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Germany Arrests 25 Suspected in Plot to Overthrow Government; Report: Former Lawmaker Tied to Far-Right Plot to Overthrow German Government; Power Expected Back Today in NC County Where Substations Attacked; NYC Mayor Fined for Rat Problems at Brooklyn Property; "Harry & Meghan" Netflix Docuseries Debuts at Midnight Tonight; Europe to Allow In-Flight Phone Calls, Gaming. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired December 07, 2022 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:31:19]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Now to this disturbing story. At least 25 people have been arrested, suspected of plotting to overthrow the German government. Authorities say they are part of a far-right terrorist group influenced by QAnon ideology and other conspiracy theories.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: One report says a former German lawmaker, who is now a judge, was also involved.
CNN's Nic Robertson and CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller, they're both with us now.
Nic, the scope of this policing operation is stunning. What was uncovered here?
All right. We're having an audio problem with Nic.
So, John, let's come to you.
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Sure.
BLACKWELL: Bianna mentioned a QAnon influence, QAnon-like. Explain what we're seeing here, what's happening.
MILLER: Well, this group has been on the radar for a long time, which is why when you see the scope of last night's raid, 3,000 police officers across a wide area of the country, arrests also in Austria and Italy.
Why the big show of force? Their prior contacts with this group have involved searches and the seizures of lots of weapons. And the plot involved the idea of a coup to take over a building, take over the government. So very serious.
But to get to the core of your request, this -- you know, we have Neo- Nazi groups here. We have sovereign citizens who deny that the government is legitimate. We have conspiracy theorists who believe the world is run by a deep state corporation.
This group combines all three into one group. They don't believe that the German republic is legitimate government. They subscribe to all the conspiracy theories about the deep state and all that comes with that.
And if you look at their anti-vaccination, anti-COVID things, when they demonstrated at the Reichstag, the German parliament, they stormed the steps, very reminiscent of January 6th, tried to take over the building. Hundreds of arrests.
GOLODRYGA: And, Nic, I believe we have you back with us.
As we said, very reminiscent. You take out Germany and you could put in the United States here given what we've seen over the past couple of years.
What's also disturbing is that the amount of weapons that were found among these men. We know some of them had military training.
But German gun laws are much stricter than those in the U.S. So how do they get hold of all these weapons? Do we know?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's not clear how they did it. They were planning it. The group formed sometime last year. Some of the members were formerly in the German military.
They had a very clear intent. And mainland Europe it's not impossible to -- well, not impossible -- it is relatively easy to pick up weapons in mainland Europe. There are criminal gangs that will sell them.
This ideology, again, as you say, similarities. They wanted to attack the Bundestag. The interior ministry in Germany described them as having violent fantasies, these conspiracy ideologies.
They had clearly, from what we understand from the German authorities, already set out a plan to not only storm the Bundestag violently, potentially causing death and injury.
They had decided already who would take the key ministerial positions. And they were going to set up a parallel institution running the army. So this was a complex plot that was thwarted but could have been very dangerous.
And 52 people is the number of people the police set out to pull in earlier on today. And 25 we know they've got so far. And they're saying, look, the investigation here still has a long way to go.
[14:35:07]
And 150 different properties raided. That tells you the scope here and the amount of material that police are going to have to go through and to put together and answer questions like, exactly how did they get those weapons?
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Thank goodness that this plot was thwarted. But the ideology clearly has not been as the investigation there continues.
Nic Robertson and John Miller, great to have you on set. Thank you both.
Well, no rats, no exceptions. New York City's mayor is contesting a fine over a rat infestation at a building that he owns. What he's saying about fighting rodents. That's ahead after the break.
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[14:40:20]
GOLODRYGA: Well, people living in Moore County, North Carolina, should finally, finally have their power back on late tonight. This is four days after two substations there were attacked by gunfire. Utility officials say the damaged equipment has been fully repaired.
BLACKWELL: But authorities have not yet identified a suspect. They do not know the motive for the attack. They say they have recovered some key physical evidence from the scene, including dozens of shell casings.
CNN's Whitney Wild is in Moore County. She's been covering this since this started.
What's the latest, Whitney?
WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's new reporting from my colleague, John Miller, who says that law enforcement, again, as you point out, while they don't know exactly what the motive is are zeroing in on two possible threads.
