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Iranian Soccer Player Facing Possible Execution; Patients With Respiratory Illnesses Overwhelming Hospitals; Promising Cancer Vaccine Results; Winter Storm; Sam Bankman-Fried Indicted; Inflation Slowing. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 13, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: She claimed the Capitol rioters would have been armed and would have won if she had been in charge. The White House says her violent rhetoric is a -- quote -- "slap in the face" for those who defended the Capitol that day.

John Fetterman heading to Netflix. Axios reports the senator-elect from Pennsylvania has a cameo in the new movie "The Pale Blue Eye," Fetterman tweeting this picture with actor Christian Bale, where he's traded his standard hoodie for a hat.

Thanks for your time today on INSIDE POLITICS. We will see you tomorrow.

Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thank you for being with us.

Today, one of the most encouraging economic signals we have seen in months. The final inflation report of the year arrived, and it is the coolest inflation report of the year. Why this could mean real relief just in time for the holiday shopping season.

And happening right now, blizzards, tornadoes, whiteouts already leaving destruction, as 40 million people across the U.S. are still under threat of severe weather. We're tracking the major storms.

Plus, it's being described as worse than Enron. This morning, the one time darling of the crypto world who was able to woo superstars hit with DOJ and SEC charges for an alleged scheme that wiped out billions.

Let's start with the good economic news, inflation cooling more than expected last month. The Consumer Price Index rose 7.1 percent year to year. Now, that is the lowest that number has been since last December. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean inflation is gone. It means prices aren't rising as quickly.

And here's the key. It's a trend. On the far right side of that graph, you can see that line taking a sharp dive. That is five straight months of cooling inflation, which is what you want to see, right? CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar is here to break it down for us.

Rana, tell us, is the worst behind us? Are the Fed moves working?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: You know, Ana, they are working. That's the great news. It's been painful.

When rates go up, debt gets more expensive, houses get more expensive. But the bottom line is that we are seeing a cooling in inflation. Now, this is happening for a lot of reasons. I think I give the Fed a lot of credit here. But there's also been some slowing down of the global economy. That tends to bring down prices. That helps some as a tailwind as well.

I am hopeful that, by next year, you're going to see inflation really significantly lower than it is now.

CABRERA: Where are we seeing the relief at this point? Will people notice it at the grocery store, utility bills, et cetera?

FOROOHAR: Yes, I think you're definitely going to notice it, start to notice it anyway, at the grocery store. You have been noticing it, frankly, at the gas pump.

The winter heating season is probably not going to be quite as bad as people would have thought. One area that is interesting to think about is wage inflation, which is really a mixed bag. The Fed is still worried about wages going up and that making things more expensive for companies. My view is that wage inflation, when you look at all the other kinds of inflation that consumers are dealing with, is actually pretty low, if not negative in some ways, if you count in that real cost of living.

So I'm not so worried about that right now.

CABRERA: You mentioned gas prices. I will note, right now, it's $3.25 on average nationally per gallon. That's down 53 cents in just the past month. That does feel good. That's for sure.

A couple of months ago, it seemed like just about everybody on Wall Street agreed a recession was coming. And now, today, a record 90 percent of global fund managers predict lower inflation next year. And this is according to a Bank of America survey.

And I want you to hear what the CEO of United Airlines said this morning about all the recession talk. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT KIRBY, CEO, UNITED AIRLINES: We're planning as if there's going to be a mild recession next year.

And I know a lot of people in the business world are trying to talk ourselves into one is what it sometimes feels like to me. But what I said last week is if I didn't watch business shows or read "The Wall Street Journal," the word recession wouldn't be in my vocabulary, because we just don't see it in our data.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Rana, is that so-called soft landing looking more likely?

FOROOHAR: You know, I think it is, Ana.

First of all, I want to say recessions are normal. They're not something we look forward to. But we haven't really had a major recession in quite some time. If you take away what happened during COVID, that pandemic-related blip, it's been over a decade since we have had a real recession.

So a soft landing, a little bit of recession, actually, I would welcome that, because it would allow us to get to the other side of a growth cycle. Things go up, they go down, but I am more optimistic than I have been in some time that it's going to be a soft landing.

CABRERA: And, tomorrow, the F.E. -- the Fed, I should say, is set to announce the last interest rate hike of the year. What comes next? What indicators will you be watching to figure out if 2023 is on a better trajectory than this year?

FOROOHAR: Yes, so it's a great question.

