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Major Storms in the U.S. Brings Ice and Snow; State of Emergency in Kentucky Because of Winter Storm; Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is Interviewed Regarding a Major Storm Hitting Kentucky; New Details Regarding the New Orleans Attacker's Movement Prior to the Attack on New Year's Day; Vice President Harris to Certify Trump's Win on Monday; Republican Leaders Plan to Pass Trump Agenda in One Big Bill; Social Security Benefits Set to be Expanded for Millions; Late President Jimmy Carter Lying in Repose in Atlanta as Nation Mourns. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired January 05, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Here in the "CNN Newsroom," I'm Jessica Dean in New York, and we begin with breaking news. At this hour, 60 million people in the U.S. are under winter weather alerts with a major storm set to hit much of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Blizzard warnings in effect now in parts of Missouri and Kansas, and a dangerous combination of snow, ice, and freezing rain is hitting those states as well as parts of Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky.

And as the evening goes on, that system is projected to make its way toward Washington, D.C., and then the East Coast. Meteorologist Elisa Raffa is tracking it all from the CNN Weather Center. Elisa, walk us through what you're seeing right now and where this is likely to go.

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, I mean, it's been a busy day. We're seeing a mix of everything, snow, ice, and severe storms. We're very much concerned about this corridor of ice that's been nonstop all day. This storm has been so potent and so powerful that we have had reports of thunder snow in parts of Kansas City and St. Louis and we just got a report of some thunder sleet and thunder freezing rain in parts of Kentucky and you can see it there.

What that's telling us is this system is incredibly powerful. You have a lot of warm moist air rising very fast that it's acting like a spring thunderstorm and creating some of that lightning. So you can see you've got the ice from Paducah stretching into parts of Kentucky. Still heavy snow from Cincinnati, Indianapolis and St. Louis where it's been snowing and sleeting all day.

We already have some totals that are over a foot for parts of Kansas, Manhattan, Kansas, 12 and a half inches, 16 inches for other parts of Kansas. And the freezing rain reports are mounting as well. Over a half an inch in some parts of Kansas and Missouri. That is dangerous when you have ice over a half an inch. It really weighs down tree limbs and power lines.

Now, the reason why we have a mixed bag of everything is because the temperature profile is so different throughout this storm. You have this warm air trying to squeeze in. So it's got temperatures in the 60s causing the thunderstorms to the south. You've got that freezing rain where you have the cold air just at the surface, so it's able to fall as rain and then freeze on contact. Then that deeper cold air with temperatures in the 20s from Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Charleston, where you're getting all heavy snow.

The alerts stretch more than 1,300 miles. Blizzard warnings in effect for Kansas City. Still have ice storm warnings in effect just north of Paducah there, where we're really worried about the ice being so significant it could cause long lasting power outages. We also have a tornado watch in effect from parts of eastern Texas up through Louisiana and then into Mississippi. This is for this line of intense storms that's capable of a couple of tornadoes, some of which could be strong.

We've been watching tornado warnings along this line all day, one of which was observed along the state line here. The area was pretty rural in the middle of some state parks and stuff, but what we're watching for here is this line as it organizes. It gets some damaging winds. And then you can get some embedded tornadoes and we've seen that all day. So a mix of everything the winter threats with the snow and the ice, the severe storms in the South. It's been incredibly busy.

All of this moves east as we go through the overnight tonight. Snow trying to peel away St. Louis and it heads towards Washington, D.C. for a very messy Monday morning commute with some significant snow for them that they haven't seen in the last couple of years. The line of storm stretches down through Atlanta and then to the Gulf Coast. It finally peels off of the east coast with some wrap around snow as we go into the afternoon hours.

Snow total, six to 12 inches possible again, especially at some of these higher elevations here in West Virginia and Virginia as far as what's left. A lot of the heavy snow already fell in the Central Plains. And then we can still get some of these ice accumulations up to three quarters of an inch, which again would be very problematic and could cause some power outages. Jessica?

DEAN: Okay, a lot of dynamics at play there with that storm. Elisa Raffa, thank you so much for that. And as Elisa mentioned, Kentucky is a state that's going to get the brunt of this storm today. Let's bring in Alexa Minton, who's now in Lexington. She's a meteorologist and reporter for CNN affiliate WKYT. Alexa, thanks so much for being with us. Just tell us what you're seeing there in Lexington.

