Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

NWS Warns OF "Life-Threatening" Cold For 100 Million Americans; Senate Passes $1.7T Spending Bill, Avoids Gov't Shutdown; Cassidy Hutchinson Testified She Felt Pressure From Trump Allies. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired December 22, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Happy Thursday to you, I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

We're starting with warnings of life-threatening colds. An Arctic surge is pushing south, and a bomb cyclone is gaining momentum in the Midwest. Now, this is being described as a once-in-a-generation weather event. 100 million people are under winter and will -- windchill alerts extending from Canada to Mexico.

Let's go to East Kansas. This is what it looks like there. Of what you can see of East Kansas, almost no visibility. 35-mile-per-hour winds feel like negative 26 degrees. In the northern part of Idaho, officials have recorded temperatures as low as negative 61 degrees.

Blizzard warnings are in effect in the Dakotas, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan. Officials there warned that travel conditions could become impossible. And it's all happening on the busiest travel day of the year. President Biden says the federal government is ready to help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not like a snow day you know when you're a kid. This is serious stuff. Please take this storm extremely seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

All right with me now CNN's Lucy Kafanov in Denver, CNN's Omar Jimenez in Chicago, and CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam in the weather center. Let's go to Lucy there, comfy cozy out on the streets of Denver all bundled up, what kind of havoc is happening where you are?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Remember the good old days, Victor, when it was like 50 degrees? That was yesterday.

BLACKWELL: Yesterday, yes. KAFANOV: And now we're talking about how the bad weather was about to start here. Yes, well, that dropped by like 60 degrees. We saw negative 11 earlier today. It feels like negative 20 because apparently, the human suffering of the correspondent in the elements is no longer enough. I'm going to show you what happens when I tossed this cup of boiling water in the air. It turns to sort of snow, I think. I don't know if that works.

But we do have exhibit number two for you, Victor. We did manage in our efforts to show you just how cold this weather is. To expense this lovely bottle of Chardonnay from 2022. It's a California Chardonnay. Obviously, no one will be drinking this. But we did pour it in a glass about three hours ago, frozen solid. So, if that's what it's doing to wine, obviously not a great idea for humans to be outside. And so, local officials are urging people to stay indoors if they can. Obviously, Denver has a large, unhoused population.

We're also seeing an influx of migrants. More than 1300 migrants, Victor, are arriving to the city since early December. A lot of folks being held in various shelters to stay warm. We were also talking to you yesterday in front of the Coliseum -- the Denver Coliseum, which is still active as a 24-hour warming center.

So, if you are watching this, if you are in these kinds of conditions, please don't do what I'm doing. Don't be outside, stay home, stay warm, prolonged exposure could cause frostbite, maybe not in Denver right now where the temperatures are slowly starting to increase but in some parts of the plains. We've seen wind chills 60 below zero. That is incredibly dangerous. Authorities are not exaggerating when they say these are dangerous, unprecedented conditions.

And the temperatures actually dropped, Victor, to negative 24 degrees near Denver airport. Almost hitting the record of being the coldest day in 30 years. I'm looking forward to getting inside. Back to you in the warm studio, Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Lucy, thank you, and get back into the vehicle now. Let's go to Chicago. Temperatures are starting to drop fast there. Omar, how're officials are preparing for what's there now?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, it's a massive operation as you can imagine, Victor. And you can see the elements start to pick up the snow. But notice the snow is not going up and down. It's going basically sideways across my body at this point.

And where I am right now it's something that's familiar to many Chicagoans even flying in. It's a massive salt dome here in the city of Chicago. It contributes to really -- store salt as you can see. This is 50,000 tons of salt inside. Now, basically, this bulldozer helps gather the salt and then the salt trucks come in here, get this salt, put in the backs of their trucks, and then they go out to try and treat these roads.

