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Two Killed, 68 Injured in Germany Christmas Market Attack; Tel Aviv Hit by Projectile Fired from Yemen; Dems Wonder if Musk is Shadow President; U.S. Averts a Shutdown; Funding Bill Passes without Key Trump Demand; Search for Missing American Austin Tice; Winter Solstice. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired December 21, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
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BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States, here in the U.K. and all around the world, I'm Ben Hunte in London. It is so good to have you with me.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, authorities in Germany search for a motive after a driver leaves at least two people dead and dozens hurt after plowing through a crowded Christmas market.
U.S. lawmakers avoid a government shutdown but only just. Details and reactions to the last-minute plan. Plus the near shutdown is exposing divisions in the Republican Party as well as the major influence the unelected Elon Musk is having in Washington.
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HUNTE: Right now, investigators are working to learn more about the deadly attack on a crowded Christmas market in the German City of Magdeburg.
These are live images coming to us now from the scene. At least two people were killed and 68 injured when a car drove through the crowd. This video appears to show police arresting the suspected driver on the scene. Officials say he's a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia, who is a permanent resident of Germany.
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REINER HASELOFF, PRIME MINISTER, SAXONY-ANHALT (through translator): The state of Saxony-Anhalt as a whole is in mourning.
And that is why, in consultation with the federal government, which will do the same, we will fly the flags at half staff to express that a tragedy has taken place here and that we all share in the suffering that has been inflicted on people.
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HUNTE: Officials say about 100 firefighters and 50 rescue personnel responded. Here's CNN's Fred Pleitgen with more details from the scene.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I want to set the scene for you a little bit. I'm going to get out of your way and you can see behind me is the actual Christmas market.
And one of the things that's really interesting about all this is that there are actually barriers here to try and prevent something like this, exactly like this, from happening. We can see those green and red barriers that were put up here. And they're all around the perimeter of this Christmas market.
So it's unclear where there might have been a gap in all this for the suspect and the car to get through and then plow through that market, because it must have driven in there for hundreds of yards, through that market, injuring obviously a lot of people.
Very difficult for the people to get out of the way because the stalls there are pretty tight and the space is very small between them.
So a jam packed area, lots of people. Of course, all this happened at 7:00 p.m. on a Friday night, the last Friday before Christmas. And that's also one of the reasons the authorities believe why there's so many casualties, because obviously this place would have been highly frequented at that time.
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HUNTE: CNN's Barbie Latza Nadeau is joining me now live in Rome.
Barbie, what more do we know about the attack?
And we've found out quite a bit about the current suspect.
Can you tell me more about him as well, please?
BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
You know, I mean, what they're trying to figure out is just how long he had planned this and if it could have been prevented. And as Fred mentioned, how that car got through those barriers to address that crowd, to hit that crowd so violently, you know, so many injuries.
People are, of course, worried as well that some of these people who are gravely injured could lose their lives as well. That's a big concern because some of the injuries were very, very serious.
You know, one of the things, too, everybody's worried about is other big crowd events across Europe. Of course, here, across the region, Christmas markets and big gatherings, certainly here in Rome, with the Vatican Christmas affairs, things going on. There are going to be big crowds.
And so security is a huge issue going ahead in the coming days. And, you know, people are concerned that something like this could happen elsewhere.
HUNTE: And Europe is now waking up to this news.
So what more reactions are we getting from Europe?
What's the U.S. saying and elsewhere about this attack?
NADEAU: Well, let me read you some of these reactions that there have been very, very heartfelt, you know.
The Pentagon press secretary shared condolences, writing, "Our hearts go out to Germany in the wake of this tragedy."
French president Emmanuel Macron took to social media to post this, "Deeply shocked by the horror that struck the Magdeburg Christmas market in Germany. My thoughts are with the victims, the injured and their loved ones and families.
"France shares the pain of the German people and expresses its full solidarity."
And this from the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte.
"Horrific scenes from a Christmas market in Germany. I have reached out to the German chancellor to offer my condolences. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. NATO stands with Germany."
