Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Southwest CEO Apologizes; Southwest Stock Takes a Hit; Title 42 Remains in Place for Now; Supreme Court Title 42 Decision; Meadows Burned Documents During Transition Period; Norm Eisen is Interviewed about Wetness Transcripts . Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 28, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:01:07]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean in Washington. Jim Sciutto is off today.

The pressure is on for Southwest Airlines. The airline canceling another 2,500 flights already this morning. We're now up to more than 15,000 since the meltdown began a week ago. Passengers from coast to coast remain very stranded. Overnight, Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan issuing an apology. He says he's optimistic they'll be back on track before next week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB JORDAN, CEO, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: I want everyone who is dealing with the problems we've been facing, whether you haven't been able to get to where you need to go, or you're one of our heroic employees caught up in a massive effort to stabilize the airline, to know is that we're doing everything we can to return to a normal operation. And please also hear that I'm truly sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Also ahead this morning, the crisis at the U.S. southern border. Tens of thousands of migrants now wait in limbo after the Supreme Court ordered Title 42 restriction to remain in place as legal challenges play out. We're going to take you live to El Paso, Texas.

But let's begin first with the continuing chaos at the airports all across the country. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reminding travelers they are entitled to reimbursements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Another thing you should know is that when you're in this situation and the airline is responsible, which is clearly the case right now, then you can get those kinds of vouchers for hotels, restaurants. But what I talked about with the Southwest CEO is that a passenger shouldn't have to request that, they need to be proactively offering that. He pledged that they would. And, again, we'll be watching to make sure that they follow through.

DEAN: CNN's Nick Valencia is live at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.

Good morning, Nick.

How's Southwest's apology landing with passengers, and are they getting that help they need? Are they getting these reimbursements?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jessica.

The message from Bob Jordan last night isn't landing very well with the passengers I've spoken to. They think the CEO's statement was really just filled with more excuses. And at this point, after everything that they've been through, they just want results. They just want to get home. They want to get to their final destination. And for some people, that is happening.

But talking about the statement and the reaction, I spoke to Michelle Smith earlier. She says that she's a long-time Southwest flier, that she's loyal to the airline, but that may all change after the experience she's had. She spent Christmas she said with the - with her mother in Washington, D.C., but she got trapped with her daughters here on a layover in Atlanta and ended up in a hotel, they said, without running water. I asked them to react to the CEO's statement. Their explanation here -- or their response, rather, was just fix it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE SMITH, SOUTHWEST PASSENGER AFFECTED BY CANCELED FLIGHTS: Every time the text binges, I'm like, another delay, another cancel, don't cancel.

VALENCIA: So it's one of those scenarios, you believe it when you see it?

SMITH: Yes. Yes. And we are pushing -- actually when we're lifting off I will believe that we get to Tampa.

I've been a longtime Southwest fan, 20 years, companion pass holder, travel a lot. This year has been a bad one. They have really disappointed me.

VALENCIA: Do you have a message to the CEO if he's watching? What do you say to him?

SMITH: Fix it. Fix it. He's got a lot of loyal fans and he's losing them left and right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: And back here live in Atlanta's airport, there is literally nobody in line at the Southwest ticket counter. And that really underscores what they're dealing with here. There's no one in line because there's so many cancellations. There's been 15,000 cancellations since this meltdown began. And this morning, 62 percent of Southwest flights are canceled, amounting to about 2,500 flights all together. So, you know, if you are flying Southwest, be prepared for another long day here of travel ahead.

Jessica.

DEAN: Yes. Nick, that woman summing it up so succinctly, fix it. Just fix it.

Nick Valencia, for us in Atlanta, thanks so much for that reporting.

I want to bring in CNN business correspondent Rahel Solomon.

[09:05:03]

Rahel, Southwest's stock taking a hit as all of these cancellations and delays continue. And we just heard from that woman and a lot of people like her who say they've been big fans, loyal customers of Southwest for years and years, and maybe don't see that continuing. How bad are things looking for the company at this point?

