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Investigators Say, Nashville Blast Likely A Suicide Bombing; One In 1,000 Americans Have Died From COVID-19; Trump Attacks Lockdowns In Democratic-Run States; Trump Pardons Controversial Figures This Week; Russia Shifts Blame For Massive Cyberattack; 2020: A Year Like No Other For The Economy. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired December 26, 2020 - 17:00   ET

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

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: AT&T cell phone service and land line service has all been knocked out for more than 24 hours now as a result of this.

[17:00:06]

Also, 911 communications were affected.

So, as a result of all that, given the size of the damage at the AT&T building, that is something that investigators are certainly exploring. They have not ruled anything else out. They've not said, okay, well, this is specifically what we want to hone in on. They're working on a lot of different theories, but they got to go backwards now to try and figure out what was going on in this person's life and exactly why, ultimately, they did this the way they did it.

And as we've been reporting, there are so many strange little details in all of this. And that is also something that investigators are looking at.

AMARA WALKER, CNN HOST (voice over): Great reporting and getting this from your sources that this was likely a suicide bombing in Nashville. Shimon Prokupecz, stay with us for a minute.

Let's head over now to Frank Montoya and bring him into this conversation. Frank is a former FBI special agent who once ran the bureau's Seattle division. Frank, thank you so much for being with us.

So, now that it seems like this was a suicide bombing, what's the work that's coming up next? Is this about the priority identifying who this person might be from the human tissue?

FRANK MONTOYA, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: So, there's about -- you know, you want to identify the individual, and there's going to be a lot of work done on the how and the why. That's really significant right now, especially once you've contained the threat, so to speak, where you know that it's one individual, perhaps, acting alone. So now you want to know how and why.

And when I talk about how, how was it built, you know, what kind of -- you know, how was it detonated, looking at the destructive power of that bomb, and then the why, you know, what was the motivation for doing it last night or yesterday, at the time that it was done, and for what reason. What was this guy's beef or this individual's beef as far as reasons for doing this?

WALKER (voice over): And, Shimon, to bring you in again, are investigators or officials using the word terrorism at all?

PROKUPECZ (voice over): No, that's not something they've used to me. Certainly, there are joint terrorism task force agents that are working this investigation, but they have not used those specific words with me. Right now, of course, as we know, the FBI is the lead in this investigation. They would be because of the size of just the bomb that was used here, the size of the explosion, and because they're providing a lot of technical assistance to the local people but also the ATF is here working this, but those specific words, terrorism, no one has used with me.

It doesn't mean it isn't. It doesn't mean it is. But that is not something that, at least, I think, officials are ready to say or at least they have enough to say exactly what this is. That all goes into motive, and I think that's what they're really working on, because nothing -- I mean, I don't have the sense right now that they know exactly or anything stands out to them in terms of motive. Certainly, they've not shared that information with me. They may have that information, and they're still working through it.

But they're being very careful, as are we, to make sure that they have everything together. And that is something they're going to work for, because they need to figure out why this happened. You have an enormous bomb, this size, in a -- in the downtown of a major city exploding in the way that it did, this was a very large explosion, caused a lot of destruction, and any other time of day, at any other time of the year, could have killed many people.

So this is something the -- for the FBI is going to be a priority to try and figure out, were there any trip wires that were missed. So, this individual, how they went about buying the products, used to make this bomb, what was missed. Did someone not alert authorities that someone was coming in and buying these materials?

That is something that they're going to be looking at also. And they're going to go back because they want to figure out, okay, when did the planning come into this? When did this person decide that they were going to do this? And all of that is going to be an important part.

WALKER (voice over): So, Frank, walk us through what it entails to figure out the motive. Obviously, officials have to first identify who this bomber is and then from there, extrapolate or at least, you know, look at their social media perhaps or talk to friends or family. Walk us through how they figure out the motive.

MONTOYA (voice over): So, great question, and I think you see a lot of progress being made in that regard, because they were perhaps able to find out, you know, identifying information from the vehicle, you know, who it was registered, for example, to. And then from there, get a search warrant and perhaps execute that sort of search warrant on a location, perhaps a residence, as I think is what is happening right now.

