The intelligence that I've seen gives me great confidence in their assessment that the Russians carried out this hack, the hack of the DNC and the hack of the John Podesta. Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin.
SCIUTTO: And the CIA and FBI agree as to why. Director John Brennan telling the CIA workforce in an internal message that, quote, "There is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election."
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement assessed that Moscow had multiple possible motives -- undermine confidence in the vote, weaken Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump.
Today the president said he delivered a stern warning to Putin at the G-20 Summit in China in September. OBAMA: When I saw President Putin in China I felt that the most
effective way to ensure that that didn't happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out and there are going to be some serious consequences if he didn't.
SCIUTTO: Still, tonight, U.S. officials say that Russia's hacking of U.S. political organizations continues unabated. Since the election one attempted breach targeted the Clinton campaign, though unsuccessfully.
[11:15:03] President-elect Trump, however, continues to dismiss the U.S. assessment that Russian is responsible. Despite the fact that he's being provided the intelligence behind that assessment in his classified briefings.
And today he sought to divert attention back to one of the revelations gleaned from the e-mails stolen by Russia, tweeting, "Are we talking about the same cyber attack where it was revealed that the head of the DNC illegally gave Hillary the questions to the debate?"
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCIUTTO: I'm told that the CIA director's message comes as many CIA staffers are angry and frustrated to be accused of partisanship in their response to the Russian hacking. And the GOP chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee also coming to the defense of intelligence staff saying that they leave their politics at the door -- Boris.
SANCHEZ: All right, Jim, thank you.
You just heard President Obama's response to Russia's meddling in the election. So what does Russia have to say about all of this? Essentially prove it. A spokesman for Vladimir Putin saying, quote, "Either stop talking about that or produce some proof at last. Otherwise it all begins to look unseemly."
For more on this I'm joined by CNN senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward, she's live in Moscow.
Clarissa, the president yesterday said that nothing happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin's approval. Kind of an indirect way of blaming him. How is that accusation being received there?
CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, to be honest, Boris, there hasn't been a lot of reaction to the accusation at all because essentially everything we heard in President Obama's press conference yesterday still allows the Russians this plausible deniability because essentially what you heard from the president was let's wait to see exactly what the investigation brings to bear. But he stopped short of providing any direct physical tangible evidence.
And the Russians all along have been saying this is outrageous, this is, quote, "ludicrous nonsense." They've called the accusations indecent. For two months they have steadfastly been denying them. And in the face of really what we're seeing as more declarations from U.S. officials rather than physically tangible evidence, I think they will continue to say that it's an outrageous attempt to besmirch Russia's good name.
That it's an attempt to poison the well, if you will, between President Putin and future President Trump who are expected to try to warm relations between the U.S. and Russia. So people here are not really paying too much attention to be honest. But they are also almost enjoying this as it plays out, this entire scandal and all these accusations because I think not so secretly they kind of relish all the attention. And they relish the idea that Russia could be capable of pulling off something as audacious as swinging a U.S. election -- Boris.
SANCHEZ: Yes, right, Clarissa. Now President Obama has pledged a bit of a response to the Russian hacking. What he's going to do is unclear. President-elect Donald Trump has been, let's say, less than emphatic about a need to response to Russia and he touched on some of this before. But could these allegations damage potentially the relationship they might have with Donald Trump, especially if President Obama moves forward with retaliation?
WARD: Well, I think it depends on the kind of retaliation that we might see from President Obama. And keep in mind, he has a very finite period of time to achieve whatever his objective might be. And there are several options available to him. He might try to go for some tougher sanctions. That would be pretty hard for him to do because it's likely that President-elect Donald Trump might simply repeal them within the next couple of months.
He could try to engage in a sort of tit-for-tat and name and shame some Russian officials, embarrass them with some leaked e-mails, embarrass them possibly about money that they might have stashed away in offshore accounts or something to that effect. But he himself said that shaming publicly doesn't really work with the Russians.
