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Funding Bill Passes Without Trump's Key Demand; Interview With Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY); Five Dead, More Than 200 Injured In German Christmas Market Attack; Mangione Could Face Death Penalty With Federal Murder Charge; Govt. Funding Passes Without Trump's Key Demand As Musk Flexes Political Influence In Spending Battle; Airlines Expect Record Number Of Holiday Travelers; Rain, Snow Could Impact Holiday Travel This Weekend. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired December 21, 2024 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:38]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

And tonight the dust is settling after a chaotic 48 hours in Washington to avoid a government shutdown. But what the upheaval exposed in its wake is notable and potentially significant for President-elect Donald Trump's next term. Missing from that funding bill signed into law today is the one key thing Trump insisted on. The one thing that was really important to him, to suspend or eliminate the debt ceiling so that it wouldn't happen on his watch.

To do it dozens of House Republicans ignored a plea from President- elect Trump to raise the debt ceiling. The last 48 hours could be a dose of reality for Trump. Republicans have that tiny, thin margin of power in the House, and Trump may have to cater to their demands if he wants to pass meaningful legislation, instead of expecting them to perhaps cater to him.

CNN's Steve Contorno is joining us now from West Palm Beach with more on this.

Steve, how is the president-elect reacting to the debt ceiling omission?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, last night, sources telling CNN that Donald Trump was frustrated that he could not get that debt ceiling provision included in these negotiations. It is something that he posted on social media about in the days leading up to the vote, certainly something he was pressuring House Republicans to get behind, even going so far as to threaten them with primaries if they didn't vote for it.

But ultimately, lawmakers, allies, advisers convinced him that if he wanted, if he really, really wanted to get that debt ceiling piece removed, it was going to probably require him to be the blame -- take the blame for a shutdown in the federal government, something he didn't feel ultimately was worth that effort. And so yesterday we saw this bill pass without the debt ceiling piece of it included. DEAN: And Steve, also we want to note that President-elect Trump just

announced a familiar name to serve as special envoy to the U.K. Tell us about that.

CONTORNO: Yes, certainly familiar to Donald Trump especially. Mark Burnett, who was once the producer of "The Apprentice," the show that really made Donald Trump a household name and helped build up his political brand. He will have that assignment. And just continuing these individuals who have a long history with Donald Trump, getting key posts in his administration.

Mark Burnett, obviously someone who has long been in Donald Trump's inner circle, someone who has helped elevate him in the past and now someone who will be serving Donald Trump in his new administration.

DEAN: All right. Steve Contorno, from West Palm Beach with the latest there. Thank you very much for that.

And this latest spending battle did reveal some fault lines within the GOP. Is the debt ceiling debate just one of other issues that could potentially be divisive for Republicans going forward?

Joining us now, Nicole Malliotakis, Republican congresswoman from New York, and assistant whip for the Republican conference.

Congresswoman, thanks so much for being here with us this afternoon. We appreciate it.

REP. NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY): Good to be with you. Thank you.

DEAN: You have described the first draft of this spending bill that was negotiated between Democrats and Republicans as what you called a backroom boondoggle. I'm just curious, you also had a lot of, you took issue with how Speaker Johnson led the Republican conference through this. Will you be supporting Speaker Johnson when he runs in the new year?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, I don't necessarily think that replacing the speaker is the answer, but I do certainly have questions and would like more clarity on how our leadership intends to run the next Congress.

I was very disappointed that this backroom deal was made with a handshake without notifying the members of the conference and getting our input to make that type of bipartisan deal with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. Without our buy in, I think it's problematic. And I'm a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus who works in a bipartisan way. It's not about being bipartisan.

It's about making sure that your caucus, your conference, knows what is going on because we are duly elected representatives. We have constituencies. We are not rubber stamps. And so I was disappointed with how that had played out. And also with the lack of communication from the leadership to the membership this entire week. It was -- it's problematic.

[16:05:01]

We need to run things better and tighter next year. And I do believe that it is going to be difficult because of our slim majority, and we have to have a more member driven approach from the very beginning.

