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Planes Grounded After Midair Accident; Israel-Hamas War; 2024 Primary Season. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired January 07, 2024 - 03:00   ET

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

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[03:00:00]

LAILA HARRAK, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from the United States and all around the world. I'm Laila Harrak.

Planes are grounded, flights are canceled after a terrifying midair accident forced a Boeing 737 MAX to make an emergency landing.

Israel says it's ready for any possible threat, even as Washington's top diplomat shuttles through the region hoping to prevent a wider war.

Plus, we're just days away from the start of the 2024 primaries and the first verdict from the voters on the presidential candidates.

It's any air passengers' nightmare. A hull burst suddenly in the side of your plane while you're traveling far above the surface of the Earth. And that's what happened on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. A piece of the plane called a door plug came off shortly after takeoff on Friday, leaving a hole and causing the cabin to rapidly depressurize.

Incredibly, the craft landed safely with only minor injuries among 177 passengers and crew. While now most of the world's Boeing 737 MAX 9s are grounded and the U.S. National Transportation Board is investigating.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER HOMENDY, CHAIR, U.S. NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: We have the safest aviation system in the world. It is incredibly safe. We are the global gold standard for safety around the world but we have to maintain that standard. We are very, very fortunate here that this didn't end up in something more tragic. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: Well, the NTSB is asking for the public's help locating the door plug that came off the plane.

Alan Diehl is a former accident investigator for the NTSB, FAA and U.S. Air Force, and the author of Air Safety Investigators, and he joins us now from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sir, thank you so much for your time. You know, what's so mystifying is that this plane was basically -- not basically, but was brand new, lost a chunk of its body. I mean, that's anyone's worst nightmare. Has it ever happened before, or is it rare for something like this to occur?

ALAN DIEHL, FORMER ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR FOR NTSB, FAA AND U.S. AIR FORCE: Well, in terms of this type of plug door, it's been around since 1996 on predecessor 737s. I don't think there's a long history of failure, but, yes, you do seem to have failures when planes are brand new and when they get very old.

So, it's not surprising. And there was some talk about the fact that they were having problems pressurizing this aircraft. This particular vehicle apparently may have had some kind of leak. Now, the NTSB will have to carefully determine whether or not this leak was around that plug door or not.

That door can be opened by mechanics from the outside. Obviously, it's not intended to be opened from the inside, but we were sure lucky that this happened at a lower altitude and nobody was sitting in the two seats directly adjacent to that plug door.

HARRAK: Yes, that is a really lucky break indeed. Safety regulators are now trying to unravel what went wrong. You mentioned one of the things that they'll be looking at. Are there other things they'll be trying to investigate?

DIEHL: Well, absolutely. They will take a very careful look at this particular. That's why they want to find the missing door. And I thought the chair did a great job of asking the public to look for it. And she didn't say this, but we sometimes tell people, do not move it, do not bring it to the NTSB. Leave it in place. And photograph it. Call the police. They'll call the board. But in any case, they want to find the complete picture. And to do that, the missing piece of the puzzle is that door that was ejected.

Now, they know approximately where it went down, they think. So, I think they'll have that. (INAUDIBLE) how was it manufactured?

[03:05:00]

I've talked about a leak in the aircraft after it was delivered to Alaska. But this aircraft was -- that fuselage, rather, and door was made in Wichita, Kansas, by an outfit called Spirit. It used to be part of Boeing. It's a subcontractor now. So, they'll want to go back and look at the assembly process and the parts.

Every once in a while, so-called bogus parts sneak into the inventory. These are parts that aren't FAA-certified. I'm not suggesting that happen here. But the NTSB is very methodical, and they eliminate everything that didn't happen so they can focus on what did happen.

So, this is going to be perhaps weeks, months and maybe a year or so before the final report is issued. But if they find anything significant, they'll immediately educate and announce to the airlines, the FAA and the world what they found. So, not to worry, people shouldn't panic. I wouldn't be afraid to get on a 737 MAX tomorrow because they're going to thoroughly look at these aircraft. I know the secretary of transportation, the FAA, has pushed that agenda forward with an emergency airworthiness directive, which requires inspection. So, this is going to be a process that will take days, maybe weeks, but we got to keep in mind this is a very safe system.