And from here in Italy, prime minister Giorgia Meloni posted this, "I'm deeply shocked by the brutal attack that struck the helpless crowd at the Christmas market. I stand with the entire government, by the families of the victims, the injured and all the German people. Violence must have no place in our democracies."
And, of course, that just underscores how concerned the people are here across Europe for security in these big events coming in the next week ahead. Ben.
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HUNTE: Yes, indeed. Well, Barbie, thank you for joining me for now.
I want to stay on this story. So we're going to bring in Glenn Schoen, a security expert and terrorism expert. He's joining us live from The Hague in the Netherlands.
Thank you so much for joining me. Obviously, this attack is terrible.
But is it truly surprising?
I was looking at some reactions on social media. And it was pointed out that, only last month, Nancy Faeser, Germany's interior minister, talked about the need for greater vigilance at Christmas markets. So surely, to some people, this feels a bit like deja vu.
GLENN SCHOEN, TERRORISM EXPERT: Yes, there have been a lot of warnings. There has been a lot of work done and now this. So we must understand,
though, that there's hundreds and hundreds of these kinds of markets across Germany, maybe not all certainly this size but they do occur.
They occur over multiple days, multiple weeks and it just takes one moment of lack of vigilance or one moment of vulnerability for somebody to be able to strike. We don't know yet what went wrong here. We also have to realize that, even though we're looking at this already as a security failure of sorts.
We don't know yet the extent to which this threat is also elsewhere, meaning we've had incidents at Christmas markets involving people with knives, with swords and with firearms. So vehicles -- certainly a mistake was probably made here of some level.
We're going to have to investigate that. But we should also not overfocus on just the vehicle threat as being the sole threat to these kinds of events.
HUNTE: In London at the moment, you can barely move because of the amount of people going to Christmas markets. I'm sure it's the same situation across the world.
Can these markets be protected in a better way?
And I guess, quickly, as well?
SCHOEN: Well, much work has been done with it. And you have to see it as a dynamic thing. There's so much you can do to prevent. So certainly when we think about Christmas markets generally, they're so large, so busy that things like metal detection is not used very much.
But there is such a thing as security checkpoints at the entry point, where police officials or security officials can certainly pick out certain people. On the preventive side, we have patrols, we have the whole police and intelligence apparatus of intelligence and on the responsive side.
So more certainly can be done. More is being done and more smart tech is also being developed to deploy in these kinds of venues.
HUNTE: I want to talk a bit about the suspected attacker. So his motives are unclear but we do know that he currently has no known links to Islamist extremism. His social media posts showed that he's previously been quite critical of Islam.
So where does the investigation go from here?
SCHOEN: Well, on the one hand, to fix and find out finally, what ultimately was his motive.
Or is this a case of perhaps somebody in need of greater mental health care?
On the other hand, it's also recognizing that, even if this was not caused by a particular ideology, there is still a concern. And that's a realization of what authorities have been warning us
about, which is a threat both from the extreme right to a lesser extent and from the extremist ideologies coming forth from some areas around IS, Al Qaeda and sort of the well-known, well-trodden path of terrorism.
So the fact even that this person may be in a separate category, may have had a bit more of a personal or a mental instability motive doesn't necessarily mean, unfortunately, that the threat has really been decreased in any other area or other aspect.
HUNTE: OK. Well, Glenn Schoen, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
SCHOEN: Thank you.
HUNTE: There is a lot going on in the world right now, so let's keep it moving.
We've got Israeli authorities saying a projectile launched from Yemen and struck Tel Aviv overnight, in a rare instance of the city's air defenses failing to block a target.
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HUNTE (voice-over): Sirens rang out over central Israel. At least 30 people suffered minor injuries in the attack, with the projectile landing in Tel Aviv's southern Jaffa area. The Houthis say they launched a hypersonic ballistic missile at an Israeli military target.
Residents in Tel Aviv say the attack came in the middle of the night while they were asleep.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had a siren and then actually a siren on top of a siren. And we -- obviously we're all sleeping in the building and then before there was even time to get out the door, it exploded.
The ballistic missile landed right behind our building and all the windows blew in. And the first, second floor and the whole area. It was very frightening.