[14:05:07]

Again, it's a massive operation, 50,000 tons here, 400,000 across the city. And just a few moments ago, I spoke with the commissioner of the City's Department of streets and sanitation, who told me a little bit about what it's going to take here. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLE STALLARD, COMMISSIONER, CHICAGO STREETS AND SANITATION: We're going to have over 300 pieces out on the street pretty much now through the end of this thing overnight to try to keep up with the snow. The goal is to keep up with it. But like I said, we're going to be fighting that wind. That wind is going to be coming at us. And we can be getting snow about an inch an hour. So, our spreaders can only move as fast as traffic allows. So, with that rush hour, it's going to be, take it slow, be safe, make sure you got fuel in your car.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And that's one recipe for potential disaster, or at least difficulty here is these elements, whether it's the temperature, the snow are starting to come down, and what would be rush hour for people who are working. And there are many people out and about today. And the other aspect here is obviously this isn't a ton of snowfall that we're getting right now, and people here aren't new to snow but it's really this combination of snow, the rapid drop in temperatures that we're going to see by this evening, where we'll be well into the negatives and the winds that over the course of later today through tomorrow morning could gusts up to 50 miles an hour here. And all of those things combined create low visibility and a potential recipe for disaster in parts of this area.

BLACKWELL: Yes, certainly people who are going to be traveling over the next 48 hours or so. Omar, thank you. We'll let you get inside as well.

Let's take a quick look at St. Louis now. We've got a camera to show you. And again, visibility is low as the weather is moving through 10 degrees there in St. Louis. Let's go to Derek Van Dam now. Zoom out for us, Derek, and show us the big picture of how this is now slamming parts of the country, and the temperatures dropping so quickly.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. So, when you're talking about all-time record lows being achieved, your ears have got to perk up and take the storm seriously because it reached negative 42 degrees Fahrenheit in Casper, Wyoming. That's shattering a record that has stood for over three decades, right? So, bear with me on this because I find this very interesting, right?

A popular travel destination between Houston and Dallas, Interstate 45. Let's say hypothetically, you're traveling north from Houston to Dallas on 45, you could theoretically be leaving in shorts and short- sleeved shirts. About it in a couple of hours' time, you're going to have a 55-degree temperature drop, at least on your exposed skin, the wind shell and that is where the cold front is currently located. And heads up. It is heading your way if you're located in Houston all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

So, my point being is that some locations in the deep south of the U.S. are going to experience temperatures that they are not used to. So, you need to prepare your home and your family as well as your pets because this is dangerous cold, right? Jackson, Mississippi will be below freezing for three days or longer. More of the same for Birmingham. And into Houston, nearly two days of below-freezing temperatures. 60 million Americans actually will experience temperatures below zero degrees from the storm. I mean, this is like a gut punch to the central U.S. as we speak.

I mean, when you look at 24 hours ago, it was 33 degrees warmer in Oklahoma City. It was 28 degrees warmer yesterday at this time in Dallas Fort Worth. This cold front is racing east. Look at the temperature drop in Nashville. By this evening, you're dropping 30 degrees. Atlanta, your next. Victor. (INAUDIBLE)

BLACKWELL: All right, Derek Van Dam for us there in the severe weather center. Derek, thank you.

VAN DAM: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in now Stephanie Felt. She's the emergency management director of Kandiyohi County, Minnesota there. Let's start with your number one concern, Stephanie, what's your biggest concern?

STEPHANIE FELT, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR, KANDIYOHI COUNTY, MINNESOTA: Our number one concern would be stranded motorists. People are thinking that since we had a calm this morning, we had some sunshine, there wasn't the winds that heavy snowfalls had stopped, people thought well, hey, that weather looks fine to me. But what happened at noon for us is those extreme winds are starting to kick in. So, is -- even though we're not getting new snowfalls, what's happening is these intense winds are blowing around what fell yesterday. So, visibilities are rapidly dropping, so people who are stranded on the roadways. It's a life-threatening situation, but also, it's very, very dangerous for our rescuers and responders who have to go to those stranded motorists.

BLACKWELL: And we do across the area, there have been reports of crashes and spinouts even a rollover of a semi there in your area. What are the latest reports? Are people still venturing out? And are you seeing people in trouble on the roads?

FELT: Well, unfortunately, people always do go out even when no travel is advised.

[14:10:04]

And that's why you know I mentioned it's dangerous for the responders. So, when we do whether it's a crash, or someone just slides off the road, and they're stranded, we have dedicated responders, but when they're going from vehicle to vehicle to vehicle, that's exposing them to these cold temperatures longer than we want them out there. So, we both want to keep our citizens safe, but we also want to keep our responders safe. So, it's very important to not venture out if you don't have to.