HARRAK: Safe system. I mean, but how will this event now affect Boeing's Max aircraft, which already, as you know, has a troubled history?

DIEHL: Well, of course, we both remember the terrible, catastrophic losses of the -8, a slightly different version of this aircraft. This was a -nine that had the door problem. But I think it may affect stock prices, and who knows. Some passengers may be nervous. But I think Boeing will recover. They have a long history of engineering excellence.

Now, a lot of people point out in recent years, they've become very financially driven. And a lot of people thought that the 737 MAX should have been replaced with a new so-called clean sheet design. But in the deregulated airline and manufacturing world, bottom line is everything.

HARRAK: Well, there are 215 Boeing jets, 737 MAX 9 aircraft operating around the world, according to aviation data firm, Sirium. They are run by multiple operators, including Alaska Airlines, of course, but also United Airlines, Aeromexico, Iceland Air, and fly Dubai, just to name a few.

Going to turn our attention now to the Mideast, Israel facing more pressure on its northern border as it marks three months since Hamas launched its brutal attack on the country. On Saturday, Hezbollah said it fired a barrage of rockets from Lebanon at an Israeli surveillance post near the border. The group says that was its initial response to the recent killing of a senior Hamas leader in Beirut. But Israel says it struck back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADM. DANIEL HAGARI, ISRAELI ARMY SPOKESPERSON: Hezbollah and the role it has taken as Hamas' defender fired toward military bases in the north. We suffered no casualties. We killed the squads that had fired at Israel and struck a series of targets, including significant military targets of the group. We continue to be highly prepared in the north.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: Well, meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel's offensive in Gaza will not stop until its main objectives are achieved. Sunday is the three-month mark since Hamas launched its raid into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages. The top U.S. diplomat is pressing ahead with his whistle stop tour in the region, aiming to prevent the war from spreading. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken holding talks in Jordan right now before flying to Qatar and the UAE later in the day. Well, that's on the heels of his visit to Turkey and Greece on Saturday.

Nic Robertson has more.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, one of the principal messages that Secretary Blinken is bringing into all his meetings in the region is that the United States does not want to see an escalation of tensions in the region. This is something that he hopes is communicated from his meetings through to the Iranian leadership and through to Iran's proxies as well.

And the day that he arrived into the region, Hezbollah retaliated for that killing of a Hamas leader in Beirut earlier on in the week. They say, in response to that, they fired 62 missiles from Lebanon into the north of Israel to a military observation post in the top of a mountain.

[03:10:00]

Now, the IDF said they counted about 40 incoming missiles and that they responded hitting the terror cell, they say, that was responsible for that attack.

The question now, does that lead to a further escalation? The hope, of course, is not. And that attack by Hezbollah at least doesn't seem to have crossed a threshold, calling for a much bigger response from Israel. But when Secretary Blinken gets here to Israel, top of the agenda is going to be the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

He's going to want to push to get more humanitarian supplies in there, water, food, medical supplies to make sure it can reach all the population. He's going to want to push for more safety and security for the civilian population in Gaza and that they be allowed to go back to their homes. He's going to push to get more of the hostages, all of the hostages released if possible, and he's going to drill down on detour (ph) with Israeli leadership on their day after scenario, how they see the situation in Gaza evolving after the military threat has gone.

The details that the Israeli government, the defense minister has put out so far are relatively thin and indicate that the United States, backed by European partners, regional partners here, would be sort of leading the humanitarian reconstruction focus in Gaza, a lot of other unanswered questions, as Secretary Blinken very likely to want to dive into.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Tel Aviv, Israel.

HARRAK: Well, earlier, I spoke with H.A. Hellyer, he's a senior associate fellow in international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute. And I asked him about what, if anything, diplomats are thinking about Gaza's future after the war. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

H.A. HELLYER, SENIOR ASSOCIATE FELLOW IN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES, RUSI: The efforts for bringing this conflict to an end, have sort of skipped the end of it, as it were, and are trying to look beyond. I think this is entirely regrettable, quite frankly, because it's very clear that in terms of Israel's plans for moving forward, they don't really see much need to think about the day after, and they are far more intent on prosecuting the war, and they are very clear that in spite of international public opinion demanding a ceasefire as a result of so many civilian casualties in Gaza as a result of the Israeli strikes, they will not listen unless the United States engages in a far more serious fashion.