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HUNTE: We're going to go live now to Tel Aviv and CNN's Jeremy Diamond.
Jeremy, thank you so much for joining me.
What is the latest?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are at the location where this Houthi missile actually struck.
And while the Houthis are claiming that they struck a military target, you can see right behind me that nothing here reflects a military target whatsoever. That is the impact crater that has now been filled in from that missile fired by the Houthis.
You can see right behind it the damage that has been done to the buildings all around this area, where windows were blown out by the force of that blast.
If you wrap around here with me, you can see some of that damage a little bit closer up as well. All of these windows that have been broken out, these letter boxes as well. And this is kind of the scene all around this area and the area surrounding this park where this missile hit.
You can see the windows have been blown out and cleanup efforts are underway. You may be hearing the sound of glass being swept up right now. And these efforts to kind of restore the situation are already underway; 16 people suffered minor injuries as a result of glass shattering and hitting them.
Another 14 people were -- suffered minor injuries rushing toward shelter. But really, people did not have much warning. Those sirens rang out. And then, very shortly after, residents tell us that that missile then struck.
A lot of people didn't have time to get to their shelters. And that, of course, reflects some of those minor injuries that were suffered as a result of the glass. And we should note that it is quite rare for these Houthi missiles to actually make impact. They are usually intercepted.
But in video that we've seen from overnight, when this happened, you can see at least two interceptor missiles going up into the air and missing their target, missing that Houthi missile that was coming in. And instead, it struck right here behind us.
The Israeli military, just a few days ago, struck Houthi targets in Yemen in retaliation for a number of other missile and drone attacks that the Houthis have fired at Israel, both here in Tel Aviv as well as Israel's southern city of Eilat.
I think you can likely expect that there will be a response from the Israeli military to this attack as well, as well as investigations internally inside the Israeli military about why they failed to intercept that missile. Ben.
HUNTE: Well, I'm sure you'll bring us the latest as it happens, Jeremy. Thank you for your reporting. Appreciate it.
After the break, lawmakers avoid a crisis on Capitol Hill. We'll bring you more coverage. Next.
Plus, Democrats are raising concerns about billionaire Elon Musk after he helped push for a shutdown of the U.S. government. That story and much more after this break.
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HUNTE: Now to one of our top stories.
Just after a midnight deadline and days of chaos, U.S. lawmakers averted a crisis. The government is avoiding a shutdown of many of its operations after the Senate and House passed a stopgap funding bill. President Biden is expected to sign the bill later today.
The so-called Plan C extends government funding into March and includes disaster relief and farming provisions. But it doesn't include a debt limit suspension, a key Donald Trump demand. That piece was stripped after a bipartisan revolt on Thursday.
The president-elect and his tech billionaire adviser Elon Musk torpedoed the initial bipartisan deal, creating more trouble for the Republican House Speaker. And now, apparently, frustrated yet resigned, Trump lamented to one lawmaker he was disappointed the deal couldn't include a debt ceiling hike.
But the Speaker did say he kept in touch with the president-elect on Friday as he worked to regain Democrat support.
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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), HOUSE SPEAKER: I was in constant contact with president Trump throughout this process. He knew exactly what we were doing and why. And this is a good outcome for the country.
I think he certainly is happy about this outcome as well. Elon Musk and I talked within about an hour ago 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.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: This was a compromise. We got some major things we wanted in the bill, particularly the disaster relief, which was bigger.
President asked for 117. We got 100. We got -- we kept the government open and we didn't get the debt ceiling. So there were three major victories. We didn't get everything we wanted. But I think if you look at the vote in the House, people felt pretty good. It was virtually unanimous.
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HUNTE: Here is CNN's Lauren Fox with more. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At the last minute, members of the United States Senate able to avert a government shutdown.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On this vote, the yeas are 85, the nays are 11. The 60 vote threshold having been achieved, the bill is passed.
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FOX: This happened just a few minutes after midnight. But lawmakers coming together after what has been a whirlwind 36 hours, in which Elon Musk and Donald Trump injected an 11th hour request to include the debt ceiling as part of these negotiations.