[17:05:02]

And then, from there, you start looking at everything you can in that location, whether it's notebooks or it's computers or cell phones or any kind of other digital recording device or a storage to try to get into that person's mindset through the information that may be written down. And it's everything from this -- his internet searches or her internet searches when it comes to the how to build this bomb to why they would be executing this act at this moment in time.

And so, that search of the residence is going to be really important at this point in time, in terms of identifying any of that information that could lead to an assessment of the perpetrator's behavior. The other part of that is, talking to everybody and anybody who may have known this individual, you know, neighbors, friends, family, coworkers, anybody like that, who could provide additional insight into this person's mindset. The whole idea being, you try to determine that motive, you know?

And your reporter made a great point about the explosive device itself, because this information that he -- that investigators are looking for, not only talks about his motive for doing this but how he or she did it. And that's important too because, one, it goes into the repository of information that we keep on these kinds of activities, but also, could it be related to something else that is out there, just to cover that base.

I know that the local officials are talking about how Nashville is safe right now, but you still want to be able to cover those bases in the event that there's possibilities that others either are going to copy cat this activity or maybe acting in some way or fashion that is connected to this activity.

WALKER (voice over): And in your experience, the fact that a motor home was used, and Andrew McCabe had brought this up, that this vehicle could have been used as, I guess, shelter or a place to build the bomb so that he or she could go unnoticed and then deliver this bomb to a specific area.

MONTOYA (voice over): Yes, that's a possibility. And, you know, if it's been destroyed, it makes it a lot harder to identify how the bomb may have been constructed. At the same time, there's going to be residue so there will be -- and other possibilities of remnants, I guess, of the bomb -- of the explosion itself, and perhaps even what they call a signature, where, you know, some bomb makers like to tie a wire a certain way or they like to etch in the hardware some kind of message or anything like that or, you know, it's kind of a signature of their behavior in this action.

So there's that possibility from the damage on the site that they might be able to recover that, that would help them identify, again, part of the motive, why the individual did what they did. The other part of this that is developing is if this individual did commit suicide by bombing, you know, again, why did they do it? Why did they choose this time, this place, this location to do what

they did, and how do we explain that behavior? So, all of this information collection is all about trying to determine those things. And, again, it's for public safety, for one, but it's also to try to determine if there are any other activities that might be related to this. You just want to cover all the bases at this point in time.

WALKER (voice over): If you are just joining us, we are getting a new bit of information thanks to our reporting from Shimon Prokupecz and Evan Perez. Investigators are looking into this Christmas day explosion there in Nashville, and they believe the blast was likely the result of a suicide bombing.

And, Frank, just to bring you back in, because Shimon was mentioning these very peculiar details about the circumstances of this bombing, it happening on Christmas day, as you just mentioned, on a morning where virtually no one was out and about, the buildings, the businesses, obviously, going to be empty on a Christmas morning. So, clearly, this may have been a way to minimize casualties, but the damage is just extensive.

Do you believe that the person behind this at least had a message he or she wanted to put out there?

MONTOYA: Yes, I think that's clear. You know, on the one hand, they wanted to do their best perhaps, to make sure that the damage to human life was minimized, there was the warning, there was the countdown, so to speak, but at the same time, they're clearly indicating that they can do this. And the question is, why? And that's part of when it comes to motive, why did they do this?

Why did they -- if they did kill themselves, why did they sacrifice themselves in this way? Was it to send a message, you know, a philosophical message? Or was it to send some kind of message that, hey, there are others out there? And I don't want to say that to try to alarm anyone. But at the same time, this is a pretty drastic measure, to blow up a whole city block just to kill yourself at the same time for what reason.

[17:10:05]

And so, yes, you know, this is where I think the urgency in this investigation is right now is trying to identify why this person did what they did, if it was, you know, a message just about the establishment or the system or something that it was personal to them, that's one thing. But if it's a message that's, you know, related to something else, you know, relative to a network of activity that could happen or that may happen, it's important that we know that now.

Your reporter talked about trip wire. This is where this becomes very important too. Are there others out there that might have similar intentions and how can we prevent that from happening?