And what we've seen so far is this shuttle diplomacy, but also an awareness on the Israeli side that the United States won't do more than simply talk. There's no suggestion, for example, that there will be the halting of arms, or the reduction of aid, or anything that is substantive enough that will hold the Israelis back from not only prosecuting this war further in Gaza but also risking the regionalization of it and the spreading of it to places like Lebanon and elsewhere. And this is incredibly dangerous for regional security.

HARRAK: Incredibly dangerous for regional security. I mean, in the meantime, we're all watching desperate scenes play out in Gaza, a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, starvation and disease rampant. Yet, you know, this does now mean there are no tools to stop the war.

HELLYER: So, there are many tools. This is the irony of the situation. While the Israelis are ignoring the United Nations and other international organizations and, you know, resounding public opinion worldwide, including within a lot of the United States, there is a country that has the ability to hold the Israelis back and has many points of leverage with which to use, and that is the United States.

However, the Biden administration has been very clear, especially from the very top, that it doesn't really intend to do that. Instead, it will issue these statements to engage in a shot to diplomacy. But when you compare what the United States has done previously in other conflicts in the 1980s and so on with the Israelis, where they engaged much more heavily, but with leverage that the Israelis respected took seriously, and as a result, corrected their behavior or deviated from their plans.

At the moment, that simply isn't the case. And as a result, the Israelis have become more reckless, especially in the past few weeks. And I think that's very regrettable and dangerous.

HARRAK: So, what do you think is the point of Secretary of State Blinken's now fourth tour of the region? I mean, will it make any difference?

HELLYER: I hope so. I mean, it's very clear D.C. doesn't want this to be regionalized. They don't want Israel to engage in a war with Hezbollah that will simply bring about yet more destruction and instability in the region.

[03:15:00]

They don't want, for example, the territory of Gaza to be reduced by the Israelis implementing, quote-unquote, security zones. They don't want the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into Sinai and elsewhere, which is what many Israeli officials have been talking about for months now. They don't want any of that. The question is what they're going actually do about it. And if the Israelis take seriously that they're going to do something about it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: Well, there are about 2 million people living in Gaza, and the United Nations says about 90 percent of them have been forced to flee their homes by the war. And those people are living lives where hope has never been more elusive.

That's according to the United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Office. In his latest report, the office's undersecretary general says Gaza is now a, quote, place of death and despair with famine around the corner. People are starving, infectious diseases spreading in shelters, women giving birth in chaotic situations. He says, Gaza has, quote, simply become uninhabitable.

While some of the casualties of Israel's war on Hamas are historic sites and priceless landmarks in Gaza, churches, mosques and other cultural institutions, some of which have been around for thousands of years, are now reduced to dust and rubble.

Nada Bashir shows us what has been lost.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER (voice over): They were cultural treasures and hubs of the community in Gaza. Now, they lay in ruins. Like Palmyra in Syria or the ancient city of Nimrod in Iraq, victims of war.

These pictures show the St. Porphyrios Church, one of the oldest in the world, before Israel's assault began three months ago. This is what it looks like now after an Israeli airstrike in October.

HABIB SILAS, ST. PORPHYRIOS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH: What's the reason why we asking from God to bring the peace in the area? Our roots are here. We are here 2,000 years and we are not going to live. We'll stay here. We'll continue our life.

BASHIR: The church's father, Habib Silas, says 17 people died in the strike on the compound where people were taking shelter. Israel says it was, quote, collateral damage and wasn't the intended target.

But it's not the only historic site to have been destroyed. The grand mosque in Gaza has history that is said to date back to the time of the Philistines and has spent time as both a temple and a church before becoming a mosque. Today, all that remains standing is the minaret, its library with historic manuscripts largely lost.

ISBER SABRINE, PRESIDENT, HERITAGE FOR PEACE: The mosque itself, we can say it's a symbol of the people and it's a symbol of the daily cultural life in Gaza. So, unfortunately, with this lost, the people in Gaza, they lost a very important symbol of their identity and of their, as well, city.

BASHIR: And it's not just places of worship. This bathhouse, said to have been built in the 14th century, has been in the hands of the same family for generations, destroyed in an instant. The Israeli military saying it was targeting a Hamas terrorist squad.

