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At Least 176 Killed in South Korea Plane; Flight Data and Voice Recorder from the Jeju Air flight Recovered; Severe Storms in U.S. Kills Two; Putin Addresses Azerbaijan Airlines Crash; Donald Trump Siding with Elon Musk; Georgia's Controversial New President; Gaza Hospital Raid. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired December 29, 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]

BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States, the U.K. and all around the world. I'm Ben Hunte in London. It is so good to have you with me. This is CNN Newsroom.

Of course, we're kicking off with breaking news. Investigators have recovered both the flight data and voice recorders or black boxes from the Jeju Air flight that crashed in South Korea, 181 people were on board the Boeing 737-800 when it crash landed at Muan International Airport on Sunday morning. Officials have confirmed the deaths of 149 people. Two crew members were rescued. The officials say the rest of the passengers and crew are presumed dead.

This video we're going to show you now shows the plane dragging along the runway with no landing gear in sight, no wheels at all. Moments later, the plane bursts into flames. We're not going to show you that moment. South Korean officials say the jet made a mayday call shortly after the control tower warned about birds in the area.

Well, CNN Correspondent Mike Valerio is following all of this breaking news from Seoul. Mike, thank you for joining me. This is obviously horrible news, and at a time when so many families would be celebrating the holidays. For anyone that's waking up just now, just tuning in, could you just tell us what is the latest, please?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure. And I mean, Ben, after South Korea has been through so much with martial law being declared in the early hours of December 4th, lasting for six hours, South Korea has been through an incredible series of crises, one after another, this just adding to the latest that has befallen South Korea.

And, Ben, you know, before we came on the air, we have a better idea of the minute-by-minute of how exactly this crash happened, and I think what viewers should know who are just tuning in, we have a warning that was issued from the control tower, a flight with nothing out of the ordinary happening until the control tower says, listen, right before 9:00 a.m. there's the possibility that birds are in the area by the one runway for this international airport, about three and a half hours south of Seoul, and bird strikes could be possible.

And, Ben, four minutes after that warning goes out, that's when trouble starts to happen. We have the plane that declares a mayday signal from the cockpit, and then only a few minutes later, the crash on the runway. Now, so many of our analysts have been noting over the past few hours. There are plenty of instances when a plane can land without any problems without its landing gear being deployed, and yet, at this specific airport, there seems to be a whole host of pieces of equipment, the very end of this runway, the plane crashed into which in other airports, all that equipment, it would not be there. So, that certainly is one of the primary questions.

Another question that's being asked, Ben, is there seems to be the element of bird strike entering the equation of emergency authorities from, you know, the minister of land and transportation saying of that minute-by-minute breakdown of a bird strike warning coming from the control tower, but when we have bird strikes over here in this bucket, it's not clear how one thing affects the other. Why a bird strike would preclude the landing gear from coming down in the underbelly of the aircraft. When we're looking at the video of the final moments of the aircraft before the explosion, the flaps aren't up on the wing.

The nose of the plane is tilted downward. It seems as though the aircraft comes in for a landing very far down the runway, not in the middle portion, but closer towards the end. Why exactly was that? And at this very early moment in the investigation, certainly authorities are considering a potential bird strike or something that happened in the cockpit lead to a cascading series of events that led to disaster for all of these airline passengers.

So, we have two survivors. One of them is now being transported to a hospital in Seoul. The other survivor, Ben, is already here in the Korean capital with those two elements of the black box recorder, the data recorder and the video recorder now being recovered it is the hope of South Korean authorities that those two elements combined with the testimony of the two survivors could lead to an explanation of just what happened here, and the country is bracing itself for this death toll to possibly reach to 179 people with only those two survivors being lucky enough to make it alive, Ben.

[04:05:00]

HUNTE: I mean, for many people around the world, this will be the first time they're hearing of Jeju Air. What can you tell us about that airline?