[17:04:57]

ALEXA MINTON, METEOROLOGIST & REPORTER, WKYT: Well, right now Jessica, what we have been seeing all day long is copious amounts of snowfall. But just within the last hour or so, like your meteorologist mentioned, we're seeing the transition after picking up a little over a half a foot of snow in a lot of areas. We're not seeing the transition into sleet and freezing rain. We actually just heard a little bit of thunder sleet in our area. I want to go ahead and take a look at one of the vehicles that's near us.

You can see the problem with some of that freezing rain. Obviously, Jessica, freeze over this call (ph) already in the past 30 minutes or so. We've watched this (inaudible) chill freeze over. So definitely some concerns. We've been seeing the snow, this ice. It's been problematic all day, Jessica.

DEAN: Yeah, and I would imagine, obviously snow has its own problems, but anytime you bring any sort of ice into the situation, that can cause more problems as well.

MINTON: Yeah, one of the main concerns that we're talking about in parts of the overnight, obviously roads have been a major problem for our day to day. But as we head into parts of the overnight, we're worried about power outages. You know, it only takes about a quarter of an inch of ice to cause a heavy weight on those power lines. And once you add in winds, the snow, and then the wraparound snow we're expected to get on Monday, it could cause some real power problems for a lot of the state.

DEAN: Yeah. And I'm from Arkansas. Originally, I would imagine Kentucky is the same. We weren't used to a lot of snow in that area. I would assume you guys don't get that much snow often either.

MINTON: And you know, we don't usually get this much snow, but Kentucky is a really resilient. I've been out and about all throughout the day. There's been a lot of, um, non-injury collisions that I've seen, but people are getting out of their vehicles, helping each other out. We've been talking about the storm for over a week now. So people have been prepared. They've stocked their fridges. We just want to keep everyone safe in the moment, obviously, as this storm is causing a lot of problems. But with this scale of a storm, it's hard to really feel fully prepared with obviously as much snow and ice as we've been getting.

DEAN: Yeah. Alexa Minton, thanks so much. We really appreciate it. To discuss that response in Kentucky, let's turn now to Kentucky's Governor Andy Beshear, who's joining us now from Frankfort. Governor, thanks so much for being with us. We were just talking to a meteorologist there in your state, walking us through what you all have seen. I would like to hear how the state is responding and what you're hearing about that response.

ANDY BESHEAR, GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY: Well, we are in the midst of a severe winter storm. The first third has pretty much come through Kentucky with significant snow. We had great meteorologists like Alexa and others give us significant warnings that allowed us to prepare, but certainly the move from snow to ice is really concerning. Much of our state is predicted to get at least that quarter of an inch of ice, if not three quarters of an inch of ice, which would make traveling really hazardous as well as potentially cause significant losses of power.

We've gone from about 8,000 power outages to 15,000 power outages really in the last 20 or 30 minutes as the ice has really started to hit western Kentucky. And now, you know, Alexa is in Lexington. That's our second largest city. It's also hitting Louisville, which is our largest city. And those are places that we could see significant power outages. But the ice has also gone further south than originally anticipated, in Bowling Green and some other areas of southwest or south central Kentucky.

Thankfully, with you all and many others giving us really good information, we were able to prepare. We have 2,300 transportation cabinet workers that are out right now doing everything they can to make the roads as passable as they can and to prepare for the icing event. We have 100 National Guard currently that are in armories around the state responding as needed. We're gonna surge that to 300 or 400 more.

We already have utility workers staged. We actually just reserved an entire state park in Eastern Kentucky to make sure we have that staging area and places that the folks who are kind enough to come from out of state and help us get back up on our feet, just like we help other states, we'll have a safe and a warm place to rest. So it's gonna be a lot of work.

We're gonna go all the way through really tomorrow night in this response. And we've got to do as much as we can, especially when we have a break tomorrow, because it's gonna get dangerously cold on Wednesday and on Thursday. So restoring as much power as possible, making sure we have warming centers open throughout the state. That's the task at hand, thankfully. All of our counties have emergency management directors. They're working on that warming center issue. They've been published in most counties that are out there while we're working with utilities making sure we're responding as quickly as possible.

DEAN: Yeah, and you mentioned the ice. That can really be such a destructive force in a storm like this because it really, you said it, it just takes a little bit to get on those power lines and knock power out and then it takes a while for those teams to be able to put that back together because getting to them is tricky.