The third option that is available to him is something a little more drastic, which would be a sort of direct cyber attack. And like turning out the lights in the whole of Moscow or turning off the grid in Novosibirsk or whatever it may be. But the problem you have there is that you really run the risk of escalating the situation significantly. So not clear yet what course President Obama will take, and what, if anything, President-elect Donald Trump will do to back him up once he takes office next month -- Boris.
SANCHEZ: All right. Clarissa, one of the things we've heard from the administration is the potential for some kind of covert retaliation, that the public may not even find out about. Should be interesting to see what happens moving forward.
Clarissa Ward, thank you.
Up next, in just a few hours the president-elect is making the final stop on his thank you tour. We'll take you live in Mobile, Alabama, for what we should take expect when he takes the stage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [11:23:04] SANCHEZ: Election season might be over but Donald Trump is still getting his supporters riled up. The final stop of the president-elect's thank you tour heads to Mobile, Alabama, later today. He's going to visit the same stadium actually that first helped drive his campaign success. He drew some 30,000 supporters there back in August 2015. From there Trump is headed to his Mar-a- Lago state in Florida where he's going to be spending the holidays.
CNN's national correspondent Ryan Nobles is in Mobile.
Ryan, what can we expect to hear from Donald Trump today?
RYAN NOBLES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, this is going to follow the same script that he's used on many of these thank you tours, where it's the president-elect basically showing a bit of gratitude to his supporters those supporters who were there for him in the very beginning. And this stadium here in Mobile, Alabama, is a perfect setting for that.
As you mentioned this was the site of one of his biggest rallies early on in his campaign, some 30,000 people showed up to this football stadium here behind me long before any votes had been cast. And we're expecting a similarly enthusiastic crowd here today.
I can tell you that there have been people lining up here since early this morning. There is a significant line already in place and this rally doesn't take place for another five hours or so. So you can expect this crowd to be raring to go, excited to now see the president-elect.
You know, when he came here back in August of 2015, a lot of political experts thought that this was not a wise move. This is a deeply red state that should safely be in Republican hands, and the Alabama primary was a long way away, but it demonstrated the passionate support that Donald Trump was building with working class voters and he's going to come back here today to thank them for that early support -- Boris.
SANCHEZ: Yes, he certainly rewrote the playbook in a lot of ways for winning an election.
Ryan, we heard from Donald Trump last night in Orlando in an interesting moment with his supporters, right?
NOBLES: Yes, you know, he is taking somewhat of a different tone now that he has won the election, trying to show a little bit of gratitude and not have the same sort of heated rhetoric that he had during the campaign.
[11:25:12] He wants his supporters to act the same way. Listen to what he said last night in Orlando.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You people were vicious, violent, screaming, where's the wall? We want the wall. Screaming prison, prison, lock her up. I mean, you are going crazy. I mean, you were nasty and mean and vicious, and you wanted to win, right? But now you're mellow and you're cool and you're not nearly as vicious or violent, right? Because we won.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBLES: So we'll have to see if this crowd here in Mobile is mellow tonight.
Boris, I was here for that rally more than a year ago, they were not mellow at all so we'll see what happens here in a couple of hours.
SANCHEZ: Maybe they'll be a little bit nicer to the media and you won't get yelled at, Ryan.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: Thanks so much for that.
Stay with CNN. We're going to take you live at the president-elect's rally when it gets underway this afternoon. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: CNN is learning that Russian cyber hacking activity has continued largely unabated since the November U.S. election, including against U.S. political organizations. The president is vowing to retaliate against Russia and Vladimir Putin. Whether that's in the form of more sanctions or not, he has just over a month to enforce that.
At his final news conference of the year the president said he felt confident in the way the hack was investigated. But he criticized the media for how they reported it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: When I look back in terms of how we handled it, I think we handled it the way it should have been handled. We allowed law enforcement and the intelligence community to do its job without political influence.