Ultimately, after 1.5 days of Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, trying to find a way to satisfy Trump's request, Republicans decided to move forward without an increase in the debt ceiling and instead use just a pared-back spending bill.
That includes $100 billion in disaster aid, $10 million in assistance for farmers and a spending bill that will go until just March 14th, meaning that lawmakers are going to have to do this all over again in Donald Trump's first 100 days -- on Capitol Hill for CNN, I'm Lauren Fox.
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HUNTE: So as Lauren just reported, Trump's confidant and informal adviser, Elon Musk, helped torpedo a bipartisan deal earlier this week.
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Many in Congress see the billionaire as the one really running the show. And now furious Democrats are questioning whether Musk is a, quote, "shadow president." Here's some how some reacted to his role in almost pushing the government to completely shut down.
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REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Everybody agreed and then it was blown up by Elon Musk, who apparently has become the fourth branch of government.
REP. ROSA DELAURO (D-CT): President Musk said, don't do it. don't do it. Shut the government down.
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HUNTE: Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex, just around the corner from here. She joins us now from Colchester, England.
Hello. I'm moving over to the U.S. But I'm not there yet. So now, I'm looking at the stories coming out of America.
And I'm like, what is going on?
Can you just give me some more details about how all of this went down?
Because it seemed like there was no clear path to keeping the U.S. government funded. I went to sleep, woke up and suddenly everything's fixed.
What's going on?
NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Right. It did seem like a miracle. I would agree with you, that it didn't seem like there was a clear path to prevent a shutdown, which would have been catastrophic at this time of year, when many people are traveling and the TSA workers would still be essential workers.
There would be huge delays but they found a way around it somehow. Earlier, there was a bipartisan deal that had been, you know, months and months in the works and negotiations and going on.
But Elon Musk, with his the power that he has with Twitter or X and over 207 million followers that he's able to reach, he was putting out all kinds of information, some of it false, about this bill and urging lawmakers not to pass it, claiming that some of the bill included aid to Ukraine, which wasn't true.
And Trump was also trying to get his, you know, Republicans in the House not to support the bill. And so that bill didn't pass. But then the Trump-backed bill also didn't pass because 38 lawmakers in the House refused to support it.
And these were actually more conservative lawmakers that didn't like the idea that the debt ceiling was going to be raised. So now, where we are, they come up with a solution.
But this is actually going to pose more trouble for Trump, because then he's going to have to deal with the question of the debt ceiling and how to keep the government funded instead of this falling on Joe Biden's term.
HUNTE: Yes, indeed. But at least government workers will be paid a few days before Christmas. I'm sure they are ridiculously relieved right now. That's great.
I want to talk about Elon Musk. Let's go.
What does he actually have to do with all of this? The richest man on Earth, is this potentially about him flexing his power?
He's obviously been super successful in one area of his life.
But should he really be stepping into being a politician when he isn't even elected to do that?
In fact, on that, officials are even calling him president Musk. Now take a look at this.
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REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-VA), MEMBER, FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEES: We're not the ones that blew up the deal. He was. Elon Musk, president Musk -- I'm sorry; not president Musk.
That's president Trump, isn't it?
REP. JIM MCGOVERN (D): I think he's president. And Trump is now vice president. I think that's clear.
REP. ROSA DELAURO (D): Now all of a sudden we have an outside influence who believes I think he is president. And that's president Musk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
HUNTE: President Musk, president Musk.
Natasha, what do you think about that?
LINDSTAEDT: I don't think the voters realized how much power that Elon Musk was going to be wielding. And he hasn't even -- you know, Trump's term hasn't even started yet.
But we're hearing how Elon Musk was on the call with Trump over important foreign policy matters, how Elon Musk is basically constantly at Mar-a-Lago. And there's even been calls from some senators -- Rand Paul in the Senate, Mike Lee in the Senate have called for Elon Musk to basically be Speaker of the House.
Because you don't have to be a sitting member of Congress. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, another House member, has called for this as well. And, you know, Elon Musk has no experience in government whatsoever.
