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Downtown Nashville Sealed Off After Intentional Explosion; U.S. In Holiday Season Amid Worsening Pandemic; U.S. To Require COVID Test From U.K. Travelers; Pfizer BioNTech Vaccine Distributed Across The E.U.; Millions Of Americans In Danger Of Losing Key Benefits; Blackwater Pardon Backlash. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired December 26, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): An explosion in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on Christmas morning has investigators searching for answers.
COVID at Christmas surges in the U.S. and around the world, showing that the virus is definitely not taking a holiday.
And Donald Trump's Christmas chaos. As millions are set to expire this weekend, the American president is golfing.
Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to all of you watching here in the United States, Canada and around the world. This is CNN this is CNN NEWSROOM.
Authorities in Nashville, Tennessee, are examining what could be human remains found after Christmas morning's enormous explosion near downtown. All signs point to the blast being intentional. The mayor called it a deliberate bomb that was planted in a recreational vehicle. Video captured the moments before the explosion.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you can hear this message, evacuate now. If you can hear this message, evacuate now.
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BRUNHUBER: So as you heard, a recorded countdown warned people to evacuate the area before the explosion. It came from inside this white RV, which had entered the area a few hours earlier. Police haven't announced any suspects so far nor has any person or group claimed responsibility.
CNN's Natasha Chen explains what we do know at this point.
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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Much of downtown Nashville is under a curfew that began the afternoon or Christmas Day and goes into Sunday afternoon. That is typically to keep people away from the investigation scene, that now stretches several rocks, debris scattered everywhere.
This happened early Christmas morning, when people heard first heard gunshots, called 9-1-1 and then there was the odd sound of a recorded message coming from an RV, giving a countdown, 15 minutes until an explosion.
The mayor of this -- of Nashville said at least 41 businesses were destroyed, three civilians hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. He said this was intended to create chaos, that the city will be resilient and rebuild.
MAYOR JOHN COOPER (D), NASHVILLE, TN: My message is expect a knock on your door. It's going to, I think, be a puzzle on the streets for some period of time. But I expect them to solve it. And they are bringing their resources to bear, to be able to solve it. This should not be an America where you have bombings on the street.
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CHEN: We don't know who may be responsible for this right now. But police did say that they believe it is an intentional act. The mayor said the city will be resilient.
At the same time the police chief confirmed to CNN that human remains were found on the scene. They've been sent to the medical examiner for further investigation -- back to you.
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BRUNHUBER: Joining me now in Los Angeles, CNN Law Enforcement Contributor, Steve Moore. He's also a supervisory retired special agent with the FBI.
Thanks for being here with us. Given that we don't know a lot right now but authorities said this attack was, quote, "intended to create chaos and fear."
So to set this up in a location that would limit casualties, the loudspeaker warning people away, what do you make of this?
STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: It's one of the strangest things I've seen because creating chaos and fear is the definition of terrorism. So this person was trying to create fear, trying to create panic, chaos but he was doing it without trying to -- without trying to cause civilian casualties, which is not what terrorists usually do.
So then you have to back away and say this is nonconventional but this is kind of a strange brand of it.
And you have to try to figure out at this point, what is the intent? What is the target, what is the motivation for this?
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BRUNHUBER: Authorities have said it was intentional but haven't said anything about terrorism yet.
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MOORE: And I'm not trying to link it to classic terrorism. I'm just saying terrorism has the same goals. This person may be someone who has a grudge against a company, establishment, person; we don't know.
BRUNHUBER: Maybe against law enforcement themselves?
MOORE: We can't disregard that. The explosive device was placed in this vehicle on Christmas Day when nobody is going to be in the establishments. It was set to go off between 5:30 and 6:30 when, even if there was going to be somebody in the establishments, it would be way too early.
It was intentionally set in an area where casualties of civilians would be almost zero. If they just wanted to inflict pain on a business, why would they fire shots to attract the police and the civilians are kept away?