BLACKWELL: So, you say that you're done with the precipitation there, but the wind continues, they could, of course, snatch downed power lines. Are there reports of significant outages? And are you all prepared for those you're able to, as you hear from the utility companies, get people back online?

FELT: Yes. I -- we have not had any reports of that so far. But we are poised to kick in emergency response if needed. We're fortunate that we have a good network of cooperation between the departments. So, when the power company is notified that they do have an outage, we work closely with them to know how long is it going to take to get it back online. Because with this bitter cold, it's different than a power outage at different times of the year in Minnesota. This is -- this is no joke. So, we work closely with them to see timelines and then implement emergency plans if necessary.

BLACKWELL: All right, Stephanie Felt, thank you for the work you're doing. You're going to be busy. And we'll check back in. I appreciate your time.

So, the storm is sweeping in on one of as we said, the busiest days for airports. Kathleen Bangs is the spokesperson for FlightAware. She's also a former commercial airline pilot, so we're going to lean on both of those here. Let's start with the airports of most concern right now, as we advance over the next 24 hours or so.

KATHLEEN BANGS, SPOKESPERSON, FLIGHTAWARE: Well, I think actually that that list might be shorter of which ones we're not concerned about. But what we're really seeing right now is it's moving from the West, into the Midwest, and we're really seeing those numbers at Chicago and Midway and even into the East Coast, those cancellations. We're already at 2000 cancellations today. We had 600 yesterday. We're already looking at a thousand tomorrow. An example would be the regional carrier Endeavour Airlines has already canceled a third of their flights for tomorrow. So, these numbers are just going to continue to grow, unfortunately.

BLACKWELL: So -- and you say that the list would be shorter for those that are not impacted. I guess once you flick over that first domino, the plane that was supposed to leave, let's say LaGuardia that's grounded because of the weather, it was headed to Orlando isn't going to be there. Although the weather in Orlando was fine. This is going to impact most of the country.

BANGS: Yes, that's exactly right. It doesn't matter what the weather necessarily is where you're at -- where you're trying to depart. It matters how it's affecting the rest of the system and your airplane. And so right now with all of these aircraft having to de-ice and, in some situations, it's that two-step process where they then have to anti-ice because there's falling precipitation. This takes so long.

We sought to clog up Seattle this week because they only have about eight de-icing pads. Now, Chicago O'Hare, they're as ready as they can be. They have a new de-icing facility the size of 17 football fields. But still, it's so hard to keep up with that. And that anti-ice and de-ice of those aircraft really slows things down this time of year, especially with a storm of this magnitude. BLACKWELL: So, what's the primary concern if I am trying to figure out if I am going to, and I use I generally not like I have a flight to catch at 9:25, if I am trying to determine which element -- which variable is going to impact my flight, is it the wind, is it the ice, is it the snow, is it the temperatures? Which one primarily should I look toward?

BANGS: Well, it's yes, yes, and yes, but the big thing is ice. There's no airport that can deal with, you know, widespread surface icing. And we saw that earlier this year with those giant winter ice storms came through Texas and Dallas Fort Worth shutdown two days in advance, not just the airlines but the airport. There's no way to remove ice over the large surfaces of an airport. So, if it's icy, it's dangerous to get to the airport and there's a good chance your flight will be canceled anyway. That's the one thing that's almost impossible to counteract, that widespread surface ice.

BLACKWELL: Top advice for people traveling over the next day as they're trying to get on these flights -- get to a connecting flight. Is there something they should download, a number they should keep? What do you have for them?

BANGS: Well, definitely have your airline app downloaded and use the flight or tracker. We provide a lot of the data to the airlines.

[14:15:00]

So, through your flight or app, you may get an alert that a flight's been delayed, diverted, canceled, or rescheduled even hours before the airline might contact you. And also, get out a map. Use Florida as an example. That's a perfect one. Let's suppose you're going from New York to Tampa and your flights canceled, but Orlando, Fort Myers, Sarasota, those are all within an hour to drive, so you might be able to get the airport to rebook you to a different destination or even on another airline. And then you can either drive Uber or find a way to actually get to your destination for the holidays, even if the flight to that one airport is canceled.

