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Luigi Mangione Case Moves Forward; Small Businesses in North Carolina Work to Recover; New York City Subway Murder Investigation; American Airlines Briefly Grounds All Flights. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired December 24, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:02]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN HOST: Chaotic morning for American Airlines passengers after the company briefly grounded all of its flights on Christmas Eve. We will have the details ahead.

Also, we are keeping our eye on Santa Claus as he makes his way across the world. A child psychologist will share tips on how to keep your kids and you sane during the holiday hype of sugar and presents.

And, later, the FDA just approved the generic version of a GLP-1 injectable, making the drug more affordable for people who have type 2 diabetes.

Hello, and good morning. I'm Rahel Solomon in New York, and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

This morning, American Airlines is boarding flights again after a -- quote -- "technical issue" forced the airline to briefly ground all planes, plunging travel plans across the country into chaos on Christmas Eve.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov is with us from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, and we also have CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean, who joins us from Washington.

Pete, let me start with you.

How big of a problem are we talking about, and how much do we know about what exactly caused it?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's going to be a bit of a struggle here, Rahel.

And American Airlines says it's all hands on deck now to get things back to normal. What we know now is that this was an outage of a system that is key to American getting flights boarded and on their way. The carrier has about 3,900 flights scheduled today. And here is the good news for the half-million people traveling on the airline, no major cascading effects just yet.

Here's the latest data from airline analytics from Cirium. About half of all American flights departing from its Charlotte hub are departing late, about 20 percent departing late from Miami. But the big thing to underscore here, no major cancellations just yet.

So the real story now is delays. And American spokesperson Sarah Jantz tells me that's to be expected throughout the day, but today's airline schedule really a fraction of what it was yesterday and most of the travel rush has already happened. And American insists to me it does have the staff in place to get things back on track quickly.

This outage really started about 8:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, flights held on the ground by American for about an hour. Also impacted American regional flights operated by its subcarriers, meaning a lot of folks on morning flights or connecting flights waiting and waiting.

This is the new statement from American. "A vendor technology issue briefly affected flights this morning," American says. "That issue has been resolved and flights have resumed. We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning."

History has shown, Rahel, that these airline technology issues can have a huge impact. And, in July, the crowd strike outage caused a meltdown for Delta Air Lines. It canceled about 5,000 flights in total. And, remember, it was only two years ago that Southwest holiday meltdown was just starting.

It canceled 15,000 flights over a week. The Department of Transportation has been pretty hard on airlines, trying to keep them accountable for these meltdowns. And outgoing Secretary Pete Buttigieg says the Delta investigation is still ongoing, but airlines are really hopeful that the new Trump administration may be more sympathetic to them when it comes to things like we saw today.

SOLOMON: Hmm. Let's see how sympathetic passengers are feeling at Chicago O'Hare right now.

Pete, thank you.

Lucy, let me bring you in.

How are people feeling there? What are things like on the ground?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of smiling faces. You can see behind me things returning to normal.

I want to show you the departures board here at Chicago. Obviously, this airport is a hub for American Airlines. And you can see those yellow boxes are all indications of delays, but they're not long delays. I mean, I'm looking right now. One flight was supposed to take off at 10:20 a.m. Now it's 11:50, 30 minutes in some cases, an hour in some cases.

We have been trying to find people to speak out about this. No one was really even aware of the ground stop. But we did talk to one set of sisters who learned about the outage on social media this morning. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAYLOR ELLIS, AIR TRAVELER: Well, we saw it first on our phones and then we saw on Instagram like a news report, yes, that said all planes grounded for American in the U.S. So we were like, what's going on?

And she, like, recently watched a movie that, like, a cyberattack happened. So she thought it was, like, crazy. She's just like Christmas Eve crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAFANOV: So they're making it to grandma and Vegas. Hopefully, all the other passengers will be getting to their destinations and enjoying this Christmas Eve -- Rahel, back to you.