So you can't come down, number one, on a specific theory and put all your weight on it yet. But you have to consider the fact that this is potentially a targeted attack against first responders.
BRUNHUBER: So looking at some of the clues they've found so far, authorities say then they found tissue that could be human remains.
What are the forensic challenges here?
MOORE: There's nothing in the forensics that's going to tell you necessarily. They're still going to have explosive residue, things like that on them. If it's the perpetrator, there may not be a missing persons report whereas anybody who has family and friends who might have been in that area are looking for them.
And we would find out if anybody is missing. If nobody is reported missing, it's more likely that you have one or more of the perpetrators.
BRUNHUBER: So what's next?
MOORE: There's two prongs to this. The technical people are trying to figure out what type of explosives were used, getting information off the vehicle. Police saw it. But if their license plates were removed, you can find probably the rear axle with a VIN number on it.
But at the same time, you're working the other way.
Probably I would have profilers on the line and say, what would fit this kind of behavior? What potentially could this person have been trying to achieve?
And you're also looking for anybody who has any beef with anybody who has a location on that street. When you have somebody deranged enough to set up a bomb that size in the middle of a downtown area, if they're crazy enough to do that, they're probably not sane enough to need a big excuse to do something horrible.
BRUNHUBER: So many unanswered questions. But thank you so much for your insight and analysis, Steve Moore, appreciate you joining us.
MOORE: Thanks, Kim. Appreciate it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: The U.S. marks an unusual Christmas holiday this year. The traditional joys of the season nearly overshadowed by the impacts of COVID-19. The total number of those lost to the virus now tops 330,000 according to Johns Hopkins University and the total infections are now over 8.7 million.
California reported 312 deaths on Christmas Day. It was the third consecutive day in which COVID deaths topped 300. Much of the state of California is under stay-at-home orders, prompted by shrinking intensive care unit capacity and those orders will probably be extended.
ICU space is an issue in Arizona, as well. The state had the highest number of patients in intensive care; 93 percent of all ICU beds in Arizona are now occupied.
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BRUNHUBER: The pandemic is expected to get much worse across the nation due to people's behavior. Alexandra Field has more.
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ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This Christmas, the one we never imagined.
DR. PETER HOTEZ, PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: It was January 1st of this year, when most of us heard about the COVID19 pandemic starting out of Hubei province in China. I just never believed that we would get to 330,000 American lives lost by Christmas Day and still accelerating at 3,000 deaths per day.
FIELD (voice-over): Almost one in every 1,000 Americans killed by COVID this year. In L.A. County, a person dies of COVID every 10 minutes. There are no ICU beds left in Southern California or the San Joaquin Valley.
HOTEZ: When our ICUs get overwhelmed -- and we saw this in March and April, in southern Europe and New York City -- that's how the mortality numbers skyrocketed .So this is happening now all across the country. We are reproducing that Manhattan and New York City epidemic from March and April now times dozens of times.
FIELD (voice-over): Despite a clear warning from the CDC that travel can increase your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19, more than 7 million people passed through America's airports in the last week.
DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: I think people don't think coronavirus will happen to them. They think coronavirus will happen to another family. But there is no safety other than those public health measures that we've been preaching from the mountaintops.
FIELD (voice-over): New travel restrictions go into effect Monday. Passengers coming from the U.K. will need a negative COVID tests within 72 hours of boarding a flight and documentation of the results. That, as concerns grow that a variant of the virus discovered there could be more transmissible.
ALBERT BOURLA, PFIZER CEO: We are testing to see if this new strain is equally sensitive to our vaccine and also will also be neutralized by our vaccine.
FIELD (voice-over): Pfizer's CEO Albert Bourla says he is cautiously optimistic that the vaccine will prove as effective against the variant.
Dr. Anthony Fauci now estimates that 70 percent to 85 percent of the country will need to get the vaccine to get to herd immunity.