[11:30:00] The truth is, that there was nobody here who didn't have some sense of what kind of effect it might have. I'm finding it a little curious everybody is suddenly acting surprised that this looked like it was disadvantaging Hillary Clinton because you guys wrote about it every day. Every single week, about every little juicy tidbit of political gossip.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Let's talk more about this with CNN political commentator, David Swerdlick. He is also an assistant editor at "The Washington Post," and also joining us CNN presidential historian, Tim Naftali. He is the former director for the Nixon Presidential Library. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Dave, let's start with you. You just heard President Obama say that he believes the administration's response to the hacking was adequate, is that really the way that potential meddling in the American democracy should be handled?
DAVE SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think President Obama gave a pretty clear explanation of his thought process. It would be both be fair to say that he was walking a fine line in the administration and the intelligence community were walking a fine line to the degree that they did not want to be seen as putting their thumb on the scale in the election prior to election day and suggesting that the fix was in for one candidate or the other via Russian hacking.
And so Director Clapper gave that statement on October 7th, made public the idea that the intelligence community saw Russians meddling in the election, but there wasn't sort of an escalation or a sounding of an alarm by other folks in the administration including the president.
On the other hand, it would also probably be fair to say that if they indeed thought that this meddling was going on and that's the indication, my colleagues, Ellen (inaudible) and Adam (inaudible) reported this out yesterday, that the FBI and CIA saw it this way, you could see where critics of the administration are saying they should have taken swifter and harsher and more vocal action.
SANCHEZ: Critics are also saying that it was probably going to be politicized anyway as it has been with questioning of whether the CIA or the FBI potentially could be politicized. Tim, to you, the Obama confrontation at the G20 with Vladimir Putin, rather, not really a strong confrontation you could say. He said that he told Vladimir Putin to cut it out. Is that a strong enough response?
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Again, one of the most difficult things for us to know now is the extent to which -- we used covert action to send a strong secret signals to the Russian government. One of the things that President Obama said in his press conference was that the U.S. government noticed a change in Russian hacking behavior after September.
But I think the key right now is to focus on the fact that the president elect did something highly irresponsible because he sent a signal to the Russians that all is forgiven. When he said without looking at the material, the intelligence, I don't believe it. That's what effectively what Mr. Trump said.
He was sending a signal to Moscow that President-elect Trump would choose the word of the kremlin over that of the non-partisan intelligence community. What we need to do is restore trust in the intelligence community.
I would hope that President Obama before he left office, would put together a special briefing for President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Pence where they would be shown the high level material and information about how we know about hacking. Some of that can't be released because that would allow the Russians to continue this in the future. But somebody has to basically show the president-elect exactly why the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and others believe this to be the case. He can't keep denying it while not getting his intelligence briefings.
SANCHEZ: You think that he's denying it because he doesn't necessarily believe the information? I mean, he talked -- he practically asked Russia to hack the Democrats during the election.
NAFTALI: Boris, we are in a very dangerous moment with regard to our belief in anything produced by the federal government. After the election of '68, Lyndon Johnson chose not to share with the American people the intelligence community's information about the Nixon campaign's interactions with a foreign power. I believe that was a mistake.
President Obama has an opportunity to share with the American people why our intelligence community believes that the Russians were trying to influence our election. I hope Obama -- President Obama will make a different decision from President Johnson and will actually share a lot of that with us before he leaves office.
SANCHEZ: David, back to you, you touched on something in your previous remarks about the fine line that the president had to walk in this situation. But there is some criticism going out to the Clinton campaign because apparently they were warned almost a dozen times that they had been hacked, but they refused to let federal investigators in. Why do you think that is?
[11:35:07]SWERDLICK: Well, it's hard to read their minds on that. If you go to that in depth tic-tac that "The New York Times" put out the other day, it's clearly seems like there was a whole series of errors or sort of ignoring of warning signs by both folks at the DNC and to some extent there were slow walking if you go based on that report from within the FBI.