But he knows how to be an agent of chaos. He's a disruptor and that's what he intends to do. He's even dabbling a little bit in German politics by advocating for the far right party, the AFD, over in Germany.
So we're seeing he is able to wield tremendous power and influence just by the fact that that he can reach so many people through social media. But most importantly, he has the ear of Donald Trump.
HUNTE: Every time this story comes around, I'm confused about why this happens, because surely they know when the funding deadline is. They know the deadline in advance.
So is there another lesson here for Republicans?
LINDSTAEDT: Well, we keep having these crash, you know, collisions, where it's like some sort of form of brinkmanship, where we get to the absolute brink.
[04:25:02]
And then in the end, we either have a government shutdown or they come up with some sort of last minute negotiation. And this has been particularly an issue during the Trump administration, when there were three government shutdowns, one of which from 2018-2019 lasted 35 days and was the longest in U.S. history.
But this is also just an effect of Trumpism, of this increasing levels of polarization but also the way Trump dislikes to negotiate, that he likes to sort of push things until there is no alternative. He doesn't mind it if there's a government shutdown. He doesn't think that that's the end of the world for him politically.
And so we're seeing, with these two factors, polarization and the way Trump likes to approach politics, is just constantly negotiating. We end up in these situations that are make or break all the time.
HUNTE: Yes, indeed. Well, Natasha, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate that.
LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.
HUNTE: You're welcome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: Still ahead, if you thought Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had a difficult time getting legislation through Congress so far, just wait until you see the razor-thin margins coming in January. A look at the incoming balance of power next.
Plus, an update on the deadly attack on a Christmas market in Germany. A live report is just ahead.
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HUNTE: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States, here in the U.K. and all around the world, I'm Ben Hunte and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
More now on the breaking news in Germany. Police are searching for a motive after at least two people were killed and 68 injured when a car drove through a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg.
[04:30:02]
Officials say the suspected driver is a 50-year old man from Saudi Arabia, who has worked as a doctor in Germany since 2006. Germany's chancellor is expected to give a news conference in Magdeburg in the next hour. CNN's Barbie Latza Nadeau is joining us again from Rome.
Can you just tell me what is the latest?
And what answers do we have and what answers do we not have at this point?
NADEAU: Yes. You know, there are a lot more unanswered questions at this point. You know, motive is going to be the key concentration today, trying to figure out if this is some sort of isolated incident, if it's a mental health issue, if it's a if it's a terrorist related issue.
You know, what is it that drove this 50-year old man to drive this car into this crowd?
Also of concern is why the security wasn't in a better position to stop it. We know that there were barriers up.
But how did this car get through to be able to injure so many people?
And were people just too crowded in that situation?
You know, this is not uncommon, these sorts of Christmas markets, especially in Germany but all across Europe and the U.K. And so there's a lot of concentration now on what could have been done to prevent it and why it happened in the first place. Ben.
HUNTE: Yes.
And what is the concern in the region, given that this is the holidays?
There are lots of large gatherings. I'm sure there are so many more planned over the next few days as well.
What's going on now?
NADEAU: Yes. You know, we're hearing from various countries, especially like here in Italy, where next week the Vatican opens its Holy Jubilee. Millions of people expected to visit the city throughout the next coming months and years.
And, you know, security is just really, really a concern. And a lot of people, I suppose, you know, security has been a little bit lax. People are relaxed. It's been a long time, several years, since there's been sort of a terrorist attack of this nature, if this is a terrorist attack.
So people have kind of let their guard down a little bit or that's the concern. But what you've got in these situations then, you've got crowds gathered, people get nervous. People are, you know, hearing about what happened in Germany. Maybe they're in a crowd somewhere in France or here in Italy or elsewhere in the U.K.
And they're nervous. And that sort of tension also leads to issues. People start to, you know, hear a noise and run. And, you know, it's really hard to manage crowds and it's especially hard to manage crowds when they're so large.
And, you know, the pedestrian areas, you see a car in an area like that, you know, security is tight across U.K. and Europe right now. But people are wondering if it's just tight enough and if there're, you know, going to be other incidents like this at all.