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It will take maybe half a year or more for us to get to herd immunity in the country so that everybody is able to be protected from coronavirus.
And in that meantime, we still have to really double down and do the masking and physical distancing and avoiding indoor gatherings.
FIELD (voice-over): The suffering this holiday season, unprecedented. For most Americans, even the first dose of the vaccine is still months away. But another surge may be just days out.
DR. ERIN BROMAGE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: We've just seen daily cases just amplify and amplify and amplify. So Christmas, today, is going to do a similar thing.
FIELD: Given the concerns about yet another surge after Christmas, given the fact that we've seen the numbers rise so sharply after so many major holidays this year, it should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that at this point the CDC is strongly recommending that, for New Year's, you stay home, you celebrate with members of your household or if you're going to celebrate with your friends, to do it online -- in New York, Alexandra Field, CNN.
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BRUNHUBER: And Dr. Scott Miscovich is a family physician and national COVID-19 testing consultant. Thank you very much for joining us. So I want to touch on what we just
saw there, all the travel. The good news, I saw the numbers. Car travel is down by about a third in the U.S., air travel numbers seem to be down about 60 percent.
The bad news, it's still about a million people a day flying over the last couple of days, which is about the same as Thanksgiving. And we know what happened after Thanksgiving.
So how hard do you expect hospitals to get hit?
DR. SCOTT MISCOVICH, FAMILY PHYSICIAN AND NATIONAL CONSULTANT: We're really worried when you start looking at the January 10th to 15th mark. That timing, as we're seeing now, the results of Thanksgiving and some of the early gatherings, it's already concerning.
We have areas in Southern California and different states, where we're maxing out intensive care units. We will likely see some states hit the same area that New York did at the beginning of the pandemic.
BRUNHUBER: Passengers coming from the U.K. have to get a new test within three days of flying. But a paper by CDC suggested getting tested three days before doesn't reduce transmission that much.
Hawaii, where you are, has that same requirement, a COVID-19 test within 72 hours of flying.
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BRUNHUBER: So according to the data, to be effective, shouldn't that window for testing be much smaller?
MISCOVICH: Yes, it should. I'm running the testing in different areas across the state. And one area that is a role model now is the big island of Hawaii. We do three days plus we do another arrival test as soon as you hit the airport terminal.
And we've had good success, 5-15 cases a day. What really should happen is we should have a quarantine for 3-4 days and then another test after seven days. I am concerned with the contagious nature of this new variant that that will miss quite a few. And I would agree with the findings.
BRUNHUBER: To the vaccine now. You got one; you've been working on Operation Warp Speed.
MISCOVICH: I think the country needs to understand, it's very, very rare to have an allergic reaction. But we need to be equitable in the way we get this virus distributed. I'm very concerned about the rural areas, especially across the South where you might have some racial disparity.
As a country, it may be easy to get into urban areas but we need to find those affected the most who may have a higher chance of dying and we're going to continue to do that. BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. Finally, this is in your wheelhouse here. In
sports, last night we learned the women's Duke team won't play due to COVID concerns. You were involved in college testing for one of the biggest football conferences across the nation. All told across the country, there are some 140 football games canceled due to COVID.
So what have you learned about the ability to run competitive sports during a pandemic?
And how should schools apply that knowledge now, given how bad the outbreak is now and the next couple of months?
Most collegiate sports are going to be played indoors.
MISCOVICH: Correct. I still believe there is hope with sports. But we're seeing pockets where groups are having higher rates. So it comes down to the responsibilities of the players. And the coaches also are getting positive with the COVID.
So I believe that we can still have competitive athletics and I do feel somewhat optimistic because the number of serious cases that may be long-term are very, very low.
But it still doesn't change the fact where we may get to a point where athletics has to be put on hold until we move further because it's more important to have safety than it will be to have athletics.
BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. Well said. We'll have to leave it there. Thank you so much for coming on, family physician and testing consultant, Dr. Scott Miscovich.