VALERIO: Sure. So, Jeju Air, it's named after Jeju Island, which is essentially like the Hawaii of South Korea. Jeju Air is a budget airline, but wildly popular, Ben, in this corner of the world. This is where are an airline that people would turn to go to all of these amazing, idyllic vacation destinations between East Asia, Southeast Asia, Thailand, of course, among them, on a budget.

So, this flight started in Bangkok, 2:00 a.m. local time, pushing back from the gate at 2:11 due in here, at this airport, Muan, South Korea, in the 9:00 hour, and nothing out of the ordinary in any of the flight data points that we've been able to see so far.

The CEO of Jeju Air, for what it's worth, saying that there were no anomalies or any instances of accidents in this aircraft history that could lead anybody to think that, all right, well, this aircraft may have a problem in the next few days and weeks. Jeju Air founded in 2005, and it has been the largest budget air carrier in South Korea.

So, it's known throughout Asia. A good, if not great safety record, up until this point, the worst air disaster involving a South Korean airline since the late '90s when a Korean airliner crashed into a hill in Guam, killing upwards of 220 people, Ben.

HUNTE: My goodness. One thing that's really shocked me this morning is that we're reporting that two people have survived this crash. I mean, just talk to me about that. How has that happened? What do we know about them?

VALERIO: I mean, that was certainly the miracle of the morning. So, the two people, Ben, their crew members from Jeju Air and they were sitting in the back of the plane near the tail, about 15 meters tall, the only part of this plane that they were Survived, you know, the hellscape of this crash.

So, the main question that we have when it comes to the survivors is what kind of conditions they're in, and of course, you know, we're going through all of this reporting here at CNN. We want to make sure that we double, triple check and verify everything. We should have some lines of reporting on that front in the next few hours, as Europe and the rest of the world begins to wake up.

But at this moment, it's unclear the conditions that they are in. Both of those survivors will be at two notable trauma one hospitals here in the Korean capital. But absolutely, that is one of the prominent storylines, two survivors just looking at the video, absolutely incredible that they made it out alive.

HUNTE: It's wild as well, because just a few days ago we were looking at pictures of people coming out of another plane crash and literally walking out and crawling out on social media. It's like, what is going on? This is mad. Well, thank you, Mike. I appreciate it. I'm sure rescuers on the scene doing all that they can. And I'm going to be speaking to you again in just a few minutes, I think. So, thank you so much.

With both black boxes now recovered from the crashed airliner, the question of what happened will hopefully be answered sooner rather than later. Earlier, we spoke with Mark Martin, the CEO of an aviation safety consulting firm, and what he thinks may have caused this deadly crash landing and why the International Community should assist in the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE MARTIN, CEO, MARTIN CONSULTING: From what we know so far, you know, when you got a bird strike on the 737, the 737 has got redundancies and backups and hydraulic. So, you've got two engines running hydraulic systems. So, even if you got a bird strike on one engine, the second hydraulic system takes over and gives you your, you know, hydraulics to operate your landing gear. And even if that fails, you have something called a ram air turbine.

OK. So, fundamentally, the 737 is a pretty well-designed aircraft. And obviously, Boeing has spent billions of dollars on that aircraft. The bigger issue here is what caused that uncontrolled rapid descent. Now, what we know so far is that we're dealing with eyewitness reports and hearsay. And unless, you know, we get that flight data recorder, the DFTR, the CVR, you know, pitch that together, also get hold of the ATC tapes, ADSB out data, put that in over into a room, get guys to start looking at it, you know, we're not going to know what actually went wrong.

You know, the video says he came down with the landing gear. His gear was up. His flaps were not deployed and he came -- I mean, from what we know, he came pretty fast. So, obviously, he -- you know, he's broken a rapid descent over there and he slammed the aircraft down on the runway. But again, we're speculating. And, you know, let's respect the dead.