HUNTE: That's a fair point. I mean, yes, we already were warned about things like this. I would have thought the security would have been tighter. So thank you, Barbie. Appreciate that. We're going to come back to you if there's any more on this. Thanks.
The suspect doesn't fit the mold of the people who were often behind similar attacks in the past. Officials say he's a 50-year old doctor from Saudi Arabia, who's lived in Germany for many years. CNN analysts say investigators are likely looking at his ties, both to Germany and to other countries.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It is the deepness of ties to Germany over a couple of decades. Either it was a radicalization from afar or it was something different. That is what I think investigators will be looking for, including his ties to people, contacts in other countries.
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: They are saying that they had no prior knowledge of this person on their intelligence or law enforcement side.
If that's the case here in the United States, with the FBI and the CIA, there's no doubt that U.S. authorities are going through every database they can find right now, to see if this person showed up on their radar in any way.
If he was picked up in overseas communications surveillance; if he was, stopped and searched for some reason, crossing a border, that sort of activity, which, at the time, may not have seemed significant.
At this point, they are looking for that information so they can push as much of it as possible to their colleagues in Germany; very free and open intelligence sharing between U.S. and the German government. So I'm sure a lot of folks in the American intelligence sector are working on this issue as we speak.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: A U.S. national security official told CNN the White House is closely monitoring the situation in Germany. We're returning to one of our top stories. After days of chaos, the
U.S. federal government remains open for business as Congress adopts a deal to avoid a complete shutdown. The plan extends government funding into March and includes disaster relief as well.
But it doesn't include a debt limit suspension, something that Donald Trump really desired. A source says Trump is disappointed the deal couldn't include a debt ceiling hike.
House lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are now giving their thoughts on this deal with no debt limit suspension and one Republican is calling it a win for the president-elect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DUSTY JOHNSON (R): The reality is that President Trump did get what he wanted.
[04:35:00]
He got a commitment that we are going to address the debt ceiling early next year. And that's no big surprise. Everybody knows the debt ceiling is going to be addressed next year.
Of course, we are not going to default on our debts. That would be catastrophic. The debt ceiling is a leverage point for whatever the minority party is.
President Trump wants to make sure that that's not a leverage point for Chuck Schumer and the Democrats into the middle of next year.
We, of course, are going to take care of that for him. And so I do think he was able to get the deal that he needed this week.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): It was certainly vastly superior to the hodgepodge bill that they sent to us yesterday, where they -- where Donald Trump was attempting to, you know, abolish the debt ceiling entirely to allow for them to, you know, have this vast tax cut for the wealthy again.
So given where we were, this was probably the best possible solution. But of course, it was not what we had agreed to. Originally, there were six weeks of arduous negotiation and then bipartisan agreement to a deal that got blown up by a tweet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: When lawmakers return to Washington in January, the incoming class will be the most closely divided House since the Great Depression nearly 100 years ago. Republicans will have a historically narrow hold on the chamber, with little room to maneuver.
Some Republican lawmakers criticized current House Speaker Mike Johnson for his handling of the funding bill, casting a doubt on his possible reelection to the top position in January.
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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You told me earlier this week that you -- that Speaker Johnson does not have your vote on January 3rd.
Is that still the case?
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R): Even more so, yes. He doesn't have my vote. There's no way you'll vote for him. I don't -- I don't plan to enter it as a negotiation. I plan to just not vote for him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: CNN's Phil Mattingly takes a look at the tight balance of power in the incoming Congress.
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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF U.S. DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: All 435 House races have been called. And we can say definitively that House Republicans, once again, have the majority, barely.
And what do I mean by barely?
I mean, to a historic degree, barely because when you pull up what the actual numbers are, 220 Republicans, 215 Democrats.
That is a five-seat majority in the balance of power. And that means House Republican leaders can only afford to lose two of their members in a party line vote and still win that vote. And yet, that's actually a lot easier than how it's going to be.
What do I mean by that?
Well, House Republicans can thank the guy that many of them credit for helping them win the House majority, for making it even harder because Donald Trump is taking House Republicans to be in his administration.