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, I think it's becoming increasingly clear that it will be expensive to fix it for the company, right? That's part of the reason why shares ended lower by about 6 percent yesterday, as we just showed you, closing the day off at $34 a share roughly. And the premarket shares are off about 1.5 percent, but we will see what the day brings.

Here is why it will likely be so expensive for the company to fix it according to industry experts that I have spoken to. Not only will it be expensive for them to return and reimburse all of these flights, more than 15,000 as you have pointed out since last Thursday. You have to also think about all of these employees, these folks who are working the phones, who are working reservations, they're going to likely have to pay them overtime. And then these upgrades to the information technology, the software scheduling system which the CEO acknowledged yesterday saying clearly we need to double down on our already existing plans to upgrade systems. Unclear how much that is going to cost for an airline as large as Southwest. Of course, the largest domestic carrier here in the U.S.

So, all of these reasons making it increasingly clear that it will be expensive for Southwest Airlines to fix it.

So, solutions here, Jessica, not easy, not quick and certainly not cheap.

DEAN: Right. It is a really tough situation.

Rahel Solomon, really laying it out for us there, thanks so much.

Let's take you now to the crisis at the U.S. southern border. Right now shelters there at capacity. Migrants being forced to sleep on the streets after the Supreme Court ordered Title 42 to remain in place as legal challenges play out.

CNN correspondent Rosa Flores is live in El Paso, Texas, with more right there at the river where, Rosa, we have seen so many migrants cross in the last week. Give us a sense of what you're hearing from people there as they wait to see what happens next for them.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let me show you what's going on right now, Jessica, because this was the area where you saw those images that made national headlines where a lot of migrants were either camped on the Mexican side of the border, which is where that cop car that you see, that's Mexican police, they were camped out on that side or they were on the U.S. side forming a line to turn themselves into authorities.

Now, look around me now. There really is no line. There are no migrants here. And what you do see is the presence of the Texas National Guard. You see some National Guard vehicles and also the fencing.

I just talked to one of their public information officers and they tell me that that's the message that they were trying to send here. And that is that individuals need to go through the ports of entry. They need to enter the country legally because it's not safe.

The river that you're looking at is not safe. Believe me, I've covered multiple stories of how the river, even though is looks shallow, it can be very deadly. Adults and children have died. And this year there are record levels of individuals, migrants, who have died all along this river.

Now, all this fencing does is it directs the flow of migration, it directs migrants to a specific point where they can turn themselves into border authorities. Now, I've talked to migrants on the U.S. side that have already done that and some of those have done it in very difficult situations. One couple that I talked to crossed the river overnight and the - their -- her parents, the parents of this one little girl that I interviewed, said that the mom had to hold her daughter tight to save her life because she was so cold.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: She says - she says that she thought that her daughter was going to die overnight because it was so cold. They had just crossed the river. They were wet.

She says that she prayed to God. That she hugged her daughter as tight as she could and tried to warm her with her own body heat as much as she could to try to save her daughter's life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: And, Jessica, the parents of Brenda (ph), that little girl, they're still in El Paso. They're still trying to figure out how to get out of the border area but they have no money and they have no connections in the United States.

Jessica.

DEAN: Absolutely heart-wrenching stories from the border there. Rosa Flores, thank you for your reporting.

And joining me now to talk about all of this, "New York Times" White House correspondent and CNN political analyst Zolan Kanno-Youngs and CNN White House reporter Priscilla Alvarez.

Great to see both of you. Good morning.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to see you.

DEAN: Priscilla, let's talk -- start first with you.

Justice Gorsuch noted that Title 42 was put in place to combat Covid- 19. It was put in as a public health measure.

[09:10:01]

And said, quote, the current border crisis is not a Covid crisis. Does that give us any hint as to where they're headed with this?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, that was a dissent. So, the order is that the Title 42 will remain in effect while legal challenges play out. Gorsuch siding with the liberals here and really capturing where we are in this moment, which is, we have progressed in this pandemic. This is a restriction put in place at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. But it is now being used as a way to essentially control migration along the U.S./Mexico border. And that is what he was pinpointing here.