MISCOVICH: Thank you, Kim.
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BRUNHUBER: A Christmas message of hope for the virus vaccines. Ahead, the pope calls for medical equity.
Plus, countries in Asia once were the model for how to track and contain the coronavirus. Now they're setting new daily records. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: South Korea and Japan are experiencing record-breaking surges of new coronavirus cases. Japan broke its daily new infection rate for the third day in a row with more than 3,800 new cases on Friday.
And in South Korea, new infections continue to linger near Thursday's all-time daily high with more than 1,100 new cases reported on Friday.
Now turning to Europe, during his Christmas Day message, Pope Francis called for coronavirus vaccines to be made available to everyone, especially the most vulnerable.
This comes as the E.U. is preparing to begin its vaccination rollout on Sunday after it approved the use of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine earlier this week.
So for more, let's turn to Cyril Vanier, joining us from Paris.
The bad news, Europe dealing with the spread of this new strain. The good news, the vaccine is being rolled out there.
So what is the latest?
CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right, Kim. Good morning to you. Good news and bad news here in France this morning.
The bad news, France is now added to the list of European countries where we have detected this new, highly transmissible strain. We're still awaiting final conclusion from the scientific community. But all signs do point in that direction.
So it was one French national, who traveled from the U.K. to France a week ago, on the same day as me. This was before the U.K. had hit the panic button on the new variant. He tested positive for COVID 48 hours after that. Because he had traveled from the U.K., they sent his test for DNA sequencing and it came back that he did have the new variant.
He has no symptoms, he's doing fine, at home in self isolation and French authorities say they're now contact tracing to try and limit the spread of that variant.
Separately, there's big news for the European Union, which is that the vaccination program for 450 million people across 27 member states begins tomorrow.
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VANIER: So the Pfizer vaccine was approved by the European Medicines Agency earlier this week. Now it's being shipped out. It arrived in Paris earlier today, right?
They're being shipped out to national hubs.
And then each country takes over from there and rolls out their national vaccination program.
So here in France, two to three sites tomorrow. Only a few dozen people at most will be vaccinated -- or I should say will get the first jab of this two-dose vaccination program.
But it's the beginning of something big for Europe and it's also the beginning of something that's going to take a long time. The E.U. wasn't shy about that. They said, by the end of 2021, we hope to have vaccinated all the adults who want this vaccine -- Kim.
BRUNHUBER: Cyril Vanier, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
So let's bring in CNN's Selina Wang, joining us from Tokyo.
Selina, some of the countries in the region have recently been breaking new daily records.
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. Japan continues to break its daily COVID-19 infection record, reporting more than 3,000 cases for three days in a row.
The country has also confirmed its first cases of the new, potentially more contagious COVID-19 variant, coming from five people, who had entered from the U.K.
Now Japan along with more than 40 countries now restricting travel from the U.K. It is clear in Japan that this outbreak is gaining momentum. If you look at the data here, it took more than nine months for Japan to reach 100,000 COVID-19 infections. But in less than two months, that number has now doubled to more than 200,000 infections.
The government has so far refrained from calling a state of emergency. The prime minister has said he is considering using subsidies and penalties to enforce shorter hours for restaurants and bars.
Now South Korea is dealing with record high cases, lingering near more than 1,000 a day. They have banned large gatherings, ordered tourist attracts to close.
But the big challenge in South Korea is if you look at those previous coronavirus infections, they were mostly sparked from large clusters, such as in churches or nightclubs.
But it is important to put into context that this increase we're seeing in South Korea and in Japan pale in comparison to what we're seeing in parts of Europe and the United States. But it is an important reminder of just how hard it is, when you have winter weather driving people indoors and when most of the world is dealing with COVID-19 fatigue -- Kim.
BRUNHUBER: Don't we know it. Thank you so much, Selina Wang in Tokyo.