DEAN: And so what does that look like to you? Is that Mike Johnson and his team reforming the way they're doing things, as you're talking about, taking this, learning from it, trying to do it differently, or is that a different person with the gavel in their hand?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, look, I think the way that the speaker had come in, right, it was sort of, you know, baptism by fire. I think there was a little bit of a learning curve here for not just him, but for all of us. And I think that my takeaways are that we need a better communication between leadership and membership. We need more member driven process from the beginning. We need our leadership to talk to us about what are our legislative priorities and how can we achieve those throughout the year.

So you don't have a bunch of members trying to cram a bunch of bills into this one CR, which is really supposed to be just to fund the government. Not something to carry all sorts of other legislative items. I mean, the membership has made clear we want single subject bills, but if it's going to be just an end of year package where we have the option to cram all this stuff in, you have members jockeying for that.

And I don't think that that was beneficial at this time and kind of what muddied the waters. But if we have, let's say, we share our top three legislative priorities, they're not controversial, don't cost money, there are other avenues where we can be able to take these bills up earlier in the year because we're going to have to focus on some major big ticket items next year. Energy production, the border, and also the tax cut and jobs act that are expiring at the end of the year.

Some of those provisions have already expired. As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, that to me is one of the most critical things that we're going to be dealing with next year. You have the corporate tax, the income tax. The standard deduction will be cut in half. You have the child tax credit cut in half. If we don't address it, the alternative minimum tax will return hurting middle class communities like the one I represent in Staten Island and Brooklyn.

So there's so much at stake with just the tax code that we're going to have to deal with that we're going to have to work together early on and know where people stand on these different issues, so we can build consensus and get a reconciliation through.

DEAN: Yes. And I want to talk about some of those priorities in just a second. But you will be supporting Speaker Johnson on January 3rd?

MALLIOTAKIS: Look, I'm taking this day at a time here. I do have some questions. I think as a member, I deserve to have an opportunity to have my thoughts heard before January 3rd. But like I said, I don't necessarily think that replacing the speaker is the answer here. We had a hard enough time getting to 218 after Kevin McCarthy left, and I'm not sure that there's somebody else who can get that number.

DEAN: And I also want to ask you about the debt ceiling because obviously President-elect Trump really wanted that included and dealt with before he took office. It ultimately was not included because it just simply couldn't get the votes, including from people, and I don't have to tell you, in your own party, 38 of whom voted against that particular package. What do you -- how do you see that playing out?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, so the debt limit issue, and I understand President Trump's point of view. I mean, this is spending that took place under the Biden administration that now we're going to have to pay a debt service on and interest. And he didn't want that to be hanging over his head when he has so many other priorities like the energy and the border security and the taxes that he's going to have to be dealing with.

If we didn't raise it this past week, it's going to basically have -- it's going to hit and we will default in six months from now. And so he wanted to take away that leverage from Democrats who will hold that over his head at that time. So I can understand his point of view. And obviously, I think the way we handled or at least we're talking about it right now is there needs to be an understanding that we're also going to cut spending because 13 percent of what we spend in the federal government is going to pay the interest on debt.

We have an unsustainable debt to GDP ratio. It's roughly 123 percent. When I was born in 1980, that was 35 percent. So we are really in a terrible situation with this debt of $37 trillion, and we need to address it. And so there are some members, those 38 that you mentioned who voted against it, are saying that they want to have assurances that they will receive a certain amount of savings and cuts from the federal budget to reduce our debt. And so that was what kind of held that piece up.

DEAN: And I do want to ask you, you mentioned you're on Ways and Means. I know that that tax bill is a huge priority, not just for you all in the House, for President-elect Trump, for the Senate Republicans as well. That last tax package that he passed when he was president and that he signed into law did contribute to part of this debt. So how do you, you know, circle the square there and ensure and promise people that that won't happen again this time?

[16:10:06]

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, the Congressional Budget Office score was, was way off, first of all. It brought in actually about $1 trillion. It was off by about $1 trillion when they put the scoring of that legislation. I think the issue with the bill is that, or the outcome rather, is that you saw seven million jobs created. You saw middle class wages lifted. You saw a tremendous amount of repatriation of businesses here. Manufacturing started to return, and unemployment was brought to its record lows for African-Americans and Hispanics in particular. So it was a very good bill. The problem was COVID hit. And so that

stymied a lot of the growth. But it is a pro-growth, pro-jobs policy. It's proven to have been successful. And yes, there are things that we need to examine now. And that's what we've been doing. Our Ways and Means Committee is looking at what worked, what didn't work, what needs to be tweaked, what should be changed and altered, what should be expanded. And that is what we're dealing with at this moment.

