Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Russia May Have Mistaken Jet as Attack Drone, Quickly Pushes Theories about Cause of Crash; Plane Crash Survivors Describe Harrowing Ordeal; Transitioning to Trump; IDF Forces Last Major Health Facility in Northern Gaza out of Service; Russia Ramps Up Production of Iranian-Designed Drones; U.S. Announces Sanctions on "Georgian Dream" Founder; U.S. Markets Rising and Falling with "Magnificent Seven". Aired 4-5a ET
Aired December 28, 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]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
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, misidentification may be behind the deadly plane crash in Kazakhstan. What investigators found in the wreckage.
Donald Trump is taking a stand on TikTok. Why he's changed his tune about the popular app.
And only one person has led both the FBI and the CIA. You'll hear his rather choice words about Trump's new nominees.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
HUNTE: New details are emerging about Russia's possible involvement in that deadly plane crash on Christmas Day. A U.S. official tells CNN that Russian air defenses may have misidentified the commercial jet, confusing it for a Ukrainian drone.
Moscow is trying to blame the pilot, claiming he failed to land the plane twice before it went down in Kazakhstan.
But Azerbaijan Airlines says its early investigation shows, quote, "physical and technical external interference caused the crash."
The airline has now suspended flights from the country's capital to several Russian cities. Well, CNN's Hanako Montgomery joins us live from Tokyo.
Hi. Thank you for joining me.
For anyone waking up now or just tuning in now, what is the latest?
HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ben. It's good to see you. So as we're hearing more from these 29 survivors, we're hearing some
interesting new details. Some of them are saying that they heard a loud bang and felt an explosion moments before the plane crashed on Azerbaijani soil.
And in fact, one man, who was recording himself praying, also said that he saw some damage to the plane's main body. And in fact, if you take a look at this video, Ben, you can actually see visible holes in the plane's aircraft (sic).
Now we don't really know what caused these holes and what caused the plane to crash.
But according to one of our aviation experts, Miles O'Brien, the fact that the metal around these holes is bent inwards and not outwards could indicate that there was, quote, "an explosion in proximity to the tail of that aircraft."
Now this could all lend further weight to a growing theory about Russia's involvement. As you said, we've heard from a U.S. official, an Azerbaijani lawmaker, several aviation and military experts, all suggesting that Russia could have potentially misidentified the passenger jet as a Ukrainian drone and shot it down.
Now interestingly, on Friday, Russia did say that, for the first time ever, the plane had to be redirected to a new destination from its original destination because of Ukrainian drones in that area as well as fog.
Also on Friday, as you described, Azerbaijani Airlines indicated that after their initial investigation, the plane crashed after experiencing, quote, "physical and technical external interference."
So while this theory is still unconfirmed, it is gaining a lot of traction, Ben. And in terms of what's next for this investigation, investigators did find a second black box in the wreckage on Friday. And they're hoping that this will really be key to solving this puzzle.
They're hoping that voice recordings from the cockpit and also instrument readings will give some kind of indication as to why dozens of people lost their lives during this very tragic flight on Christmas Day -- Ben.
HUNTE: So at this point, it does seem like lots of people are pointing directly at Russia and saying, you did this.
So what is Russia saying in response?
MONTGOMERY: Honestly, Ben, not too much. They are denying the fact, of course, that this was a misidentification. And they're refusing to really comment on any of the accusations and allegations made by Ukrainian officials, also the U.S. official and also Azerbaijani officials as well.
So really what we're hearing is this repeat of essentially waiting to hear back about the final recordings and final essentially data from this investigation. They're urging people not to jump to conclusions.
But if you remember, Ben, around 10 years ago, we did see a similar situation with the MH17 flight where over 200 people died. And during that time, we did see a lot of misinformation and disinformation really swirling around about what exactly caused that plane to crash.
So right now, I think what a lot of people and a lot of officials are wondering is whether or not there can be really any kind of confirmation as to what exactly happened.
