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Federal Aviation Administration Ordering Grounding Of Boeing 737-9 MAX Planes After Incident During Alaska Airlines Flight In Which Hole Opened In Plane's Cabin Midflight; Republican Presidential Candidates Campaign In Iowa Ahead Of Caucuses; Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Arguments Concerning Colorado State Supreme Court Removing Former President Trump From Republican Presidential Primary Ballot; U.S. Secretary Of State Antony Blinken Visits Middle East Amid Fears War In Gaza May Spread; "The New York Times" Criticized After Publishing Opinion Piece Speculating That Taylor Swift Possibly Closeted Queer Person; Copyright On Early Images Of Mickey Mouse Expires. Aired 2-3p ET.

Aired January 06, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

MORGAN MORIARTY, COLLEGE FOOTBALL REPORTER, "BLEACHER REPORT": Not necessarily. And then you have this massive wave of realignment happening which even factors in further. You have the PAC-12 essentially, sadly, going away. The only teams remaining, Oregon State and Washington State kind of left out. Otherwise, they're being absorbed into the Big 10 and Big 12. It's going to look a lot different.

And so I say it's bittersweet because we've known this sport, how it is for so long, and that's coming to an end. But it's also exciting, right. You add into the transfer portal NIL deals with realignment. That's going to make the recruiting process and how these teams build these rosters even bigger.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And that's what I wonder, because you just praised the consistency of players and staffing in this matchup, but then now with this kind of expansion, we're talking about people being more apt to take advantage of the transfer portal. So there's going to be a loss of a kind of consistency, right? Some might look at it as a new opportunity to kind of move the chess pieces.

MORIARTY: Absolutely. But I think with the transfer portal, it has been here for a couple of years. It is kind of you have to adapt or die in college football, and coaches are realizing that coaching at a high level. Look at Michael Penix Jr. He's a guy in Indiana that had four different season-ending injuries at Indiana. He goes to Washington, has an incredible start. He's a guy who has been playing so well on these big stages. You've seen his draft stock kind of slowly rise, which is really cool.

So I think for the transfer portal, that's a great story with respect to that. So it's not going away. We might see some changes with the timeline with respect to when players can opt in. There's obviously the early signing period with recruiting that makes that time in December really chaotic. But it's a lot of changes and unknown, but the sport and storylines and the players that make it great are still going to be the same. So it's exciting and it's a little weird to kind of see this era ending, but it's going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait.

WHITFIELD: You're right, it's been fun watching Penix. He's been a rising star. He just steals the screen. Morgan Moriarty, good to see you.

MORIARTY: Thank you so much for having me.

WHITFIELD: Thank you so much, appreciate it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

WHITFIELD: Hello again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

And we start with this breaking news. The Federal Aviation Administration is now ordering the grounding of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes. In a tweet, the FAA says it's requiring immediate inspections before they are returned to service following a terrifying incident on the 737-9 MAX aboard an Alaskan Airlines flight on Friday.

So what you can hear there is a whole lot of silence, plus swirling winds whipping through after a gaping hole ripped open in the plane's cabin midflight just shortly after it had taken off from Portland, Oregon. The pilot was able to make an emergency landing after about 20 minutes. One person was taken to the hospital with a minor injury.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean has more.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, a major new development here. The FAA says it's planning to institute an emergency air worthiness directive, essentially an emergency recall leading to the temporary grounding of these Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes. This latest incident happened in an explosive moment, like the most violent convertible you've ever been in. In this case a passenger jet on row 26, where there could have been a door, this plane did not have it. It had what's called a door plug. More on that in a second. That happened with a bang. Seven minutes into the flight at 16,000 feet, what is technically called a rapid decompression where the high pressure breathable air inside the plane goes rushing out and the cold thin air outside comes rushing in.

We heard from a passenger that a boy sitting nearby had his shirt pulled off. The oxygen masks dropped, and pilots very quickly had to deal with this issue. I want you to listen to the calm in the air traffic control audio. Step one, fly the airplane. Step two, run the checklist, descend back to 10,000 feet where the air is more breathable. And step three, communicate with air traffic control exactly what is going on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alaska 1282, need to declare an emergency, descending down to 10,000, just depressurized.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alaska calling, descend one-zero thousand. When able, give me the nature of the emergency and your intentions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seattle, Alaska 1282 just depressurized, need to declare an emergency. We do need to descend down to 10,000.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The part that failed, the part that will now be inspected, is on the left side of the airplane's fuselage.