And we're going through the different scenarios to see what we need to adjust. But I would say that that was actually a very good bill for the economy. It was strong. It brought strong job numbers, but because of COVID, we didn't see the full effect. And that's unfortunate because it's hard to kind of get a real full feel for what the impact would have been had COVID not hit right in the middle of it.

DEAN: I also want to ask you, as you all start to go through what your legislative priorities, we saw Elon Musk playing a huge role in this last negotiation over the last 48 hours. What do you think of the role he's playing and how much power does he have? Because he blew up a negotiated bill with the help of President-elect Trump. And he was very involved with this.

MALLIOTAKIS: Look, he's obviously not elected, but he does have a strong relationship with President Trump. And I think President Trump looks to him as somewhat of an advisor. I think the role that he is playing with DOGE and wanting to identify wasteful spending and fraud in places where we could be more efficient is a good role, and we want to work with him on that.

But at the end of the day, we are the elected representatives. We have to serve our constituencies. And so I'm not sure, you know, how members are going to view him going forward. But I think that we need to do our job and not be so influenced by these outside forces. I certainly want to work with this group and this DOGE group to look for efficiencies, but at the end of the day, we are the members of Congress who have the power of the purse, and we will have to do what we believe is the right thing for the people that we represent and the future of this country.

DEAN: Are you comfortable with taking direction from Elon Musk since he's not elected?

MALLIOTAKIS: I'm not taking direction from him. I think that certainly he's a citizen and he has a very strong platform to give his point of view. He's got a strong relationship with the president. But -- and we certainly hear what his thoughts are. But on this particular bill that you mentioned, I mean, I was against it 24 hours before Elon Musk came out against it. And it was mostly because of the process and all this added stuff that should not have been in there. It should have been taken up separately.

So I made my own decision there. It was not influenced by anybody. In fact, I would say I was a leader in being one of the first to speak out against this package because of those concerns.

DEAN: All right. Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, we really appreciate your time today. Thanks so much.

MALLIOTAKIS: Great to be with you. Thank you.

DEAN: Thank you.

Ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM, the new details we're learning about the suspect in custody for a deadly Christmas market attack that killed at least five people and injured hundreds in Germany. Stay with us for more on that.

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DEAN: Investigators are attempting to determine a motive behind the deadly attack on a crowded Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg. At least five people were killed when a car plowed through that crowd Friday night. One of those victims was a 9-year-old child. More than 200 others were hurt, including 40 with critical injuries.

Officials saying the suspect is a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia, who has lived in Germany since 2006 and has a history of making anti-Islam statements.

Joining us now is CNN's senior national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem.

Juliette, it's great to see you. Sources are telling CNN Saudi Arabia sent multiple warnings to German authorities about this suspect that were ignored. Walk us through, I mean, why might that happen, why might they have been dismissed.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, clearly the dismissal was a mistake. And part of this is going to be what's the sort of pool of such alerts that are going from Saudi Arabia to Germany given just the intelligence environment now. Were there 100 a year or were there only two? If there's only two, Germany is going to have to explain why Saudi Arabia, which is not often very transparent in its intelligence sharing because clearly they were monitoring someone in Germany, why -- it's not all clear why Germany would have ignored it.

[16:20:02]

So this is what's interesting about this is that Saudi Arabia felt the threat was strong enough that they were essentially willing to tell Germany we're picking up stuff from someone in your country. And so Germany is going to have to figure out why it was ignored because that would be -- you know, obviously that would have been one way to stop him.

Germany has quite permissive rules allowing for the equivalent of an arrest, or at least an interrogation for something short of direct knowledge that someone is planning a terrorist attack. They would have been able to at least talk to him and see why the Saudis were concerned. DEAN: And, Juliette, I want you to stay with us. We have Matthew

Chance, who's also going to join us with some additional reporting. And so I do want to go to Matthew right now.

And, Matthew, I just want to hear what you're seeing there on the ground. We see the vigil kind of behind you there.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. That's right. I mean, this is a city in Eastern Germany that's in shock. I mean, the whole country has actually gone through, you know, kind of convulsions economically and politically. The government recently fell. There are elections here to be held next week. There's a whole kind of debate about immigration in the country.