WALKER (voice over): Shimon, walk us through what you have seen being there on the ground now. We are seeing these aerial pictures and you and I, when this news was just breaking yesterday, we were remarking at just how incredible these pictures look. Now that you're on the ground, explain to us just how extensive this damage is and what you're seeing.

PROKUPECZ: Yes, so, we can't get into the area where we saw all of those pictures yesterday morning and through the day yesterday. We can't get into those areas. And, in fact, the FAA has put a flyover restriction over the airspace here so the news helicopters where we were getting all that really incredible footage of the devastation, we can't -- we don't have that today.

But I have been able to walk around some of the streets that they've opened here in Downtown Nashville and there's glass, and this is blocks away from, really, the epicenter of this explosion. There's glass all over several of the streets.

Also today, as I walked through some of the streets that have been reopened, there were FBI agents and ATF agents that were walking side- by-side in what is a grid search, essentially, looking for evidence, pieces of debris, pieces of anything, really, that they can use to try and gather all this evidence and kind of put together, as we heard the U.S. attorney say, this puzzle.

And the streets are empty. There aren't a lot of people here. There have been some people who have been coming by, want to see what's going on, want to see some of what the police are out here, people who live here have been bringing food to the police officers, water, so it's been a lot of community outreach for the first responders here.

And then behind us, just a couple of blocks down, about four or five blocks, is where all the debris is, those burned-out cars, the buildings that collapsed and that AT&T building which saw some of the most severe damage where these metal beams, these steel columns came crashing down after the explosion.

And, really, what it shows you when you look at the damage to the vehicles and to some of the buildings, just how hot the flames were from this explosion, because some of these cars, I mean, their paint -- the paint was burned off of these cars and practically were melted. And the R.V., we don't see the R.V. in any of the pictures because that clearly was destroyed during the explosion.

So, police really need to find that piece of evidence to connect it to a suspect. Obviously, they found human tissue. They found this body part so they're analyzing that. And they're just continuing here. We've seen them out here all day, and they're continuing to work through a lot of that destruction and a lot of that evidence.

WALKER (voice over): Shimon, stand by. I understand we have a reporter, Natasha Chen, also on the ground in Antioch, Tennessee. Hi there, Natasha. What can you tell us?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Amara, we've been here for several hours and I want to step aside so that you can see the federal authorities here. What the FBI public information officer told me is that this is -- these are teams conducting court-authorized activity and that's how he phrased it. He wouldn't say anything more about what's going on.

But what we understand is that, first, there was a team of bomb technicians that cleared the property to make it safe for the evidence teams to go in, and that's what we've been observing for the past couple of hours, people with ATF, with the FBI, evidence teams going into that house that you see there on the corner.

And what we understand is that they are really going through very methodically to document everything, photographing what they see in their place inside the house, documenting that, and then if necessary, bringing any evidence out of the house. This process, we understand, can take several hours, so it's been us basically watching agents coming in and out of the property.

Now, in talking to some of the neighbors that live around here, we understand that a couple of the neighbors have seen an R.V. parked on that property before, and I believe that we have also seen an R.V. parked there via Google street images, and when I showed them those particular images, they did recognize the same R.V.

[17:15:03]

They were saying that, you know, perhaps they hadn't come out as much during the colder weather but had definitely seen that R.V. parked there over the summer. A third neighbor also recognized that. And what these neighbors tell me is that they had not actually seen the resident of this home coming out much, so they don't know the person who lives there, the particular three neighbors I spoke to, at least, do not know the person who lives there.

But this has been a very active scene, pretty much all day with a lot of neighbors very perplexed at what's going on. But, again, the FBI does tell me that this is a court-authorized activity and we have seen agents coming in and out of the house for several hours now, first with the bomb technicians, of course, making it safe -- making sure it's safe for them to enter and then having them -- you know, seeing them go through and document everything, bringing out evidence.

So this is a very detailed process, and the neighbors are definitely highly interested in watching this happen, but a lot of them also discussing now who lives there and that very noticeable R.V. that has been parked there for months, Amara.

WALKER: Natasha, did the neighbors say anything about what the R.V. looked like? Did they see the photos that we have been showing here on CNN of that surveillance video of that R.V. that exploded in this bombing? Did they say that the R.V. that was parked on the driveway of that house resembles the one in this photo here?