[04:10:00]

You know, there are a lot of lives lost, the crews no more, and I think the faster we get into an independent investigation, and because this is a Boeing, you know, Boeing needs to get involved with this and so does the FAA because something like this, you never hear of a Boeing 737 having such, you know, incidents are such a crash for that matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Well, obviously speaking to a lot of people, a former crash investigator with the U.S. government, Alan Diehl, assessed what could have been done differently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP

ALAN DIEHL, FORMER INVESTIGATOR, U.S. NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: You wonder if maybe they shouldn't have gone to either a U.S. Military base or a Korean military base where they have very good firefighting equipment or even to a bigger airport, a civilian airport where they would have more foam trucks and other ways of dealing with this kind of emergencies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Obviously, whatever answers may emerge in the coming hours or days will be of little to no consolation to the victim's families, many of whom are still waiting in anguish at the airport, either mourning the loss of a loved one or waiting to hear something about their condition.

To the U.S., the threat of severe weather continues to loom large for millions of Americans. Have a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unreal. You hear that sound? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Well, at least two people are dead after severe storms and tornadoes tore through parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi on Saturday. New tornado watches have just been posted across parts of Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. Almost 10 million Americans are currently under tornado watches. More than 2 million were under a rare, particularly dangerous situation warning earlier on Saturday, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.

A number of tornadoes were reported outside of Houston, Texas on Saturday, including in the small town of Montgomery, where you can see here on this video, a family, including young children, had to be rescued from the rubble. The storms moved quickly and unpredictably, impacting those who thought they were out of harm's way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were already in the driveway. It was just drizzling. We were waiting for the realtor to come show us the property, and all the reports said that the tornado or the storm was passing already by us, it was headed northeast. So, we're sitting there waiting for it and then, two minutes later, everything just shifted tremendously. The wind started blowing and then the trees just fell on top of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: There was some 30 reports of tornadoes on Saturday from Texas to Alabama. The threat area continues to move eastward in the hours ahead.

We're also following the latest updates on another plane incident, the deadly Azerbaijan Airlines crash in Kazakhstan. Still ahead Vladimir Putin is now speaking out after a U.S. official suggested Russia could have been involved.

Plus, Donald Trump finally wades into the MAGA vs Elon Musk showdown. We'll have more on those on whose side he took, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:15:00]

HUNTE: Let me bring you an update on our top story. Investigators have recovered the flight data and the voice recorder from the wreckage of a crashed plane in South Korea. Hundreds of emergency workers are on the scene You Hours after the Jeju Air jet crash landed in Muan, South Korea, the death toll has officially risen to 149 people. Two crew members have been rescued. The remaining passengers and crew are now presumed dead.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized for the fact that an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed after entering a Russian airspace on Christmas Day. But he didn't say that Russia was responsible during a phone call with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev.

Putin called it a tragic incident. He said Russia's air defense systems were active at the time, which a U.S. official has suggested may have mistakenly shot down the jet. Aliyev told Putin that external interference led to a complete loss of control before the plane went down in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. The Kremlin says Russia's investigative committee has opened a criminal case.

An investigation is now underway in Florida after a train collided with a fire truck on Saturday. Here you can see from the footage from the train itself, you can see it moving along on the tracks, heading toward a fire engine that appears to be moving slowly through a traffic crossing. There it is there. We've stopped the footage just before the moment of impact.

Officials say three firefighters were transported to a nearby hospital, 12 passengers sustained minor injuries, but no fatalities were reported.

This isn't the first incident involving the train operator Brightline, which provides passenger rail service between Orlando and Miami. The Federal Railroad Administration says 34 people were killed in incidents involving Brightline trains between September 2023 and June of this year.

Donald Trump is finally taking sides in the civil war brewing among his supporters when it comes to a particular immigration issue. CNN's Alayna Treene has more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, President-Elect Donald Trump on Saturday defended the H-1B Visa Program, essentially, which allows high skilled foreign workers to come and work in the United States, weighing in for the first time on an issue that has really divided his supporters this week. I want to read for you what he told The New York Post in a phone interview on Saturday. He said, quote, "I've always liked the visas. I've always been in favor of the visas. That's why we have them." He added. "I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I've used it many times. It's a great program."

