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Deadly Wildfires Rip Through Los Angeles County; Biden Says He Believes He Could Have Been Reelected; Activists Blame Kenyan Government After Surviving Alleged Abduction. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired January 09, 2025 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: How government critics keep disappearing in Kenya, including one whose abduction was caught on camera. But some have now resurfaced and they're describing what they went through. That story is ahead.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, we'll get back to the breaking news on the wildfires in Southern California and how one couple is coping after losing their home in the flames.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACFARLANE: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. Here are some of today's top stories.

As wildfires rage across Southern California, the excessive smoke and ash has caused the air quality levels to reach hazardous. There are currently five fires burning in Los Angeles County. Officials say around 150,000 people have been impacted by evacuation warnings and orders.

Today is the national day of mourning in the U.S. in the honor of late Jimmy Carter, the funeral service for America's 39th president will be held at the Washington National Cathedral this morning. His body will then be taken to Plains, Georgia for a private burial.

And Ukraine's allies are gathering in Germany. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is already at the Ramstein military base where the Ukraine Defense Contact Group is set to meet in the coming hours. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also expected to be there.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

FOSTER: The wildfires in Los Angeles have killed at least five people and they've destroyed more than 1,000 structures. A new fire broke out late Wednesday in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood. More than 10,000 hectares have been burned throughout the region.

The forecast is calling for more gusty winds again today as firefighters try to bring the blazes under control. Anderson Cooper spoke with a couple who lost their home in Altadena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: So this is your house?

BRENDA MATA, LOST HOUSE IN EATON FIRE: This is our house, yes. We bought it in 2013. And we lived here for 11 years and we moved last year but we rented it out as an investment property.

COOPER: This was your retirement.

MATA: This was our retirement, this was our nest egg. This is where we moved in when we got married. This is where our son was born. This was our house and this was what we worked for.

[04:35:00]

This was what we were going to use to retire. That was our investment.

COOPER: You just got here. Did you know that it had --

MATA: We knew that both ends of the street were on fire we -- our house was still standing as of this morning along with these and the ones across the street.

COOPER: It was standing until about three hours ago.

MATA: Yes, yes. And yes, so when we heard that it was on fire, we drove over and we heard that the firefighters were trying to put out the fire and so we wanted to see for ourselves what the damage was but it's gone. It's gone. It's a total loss.

COOPER: I'm so sorry.

MATA: Thank you. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Well, CNS Bill Weir has more on how climate change has impacted the region, making these fires especially dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CHANGE CORRESPONDENT: This is just one of over a thousand buildings that have burned here in the town of Pacific Palisades, a community that is now utterly devastated by this later storm of wildfires here. This community home to some very affluential residents but also working class small business owners, many of whom have lost everything in this part of Los Angeles County.

Unnatural disasters on an overheated planet, heated up by fossil fuels, has created these drought conditions in January. This is typically one of the wettest months of the year in Los Angeles but it hasn't rained significantly in months.

Last year we got a lot of water all at once in California, created a super bloom of weeds and other vegetation which is now bone dry fuel up in these canyons and with 60, 70 mile an hour winds as this thing broke, spreading it out, the winds died down a bit overnight but it also spread into Runyon Canyon.

This is an area right above the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the famous handprints and stars, those hills just north of that area were evacuated last night as the fire crept over the canyons there. This is extremely difficult terrain for first responders to fight in and they weren't able to fly a fixed wing or even helicopters to fight these flames during the first 24, 36 hours of these blazes. But now from the Altadena area up north of Pasadena here in the Palisades, now on the Hollywood Hills, it is an all hands on deck moment here in Southern California for a wildfire storm few have ever seen.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Getting a sense there as well about the smoke and how it's choking people.

We'll continue monitoring the wildfires burning in California, bring you any updates as we get them but we'll get to some other news today as well.

MACFARLANE: Yes, President Joe Biden has told USA Today in a new interview that he believes he could have won the 2024 presidential election and defeated Donald Trump.

FOSTER: But Mr. Biden admitted he isn't sure he had the energy to serve a full second term. CNN's Brian Todd reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The 82-year-old president still brimming with the confidence that brought him into office as he exits. In a far-reaching interview with USA Today, Joe Biden, when asked by Susan Page if he still believes he could have beaten Donald Trump in November.

Says, quote: It's presumptuous to say that but I think yes. But when asked if he thinks he'd have the vigor to serve another four years, Biden said, quote: I don't know.

