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Winter Storm Wrecks Havoc On Travel Two Days Before Christmas; Panel: Trump Was "Central Cause" Of Jan. 6 Capitol Attack. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired December 23, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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CHARLES TABOUCHIRANI, CHERRY'S PHARMACY, NEW YORK CITY: It really is a huge problem in our community and across the country.

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ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sales of children's medications to treat pain and fever are up 65 percent from this time last year, according to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association. And manufacturers don't have a timeline for when supply may catch up with demand.

Pharmacist Charles Tabouchirani is trying to make the best of a bad situation.

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TABOUCHIRANI: So our shelves where we normally stock Tylenol, Motrin, Advil are completely empty, so I just substituted what is supposed to be there with toys to give it a little scenery. But it is sad that these shelves have been empty for more than six weeks.

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JONES (voice-over): As for Halfon and her family ...

MELISSA HALFON, MOM LOOKING FOR KIDS' MEDICATION IN NEW YORK CITY: It's frustrating and it's scary. First, we couldn't feed our children because of the infant formula shortage, and now we're facing just another challenge of being able to take basic care of them.

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JONES (voice-over): Athena Jones, CNN, New York.

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KRISTIN FISHER, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Kristin Fisher. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

This massive winter storm system is barreling towards the East Coast this hour and its Arctic chill is straining the nation's power grids, closing airports from coast to coast and causing deadly road conditions on one of the busiest travel days of the year. Look at this video that we just got in from Hamburg, New York snowing and flooding on the coast at the same time.

Deep floodwaters across New England are a huge concern heading into the weekend as temperatures continue to drop. In nearby Buffalo, officials have closed the airport and canceled all flights, you can see why. And over 70 million Americans are experiencing below freezing temperatures and that includes the entire State of Texas.

And even if you're not freezing, it's bad news if you're waiting on any last minute Christmas gifts to arrive; Amazon, the U.S. Post Office, the UPS, FedEx all warning that the storm has hit major shipping hubs nationwide and deliveries will be delayed.

So we have CNN's Polo Sandoval really in the center of it all live in Buffalo, New York. Polo, last time I saw you, you were walking out of the blizzard. We could barely even see you. This time, you're still standing right in the thick of it. How is it - how has it been over the last hours since we spoke?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kristin, I'm glad you showed our viewers that triple threat that folks here have been facing. You have the flooding, you have the wind, you have the flash freezing, that is why this is an extraordinary storm that's hitting Buffalo. It snows in Buffalo, right, that's hardly news, but a level - a storm of this level, many locals have told me it makes sense that it would be once in a generation, right?

Now, in terms of what we're seeing on the ground here, you could see - well, you cannot see really much because of the whiteout conditions and it makes sense that the airport is closed. And also we have seen people largely staying at home occasionally a passerby, very few vehicles, actually the last car I saw drive by here was about an hour ago, so that certainly is good to know.

But at the same time, we also heard from the Erie County executive, Mark Poloncarz, who said that they're still getting reports of people violating what is a driving ban that's in place here in Erie County even have had to go out and rescue some stranded drivers because it is, in some cases, impossible to see beyond the hood of your car and that's why the big warning right now for officials is to simply stay home, right?

Power outages, however, that is something that is certainly going to be a big issue for many residents around here. They have received many reports of power outages with category one hurricane level winds that comes with the possibility of downed power lines and that means power outages. So even at one of the warming centers here in Buffalo, they've had to relocate some of the residents there to another facility because they experienced a power outage, so nobody is being spared the fury of this wicked winter storm and it is going to be far from over too, Kristin, as we go into tonight, possibly into tomorrow.

New York governor, Kathy Hochul, saying people should resist the urge to head out and try to meet with family this Christmas in or around the Buffalo area. FISHER: Yes. For folks that were wishing for a white Christmas up there, they sure got it. Polo Sandoval, thank you so much.

So the South is also getting hit hard by these bone chilling temperatures. You've got power grids in places like Memphis under tremendous strain. CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam live in Atlanta.

Derek, what are you seeing and feeling?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, this summarizes it for you. I think this does a great job. This was a wet towel about an hour ago now completely frozen solid. Gives you an indication of how rapidly the temperatures dropped here in Atlanta. You get to my graphics and you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. It dropped 35 degrees in just a matter of eight hours, just incredible drop.

[15:05:00]

And cities across the eastern half of the U.S. all experienced a similar temperature drop as well. It's just a short period of time so it created that flash freeze on the roadway. So if there was any kind of precipitation on the ground, it froze and it is icy out there.

Now, this is important because the seven day temperature trend for Atlanta shows temperatures below freezing for the next 48 hours. So people who are not used to this type of weather in the Deep South, well, they're going to have some problems with burst pipes, potentially the power outages, not being able to heat your home or your family right now.