[17:10:07]

I do want -- I am curious how concerned you are. You mentioned those dangerously cold temperatures that you make sure you get that power back on. I'm sure that's something you all are keeping a very close eye on.

BESHEAR: We are keeping a very close eye on it. You know, here in Kentucky, we've been through a lot. We've been through the worst tornado disaster in our history in 2021, worst flooding we've ever seen in 2022. We had two polar plunges where we got to about negative 20 wind chill, which that was something. So we have been through a lot, thankfully, with great meteorologists out there giving us the news, getting us prepared.

We saw most people not on the roads today. That allows our transportation crews to be able to do as much work as possible. And I just want to remind everyone, whether it's in Kentucky or any other state, those are our families too. They're leaving their family to try to make the roads safe for all the rest of us. We need to make sure we do our part to keep them safe as well. So please stay off the roads if you don't have to go somewhere.

And then those getting on the roads are probably going a little too fast right now. Remember, sliding off the road and damaging your car isn't worth it. It's most important to get home to your family, even if it takes just a little bit longer.

DEAN: Certainly. And at this point, does it appear that you'll need to coordinate with the federal authorities as well on any sort of response to this, or is this mostly at the state level at this point?

BESHEAR: I think it's at the state level. Sadly, we got a lot of practice in responding which means we are prepared. It means that we have more guard position before they're needed so that they can respond. It means we've got our full group of transportation, cabinet officials that are out there right now. It means that we've worked so much with our local emergency response groups who do a great job from the police to the firefighters.

Thankfully, we have only minor injuries thus far. We had one trooper who was in a car accident, but he's going to be okay. But it's going to be a long night for me, for all of us. Our Emergency Operations Center is open, is fully staffed. We're taking this really seriously. And I hope everybody else across America is too. Being with your family, making those memories, that is more important than getting someplace really quickly. And everybody needs to be careful on the morning commute tomorrow.

I closed our state office buildings. I've got 30,000 employees that I'm responsible for, and I'm gonna make sure they're safe. So we took that step. Many can work remotely. The others can make it up on Tuesday.

DEAN: That's right. It's important to just slow it down in these situations and stay at home if you can. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

BESHEAR: Thank you.

DEAN: Still ahead, new details in the New Orleans terror attack, what the FBI says the attacker was doing in the months, days, and hours leading up to the New Year's Day rampage.

Plus, President Biden signs the Social Security Fairness Act, expanding benefits to millions. Who will now collect a check? We'll talk more about that. You're in the "CNN Newsroom."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:15:00]

DEAN: We have new breaking updates tonight in the terror attack in New Orleans as officials revealing a detailed timeline leading up to the deadly attack on New Year's Day and the planning that went into it. The FBI saying in a press briefing earlier today the attacker visited New Orleans twice in recent months and used Meta glasses to record Bourbon Street and map out his route in advance.

We go now to CNN's Rafael Romo who is in New Orleans. Rafael, what more can you tell us about these new details?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a lot of revealing information that the FBI disclosed today, Jessica, as we stand live here on Bourbon Street. It's really interesting how right now this street, there's a big contrast between what you see behind me, there's a jazz band playing at the end of this street. We are right on Bourbon Street. And then if we move over to this side, you see the solemn memorial that people have set up over the last few days.

But yes, the FBI has given us a glimpse into what the attacker might have done in the months before the terrorist attack on New Year's Day. He arrived here in New Orleans on October 30th and the following day he was riding a bicycle here on the streets of the French Quarter and recording video at the same time. Apparently, it was an effort to familiarize himself with the area, planning to carry out the attack. And now we know exactly what he was doing two months before the attack.

The other thing that we have learned, Jessica, is that Jabbar traveled internationally. He went to Cairo, Egypt in the summer of 2023, and days later, he traveled to Ontario, Canada. And we asked the FBI, whether he had met with any terrorist organization on a topic the official said that it is too early in the investigation to say that conclusively. This is what he had to say earlier today. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER RAIA, FBI DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION: All investigative details and evidence that we have now still support that Jabbar acted alone here in New Orleans. We have not seen any indications of an accomplice in the United States. But we are still looking into potential associates in the U.S. and outside of our borders. The case is still very early on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAFA: Jessica, all 14 of the victims have now been identified. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry earlier said that the final victim identified was Latasha Polk, a certified nursing assistant and mother of a 14-year-old. She was 47-years-old and her family describers as a loving wife, mother, child, sister, cousin and friend and told CNN affiliate WDSU that her favorite spot was this place, the French Quarter, where we are right now. Jessica, back to you.