[14:05:02]

A door can be installed there at the Boeing factory. It depends on the seating configuration, though, ordered by the airline. So this airplane did not have a door there. Instead, there was what's called a door plug there that you would see from the outside. You wouldn't really know it, though, from the inside. This plane in question rolled off the factory floor only a few months ago, October 15th was the first flight. About 150 flights for Alaska Airlines since then. This has thrust Boeing under the microscope once again, the latest in a litany of issues with the 737 MAX family. Killed 346 people in two crashes abroad. There was a 20-month long grounding in the U.S. that ended in November of 2020. And since, Boeing has been dogged by quality controls issues. The good news, 171 passengers and six crew members, all OK, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Pete Muntean, thank you so much.

For the passengers onboard, it was truly terrifying. CNN's Stephanie Elam joins us now with more on that side of the story. Stephanie, what have they been saying?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Fredricka, just imagine, this is about 5:00 p.m. local time, pacific time, and you're waiting to take off. The plane was getting deiced before taking off into the sky. And when you listen to what passengers have described, they said it was very abrupt what happened, and that all of a sudden that the oxygen masks did drop down in the plane and that was an indication for some of the people on there who didn't know that this had happened behind them that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

The plane was only in the sky for about 20 minutes before -- it was en route, this Alaska 1282 flight was en route to Ontario, California, down here in southern California, but it looped back around to Portland, Oregon, and landed back at the airport where it had taken off from. But still, it was very abrupt, very jarring. In fact, take a listen to passenger Emma Vu talk about what it was like for her. She was asleep at the time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMA VU, PASSENGER, ALASKA AIRLINES FLIGHT 1282: You could see the plane just falling, and I knew it was not just normal turbulence because the masks came down. And that's when the panic definitely started to set in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: She said that it was a very surreal experience. She also said that she was jolted awake. She also described the other passengers around her. Since she was in a middle seat, she said the two women that flanked her were very calm and helped to keep her comforted while she was not feeling comfortable. She said all around there were a lot of people who were calm about it. She said the flight attendants were very calm and knew what to do to keep everyone safe until they landed back on the ground.

But obviously, when you look at some of these words, it's obvious that this would be a very scary event, in the darkness on top of that. Vu did also tell CNN that she did get an email from the Alaska Airlines saying that they were going to reimburse them for the flight and also gift them $1,500 for the inconvenience that they experienced. As far as the airport is concerned, they are saying that they did have one person that was taken to the hospital, but unbelievably, Fred, there were no major or serious injuries, despite the fact that these people were exposed to that outside, very frigid air.

WHITFIELD: Right, that is remarkable. But thank goodness for that. But clearly, a lot of folks were simply paralyzed in fear as that plane was so carefully descending. Stephanie Elam, thank you so much.

It's a little over a week until Iowa voters officially kick off the 2024 campaign with the state's closely watched caucuses on the left. In North Liberty, Iowa, Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump's administration, meeting with voters after holding a campaign event there. You can hear her there.

And then on the right, not too far away in Davenport, Iowa, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will soon meet with voters there. President Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy are also holding events in Iowa today.

With me now, Alex Thompson, national political reporter for "Axios," and Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent for NPR. Great to see both of you, and happy New Year. Alex, you first.

ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "AXIOS": Happy New Year to you.

WHITFIELD: Thank you so much. Alex, you first. The former president is the clear frontrunner here. But if Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley is able to close the gap in any way significantly in the next nine days, what would a strong second place finish do for their campaigns as they move forward?

THOMPSON: It really depends which person gets second place. So if Ron DeSantis gets second place, this basically gives him another reason to go on. If he gets third place, he is going to have a lot of questions about whether or not he should drop out of this race. I also imagine that fundraising will become much more difficult. Now, if Nikki Haley gets second place, then she's also going to have an argument to try to push DeSantis out of the race and go into New Hampshire and really try to also maybe push Chris Christie out of the race and maybe surprise people and try to actually beat Donald Trump in New Hampshire.