I think from the political standpoint, you see the Obama administration, if you look at what President Obama said in his press conference yesterday, they were trying to address this while at the same time not overhyping.
And I think Tim made a good point that if you read between the lines of what President Obama said yesterday, you can see that he thinks there was this change after they made it public that they thought the Russians were meddling and that meddling was de-escalated.
We don't know if that means that that was based on President Obama speaking to Vladimir Putin, if that was based on something that we did covertly, I don't have that reporting right now.
But I think, you know, another concern in this is as Tim said, the idea that the incoming administration, President-elect Trump is sort of dismissing this out of hand, at least to this point.
He could have come out last weekend and simply said let's see if we get more facts in, but instead what he said was I don't believe this. And that I think is sets an interesting or potentially troubling precedent.
SANCHEZ: Certainly. David, Tim, still a lot of more questions to get to. We'll see you guys later this afternoon and continue this discussion. Thank you.
Russia's alleged meddling in the U.S. election will be in focus tomorrow when Jake Tapper sits down for an exclusive conversation with Senator John McCain. Also on the program, Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Don't miss those interviews at 9:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow only on CNN. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:40:03]
SANCHEZ: President Obama is making it clear he believes Russia hacked the U.S. election, even going as far as to call out Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Based on uniform intelligence assessments, the Russians were responsible for hacking the DNC. And that as a consequence, it is important for us to review all elements of that and make sure that we are preventing that kind of interference through cyber-attacks in the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: The president also vowed retaliation for the hacks, for its part the kremlin has denied those accusations. For more on this, I'm joined by Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist and the author of "The Red Web, The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators."
Andrei, if the goal was to create political chaos in the United States, the Russians certainly achieved that. But do you think they expected this level of fallout?
ANDREI SOLDATOV, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: I don't think so. I think that primarily the goal was purely tactical. Lots of cyber-security experts and people in Russia believed the very first goal was to try to respond to Panama papers. Because Panama papers investigation was seen in Moscow as a personal attack on Putin and lots of people wanted to do something. And that was maybe a response. But then, because the operation became more successful than people anticipated, people might believe it is such great thing why not try to do something else.
SANCHEZ: Obama has pledged a response to these hacks, potentially covert actions that the public pieces won't find out about. Doesn't that play into Vladimir Putin's hands at home to say that we are kind of a fortress being sieged in the sense that the U.S. is attacking us without merit or evidence?
SOLDATOV: Yes, unfortunately, it is the case. The problem is that the kremlin nothing is what it seems. Security agencies and intelligence communities are who have nothing to do with the cyber- attacks. You might get lots of informal actors, because out sourcing is Russia has used extensively for lowering the cost increase of controversial operations and that is the case in these situations.
The problem is Obama's response is that this is all said officially. You have informal actors backed by the state launching an attack on the United States, while the operation seems to be from the very high level. That might have Putin to say we have nothing to do with these attacks, but we are under the attack of the United States.
That might provoke them to think, look, maybe we need to introduce more legislation and install more control of the internet in the country.
SANCHEZ: And it also gives them as you mentioned plausible deniability to say, you know, we weren't directly behind this. The kremlin as we've heard essentially told the U.S. show us the evidence or shut up. But they're not really expecting the U.S. to put any evidence forward, right?
SOLDATOV: Absolutely. And that was the case for many years. Actually, we saw these tactics since maybe 2007 on a lot of informal actors inspired by the kremlin, attack many countries starting with Estonia and ended up being the United States. And usually it was extremely difficult to find any real evidence and to put on the table. That was extremely successful tactic for the kremlin for years.
SANCHEZ: So you mentioned that effort dating back to 2007. They're accuse of interfering here in the United States this year. France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have elections next year, do you expect more meddling from the kremlin in those elections?