SOLOMON: Thank you for the reporting there on the ground.

Lucy Kafanov, Pete Muntean, appreciate you as well. Thank you both.

Well, this morning, we're learning more about the man accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire on a New York City subway. The 33- year-old man is now charged with murder. He's from Guatemala and immigration officials say that he entered the U.S. illegally some time in the last six years. And he could appear in court today.

Let's get to CNN's Gloria Pazmino, who's been following the story.

And, Gloria, we just learned that minutes ago the suspect has been hospitalized. What do we know about that?

[11:05:03]

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Rahel.

And we have been waiting for the last several hours since this happened on Thursday and since he was arrested to see when he would appear in court. And now we're trying to get a better understanding of exactly why it has taken so long.

We have learned that the suspect went into the hospital overnight. We don't know the details of why that is just yet. But you're looking at an image of Sebastian Zapeta-Calil. He's 33 years old. And that was yesterday when they walked him out of the precinct where he was processed.

Now, we know that he came into the United States in 2018. He was deported shortly after that. And then, at some point, he made his way back into the country and eventually up here to New York City in the last few months, where he has been staying at a number of different homeless shelters throughout the city.

Now, we are expecting the suspect to be facing murder-in-the-first- degree charges, as well as arson charges, after police say he walked over to a woman who was sleeping inside of a subway car and set her on fire. We have seen the images of the suspect following that incident, which were critical and helped police find him. He was arrested several hours after the incident. Now, although the

suspect has not appeared in court yet, we have been in touch with the Brooklyn district attorney.The incident took place in Brooklyn, and he has said this about the incident.

He said that: "The depravity of this horrific crime is beyond comprehension. This gruesome and senseless act of violence against a vulnerable woman will be met with the most serious consequences." That's from the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez.

Now, we are expecting the suspect to be arraigned, but the fact that he is now hospitalized certainly raises questions about just how much longer it's going to take before he appears in court and presumably enters a plea in this case.

In the meantime, Rahel, we are also waiting to learn more about the victim. Law enforcement officials believe that the woman also was homeless, that she was likely taking shelter inside that subway train where she was sleeping early on Sunday morning when this horrific incident happened.

It is -- the details are really disturbing. And although crime in the city's transit system has improved in the last few months, it is these types of incidents that are very high-profile that continue to place a focus on this really complicated issue of homelessness, mental illness, and people who are in the subways and creating a public safety concern -- Rahel.

SOLOMON: Gloria Pazmino, thank you.

New this morning, a Russian court has sentenced a U.S. citizen to 15 years in prison for espionage. Gene Spector was born in Russia, but later moved to the U.S. and became a citizen. Russian state media is reporting that he had previously been sentenced to four years in prison for acting as an intermediary in a bribe. Spector is one of several U.S. citizens in Russia who have been sentenced to long prison terms this year.

And, this morning, American Paul Whelan is peeling back the iron curtain and describing his five years of being detained in Russia on charges of espionage. The former U.S. Marine was arrested six years ago this week, as he Russia to attend a friend's wedding.

Last month, Whelan sat down with CNN's Anderson Cooper and Jennifer Hansler, the State Department reporter whom he had reached out to while in prison. And here's some of that interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL WHELAN, FORMER RUSSIAN DETAINEE: Being back, it's surreal. I'm in a world that used to be familiar and it isn't. I'm getting used to just simple things.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: You were held in a prison in Moscow initially, which is a notorious -- it's a high -- like a maximum- security prison, I think it's a very notorious prison. WHELAN: Yes, Lefortovo. It's called the shooting gallery, because

that's where the Russians used to and probably still do shoot their own people. It's a -- it's a horrendously old, run-down facility. And, you know, you're in a small cell by yourself basically 23 hours a day.

COOPER: How long were you in that facility?

WHELAN: For a year-and-a-half.

COOPER: I cannot imagine, suddenly, from being in your hotel room visiting your friend for a wedding to being in this notorious prison. How do you mentally not just panic and freak out?