CHEN: So I showed them the Google street images we had pulled up for a property showing an R.V. parked there in months and years past, and they did recognize the one from the Google street images. One of the neighbors who spoke to us actually said that, you know, when he saw the agents pull up here to start working at this property, he recalled that there was an R.V. there and thought that it might be connected. He did recognize and make that connection in his mind. But, of course,

this is all just neighbors really perplexed at this point, trying to make any sort of connection and understand what's happening.

WALKER: Really interesting. So, Natasha Chen, I appreciate your reporting. She is in Antioch, Tennessee, which is a neighborhood of Nashville, which is about 12 miles southeast of Nashville. Very interesting information Natasha is getting, as she is reporting that there are evidence teams that are conducting some kind of search of this property where neighbors say that they have seen an R.V. parked on the property.

And here is video of some of the teams just moments ago taking out brown bags of presumably evidence related to this massive explosion that we saw happen in Nashville, Downtown Nashville, on Christmas morning.

Shimon, to you. Let's start from the beginning and take us through the timeline of how all of this happened up until this point with your sources telling you they believe that this was likely a suicide bombing.

PROKUPECZ: Right. So, it all starts, obviously, yesterday, around 6:00 A.M. or so, sometime before 6:00 A.M. where police receive a call for a shots -- gunshots, shots fired call. They respond to the location just a couple of blocks away from here where they encounter this R.V. And from it -- from the R.V., there is audio playing, telling people that they should evacuate and saying, you have 15 minutes. This audio recording, then saying, 14 minutes and playing music as this is going on.

Immediately, the first officers on scene, they do two things. First is they start to evacuate the immediate area, believing that there was an -- a potential bomb in this R.V. And then the other thing they did was they called for the bomb squad to respond. And as the bomb squad is responding, and people at this point had evacuated about 6:30 a.m. local time here, it exploded. And then, of course, we saw huge flames and the destruction and the thick black smoke that burned for quite some time here in Downtown Nashville.

And then, within just a couple of hours after that, obviously, the police responded and very quickly, I mean, within the hour, they were able to say that this was an intentional bombing, which is something you don't often see in these situations. So, it was clear that they had some kind of information, almost immediately, that led them to believe that this was intentional.

After that, they started their investigation, looking for video.

[17:20:00]

And they found a video clip of the R.V., a couple of hours before the bombing, around 1:20 A.M. They see the video of the R.V. driving not far from here around 1:30 in the morning. They then put that photo out. The police say, with the FBI, they then put the photo out and asked for the public's assistance in identifying the R.V. And that ultimately may have proved to be the biggest clue here for

law enforcement. We know that the police have received 500 tips, some of them involving that R.V. And it is my understanding it is the tip about the R.V. is what led to law enforcement for the police and the FBI to respond to this location where Natasha is.

Investigators do believe that that R.V., at this point, based on the photos and based on the markings that they see, that that R.V. is the same R.V. that was used in the bombing here. They don't know that 100 percent, certainly, they haven't said that they do, but that is something, certainly, that they believe based on the photos and the markings of the R.V.

WALKER: A lot of developments --

PROKUPECZ: So, very early at some point last night.

WALKER: Yes.

PROKUPECZ: Yes, a lot of developments.

WALKER: Absolutely, a lot of developments to talk about. Thanks to you and your reporting, Shimon, Prokupecz and Natasha Chen, who is outside this home about 11 miles southeast of Nashville where we saw teams carrying out bags and bags of evidence. Neighbors saying they had seen an R.V. on that property. The question is, is this the bomber's home? We don't have the answer to that. But we're going to continue to follow this breaking news coverage. Investigators believing that this was likely a suicide bombing in Nashville.

Much more after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: Breaking news this afternoon, grim new data from Johns Hopkins University showing that 1 in 1,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.

[17:25:04]

I want to bring in CNN Medical Analyst Jonathan Reiner. He is a Professor of Medicine at George Washington University. Doctor, good to see you.