[04:05:06]
And whether they can really decipher how involved Russia was -- Ben.
HUNTE: Yes, indeed. Hanako Montgomery in Tokyo, thank you for joining me. We're going to be chatting again later this morning. So I look forward to it very, very soon. Thank you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: I want to stay on this story. So let's bring in Alan Diehl, a former investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. He's joining us now via Skype from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Dr. Diehl, thank you so much for staying up late for us. We appreciate it. You have experience investigating plane crashes like this all the time. We're into day four of analysis now.
What stands out about this crash to you?
ALAN DIEHL, AVIATION SAFETY CONSULTANT AND FORMER INVESTIGATOR, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: Well, Ben, we thank you, first of all, for having me.
Yes, there's -- I think we know what happens. Obviously, I'm speculating based on the information that's been released, photographic information about the damage to the aircraft. So we think we know what happened.
And contrary to what the Russians are saying, it appears that it was hit by a missile. It appears that this was a medium-sized missile. It was probably not one of these hand-held missiles nor was it a very large missile like brought down the Malaysia 17 Boeing 777.
So it looks like it was a tactical type missile. And there's a new type of missile the Russians have had actually for several years but they've deployed it to that region recently. And it's a very dangerous missile because it can react very quickly. And within four seconds after detecting a target, it can launch a missile.
OK. And that can do this automatically or under manual control. Now, of course, we don't know any of the direct evidence right now but suspicion points in the direction of this so-called Pantsir type missile system.
Now this isn't the first time a passenger plane was reportedly shot down in Russian airspace. You just alluded to one of the previous incidents there.
What can you tell us about how these types of mistakes can occur?
DIEHL: Well, I'm a human factors expert. I have worked for the U.S. Air Force as an investigator and, in fact, investigated one of their friendly fire accidents. And many times, it's all based on the expectancy of the operators sitting in these missile -- in this case, the missile control room, possibly.
They expect to see drones in the area. All of a sudden, a blip appears and they're convinced their job is to defend the city from drone attacks. So they may not have gotten a clear picture.
Now remember, there's a lot of radar and radio jamming going on, so it's possible that the transponder, the electronic identifier from the airliner, didn't appear on their scopes. So they had to assume -- or they may have assumed -- that this is a hostile target in a fair game.
HUNTE: After the initial reports came out about the crash, there were then updates saying that there were survivors. And then we saw videos of people walking out of this upside-down plane. Now that blew my mind. Surely that's incredibly unusual.
But I did read that you yourself actually survived a plane crash, too, right?
Maybe you can tell me a bit more about that and how you think there were survivors here as well.
DIEHL: Well, I did survive a small light plane aircraft accident many years ago in 1966 and that's how I got to be interested in aviation safety, frankly. I went to work for a manufacturer and later went to work for the NTSB and eventually the U.S. Air Force.
But I'm not surprised that these survivors, because this aircraft is a late model aircraft, this Embraer, it was only 11 years old. And back in the '70s and '80s when I was working for the NTSB, we kept recommending stronger seats. They went from what are called 9 G seats that weren't crashworthy.
They would break off us, carry nine times the weight of an individual. But finally the government, the FAA and other governments, mandated 16 G -- in other words, 16 times the force of gravity. And also they had to reinforce the legs and the tracks that they're mounted on.
So these seats apparently stayed in place and saved the lives of those 28 or 29 people in the back of the airplane. So this is a good news story and, frankly, not terribly surprising to me.
We saw the same thing when the Korean 777 hit the seawall in Los Angeles back in 2013. No one died in that crash. It was a violent crash. And yet no one died that had their seat belt fastened. There were three fatalities but these people had not had their seat belts fastened.
So not surprising that we had survivors. It truly is a miracle that this crew does a superb job of getting the airplane at least on the ground.
[04:10:05]
HUNTE: Wow, wow. Thank you so much, Alan Diehl in Albuquerque, for joining me from New Mexico. We appreciate it. There's going to be so much more of this story. I'm sure we'll be speaking very, very soon. Thank you.