Whenever this war ends and reconstruction begins, one thing is for sure, so much of Gaza's history now lies in rubble.

Nada Bashir, CNN in Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: Ukraine says, Russia's latest attack targeted homes and residential buildings, leaving some people trapped under the rubble. We'll get a live report after the break.

And recently released video from the violent insurrection of January 6th brings you inside those intense confrontations.

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[03:20:00]

HARRAK: Ukraine says crews have been searching through the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings for any survivors after Russian missiles hit the Donetsk region on Saturday. Officials say at least 1 man has been rescued so far, but 11 people were killed, including 5 children and 8 others wounded.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered condolences to the families who lost loved ones and warned Russia that there will be consequences for these attacks.

Joining us now is CNN's Barbie Nadeau, who's tracking developments for you. Barbie, what more can you tell us about these latest attacks?

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN REPORTER: Well, what we know is that these attacks hit three private homes or these 11 people, at least 11 people, including 5 children, died. They're still searching through the rubble for more survivors, as you mentioned, finding one person so far alive in that rubble.

And these consequences that Zelenskyy promised Russia for attacks like this sort of falling on deaf ears because, of course, January 7th is when Russia, Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas. We know that on Saturday night, Russian President Putin celebrated Christmas with families of Russian military people who lost someone during, during the war. And there'll be celebrations again today, Sunday on January 7th.

It's worth noting that Ukraine before the war also celebrated Christmas in line with the Russian Orthodox Church. But since Russia's invasion in Ukraine, they've changed that. They celebrated March, I was going to say, celebrations in Ukraine, but they marked the Christmas holiday on December 25th in line with the rest of the west. Laila?

HARRAK: Barbara Nadeau reporting, thank you so much.

Now Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hailing his nation's latest achievement in space as an extraordinary feat. India's solar observatory has just reached its intended position, an orbit in outer space with a clear view of the sun.

[03:25:04]

While it launched in early September on a five-year mission, it's packed with instruments to study the sun, including how solar winds and flares affect the Earth.

While the mission follows, India's landmark mission to the moon last year, becoming the fourth country to make a soft landing of a probe on the lunar surface, and the first to land closer to the lunar south pole than any other spacecraft. great stuff.

The U.S. National Weather Service says a tornado has touched down in South Florida the first of the New Year. Onlookers reacted to the twister they saw up close in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: Well, the city's fire department says it happened just before 6:00 P.M. local time near the intra-coastal waterway. Officials say no one was hurt and no structures had significant damages.

While meantime in Connecticut, transportation officials are bracing for heavy snow to come their way. 600 pieces of snow-removal equipment are in place for the storm that's expected to hit this weekend, and that's as New York City and Philadelphia are already getting some snowflakes as of Saturday afternoon.

Just ahead, we'll discuss America's current political landscape as Republicans campaign in Iowa and the U.S. marks another January 6th Capitol Riot anniversary.

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HARRAK: Welcome back to our viewers all around the world. I'm Laila Harrak and you're watching CNN Newsroom.

Three years after the U.S. Capitol was stormed, we have dramatic new footage of rioters confronting members of Congress during the January 6th insurrection.

[03:30:07]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's wrong with you? Are you --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We got kids from fighting for today, America is my son. You better watch out, boy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: In this alarming footage released by the Justice Department, you see rioters harassing two Republican lawmakers through cracks in the entrance to the House chamber. This video is notable as the targets of this hostility are Republican. However, many Republican members of Congress continue to downplay the riot, and those same rioters still have an ally in Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You have the hostages, the J6 hostages, I call them. Nobody's been treated ever in history so badly as those people.

But those J6 hostages going to jail for 20 years and 18 years, and it will go down as one of the saddest things in the history of our country.

By the way, there was Antifa and there was FBI. There were a lot of other people there, too, leading the charge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: Well, Donald Trump made those comments campaigning in Iowa on Friday.

Also working the campaign trail in the final days before the Iowa caucuses was Trump's primary opponent, Nikki Haley, who attended a rally Saturday, while Ron DeSantis continued his own tour through the states.

Here is Alayna Treene with more on how these candidates are making their final pitches.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Former President Donald Trump crisscrossed the state of Iowa this weekend and really tried to deliver his closing arguments to Iowa voters in the lead up to the January 15th caucuses.