First off, I want to show you another figure, the CDC saying nearly 2 million vaccine doses have been administered in the U.S., with nearly 10 million doses being delivered. What do these new numbers tell you about the current state of the crisis in the U.S. and how the vaccine rollout is going?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Hi, Amara. Well, as for the vaccine, it tells us that we have a long way to go. 2 million vaccines seems like a lot, a million per week, but at that rate, it would take us about five years to vaccinate all the people we need to in this country. So we really need to learn from our initial experience and start getting many more shots in the arms of Americans. We have 8 million doses available to go and there's no time to waste. As for, you know, the toll on this country, you know, 1 in 1,000 people dying is an unimaginable toll, and it didn't need to be this bad. Our performance has been among the worst in the world. For example, Germany, a country with about a quarter of our population, has had 30,000 deaths. So if you normalize that amount for the U.S. population, we would have about 120,000 deaths, still an enormous toll. But about 220,000 people who are dead now would be alive.

So, there will be time for us to learn when this is over where all the mistakes were made, but this is really just a devastating toll.

WALKER: Well, what have we learned so far about what kind of mistakes have been made and why we are faring so terribly here in the U.S.? Is it the lack of testing? Is it the fact that the states are all kind of taking this piecemeal approach? And so, you know, we have open borders, obviously, between states. You know, what are the factors playing into that?

REINER: It took us too long to build our testing program. We've never had a federal testing program that was farmed out to the states. We never had federal leadership really mandating or enthusiastically promoting masking. We allowed the states to open at their own speeds, sometimes defying CDC regulations, and on and on and on.

Even today, you know, we still don't have the president of the United States firmly coming out and urging all of his supporters to vaccinate. We haven't had the president get a vaccine on camera to show that this is safe and effective, so many things.

WALKER: I want to ask you a little bit more, Dr. Reiner, about the vaccine rollout and how it's been going. We know, obviously, in this first phase, we're seeing frontline workers getting the vaccine. I have family members who work in hospital settings. I have friends who work in hospital settings.

And, anecdotally, what I have been hearing, at least here in Atlanta, is that there's been a lot of frustration between hospital workers seeing nurses or doctors getting vaccinated before they are, you know, with them saying, look, I'm in a higher risk specialty than that hospital worker. Are you anecdotally hearing the same kinds of frustrations?

REINER: At G.W., the rollout seemed to go pretty well. Other institutions have had a little bit more of a rocky start. I'm more concerned, frankly, about vaccine hesitancy around the United States, even amongst some healthcare workers. And we're going to have to spend a lot of time on the grassroots level in communities educating folks that this vaccine or these vaccines are extremely safe and very, very effective. And this is really our ticket to normalcy.

If you want to go to a baseball game this summer or you have a child that is going to get married next year and you want to get back to more of a normal life, as soon as the vaccine is made available to you, you should be getting a vaccine, and you should be urging all your friends and neighbors to do the same. And we need this expressed to the public in a lot of different ways and there's no time to waste. My biggest concern is vaccine hesitancy.

WALKER: Sure thing, understood. Let me ask you about California, because it is the first state to hit 2 million cases of COVID-19, and President Trump on Twitter today attacking, quote, unquote, lockdowns in Democratic-run states, which he claimed are absolutely ruining the lives of so many people. Dr. Reiner, your reaction on President Trump's attacks on lockdowns as a way of mitigating the spread of coronavirus in the U.S.

REINER: Well, the president is wrong, and he's been wrong repeatedly throughout this crisis.

[17:30:00]

Many of us have said that we really won't be able to turn this around until we have new leadership in this country, and that comes in 25 days.

The president today said, look at Florida. They haven't had lockdowns and they're doing great. Florida had 10,000 new cases yesterday. The president does not know what he's talking about.

California has to lock down in places because their hospitals are swamped.

The hospitals in California, in places like Los Angeles County, do not have the ability to add more critically ill patients to their ICUs. They do not have the staff to take care of them. That's why they must lock down.

Other states will have to do that so their hospitals don't get to that kind of crisis.

The president does not know what he's talking about.

WALKER: Dr. Jonathan Reiner, appreciate your expertise as always. Thank you so much.

REINER: My pleasure. Thank you.