Reflecting on his overall health, Biden said: I wasn't looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old, who the hell knows? So far, so good, but who knows what I'm going to be when I'm 86 years old.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: That message, had he been running for re-election for a longer period of time, is presumably not what he would have been saying. Maybe I'll make it through my term in good health, maybe not. That's not the kind of message that most voters presumably would have been hoping to hear from a person looking to be their president for another four years.

TODD (voice-over): Biden said he's not yet decided on whether he'll issue preemptive pardons to people who are at the top of Donald Trump's enemies list, who Trump could target for retribution, people like Liz Cheney, Dr. Anthony Fauci and others.

He said when he met with Trump at the White House after Trump was elected, quote: I tried to make it clear that there was no need and it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores.

Congressman Bennie Thompson, who headed the House committee that investigated the January 6th attack on the Capitol and could be one of Trump's top targets for revenge, told Wolf Blitzer this.

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): If Donald Trump is hell-bent on extracting retribution, then I think if that pardon availability was there, it should be considered.

TODD (voice-over): The president defended his pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted of lying on a gun purchase form and pleaded guilty to federal tax charges.

Joe Biden saying, quote: He paid the back taxes, he was late, he should have paid it on time.

And he renewed his objection to the gun charges being brought. How will the Hunter Biden pardon be viewed historically?

[04:40:00]

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I fear that the Hunter Biden pardon will also taint President Biden's legacy in the future. The blanket nature of the pardon, the fact that it was a contradiction of a promise he had made during the campaign.

TODD (voice-over): On his overall legacy, Biden said, quote, I hope that history says that I had a plan how to restore the economy and reestablish America's leadership in the world.

NAFTALI: At the moment, Joe Biden is remembered by most Americans as not having completed the job that he started. I think over time, Joe Biden will be remembered for a great first two years.

TODD: The president seemed to half-joke about his age at one point during the interview, saying the only advantage to being an old guy is that he's known every major world leader for a long time. So that's given him perspective on them and their interests and helped him navigate big events in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: At least 13 people are dead after the latest Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says dozens of others were wounded in Wednesday's attack. Videos from the scene showed a building on fire as first responders worked to remove the victims.

MACFARLANE: Well, hours earlier, Ukraine said its drones hit a Russian oil depot in the Saratov region, more than 600km from the Ukrainian border. Kyiv says the facility provided fuel to a nearby airfield used by some of Russia's strategic bombers.

FOSTER: Where's the line between power and dictatorship? That's the question some Kenyans are asking following a string of alleged abductions that activists blame on the government.

MACFARLANE: They say government critics began disappearing after massive street protests back in June, but officials never acknowledged any involvement. Some of those critics, though, have since resurfaced and they're telling a different story. CNN's Larry Madowo reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Peter Muteti was paying for groceries at his apartment outside Nairobi in late December when two men grabbed him, bundled him into a car as he screamed for help. Peter's family was shocked to see his abduction on video after looking everywhere for him.

ANSITY KENDI CHRISTINE, COUSIN OF ABDUCTED MAN: We are a democracy on paper, not on the ground. Power is power. We understand. But all we're doing, we draw the line between power and dictatorship. When you are abduct a 22-year-old.

MADOWO (voice-over): Peter returned home on Monday but is too traumatized to speak, his family said.

In the six months since youth-led protests rocked Kenya, dozens of people have disappeared after criticizing President William Ruto according to human rights groups. Six of them disappeared in December alone. The protests forced President Ruto to drop proposed tax hikes and fire his cabinet.

Online opposition to his government remains strong, and after initially calling the abductions fake news, Ruto said this.

WILLIAM RUTO, KENYAN PRESIDENT (through translator): What has been said about abductions, we will stop them so Kenyan youth can live in peace, but they should have discipline and be polite so that we can build Kenya together.

MADOWO (voice-over): Since then, five of the missing have been released, but many more remain unaccounted for.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was right here, OK?

MADOWO (voice-over): Activist Bob Njagi took us back to where he says he was pulled from a bus by four hooded men last August.

MADOWO: The police say they did not abduct you, they don't abduct people. Do you believe them?

BOB NJAGI, ACTIVIST AND FORMER ABDUCTEE: No, I don't believe them. Larry, these guys had handcuffs, they had guns, OK? They had walkie- talkies. MADOWO (voice-over): Bob says he was driven blindfolded to an

undisclosed location, beaten, stripped naked and handcuffed to the floor.