[14:10:07]

Now, she's been -- some polls show her within 20 points there. But, also, I think it's going to be really fascinating, this last stretch, particularly this debate that's going to be on CNN on Wednesday night, because it's going to be the first time we're going to see Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley one-on-one. Nikki Haley has had a lot of very strong debate performances, but she struggled the last time. And it's going to be really interesting to see if Ron DeSantis can sort of blunt her momentum here.

WHITFIELD: And Domenico, this week Nikki Haley sparked criticism from her rivals after saying that New Hampshire voters would correct Iowa's results. Is it being received as a joke among Iowa voters?

DOMENICO MONTANARO, SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Well, this has been a long-going feud between Iowa and New Hampshire since they've both been in tandem since 1977 holding these sort of bifurcated early primary and early caucus, because the former governor of New Hampshire, John Sununu used to say that Iowa picks corn and New Hampshire picks presidents when it comes to Republican politics, because six of the last eight Republican nominees have won New Hampshire, only three of the last six have won in Iowa.

Now, never a good idea to offend the kind of people that you want voting for you, unless you've totally written the state off, which sometimes Republican candidates have done in past presidential elections. But I think Alex is right that if Nikki Haley is somehow able to leapfrog Ron DeSantis here, there's going to be a dropout watch for DeSantis. He's gone all in on Iowa, and if he's not able to finish a strong second place, something where he beats expectations, where Trump has had these huge historic margins in the polls where he's been leading by. If he's not able to close that gap, especially since Nikki Haley's super PAC that's been supporting her and her campaign together, when you look at what they've been spending, they've now surpassed in the last two or three weeks DeSantis and the two super PACs supporting him in who has been spending the most money. So the momentum is not on DeSantis's side. He really needs some good news out of Iowa.

WHITFIELD: And you know what, Alex, there's an interesting article in "The Washington Post" which is reporting today that former President Obama had, and he often meets with President Biden, they're close friends, and Biden apparently really respects his opinion on a number of things. But apparently, according to "The Post," they did have a meal at the White House and they talked about strategy for this reelection campaign and that the former president urged Biden to empower those already in place and to further consider, if not put kind of top administration people in Delaware at the reelection campaign.

What will happen here? I mean, how important is it? Because that kind of was the strategy of Obama, and he's essentially urging Biden to follow a similar framework in order to be reelected, because he's very concerned about Trump's stronghold on the GOP.

THOMPSON: Yes, it's fascinating reporting, especially -- they are friendly, and Biden does consult him for advice. But the fact is that Obama brought this up months ago and nothing has really changed. So there's also a little bit of a competition between these two. There always has been. It's very typical, the president-VP relationship. And that's why Biden always remembers back in 2015/2016, where all of Obama's allies and Obama himself really dissuaded him from running for president back then. So sometimes Barack Obama's advice to Joe Biden is sort of met with a bit of defensiveness, not just by President Biden, but the people around him who sometimes think that Obama has never completely appreciated President Biden's skills.

Now, what the advice Obama is saying is that right now all the senior leadership that is driving the campaign, they are all in the White House, basically doing two different jobs, and that the people in leadership in Wilmington, Delaware, are not empowered to make any decisions. This has created a bottleneck and indecisiveness on the campaign that has really not ramped up and is very far behind where Barack Obama's campaign was 10 years ago. And that is sort of the concern, that Obama feels there is not enough of a sense of urgency with Joe Biden's reelection campaign so far.

WHITFIELD: So Domenico, how much of a time crunch is this? If this is the recommendation now, or perhaps the urging now, maybe the recommendation came long ago, but the urging is happening now, is it too late, or is there enough time for the Biden reelection campaign to kind of rejigger things and uproot people at the White House to spend a little more time in Delaware where headquarters is?