Now, to take a step back here, this is a conversation that has really kind of shown a rift among his supporters this week. On one hand, you have kind of the MAGA faithful, the people who have been very loyal to Donald Trump, and many of whom have been attracted to him because of his hardline immigration views. Then, on the other hand, you have a lot of the Silicon Valley latecomers to this, people who have supported Donald Trump, but also really rely on these high skilled foreign workers for their own businesses.

[04:20:00]

Now, all of this kind of started playing out when we saw Elon Musk, close confidant of Donald Trump and someone who is going to be running his new Department of Government Efficiency Initiative, started weighing in on it on X this week, really defending the H-1B visa program. We also saw Vivek Ramaswamy who is going to be running that initiative with him, defend that program as well.

Now, to be clear, Donald Trump has been ambiguous on this issue in the past. I remind you that back during his first administration we actually saw H-1B visas -- excuse me, H-1B visas declined significantly during his first term, and at one point his administration had even suspended them altogether. However, earlier this year Donald Trump told a popular podcast that he actually believed that any immigrant who came to this country and graduated from a United States university should receive a green card and be allowed in to stay in the country. All to say, Donald Trump is now saying that he supports this program. It's unclear exactly what this will mean for policies come his next administration.

Now, one thing as well I want to note is, going back to Elon Musk's support of this program, he weighed in again on Friday, something that drew a lot of ire from far-right pundits like Laura Loomer and Ann Coulter. I'm going to read for you what he said. Musk said, quote, "The reason I'm in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong, is because of H-1B." He added, "I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend."

So, as of now, it does seem that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are aligned on this issue, despite a lot of the backlash we've seen Musk and others who have supported this program receive this week.

Alayna Treene, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNTE: Well, let's stay on U.S. politics for a bit longer. As the Biden administration winds down in Washington, newly released images are raising doubts about the president's claim that he never had any business-related contact with his son. CNN's Marshall Cohen has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: New pictures released this week of Joe Biden, when he was vice president, meeting with some of his son, Hunter Biden's business associates in China. These images released by the National Archives after a lawsuit from a right-wing media outlet pro-Trump legal organization.

And the photos show what we've known for a while, but we've never seen that there was at least one photo op between Vice President Joe Biden in 2013, during a official visit to China, where he met some of Hunter Biden's business partners from the private equity firm, BHR Partners. You can see the pictures of Hunter Biden introducing his father to these Chinese business executives and they all posed, all smiles for this photo op.

Now, not only are we seeing these images for the very first time, but we also saw pictures of Joe Biden introducing his son to top Chinese government officials, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, one of the most powerful figures in the world, as well as the vice president of China at the time who is also participating in some of those bilateral meetings.

So, this is important because these pictures of Joe meeting some of his son's business partners undercuts the unequivocal denials that President Biden has previously offered where he said that there was never any contact between him and his son's business affairs.

Now, we've known for a while that those denials haven't really held up. They weren't true. They weren't accurate because it has come to light that there were some dinners, some phone calls and some meet and greets and some photo ops, like the pictures that you saw here. That being said, Hunter Biden himself testified to Congress earlier this year and he said, yes, there were photo ops, yes, maybe I put him on speakerphone once or twice, but we never discussed any substantive business and he was not involved in the financial arrangements whatsoever. A former Hunter Biden business partner here in the U.S. testified that he thought Hunter was selling the illusion of access, but not actually selling access.

Now, Republicans have argued that pictures like these and all of these contacts amount to a corrupt and illegal influence peddling scheme. But, of course, I have to note that the Justice Department spent years investigating Hunter Biden and never charged him with violating any lobbying laws or any sort of corruption whatsoever.

Hunter Biden's attorney released a statement about these pictures saying, quote, "These attacks, trying to twist these images into something they are not is just more of the same old, tired, misinformation spin from some Republicans who can't let go of their ridiculous conspiracy theories.