He says he was held for 32 days alongside his neighbors, brothers Jamil and Aslam, who say they were also forcibly detained. They resurfaced after public pressure about their disappearance.

ASLAM LONGTON, FORMER ABDUCTEE (through translator): I still have trouble sleeping. Sometimes I accidentally hit my wife in bed because I have nightmares of those guys returning. So I'm mentally and physically traumatized.

MADOWO (voice-over): Human rights groups accuse Kenyan authorities of being behind and forced disappearances, decrying a return to repression.

MADOWO: People who were abducted reported hooded men with guns. At protests, we've seen similarly hooded men with guns. Every time we try to get close to them, they run away.

OKIYA OMTATAH, KENYAN OPPOSITION SENATOR: It looks like there's a war which has been declared against anybody who criticizes this government.

MADOWO (voice-over): Opposition Senator Okiya Omtatah met with Gideon Kibet, a student behind viral cartoons critical of President Ruto. Kibet never made it home. The lawmaker blames Kenyan security forces for abducting the artist on his way home.

MADOWO: The Inspector General of Police claims that the police have not abducted anyone and they're not being held in any police stations in Kenya.

OMTATAH: They are being held in some judicial detention centers. The police never take any action. It's like they know what is happening, they are in support of it or they are helpless.

MADOWO: Kenyan authorities declined to comment when contacted by CNN for this report.

[04:45:00]

Police say they are thoroughly investigating the disappearances.

This distraught dad was reunited with his son, but for many parents still searching for their kids, every day is a nightmare.

Larry Madowo, CNN, Nairobi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Still ahead, one researcher says this year marks the beginning of a new generation that'll live into the 22nd century.

MACFARLANE: Generation Beta. FOSTER: We won't, I won't.

MACFARLANE: No, but Generation Beta will.

FOSTER: What's setting them apart or what will set them apart? And there's a clue there. Screens.

MACFARLANE: That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: This year marks the dawn of a new era, the beginning of a new generation known as Generation Beta. Who are they? Well, you know, we're going to ask what they're like as well.

Generation Beta will include everyone born from 2025 to 2039.

MACFARLANE: They follow the youngsters of Gen Alpha who were born over the past 15 years. And they say that by 2035, Gen Beta will comprise about 16 percent of the world's population. Many of them will live to see the 22nd century in a world shaped by climate change, AI, and global population shifts.

FOSTER: Live to Sydney, Australia, I'm Mark McCrindle, the social researcher who coined the terms Gen Alpha and Gen Beta. Thank you so much for joining us. I think, you know, it was extraordinary for, you know, us older people living now is the idea that this generation will be pensioners in the next century. They'll be very much part of the next century.

MARK MCCRINDLE, SOCIAL RESEARCHER: Yes, that's the case. It doesn't seem like that long ago, some of us were welcoming in the 21st century, and here's a generation alive today that'll see the 22nd, the majority of them, and really shaping the second half of the 21st century. There'll be nearly 2 billion of them when they're all born, these Gen Betas, and so they'll be significantly transforming the century ahead.

MACFARLANE: And I have a one and a three-year-old, so not quite in the 2025 bracket, but obviously going to be shaped by the Gen Beta generation. So I'm so curious to ask more about this. What do you think is going to come to define the Gen Beta generation, and what challenges -- I mean, we touched on some of it there with climate change, but what do you think is going to be, you know, sort of biggest challenges they'll face?

MCCRINDLE: Well, Generation Alpha that are now hitting their teenage years, in fact, their mid-teen years, born since 2010, the generation that went before them, were shaped by devices, by social media, by screens.

But Generation Beta from their earliest days will be shaped in a world of AI. They'll be in schools, they'll have teachers, it'll be AI- informed. They'll be raised in households where the appliances have AI integration. In fact, the seamlessness between the human intelligence and the artificial intelligence will really hit a zenith over the next decade as Generation Beta. So that's going to be a big one.

[04:50:00]

The big shift we're seeing, though, is with their parents. So they are the parents -- their parents are Generation Z, and Generation Z themselves have grown up with technology. They're the first generation not to be as enamored by technology because they had it themselves. I'm talking about digital technology and devices.

And so they've moved more in their parenting style from tech optimists to tech sceptics, and they'll be dialing down a little bit of the technology in the lives of their young children, ensuring that Generation Beta are raised not just with tech saturation but holistic development in terms of the offline world, social skills, and development of people's skills and life skills as part of that.