WALKER: President Trump on a pardoning spree, using his remaining weeks in power to pardon friends, allies, and even convicted mercenaries. We're going to discuss that next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: President Trump announcing a wave of pardons for controversial figures this week, including Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Charles Kushner.

Also four former Blackwater contractors were also pardoned in connection with the 2007 mass shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians. With me now is John Dean, former White House counsel for President

Nixon, and a CNN contributor. Also, the coauthor of "Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers."

John, great to see you. Thanks for joining me.

[17:35:04]

I just want to get your opinion and reaction to the people that President Trump has been pardoning and the process or lack thereof that he has been employing.

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think that Republican Senator from Nebraska, Ben Sasse, summed it up pretty well. He said, "These are rotten to the core."

And that's a very accurate description, and sort of distinguishes Trump's pardon from that of his predecessors.

WALKER: Yes, can you elaborate on that? How does -- do his pardons differ from that of his predecessors?

DEAN: Well, in volume, so far, Trump is well behind his predecessors. We don't know what he's going to do in the future. He's still got 25 days so I expect more.

But the quality of his pardons are very different from his predecessors. I can't imagine anybody that preceded him pardoning a war criminal, somebody -- a group that went in and shot innocent civilians in Iraq. It was just an awful crime.

The FBI spent more on that than any other investigation they've ever undertaken, save 9/11.

And so they were serious about prosecuting these people, did so in federal court. Trump gave them a pass because they had an inside route through Erik Prince and Betsy DeVos.

WALKER: Exactly.

And you know, what are your thoughts on this wave of pardons, though? Do you think this is Trump's way of continuing to try to hold leverage over people in his orbit or on the party after he leaves office?

DEAN: You know, I always am reluctant to venture into Trump's mind and his thinking. I don't see a lot of it in this whole process.

One of the things that is apparent to me is, I can't believe he thinks he's going to run again after issuing this caliber of pardons.

These are pretty awful. And they're going to be held against him by people in his own party, his own peers, if he seeks a nomination again.

WALKER: And, John, there was a lot of controversy surrounding President Ford pardoning President Nixon. I mean, people said it was like letting Nixon off the hook.

Does this feel anything like that?

DEAN: This is a little different. Nixon -- what Ford did is he wanted to end the nightmare for himself and his presidency so he could get on.

He didn't really end it for the country because Nixon's top aides, his chief of staff, his former attorney general, his top domestic advisor, all went on to be -- into a trial that would last some 90 days after the pardons were issued. And it would go on even longer than that.

But it did give him the ability to get more serious about governing rather than release or not release of documents. And that's what his pardon was motivated by.

These appear to be motivated by some sort of personal, political gain that Trump thinks he can get from these where he's returning favors or doing favors.

WALKER: And I would assume you expect more pardons up until Inauguration Day.

DEAN: I certainly do. I have no idea if he'll consider any of those that are in the offices of the pardon attorney over at the Department of Justice or if he's going to keep this on an inside route.

But I think before he gets down to his family and his closest associates, he's going to do a barrage so they'll be lost in that mass of pardons.

WALKER: Yes, and I want to end this by asking you what you expect to see as President Trump is ending his presidency in about three and a half weeks.

Do you expect him to try to light more fires before he leaves?

DEAN: He seems to be burning the building down as he's on his way out.

I think the healthiest thing that could happen for the country is if he stays at Mar-a-Lago and doesn't come back to Washington. But he can do damage from Mar-a-Lago as well.

And he just is not thinking about what the benefits or how this plays out for the American people.

His treatment of the relief bill, the defense spending bill, these have tremendous implications. And he's just jumping in and throwing sand in the gears at the last minute, seemingly just for the publicity of it.

WALKER: John Dean, appreciate you joining us as always. Thank you so much.

DEAN: Thank you. WALKER: All right, up next, Russia is shifting the blame for its

alleged involvement in the massive cyberattack on U.S. agencies. We'll tell you where Moscow is pointing its finger.

[17:39:45]

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: Russia is denying involvement in a massive cyberattack against federal agencies and is now trying to shift blame.

A Russian foreign ministry spokesperson said it's the Trump administration's attempt to prevent President-Elect Biden from establishing ties with Moscow.