From coast to coast, we're talking about over a million customers without power and that number continues to grow. Look at Memphis there, 12 degrees right now. Their mayor actually asking for people to conserve energy because of the strain on the electrical system, thanks to this Arctic blast that has come through. So just really incredible to feel these temperatures, it dropped very quickly here in Atlanta.

FISHER: Derek Van Dam live in Atlanta for us.

And so now, let's go to Memphis. With me on the phone, Doug McGowan, the President of Memphis Light, Gas & Water.

Doug, you just heard Derek say that it's about 12 degrees there, the Mayor asking everybody to conserve energy. But did you anticipate the possibility of having to implement these rolling blackouts that we saw across Memphis earlier today?

DOUG MCGOWAN, PRESIDENT, MEMPHIS LIGHT, GAS & WATER: Good afternoon, Kristin. I know we did not. This is an unusual phenomenon across the Tennessee Valley. What happened this morning was that the TVA lost a substantial generation capacity largely due to the cold weather. And for about two hours, we were on an emergency load curtailment with very little notice.

That is an unusual circumstance for us that we have never had to implement. Thankfully, we were only under that notice for about two hours, power has since been restored. The issue here is that once you turn power off, sometimes it's difficult to get it to come back on. We're thankful that just under 5 percent of our 40 - 431,000 customers were affected, and we're doing all we can to get their power restored as quickly as we can.

FISHER: So what exactly did customers experience during the blackouts? How long was the power out for? And are you worried that you're going to have to resume them?

MCGOWAN: Sure. Well, because of the winds and the storm of the cold weather, we already had about 16,000 customers who are experiencing storm-related outages.

FISHER: Mm-hm.

MCGOWAN: We added on top of that deliberately about another 20,000 to shift 5 percent of our total load. The plan that we have here in Memphis is to do 30-minute blocks. So we select certain circuits that will add up to that 5 percent of the load. We'll turn it off for 30 minutes and then we'll de-energize another set of circuits and re- energize the original one so that no one is without power longer than 30 minutes.

We realize it's an inconvenience, but here in Memphis, that would have been about twice a day that people would have experienced that. Again, we're thankful that's not the case. But we are standing by just in the event, we have to do it again.

FISHER: So they're not in place now these rolling blackouts, you hope they won't be in place again, but they could be down the road. Doug McGowan, thank you so much.

MCGOWAN: Thank you so much.

FISHER: Yep.

So let's go to Chicago now where CNN's Omar Jimenez is at O'Hare International Airport. Omar, we've been talking about power outages but, of course, for holiday travels, major flight cancellations, what's the status where you are?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Look, the flight cancellations have been coming in throughout. I mean, really by the hour, the number just seems to keep going up. Chicago, one of the world's busiest. I want to show you where we are right now.

This is a line for people to either get their luggage or figure out what's going on with their luggage. People who in some cases have their flights canceled and are now trying to figure out where their bags actually are. Now, one of those people is Bella here who I met a few minutes ago.

So Bella, just lay it out for me what happened, what were you trying to do and what are you doing right now.

BELLA DELATORRE, CHICAGO TRAVELER: So my boyfriend and I are traveling to Cincinnati for Christmas to spend it with his family and our flight's at 2:40. And right around two o'clock, we got a notification from the United app saying that the flight was canceled. So we rushed down here to grab our luggage and we were told by customer service that it'll take up to six hours to receive our luggage that we checked and unfortunately we did have to check luggage because we have presents and clothes, we're staying for a long time and now we're just trying to figure out how to get all those valuable things in a timely manner.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And when is the earliest that you were able to rebook as I'm assuming that you're rebooking real quickly?

DELATORRE: Christmas Day.

JIMENEZ: Wow. Well, Bella, good luck to you.

DELATORRE: Yes.

JIMENEZ: It's similar story to a lot of these folks here. But again, all of this is happening just days before Christmas, people are either trying to get to warmer places or trying to get to family.

FISHER: Omar, thank you so much. She brought up a great point, in addition to being delayed, you have to deal with your - the thoughts of your bags being lost and all those Christmas gifts that might be in them, I hope she gets them in time. Omar, thank you.

JIMENEZ: Thanks, guys.

FISHER: So joining me now Brad Brown. He's the Acting Fire Chief and Emergency Manager in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Brad, you've got a blizzard warning in effect until 7 pm your time on Saturday. What's your biggest concern right now? What are you the most worried about?