Now, of course, the Supreme Court said that they would hear arguments in the next session. That starts in February. So, in the interim, this stays in effect. And we won't really know the ultimate decision until early to mid-next year.

And President Biden said quite succinctly last night that he thinks it's long overdue, but they're going to have to comply with the order in the interim.

DEAN: Of course, because that is the law at this point.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Right.

DEAN: Zolan, what is the White House strategy here? What do they do?

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yes. Well, for many when you talk to folks observing the White House, within the White House, this policy has somewhat become a sort of stopgap in the void of a sort of consistent functioning plan at the border. Title 42, while President Biden, and even during the campaign, committed to unwinding many of the Trump era border policies, Title 42 was one you didn't hear about as much, even dating back to the campaign.

We know that throughout the past two years it's also been a point of tension for immigration advisers and the aides working on the border within the White House. You've had those that have argued that it does show a message of deterrence and sends a message that could try to deter a surge at the border, which has also been pretty dubious when you talk to career officials down there. Title 42 doesn't exactly stop people from coming, it just prevents them from staying in detention facilities in the U.S. and allows border patrol agents to rapidly turn them away. But it doesn't stop people from coming.

So, when you talk to members of Congress, and when you see members of Congress now also using it as a sort of negotiating chip in these different congressional negotiations over immigration, when you see the White House continue to rely on it, now under court order, yes, what it really does expose in a way is this void of any congressional action when it comes to actually efficient border policy or a consistent plan from the White House as well.

DEAN: Right, because we just haven't seen that from Congress, from the administration. Yes, it -- and it looks like, just to further that point, the GOP is going to take over the House just here in a few days.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Right.

DEAN: They had tried, Tillis and Sinema - Senators Tillis and Sinema had tried to do something on this at the very end of that lame duck session. But does it look promising at all to you, from where you sit, that this gets addressed by Congress?

KANNO-YOUNGS: It's hard to see now with the changing majority as well, and just precedent when you look at the fact that we haven't been able to see meaningful immigration reform in previous administrations. I think it's reasonable to have doubt that at least in the immediate months that they could come forward with a proposal, especially when the loudest voices in the room, you're hearing more so an emphasis on oversight investigations. You're hearing that it may be more likely that we see potential investigations into the homeland security secretary. Maybe him even call down to Congress as well.

Immigration, at this point, and the border is still one of the political vulnerabilities of the White House and still one of the main sort of issues that the Republican Party turns to, to attack the current administration. Thus far the past two years it seems that has taken priorities over actually reaching a consensus on any plan.

DEAN: So then you turn to what's actually happening, right? And so, Priscilla, there's this major backlog of applications, nearly 1.6 million asylum applications are pending. That's crazy. There's an increase - seven-fold increase in asylum cases from fiscal year 2012. The overall wait time is four years. What are people supposed to do? Then what happens?

ALVAREZ: When I talk to asylum seekers who have been waiting eight years, it is an immense backlog and it really is part of the same conversation, which is that there needs to be reform. Remember, our immigration system was built on a completely different set of issues. We are seeing mass movement in the western hemisphere. Many seeking asylum. Many, for example, millions fleeing Venezuela and trying to seek political asylum here in the United States. And our systems just aren't built for that many asylum claims or really even how to process all of those people who are coming to the U.S./Mexico border.

So, it comes back to, will there ever be reform to address these issues? The White House, in their statement yesterday, pointed the finger at Congress, said it is time to make some changes. The Department of Homeland Security has been saying that repeatedly as of late. But, again, with Title 42 still in effect, it's also coming up in again that framework you two were just talking about with Tillis and Sinema and is being used almost as a tool to find some sort of balance.

[09:15:06]

But, again, this system is just not prepared to deal with the set of issues now.

DEAN: Yes. Well, and as somebody said to me yesterday on the show, they said, Congress should be tweaking this like every few years. And we haven't had any action on it in decades. So that tells you kind of where we are.