[14:15:07]

MONTANARO: Yes, Democrats have spent about $50 million on TV ads so far. That number is going to exponentially explode over the next several months as we get closer to this general election campaign where President Biden does have the advantage of an incumbency to be able to try to win over these disparate factions within the Democratic Party that he's been lagging with, frankly, especially younger voters, non-white voters. People kind of forget that former President Obama was the first president since Eisenhower to win with 51 percent or more. This is twice. So to do that, you have to be a pretty good campaigner.

President Biden back then, when he became vice president, was put on the ticket because Obama needed an inside game player. And nobody doubts how good a job Joe Biden has done over the years when it comes to negotiations on Capitol Hill. But when it comes to being a campaigner nationally, to be inspirational and win over broad disparate factions within the party, if it wasn't for President Trump and him running against Trump, it's not really clear that Biden would have been elected. And certainly, when he ran on his own the last couple of times that he did, he didn't have the same lightning in a bottle effect that someone like Obama did.

So having someone like Obama around, who is young still, and who can get out on the campaign trail and energize really key groups is something that this White House is going to need. The campaign is going to use him and they're going to need to have him out across the country campaigning for Biden as one of the key surrogates.

WHITFIELD: Alex, shifting gears a little bit, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to now review the Colorado ruling that bars Trump from being on the state's 2024 ballot. I spoke with the Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold just last hour, and I want you to listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENA GRISWOLD, (D) COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE: I believe that Colorado Supreme Court got it right. Trump is an insurrectionist. He is disqualified under the United States Constitution. But that, also, the last word will be with the United States Supreme Court. And we look forward to oral arguments on February 8th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So, Alex, how important is that decision going to be, and how quickly do we expect it to come?

THOMPSON: I mean, obviously if you can throw a presidential candidate off a state ballot, it will have repercussions not just for Colorado, but across the country. You could see movements in swing states to throw off the ballot -- I also would expect, if that is true, you're going to see Republican states try to do the same thing to Joe Biden.

I think the more interesting thing to me is that this is just the first Supreme Court case that you're going to see in this election. There are already several other cases, mostly on the Donald Trump side of things, about presidential immunity, about whether or not some of the acts that were conducted on January 6th rise to the level of felony, other various appeals that are going through the system. The Supreme Court is going to be more involved in this presidential election than perhaps any in American history, and this is just the first case that they could be hearing.

WHITFIELD: All right, we'll leave it there for now.

MONTANARO: That's a pretty uncomfortable --

WHITFIELD: Go ahead, Domenico. Yes?

MONTANARO: I was going to say, that's a pretty uncomfortable place for Chief Justice John Roberts to be because he's not somebody who likes to wade into politics. So I would expect him to try to get something as close to unanimity on the Colorado case, on the Maine case if it does get there, and he's probably going to weigh in, I would expect, on more technical grounds, maybe the definition of an officer, as opposed to weighing in, in any way, on insurrection and whether the former president took part in that, because Roberts and the Supreme Court have generally leaned toward saying that people should have the opportunity to vote for the people who they want to be leaders, and leave the Supreme Court, for the most part, out of it, unless it needs to settle something controversial, which it clearly needs to do here.

WHITFIELD: All right, Domenico Montanaro, Alex Thompson, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with leaders in the Middle East amid growing fears that the war in Gaza will spread throughout the region. What we're learning about the escalating conflict next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:23:15]

WHITFIELD: The U.S. Supreme Court finds itself center stage in the 2024 presidential election as the justices consider if Donald Trump can be barred from holding office again. The implications here are massive, with the potential to alter the entire election.

Former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin is joining me live to discuss all of this. Happy New Year to you, Michael.

MICHAEL ZELDIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: And to you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: So Trump's campaign responded to last night's developments, saying it welcomes, a, quote, fair hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court. What does this case look like? And how can they render fairness if Trump appointed a third of the justices?

ZELDIN: Well, I think that the justices will not be persuaded by the fact that Donald Trump appointed them. In fact, his comments in Iowa yesterday that essentially these justices owe him, I think, is just completely unbecoming and it must actually upset them greatly. I think that they'll render their decisions based on the evidence that is before them, and that is a complicated set of questions that they have. Most profoundly is, does section 14 -- does Amendment 14, Section 3 apply to the office of the president? And if it does, does it begin without congressional legislation, non-self-executing, as we call it, or is it self-executing?