SOLDATOV: The problem is that when you're dealing with informal hackers whose have direct access to the kremlin, but at the same time they are not part of any government institution, that might make people extremely dangerous. There is a possibility for that.
They might think, look, it's such great area. Actually you have a low cost of conducting any kind of offensive because to be honest, in these area of cyber, everybody gets confused. Nobody knows how to respond to these kind of attacks.
[11:45:02]How to define these attacks? Is it a real cyber offensive or something to do with propaganda, which is a blurry area for everybody?
Once again, it might be played back by the kremlin inside of Russia because, well, you start talking about thinking of Russian disinformation in your space, now we can talk about the same things in our space and can start censoring, controlling social media in our countries.
SANCHEZ: All right. Interesting perspective. Andrei Soldatov, thank you so much for the time. The U.N. secretary general says Aleppo is now a synonym for hell. Just ahead, what's happening to the ceasefire and the fate of thousands of civilians trapped inside that city.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: The U.S. is now offering a $25 million reward for the capture of ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. That's more than double the $11 million the State Department original offered back in 2011. Baghdadi has been rarely seen in public. He only shows up occasionally in videos.
Just this week, U.S. officials told CNN that the number of battle ready ISIS fighters has been whittled down to between 12,000 and 15,000. Adding that some 50,000 fighters have been killed. The U.K. though disputes that number, saying that only about half that many were killed in the fighting.
To Syria now, the on again off again ceasefire in Aleppo is now back on this morning. There have been multiple attempts at holding a ceasefire this week. If it holds this time, it could allow thousands of civilian and rebels to flee the area around East Aleppo as Syrian regime troops move in.
The U.N. says that hundreds of children are trapped in the area and face death if they aren't rescued. The outgoing secretary general of the U.N., Ban Ki Moon said not enough has been done to help the people there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[11:50:07]BAN KI MOON, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: The carnage in Syria remains a gaping hole in the global conscience. Aleppo is now a synonym for hell. As I told the Security Council three days ago, we have collectively failed the people of Syria.
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SANCHEZ: I want to bring in Michael Weiss now. He is a CNN contributor and co-author of "ISIS Inside the Army of Terror," as well as Lt. Colonel Rick Francona. He is a CNN military analyst and a former U.S. military attache in Syria.
Col. Francona, let's start with you. Is there a chance that the ceasefire will last long enough to help the people that are still there get out?
LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, I think so. I think eventually this is going to take place. They'll make it happen. They'll be these glitches along the way, but I think everybody wants this to happen. It's the only way forward for the city of Aleppo.
I think the rebels have gotten the best deal they can of being able to leave the city when I think the Russians, the Iranians, and the Syrians, were intent on crushing them, pounding them into eradication. I think is a good thing for the rebels. They should take what they can and get out.
And throwing road blocks in the way is not going to make this any better. So I think that the handwriting is on the wall. Aleppo was lost to them and they need to make the best play they can. Get out of there and go down to Idlib and set up for the fight there. That's the next battle. It's going to be the battle of Idlib.
SANCHEZ: Now, Michael, how do you see this playing out in the big picture? You know, the president said that Bashar al-Assad can't cause a massacre, slaughter his way to legitimacy. But isn't that exactly what's happening here?
MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, it is. The president of the United States got up in 2011 and said that the time has come for Bashar al-Assad to step aside. Barack Obama will be stepping aside before Bashar al-Assad. The United States sort of sat this conflict out or I shouldn't say that.
I should say it intervened in a very half-cocked and half parted manner, which is probably the problem, right. The CIA was running arms and giving logistical support to about 80 or some odd Free Syrian Army groups, providing with anti-tank missiles, but also instilling a sense of false hope that the U.S. was on their side.
The U.S. was only using the rebels to get Assad to the negotiating table. Assad negotiated to pursue exactly what he's doing now, which is the ever elusive military solution for Syria. This is something that the U.S. State Department has said was an impossibility.