WHELAN: I probably did panic and freak out.

Very quickly, I realized that what was happening was real. You know, there was some solace in the fact that I knew my -- my ambassador would be coming to find out what was happening. I wasn't sure how long it would take to resolve. I knew I hadn't done anything. I hadn't violated the espionage law. I'm not a spy. I never have been.

[11:10:00]

They'd either made a mistake or they were making it up.

COOPER: Once you -- after the trial, you were sentenced like 16 years, I think?

WHELAN: Right. Yes.

COOPER: You were sent to a labor camp in Mordovia, and you're still -- for the next three, four years, you are woken up every two hours at night.

WHELAN: Yes. I was an escape risk, apparently. Mordovia, there's nothing -- there's nothing out there. It's woods. It's forests, you know.

COOPER: And so what they would come in, wake you up, and what?

WHELAN: They'd shine a light in my eyes and then take a picture with a camera to prove that they had -- they had checked me.

COOPER: Every night, every two hours?

WHELAN: Every two hours.

COOPER: For years.

WHELAN: For four years.

COOPER: Do you -- can you sleep normally now?

WHELAN: Now I'm getting back to a normal sleep pattern. It's difficult. COOPER: What was that flight like? What was, you know, we saw the

video of you at the tarmac in, you know, on American soil, being greeted by President Biden, by the vice president as well. What was that like?

WHELAN: You know, that was -- that was incredible. And, you know, we see on the monitor the president putting something on my shirt, and it's actually this.

COOPER: That's the ...

WHELAN: The flag, yes. This is the lapel pin.

I didn't realize when we got on the plane, it was a CIA plane flying back, that we were going to meet the president and Vice President. You know, I would been in solitary confinement for the five days prior. I hadn't had a shower in two weeks. I had clothes on that I would actually worn when I went to Russia. So ...

COOPER: The clothes you're wearing there, are those the clothes you were ...

WHELAN: Those are the clothes, yes, yes. So they were dirty. I was dirty. On the plane, I had to clean up as well as I could and, you know.

COOPER: Also look like they don't really fit you anymore.

WHELAN: No, they don't because I would lost so much weight. Yes.

It -- you know, I, you know, you -- you saw me walking off very kind of gingerly coming down those stairs, holding on, because I didn't have the strength. I didn't have the balance. The malnutrition had -- had taken a toll. It -- it was interesting to see the president. It was interesting to see the vice president, but there was a lot of media too.

And I was -- I was glad to see them. Those were the people that had supported me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Paul Whelan also told Anderson that he has no doubt that Russia murdered Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny when he was held prisoner. The Kremlin has denied any role in Navalny's death.

Coming up: Luigi Mangione's defense attorney is concerned about getting a fair trial, but should it be the prosecution that's concerned about the support he's getting online and outside the courthouse? That's coming up next.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:16:38] SOLOMON: The man accused of killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare will be back in court on February 21.

But during his first court appearance in New York yesterday, Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to state murder and terrorism charges. His lawyer said that she's concerned that her client can't get a fair trial. The judge assured her he would. Mangione faces 11 counts in New York, including one for first-degree murder and two on second-degree murder.

Now, if found guilty of the top charge, Mangione could get life in prison without parole. But he also faces a federal murder charge, which means the death penalty is on the table if he is convicted.

Joining us now is CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

Elie, always good to have you.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, Rahel. Good to see you.

SOLOMON: Yes.

So do you think, on the federal murder charge, that prosecutors actually seek it? And then how does that play out? What are the factors that they consider?

HONIG: Yes, so it's important to understand here, the charge that's been lodged against Luigi Mangione federally carries a maximum penalty of potential death sentence.

However, it's not clear whether DOJ will actually seek it. There's a whole long internal process at DOJ. As a prosecutor, I have done this, have to fill out this long packet of paperwork. You send it down to the attorney general. The A.G. has people review it, and then ultimately DOJ comes to a decision whether to seek the death penalty.