WHITFIELD: And these are the arguments that are scheduled to be made on February 8th. And then when that happens -- because we've already heard at least from Trump's attorneys that they don't believe that he was an officer. I mean, point blank, that's one of their big offramps there. But then how soon would the justices actually render a decision? Is it a matter of days, hours, knowing that the primary season is already under way?

[14:25:09]

ZELDIN: Yes, it's a great question. I expect that they are working already on these issues, that this is not coming to them unknown to them. They have arguments in early February, and I expect that we'll get a ruling out of them within about two weeks of that oral argument. That would be my hope.

Remember, the timeline here is really intense because these ballots have to go out very soon, the overseas ballots already will go out before the oral argument, and then the regular ballots have to go out essentially within a week or two of the arguments. And early voting starts in, I think, late February. So there's a huge timeline here that the court has to be mindful of.

WHITFIELD: They've got a schedule. Yes, it's a jam-packed schedule. The ballot schedule, let alone the former president's legal schedule, how they're going to coincide is going to be the biggest challenge, right?

So his appeal, the former president's appeal that the former president did not engage in an insurrection, so the insurrectionist ban wouldn't apply in his case. And even if he had, it's up to Congress, not the states, to enforce the 14th Amendment. Those are some of the arguments that he and his team are going to make. What stands out to you about that appeal?

ZELDIN: The question is, do they ever get to the question of, was this an insurrection, and if it was, did Trump engage in it? I think that they would like to try to decide this on the earlier questions of does it apply to the president, this Section 3, and if it does, do you need congressional enabling legislation to give it an effect. I think they would love to decide this in that early stage.

If they can't, they have to then ask the question, were these cases in Colorado and in Maine fundamentally fair, did Trump get a fair hearing, before they even get to insurrection. So I think they're going to try to figure this out on the federal side, does it apply, if it applies, how should it apply, and not get to the ultimate question of was an insurrection engaged in by the president.

WHITFIELD: Michael Zeldin, we'll leave it there for now. Thank you.

ZELDIN: Thanks, Fred.

WHITFIELD: That said with Michael Zeldin. Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

WHITFIELD: All right, appreciate it.

So as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the decision whether to remove Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado, CNN's Brian Todd looks at the 14th Amendment, which is at the heart of this case.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We did nothing wrong.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump has, again, put the United States in uncharted waters. Never before in American history has the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the so-called insurrectionist ban, been applied to a top presidential candidate. But then again, no American president has ever tried to overturn an election as Trump did. What is the 14th Amendment? PROF. STEPHEN VLADECK, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS LAW SCHOOL: This forward-

looking rule that if you have engaged in insurrection against the United States, you may not hold federal office unless two-thirds of both chambers of Congress say you can.

TODD: Specifically, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says "No person who has previously taken an oath to support the Constitution shall hold any office who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof." The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, another period of raw political turmoil.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Those Reconstruction Amendments in 1868 came about because our country was torn apart in the Civil War.

VLADECK: When Congress drafted Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, it was already worried about this problem of southern states that had been part of the Confederacy sending back to Washington officials who had fought for the Confederacy, officials who had been leaders in the Confederate government.

TODD: In 1870, Zebulon Vance, who had served in the Confederate army, was appointed as a Senator from North Carolina. But the Senate refused to seat him, citing the 14th Amendment. Vance later got amnesty and did end up serving in the Senate.

In the early 1900s, Victor Berger, a socialist from Wisconsin, was refused a seat in the House of Representatives twice after having been elected. His opposition to World War I had led him to be criminally charged with disloyal acts, and the House used the 14th Amendment to keep him out. He eventually got his conviction overturned and did serve in the House.

More recently, a county commissioner in New Mexico was removed from office in 2022 on 14th Amendment grounds because he actually was a convicted January 6th rioter. Now with the Supreme Court slated to take up the Colorado ruling and decide whether Trump can be on state ballots, it will be the first time since Bush versus Gore in 2000 that the Supreme Court will have weighed in on such an important matter in presidential politics.

BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: The country is much more divided now than it's ever been before. I mean, in a sense, if you're a Supreme Court justice, it makes Bush versus Gore look like a walk in the park.

[14:30:07]

TODD: Donald Trump has denied doing anything wrong on January 6th, and as of now he's not been convicted of any crime related to January 6th. But legal analyst Stephen Vladeck says at least one of those previous cases where Congress has denied seats to people based on the 14th Amendment is an indication you don't have to be convicted to be prevented from holding office under that amendment.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: And just moments ago, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked to reporters on a stop-over in Greece amid growing fears that the war in Gaza will spread throughout the region. Details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:35:04]

WHITFIELD: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken back in the Middle East as the U.S. races to prevent the war in Gaza from spreading through the region. After meeting with Turkish President Erdogan, Blinken will make stops in Israel, the West Bank, and Egypt, among others. And moments ago, he laid out the job ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: As we've seen from day one, we have an intense focus on preventing this conflict from spreading. And a big part of the conversations we'll be having over the coming days with all of our allies and partners is looking at the steps that they can take using the influence and ties they have to do just that, to make sure that this conflict doesn't spread.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Nic Robertson has more on Secretary Blinken's visit.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Fred, the number one message that Secretary Blinken will be bringing into all of his meetings is that the United States does not want to see an escalation of tensions in the region. He wants that message to be pushed towards Iran and to Iran's proxies. And this is perhaps most tense along the northern border of Israel at the moment. Hezbollah today saying they fired 62 missiles at a monitoring station in the north of Israel, a military monitoring station in the north of Israel in retaliation for the killing of Saleh al-Arouri, the Hamas leader in Beirut earlier on in the week. The Israelis say that they counted about 40 missiles incoming. They returned fire at what they described as a terror cell behind that attack.

The IDF watching right now to see if Hezbollah escalate beyond this. But at the moment, this attack doesn't seem as if it's going to trigger, go above a threshold, if you will, to escalate the situation. It has that potential, but it hasn't so far. And this, a big issue for Secretary Blinken, as I say, on all his stops. But when he gets here to Israel, the focus very much on that northern border, but on Gaza as well. He's going to want to hear details of how Israel plans to get from the military operations, scale down to a day-after scenario where they can be a new administration in Gaza.

But a couple of the issues he's going to push the Israelis on is better and more humanitarian access, food, water, medical supplies, not only just getting additional trucks containing that aid into Gaza, but making sure it gets dispersed around Gaza to the population, particularly in the north. And, also, he's going to want to see the civilians in Gaza allowed to get back to their homes. He's also going to want to make sure that civilians, the safety of civilians is prioritized. The feeling in the United States at the moment is that Israel isn't going far enough to protect civilians.

So these are going to be big issues. Also, he's going to want to push to get the release of the hostages who are still being held there. And, again, that northern border of Israel, he's going to want to see that that is not going to escalate at this time, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Nic Robertson in Tel Aviv, thank you.

Outrage in the Taylor Swift camp this weekend. Ahead, "The New York Times" opinion piece speculating about her sexuality. The story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:42:42]

WHITFIELD: The center of the Republican political universe is in Iowa this weekend, where the candidates who are hoping to go head-to-head with President Biden this November have descended on the state ahead of the January 15th Iowa caucuses. Donald Trump has a commanding lead in Iowa, and some caucus goers are now urging his rivals to step up their attacks on the former president. But earlier today Nikki Haley resisted that plea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For those that want me to hit Trump more, I just am not going to do it. I told you, I'm not going to do it.

(APPLAUSE)

HALEY: If he lies about me, I'll call him out on it. If he's done something wrong, whether it's the economy or how he talks about dictators and those things, I'll call him out on every one of those issues. But I just think politics is personal enough, and I think let's focus on the issues and getting America back on track.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: But Governor Ron DeSantis is hitting Trump over his campaign pledges, saying Trump may talk tough on the trail, but doesn't necessarily come through once elected.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA: The problem is, he's now running in 2024 promising to do the exact same thing he promised in 16 and didn't deliver on. And it's, like, OK, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me for this. So with me, any time I tell you I'm going to do something, I am going

to follow through with it. You can take it to the bank. This isn't just a show for me. I'm not just doing it for entertainment. I'm doing it because these things matter for the future of our country. We need to have victories again. We need to go up and actually get the job done. And I will be the one to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: DeSantis also attacked Trump for not attending debates, saying the former president will eventually have to answer questions about the issues.