[13:05:03]

We want to see the Fed continue to fight inflation, but you don't want to see the Fed have to really go faster or have higher rate hikes. And it seems like they're now going to be able to, if not pull back, slow down a bit.

I think that that would be good news, because it would allow people a little bit of relief in terms of paying down debt, paying their mortgages, paying off any kind of credit card debt. And, by the way, I would just say to consumers, pay down debt. That's the best thing you can do for yourself right now.

CABRERA: OK, Rana Foroohar, as always, I really appreciate all of your expertise and perspective on this. Thank you.

Now to the chargers that upended the cryptocurrency world. This morning, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was indicted on eight federal counts, including fraud and conspiracy. That's in addition to an SEC charge. He's accused of a multibillion-dollar scheme that funneled customer funds from his FTX crypto exchange to his hedge fund.

CNN's Kara Scannell and Matt Egan are tracking this. And stay tuned, because there's something that is going to matter to all of us here.

Kara, first to the accusations. They essentially make FTX sound like a big shell game. Can you explain the charges?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Ana.

These charges unsealed in this indictment, eight criminal counts, including wire fraud and multiple counts of conspiracy. And what prosecutors and the SEC alleged in their complaints and indictment is that this was a massive fraud that they alleged started at the very inception.

There are a couple of different alleged schemes here, but one of them is that FTX is a trading platform. Well, Sam Bankman-Fried had a hedge fund. They say that they directed customer deposits and misused them by giving them to the hedge fund to cover its own loans and its expenses. And according to the SEC, Bankman-Fried had also used the money from the customer deposits to buy luxury real estate in the Bahamas for him, his family, and other executives.

He also took out allegedly $1.3 billion in loans. And he also donated tens of millions of dollars to political campaigns. Now, that is also one of these criminal charges, a conspiracy to violate federal campaign laws.

So, one of my colleagues has tallied the numbers. And it looks like, in this past year in this past cycle, Bankman-Fried had donated more than $900,000 to candidates and $39 million to outside groups. That's just a huge amount of money in the campaign finance world.

This comes as he was supposed to be appearing before the House Financial Services Committee. Also testifying here today, though, is the person who's the new CEO of FTX, John Ray. He's an experienced turnaround, restructuring expert. And he was asked by the lawmakers, how did this compare and why was this worse than Enron?

Here, let's take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN RAY, CEO, FTX: The FTX group is unusual in the sense that -- and I have done probably a dozen large-scale bankruptcies over my career, including Enron, of course.

Every one of those entities had some financial problem or another. They have some characteristics that are in common. This one is unusual. And it's unusual in the sense that, literally, there's no record-keeping whatsoever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCANNELL: And so, among this lack of record-keeping, he said that there were unreliable financial statements.

He also said that this company, even though it was managing and holding billions of dollars, was operating using accounting software QuickBooks, which is something that a small business or, if you're an individual, you might even use, so really just showing how the lack of sophistication, the lack of controls.

That's really the point he was making in his testimony today. Now, back in the Bahamas, Friedman -- Bankman-Fried is appearing in court. Now, a U.S. official told me that he will not waive extradition. So that means that when he will actually show up in New York to face these charges is going to be at some point in the future -- back to you, Ana.

CABRERA: Wow, a company worth at one point in the billions using QuickBooks for accounting? That sends a message.

Matt, the sales pitch from FTX was that it was the safe way to invest in crypto. They enlisted all these celebrities to sell that idea to average Americans. Then FTX collapsed.

What's the scale of the damage here?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Ana, you have to feel for the customers here, who didn't do anything wrong, other than just believe that FTX was the safe place that it claimed to be.

I mean, it was presented really as the gold standard of the crypto industry, had blessing from all these different celebrities, Steph Curry, Tom Brady, Gisele, Larry David. But, in reality, the SEC says FTX was just a house of cards.

And John Ray, the new CEO, told lawmakers in Congress today that this company was basically a big mess. It was a dumpster fire. It had no internal controls. And so now Ray has spent the last month trying to comb through the rubble, trying to find where the assets are and do his best to maximize recovery.

[13:10:06]

But we know that money is going to be lost here by real people. I mean, Ray said probably in the billions. I know I have spoken to some crypto traders who've lost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in this FTX situation.

And Ray didn't really sound all that optimistic going forward. He said that -- he told lawmakers that, at the end of the day, FTX won't be able to recover all of the losses here -- Ana.

CABRERA: Matt Egan, Kara Scannell, thank you both.