DIEHL: Thank you. Ben.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL- ELECT: We'll take a look at TikTok. You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points. And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that.
We -- we did go on TikTok and we had a great response with billions of views, billions and billions of views. Maybe we got to keep this sucker around a little while, you know?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: Donald Trump there showing his love for TikTok, despite expressing a very different opinion in the past. And now he's urging the U.S. Supreme Court to pause a controversial TikTok ban set to take effect just one day before his inauguration. The president-elect says he wants a negotiation. CNN's Alayna Treene has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, president-elect Donald Trump on Friday urged the Supreme Court to put a pause on a controversial ban on TikTok, arguing that a delay in implementation would allow his incoming administration to try and negotiate some sort of deal that would save the app.
Now all of this relates back to a ban that Congress approved earlier this year and Biden signed into law, really arguing and requiring that the platform be sold to a new non-Chinese owner or be banned in the United States.
That ban is currently slated to take effect on January 19th, just one day before Donald Trump is sworn in to office. Now what Donald Trump is urging the Supreme Court to do puts him at odds with the Biden administration, which filed its own briefing on Friday, urging the Supreme Court to move forward with the ban.
And they warned of grave national security concerns if it is not implemented. Now one thing to be clear on is that Donald Trump, in his briefing, did not really address the underlying First Amendment questions. But he did urge the court to put this pause on the ban so that his administration can try to find some way to resolve the issue. This is what he said in the briefing, quote, "President-elect Trump
urges the court to stay the statute's effective date to allow his incoming administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans.
"While also addressing the government's national security concerns."
Now one thing to be clear on is that TikTok is very popular in the United States. It has 170 million monthly users in the U.S.
And Trump, for his part, has wavered on the issue. Back during his first administration, he actually signed an executive order that would have effectively put a ban on TikTok, also arguing of its national security concerns, given China's influence over the social media platform.
However, throughout his time on the campaign trail in 2024, as well as just a couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump said that he is warming to TikTok. And he argued that part of his stance on that is because so many young voters who voted for him use the app.
Now all to say it is very unclear what is going to happen. But Donald Trump's argument is that he wants a pause on this ban so that his administration can figure out how they want to resolve this -- Alayna Treene, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: The only person to have led both the CIA and FBI is warning the Senate that Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard aren't fit to lead. William Webster sent a letter to senators on Thursday, stressing the dangers of confirming Patel as FBI director or Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
He said he was deeply concerned about the nominations and emphasized that the effectiveness of both agencies, quote, "depends on operating with complete independence from political influence."
He went on to question Patel's impartiality and Gabbard's experience.
Former U.S. Defense Secretary and CIA director Leon Panetta is also voicing concerns about some of Trump's nominees.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEON PANETTA, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: You should select individuals for these very important posts not just on loyalty. I mean, loyalty is important. No question about it.
But you also want to look at their experience. You also want to look at their knowledge of that institution. And you also want to look at their judgment and whether they have the right judgment.
I hope that the United States Senate exercises its responsibility to really look carefully at them and a few of these candidates where questions have been raised. Look at the background checks that the FBI are providing.
But more importantly, ask them the questions that relate to whether or not they have the experience and judgment to do a good job. I'm concerned, obviously, from what I see about these candidates. But I'm willing to have the Senate proceed with advice and consent.
[04:15:00]
And do it responsibly so that the American people are protected and we get the right people in the right jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: Still ahead, a dire new warning from the World Health Organization. The last major hospital in northern Gaza has been forced out of service amid ongoing Israeli military operations. Details on a medical crisis in the besieged enclave next.
Plus, reaction from Israeli government ministers after the country's attorney general announced a new investigation into the prime minister's wife, Sara Netanyahu. How it relates to her husband's corruption trials. Next.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
HUNTE: Welcome back.