Marshall Cohen, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[04:25:00]

HUNTE: The oldest survivor of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, which propelled the U.S. into World War II, has died at the age of 105 years old. Warren Upton passed away on Wednesday in California after a battle with pneumonia. He was the last survivor of the USS Utah, which was moored at Pearl Harbor when Japanese planes attacked. Upton told the Associated Press several years ago how he survived by swimming ashore and hiding from Japanese strafing runs, some 87,000 military personnel were stationed on the island during the attack, and only 15 remain alive today.

Stay with CNN for the latest developments in this breaking story. We'll have much more on the deadly plane crash in South Korea after this very quick break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNTE: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States, the U.K., and all around the world. I'm Ben Hunte. And this is CNN Newsroom.

I want to bring you some more now on the breaking news in South Korea. The death toll from a plane crash is There is now 176. The Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 was flying from Bangkok to Muan, South Korea, with 181 people on board. Two people were rescued from the wreckage. Yes, that leaves three unaccounted for, but emergency crews say they are presumed dead.

Officials say both black boxes have now been recovered and that the investigation into the cause of the crash could take up to three years. It's South Korea's deadliest aviation disaster since 1997.

[04:30:00]

CNN Correspondent Mike Valerio is still following this breaking news from Seoul. Thanks for being with me, Mike. I want to make sure that we're actually airing the latest news that we're getting. So, what is happening now? What are you hearing?

VALERIO: Well, Ben, you're exactly right. So, the death toll stands at 176 people, which means that three people are unaccounted for. So, if you imagine the tableau, that's happening about three and a half hours south of where we are in Seoul, there are myriad families, a whole multitude of people who are gathered in a conference room who are just waiting to see if the remains of their family members have been found, if they've been put into a temporary morgue. And this is a situation where the cataclysmic that I'm just checking my notes here, it seems as though 11 victims authorities have not been able to tell if they're a man or a woman yet because the bodies and the remains were so badly damaged.

So, it seems as though we're waiting to see if three people or three sets of remains can be found. And again, that would lead to the deadliest air disaster involving a South Korean airline. We're already there since the late '90s when a Korean airliner crashed in Guam, killing upwards of 220 people.

So, the question is essentially, what happened with the landing gear here, what series of events cascaded that had the landing gear fail in the front and the aft portion of the aircraft. So, we know that just before 9:00 a.m. local time, control tower signaled to this aircraft, the 737-800 manufactured by Boeing in Washington State, that there could be a risk of bird strikes happening in and around the area very close to the approach of this airport. So, two minutes later, the cockpit sends a mayday signal after that warning, and then four minutes later, the plane crashes.

It remains unclear, though, what if any connection, a potential, and I stress the word potential, bird strike might have had on why the aircraft wing flaps were not deployed? Flaps that slowed the plane down? Why the plane touchdown, it's underbelly scraping the pavement of the runway very close to the end of the runway? And why exactly the landing gear would not have been deployed when one thing necessarily does not lead to another, a problem with engine two does not necessarily mean that there will be a problem deploying the landing gear? So, the hope is that one or both of the crew members who survived this crash in concert with the voice data recorder -- the voice recorder and the data recorder, the two components of the black box system can be used in concert to figure out what exactly happened here. And if this was a problem that was just specific to a fluke series of events with this one aircraft, or if perhaps there's some problem that the wider fleet of 737-800s needs to concern itself with, Ben.

HUNTE: Well, Mike, thank you for that. I'm sure we're going to be speaking again very, very soon. But thank you for now.

Aviation experts are weighing in on the possibility of a bird strike while looking at what may have caused this crash. Here's what I told CNN earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT HAMILTON, AVIATION INDUSTRY CONSULTANT, LEEHAM CO. OF CHICAGO: Well, even if there was a bird strike that disabled the right engine, or if it was disabled because of mechanical issues, the 737 can land perfectly fine on one engine and the pilots are trained to do that.