And then into that, a few days before Christmas, you had this horrific attack which has left at least five people dead according to the latest figures, about 200 injured, according to local officials. And, you know, people in this town are absolutely bereft. You can see behind me all these candles that have been laid out and there are people here still at nighttime. It's half past 10:00 nearly at nighttime local time, in the evening, and people are still coming, paying their respects, lighting candles, remembering what took place.

This is the scene behind me. It's cordoned off. You can see the tape right here by the police. There are still forensic teams right down there, just out of sight because this is the road down which the driver plowed through that busy Christmas market. It's one of a, you know, the kind of Christmas market you see all over Germany at this time. And so it's been sealed off while police collect forensic evidence to try and build their case.

And of course, to clean the area up, the whole area was strewn with bodies as a result, in the aftermath of that attack. The suspect, well, he's in police custody after being detained shortly after the attack took place, you know, here in eastern -- in Germany -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Matthew Chance for us there in Germany. Thank you very, very much for all of that reporting.

I want to go back to Juliette Kayyem.

And now, Juliette, we are learning some additional information about that suspect that Matthew was just talking about. Reuters, we know, released an image and a name of that suspect sourcing it from the U.S. based activist group RAIR Foundation. The group said that the suspect presented himself as someone assisting ex-Muslim refugees fleeing persecution from Saudi Arabia.

Does this seem to align with what we know about the suspect from officials? And what do you draw from all of this?

KAYYEM: So motives are often not -- don't fit into sort of political narratives. Is he a Muslim terrorist who is attacking Germany, or does he have a complicated background? What we know now is that he was clearly criticizing the Saudi government. I suspect that's how the Saudis picked up on him because he either was talking to people in Saudi Arabia or they were monitoring him for anti-Saudi statements.

Those anti-government statements then appear to essentially encompass the German government. So he then starts to turn on how Germany is treating potentially moderate Muslims who are fleeing Saudi Arabia. Are they able to get access. As Matthew was saying immigration and debates about immigration are not just in the United States. It's a global political phenomenon.

And in fact, Germany is in the middle of a political -- lots of political unrest because of debates about immigration and the future of Germany and what Germany looks like. This suspect seems to have fallen somewhere in between all of the stuff. A Muslim, Saudi born yet strong ties to Germany, a career, and then essentially turns against parts of Islam and parts of Germany embraces the right-wing and right- wing elements in Germany. And then just targets what's essentially just a party atmosphere in Germany.

DEAN: Yes. This is, to your point, you're exactly right. It's one of those things that doesn't -- there's just a lot of components here that don't fit neatly into any certain box.

[16:25:02]

KAYYEM: That's right. That's right. I mean, yesterday, I mean, for those of us who live in social media, everyone wants you to fit into -- wants something to fit into this.

Look, Islam is a diverse political and religion. People who are Muslim will have a variety of viewpoints, as we should know by now. In this instance, it appears that his hatred or his concerns about what's happening in Saudi Arabia, its reactionary government, it's government that's hostile to women and others, made him turn to the right-wing in Germany, at least as far as our reporting and Reuters' reporting is showing now.

That is -- it's not uncommon. It's not typical, but certainly it shows one thing which is the sort of anti-Islam sentiment can lead people in a variety of different directions, not just, you know, not just, sort of radical left-wing, but also towards the right-wing. And I think that's what we're going to discover as Germany discloses what they're learning.

DEAN: Yes. Now, just a few days before Christmas, you have a 9-year- old who's dead and so much tragedy for so many families there in Germany.

Juliette Kayyem, thank you. We really appreciate it.

When we come back, Luigi Mangione is spending the weekend in one of the country's most notorious federal lockups ahead of his New York arraignment. It's the same facility housing Diddy and Sam Bankman- Fried.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [16:30:57]

DEAN: The suspect in the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing could be arraigned as early as Monday on state murder charges. Luigi Mangione is currently being held in the same federal lockup in Brooklyn as Sean "Diddy" Combs. And it's also where Jeffrey Epstein died.

Mangione facing four federal charges as well, including one count of murder. That opens up the possibility of the death penalty being put on the table.