The World Health Organization says an Israeli raid has forced the last major health facility in northern Gaza out of service. The Israeli military surrounded the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya on Friday as part of its ongoing operations in the area.
The who Says there are at least 60 health workers and more than 2 dozen patients in critical condition who remain inside. The IDF says its troops are operating in the area but are not inside the hospital.
[04:20:03]
Israel claims Hamas is using the facility for its operations. Witnesses and staff say the IDF ordered patients and medical workers to evacuate, despite there being nowhere else to go. Take a listen to how one nurse described the scene.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHUROUQ SALAH, NURSE, KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL (through translator): They separated the men from the women and took the women in groups. Those who refused to remove their clothing were beaten.
And they took our phones. I didn't have a phone but those who were refusing to hand over their phones were beaten and those who refused to take off their clothes were also beaten. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: Meanwhile, some Israeli government ministers are criticizing a new investigation into Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister's wife. Israel's attorney general announced the inquiry on Friday on allegations Ms. Netanyahu may have harassed a witness in one of her husband's corruption trials.
Israel's justice minister and the far right national security minister both denounced the new probe. Elliott Gotkine has more on that plus details about the hospital in northern Gaza.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELLIOTT GOTKINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If there is one thing that riles Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more than being in the dock himself, it's accusations against his wife.
Sara Netanyahu, who has a 2019 conviction for misusing public funds, now faces formal investigation for allegedly intimidating a witness in her husband's corruption trial as well as indirectly harassing the attorney general and deputy attorney general.
The allegations were first aired on Israel Channel 12's "Uvda" program, the country's equivalent of "60 Minutes." Benjamin Netanyahu decried the report as a new blood libel, calling it biased and false propaganda.
The prime minister sees it as another strand of what he describes as a witch hunt against him, orchestrated by the left-wing media and which led to him being tried for fraud, breach of trust and bribery, charges he vehemently denies.
Netanyahu asked that his trial be postponed due to the wars with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza but to no avail. In the enclave itself, the Israeli military, on Friday, said it was carrying out targeted operations against what it described as a Hamas terrorist stronghold in and around the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
Hamas has denied that it uses hospitals for military purposes and the IDF has not offered definitive proof of its claims.
Hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said in a social media post that the IDF was besieging Kamal Adwan and issuing orders for its evacuation.
A few hours later, Abu Safiya said the Israeli military was burning all the operating departments in the hospital and had evacuated all displaced people and staff, some of whom he said had been arrested. Smoke could be seen billowing from the building.
The IDF said troops had facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel prior to the operation -- Elliott Gotkine, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HUNTE: Flights have resumed at the international airport in Yemen's
capital after it was targeted by Israeli airstrikes. The runway is still operational but several other areas, including the control tower, were damaged in the strikes.
The Houthi rebels, who control Sanaa, say at least six people were killed and dozens more were injured at the airport and in Israeli strikes in Hudaydah to the west.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YAHYA AL-SAYANI, HOUTHI DEPUTY TRANSPORT MINISTER (through translator): The Sanaa airport was directly targeted. The control tower was directly targeted. The departure hall was directly targeted, as well as the airport's navigational equipment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: As the strikes began, a high level U.N. delegation, led by the World Health Organizations director general Tedros, was in an airport lounge, waiting to depart. They ran for cover and later evacuated to Jordan, where one U.N. crew member injured in the bombardment was being treated.
North Korean troops are experiencing mass casualties as they go head to head with Ukrainian forces in Western Russia. The White House says about 1,000 North Koreans were killed or wounded in the past week alone.
Now in a possible first, Ukraine's president says several wounded North Koreans have recently been captured but they later died from their injuries. He also says those troops go into battle without much protection and their commanders don't seem to care if they live or die.
At least 11,000 North Koreans are believed to be deployed to Russia's Kursk region.
Russia seems to have an endless supply of drones these days, thanks to technology acquired from Iran. A factory east of Moscow is cranking out the Russian version of Iran's Shahed drones, which Tehran has been supplying to Moscow.