We're also following a massive winter storm that tens of millions of Americans are seeing in some way and feeling in some way. Right now, 40 million people are in the path as life-threatening blizzard warnings and tornado threats track east.

First, take a look at the whiteout conditions hitting at least five states, crippling travel. More than 20 people were injured when this tour bus slid off the road, flipped onto its side. This was in Utah. And get this. The snow is so deep in Alaska right now, where they're used to snow, but for the first time ever, schools in Anchorage were closed for a fourth straight day.

And where it's not snowing, possible tornadoes are now striking several homes already severely damaged in Texas.

Let's get right to meteorologist Chad Myers.

Chad, what is the latest? CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think, Ana, that the fact that this

thing stretches all the way from the U.S.-Canadian border all the way to the Gulf Coast tells you a lot about the power of this storm.

We have tornado watches down to the south, so far, no real warnings yet at this hour, but they could pop up any time. These storms have been rotating all day. The top part of the rotation is where the blizzard is happening, significant wind, significant snow coming down here, parts of South Dakota, North Dakota, parts of Nebraska, even into Colorado.

And the wind speeds are in the 40s and almost to the 50s at times today. And visibility in Sidney and Akron -- that's Colorado and Nebraska -- zero, literally zero, no visibility at all with this blowing snow.

So where does it go from here? Well, this part, this dangerous part with the tornado possibility moves to the east. And that will bring some chances for tornadoes again overnight in the dark. And then this part up here moves off to the northern part of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

There will even be some ice on that northern part, where the snow doesn't make it all the way to the ground and then it melts and then it refreezes. And you could get some freezing rain and sleet coming in. Down to the South, thunderstorms all the way through Atlanta, by the time we work our way closer to the weekend.

And then, just in case you want to try to go somewhere on Thursday afternoon, here you go for Pennsylvania, parts of Upstate New York getting in on the snow part. So we will take that when we can get it. The West really needed the rain and the snow. But this, this is not good. This is just a mess.

CABRERA: No. It's way too much of a good thing, which means it's not a good thing at all.

MYERS: Yes.

CABRERA: Chad Myers, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

CABRERA: A promising step in the fight against skin cancer, an experimental vaccine slashing the risk of death or reoccurring melanoma in this new study. We will have the encouraging details just ahead.

Plus, officials at the Southern border sounding the alarm, a big surge of migrants catching many off guard. Why now and where do they go from here?

And new chaos and confusion at Twitter. Elon Musk scrapping another team committed to safety and relaunching the option for anyone to buy the site's symbol for legitimacy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:48]

CABRERA: Today, promising signs from an experimental cancer vaccine.

Moderna and Merck say preliminary results from an mRNA vaccine combined with immunotherapy cut the risk of melanoma returning, cut the risk of melanoma deaths in patients who had already had surgery.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen is following this.

And, Elizabeth, this sounds promising. What more do you know about this vaccine?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Ana, this does sound promising, but I will say that this is in the early stages.

And what we know about this vaccine, actually, you and I and everybody, we know a lot about this vaccine, because we had something similar. This is an mRNA vaccine, the same as the Moderna and Pfizer shots that have been given out during COVID.

This particular one is obviously designed differently. It's designed to fight cancer. When we hear vaccine, we usually think prevention, but vaccines are sometimes used in treatment. So, this is an mRNA vaccine against melanoma that was made by Moderna.

And let's take a look at what they did in this study. So the first thing to say is that this is only 157 patients. That is quite small. This is an early stage study. They are not done yet. These are folks who had stage three or four melanoma, so they were pretty far along. And it reduced the risk of recurrence, of melanoma recurrence, or death by 44 percent compared to patients who only got immunotherapy.

So, certainly, this is promising and they're going to continue to study it. And it also sort of raises an interesting question about the uses of mRNA vaccines for more things than just COVID. Could they be useful in other ways?

This vaccine, what it did is, it kind of told the -- it told the immune system to trigger a response that was unique to that person's tumor. So, that seems to be one of the strengths of this treatment -- Ana.

CABRERA: Wow. Well, keep us posted, certainly.

Thank you, Elizabeth Cohen.

We're also getting new information about how effective COVID vaccines have been at saving lives and money. Researchers say the vaccines prevented more than 18 million hospitalizations in the U.S. and saved more than 3.2 million lives and more than $1.5 trillion in medical costs.

[13:20:00] This comes as a so-called tripledemic of illnesses is swamping hospitals. Medical experts say a combination of COVID-19, RSV and flu are pushing some facilities to the breaking point.