And that brings me to your "Weekend Presidential Brief," a segment we bring you every weekend highlighting the most pressing national security issues the president is facing.

Here with me now is CNN National Security Analyst, Samantha Vinograd, who served as senior advisor to the national security advisor.

Sam, lovely to see you.

So, first off, what do you make of this messaging from the Russian foreign ministry, even though Pompeo and Barr have attributed the cyberattacks to Russia?

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I don't know how this foreign ministry spokesperson kept a straight face, Amara.

Overall, Putin's propaganda machine is in full swing. Last week, the Russian government levied wildly implausible reasons for why they were not responsible for this cyberattack.

They're blaming everybody but themselves. This fits with the Russian government's long history of coming up with every excuse under the sun rather than acknowledging responsibility for their own malign behavior.

When it comes to our bilateral relationship, various Russian officials last week said that they were expecting nothing positive or nothing good from the Biden administration.

The deputy foreign minister even inaccurately claimed that Biden's team is full of Russophobes.

Clearly, the Russian government is trying to preemptively blame Biden's team for tense times ahead instead of acknowledging the impact their destabilizing behavior has on our bilateral relationship.

In terms of impact, remember, this isn't Biden's first rodeo. He's familiar with Putin's methodology. Unlike Trump, who had a Pavlovian response to Putin's propaganda, I

think Biden will mostly tune it out and instead incorporate U.S. intelligence and analysis to inform his policy decisions on Russia.

WALKER: And on the cyberattacks, Sam, do you have any new information on that?

VINOGRAD: Well, last week, U.S. government experts indicated that federal, state, and local government systems as well as critical infrastructure entities and private-sector organizations were impacted by this cyberattack.

This shows the victims list is going to continue to grow and with it the scale of the damage will probably grow, too.

This really underscores the need to get federal officials all the resources that they need to investigate this attack and to prevent future attacks of this kind down the road.

[17:45:04]

Trump is taking an opposite approach. He vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act, which would, for example, authorize federal officials to proactively hunt for cyber threats.

He's denying his own team authorizations they could be using right now as we're in the midst of an ongoing cyberattack.

Biden, on the other hand, has said he'll make cybersecurity a priority. And based on everything that we're seeing right now in real time, that can't happen soon enough.

WALKER: Yes, I mean, Biden said that, you know, he is getting briefed on the cyberattack but there's been some concerning reporting regarding the transition.

VINOGRAD: Well, Biden's post-election transition got off to a late start because Trump failed or is failing to acknowledge the election results.

The ascertainment by the General Services Administration, which is the prerequisite for the post-election phase of the transition, was delayed.

Now, even with that ascertainment, the Pentagon still isn't fully participating in the transition process.

We have reports that Biden's transition personnel were delayed in terms of accessing intelligence entities controlled by the Pentagon.

And then last week, the acting secretary of defense stopped transition meetings, citing a mutually agreed upon holiday break. The transition team denied any such agreement.

Overall, Biden's transition team is losing critical time that's even more worrisome based on the fact that the Pentagon was targeted in this most recent cyberattack. The transition team needs more information, not less.

Now, fortunately, a lot of the members of Biden's transition team, they're seasoned experts, so that should mitigate some of the damage.

But overall, Amara, it certainly looks like Trump and some of his loyalists are trying to disadvantage Biden on day one.

WALKER: Samantha Vinograd, it is very worrying, indeed. Appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much.

VINOGRAD: Thank you.

WALKER: And a quick programming note. Say so long, 2020, and hello, 2021 with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen live from Times Square New Year's Eve, starting at 8:00 on CNN.

Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:50:27]

WALKER: Breaking news in the coronavirus pandemic. The death toll has now surpassed 331,000, meaning one in 1,000 Americans have died from this virus. Even more have contracted it.

The vaccine is here but it's not being administered as quickly as some had hoped. So far, nearly two million people have received the vaccine nation. Though, nearly, 10,000 doses have been delivered.

In 2020, we witnessed world-changing, paradigm-shifting events from the coronavirus virus, an economic crisis, a social justice movement, to a historical presidential election.