But as Clare Sebastian reports, Russian engineers are taking the Iranian knowhow to a new and deadlier level.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The caption: "My mom's reaction when she found out I earn more than her."
[04:25:00]
Cat videos, TikTok memes, all part of a recruitment effort funneling workers into Russia's ever expanding drone program. The videos are made by Alabuga Politekh, a technical college based at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in southern Russia.
The same site identified by the White House last year as Russia's domestic Shahed factory, producing Iranian designed drones.
In February, the U.S. slapped sanctions on Alabuga, noting it exploited underage students from an affiliated polytechnic university as laborers to assemble these attack UAV's. David Albright, a former nuclear weapons inspector, has been tracking Alabuga since 2022.
DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: The only benefit is -- is the high salary but the males get exemption from military service and so that -- that's a drawing card.
SEBASTIAN: A Ukrainian intelligence officer only authorized to speak to CNN anonymously told us those perks come at a cost.
"OREST," UKRANIAN DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE (through translator): All students involved in the production of these UAVs live at a separate limited access compound. Once employed, they sign NDAs. Their contracts say they produce motorboats.
SEBASTIAN: And yet, as recruitment efforts step up, this video from July allowed the facade to slip.
"Thinking of starting 10th grade?" says the voice-over, "Join the Super Elite program, air navigation and drone programming at Alabuga Politekh and help the Stalin's Falcons."
That's a new drone unit in the Russian military. Pause here and you see the distinctive serial number of the Russian produced Shahed and the unit emblem.
In July, Russia fired 422 Shahed or similar drones at Ukraine. By November, it was almost six times that. Analysis of Air Force reports and official data show. To meet that demand, Shahed production at Alabuga has more than doubled this year, say CNN sources in Ukraine's Defense Intelligence. And there's a new product.
This is the Gerbera, a much cheaper copy of the Shahed, pictured in a video posted in July by the Stalin's Falcons, that same drone unit. For this volunteer air defense unit in Kyiv, it's clear the cheaper copies are fueling bigger attacks.
YURIY CHUMAK, UKRAINIAN AIR DEFENSE VOLUNTEER: Now they send -- Russia sends every day a lot of drones. More of them are not even with the explosive things. It's just very cheap and very simple drones.
SEBASTIAN: For Yuriy Chumak, a serving supreme court judge by day, there's no denying the decoys are working.
CHUMAK: We cannot detect what it is. You just see that it's drones so you shall use missile or you shall use machine gun to shut down it.
SEBASTIAN: CNN's sources in Ukrainian defense intelligence believe Alabuga will produce up to 10,000 Gerberas this year alone. Analysis of downed drones shows Russia has also adapted the original Shahed, making it tougher, more weatherproof and in some cases, deadlier.
In late October, experts in Kyiv found traces of thermobaric munitions on downed Shaheds.
OLEKSIY STEPANIUK, KYIV SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF FORENSIC EXPERT (through translator): There were several of them. Their effect is that they're used as incendiary munitions. In a certain radius, they disable all equipment and people.
SEBASTIAN: Ukraine has tried hitting back. This April strike, using a modified small aircraft, blew a hole in the roof of a worker dormitory at Alabuga.
But neither that strike nor international sanctions could stop the breakneck pace of expansion here. Between March and September this year, two entirely new buildings appeared next to the original ones.
And this image from late November seems to confirm they're connected. New covered walkways link old and new buildings. Another looks set to join the factory to the worker dormitories now fully repaired.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They started to create, we thought, drone cages over the buildings. And then as they build other buildings, it looks like they're expanding the security perimeter.
SEBASTIAN: NATO told CNN it is, quote, well aware of Alabuga and expects it to ramp up production even further. This military patriotic team-building event for Alabuga students, a glimpse into the high- octane world behind that security fence -- Clare Sebastian, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: The U.S. imposes sanctions on a Georgian billionaire and political leader as the country looks set for a presidential standoff.