He started with Matt Gaetz, picked him to be his attorney general. That nomination or effort failed catastrophically, as was expected. But Gaetz, Gaetz resigned. That's minus one Republican.
What about Elise Stefanik, close ally, New York Republican, Donald Trump's pick to be U.N. ambassador?
She's expected to be confirmed by the Senate. That's minus two Republicans.
And Michael Waltz, National Security Advisor for Trump, he doesn't have to be confirmed at all. He will start on day one with the administration. That means three House Republicans won't be there for a period of months likely, which means, if you do the math, take 220 minus 3 and this is where you end up, 217-215.
If you thought losing two votes was the maximum and that would be complicated, try losing barely one. That would be borderline suffocation for any Republican leader at a historically difficult moment for House Republican leaders.
What do I mean by that?
Put this away for a minute because I want to pull up some context here. If you take a look at majorities at every scale over the course of the last five decades, like right here, you'll see after decades of Democratic dominance.
Post Watergate, you got 149 seat majority at one point, back in 1977. You can track that down -- 100s, 100s, 80s, 70s, back to 182. That flipped when the chamber flipped, of course, when House Republicans took over in 1994. They didn't have a huge majority but 26 seats, not bad; 19-12. Narrow at nine, but then starting to pop back up.
And we saw that toggle back and forth as both sides took majorities over a period of years until the most recent period, where a new trend started, right about there: 10 Democratic seat majority, then nine Republican seat majority, then five Republican seat majority.
So let's take this away and go back to where we are right now because, again, was 220-215; at some point during this process, it's going to be 217-215. And that makes it really, really hard on one person in particular, this guy, Speaker Mike Johnson.
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HUNTE: The accused killer of an insurance company CEO is now being held in New York's Metropolitan Detention Center.
[04:40:02]
The conditions Luigi Mangione faces inside the notorious federal facility -- coming up.
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HUNTE: The U.S. is taking steps to work with Syria's new interim government after the fall of the Assad regime. The Biden administration is lifting a long-standing bounty on the former rebel leader, who is now leading Syria's transition. CNN's Alex Marquardt has the details from Washington.
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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. announced on Friday that it is removing the $10 million bounty for the leader of HTS, which is the group that just led the overthrow of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The announcement was made by Barbara Leaf, who is the top State Department official for the Middle East. She visited Damascus on Friday. Part of the first high-level U.S. visit to the Syrian capital in years. Leaf and others sat down with the head of HTS, Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose group is still designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. Leaf said the meeting was good and productive.
She called Sharaa pragmatic and noted his moderate statements. But she said the U.S. will, quote, "judge by deeds, not just by words."
Sharaa and others are calling for the U.S. to lift its sanctions on Syria to help jumpstart the economy.
Meanwhile, these U.S. officials also raised the case of Austin Tice, the journalist who has been missing in Syria since 2012.
The head of hostage affairs, Roger Carstens, says that he has been amazed by the number of secret prisons in Syria being uncovered and he said that in their search for clues, they're focusing on around six facilities where Tice may have been held.
Carstens acknowledged limited resources and suggested that American investigators, including from the FBI, could join the search on the ground soon. But for now, sadly, there is no news about Tice's whereabouts -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.
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HUNTE: The White House says President Joe Biden approved the largest aid package the U.S. has ever granted to Taiwan. His administration announced more than $0.5 billion in military funding for the island on Friday.
The U.S. is bound by law to supply Taiwan with weapons to defend itself. The announcement comes one month after Biden met with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Peru.
During the meeting, the White House says Biden called, quote, for "an end to destabilizing PRC military activity around Taiwan."
The man accused of killing an insurance company CEO is expected to be arraigned on murder charges in New York as soon as Monday. State officials say they expect Luigi Mangione's trial there to start before his federal trial begins.
This comes a day after he was transferred to a federal detention center known for its high-profile previous inmates and for its poor conditions as well. Kara Scannell has more on what awaits Mangione there.