Christine Romans explores an unprecedented year in business.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: 2020, a year like no other for business. The pandemic touched every part of the economy, altering the way Americans live, work, and shop.

Historic job losses prompted unprecedented stimulus. But as benefits dwindled, Americans suffered.

And while a few companies thrived, some may never recover.

(SHOUTING)

(voice-over): This year, the pandemic triggered the worst job loss in U.S. history. And 22 million jobs vanished in just two months, wiping out a decade of gains.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: The largest single month of job losses since the Great Depression.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: The worst jobs report in American history.

ROMANS (voice-over): Nearly every sector shed workers during the spring lockdowns. The U.S. still hasn't recovered all those jobs. And hiring is now slowing again.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you, all.

ROMANS: Historic losses prompt a historic response.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The motion is adopted.

ROMANS: The government passing an unheard of $2 trillion relief package back in March.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: This is the largest aid package in history.

ROMANS: The government enhanced unemployment benefits, funded stimulus checks for families and loans for hard hit industries.

But there was a catch. All measures had expiration dates. Small businesses said PPP loans ran out fast if they managed to secure one at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The first rounds send tens of millions of dollars to bigger publicly traded companies like Potbelly, Ruth's Chris and Shake Shack.

ROMANS (on camera): All three later returned the money.

(voice-over): As unemployment aid expired, Americans lined up at food banks in record numbers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They used to feed about 50,000 families a month now it's over 100,000 a month.

ROMANS: And eviction moratoriums without rent forgiveness became a ticking time bomb.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Evictions are about to skyrocket.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And 200 eviction orders have come through the Harris County courts for this week.

ROMANS: Experts warned for months that more stimulus was needed but congressional gridlock kept a new deal in limbo. Meanwhile, that economic pain stalled growth.

CUOMO: The second quarter was the worst quarter in terms of GDP action in America's history.

ROMANS: And even with a record-summer bounce back --

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR: We still are not back to levels we were at before the crisis hit.

ROMANS: -- the pandemic essentially froze the economy. Americans largely stopped eating in restaurants, attending movies, live events and traveling, leading to some big losses.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Two airlines, American and United, announced that they're laying off a combined 32,000 employees.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Marriott says that the financial impact of this pandemic is worse than 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis combined.

ROMANS: Homebound Americans fueled an online shopping spree helping behemoths like Amazon while devastating brick and mortar.

SCIUTTO: J. Crew becomes the first major retailer to file for bankruptcy protection as a result of the outbreaks.

ROMANS: Lord & Taylor, the nation's first department store, filed for Chapter 11.

As the country lived, worked and attended school online, sales exploded for companies like Zoom, Peloton, and Nintendo.

And a new breed of essential worker --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): As millions stay home, millions are out risking exposure to the virus on the front lines.

ROMANS: -- delivery employees helped keep the economy afloat in 2020.

(SHOUTING)

ROMANS: Amid the pandemic, the death of George Floyd in police custody in May sparked protests over racial justice and a racial reckoning for corporate America.

[17:55:00]

Companies pledged to address diversity in their hiring, and some recognized the Juneteenth holiday.

Major retailers promised to better support black businesses while others retired problematic logos.

KEILAR: The Aunt Jemima brand will retire the image, acknowledging its racist past.

ROMANS (on camera): Minority and low-waged workers also bore the brunt of job and income loss this year. Meanwhile, the stock market thrived.

(BELL RINGING)

ROMANS: There was a big plunge in March --

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Trading has stopped because we've seen a drop of 7 percent.

ROMANS (voice-over): -- ending in a bear market. But stocks rebounded quickly to record highs, buoyed by government

stimulus, explosive rallies and stay-at-home stocks and big tech and the Federal Reserve.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE (voice-over): The Feds bought up trillions of dollars in securities, pumping new money into the economy.

ROMANS: This is the historic disconnect of 2020. The so-called K- shaped recovery. Main street suffers but Wall Street gains by betting on the future that vaccines and more stimulus will trigger a rebound.

(on camera): Can the economy turn around in 2021? After a year of historic losses, next year can only be better. But it may be a dark winter before we get there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: And that does it for me. I'm Amara Walker in Atlanta.

Dana Bash picks up our coverage after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)