Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Bethlehem Celebrates First Festive Christmas Since Gaza War; Pope Leo XIV To Deliver Christmas Urbi Et Orbi Message; Trump Takes Calls From Kids On Christmas Eve; High Flood Risk For Millions In California; U.S. Discovers A Million More Possible Jeffrey Epstein Files; Zelenskyy Proposes Compromise For Russian-Occupied Areas Of Ukraine. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired December 25, 2025 - 03:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:00:33]

RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR INTERNATIONAL: A very good morning, good day to you and a merry Christmas wherever you're watching in the world. I'm Richard Quest in London and we have a special Christmas edition because you are in the CNN Newsroom.

Right now, the Christian faithful are celebrating Christmas all over the world. It's pretty much Christmas Day everywhere now, except maybe Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific. But it's just gone through midnight on the west coast of the U.S. and these are the pictures from the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square in Bethlehem in the West Bank.

Important, this is Bethlehem's first festivities for Christmas since the start of the Israel Hamas war, made possible by the ceasefire that is largely holding millions of people worldwide, Christians and non- Christians alike, feeling the Christmas and holiday magic.

But let us pause and remember those wishing they could be with loved ones, those like ourselves who are working to keep our world moving and working. And to those who face risks to their lives, like the millions of people in California today who are getting pounded by a powerful storm. Many of them are under state of emergency in the wider Los Angeles area. There are dangerous floods and debris flows that have triggered mandatory evacuation orders.

We're seeing peaceful scenes at Sydney's Bondi beach where that sadness, deep sadness lingers. It is barely two weeks since the deadly massacre in which 15 people were killed.

To Rome and the Vatican where it is absolutely raining it down this morning. But that didn't stop, of course, the celebrations. Pope Leo marking his first Christmas since being chosen to lead the world's one and a half billion Catholics.

Live images from St. Peter's where the Vatican Mass is expected to get underway and in less than an hour. And where the Pope will soon deliver his urbi et orbi to the city and to the world Christmas blessing.

His Christmas Eve sermon focused on the plight of the vulnerable, including immigrants, children and those living in poverty. CNN's Christopher Lamb is with me live from Vatican City.

Christopher, I'm sorry. Well, first of all, season's greetings to you, of course, as you celebrate this holy day. Apologies for the weather, it's absolutely dreadful. But tell me, a new pope, a new spirit, a new atmosphere, does it feel different?

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VACTICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it does feel a bit different, Richard. And seasons greetings. Happy Christmas to you. First of all, Pope Leo, who is younger than his two immediate predecessors, is doing more services at Christmas than popes of the past. He's also celebrated midnight Mass later.

Pope Francis and Benedict -- Pope Francis celebrated earlier partly because of COVID partly because of age, so he's doing more. He also came out last night to the square before the midnight mass, started to greet thousands of people who gathered under umbrellas to watch the mass from the big screens. He greeted them and he thanked them for being there. He admired their courage for turning out in the bad weather. So there's a sense of new energy from a newly elected pope, the first American pope.

Of course, he is expected to emphasize themes of plain peace and reconciliation during his services today. He's going to be celebrating a mass in St. Peter's Square this morning. That's the first time the pope's done that since 1994 on Christmas Day, because in the past that wasn't celebrated. And then he will lead the traditional Christmas blessing and offer his kind of State of the World address at Christmas from the balcony behind me in St. Peter's.

[03:05:00]

The square is decked out with a tree, as you can see in the Nativity scene. There's also an exhibition of Nativity scenes from across the world in Saint Peter's including the Chicago Nativity from the Pope's hometown.

So a celebratory atmosphere with a different tone atmosphere, because of course, it is Leo's first Christmas since his election.

QUEST: And when he spoke last night, the message that he gave, obviously, I mean, this focus on immigrants, this focus on the poor, this focus on the disadvantaged.

LAMB: Yes, that's right. He sought to emphasize that the Christian message is applicable to the here and now and that it's about recognizing corporations, common humanity. And this is what he had to say during that midnight mass in St. Peter's.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) POPE LEO, LEADER OF CATHOLIC CHURCH (through translator): While a distorted economy leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise, God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person. While man seeks to become God in order to dominate others, God chooses to become man in order to free us from every form of slavery.

(END VIDE CLIP)

LAMB: So Leo is expected to build on similar themes. Today he's already called for Russia to observe a Christmas Day ceasefire in Ukraine. He's expressed his sadness that hasn't been observed so far. So we are expecting to hear more from the Pope this morning. Richard.