Despite a stimulus package left in limbo, a looming government shutdown and a Christmas morning blast, it's been a quiet holiday for President Trump in Florida. We'll have his reaction next.
And later, outrage from survivors of the infamous Blackwater massacre in Iraq. Coming up, the backlash over President Trump's decision to pardon the four men involved. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber and you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
Police say possible human remains have been recovered after a huge explosion near downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on Christmas morning. More than 40 businesses were damaged, several cars were destroyed, three people were hurt but no deaths or life threatening injuries have been reported.
A blast appears to have been caused by a bomb in this vehicle. About 50 minutes before it blew up, a recorded message warned people to leave the area. David Malloy was walking his dog on Christmas morning when a blinding flash ripped through his neighborhood. Luckily, he wasn't hurt or killed.
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DAVID MALLOY, EYEWITNESS: I had stepped outside and our building is next door to the hotel. And the night manager was running around outside, saying, he had to evacuate the building.
I was kind of frazzled. Every corner had police cars. It stopped any kind of traffic. And I turned around, this would have been a couple of minutes before the explosion. I think the explosion was -- my security cameras showed it at 6:29. So this was a couple of minutes before that.
So I turned around and an officer was walking towards me.
And I said, "Why do we have to evacuate?
"What is going on?"
And right then, the bomb went off. His back was to the explosion. I was looking at him, it was behind him. We were about a half a block away from where the explosion was. After the explosion, all I saw was this huge fireball from my side of the street, the same side as the AT&T building, move across the street and then up in the sky.
I did not feel any concussion from the explosion and it was really loud but it did not hurt my ears. The dog did not yelp. It wasn't anything like that. So I wasn't aware of what kind of damage this had actually caused.
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BRUNHUBER: The White House says President Trump was briefed on the explosion. For the most part, he spent the holiday golfing at his resort in Florida until even as millions of Americans are desperate for him to sign the economic bill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Now the president was scheduled to have a teleconference with military service members on the Christmas holiday.
But unlike in previous years, where the president has usually invited the news media in, invited cameras in to record the event, the president, this year, disinviting the news media from attending that teleconference with the troops, which means that we did not get any reaction from the president to that explosion in Nashville.
We, also, didn't get to get an update from the president on that coronavirus relief legislation. The president, earlier this week, putting that legislation into limbo.
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DIAMOND: Suggesting that he -- calling it a disgrace and suggesting that he might not sign that legislation.
The president complaining about a number of items in that omnibus spending bill, as well as saying that he wanted to see those stimulus checks to Americans, which are at $600 in that legislation, more than tripled to $2,000.
Of course, the president raised those objections only after that legislation was passed. And that president, in his two days at Mar-a- lago, so far, he has done nothing to actually get that piece of legislation amended or to get it passed in Congress.
The president, instead, spending time on both of his two full days at his Mar-a-lago resort golfing and doing nothing, it seems, to actually get that legislation through -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, traveling with the president, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
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BRUNHUBER: Without the key stimulus benefits for millions of Americans, they will soon expire. For more, let's bring in Julie Norman who joins me now from London. She's a lecturer in politics at University College London.
The COVID relief bill made its way to Mar-a-lago where it presumably sits there unsigned. The president wants to give Americans $2,000 instead of the $600. And Democrats agree.
So what is wrong with the president using these strong-arm tactics to force those congressional Republicans to give Americans more aid?
JULIE NORMAN, LECTURER IN POLITICS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Well, Kim, as we know, this bill was a long time coming. It took months and, throughout these last weeks of the process, there wasn't any indication from Trump, even to his closest aides, that he was going to take issue with some of the compromises that had been made.
And that included on the amount of those checks. And the situation we have now is that that bill passed with a situation of great urgency, with unemployment benefits set to expire at the end of this month, with a government shutdown looming next week.
So by disagreeing on this point, Trump has really kind of blown up the bill at this really, really crucial moment of urgency.