And one of the main goals of the speech was not just to talk about the primary, but to look ahead to a potential general election rematch with Joe Biden. And a key part of that was responding to a speech that Biden gave on Friday where he accused Donald Trump of being a threat to American democracy. Trump, as we've seen him do time and time again, try to flip the script and argue that Biden is actually the threat to democracy, and pointed to the series of indictments that he is facing as proof of his argument.

Now, Trump also spent a lot of time this week in attacking Nikki Haley, something that's really interesting. As someone who has covered the Trump campaign for quite a bit, I can tell you that these are some of the sharpest attacks we've heard from Donald Trump on the campaign trail so far. Trump argued that Nikki Haley is in the pocket of Biden donors and also tried to paint her as an establishment figure.

Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: People who fund Nikki Haley and Ron aren't working for your interests. They're working for the interests of other nations and themselves, and so are those two. Nikki would sell you out just like she sold me out. I mean, I'll never run against him. He was a great president. Why would I run?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, I think the context of these Haley attacks is really important to note. We see that Nikki Haley is rising in the polls in New Hampshire. It's something that Donald Trump's team is very carefully watching as well.

And I think that it also comes as he's spending a lot of money as well as not only the campaign, but also his leading PAC are pouring millions of dollars into attacking Nikki Haley in New Hampshire. And so I think we're going to continue to see him train that fire on her in the weeks to come.

Alayna Treene, CNN, Newton, Iowa.

HARRAK: Joining us now is CNN's Senior Political Analyst and Senior Editor of The Atlantic Ron Brownstein. So good to have you with us, Ron, and thanks for being with us. Good evening.

Let's look ahead to the Iowa caucuses just a week away. What can we expect?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, the last three Iowa caucus winners did not win the Republican nomination. And Ron DeSantis has essentially followed a very similar strategy that they did, heavy local campaigning, real focus on mobilizing evangelical Christians. But that has not dented what has been a steady 30-point advantage for Donald Trump, who is in position to really push DeSantis, I think, to the edge of the race here and set up New Hampshire as the more viable opportunity for someone to emerge as an alternative to him.

Nikki Haley looks stronger in New Hampshire than DeSantis does in Iowa. But all indications are that Trump is in position to do much better in Iowa than he did last time, and to really call into question the viability of the DeSantis campaign since he's put basically all of his eggs in this one basket.

HARRAK: And we just kicked off the New Year, 2024, pivotal year for American politics.

[03:35:00]

President Joe Biden and Donald Trump kicked off the election year with the dueling speeches, a lot of recriminations. Talk to us about that.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well, look, I mean, Biden, his speech on Friday, on the three-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, really goes to the heart of his campaign. He's facing a lot of discontent three years into his presidency over the economy, over immigration, over crime, although the crime statistics are moving in the right direction, and a lot of doubts about whether he is too old for the job.

And in the face of all that, in many ways, the most important asset for Democrats in 2024 is that we have seen over the last three elections a powerful coalition of Americans who are reluctant to turn over the country to Trump's vision of what America should be, no matter how discontented they are with Biden or other Democrats.

And Biden underscored the historic threat to democracy that Trump has presented since the, really, you know, throughout -- at parts during his presidency, but certainly since the November election in 2020. Trump, you know, in his speech tried to turn it around and say, well, Biden is the real threat to democracy because he is trying to throw me off the ballot. And there's no indication that the White House is behind those state efforts and that he is, you know, pursuing prosecutions against me.

You know, Trump has been able to make all of this work for him, as you know, Laila, in the context of a Republican primary. Republican voters have basically bought his argument that he is being targeted as an attempt to silence them. But the polling, I think, is very clear that in a general election, the story could be very different, particularly if he is convicted on any of the serious charges that he is facing.

So, in many ways, it is a presidential election defined by the vulnerabilities more than the strengths of the two likely protagonists. But as we saw in 2022, even voters who are unhappy with the way things are going in the country have been more willing to stick with Democrats than we've seen in the past because of their concerns about Trump.

HARRAK: Now, the specter of January 6th looms large over this election. We just marked the third anniversary of January 6th. What would you say is the state of U.S. democracy today as we head into this election year? What lessons have been learned? And how vulnerable is the situation today as we kick off 2024 presidential elections?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, I think Trump has created a situation that we have not seen since the years before the Civil War. I believe that this is the first time since the Democratic Party of the 1840s and 1850s was dominated by the south, that the dominant faction in one of our two major parties is no longer committed to democracy, as we have understood it.