Plus, the hits keep coming in South Korea as the nation faces more political disruption. The latest next.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:30:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
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.
The battle over immigration that's brewing within MAGA world shows no signs of easing. The big question is all about providing visas for highly skilled workers.
Media platform X CEO Elon Musk and incoming co-chair of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy, defend the program, arguing that tech companies need foreign workers to compete. That's putting them at odds with Trump supporters, who take a much harder line.
Now some of them are accusing Musk of weaponizing X to retaliate against them. Laura Loomer is an immigration-critical Trump loyalist. She says her blue check mark was removed and her subscriptions deactivated because of her opposition to Musk. Loomer told Steve Bannon's war room she sees trouble ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA LOOMER, FAR RIGHT ACTIVIST: Why does this guy have unfettered access to President Trump?
And what are these, the national security implications of this?
I know that you've spoken out about this and we really need to have an honest conversation about this.
At what point do we say, thank you so much for supporting President Trump and donating to his ground game but these conflicts are inappropriate and they're going to create a potential controversy for President Trump and his nominees in the Trump administration?
We need to have an honest conversation about this that isn't blinded by people's love fest for a technocratic billionaire. We need to protect President Trump from a conflict.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: Well, Musk has called some Trump supporters "contemptible fools who must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem."
The U.S. says it's placing sanctions on the founder and honorary chairman of Georgia's ruling Georgian Dream Party.
[04:35:04]
U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken said billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili and Georgia Dream had, quote, "eroded democratic institutions, enabled human rights abuses and curbed the exercise of fundamental freedoms in Georgia."
Georgia is set to inaugurate a new president, Mikhail Saakashvili, on Sunday. Current president Salome Zurabishvili has vowed to remain in office, saying unfair elections mean she holds the only legitimate office left in the government. Weeks of protests have been met with violent repression throughout the country.
Well, let's get some more on this. Jill Dougherty, adjunct professor at Georgetown University and former CNN Moscow bureau chief, joins us now from Tbilisi.
Hello, thank you for joining me. This has been a wild few months in Georgia. I first started to look into Georgia because of the anti- LGBTQ laws that were put forward in June. Then suddenly it's election time and everything's just gone crazy.
I've seen a protest on social media and they must be occurring almost daily for, what, the past few weeks now. The current president is now refusing to leave but she's supposed to hand over power tomorrow. Let's unpack all of this. Mikhail Kavelashvili is supposed to be taking over as president tomorrow, Jill.
Will it happen?
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, actually, nobody knows at this point but it's a very, let's say, tense and kind of unpredictable time.
So essentially, what you have is the parliament of Georgia that was elected at the end of October in an election that the opposition says was essentially stolen.
They are going to be inaugurating the person that they chose, this Mikheil Kavelashvili, as the president. But the only problem is, as you pointed out, there is a president in place who was elected four years ago democratically and she is Salome Zurabishvili.
And she has said that having a new president is actually, as she called it, "a farce" because it's illegal. So she is saying she remains the legal president of Georgia.
Now saying that is one thing. But I think physically, on the ground, this is where we don't know what is going to happen. She is, as we are -- as far as we know, in the presidential palace. That's where she works and that's where she lives.
But as of Sunday, which is tomorrow, the parliament -- the prime minister says she will be breaking the law if she stays in that building and could be arrested. So it is tense and I don't think really either side wants a lot of violence at this point.
But things are unpredictable. And then, of course, you have -- and we can talk about this -- the sanctioning by the United States of the head of the Georgian Dream Party, which is really significant and was greeted by many people in the opposition here as extremely good news.
HUNTE: Yes, many Georgians believe the October parliamentary results were rigged. And with international election observers just raising concerns about pressure and intimidation and voter buy-in.
And then on Friday, we saw the U.S. announcing sanctions on the billionaire founder and honorary chairman of Georgia's ruling Georgian Dream Party. And that billionaire seen as calling the shots. So make sense of all of this for me.
What can Western nations like the U.S. do?