We saw Democrats trying to push through the larger check amount over the last couple of days. That did not move forward. It would have increased the amount of the bill over $250 billion which Republicans were not going to go for.
So this has put Congress back in a tough position but more importantly has put many Americans in an extremely difficult situation.
BRUNHUBER: So was it just the sheer dollar amount here?
We've seen a growing rift, it seems, between congressional Republicans and the president over a couple of issues here.
Why do you think they've chosen this moment to break with the president when they've greenlit practically every reaction, every utterance for the last four years?
Was this a sign that the president might not be as influential post presidency as some predict?
NORMAN: That's certainly a possibility. But right now, we still see Trump having a pretty strong grip on the GOP, especially in the House and, again, most elected Republican officials in the House still are locked into pushback against the president directly. With this kind of statement about the checks, again, this is part of such a much larger legislation package that, again, Congress knows needs to getting through.
That this is one thing where you'll see Congress -- congressional representatives and senators, you know, trying to kind of find this middle road between not agitating the president but also sticking to what they know needs to go forward with the bill.
And one way to look at this is Trump pushing back at what he has seen as some increasing resistance from the Senate, in particular, from Mitch McConnell and perhaps him throwing a wrench in what was a pretty smooth process at the very end for the Republicans.
BRUNHUBER: You mean as revenge for moving on, saying, look, the election is done and dusted, we have to sort of accept that.
NORMAN: Yes. With this tactic this week, Trump has kept himself front and center. It shows that he is pulling the strings. If Congress doesn't pass these checks, it makes it look like he's the one that is watching out for Americans. And if they do pass the checks, it looks like he's the one that put it through.
BRUNHUBER: It's also taking the spotlight off of that long list of pardons for friends and allies. My monitoring of conservative media suggests, you know, all the focus is on the president's prerogative.
[04:40:00] BRUNHUBER: He has the power to do this and he used the power. Nothing to see here.
But some legislators have mooted the idea of taking the pardon power out of the Constitution.
Is that realistic?
NORMAN: We've seen a lot of renewed attention to the presidential power of the pardon with the way it's been used by Trump. The amount he has used it is less than most presidents in recent years.
But it's the way that he's used it. Of the 94 pardons and commutations he's given so far, over 94 percent of those are persons with political connections and over 70 percent of those were a direct political advantage for the president.
So this is another one example of Trump breaking the norms and some would say abusing that power in ways that aren't becoming to the president.
BRUNHUBER: And finally, I know you keep a keen eye on foreign policy. We saw in the spending bill the president's objection to the amount for foreign aid.
But going forward on the international front, what do you expect to see for Joe Biden?
NORMAN: Biden and his whole foreign policy team will be entering office when the coronavirus is so front and center, that it will be a bit more difficult for them to justify some foreign policy objections over domestic needs.
But even more, this sense of trying to find some kind of path in between the much more broadly open globalization -- and I do think there's a way they can navigate that by addressing the grievances back home at the same time.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. They've been left plenty of challenges by the outgoing administration. Julie Norman from University College London, thank you very much. We really appreciate it.
NORMAN: Thanks, Kim.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Wounds reopened, victims' families and survivors of the Blackwater massacre in Iraq slam president Donald Trump for pardoning the men convicted of the killings. Their stories, straight ahead.
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BRUNHUBER: Amid a flurry of pardons, President Trump has granted clemency to the former Blackwater security contractors who opened fire on a crowded Baghdad back in 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including two children.
The presidential pardons sparked outrage and for survivors have reopened deep emotional wounds. Arwa Damon joins us now.
There is so much heartbreak and anger over this.
ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kim, and a lot of shock, as well. When you speak to those who managed to survive, they can't actually believe that President Trump would do this, that America would do this.
And that's the same sentiment being expressed by just about every single Iraqi that I have been able to speak to because, at the time when this happened, there was so much anger.