So it's been 15 years since the "Miracle on the Hudson," the emergency landing on New York's Hudson River. Well, tomorrow on "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper", how the flight changed the lives of Captain "Sully" Sullenberger, the passengers, and the crew. Here is a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the 208 seconds that we had from the time we hit the birds until we had landed, I knew I had to take at least a few seconds of that time to make an announcement to the cabin, to tell the flight attendants and the passengers that we're going to make an emergency landing.

[14:45:11]

I said, this is the captain, brace for impact. I could hear the flight attendants in the front begin shouting their commands to passengers in unison -- brace, brace, brace, heads down, stay down -- over and over again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I sent my husband Steve a text message that was just one sentence, that said "My flight is crashing," period. And as I was typing it, my seat mate, he said put that up. He said you're out of time. And that's a sentence that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was, like, really, God? At 37 I'm out of time? I'm not going to be the mother of the bride. I'm not going to see my youngest son hit his first homerun. I'm not a perfect mother, but I'm their mother. And to think that I wouldn't finish raising them was pretty hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Don't miss the whole story, the legacy of the "Miracle on the Hudson." That's tomorrow night at 8:00 right here on CNN.

All right, the Taylor Swift camp is seeing red this weekend after a "New York Times" opinion piece speculating about her sexuality. That story next.

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[14:50:53]

WHITFIELD: All right, a new opinion piece in "The New York Times" speculates that Taylor Swift may be a closeted queer person, and in the piece editor Anna Marks points to possible LGBTQIA+ references in Taylor Swift's songs and performances as a signal of queerness. However, Swift has said in the past that she does not identify with that community. Some have found it unusual that "The New York Times" would publish such an article.

CNN's Oliver Darcy joins us live with more details on this. Oliver, I mean, how unusual is it for "The New York Times" to publish this piece? It's something you wrote about in analyzing why "The New York Times" went here.

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: It's very unusual. I mean, you do not see major news organizations like "The New York Times" publishing lengthy -- this was a 5,000-word opinion piece questioning the sexuality of someone, nevertheless the sexuality of someone like Taylor Swift, a prominent, obviously cultural force. But that's what they did this week. They published the story in the opinion section questioning her sexuality, even though Taylor Swift in the past has come out and said that she is a straight ally of the LGBTQ community, that she is just trying to show support as they've come under attack in recent years.

And so that's what's led to a lot of criticism of "The New York Times," including from some of the singer's associates. I have learned they are not pleased, to say the least, with "The New York Times." One of the associates telling me, quote, "Because of her massive success, in this moment there is a Taylor Swift shaped hole in people's ethics. This article wouldn't have been allowed to be written about Shawn Mendes or any male artist whose sexuality has been questioned by fans. There seems to be no boundary some journalists won't cross when writing about Taylor, regardless of how invasive, untrue, and inappropriate it is, all under the protective veil of "opinion piece." That's from one of the people close to the situation over in Taylor Swift's camp.

Now, "The New York Times" is not commenting, they're not directly responding to some of this criticism. But they have pointed to what Anna Marks, the editor who wrote this piece, actually wrote in her piece preemptively addressing some of the criticism. Marks wrote, quote, "I know that discussing the potential of a star's queerness before a formal declaration of identity feels to some too salacious and gossip-fueled to be worthy of discussion. I share many of those reservations," Marks wrote. "But the stories that dominate our collective imagination, shape our culture, permits artists and their audiences to say and be, every time an artist signals queerness and that transmission falls on deaf ears, the signal dies." And it goes on to say "Recognizing the possibility of queerness while being conscious of the difference between possibility and certainty keeps that signal alive."