BLACKWELL: Kathleen Bangs joining us from Walla Walla, Washington, you might be my first Walla Walla guest. I appreciate the expertise. Thanks so much.

All right, we are still waiting for the release of the January 6 committee's final report. They've put out transcripts of interviews, including testimony from star witness, Cassidy Hutchinson. She talked about the lengths that Trump world went to to try and influence her testimony. We'll talk about it ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: To breaking news. The Senate has just passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill that will avoid a government shutdown. CNN's Manu Raju joins us now from Capitol Hill. Manu, give us details here.

[14:20:03] MANU RAJU, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this bill just passed. 68 to 29 was the final tally here. Now, the United States Senate needs 60 votes for final passage, they exceeded that with bipartisan support to get this bill across the finish line. This is a massive proposal, $1.7 trillion funding all aspects of the federal government, something that should have been done by the actual deadline, which was September 30. They couldn't get a deal then. They punted it until December 16.

They couldn't get a deal by December 16. They punted the deadline to this Friday to avoid a government shutdown. And then the leadership with the key appropriators on the committees all agreed to this proposal, about $1.7 trillion, unveiling this plan in the wee hours of Tuesday morning at about 1:20 a.m. A couple of days later, here we are, the Senate has now passed this proposal to keep the government funded through the fall.

Now, this is significant because it changes the dynamics as we head into the new Congress. In the new Congress, that's where the Republicans will take control of the House. The leadership in the House wanted the Republicans in the Senate to delay this, to punt it to next year, when they believe they would have a stronger hand in the negotiations, to shape the legislation in a different way.

The Republican leadership in the Senate disagreed. They did not think they would have a stronger hand. They were concerned the narrow House majority in the Republican side could actually make things harder to get -- avoid shutdown to get what they wanted, particularly on issues like defense spending and the like. So, they essentially rolled, the House Republicans, the Senate GOP did and ultimately sided with Democrats got this bill over the finish line after arduous negotiations over the last day and a half to finalize the agreement, get this done, and get it over to the House.

Now, that's the next step here, Victor. We do expect the House to take this bill up probably very late tonight and send this over to the president's desk to sign this into law before the Friday shutdown deadline, ending a chaotic series of days and weeks as we end this Congress where it had Democrats are all control of the House and the Senate. Now, we're going into January 3 when the new Congress will be step -- will be in here. The final act on a very, very busy session of Congress has Democrats, and some Republicans join hands to push the spending bill through, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Kind of dodging a shutdown has become a Christmas-time tradition. Manu Raju, thank you.

The January 6 committee has released transcripts with their star witness, Cassidy Hutchinson. Now in those transcripts, Hutchinson says her trump allied lawyer pressured her against talking even if it put her at risk of contempt of Congress charges. The committee's final report could also drop at any moment. CNN's Senior Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid is with me now. Paula, what more are we learning from her testimony?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Victor, these transcripts and new reporting from CNN revealed these details about the pressure campaign that Hutchinson faced from allies of the former president. Now, Hutchinson is, of course, a former aide to White House Chief of Staff for Mark Meadows. And she told her -- the committee that her first lawyer Stefan Passantino repeatedly urged her to downplay her role in the White House and to say that she did not recall certain events. She said that Passantino and other Trump associates dangled job offers around the time of her first two depositions with the committee while her lawyers and others told her to remain loyal to Trump and she would "be taken care of."

Now, here's how she described her experience with her lawyer to the committee. She said, it wasn't just that I had Stefan sitting next to me, it was almost like it felt like I had Trump looking over my shoulder. Because I knew in some fashion, it would get back to him if I said anything that he would find disloyal. And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I'd seen this world ruin people's lives or try to ruin people's careers. I'd seen how vicious they could be.

Now, she did stress that Passantino never explicitly told her to lie. Hutchinson said that her breaking point at Passantino came in June when he advised her not to speak to the committee anymore, saying that risking contempt is a small risk, but running to the right, is better for you. Now, Hutchinson did eventually hire another lawyer before her blockbuster testimony for the committee, which of course as we know, Victor, probably some of the most damning testimony against the former president.