All right, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Priscilla Alvarez, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Thank you.

DEAN: Up next, the former White House chief of staff was burning documents in the fireplace and QAnon conspiracies were running rampant in the Trump administration. Details on the alarming revelations from newly released January 6th committee transcripts.

Plus, growing pressure on embattled Congressman-elect George Santos after he admitted to lying on his resume. At least one of his Republican colleagues now calling for an ethics investigation but GOP leadership remains silent.

And, later, a woman in Buffalo, New York, rescues a man caught in the blizzard and suffering from severe frostbite after she says her calls to first responders went unanswered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHA'KYRA AUGHTRY, HELPED SAVE FROSTBITTEN MAN FROM BLIZZARD: I've called the National Guard. I have called 911. I've called everybody. Agents keep telling me I'm on a list. I don't want to be on no list. I don't care about nothing else. This man is not about to die over here on 111 (ph). Y'all need to get this man some help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:29]

DEAN: Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows reportedly burned documents in his office fireplace. That's just one of the key details we're learning after the January 6th committee released a new batch of witness transcripts. In two more conversations with former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, she said Meadows burned those documents during the final days of the Trump presidency.

CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes has been following this story.

And, Kristen, there's a lot in here, but give us some context on these burned documents. These are -- just to remind everyone, these are the waning days of the Trump presidency. There's a lot going on and he's burning documents in the fireplace.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And also, just to remind everyone, there is a protocol for these kind of documents that are going in and out of the White House, and it is not to throw them in your fireplace.

Now, according to Hutchinson's testimony, she says she witnessed him throw these documents into his fireplace in his office on more than a dozen occasions. Now, the key part here, though, is that twice, two of the times she witnessed this, was after a meeting with Pennsylvania GOP Congressman Scott Perry, who we know has been linked to efforts to try to use the Justice Department to try and overturn the 2020 election. That is a key there, just because of that meeting, because the context we know about Perry.

Now, I do want to point out a couple of other things that we saw in Hutchinson's testimony but also in several other key players. Hutchinson, now we're actually starting to see that disconnect between her and her Trump-backed lawyer. This is playing out in these transcripts. The two of them are bickering. You're seeing that her loyalties are shifting at a certain point. He's stopping her. She's trying to talk over him. So, that's one key part.

The other thing that I noticed here was something she mentioned about Meadows telling her and several other White House aides not to essentially put down all the meetings that were happening in the Oval Office, to keep a close hold. She says that she's not sure exactly what that meant, but that likely meant that they weren't showing up until the Oval Office diary. This is important because, again, it goes to the same thing about the documents. All of this is a record for a reason. It's the president of the United States.

Now, the last part of all of these testimonies that I thought was most interesting was, one, Hutchinson talking about the rise of QAnon conspiracies that really went all the way up to the president here. And one thing she says, she had interaction with Peter Navarro, one of the White House aides, and she says, at one point I had sarcastically said, oh, is this from your QAnon friends, Peter, because Peter would talk to me frequently about his QAnon friends. He said, have you looked into it yet, Cass? I think they point out a lot of good ideas. You really need to read this. Make sure the chief sees it.

And it was going all the way up, at some points, to the president. She describes a meeting with congress men and women where Marjorie Taylor Greene is talking about how her constituents are QAnon and they support the president. A lot of it focused around that 2020 conspiracy theories.

And one thing I thought was also interesting was, not from her, but actually from White House aide Johnny McEntee, talks about those QAnon conspiracies, but actually just talks about all the fringe people who are coming in and out of the White House. And it really seems like this was the wild, wild west at some points. You know, people were barging in, they were sending McEntee messages saying I need to meet with the president. I want to meet with him now. People were having meetings that his closest aides didn't even know about until afterwards.

So, it's really indicate here to certainly paint this picture of those final days of the Trump presidency. A lot of it was reported, but actually seeing the White House aides saying it in their own words, it's striking.

DEAN: It really is and it paints such a picture of both chaos and going against all protocol, but then also, just like to your point, the fringe that was what kind of misinformation and lies were making its way all the way to the president at that time.