Well, it's quite a possibility and Rick is right. The next stop is Idlib. The reason that the regime -- when I say the regime, what I really mean to say is Russia and Iran, which are calling the shots.
Russian (inaudible) or Special Forces have been on the ground in Aleppo for weeks. Most of the atrocities committed in East Aleppo are being done by Iranian-built militias. These guys want the remainder of the Free Syrian Army but also al Qaeda and (inaudible), the Islamists Italians to go to Idlib, why?
Because then it justifies turning Idlib into a kill box. They can drop all the bombs they want on Idlib and say, you see all the terrorists have now moved here. This is the next province we have to, quote/unquote "liberate." That's the game plan.
They're hoping to do this in the period between Barack Obama leaving office and Donald Trump entering office and sort of finding his bearings. Although I must say the Trump campaign and the Trump administration such as it is shaping up to be does not seem to want pick any kind of fight with Putin or Assad. Quite the opposite they want to work with them to eliminate ISIS.
SANCHEZ: Colonel Francona, how do you see the Trump administration handling this moving forward? Trump said yesterday that they wanted to create safe zones in Syria. Is that even possible at this point?
FRANCONA: It is more plausible than it was in the past. That's because you have the Turks operating moving toward Raqqah and they've set up quite an enclave up there with the Free Syrian Army. That could be the free zone. That had been talked about for the past year.
The Turks said this would be the perfect place to do it. Many of us have said that's great somebody has to go down there and force ISIS out of the area the Turks have done just that. There is a possibility for that.
I think Michael is right. You know, what's going to happen now with the new administration coming out. I think there is no stomach in the new administration for continuing support to the Free Syrian Army. So I think that we are going to stand back and concentrate on ISIS and basically throw the Free Syrian Army under the bus.
SANCHEZ: I want to turn now to ISIS. Michael, the U.S. now offering a $25 million reward for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for the capture of the ISIS leader. Do you think this increased reward is going to yield any results? They've have a hard time catching them. Even though there was a report recently that they were close.
WEISS: Yes, he also was injured in an airstrike about 18 months ago. He wasn't being targeted. The U.S. had just dropped the bomb on a convoy that he was a part of and it took him out of commission physically for quite a while. He had hurt his back and his leg although he was still (inaudible) and still technically in charge of the organization.
[11:55:03]Look, one of the most underreported stories of ISIS in the last two years has been the attempted coups and power struggles within the upper echelons of the organization. Baghdadi has been putting down insurgents trying to takeover ISIS from within. There is complete paranoia of infiltration, coalition spies.
Some of this I think actually quite justified at this point. He still remains the leader of the organization. Does a $25 million bounty as opposed to a $10 million or $11 million make a difference? No. It's not about the money. I don't think he's going to be captured.
He will be killed in a raid or air strike, much like Zarkawi (ph) was in 2006. We dropped two 500-pound bombs on a location that we've got intelligence that he was at. But the real question now is who is going to take over? And they're running out of viable successors.
It requires a very kind of (inaudible) curriculum vitae to be the head of this organization. You have to be Arab, you can't be Turkman and you have to be a descendant from the house of the prophet of Muhammad, which Baghdadi claims to be.
There aren't that many people who fit that bill. So either ISIS is going to have make an accommodation with its own theology or some here to for unknown character much like Baghdadi was in 2010 when he was appointed will emerge to the fore and be anointed his successor.
SANCHEZ: All right, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me on the weekend. We appreciate your perspective and expertise.
We have much more just ahead in the NEWSROOM. Please stay with us.
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SANCHEZ: Hey, there. It's just about noon Eastern. Thanks for joining us. I'm Boris Sanchez in for Fredricka Whitfield. You are about to look at pictures from Baltimore, Maryland, where I-95 is shut down because of ice.
On the weekend before Christmas, a major artery on the eastern corridor, one of the most packed highways typically across the country is empty. We'll have more on the icy conditions affecting more than a 150 million today in just a moment.