BRAD BROWN, ACTING FIRE CHIEF & EMERGENCY MANAGER, GRAND RAPIDS, MI: The icy roads are posing quite a few issues for us. Luckily, most of our citizens are staying home. We put out a lot of communications, if you don't need to be out, don't be on the roads and the police, fire, EMS are able to get around right now. That coupled with alternative heating sources.

Unfortunately, we did have a structure fire last night caused by alternative heating sources and we're working very hard to get people into shelters and off the streets.

FISHER: We've been spending a lot of time talking about what we saw in Memphis, they were having to deal with those rolling blackouts due to too much strain on the electrical grid. How's Michigan doing with power outages right now?

BROWN: Southwest Michigan is doing pretty good. So Grand Rapids has had very few power outages and they've been restored quickly. Other parts of the state are seeing much more widespread outages. Our winds are only topping out at about 40 miles an hour here in Grand Rapids and our power grid can sustain that, but there are other parts of the state that are hitting 70 miles an hour and they're seeing much more widespread outages.

FISHER: You look at these images, when was the last time that you saw a storm this bad? And are you putting those lessons from previous bad storms into practice?

BROWN: Absolutely. So we're no stranger to snow here in southwest Michigan. Grand Rapids averages about 65 to 70 inches of snow a year, so snow was nothing new for us. The last time we've had a blizzard warning was 2011. And most of the senior executives, not only at fire, but the rest of the city were here during that, termed the "polar vortex."

And so the last three, four days, we've been doing multiple planning sessions getting ready for it and frankly, this is another workday for us. We're not seeing anything that we can't handle or anything out of the ordinary.

FISHER: Well, that's what we like to hear. I'm sure that's what people in your area like to hear. Brad Brown, thank you.

So after nearly 18 months of investigations and stunning witness testimony, the January 6 Committee releasing its final report on the insurrection and they make a damning case that the attack on the Capitol can be blamed on former President Donald Trump. We're going to be breaking down their top findings and recommendations next.

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FISHER: You saw right here on CNN, the House's last hour passing the $1.7 trillion spending bill one day after the Senate approved it. The vote 225 to 201, nine Republicans joining all, but two Democrats in favor. It now goes to President Biden's desk for signing and not a moment too soon, government funding was set to expire at midnight.

The measure includes billions for domestic and military spending and an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act to make it harder to overturn a certified presidential election. The first legislative response to the Capitol attack.

The January 6 Committee investigating the insurrection is out with its long-awaited final report and it places the blame for the attack on the Capitol squarely on the former president saying this in part and I quote, "The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him." The Committee recommends that he never be allowed to hold office again and CNN's Jessica Schneider joins me now.

Jessica, I mean, the report makes it very clear, it says that none of the events of January 6th would have happened without the former president.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Kristin. And the Committee really laid it all out in very lengthy detail, 845 pages. So they published these eight chapters where they expanded on what we saw over the summer at the public hearings and they did detail how they say that Trump singularly laid the groundwork for that breach of the Capitol on January 6th.

The Committee though also made nearly a dozen recommendations and the big one was that they recommend barring Trump from ever holding office again. The Committee pointed out the 14th Amendment of the Constitution section three, it clearly states that anyone who is engaged in an insurrection can be disqualified from holding office. So the Committee is saying here that that constitutional provision should be enforced when it comes to Trump.

Of course, earlier this week, the Committee also officially made criminal referrals against Trump to the DOJ on for criminal charges. Of course DOJ does not have to take that, that is just a recommendation. And the Committee is also urging Congress to overhaul the Electoral Count Act to make clear that vice presidents do not have the power to overturn elections, of course, as Trump wanted Mike Pence to. The House and Senate have already made steps passing legislation in that direction.

So Kristin, a lot to unwind here and a lot to go through, but those big recommendations from the Committee, of course, at the same time, the criminal investigation both at the state level and from the Special Counsel on the federal level still ongoing and potentially could wrap up in the - or ramp up, I should say, in the coming months ahead.

FISHER: Yes, Jessica, a lot to go through in those 800 plus pages. But something else that really jumps out is one detail that Trump actually laughed at Sidney Powell's election fraud claims. Something that's very different from what he was saying publicly. Tell us about that.

SCHNEIDER: Yes. So Sidney Powell, she was an election attorney, she was pushing these fraud claims in court. She even did that press conference with Rudy Giuliani pointing out these baseless claims that the voting machines run by Dominion had been tampered with.

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And when Trump heard this, according to Hope Hicks at the White House, he was on the phone and he actually muted the phone and laughed at Powell telling the others in the room, "This does sound crazy, doesn't it?" So the President might have been laughing in private but you know, Kristen, he never publicly disavowed her claims.

And the president - former president responding to this entire report on his social media page today, he continues to call the Committee and their findings a witch hunt. And Kristin, of course, to this day still insists falsely that there was election fraud. Kristin?