DEAN: Alright, Rafael, thank you so much. We appreciate it. You're in New Orleans there for us.

[17:19:57]

Joining us now to discuss more about the New Orleans attack is retired FBI Special Agent Kenneth Gray. Thanks so much for being here. We just had that report on new details from Rafael there. We have learned that the attacker traveled to New Orleans twice. What are you gathering from these new details? Clearly, there was a lot of advanced planning that went into this.

KENNETH GRAY, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Absolutely, Jessica. So, these previous trips that we're now learning that he had made to New Orleans, it looks like was a site survey to go in there, familiarize himself with the area, find the best places to place his IEDs, find the route that he planned to take. So this took a lot of planning. We also learned that he had reserved that truck November 14th. So he was planning to do this months ahead of time.

DEAN: And also just that detail about the glasses, the smart glasses, the Meta smart glasses that helped him record Bourbon Street. It underscores how technology has really changed the way that attacks like this are carried out, too.

GRAY: Yeah, absolutely. The Meta glasses is certainly something that is unique to this particular attack. Previous terrorists have live streamed their attacks. These glasses would have been able to live stream it, but he did not choose to live stream it. And said he was using the glasses to record his trip, so as to use it for planning purposes.

DEAN: Yeah. And two, we've also just -- the kind of current through all of this was just the communication that was not getting properly shared. We have learned that there were warnings about that something like this could happen. We know that those bollards were in the process of being put back up and perfected. And yet, they went ahead and had this huge gathering of all these people which was very much as a soft target in this way.

We saw the video of him just driving around the police car that had been stationed there and that was supposed to block something from like -- something like this from happening.

GRAY: Yeah. Those bollards haven't been working for a long time and they were looking for funding for the Super Bowl for New Orleans to get money to try to fix those But even if they had been functioning, they did not block the sidewalks. So if the bollards had been working and these are -- these are actually flap up plates as opposed to columns that rise up, but had they've been functioning, he could have still gone down the sidewalk.

DEAN: And so how do you start to assess the situation and ensure that the proper lessons are taken away from this terribly unnecessary, tragic terrorist attack?

GRAY: Yeah. Vehicle ramming attacks are very difficult to defend against because vehicles and pedestrians share common spaces and unless you're willing to go along every area that has a vehicle and put up barriers to keep pedestrians from being hit by cars, it's very, very difficult to prepare for an attack like this. We've seen it all around the world.

I did research on this back in 2019 with another professor at University of New Haven. And we found that vehicle ramming attacks were increasing during the periods of time, 2014 on up to 2019. And we've had an attack, previous to this attack in the United States in New York City, where a guy named Sayfullo Saipov drove down a bicycle path in New York City, killing eight and injuring another 15.

And so this is not something new. It's very difficult to defend against. And it's something that New Orleans was not ready for as places like New York City, which have started using things like dump trucks and other large vehicles to block off areas where you have pedestrians.

DEAN: Yeah. All right, Kenneth Gray, thank you. We really appreciate your time.

GRAY: Thank you.

DEAN: Still ahead, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to certify Donald Trump's second election win exactly four years after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. And it's all happening as a snow storm is closing in on Washington, D.C. We'll talk about it ahead here in the "CNN Newsroom."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:25:00]

DEAN: It is shaping up to be a big day in Washington, D.C. tomorrow, exactly four years after the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Congress will meet again on January 6th and this time to certify President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House. Kamala Harris will be leading the proceedings joining a small club of vice presidents who have overseen the certification of their own presidential election loss. Other instances in modern times include then Vice President Richard Nixon after a narrow defeat to John F. Kennedy and Vice President Al Gore in 2001 after George W. Bush's dramatic win.

Congress did tighten the rules of the Electoral Count Act following violence and then Mike Pence's certification in 2021 clarifying that the vice president does not have the power to determine the results on January 6th. Officials have heightened security around the Capitol for tomorrow. They're also racing for a big snowstorm. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has declared a snow emergency which will remain into effect until at least the end of Tuesday.