FOSTER: I was thinking about that when I was reading your blog. Could you know, this idea that these technologies, these virtual, sort of very immersive technologies, will be part of their world, could they reject that, though? Because, you know, we are humans fundamentally, based on human interaction and the outdoors.

May they want to reject some of that and go back to, I guess, what our parents had a bit more and they won't have.

MCCRINDLE: Definitely, and we're already seeing that now with the parenting style in play where they're using technology to control technology. Where they're trying to ensure that their children engage themselves in the timeless human pursuits, not just the virtual or the online ones.

And so definitely, you know, AI will be unstoppable. It'll be seamlessly integrated into their lives. But we will see a deliberate approach by the parents and educators to ensure that they develop timeless human skills. Anything that can be outsourced to technology will be in the future. But what can't be is the creative thinking, the effective communication, managing people, leading in an age of diversity, and Generation Beta are going to need those strengths and they will have them developed as well.

MACFARLANE: Mark, I know you coined these terms, Alpha and Beta, but I just wonder more broadly why you feel generational tags are actually important or useful, because I would say in practice, you know, that often generational tags can be kind of weaponized against generations. And I speak as someone as a millennial.

FOSTER: And a winger. A winger is what a millennial is.

MACFARLANE: Thank you, Max. I can't lose -- I lose track of the count of the times I'm called, like, woke, sensitive, butterfly.

I mean, so, like, what is the need for them?

MCCRINDLE: Well, I definitely agree, and that's the downside of this. You know, in the OK Boomer term, did the rounds over the last couple of years used more as a disparaging term than one of warmth. And I think that's the challenge here.

We see the benefit of understanding the generations and of helping people see where the generations sit so that they can firstly understand something of themselves, where they sit, that they're not just floating freeform in a world. But there's generations that went before, there's generations coming after, and that context is important. And that there are differences that shape us, the times, the events, the experiences, the technologies, and indeed the life stages that we share within a generation and that are different across the generations.

And all of that, I think, develops that understanding and hopefully helps us see not only the diversity and the difference, but focus on bridging those gaps to engage. Most people's early experience of life is a multi-generational one, that is, in the family where they are raised. And so there's generally warmth to the different generations, grandparents, parents, children, and our hope is that that continues on.

And I think by understanding something of when the generations start and finish, something of the labels that help us see a sense of continuity and context is helpful.

We're big for putting forward these labels that aren't laden with meaning. They're scientific nomenclature, Greek letters, alpha, beta, because it's not the name that they're given that matters, it's the name that they make for themselves over the decades ahead. And I think in 10, 20 or 30 years, when we use the term Gen Alpha or Gen Beta, there'll be a lot of meaning to it because this generation will have created that meaning as they've shaped their own pathway in life and distinguished themselves as they solve new problems that really are going to need fresh eyes.

MACFARLANE: So we will wait to see what Gen Alpha and Gen Beta become. Meanwhile, X and Y here will continue to battle it out.

FOSTER: Mark, thank you.

MACFARLANE: Thank you so much, Mark.

FOSTER: I think the issue is this hard line, because your kids are going to be more Gen Beta than they are Alpha because they're young. They'll be younger Gen Alpha, right?

MACFARLANE: Younger Gen Alpha, yes.

FOSTER: Because there's the grey area, isn't there, between the generations.

MACFARLANE: But they'll also be shaped by their parents, so that's going to be a good thing for our generation, I think.

[04:55:00]

Anyway, but after the break, we'll have more on the devastating wildfires scorching Southern California. Stay for that. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Professional sports teams in Los Angeles responding to the wildfires. Hockey's Los Angeles Kings postponed Wednesday night's game against the Calgary Flames. The NHL says the thoughts of the entire league family are with the Kings, hockey fans and the people of the Los Angeles area during this very difficult time.

MACFARLANE: Well, the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers practiced outside on Wednesday ahead of their playoff game with the Houston Texans on Saturday. The team is donating $200,000 to relief organizations and launching a supply drive called Charge Up to Playoffs. And the league says Monday's playoff game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings is still on. If things change, they're prepared to move the game to Glendale, Arizona.

FOSTER: So many contingency plans need to go into effect. Thanks for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster.

MACFARLANE: I'm Christina McFarlane. CNN "THIS MORNING" is up after this quick break.

FOSTER: With another millennial.

[05:00:00]