Now, was there a series of events? As I say, where there were multiple emergencies going on? If there's a general hydraulic failure, that could affect the controls, the stick, the control yoke in the airplane, in the cockpit. If there was a general hydraulic failure and an engine failure that caused flaps not to come down, that caused the slats not to come down, caused the gear not to come down. It is easy to see how all of those emergencies could combine to overwhelm the pilots, but that's all part of going to be part of the investigation.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: It's very perplexing to me because I don't know of any bird strike causing the landing gear not to be deployed. The other thing to think about is that if a pilot knows that they're going to have to land in an emergency situation without the landing gear, they radio ahead to the airport and the airport can do some things to prepare for that. They can put foam on the runway, they can have emergency vehicles standing by so that when the aircraft does have this emergency landing. So, it appears to me that no one really was really aware of the fact, at least on the ground, that the aircraft was landing without the landing gear down.

[04:35:00]

So, that indicates to me that possibly it was an oversight during the emergency landing to not deploy the landing gear. That's one of the things that I would be looking at again as an investigator. But again, I really am hedging on speculating in the cause. And certainly, this isn't the time to do that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNTE: Well, South Korean officials say the airliner made a mayday call shortly after the control tower warned that bird were in the area and a strike was possible.

In Tbilisi, Georgia's parliament has sworn in a new president in defiance of widespread protests. The story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNTE: Let's go to Georgia now. In Tbilisi, Georgia's parliament has sworn in Mikheil Kavelashvili, the man they appointed to take over the presidency.

The directly elected former president spoke to supporters who oppose what the ruling Georgia Dream Party is doing. She calls it an anti- constitutional farce, but says that she will leave the office.

Protests have taken place for weeks against the ruling party's shift towards Russia and away from a path to joining the European Union. They've met with violent repression by the government. In the lead up to the swearing in ceremony, people throughout the country Formed a human chain in solidarity and opposition. The former president and opposition parties vowed to fight on for their cause.

Well, let's dig into this story. We're going to go live now to Ia Meurmishvili in Tbilisi. She's the chief international correspondent for The Cipher Brief. Thank you for joining me. How are you doing?

Thank you very much, Ben. Thanks for having me.

HUNTE: You're so welcome. This has been a crazy few months in Georgia. I mean, I've seen the daily protests on social media for weeks now. I've seen the build up to today. I want to unpack all of this. The current president was refusing to leave, even though she was supposed to hand over power today. But then in a speech today, she said that she will leave, and this is all happening as the new president has already been sworn in today. What is going on?

[04:40:00]

IA MEURMISHVILI, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CIPHER BRIEF: That's exactly right. Georgia today was a very good demonstration of how Georgia has been living in this dual or parallel reality created on the one hand by the Georgian Dream government and on the other hand, by those demonstrators that you just referred to the.

Today -- in today's speech, Salome Zourabichvili did not say that she will -- she's leaving per se, she said that she will take legitimacy of her office, or she will take legitimacy wherever she goes, she will carry the flag of Georgia wherever she goes.

So, in one sense, at least to me, that statement sounded -- it was not a definite leaving a sort of statement.

HUNTE: OK.

MEURMISHVILI: But the decision that she made is definitely saving the country from repeating some of the scenarios that we know in Belarus, for example, or Venezuela, where after the contested elections, a country would have to recognized and unrecognized presidencies.

So, we'll see how this continues. President Zourabichvili also pledged that she will get more actively involved in the efforts to get the country ready, including the opposition as well as the cities and towns in Georgia for the new elections, which is the primary demand that she had from the Georgian Dream government. And that's also something that the demonstrators are demanding, release of all the prisoners that Georgian Dream has arrested over 500 people in the past month and call for new elections.

HUNTE: We've actually got a lot of U.S. viewers right now because we're simulcast. I just want to ask a question about the U.S. How should western nations like the U.S. be responding to this? Should they be intervening? Does Washington even have any leverage in Georgia?