So with all of that as our backdrop, we now have CNN political commentator and former Trump campaign advisor, David Urban, and CNN political commentator and former communications director for Vice President Harris, Jamal Simmons. Good to have both of you here. Jamal, let's look ahead to tomorrow. It will be a moment of significance across the board. We'll have Vice President Harris certifying the election of President-elect Trump. And it is, of course, the four-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITCAL COMMENTATOR: It is the anniversary of the insurrection. You know, I was on CNN a few weeks ago and said I thought that President Biden should resign so that Kamala Harris wouldn't have to take this (inaudible) moment. But you know, talking to people in the vice president's office, she has exactly the opposite perspective. What she believes is that democracy is what's the most important thing here. And you can't like democracy just when you win. You've got to perform the democratic duties even when you lose and it doesn't feel good.

So she's ready to do this. I understand she's gonna get there midday. She's gonna spend some time. She'll do it. She will execute her duties. And then I think she probably has some meetings with some other Democrats. She knows she got 75 million votes. So a lot of Democrats are excited to see her. They haven't seen her since the campaign. So I think she'll see a lot of those folks and have some conversations.

[17:30:00]

But this is an important day for democracy. And even though the Democrats aren't happy, it's important that we do it the way Donald Trump and his forces should have allowed to occur four years ago.

DEAN: It is a really important day. David, what are your thoughts on how tomorrow will go?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Yeah, Jess, it'll be interesting to see. Hopefully, there'll be a quorum, there'll be enough people here. If the snow comes like it's supposed to come, hopefully, everyone -- you know, members of Congress are instructed not to go home. I'm hoping that they did go home.

DEAN: They listened.

(LAUGHTER)

URBAN: I don't know. We hope that they listen and that there are enough people here to get this accomplished. But listen, as Jamal said, I applaud the vice president for doing this, for sitting up there in the chair. It can't be easy for her to do after losing a tough race like she did. So, it's a good honor. And listen, I think America is ready to turn the page and get going -- and get going with the Trump administration. Americans want to see some change and they voted for that. We'll get that in a few short days here, 20-some days.

DEAN: And I want to stay on that, David, because, okay, we do, we flip the page, we move to this next Congress, we move to the inauguration, and Republicans are hoping to get a very big bill passed to do a lot of Trump's big agenda items in one big bill. You see all the policies are out.

URBAN: One big, beautiful bill.

DEAN: One big, beautiful bill if we're using the quotes there. It's going to be tricky because it's done by a process not to get too in the weeds for everyone. But it's called reconciliation. You need everybody to really be on the same page, all of the Republicans. I'm going to play a clip of what they were saying, some of the leadership was saying about it today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE JOHNSON, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: But I think at the end of the day, President Trump is going to prefer, as he likes to say, one big, beautiful bill. And there's a lot of merit to that because we can put it all together, one big up or down vote, which can save the country, quite literally, because there are so many elements to it, and it'll give us a little bit more time to negotiate that and get it right.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): We have the same set of objectives. We want to get to the same destination. But I think at times, there will be differences in how we get there. And understanding the unique aspects of how the Senate operates is something that I'm going to have to be able to share and convey to the president and help him understand, I think, what the, you know, what contours are of what we can accomplish here in the Senate and what's realistic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: David, that's John Thune there at the end trying to kind of just make sure that everyone knows the Senate does --

URBAN: Yeah.

DEAN: -- always do its own. You know, it runs by its own Senate rules there. Listen, in theory, it sounds like -- Mike Johnson says one up or down big bill. In theory, that sounds like, okay, just one vote there, but this is -- this is tough stuff. This is a complicated thing to get done. How confident are you they can get there?

URBAN: Listen, I am confident they can get there, but not anytime soon, right? In order to get this tax bill done, there's a lot of heavy lifting that needs to be done between now and then. That will take several months. You're not going to get that tax bill negotiated between Democrats, Republicans, the House, and the Senate.

You know, the president talked about during the campaign, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. You know, you get a car, you get a car, you get a car, right? State and local income tax reduction. There's a lot of things that are going to need to be looked at. And how do you pay for that? You're going to want to get a spending bill, border bill, all these things done, and that doesn't lend itself to -- you can be quick or you could be good, but it's hard to be quick and good.

And so, I think reconciliation can be done, but it's not going to be done any time until probably, you know, the beginning of summer, June, July, I would say, if you're looking to get all these things wrapped up into one big bill. Not going to be done very quickly.