And does Washington actually have any leverage there at all?
DOUGHERTY: Well, the United States, you know, over the years, if you look back since the end of the Soviet Union and the beginning of independent Georgia and those 15 countries that became independent at the end of the Soviet Union, the United States has helped Georgia immensely on a lot of bases.
Militarily, civil society, really giving Georgia millions of dollars to try to strengthen its democracy. And for quite a while -- in fact, I remember this very well -- you know, Georgia was kind of the poster child in this region, in the Caucasus, as a country that, you know, was moving toward democracy and had a very strong civil society.
But as you get more into the control of politics by the Georgian Dream and then you had the invasion of Ukraine, which really was very influential here and has been used by the Georgian Dream Party to say, you know, the West goes around, it's the party of war.
It is the deep state. It wants to pull Georgia into some type of war the way Georgia -- the way Ukraine is enmeshed right now.
And so I think the opposition would say Georgia has, quite rapidly at this point, been pulled away from the E.U.
[04:40:06]
And the crunch point came just about a month ago, when the prime minister said, we're -- we are on the road to integration with the E.U. However, we are going to put this on hold until 2028 because we just we feel there are too many disagreements with the E.U. We're putting that on hold.
And 80 percent of the population here supports joining the E.U. and being, you know, staying part of Europe. So that's where I think the anger has built.
And that's why you've seen up to, reportedly -- and I would tend to believe it -- 200,000 people on the streets. Tonight we're expecting yet another very big rally. It's called a human chain of unity that's going to be here in Tbilisi and in some other cities.
So it's dramatic on many levels. You know, constitutional crisis, political crisis and then I think societal crisis of where Georgia is going.
HUNTE: Gosh, that is so much going on in Georgia. Well, tonight, stay safe, Jill. Thank you so much for your reporting. I'm sure we're going to speak tomorrow. So until then, thank you so much.
Germany's president Frank-Walter Steinmeier has dissolved the country's lower house of parliament. That paves way for snap elections on February 23rd. The president announced the move on Friday following the collapse of chancellor Olaf Scholz's Freeway Coalition.
The chancellor lost a vote of confidence earlier this month after the Free Democratic Party left the coalition, leaving it without a legislative majority.
There's fresh political turmoil for South Korea. It was a chaotic situation on Friday when parliament voted to impeach the acting president, Han Duck-soo. This came just weeks after lawmakers impeached president Yoon Suk- yeol over his move to impose martial law.
The motion against Han came after he refused to fill vacant seats within the top court, which will settle Yoon's impeachment trial. The nation's finance minister and deputy prime minister is now acting president.
A suspect has been indicted in the burning death of a woman sleeping on a New York subway car. When we come back, the charges he faces and the search for the victim's identity.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:45:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
HUNTE: Welcome back.
A 67 year old man is in stable condition after he was found with burns on his body in New York City's Penn Station. Police were flagged down by a passerby, who reported seeing a man on fire on Friday.
The flames were out when police arrived and the man was sent to a nearby medical center but he sustained burns across his legs and torso. The extent of his injuries was not known. Police say they're still trying to find out how the man suffered the burn injuries.
Well, that incident comes less than a week after the gruesome burning death of a woman who was sleeping on a subway car. The suspected killer has been indicted and faces a court appearance early next month. CNN's Gloria Pazmino has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right.
For the past several days since this incident happened early on Sunday morning here in New York City, prosecutors in the Brooklyn district attorney's office have been presenting evidence to a grand jury which voted to indict the suspect on the charges.
Now he will be facing murder in the first and second degrees as well as arson. And we are expecting that indictment to be unsealed on January 7th.
We're also expecting the suspect to appear in court and enter a plea on that day. Now this is an incident that has highlighted many of the issues that New York City has continued to grapple with ever since the pandemic -- public safety -- public safety, specifically on the transportation system, homelessness and mental illness.
This is a case that, because of its horrific details, has gotten a lot of attention here in New York City but really in all other parts of the country. Now the district attorney has said that his office is prepared to prosecute the case.