Now, obviously, associates close to Taylor Swift don't feel that's justification for publishing this lengthy piece, and now it appears there's some bad blood between them and the paper of record, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Well, "The New York Times," as you mentioned, while Anna Marks has responded, "The New York Times" almost has to, doesn't it? Because there is criteria measured as to what should be published. This is "The New York Times," after all. So there has to be that kind of explanation as to why, how beneficial, what's the objective here. And then for the writer as well, the question still remains, why? What does this mean? And what is the objective here in publishing something like this?

DARCY: Yes, and "The Times" right now, they're staying silent. They have not addressed this. You're not seeing an editorial leader like the head of the opinion section come out and justify why they felt they needed to publish this story, why they felt it was news worthy enough to really break general rules and questioning someone's sexuality and speculating about it in "The New York Times." "The New York Times" is the paper of record, and so usually their standards are a lot higher than other news organizations.

[14:55:08]

In this case, they did something most news organizations would not do, but they're not defending it. They're just pointing right now to what Marks wrote, what I just read to you, defending the reason for publishing that story. Of course, it will be intriguing in the days ahead whether they do feel the need to respond more directly, especially now that they're fielding criticism from Taylor Swift's associates.

WHITFIELD: And I've been reading it, I'm trying to figure out what the meaning is here, because it does seem like it's mean. I mean, it just seems like there is an objective to undermine or even using what it is -- this association as a criticism, as demeaning. And that just seems like that would be met with a whole host of emotions as well.

DARCY: Yes, and you're not the only one that's read it and come away with that. "The Times" has been receiving criticism for this piece just exactly because of that. And again, it will be interesting to see whether they do respond to some of this criticism. It's not every day that you have people in the orbit of someone like Taylor Swift criticizing "The Times" so sharply.

WHITFIELD: All right, Oliver Darcy, let us know when you hear more. Thank you so much.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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WHITFIELD: OK, one of the most iconic characters in the world is now in the public domain. Mickey Mouse, as seen in this 1928 Disney cartoon "Steamboat Willie," is now open for public use for the first time. But there are a few caveats.

Joining us right now, Jennifer Jenkins, she's the director at the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University. Jennifer, great to see you. So help us understand, what is this all about? What can and can't be done with this version of Mickey Mouse? JENNIFER JENKINS, CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF LAW: Thanks so much for having

me and for your interest in this story.

So what can you do? You can start your creative engines and you can use those early versions of not only Mickey, but also Minnie Mouse in your own creations. But you mentioned the word "caveat," and as a lawyer, I'm here to give you some caveats. So the first caveat is that you can't use copyrightable features of later iterations of Mickey Mouse from films that are still under copyright. So it's not time to put "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" Mickey in your film.

And the second caveat is that Disney still owns trademarks to the image of "Steamboat Willie" as it's being used as a logo. But the important thing is, even though copyrights automatically expire and trademarks don't, trademarks only prevent you from using that image of Mickey Mouse in a way that misleads consumers about where their products or services come from. So, so long as someone is seeing your new Mickey cartoon or you're new Mickey story does not think that it's produced or sponsored by Disney and knows that you're the one putting it out there, then there shouldn't be a trademark problem.

WHITFIELD: So if Disney doesn't like the way in which this character is used, what does the road ahead mean now? Can it file a lawsuit against someone or some entity as a result, or does this now kind of open up interpretation of what can and can't be done with this image?

JENKINS: It opens up interpretations. The copyright has expired, so Disney cannot file a copyright lawsuit. But if you think about it, yes, this is momentous in one sense. But in another sense, Mickey Mouse is just joining a host of characters in the public domain that we're all familiar with. Romeo and Juliet have always been in the public domain, Helen of Troy and the character from Greek mythology have always been in the public domain. Pinocchio, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Santa Claus, all of these are familiar public domain characters that people have been putting in their own stories and reimagining for years. And so Mickey and Minnie are just joining that cast of characters.

WHITFIELD: This is a character known world over. How big of a moment is this American copyright law?

JENKINS: Well, the fact that we're talking about it, it's bigger than I had realized.

(LAUGHTER)

JENKINS: But it's a big moment. It's a big moment not only because Mickey is known the world over, but because it's a deeply symbolic moment for copyright in the public domain. I describe it as the culmination of a 95-year love triangle between Disney, Mickey, and the public domain.