DEAN: Yeah, I think Mike Johnson was trying to say April. That seems very, very ambitious. Jamal, what are your thoughts on how this will play out and what role -- what are the Democrats going to do in all of this? Because this is a particular congressional kind of parliamentary procedure that they're using to get this through. SIMMONS: You know, one thing that the president -- incoming president is going to have to really be mindful of, and I think Democrats will hold his feet to the fire, we heard Hakeem Jeffries talk about this, the Democratic leader, talk about this the other day when he handed the gavel over, I think the president is going to be judged on how he did with prices. Does he bring prices down for the American people? And I got to tell you, uh, doing another -- doing another tax cut is not -- it's inflationary.

(LAUGHTER)

I mean, you know, adding more tax cuts to the American public is going to be inflationary. At the same time, they're going to be kind of scaring a lot of immigrants back into the shadows. And so, we need to make sure that we are not doing things in the American political system that are going to make prices higher for the American people. And that -- those prices don't come down. I think that is that marker by which Donald Trump will be judged, and he's going to get a lot of trouble with the American voters.

URBAN: Jamal is right there. The American voters want to see change. They elected Donald Trump to see change. They want -- they demand change.

[17:35:00]

And so, just -- that top part is right. This reconciliation bill, even if it comes in April, that's still a long way away. So, getting others -- a lot of things are to be done immediately via the executive order. I think, you know, on the 21st of January, you'll see lots of things being done differently in America via executive order and rollback on regulations and, you know, things being cut and chopped and streamlined. But to effectuate real change, it can require congressional action, and that's going to take some time.

DEAN: Yeah. All right, stay with us, both of you. We're going to take a break, but we're going to catch back up with you on the other side. Still ahead, nearly three million retirees who were not eligible before are about to get full Social Security benefits, including some retroactive pay. We're going to talk about who now qualifies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: New tonight, President Biden has just signed a bill into law involving Social Security benefits for federal, state and local public sector workers, including firemen, policemen and teachers. Julia Benbrook is joining us from the White House. Julia, tell us more about this.

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Social Security Fairness Act that President Joe Biden signed into law just about an hour ago, it passed with bipartisan support, overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. He thanked lawmakers on both sides of the aisle prior to signing that bill into law today.

[17:40:00] Now, as you mentioned, it expands Social Security benefits for nearly three million federal, state and local public sector workers. And we'll take a look at kind of those details, what's really in this. It eliminates two policies that reduced Social Security benefits for public service employees, the windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset.

The Congressional Research Service estimates that the two largest groups of Social Security beneficiaries impacted by these two provisions are permanent civilian federal employees hired before January 1st of 1984 and state and local government employees covered by alternative staff retirement systems.

A White House official tells our team that this new law will expand benefits by hundreds of dollars per month for those nearly three million Americans impacted. Biden said today that he sees this as a victory for the dignity of work and the dignity of workers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The bill I'm signing today is about a simple proposition. Americans who have worked hard all their lives to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity. That's the entire purpose of the Social Security system crafted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt nearly 90 years ago. Social Security is a bedrock of financial security for retirees and survivors, and for millions of Americans with disabilities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BENBROOK: It will apply to all benefits payable after December of 2023. Critics of this new law cite cost as one of the reasons. The CBO estimates that it will cost nearly $200 billion over the next 10 years. Jessica?

DEAN: All right, Julia Benbrook at the White House, thank you so much. Our panel is back with me. Jamal, this is just the latest in a series of events that President Biden is doing before he leaves office soon and in just a few weeks. He signed this legislation today. He also blocked the U.S. steel takeover from the Japanese. He pardoned his son. He gave Presidential Medal of Freedom. There are a number of things that he's doing in these closing days. What do you make of all of his moves?

SIMMONS: The president is trying to submit his legacy. He's got -- he's president not for three years and eleven months. He is president for the entire four years. He still has the right to make decisions as he can between now and Election Day -- now and inauguration day. I think what you're saying, particularly with the Japan steel and U.S. steel question, you know, Donald Trump said he was going to block this. I think this is something that a lot of Americans in the course of the pandemic, the COVID pandemic, learned the importance of supply chains. And having American producers on things that are critically important is something that the president decided that matters. And at the same time, he's honoring people with these medals, he's honoring people that have the values that he finds to be important. And it's those values that he wants the American people to pay attention to, even though we're going to have a president with diametrically opposed values coming in January.