The first is a call by domestic violent extremists to attack critical infrastructure across the United States. And the other zeros in on recent disruptions of LGBTQ events throughout the country.
Law enforcement is putting this into context. And as we know, the time that this happened, the time the power went out here in Moore County coincided with the start of a drag show that was supposed to happen here in Moore County.
So investigators are looking into that, although it's important to note they haven't exactly nailed down the motive yet. And part of that is because they haven't been able to figure out who did this.
The FBI now leaning on the public to try to help them generate very solid leads.
They've come out with a new wanted poster, hoping that these photos might help jigger some memory, might help to generate some really solid leads that law enforcement can run down.
Because quite often, it takes someone calling in saying they know the person, saying they have information that can really help break open this case. Meanwhile, here in Moore County, they're on the fifth day of no power
and it's extremely difficult. One woman telling us she has to drive up to an hour sometimes to get groceries.
Another woman saying that she's losing out on hundreds of dollars because she can't work, there's no power at work and so she can't go and so she's not being paid.
Here's what two women who were at a local shelter told us this week.
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AMBER SAMPSON, MORE COUNTY, NC, RESIDENT: It's kind of hard to sleep. But at the end of the day, I would rather be somewhere where it's warm, where we have food, where we're taken care of, than to be somewhere where it's freezing cold.
And not knowing or wondering if, you know, through your sleep, you're going to go into an epileptic shock from being so cold.
NAKASHA JACKSON, MOORE COUNTY, NC, RESIDENT: I have a 1-year-old. So it's very hectic. No lights, no power, can't really do nothing. The kids scared of the dark. Not good at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILD: One of the most difficult things for them to get over is the fact that someone did this. This wasn't happenstance, this wasn't a storm they could prepare for. Someone did this, rendering 45,000 people in this county victims.
Now just waiting for power to come back on. The electrical company saying that that could happen as soon as midnight tonight.
Back to you.
GOLODRYGA: Some much-needed relief for those residents there who have been cold without power. Hopefully, they get that power restored as soon as possible.
Whitney Wild, thank you.
Well, an update in the investigation into the four slain college students in Idaho. Police have begun removing some of the victims' personal belongings from the off-campus house in Moscow.
BLACKWELL: Now, these things are not pertinent to the ongoing investigation, so they'll be returned to the families. But that house is still an active crime scene. Police say the suspect in the quadruple homicide is still at large.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is dealing with a problem at home that his administration is trying to fight across the city -- rats.
Adams, now, he's talked about his hatred for rats. He had to attend a hearing about rat infestation at the property he owns in Brooklyn and is facing a potential fine.
GOLODRYGA: Now, according to a summons dated May 10th, Adams was fined $330 for failing to eliminate a rodent infestation. But Adams is contesting the fine.
And he told New York One that he's invested thousands battling the problem.
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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NY): $6,800. $6,800. That's how much I spent to do rat mitigation on my property and throughout the block, the entire block. There's a rodent problem in this city. And you don't have to go far to know that I hate rats.
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BLACKWELL: Did we need the rat video? People know rats.
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GOLODRYGA: So $6,800, in case we didn't hear it the first time.
BLACKWELL: Yes. OK. Why do we have to show this again? All right. We got it. We got it.
GOLODRYGA: No.
[14:44:59]
BLACKWELL: Airplane mode. Will it be a thing of the past for flyers?
I'm moving on because I can't stand rats either.
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BLACKWELL: It is, if you're traveling over Europe. But Americans may have to wait a while. We'll explain. That's next.
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BLACKWELL: All right. The wait is over. Netflix's highly anticipated docuseries about the duke and duchess of Sussex, "Harry and Meghan," debuts at midnight.
GOLODRYGA: The six-part series delves into the royal couple's challenges inside Buckingham Palace.
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PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: It's really hard to look back on it now and go, what on earth happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you hear that? That is the sound of hearts breaking all around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's becoming a royal rock star.
(CHEERING)
PRINCE HARRY: And then everything changed.
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[14:50:00]
GOLODRYGA: Wow. Suspenseful ahead of Thursday's premiere.