CNN's Stephanie Elam has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERS ELIASEN, COVID PATIENT: For a while, I was really worried about COVID.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anders Eliasen had good reason to worry after an aortic aneurysm last year in the thick of the pandemic.

ELIASEN: I had like open chest surgery.

ELAM: But he masked up and never caught COVID, until this month.

ELIASEN: I didn't feel like I was invincible. I thought it was inevitable that I was going to get it.

ELAM: Eliasen thinks he caught COVID at an NFL football game, where he let his guard down.

ELIASEN: I was like, oh, shoot, I forgot my mask.

ELAM: Fortunately, Eliasen is recovering at home.

DR. CHRISTOPHER LONGHURST, U.C. SAN DIEGO HEALTH: This is really an unprecedented experience.

ELAM: But, across the country, scenes similar to this. Overflow health care workers are struggling to catch their breath, as hospitals fill with sick patients battling a trifecta of respiratory viruses, COVID, RSV, and the flu.

LONGHURST: We have seen a real increase in cases, particularly since Thanksgiving.

So, COVID is up, the flu is up, and other respiratory viruses are up as well.

ELAM: The situation is so overwhelming at U.C. San Diego Health, they had to create space using tents and parking lots to triage patients.

LONGHURST: We have got beds in hallways in the emergency department for patients who've been admitted and are waiting for hospital beds. And we're even reconfiguring conference room space so that we can safely care for patients in places that we would not normally do it.

ELAM: Hospitals were the fullest they have been throughout the pandemic last week, reaching 80 percent capacity, an 8 percentage point jump in two weeks, and the highest since January's Omicron surge.

(on camera): Is the tripledemic as bad as you saw during the height of COVID?

DR. JEFF SMITH, CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER: The answer is not yet, probably, the most RSV we have seen in the past decade, really October into November. And now we have seen a rapid decline. That, as I said, has overlapped this COVID rise, which has happened a little bit slower and a little bit later, and then now is superimposed by this very rapid rise in influenza.

ELAM (voice-over): And, yes, you can get more than one of these viruses at a time.

DR. EDWARD JONES-LOPEZ, KECK MEDICINE OF USC: The more viruses, the more infections you have, the more -- the higher the risk of one of them leading to more serious disease.

ELAM: Mask mandates haven't returned yet, but virus spikes in New York and Seattle have led to health department recommendations to mask up indoors and in crowds.

ELIASEN: Feels like I'm on the upswing now.

ELAM: As for Eliasen, after spending last December recovering from his surgery, he plans to see his grandparents for the holidays, after testing, monitoring symptoms and wearing an N95 mask.

ELIASEN: This is going to be our first Christmas, you know, normal Christmas

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM: And, Ana, one thing all of these medical professionals said that I spoke with, we all need to do our part again.

And they're suggesting that people who are immunocompromised, that they wear a mask and that perhaps they should never have stopped wearing them, and for all of those people who are getting together with loved ones, friends and family over the holiday, to continue to use their masks, because, clearly, they work against all of these respiratory viruses -- Ana.

CABRERA: Stephanie Elam, thank you.

A nasal spray used to treat opioid overdoses could be available over the counter soon. Emergent BioSolutions, the drug company that makes Narcan, is seeking FDA approval to make this overdose reversal nasal spray available without a prescription. And that could be reality by the end of March if this request is approved.

Narcan has saved countless lives, reversing what would otherwise be deadly opioid overdoses. This has been a growing issue in recent years, largely because of the spread of fentanyl.

Hundreds and hundreds of migrants overwhelming towns and shelters at the Southern border. Trump era restrictions are being lifted in just days. What is the current administration doing to address this?

And an Iranian soccer player faces possible execution after campaigning for women's rights. Details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:29:00]

CABRERA: In Iran, a top soccer player is facing possible execution after he campaigned for women's rights and basic freedom in his country.

The global soccer players union today expressing shock and sadness.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz joins us.

Salma, so much attention Iran at the World Cup, now this. Tell us more about who this player is and what Iran is accusing him of.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm going to start by telling you who he is, because that's what protesters are doing today. They're sharing his story, the story of Amir Nasr-Azadani.

He is a 26-year-old soccer player. He's from the historical city of Isfahan. He has played for the national youth team in Iran, and he's also played for several professional clubs in Iran, so really reaching the highest levels of soccer there in the country.

Now, what we know of him right now is that he is detained. He was arrested on November 27. And authorities have accused him of being part of an armed group and being involved in the killing of several members of the security forces.