DEAN: Hmm. And David, I will say that at the Medal of Freedom event yesterday, Hillary Clinton, Magic Johnson, Bill Nye, Anna Wintour, Denzel Washington, but the right seemed to be pretty enraged by the fact that the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who has been a longtime supporter of progressive causes and candidates, was awarded that as well. It's -- look, it's something Donald Trump awarded Sheldon Adelson's wife. You know, she was there to receive an award as well. It happens in terms of these big donors. But what did you make of that move?

URBAN: Look, I mean, it's the president's right to do what he wants to do there. Obviously, he's going to get a lot of grief for it. But what I'd like to see is more in the waning days of this administration. Look, I remember the waning days of the Clinton administration. I worked for then Senator Arlen Specter, and I was overseas in Israel at the time. Then President Clinton was, in his last few gasps of presidency, was trying to hammer out the Wye River Accord and trying to get peace in the Middle East.

What I'd like to see this administration do is try to get those hostages released, try to get a resolution in the Middle East. We still have Americans being held overseas. I'd rather see that being the focus than, you know, this kind of -- these kinds of things. I'd rather see President Biden focused solely on those things than giving out awards and medals and pardons and the like. There's a lot of serious business. To Jamal's point, he's president until January 20th. I like to see him run through the tape and get some really -- get some big things accomplished.

DEAN: And Jamal, you can respond to that too, because -- look, I know Jake Sullivan and his team have been working hard. Tony Blinken just did an exit interview with "The New York Times" about trying to get -- they really want a hostage deal. They would love to get that done before they get out of office, but they just haven't been able to get there.

[17:45:03]

SIMMONS: It has been elusive. I think Tony Blinken, secretary of state, is somebody who has been really focused on this. Like you said, Jake Sherman has been. I got to tell you, Bibi Netanyahu has never been a friend to Joe Biden. And so, I think he's not an ally when they're going into these negotiations to try to figure out how to get something done with Hamas right now. You've got to have a three-part -- three-party negotiation. It doesn't seem like one of the parties is that interested in doing anything before Joe Biden leaves office.

Now, what you may see, and we may see this because this happened with the Iran hostages, you may see something happen on inauguration day, which is what Iran did in 1981 when Ronald Reagan came in office. So, it might be that this is just push off into the next administration. But I think it's a high priority for Joe Biden.

URBAN: And again, I just have a principle difference there. I don't think you negotiate with Hamas. I think you grind him into the dust, and that's how you get a resolution. Maybe it's just my naivete, but I think negotiating is the problem. You can't negotiate with Hamas.

SIMMONS: I think if you're the family of a -- if you're the family of a hostage, you may want to get your hostages back. And so, if there's something they can do to do that, I think people would be happy.

DEAN: David, as Donald Trump gets ready to prepare to come into office, he is entering the office as president in a much different way. There are so many different ways -- so many different ways from 2017. But the world is a different place. Just kind of piggybacking. Just -- I mean, just Israel and Gaza and what's going on in the Middle East, much less Russia and Ukraine, much less Iran. I mean, you could -- there's so many different buckets.

Do you get the sense, because I know you talk to them, that they understand and are coming at this in any sort of different way than they did in 2017, just with the gravity of where the world is today?

URBAN: Yeah, listen, Jessica, I do believe that. I think that you have an incredible team of people that are being assembled. Hopefully, the Senate will vote on most of these folks, get them done in short order. You saw yesterday or maybe it was the day before, I lose track of time on these things, the Italian Prime Minister was there with the National Security advisor and the future secretary of state, president. You know, they're meeting with folks. They're talking to people. I know that Keith Kellogg is going to be headed to Ukraine shortly. You had Morgan Ortagus appointed as special envoy with Steve Witkoff on the Middle East issues.

They have a lot of very serious people poised to get going the second they take over. That was different than 2016 and 2017 where they weren't ready to go out of the starting blocks. This time, they are, with very credible, serious people. I think they're going to attack these issues head on. You're going to get results pretty quickly.

DEAN: Yeah. And I did want to -- you just brought her name up, but when he -- I did notice that when he appointed Morgan Ortagus to her position, he had some choice -- it was a very interesting way of phrasing it. He just said early on, Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson. These things usually don't work out, but she has strong Republican support. I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for them. Let's see what happens. What is that?