I think Trump, in ways large and small, has shown that he is willing to shred American democracy if that's what it takes to achieve power. And a substantial portion of his party is willing to let him do it.

But in polling, pretty clearly, a majority of the country is not in that camp. And even a substantial minority of Republicans, somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of Republicans in polling consistently say they understood what happened after the election in 2020 was wrong and dangerous. So far, they are sticking with Trump, and that's really what makes him electorally viable.

But as I said, despite the substantial discontent, the very real discontent with Biden's performance and the doubts about whether he's too old to do the job for another four years, a lot of voters in that camp still view Trump as a threat to their values, their rights and to democracy itself. And so we are headed for just kind of an unprecedented situation.

I will say that as a long-term proposition, American democracy will not be stable if only one party is willing to stand up for it, because in a two-party system, there is never going to be possible for one party to win all of the time.

And if the Republicans who say that they do want to defend democracy, as we have known it, are not willing to stand up more to Trump, when he threatens it, we are in for some really rocky road ahead.

HARRAK: Ron Brownstein, as always, thank you so much for your thoughts.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

HARRAK: And still to come, voters in Bangladesh are casting their votes in the country's general election that's marred by violence and opposition boycott. We'll have a live update next.

[03:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRAK: Well, now to Bangladesh, where voting is well underway in the country's general election that many critics say is one-sided. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling party is expected to win a fourth straight term. The main opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is boycotting the polls after the prime minister ignored calls for her resignation.

CNN's Vedika Sud joins us now live from New Delhi with the latest. Vedika, why are these elections described as controversial?

VEDIKA SUD, CNN REPORTER: Well, because there's little doubt at this point on election day that Sheikh Hasina will secure a fourth consecutive term as the prime minister of Bangladesh, which will be the fifth in office for her. And this is essentially because the BNP, the main opposition party, is boycotting the general election, and they've asked the people of Bangladesh to boycott it as well.

There have been a lot of instances of violence in the lead up to this election, Laila, and one of the reasons for that is that the main opposition party, along with critics in Bangladesh and outside, have continuously and repeatedly alleged that there has been poll rigging in the past, and that is their fear this time over as well, so much so that the main opposition party a couple of months back demanded that Sheikh Hasina steps aside as prime minister and lets a caretaker government take charge of this national election, a demand that she had rejected.

That led to massive protests on the roads. It led to a crackdown by the incumbent government led by Sheikh Hasina. The main opposition party has alleged that the freedom of speech has been stifled under her for years. And a lot of their leaders, in fact, they claim thousands of their leaders have been arrested in the crackdown just ahead of the national election.

Now this question was put to Sheikh Hasina by the media earlier today on the credibility of this election. Here's what the prime minister of Bangladesh had to say.

[03:45:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHEIKH HASINA, BANGLADESHI PRIME MINISTER: I have to prove credibility, right, to whom, to whom, a terrorist party, a terrorist organization? No, I have my accountability to people, to the people, whether people accepted it or not, whether they have accepted this election or not, that is important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SUD: She was calling the main opposition party there a terrorist organization.

There's been a bloodbath over the years between these two main opposition parties, and it's a country that's essentially been losing out because of the political tensions between the main opposition party and Sheikh Hasina's party.

Now, Sheikh Hasina has been credited over the last 15 years for turning around the economy, for bringing the garment industry to center stage in terms of being the second largest garment industry in the world. But she's also been criticized for her authoritarianism, for stifling democracy, for stifling free speech, and in this case, the crackdown that Bangladesh has seen when it comes to critics taking on the government.

Now, the big question here is what's really going to suffer at the end of this. Is it going to be once again the democracy of Bangladesh, as the critics continue to say, is turning into a one state party and a one state country? Back to you.

HARRAK: Vedika Sud reporting, thank you very much.

And coming up, we speak to a kid from Oklahoma who made history, managed to do that what no human had done before. His incredible feat ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:50:00]

HARRAK: The White House says that President Joe Biden and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin shared a warm conversation Saturday after Mr. Biden was caught unaware that Mr. Austin had spent days in hospital.