MEURMISHVILI: Well, we are seeing that Washington is not standing idle in this situation. As you know, yesterday, day before yesterday, Washington announced, the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions on Bidzina Ivanishvili who's the honorary chairman of the Georgian Dream Party and he's the founder of the party. So, the -- we saw sanctions and it's not only him who was sanctioned, but also some judges before that, a few officials in the law enforcement agencies were also sanctioned, financial sanctions were imposed. And over 100 people have -- are under the U.S. travel restrictions or visa sanctions.

So, the U.S. is monitoring the events very closely. And recently, Congressman Joe Wilson has been championing Georgia's sort of Georgian democracies cause in the United States. And he's the co-chair of Helsinki Commission and he invited President Zourabichvili and it's a quote is the legitimate leader of Georgia to Donald Trump's inauguration. And that caused, of course, a lot of controversy in Georgia.

HUNTE: Yes. I want to talk a bit about the actual president is coming in now, because this is the first time that the president wasn't chosen by a national selection, right? And instead, it was parliament that selected him. The 2024 presidential election was the first in history of Georgia to have only one candidate from only one party on the ballot. But in 2018, there were, what, 65 candidates? That's a lot of people. So, how is this new option making people feel?

MEURMISHVILI: So, with today's inauguration of the Georgian Dream candidate, as you correctly said, party chosen, no contest, no competition with anybody else president, this finalizes Georgia's constitutional transition from the presidential republic to the parliamentary republic. So, that's one of the reasons why the parliament chose the current president.

But the newly inaugurated president, what we can say is that he is one of the most outspoken anti-western anti-U.S. person previously in the Georgian parliament now from the highest office of the country. He's a former soccer player, and we don't know any higher educational background of his. So, we don't know if he has a higher education.

So, it would be interesting to see how this continues. He does not have the legitimacy from the outside. None of the Georgian western partners with minor exceptions, like Hungary and Slovakia have eecognized him and the parliament itself as legitimate, but most, including OSCE ODA (ph) report said that the elections neither free nor fair, therefore, they lack legitimacy.

[04:45:00]

So, we'll see how this continues, if we Georgian -- current Georgian government and especially the president gets legitimacy outside of the country. For the most part, even the president's rubbish release calling this parliament unconstitutional and therefore, every appointment, every law, the formation of the government by the illegitimate body would be considered as unconstitutional. So, we'll see how this all unfolds.

HUNTE: Yes, indeed. It has only just begun. Well, thank you so much for being across it for us. I'm sure we're going to be speaking soon. Ia Meurmishvili in Tbilisi, thank you so much.

MEURMISHVILI: My pleasure.

HUNTE: Next, Northern Gaza is now without any working major hospitals after the last one was raided by Israel. Still ahead, witnesses speak about what happened there during the Israeli operation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNTE: More now on the breaking news in South Korea. Officials say they've located both the flight data and voice recorders, or black boxes, from the plane crash in the City of Muan. But they say the investigation may now take years.

[04:50:00]

176 people are confirmed dead. 181 people were on board the Boeing 737-800. Two of them have been rescued. Firefighters say the three unaccounted for are presumed dead.

We're also learning that the plane's pilot made a mayday call after air traffic control warned that birds were in the area and a strike was possible.

Bodycam footage released on Friday shows New York correctional officers fatally beating an inmate. Governor Kathy Hochul has ordered a full investigation into the incident and the firing of more than a dozen workers involved. CNN's Leigh Waldman has more, but a warning, the video in her report is disturbing.

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LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thirteen employees with the Corrections Department, including correctional officers, sergeants and a nurse, have been suspended without pay in connection with the beating death of Robert Brooks. One additional correctional officer has since resigned. Brooks, 43, had been serving a 12-year prison sentence for first-degree assault.

Body camera footage shows him being carried into the Marcy Correctional Facility in Utica, New York on December 9th. He was being taken into a medical examination room where his hands were already cuffed behind his back. He is then beaten by officers who are surrounding him. Video shows them punching him repeatedly, even kicking him at one point, in his face, his chest, his buttocks, and his groin.

The video shows Brooks face bloodied, and it appears something is shoved into his mouth. He's then lifted by those officers by his neck and his collar while his legs are limp. The next day, Brooks was pronounced dead at Wynn Hospital.