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KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's one of the most dangerous federal jails in the country and the current home of suspected shooter Luigi Mangione, who is facing a murder charge for allegedly gunning down the UnitedHealthcare CEO on the streets of Manhattan.
Inmate number 52503-511. Mangione is housed in a facility described by one judge as having dangerous, barbaric conditions and an environment of lawlessness.
ELIE HONIG, FORMER SDNY ATTORNEY: All prisons are miserable places to be but boy, the MDC is maybe the most miserable of all the federal facilities that I've been in. It is dark, it is overcrowded. It's loud. It's too hot in the summer. It's too cold in the winter.
SCANNELL: Violence, contraband and drugs plagued the facility on the edge of Brooklyn that has housed some of the highest profile defendants in the federal system.
SAM BANKMAN-FRIED, FORMER CEO, FTX: I feel really, really bad and regretful.
SCANNELL: Among them, crypto King Sam Bankman-Fried, embattled music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs and Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
Mangione will likely be isolated given his notoriety. A spokesman for MDC Brooklyn tells CNN for privacy, safety and security reasons, we do not comment on the conditions of confinement for any incarcerated individuals, including housing assignments.
More than 1,100 people, male and female, are currently housed in MDC's notorious cells and dorm style barracks.
HONIG: It's bad enough that various federal judges have actually given reduced sentences or given defendants bail because of the conditions inside the MDC.
SCANNELL: In 2019, during a polar vortex, over 1,600 inmates were locked in their cells, some with frigid temperatures, inadequate blankets and toilets that wouldn't flush, according to a lawsuit -- resulting in a $10 million settlement with inmates.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We determined that heating issues had been a long standing problem at the jail.
SCANNELL: In August of this year, the director of the Bureau of Prisons created an urgent action team to support the warden there and fill staffing shortages.
COLETTE S. PETERS, BUREAU OF PRISONS DIRECTOR: They are certainly riveted with a staffing crisis, which I think is a major driver of some of the issues that are bubbling up out of that institution.
SCANNELL: But in September, the DOJ announced five inmates were charged in two separate murders of other inmates. A sixth was charged with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing another inmate 44 times with a makeshift weapon. Another inmate was sent to the hospital with an ice pick stuck in his back.
A multi-agency sweep of the facility in October found a number of electronic devices, drugs and associated paraphernalia and homemade weapons.
And illegal cell phones are common. Federal prosecutors accused alleged gang members of taking photos from inside their cells, posing and showing off their tattoos.
Inmates are not the only criminal offenders. In June, a corrections officer at the jail was sentenced for accepting more than $20,000 in bribes to smuggle drugs, cigarettes and cell phones to inmates, according to the Department of Justice.
It's unclear how long Mangione will stay at the MDC. He could be back in court as soon as Monday for an arraignment on those state charges -- Kara Scannell, CNN, New York.
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HUNTE: The Christmas travel season is already underway in the U.S. But for some Americans, it may not be a smooth ride. Coming up, what Mother Nature has in store.
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HUNTE: We want to get you up to speed on two big stories that CNN is covering at this hour.
At least two people were killed and dozens more injured in an attack on a Christmas market in Germany.
And in Washington, lawmakers have passed a spending bill, averting a complete government shutdown.
That Christmas market attack happened in the city of Magdeburg when someone drove a car into a crowd of people. Germany's chancellor is expected to give a news conference in Magdeburg in the next hour. We'll bring you that as it comes.
And a live look right now at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Overnight, the House and Senate avoided a government shutdown by passing a stopgap funding bill. It extends government funding into March.
The bill includes disaster relief and farming provisions, amongst other things. The White House says President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill in the coming hours.
No big winter storms are expected across the U.S. right now but conditions will get frosty in some places this weekend.
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HUNTE: Let's have some nice news. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon. The first lady read "The Night before Christmas" out loud as the president interacted with the children.
He thanked the families that joined them and encouraged them to keep on fighting, telling them that they're in his prayers and that things are going to get better.
Love that.
Well, that's all I've got for you for this hour of CNN NEWSROOM but let's do it again. I'm Ben Hunte in London. I'll be back with more news after this quick break. See you in a minute.