All right, Kristen Holmes, thanks so much.

And let's discuss this now with Ambassador Norm Eisen. He served as the House Judiciary's special counsel in former President Trump's first impeachment trial.

It's great to see you.

When you look at these transcripts, what do you think would be the most interesting thing to DOJ or, say, special counsel Jack Smith?

NORM EISEN, FORMER HOUSE JUDICIARY SPECIAL COUNSEL IN TRUMP'S FIRST IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: Jessica, nice to see you, too.

I think the most interesting thing to prosecutors in these new transcripts is that evidence, the consciousness of guilt. When you have papers being burned in the fireplace approximately a dozen times, and then after the Scott Perry meetings, at least twice those papers being burned, Jessica, Scott Perry is one of only three individuals we know of where the FBI has seized his phone as part of the investigation of the runup to January 6th and the violence that day, together with two lawyers, John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark, who have had their phones seized.

[09:25:06]

So, all of that suggests something's being hidden.

And then, of course, you have the close hold instructions where Mark Meadows, who's one of those -- one of the six that the January 6th committee has made criminal referrals for, Mark Meadows is saying, hey, let's change the circulation of information. Let's change who learns even in the White House what's going on. So those kinds of things are evidence of possible misconduct. There's been a criminal referral. Scott Perry has been referred to the House Ethics Committee. The investigations are going to continue.

DEAN: Yes, no, they're not stopping anytime soon.

And we've gotten a pretty good sense, I guess you could say, of how the Trump administration treated documents. I wonder what you make of being able to read Cassidy Hutchinson's transcripts where she says that she's watching Mark Meadows, then the chief of staff, burning these documents regularly in his office during a transition period. As Kristen just laid out for us, there is protocol. We all -- we all know, there are -- there's so much protocol around what to do with documents. It's there for a reason. What do you make of learning that?

EISEN: Yes, when I worked in the White House, Jessica, I had a burn bag and Cassidy talks about that in her deposition. And if you had to destroy classified or other document, it went in the burn bag. There's a protocol.

Meadows apparently didn't even trust that protocol. He destroyed these documents themselves. So, I think that it is concerning evidence. It's additional evidence. And, of course, the other thing that is very interesting in the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony is, we saw how she testified after she changed lawyers. And there have been very serious allegations about her former lawyer, Stefan Passantino, who -- and his ties to Trump world. And then when she gets her new lawyer, Jody Hunt, she's fully forthcoming. That's very important. She says I want to correct and extend the record. But information pours out, Jessica, incriminating information for Donald Trump, Mark Meadows and others. So that's also a very important part of these transcripts.

DEAN: Yes. And what do you think about -- we're expecting these taxes to be released, the former president's taxes by the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday. What do you - what do you think we will learn? What are you going to be looking for in those records? We've heard a little bit about it, but this will be like the fully redacted version.

EISEN: Well, the taxes will be important because there are serious allegations about whether the former president was honest and complied with the law in his taxes. And more generally, he's going to trial this year in New York, a civil trial by the AG, Jessica, where she has said that there's a widespread pattern of fraud in his businesses. So, we'll want to look for both evidence of possible tax fraud and broader frauds. We'll be looking at things like, is he taking proper business deductions or is he claiming losses that he doesn't really have? Is he making payments to his family, which he's trying to conceal as tax deductible, when they're not really tax deductible. There's controversies over conservation easements where he claims he's yielded his property for purposes of conservation. That's in New York. It's also in California. But did he really do it? So those kinds of issues.

His business has already been convicted in New York state, 17 counts of tax fraud. Is there evidence of tax or other frauds, possible federal or state, in these tax returns?

DEAN: Yes. Well, we will see them on Friday.

Ambassador Norm Eisen, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

EISEN: Thanks, Jessica.

DEAN: Still ahead this morning, as China prepares to reopen travel in the new year, the U.S. is considering putting Covid restrictions back on travelers from there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:00]