Joining us now is criminal defense attorney and host of the podcast "For the Defense," David Oscar Markus.

David, good to see you.

First, I just want to start with what you think we can expect -- yes. I just want to start with what you think we can expect at Monday's arraignment.

DAVID OSCAR MARKUS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know, the arraignment is going to be very straightforward. Other than the all the press and -- and pomp and circumstance.

I mean, I think the prosecution has already messed up the case with -- with the perp walk, with the overcharging.

Remember, Jessica. Everybody thinks this is an open-and-shut case based on the evidence. So there's really only two ways to -- to mess it up. One is by overcharging. The other is by getting sympathy or jury nullification.

And so, you know, by overcharging the case with this terrorism charge, I think they've given the defense a big opening in the case.

DEAN: OK. So I want to take a couple of those things that you've noted and drill down onto those.

Let's start first with that perp walk, which we're playing video of right now. And a lot has been made of this because of how elaborate it was. The mayor is there. How many people are there.

Does it tell us what legal doors this could potentially open for his team?

MARKUS: Well, the legal doors, not so many. I mean, there's no motion to file or a motion to dismiss or anything like that. Perp walks are done all the time.

But, I mean, this case is garnering a lot of sympathy on social media and other things like this. So to do the perp walk really falls into the defense's hands, falls into his -- his idea of trying to garner sympathy at the trial.

Because people see these images and they start to feel bad for the guy, which is -- which is playing right into the defenses hands, which is -- which is silly.

DEAN: And then we have this whole issue where Mangione's attorneys thought they were going to go into state court. They ended up going to federal court at the last minute. Now there are state charges. There are federal charges. You mentioned the terrorism charge.

Walk us through what all of that means. Is that standard or is this different than we would typically see, to have both the federal, the state, the state charges and to have it kind of turned there at the last minute?

MARKUS: You know, the feds are not supposed to charge when the state charges. There's a policy against it. It's called the Pettit Policy. It's not a binding policy, but they're not supposed to.

But in high-profile cases, you see it all the time as sort of a safety valve in case something in the -- gets messed up, the feds want a piece of the action, too.

The problem with the terrorism charge in the state court, the problem with overcharging it is a lot of times jurors react badly to that.

And so you saw it recently in New York in the subway case, where they had to dismiss the top count during deliberations. This just happened. And they didn't learn from their mistake.

And there's a long history of it happening. Jessica, in the Terry Nichols Oklahoma City bombing case, they overcharged it, and Nichols was acquitted of first-degree murder. He was convicted of conspiracy.

But -- but when you overcharge a case, you run the risk of turning the jury off and you just saw it in the New York subway case.

DEAN: And federal prosecutors have not said yet if they will seek the death penalty. But how might that play a role in all of this?

MARKUS: Right. So it's really interesting. You have not seen a lot of Biden DOJ cases seeking the death penalty. We only have a few more weeks of that.

I suspect, under Trump's Department of Justice, we're going to see a lot more death penalty cases. And I suspect they will bring death penalty charges in this case, in the feds.

I think you're going to see a lot of it. And this case is sort of the prime example where the Department of Justice will seek it, especially under a Trump DOJ.

DEAN: Yes, that will be interesting to watch that play out.

All right, David, Oscar Markus, as always, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

[16:34:00]

MARKUS: Happy holidays. Nice to see you. DEAN: You, too.

Still to come, how President-Elect Trump's desire to rule without pushback from his own party could leave him open to his political opponents.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We are excited about this outcome tonight. We're grateful that everyone stood together to do the right thing.

And having gotten this done now is the last order of business for the year. We are set up for a big and important new start in January. We can't wait to get to that point.

[16:40:10]

Elon Musk and I talked within about an hour ago. And -- and we talked about the extraordinary challenges of this job. And I said, hey, you want to be speaker of the House? I don't know.

He said, this may be the hardest job in the world. I think it is. But we're going to get through this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: It may be the hardest job in the world.

CNN senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, joining us now.

Ron, always good to see you.

The last 48 hours were really interesting and kind of indicative --

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

DEAN: -- of what we might be seeing as we enter this, this new year and this new Congress.

Is this a reminder of kind of what we're -- and kind of a peek into what we might see come 2025?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Happy holidays, Jessica.