A source says Mr. Biden was informed Thursday of Lloyd Austin's hospitalization by his national security adviser three days after the general was admitted. Mr. Austin sought treatment on New Year's Day following complications from an elective surgery.

Five days later, the secretary released a statement addressing his lack of transparency with the public. Mr. Austin said that he, quote, could have done a better job. And he also says he's on the mend.

They said it was impossible, but after 34 years, someone has finally beaten Tetris on the Nintendo Entertainment System. And to make it even more remarkable, it was this 13-year-old boy.

It took Willis Gibson 38 minutes to reach a level no human has ever reached before. And just look at that reaction and to play the game until it glitched out and hit its kill screen so far. The only other player to beat the game was A.I., which got to level 236 by manipulating the game parameters.

And I got to speak to the legend himself.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: Willis Gibson and his mom, Karin Cox, are with me now.

Willis, you did what no one else has. You beat the original Tetris. Congratulations on your achievement. How does it feel to be the very first person to crash the original Tetris?

WILLIS GIBSON, TETRIS CHAMPION: It feels very good. I never expected to do this, so it's pretty cool.

HARRAK: It is pretty cool. It's beyond cool. It's awesome. We do understand that, in the meantime, two other players who took part in the race to crash have officially crashed the game as well, I understand. Does that raised the stakes for you?

GIBSON: A little bit, yes.

HARRAK: So, that's going to be a nice challenge for you. So, listen, can you explain to somebody like myself who's been living under a rock, what is a Tetris kill screen?

GIBSON: What it is is when you play for so long that the game just can't handle it anymore and it just stops. It crashes.

HARRAK: And that's what you did?

GIBSON: Yes.

HARRAK: And we're actually watching that very moment happening right now on screen. And, obviously, everyone is waiting for that amazing reaction that you had.

Talk to us a little bit about how -- you must have been overwhelmed with people's responses to your win.

GIBSON: Yes. I was just very excited and surprised that I did it.

HARRAK: So, can you tell us, because I'm told that you have a very special technique that allows you to win. It's a winning technique. Can you share with us what that is?

GIBSON: Yes. It's just an original NES controller. And what I do is I hover my finger over the -- this thing is called a D-pad. You press it down to go left and right. And if you hover your finger over it and press into the back, if you do that a bunch of times with every single finger, it can go to the left and right very fast.

HARRAK: You make it sound so easy, but I bet it's not.

So, tell us, tell us, what do you like so much about Tetris? What's so special about it?

GIBSON: I enjoy it's simple to learn at the beginning but hard to master. I enjoy that part of it.

HARRAK: Yes, that is amazing.

And, mom, I'm told you're a gamer yourself.

[03:55:00]

KARIN COX, TETRIS CHAMPION'S MOM: Yes, just, just a little bit. Not so much recently.

HARRAK: Not so much recently. But is that something that you exposed Willis to, and that's how we got into.

COX: Yes. I mean, we weren't very judgmental when he was wanting to play Minecraft and all the stuff when he was littler. So, it was like, all right, we'll do this. And as long as he kept a nice balance between screen time and everything else, we were okay with it. HARRAK: And what's it been like for you, Karin? I mean, the reaction

has been overwhelming. People are just so happy just watching Willis' reaction when he crashed the game. COX: It's been really positive. Everybody that talks to me says that he made them feel good, made them feel good about stuff, just seeing him that excited about something. And some people have even told me it's nice to see the younger generation do something like this and it felt pretty good.

HARRAK: So, I'm just wondering, so what's the next challenge now? I mean, is there another tournament coming up?

GIBSON: There's one in Waco, Texas, that I'll be going in January 20th.

HARRAK: And so you're looking forward to that because that's in- person?

GIBSON: Yes.

HARRAK: And I'm told that on Sunday afternoon, you also have -- you're participating in the finals of the Classic Tetris League. Is that correct?

GIBSON: Yes.

HARRAK: All right. Okay. So, you've got a lot going on, lots coming up.

I got to tell you, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you both and meeting you. And, obviously, I wish you all the best on Sunday and every tournament. You gave us some good news to look forward to, and it's been a pleasure meeting you.

COX: Thank you.

GIBSON: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: And that wraps up this hour of CNN Newsroom. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Laila Harrak.

Lynda Kinkade picks up our coverage after a quick break. Stay with us.

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