QUEST: Thank you. While were talking, I was listening closely, but I was also looking online for you. The rain is supposed to stop after 10 o'clock. It's 9 o'clock, just after 9 o'clock your time. So the rain is supposed to stop. Don't worry, I won't charge you extra for the weather forecast. Thank you. And once again, season's greetings to you. It's lovely to have you with us, spend some time. It's on Christmas Day.

Now, where is Santa at the moment? Oh, I'm on the wrong app now. You see, the beauty of all of this is. And I've got to go back to the app. There we are. NORAD Tracker. Santa Tracker. Where are you, Santa? I'm not very good at this. Where are you? Oh, there we go. He's in Portland, Oregon. There we go. Portland, Oregon.

He's delivered seven and a half billion dollar. Sorry, seven and a half billion gifts. After Portland, it's Tacoma, Washington State, where he arrives in just under two minutes from now. And then Los Angeles, then San Francisco. So he's obviously heading off towards Vancouver and then out over the Pacific.

President Trump took part in his own long standing holiday tradition. On Christmas Eve, alongside the first lady, the couple spoke to children whose calls to NORAD to track Santa were patched through to his Florida resort and with a suitable message. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We track Santa all over the world. We want to make sure that Santa is being good. Santa is a very good person. We want to make sure that he's not infiltrated, that we're not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa. So we found out that Santa is good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. Bye.

TRUMP: Santa loves you. What would you like Santa to bring?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not coal.

TRUMP: Not coal? No. You don't want. Well, coal is. You mean clean, beautiful, coal. I had to do that. I'm sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP) QUEST: There's always a message from a politician, whatever the occasion. For those following the calls, it was dinner and as you can see, it was Mar-a-Lago. And in the dining room, the main dining room there the president enjoying it with fellow diners are staying at the club.

A new CNN poll shows Americans don't have a lot of faith that their political leaders care what they have to say. And when asked about President Trump, much of what they talk about is the economy.

So ask what would you tell President Trump to make life in the US. .better for you? People like you. 32 percent. Improving the economy or reducing the cost of living? 16 percent. The president should resign or leave office.

Latest in a series of powerful storms is lashing California very high dangerous winds and rain and is producing life threatening flooding. At least two deaths so far. Southern California is being especially hit hard with more than 7 million people living under high risk flooding threat.

And officials are now warning a dangerous scenario is unfolding in the region. The Governor Gavin Newsom's declared a state of emergency across six counties and that includes Los Angeles County.

[03:10:03]

Firefighters are reporting an uptick in swift water rescues. You can see the picture here on your screen. Crew in Ventura County rescuing a hiker stranded in the floods. The National Weather Service is warning the severe weather continues throughout the day.

I spoke to Chris Prater from the San Bernardino Country Fire Protection District. I wanted to know about their response to all this awful weather.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Sir, a difficult time. I wish you seasons greetings obviously at this time of the year. And thank you for the amazing work that you and your colleagues are doing keeping people safe. But how bad is the situation?

CHRIS PRATER, SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT: Yes, sir, thank you for having me. It's a pretty severe situation out here. We've been experiencing prolonged periods of rain and that rain has led to mud and debris flows and flooding in some of our communities here in San Bernardino, primarily Wrightwood and Lytle Creek.

We've been out there since 7:30 this morning helping people get out of harm's way, going door to door, helping them evacuate and all the while still having to affect rescues with people that are stuck in their vehicles.

QUEST: What -- I mean the size that -- the size of the flooding and the amount of rain is quite exceptional. So, so what are the greatest risks in these circumstances?

PRATER: So with these prolonged periods of rain, this problem has been compounded by some burn scars from fires that we've experienced in the past year. The greatest risk we have is when people don't heed to evacuation warnings orders and they stay in the area.

All this does is really, it makes them more prone to danger because these rain flooding situations, mudslides, they come at no -- with no warning at all. And so the sooner we can get people to evacuate, the better off we are to help make them sick.

QUEST: Which is more of a threat. Is it the mudslides? Is it just the sheer volume of water? I know obviously if power lines come down then that creates a truly additional frequency problem of electric -- electrocution.

PRATER: Yes, when we have these storms they pose a bunch of different problems. You have the volume of water, which by itself anything up to 6 to 12 inches of water is enough to sweep your vehicle off a roadway. When you get the mud and debris flows, oftentimes those can contain large rocks, boulders, logs that take out everything in its path and then winds.