First of all, yes, it sure seems like what we've seen in the last couple of days is something is an early preview of what coming attractions for 2025.

I mean, you bring together three big elements, all of which are pretty combustible. You have the volatility of Donald Trump.

I mean, it's easy to forget how impulsive and unpredictable he was in his first term, particularly with legislative matters. I mean, he would often go -- blow up, you know, what seemed to be painstakingly constructed congressional deals with a tweet.

Then you add to that what we saw in '23 and '24, which was the really venomous infighting among House Republicans once their majority shrunk to kind of the bare minimum that they had last time.

And it will be even a little more narrow this time, especially at the beginning. They could be down to as few as 217 seats, which makes, you know, each legislator a king.

And then as a final ingredient, you have the kind of the new wild card, which is Elon Musk, who has shown that he is utterly, you know, willing to use the giant megaphone that he bought with X to spread right wing disinformation and misinformation, not only at Democrats but at Republicans.

So add it up and the likelihood is going to be a pretty rocky ride. Certainly, there are things that are going to be able to agree on, but, boy, there's going to be a lot of broken glass along the way.

DEAN: And you mentioned Elon Musk there. We heard, in that clip, Speaker Johnson saying I talked to Elon. I told him maybe you -- if you want to be speaker, have at it.

He certainly exerted a lot of power and influence in this moment. And if you're Mike Johnson, man, it looks like a rocky road.

BROWNSTEIN: It sure does. I mean, you know, I was trying to think the other day of whether there has been a figure outside the government who has really been empowered to the degree by a by a new president and -- and the Congress. I mean, we really have not seen anything quite like this in a very long time.

Musk has been an asset for Republicans. Obviously, he spent a lot of money, helped Trump, particularly in Pennsylvania. He has a constituency of his own among some young voters.

But I've got to think that rank-and-file Republicans and even the more traditional political advisers around Trump can't be entirely sanguine or comfortable with his degree of visibility.

Because you saw right away in this debate the degree to which Democrats feel comfortable making him a symbol of the broader argument that we're going to be hearing from them through all of 2025, particularly in the tax debate.

Which is that Donald Trump got elected on the votes of a lot of working-class voters across racial lines. But his agenda does far more for his rich buddies than it does for your average auto worker in Michigan or teamster in Indiana.

And Musk provides a pretty potent lightning rod and symbol for Democrats in making that case and to the degree.

DEAN: Yes. And I also just want to -- (CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: -- seem to be reveling and dictating to them. Not good for an elected official.

DEAN: Yes. And then what do you see, with the Johnson of it all? He's going to have to be voted back as House speaker on January 3rd. You mentioned this teensy, teensy, tiny majority that they're going to have.

It's just, it's tough to try to kind of herd all of these cats in the various factions that exist within this Republican -- this House Republican conference.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Look what we saw -- remember, with Manchin and Sinema, you know, in the 50-50 Democratic Senate in the first two years of Biden. I mean, they were essentially kingmakers on every issue.

And, you know, people would kind of ruefully talk about Manchin and Sinema. Like every House member is now Manchin, you know, every -- every House Republican, especially if they end up with, you know, they can't schedule the special elections quickly enough, and they're down to 217 at points, really literally, anyone can veto anything.

[16:44:59]

So Johnson's, I think, best asset is, it's not clear who would be better. It's not clear Trump wants an extended fight over the speakership. But you already have several members, you know, suggesting that they may not support him.

So again, watching the chaos of '23 and '24 with that narrow majority, I don't think anybody can -- can, you know, safely say that Johnson has this secured until the votes are actually recorded.

DEAN: Yes. It will be something to see.

Ron Brownstein, as always, good to see you. Thanks so much.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

DEAN: Ahead, we know it's coming every year, but holiday travel doesn't seem to get any easier with millions coast to coast hitting the skies and the roads, all while potentially dangerous weather and winter storms bear down on some of the nation's busiest airports. We're going to talk more about that.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[16:50:28]

DEAN: A record number of Americans are expected to be on the move over the holidays. AAA is saying nearly 120 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home between now and New Years Day.

And winter weather already causing a rough start for a lot of people out there.

Meteorologist Tyler Mauldin is in the Weather Center with the holiday forecast.

But first, we're going to check in with CNN's Gloria Pazmino, who is at LaGuardia Airport in New York City.