FISHER: Jessica Schneider, thank you so much. So with me now, we've got CNN political commentators Alice Stewart and Bakari Sellers. Alice Stewart, of course, a Republican strategist, Bakari Sellers, a Democratic State Representative in South Carolina.

Alice, I'm going to start with you. What do you make of the Committee's recommendation that Trump never be allowed to hold office again? I mean, it cites that part of the Constitution that bars those who have engaged in an insurrection from holding office, so what do you make of it?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Kristin, it's really hard to look at all of the images that we saw from January 6, and hear all the testimony that we heard in these hearings and reading this final report, and it's really difficult to come to any other conclusion that someone that made these actions and spurred on his supporters to do this insurrection at the Capitol is uniquely unqualified to run for president ever again.

And you hit on a very important point in terms of all of this time, the former President has acknowledged and said there was widespread voter fraud, but he told his attorney, John Eastman, that he knew there was not widespread voter fraud yet he continued to pursue claim after claim. He continued to try and challenge this certification of the elections and he spurred his supporters to storm the Capitol.

And what we're seeing here more and more, his base still stands by him. But there are more and more rational Republicans who are understanding that it's time to turn the page from Donald Trump. He was wrong about election fraud. He was wrong about storming the Capitol and he is certainly moving forward the wrong selection for 2024.

FISHER: Yes. And the January 6 Committee making it very clear how they feel about it in that report.

Bakari, newly appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the January 6 investigation and the probe into Trump's handling of classified documents.

When you go through this report, when you look at those 800 plus pages, in a way, is this a roadmap for him?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It is a roadmap, but I think you highlighted the other case, in particular, his handling of classified documents, which I think is a easier case to prosecute. Regardless, this is not a prosecutor you want who was looking and checking out all the skeletons you have in your closet, because he is a very seasoned skilled prosecutor.

This is a roadmap. This is a great deal of testimony. There's a lot of obstruction of justice, a lot of lying and perjury that you see the report detail. You see it laid out for an insurrection. The individuals who wrote this report or authored this report shout out to the clerks and the staffers who put this together. They did yeoman's work. And I will tell you that a prosecutor will utilize this. However, the case of mishandling classified documents is probably closer to us than that of leading an insurrection.

FISHER: Alice, there are just so many damning parts to this report for the former president. The Committee found that he did not contact a single top National Security official during the riot, not one. They say that he knew the fraud allegations were false, but amplified them anyway. When you look at this entire report, all 800 plus pages, do you think that any of it, any of what's in here is going to be enough to have any sort of influence or sway on his, on those diehard supporters of his?

STEWART: His diehard supporters absolutely will not waver based on anything we've seen or heard or has been referred to the DOJ. And this is certainly concerning in the court of law, but in the court of public opinion with his base, they see this as a witch hunt. They see this as Democrats going out to destroy Donald Trump and they are not standing by any of these recommendations, and they're going to continue to stand with him.

But we're seeing more and more of the rational common sense Republicans that are saying this is a bridge too far. And now there are options and now they actually have a permission to turn elsewhere and turn the page away from Donald Trump and his election denying conspiracy theorists' activities and look for someone else, because his activities with denying the election results have cost us election after election and Republicans are ready to look elsewhere.

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FISHER: So Alice, you don't think that this is going to make much of a difference with his diehard supporters.

But, Bakari, what about in the grand scheme of history because this report has been compared to the 9/11 Commission Report. And so, despite, the opinions of some of those diehard Trump supporters, how do you think that history is going to view and look upon this report despite how partisan the process was, according to some?

SELLERS: That's a tough question to answer. The reason being is because I think history is still writing its book on Donald Trump. You have me, a Democrat from South Carolina, who would argue he is probably one of the three or four worst presidents in the history of the United States of America. That is probably what many people would say who are partisans like myself.

However, the reason I say that you have to hold off it really waits until this primary cycle. If there are 10, 12 individuals who run for president of the United States, under the banner of the Republican Party, Donald Trump has a great opportunities to win that nomination again.

And then as much as we sit here and say that it's time to turn the page, we've seen what Republicans do when they know the truth about Donald Trump. They show up and vote for him anyway. And so this book is still being written on Donald Trump, but this report is a damning chapter to say the least.

FISHER: Yes, and this report coming in just in time for the holidays. We'll see what happens over the next few weeks and months. Alice Stewart, Bakari Sellers, Happy Holidays and thanks for coming on.

Life threatening cold temperatures sweeping the country. Next, how to keep yourself safe and healthy. But first holiday sounds from carolers, greeting travelers at Atlanta Hartsfield Airport.

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