And that anger wasn't just because of the senseless killing that happened; it was because of the attitude that Blackwater had afterwards. And it caused a significant rift between Iraq and America at the time.
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DAMON (voice-over): The horror-filled memories of that day in September 2007 still haunt those who survived, whose physical scars may have healed but who grapple with the psychological trauma nearly every day.
"I remember seeing a woman and her son, their car was in front. It was on fire. She was crying out until she burnt to death with her son," Hassan Javad Salman (ph) says.
"There was so much gunfire, it wasn't normal. Bodies just feel in the street. I wasn't wounded yet. I moved my car to get away and I was shot multiple times."
It was a sunny day in Baghdad, one where the population could almost pretend their country wasn't being ravaged by violence. But those illusions shattered quickly in Iraq.
In an instant, a busy Baghdad roundabout turned into a street of blood. Ayab Tharazok (ph) was the youngest victim, just 9 years old, shot in the head in the back seat of his car as his father helplessly watched him die.
"My son was the heart of our family," his father, Muhammad (ph), told us years ago.
The shooting rampage was carried out by what was then Blackwater, a private security company notorious for its brutish and trigger-happy behavior. Blackwater claimed its personnel were under attack though numerous eyewitness accounts said that was not true. From his hospital bed at the time, Salman (ph) had described how Blackwater operatives opened fire indiscriminately at civilians.
"No one fired at Blackwater. They were not attacked by gunmen. They were not targeted," he said.
Salman (ph) traveled to the U.S. to testify almost seven years after the massacre. In the end, one of the Blackwater operators was sentenced to life in prison. Three others sentenced from 12 to 15 years.
Salman (ph), a lawyer himself, felt as if there was a semblance of justice. It renewed his faith in American ideals. Not any more.
President Trump, the first recent U.S. president to pardon convicted killers, let the murderers, the men who destroyed his life, walk free.
"I say to him, 'Your decision, you're going to have to face God on this,'" Salman says. "'You did not fulfill justice. You pardoned the criminal and the killers. The blood of the dead and wounded is on your hands.'"
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DAMON: And Kim, Salman also warned of the dangerous precedent this sets.
[04:50:00]
DAMON: He said that America had once again lost its moral standing and once again, sent a clear message to Iraqis, that their lives are not worth very much.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Very touching. Thank you very much, Arwa Damon in Istanbul.
And CNN NEWSROOM continues after a quick break.
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BRUNHUBER: Well, it was a white Christmas in St. Petersburg, Russia, but it wasn't just from the snow. A mysterious foam was floating in a river and flying through the air. Some people were amused and others worried about the sudsy mess. Investigators say a chemical used to produce liquid soap may have been dumped in the area.
Christmas was largely subdued around the world this year due to COVID. St. Peter's Square was quiet. It's usually packed with thousands of visitors but with a nationwide lockdown in Italy, the pope gave Christmas mass indoors, urging wealthy nations to share COVID-19 vaccines. The latest Protestant church in South Korea held services online with
parishioners joining the chorus in video calls beamed around the world.
[04:55:00]
BRUNHUBER: Red Square in Moscow looked like a postcard covered in a blanket of snow. Russians give gifts and share their main winter holidays on New Year's.
Festively dressed swimmers and surfers hit Bandai Beach in Sydney, Australia.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no one really here, which to be honest, I'm not going to complain about. It's a lot nicer.
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BRUNHUBER: But it was far different at Sydney's Bronte Beach. The New South Wales health minister called this maskless scene appalling.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): There was no audience but Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris echoed to the sounds of "Silent Night," classical songs and even jingle bells as the church's choir gave a Christmas Eve concert. The performance was recorded earlier.
The singers' clothes a reminder of the fire that devastated the historic cathedral last year. Notre Dame remains closed to the public during its renovation.
And that wraps this hour of CNN's NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. I'll be back in just a moment with more news. Enjoy the music.