Ahead of Thursday's premiere, Harry and Meghan hit the red carpet last night in New York to accept the humanitarian award.
Trisha Goddard is a CNN contributor and the host of "This Week with Trisha Goddard."
Trisha, I know a lot of Americans will be excited to start watching this tomorrow. It was interesting because, in the film, we heard Harry say, "No one knows the full truth. We know the full truth."
How nervous is Buckingham Palace about this apparent revelation perhaps of the, quote, unquote, "full truth?"
TRISHA GODDARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: That's a difficult one to tell. They're obviously going have some nerves.
I actually think there's a lot of the British tabloid media, which is even more scared. Because I think a lot of the documentary is going to center around that -- the, you know, kind of hounding that Harry and Meghan felt.
And especially as, you know, after Princess Diana died in the way she did, it clearly did traumatize both boys, especially Harry.
There's a huge class-action against one of the tabloid newspapers, a really big one, with not just Prince Harry, but Elton John and a whole load of other stars.
And the court is waiting to hear back from that newspaper group. They have held off with their reply, one suspects, until after this has gone to wear.
So there's a lot of collective holding breaths because this may feed into that court case as well. So, yes, it's an interesting one.
Britain isn't quite as Hollywood. We -- you know, they don't understand all the glitz and the glamour. And even those promotions have got people, you know, perplexed. We're just not used to that. So it's going to be an interesting one.
I just -- there's a guy, a fantastic guy called Charles, who's written a portrait of the queen. And he really does have the royals' ear. He's friends with Prince Charles. He knew the queen really well.
And he said apparently one thing Prince Andrew said to the queen after Harry and Meghan sat down with Oprah is, oh, dear, that's not good, is it?
Whereupon, the queen turned to Prince Andrew and said, but didn't Fergie do something rather the same with Oprah? So not the first and it won't be the last.
BLACKWELL: No, it certainly will not.
You talked about some of the fear within the British press and, of course, the palace. What's on the line for Harry and Meghan? Could their standing worsen after this, or improve?
GODDARD: In the U.K., I think there are two camps. So, you know, we either hate all of this thing, and it's been wrapped up by clickbait, Team Wales or Team Sussex.
I don't think it's going to make things much worse in Britain. Those that are on Team Meghan and Harry are going to stay there.
What I do think though is maybe one thing -- you know, I'm a program maker as well. I've made shows as well. And I think Harry and Meghan are about to find out what happens when you hand over very personal stuff to -- for millions.
I mean, Netflix is going to make a buck. They've got to show, you know, everybody who invests in them that this documentary is worth something.
Already the British press has started picking up on some certain scenes, one where the -- in those promos where it looks like the press are coming after them. That was actually Harry when he was going out with Chelsea Davey.
So, you know, there's not a real understanding of the way things are hyped up. But I just wonder if Meghan and Harry have not kind of laid down with the dogs and might get up with a few fleas.
BLACKWELL: Well, I know so many people will be watching at midnight.
Trisha Goddard, always good to have you. Thank you.
GODDARD: I will.
BLACKWELL: I know you will be.
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[14:53:02]
GOLODRYGA: Well, this is frightening. There's a growing measles outbreak in Ohio. Health experts say it could take months to get it under control. We'll speak to one of the health officials there, straight ahead.
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[14:58:56] GOLODRYGA: In Europe, officials are about to let airlines provide 5G service to passengers during flight, allowing in-flight calls and high-speed data.
I don't know how I feel about this.
BLACKWELL: CNN's Brian Fung is with us now.
Is the U.S. going to let passengers use phones on flights?
BRIAN FUNG, CNN TECH REPORTER: Well, Victor, that's a great question. And while the headline from Europe is about 5G, I think the big reason we're not about to see phone calls available on flights here in the U.S. any time soon has very little to do with 5G.
In the United States, there really isn't anyone pushing for that same ability here. And the reason, to go into it, has to do with a little bit of history.
In the United States, we've debated this issue many, many times. Most recently, in 2013, when the FCC actually proposed relaxing the rules against cell phone use on airplanes.
[14:59:50]
And that was met with a huge backlash from air passengers, pilots and flight attendants, who basically were saying, we don't want the, you know, passengers on airplanes -- I don't want my seatmate to be able to make noisy phone calls right next to me.