In fact, they have charged the suspect with murder in the first degree. That is the top charge. And if convicted, the suspect, who's been identified as Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, could face life in prison without the possibility of parole. Take a listen to district attorney Eric Gonzalez talking about the prosecution of the case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC GONZALEZ, BROOKLYN DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I want to assure the people of this city that this office will do everything in our power to hold him accountable.
This was a malicious deed. A sleeping, vulnerable woman on our subway system. This act surprised many New Yorkers as they we're getting ready to celebrate the holidays.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAZMINO: Now we also learned from the district attorney that law enforcement and the city's medical examiner's office is still working to identify the victim. The process has been made difficult due to the injuries that the person suffered in this horrific incident.
The district attorney's office said that they are using advanced DNA technology in an effort to identify her -- Gloria Pazmino, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: A judge in New York has refused to dismiss a rape case against rapper Jay-Z. The judge ruled that the accuser will be allowed to proceed without publicly revealing her identity.
The accuser says Jay-Z and music mogul Sean Diddy Combs raped her after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. She was just 13 years old at the time. Jay-Z has denied the accusations. Combs has pleaded not guilty to separate federal charges and is awaiting a criminal trial.
Wall Street is riding a Big Tech wave just ahead. How the Magnificent Seven have been shaping the U.S. stock market, for better or for worse.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:50:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
HUNTE: Despite a Big Tech selloff on Friday, much of the stock market is revolving around a group of companies some are calling the Magnificent Seven. CNN's Matt Egan examines if this reliance is healthy for investors.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Do you remember the Fab Five in basketball?
Well, now you have the Mag 7 in the stock market. We're talking about Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla combined. These companies are now valued at more than $18 trillion -- trillion with a T.
Some context: that's more than the entire GDP of China. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
Apple alone is on the verge of becoming the first company to be valued at $4 trillion. Now these seven stocks have been basically carrying the market higher since Election Day.
These seven stocks have accounted for 86 percent of the gains in the S&P 500 -- 86 percent. And this trend is not entirely new. Coming into today, the S&P 500 had surged almost 30 percent on the year. But without the Mag 7, the S&P would only be up 13 percent on the year.
So still up but not nearly as much. Now when you think about these seven stocks, what they have in common is, well, first, they're all big, Big Technology companies but they're also all AI plays.
They're investing heavily in artificial intelligence and investors believe that they will emerge as among the winners in this AI arms race. And we know that AI has been the hottest part of the bull market in stocks.
Of course, the question is, how long will they stay hot?
Because this market has become very concentrated among just a few players. Goldman Sachs has found that the top 10 S&P 500 stocks make up 36 percent of the index's value.
[04:55:00]
We've seen a similar situation play out in the past, including the late 1990s before the bursting of the dot-com bubble and in 2019 and 2020, before COVID.
But still, this is a record level of concentration, according to Goldman Sachs. So as far as what all this means for as long as AI stays hot, we could keep seeing the markets go higher and higher and this will benefit passive investors, right?
Everyone who has their investment portfolios blindly tied to the S&P and other market indicators. You think about everyone who is a 401(k) or college savings plan.
But in the long run, it's not really healthy to have the market depend on the success of just a few players. It would be like an NFL team that can't score without their running back. What if the running back gets hurt or gets into a slump, right? You're out of luck. And we have seen that play out in recent days where the Mag 7 stocks have fallen and they've dragged down the rest of the market.
It's almost impossible for the overall market to go up when these seven stocks are all in the red.
I do think that, as we close out what has been a blockbuster 2024 in the stock market, this does expose a potential vulnerability in 2025 because, for the market to keep breaking records, we're either going to need to see this rally broaden out or these seven stocks are going to have to stay magnificent -- Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: Magnificent. OK, well, that's all I've got for you for this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. It's been real. Let's do it again. I'm Ben Hunte in London. I'll be back with more news after this quick break.