Now, this video was released by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who is promising a full-scale investigation.

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LETITIA JAMES, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL: I want to reiterate that we are investigating this case thoroughly, and using every tool at our disposal to ensure that there is transparency and accountability for the events that preceded Mr. Brooks' death.

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WALDMAN: Brooks' family has seen this video and is promising to seek justice in his honor and for the safety of everyone who is still housed at the Marcy Correctional Facility.

In New York, Leigh Waldman, CNN.

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HUNTE: The relatives of hostages held in Gaza are using the Jewish Hanukkah holiday to appeal for their return home. Saturday night, they lit Hanukkah candles and called for their release after almost 450 days in captivity. The ceremony in Tel Aviv was led by the son of one of the hostages.

But in Jerusalem, emergency sirens rang out after two projectiles were fired on the city from Northern Gaza. Israeli officials say there were no reports of injuries and the military fired interceptors after the projectiles crossed over the border.

Meanwhile, the last major functioning health facility in Northern Gaza now sits empty and partially burned out, too. That's according to the World Health Organization and witnesses following Israel's latest raid on a Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The IDF says at least 240 people have been detained for questioning, claiming their Hamas and Islamic jihad terrorists. Some patients and staff have been transferred to another hospital, which the WHO described as destroyed and non-functional.

As Elliott Gotkine reports, witnesses are describing horrific scenes that played out during and after the raid.

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ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST (voice-over): A hospital on fire and encircled.

WALID AL BUDI, NURSE AT KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL (through translator): The situation is extremely dire tonight. The (Israeli) army is present at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

GOTKINE (VOICE-OVER): Patients and staff gather anxiously at the entrance of Northern Gaza's last major functioning hospital. Others fight flames.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): The army are surrounding us from every side, our situation is very difficult. Dr. Hussam was directly threatened with arrest. They might arrest him at any time.

GOTKINE (VOICE-OVER): Words from a nurse at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the midst of an evacuation order from the Israeli military. Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospitals director, is one of the last doctors in Northern Gaza. He had been documenting the horror inside his hospital in the wake of an Israeli offensive that began in early October.

DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA, DIRECTOR, KAMEL ADWAN HOSPITAL (through translation): We had spoken and appealed to the world to protect and neutralize the medical system. But unfortunately, this is the grim reality we are witnessing.

GOTKINE (VOICE-OVER): On Friday, he was assaulted and detained by Israeli forces, witnesses tell CNN. On Saturday, the IDF said he was being questioned in Gaza, suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative, but didn't provide evidence for the claim.

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Meantime, video shared widely appears to show the front of Kamal Adwan Hospital with people walking between a number of tanks. Many appear to be holding their own clothes with hands held above their heads.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): From Kamal Adwan Hospital to al-Fakhoora, they made us strip down to our underwear. It was a tough situation and they assaulted the wounded and women.

GOTKINE (VOICE-OVER): In a briefing, an IDF spokesperson said people were asked to remove clothes to ensure no one was carrying explosives.

SHUROUQ SALAH, NURSE AT KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL (through translation): 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.

GOTKINE (VOICE-OVER): The IDF says that it had carried out targeted operations around the hospital based on intelligence regarding the presence of terrorist infrastructure and operatives there. CNN cannot confirm these claims. On Friday, the World Health Organization said the raid took the last major health facility in north Gaza out of service. Adding that, the systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care.

Many patients now evacuated to Gaza's other hospitals, which medical staff say are not fit for purpose. This critically ill man evacuated from Kamal Adwan, still in an ambulance Saturday after he was evacuated a day earlier.

Inside another hospital, this man tries to explain what happened to him, appearing to make signs of gunfire and beating.

All the while, Gaza's healthcare system, in a seemingly never-ending freefall.

Elliott Gotkine, CNN, Jerusalem.

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HUNTE: I'm Ben Hunte in London. I'll be back with more CNN Newsroom after this quick break.

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