More often than not, that determination is actually, no, we're going to seek a life sentence, but not a death sentence. If you do seek a death sentence, then you have your trial, and if you get a conviction, then you have essentially a second mini-trial after that, where the jury has to decide whether the person gets a death sentence or not.

It's hard to predict what they're going to do with Mangione here. Most of the time, when the feds seek a death sentence, you have some sort of extenuated circumstance, you have multiple murders, you have some element of torture or some other horrific act.

It's also going to matter that we're going to have the Trump administration making this decision, not the Biden administration. So we will just have to see on that one.

SOLOMON: Taking your point that you don't have a crystal ball, I take that point, Elie, do you see any chance of a plea deal happening here?

HONIG: Yes, that's a tough one. So the vast majority of all criminal cases do plead guilty, over 90

percent, over 95 percent in some jurisdictions, but it's trickier when you have a murder case, because it's sort of all or nothing. Now, if we're looking at that -- remember that, as you said, there's two cases here.

The state case, there could be room to plead. You go from a first- degree murder down to a second-degree murder. The federal statutes are harder, because there's just federal murder statutes. Maybe they would agree to plead him down to just a gun charge, but the other complicating factor, if you're Mangione here, you have to work out a plea with both.

You're not going to plead just to the state and then go to trial and the feds or vice versa. So, Karen Friedman Agnifilo her work cut out for her here. She's going to need to get everyone at the table and everyone to agree to something if they want a deal.

SOLOMON: Yes, I mean, to your point, I mean, we heard Karen Agnifilo yesterday say that she has real concerns about whether her client can get a fair trial because of scenes like this, I mean, just the sort of spectacle that's been created around him.

But, on the other side, if you were a prosecutor, Elie, and you have been a prosecutor, would you worry about the fact that Mangione has gained this level of fame, even popularity on social media? I mean, how hard does that make it to get a fair jury?

HONIG: Yes. I would be concerned. I wouldn't necessarily lose sleep over it, although you're always a little bit nervous about the possibility of jury nullification.

And, for sure, this is the highest risk of nullification that I have seen in a long time, given the fame and fandom that this guy has somehow gained over social media. But it's important to keep in mind, there are checks in place, first of all, the jury selection process.

[11:20:11]

People who are overtly biased in his favor, people who have posted on social media, that kind of thing, they will be weeded out. They will never even make it onto a jury. The other thing is, the whole trial process has the effect of sort of forcing people to get serious.

It's really hard to sit through weeks worth of overwhelming evidence that this person shot his victim in the back and then just say, ah, heck with it, I kind of like this guy or I saw some social media meme.

So it's always in play, but I think it's important to understand we do have processes that sort of filter that kind of thing out.

SOLOMON: Yes, I mean, not to get ahead of the process here. I mean, we're just talking about his arraignment at this point, but it really only takes one jury, right, to sort of hang things up.

HONIG: Yes. SOLOMON: And so, I mean, I don't want to overstate it, but it probably will be a hard time for them to find a jury, because, I mean, as you know, it just takes one.

HONIG: Yes, yes, an important point, right? There's 12 people on a criminal jury. You need all 12 for a conviction. You need all 12 for an acquittal. Anything in between, 6-6, 10-2, 11-1, that's a hung jury. That means the case can be retried, but that's a nightmare for prosecutors, trust me.

I have had hung juries. They don't -- they're not good for prosecutors. So you're right. I mean, there's a group dynamic that will enter into play. But, that said, if I just said to you, how often can you get 12 people to agree on anything, it sounds pretty hard.

But, again, our court system has a way of pulling people together, forcing them to get real and get rational about the facts. And a surprisingly low number of criminal trials actually do result in hung juries. So I agree. I think it's a higher risk here than normal, but there are ways that gets mitigated.

SOLOMON: Yes, fair point.

Elie, let me ask before I let you go about the fatal "Rust" set shooting involving Alec Baldwin.