Gloria, how are things looking there so far?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, one of the busiest airports in the nation, and we've actually had a pretty decent weather day here in New York City. So not a whole lot of cancellations or delays here at this airport where we know so many people fly in and out of.

But as you said, it's expected to be a record-breaking year in terms of the amount of people that will travel for the holidays.

And 119 million of them are expected to travel from now through the holiday season and into the second day of the new year, when we will all start making our way back home and likely back into our jobs as we wrap up the holiday season.

That is surpassing the 2019 record by two -- by 64,000 people. And it is three million more travelers than what we saw in the last year. So a lot of traffic expected in the next several days.

But a lot of people that I met here today, Jessica, very patient. Even one woman who was slightly delayed, told me, honestly, not a big deal because it just means I'm not rushing and I'm not like stressed to get to where I'm going.

So very positive approach here today. We're still a couple of days out from Christmas, so people are not totally feeling chaotic just yet.

Take a listen to a few of the travelers we met throughout the day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we were driving -- everybody said, are you driving? No, I mean, because you only get a certain amount of time and we've done it many times. But one mishap.

It could be a 15-hour drive. If something goes wrong on the road, pray tell, nobody gets hurt and all that stuff. But by the time you get there, you're done. I mean, we're not 24 anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty stressful, I would say.

PAZMINO: Yes, pretty hectic.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lines are busy. A lot of people are, you know, traveling for the holidays, I would say. But overall, I think our travel was good, but very, very busy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: That last mom that we talked to, she was relieved to have finally arrived and was looking forward to the holiday season.

And like you heard from the gentleman in the beginning, he opted to drive -- excuse me -- he opted to fly because he felt that driving introduced too many variables, too many things could go wrong.

But in fact, 107 million Americans will get behind the wheel in the next following days. They'll get on the highway and they'll be driving towards wherever they're going to celebrate this holiday season.

So a lot -- a lot more Americans expected to be on the road. About seven million people will be flying. That's according to AAA.

So if you're one of the many millions of people that will get behind the wheel, just make sure that you bring your patience and your kindness because you are likely going to be hitting some traffic, especially as we get closer to the Christmas holiday in the next few days.

But for now, things here are going pretty well -- Jessica?

DEAN: A lot of people on the move, Gloria. Thank you.

And let's go to Tyler now, who's going to walk us through this winter weather and also what we can expect. Tyler?

TYLER MAULDIN, AMS CERTIFIED METEOROLOGIST: Jessica, today is the first day of winter. So of course, like clockwork, I am tracking a couple of winter storms that will bring some wintry mischief to our holiday travels.

First system is now starting to wane across the northeast, but you can still see some snow flurries here.

We also have some lake-effect snow going on across the Great Lakes. And that is because the Great Lakes are open for business right now. Those waters are still very warm. So that wind coming across is bringing us some of that lake-effect snow.

We do have some delays at the airports here in the northeast. This is mainly due to the winds, because the winds are howling right now, 35-, 40-mile-per-hour wind gusts.

The good news is that tomorrow, that first system that is beginning to wane, is going to be out of here. It's going to be replaced by a very cold, high-pressure system.

But then, on its heels, is yet another fast-moving winter storm that will bring snow up here to the northeast.

I mentioned that strong wind, the cold, high pressure. It is bringing in some very cold air to the eastern two thirds of the country. [16:55:01]

Just look. By tomorrow morning, we are talking about a wind chill of 10 degrees in New York City. And then it's going to take you several days to warm up.

In fact, you'll be below average for the next several days. It's probably not until next weekend that the majority of the east coast is back above normal.

In terms of airport delays tomorrow, the main impacts will be felt across the west coast. That's where a series of weather systems will be coming ashore.

And these weather systems are already being felt right now. You can see rain across the coastline and then some wintry mischief across the higher elevations once you get a little farther inland.

The temperatures out west, unlike on the east coast, these temperatures, Jessica, are well above average. That is the reason why we're seeing that mixture of both rain and snow. And we'll continue to see that for the days to come -- Jessica?

DEAN: All right, Tyler Mauldin, thank you for that. We appreciate it.

Straight ahead, what we're learning about the man accused of ramming a car through a bustling Christmas market in Germany, killing five people and injuring hundreds.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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