Now, CNN has reached out to Passantino for comment on Hutchinson's interview. Now, he did provide a statement earlier this week to CNN saying that he was ethical when he represented Hutchinson and said that he believed her initial round of testimony to the committee was truthful and that she was being cooperative. In a statement, he said, I believe Mrs. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her. And we are expecting to get more transcripts over the next couple of days. And, Victor, also, we are expecting, though we expected this yesterday, to get the final report from this committee if they can get it out today.

BLACKWELL: Standing by to stand by. Paula Reid, thank you for the reporting. Let's bring in Harry Litman, former U.S. attorney, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Vice President Mike Pence.

[14:25:00]

Harry, to you first. We all remember Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony about the story that she was told about the former president lunging toward his detail in the SUV there after his speech on January 6. She said when she told her then-attorney, Stefan Passantino about that, that he told her, "no, no, no, no, no, we don't want to go there. We don't want to talk about that." Does that qualify as obstruction of justice for him to tell her, no, don't talk about that?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: You bet it does. And it also qualifies me anything she said the subordination of perjury. He told her repeatedly, you can just say that you're better to go to Cassidy as I don't recall, even if you do recall, the committee won't know it. Now, those are tough charges in general to bring. But nevertheless, her -- there's corroborating testimony, things she told her mother at the time, the job offers and the like, and this is such a high-profile case. And that is the kind of thing that really enraged is the Department of Justice. But whatever happens to Passantino, you look at pages 50 to 60 of the Cassidy Hutchinson deposition, the second one, it is pure mob lawyer stuff, and it's really harrowing.

BLACKWELL: Olivia, what's your reaction to the descriptions of how Cassie Hutchinson said she felt that it felt like Trump was right over her shoulder because these Trump allied attorneys, she expected all of that will get right back to the former president?

OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER ADVISER TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Yes. Look, I read that transcript and I got to be honest with you, it made me very emotionally -- emotional and upset because I can only imagine the fear that Cassidy Hutchinson was feeling and the loneliness that she was feeling in that moment. Because that is a type of pressure campaign that these people do. And it was coming at her from all directions and from an extensive circle, right?

I mean, we see the conversation where Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, even calls her and she's trying to connect her once again to other people in the Trump packet world and all of that. And so, I think I -- you know, it's disturbing to see this because a lot of these people are still out there. They're powerful people. And then you have this young woman who's in her mid-20s, who chose to serve, she wanted to serve her country, she went to the White House, and she ends up in this situation.

And I'll just say this. The conversation that she had with her mom that she talks about where she said, they will ruin my life, that is very real. And there are many of us who are well familiar with what that feels like. And when that comes at you, you do feel alone, especially when you don't have the means to push back on it, especially financially, and they know that they have you cornered, and it just speaks to her strength and integrity.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's put a pin in this conversation. Let's go now to Capitol Hill. The Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is talking about this $1.7 trillion spending bill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Pardoned maternal care is an amazing thing as well. Childcare, an increase of 30 percent. There is so many good things in the bill. It's hard to get them all out, as you know, the Electoral College was in. And we funded lots of other promises, such as the CHIPS bill, and the bill to help the veterans who were hurt -- the PAC Act, who were hurt by the burn pits, summer lunches, first kids now every summer, increasing Pell grants. So, we've concluded this Congress one of the most productive in decades with one of the best omnibus packages in decades.

And here's one of the things that amazes me. The amendment process made it better. Usually, when you have a big omnibus, the amendment process makes it worse because the minority is trying to undo a lot of the things in the bill. But here, we stood firm and got it done. And you know, again, as I said, it was a great two years. One of the most productive Congresses that we've had in a very long time. I am so proud of my colleagues, every single one of them.

To do this in a Senate that had 65 would have been momentous. To do it in the Senate with 50 was -- and I say this about my colleagues, their unity was miraculous. And wow. So, I feel very, very good about all of this -- all of these things. We could go on and on about all the things that we did, all the things in the omnibus, and look at it carefully because --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right, that is the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is remarking on not just the passage of this $1.7 trillion funding bill just a day before funding runs out, but also what he sees as the accomplishments of the 117th Congress, listing some of those bills off.