HONIG: Yes.

SOLOMON: New Mexico prosecutors announced that they're withdrawing their appeal of the dismissed case against the actor. Does it surprise you?

HONIG: It surprises me only that prosecutors are doing the right thing for once in this case. I mean, this case has been a model of prosecutorial overreach and incompetence.

I mean, I remember, Rahel, the day when these charges were announced, we had our colleague Josh Campbell got the first interview with the prosecutor, who was unable to even meaningfully articulate the theory of prosecution. This case has been a disaster from the start. It's been mishandled from the start.

I think it's a warning about what happens when prosecutors go trophy hunting, when they see a big, boldfaced name and overreach. And Alec Baldwin, I don't have any particular feelings about Alec Baldwin. I have never met him. I think he's a fine actor, but he didn't deserve this. This was a travesty. And it's a good thing that prosecutors have ended it finally.

SOLOMON: Elie Honig, always good to have your legal insights.

Thank you.

HONIG: Thanks, Rahel. All right, good to see you.

SOLOMON: Likewise. And still to come on CNN NEWSROOM: The holidays are magical for young

children, but they can also test your patience. Ahead, what experts say could be the best way to try to keep the peace.

Also, we're tracking Santa's every move.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:27:09]

SOLOMON: And a special scene this Christmas Eve. This is a live picture from EarthCam in Asheville, North Carolina, where it's 11:26. Not a cloud in the sky. It's a beautiful, but chilly 44-degree sunny day at the Biltmore house, the estate, which is the largest privately owned home in the U.S., reopened to visitors last month after Tropical Storm Helene forced it to close temporarily.

It's a beautiful scene.

But across the street from the Biltmore house in the Biltmore village shopping district, Helene's devastation is still very much visible. And Asheville's tourism board predicts that small businesses in the region could see a loss of nearly half-a-billion dollars in the first quarter of next year.

CNN traveled to Asheville to speak with some of those business owners, and they told us not only about their struggles, but also the hope that they're now trying to bring back to the community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX MATISSE, FOUNDER, EAST FORK POTTERY: My office was over here. We have cleaned up all the mud and the debris that was in here. But you can imagine the water was up to here. We were really fortunate.

One of our buildings was impacted. But where we do our main manufacturing, neither of those locations were severely impacted. My name is Alex Matisse. I'm the founder and CEO of East Fork Pottery.

It's been hard for small businesses even before Hurricane Helene. For businesses in Asheville, we went through COVID, the recession. And then to have this hurricane was just life-changing for everyone here. A lot of people were going to be without work, and we wanted to try and keep our payroll going. Our customers showed up, as they always do. We actually hired 20 other people to help out in our fulfillment department.

RACHEL KRUH MEYER, FOUNDER, BOTANICAL BONES: Botanical Bones is a superfood dog treat brand. I started my business shortly after we adopted our dog, Carnaby, from Brother Wolf Animal Rescue.

And when I saw that Brother Wolf had lost their shelter in the floodwaters, I was just heartbroken because I know that my business wouldn't exist without them. So we're donating back to Brother Wolf for every order this holiday season to help them with their rebuild efforts.

GINGER FRANK, FOUNDER, POPPY HAND-CRAFTED POPCORN: We feel really fortunate to have fared well, be up and running in business, and be able to give back to our community and help them recover.

This is a bag that we commissioned a local artist to do a design for, kind of represents all the things that we love about Asheville; $2 from every bag that's purchased on our Web site goes back to small business recovery from Helene, in retail stores, $1.

ALLISON BLAKE, CO-FOUNDER, SOULKU: So, SoulKu was started with my business partner and I. We just create beautiful, simple pieces of jewelry. They have lots of meaning behind them. We know money is tight. If you do not spend your dollars with these beautiful, unique businesses, what you love, what you know about Asheville and our Blue Ridge Mountains, it's not going to be here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: And for more information on how you can help small businesses in Asheville, go to CNN.com/Impact.