URBAN: Listen, I don't know. I know Morgan Ortagus for a long time. I have a great deal of respect for her. Obviously, lots of people have a great deal of respect for her. Obviously, the president does begrudgingly or he wasn't appointed her. He says --

DEAN: It's clearly begrudging.

URBAN: Even though he noted, he said lots of people like her, lots of people think highly of her, lots of people. You know, at some point, he must think highly of her as well. She's going to kick ass. I think she can do a very good job. She and Steve Whitkoff are going to have a big, big job ahead of them in the Middle East, getting some resolution there and lots of turmoil, obviously. With a week in Iran, Syria is in tumult, the West Bank, Gaza, lots of issues.

As Jamal said, Bibi Netanyahu may not have been the best friend to Joe Biden. We need to make sure we can negotiate and get working with Israel to make sure that they get everything they need to resolve the issue on their terms. Ukraine, we got to clean up there. There's lots of messes around the world. The United States voted to get rid of a lot of these entanglements and try to bring some peace and stability back to the globe. I think this administration is poised to do that.

DEAN: And Jamal, just quickly before we go, look, it is, as we've noted, the waning days for Joe Biden and his presidency. What do you -- listen, history will tell us the tale, but today, now, what do you think is his legacy?

SIMMONS: Oh, his legacy is going to be 16 million new jobs. It's going to be the Infrastructure Reduction Act, the greatest investment in the environment. There are a lot of really big issues that Joe Biden did a good job on. Obviously, he's going to also take on some water for still running, and then the way he got out of that race in the middle of the year, and whether or not Kamala Harris would have been able to succeed because of it.

But let me just say this for the Democrats who are still in Congress and the ones who aspire to the presidency. I don't think Democrats will be judged well by just saying no to Donald Trump. The American people want to know that the Democratic Party has an idea for how to make sure the country is going to give back on a better track.

[17:50:03]

So, I would say the Democrats need to propose their own ideas about how to make the country better. Let's negotiate that or fight the Trump administration over Democratic ideas versus Republican ideas, not just saying no to Donald Trump's agenda.

DEAN: All right, David Urban and Jamal Simmons --

URBAN: I like it, Jamal.

DEAN: We got to go.

URBAN: I like it. Bipartisanship.

DEAN: We got to go.

(LAUGHTER)

Bipartisanship. Okay. David Urban, Jamal Simmons, thanks to both you. We really appreciate it. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DEAN: Today, the public is paying its respects to late President Jimmy Carter, who is lying in repose at the Carter Center in Atlanta. CNN's Eva McKend has more now from Plains, Georgia.

[17:54:55]

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Jessica, at President Carter's hometown church service, it was both sorrowful and joyful as people came to worship and celebrate the life of President Jimmy Carter. There were people that knew him for decades, and then also others who felt compelled to travel from neighboring states after for many years, listening to him teach Sunday school.

His niece, Kim Carter Fuller, has now taken over teaching those Sunday school lessons. She leaned into the Book of Psalms Sunday morning, talking about how though their hearts were heavy, they were leaning on the strength of God in this moment.

And what's remarkable about Maranatha Baptist Church is that it is now led by a female pastor. President Carter very notably broke with Southern Baptists on this issue. He believed that women, especially in religious spaces, should be treated equally. Take a listen to how she's thinking about this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEY GUTHAS, PASTOR, MARANATHA BAPTIST CHURCH: In this country where, to speak bluntly, we still live in a patriarchal nation, we still live in a place where white men are often -- their voices are often elevated and listened to and believed more strongly than a woman. And so, to have a president of the United States who realized within his lifetime the importance of speaking out to the harm that has been done, but I am just incredibly grateful for the legacy and the work that we have to continue to do because women are still not equal and we have a long way to go. But his voice was one of power that was used for good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And Jessica, in her sermon, she talked about how President Carter lived a life where he hungered for God and was this incredible man of faith. And as I was leaving the church, I saw the choir assembling at the front of the church where they were preparing, going over final details for President Carter's final tribute, which will take place here in Plains on Thursday. Jessica?

DEAN: Eva McKend in Plains, Georgia, thanks for that reporting. And right now, a powerful winter storm hitting at least a dozen states. We'll have the latest forecast for you when we come back.

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