We also have the problem of possible electrocutions and life power lines being down. So the best case scenarios with us getting people out of harm's way so we can go in there and make sure everybody's going to be OK.

QUEST: Sir, I'll thank you and let you get back to your duties and wish your colleagues well and thank them for their service.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Now, of course, the news doesn't stop just because it's Christmas day. And the U.S. department of justice says the release of files in the Jeffrey Epstein case is about to grow substantially. The DOJ says it's uncovered more than a million additional documents which it's reviewing and expects to release in a few weeks. There's no word on how you discover a million documents like that, but anyway, CNN's Marshall Cohen has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, you could call it a Christmas Eve bombshell. The Justice Department announced Wednesday that there are potentially 1 million new additional documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that need to be processed and will be released. That announcement came as were all expecting more materials to come out, but perhaps not quite such a massive volume of material still out there.

The Justice Department in a post to X, formerly called Twitter, said the following, quote, we have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims and we will release the documents as soon as possible. They went on to say, due to the mass volume of material, this process

may take a few more weeks. Pleading for some patients, which it has been difficult to come by in the past week, a bipartisan array of outrage from Capitol Hill in the last few days about the heavy handed redactions, the various documents that still haven't been released.

And we saw a flurry of responses to this tweet on Wednesday afternoon. House Democrats said that they believe this was an outrageous admission from the DOJ.

[03:15:03]

Now, the Justice Department said that these new materials came from the Southern District of New York, which of course was responsible for the Jeffrey Epstein investigation that led to his federal sex trafficking indictment in 2019. He never stood trial on those charges because he died by suicide that year.

But it was that office SDNY that prosecuted Epstein's former girlfriend and longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. And she was found guilty, convicted on sex trafficking charges by that office that were filed by that office in 2021. So the big news here is there's a lot more to come in what seems like a never ending saga over the Epstein files. Marshall Cohen, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: In a moment, let me tell you about President Zelenskyy. Now, Ukraine's president has suggested he's ready to compromise on territory to achieve peace only if Moscow shows flexibility.

We are tracking Santa Claus. The west coast now is going further west out to the Pacific. And don't forget, we have plenty of Christmas crackers still to be pulled. Where are they all? Jokes, silly hats, Gifts and presents galore. It's a favorite Christmas tradition. West's Christmas crackers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:20:19]

QUEST: North Korea has released new images of what it claims is its first nuclear powered submarine. The photos show substantial progress has been made since it was first revealed in March.

The leader, Kim Jong Un, can be seen inspecting the craft at an indoor construction site, and that suggests it's not been launched but on the water. In its report, state media noted South Korea is pursuing a nuclear power sub with the U.S. blessing, calling that a violation of North Korean security and a threat that needs to be countered.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is praising North Korea for coming to his aid in the Kursk region. He sent a message to Kim Jong Un ahead of the new year, according to the North Korea's state news agency. The Russian president applauded what he called Pyongyang's heroic rolling Kursk, where Russia's claiming victory earlier this year. He's estimated around 11,000 North Koreans fought in the region

following Ukraine's incursion across the border and that up to 30,000 more could be deployed to help Russia. Despite their heavy losses,

Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has indicated he's ready for a compromise on territory to end the war with Russia. Potential territorial concessions to Moscow are one of the sticking points in the ongoing peace efforts. As Nada Bashir now tells us, Mr. Zelenskyy wants Russia to reciprocate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, in a new sign of potential progress in mediation efforts between Ukraine and Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signaled his willingness to make concessions on several key negotiation points, including crucially on withdrawing troops from parts of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control.

In a meeting with reporters, Zelenskyy outlined the possibility of a Ukrainian withdrawal from parts of Donetsk, including fortified cities such as Kramatorsk and Sloviansk cities, which currently stand in the way of any potential Russian advance deeper into the heart of Ukraine.

In return, Russia would be expected to also withdraw its forces from parts of Ukraine, effectively ceding control of an equivalent amount of territory and effectively establishing a demilitarized zone. The proposed withdrawal comes as part of a broader 20-point peace plan hammered out by the U.S. and European allies.

In addition to concessions on territory, Ukraine is also asking for guarantees when it comes to its security and economic recovery through concrete commitments from the U.S. as well as European and NATO states. The diplomatic development comes after a fresh round of talks to end the war wrapped up in Miami over the weekend, where Ukrainian and Russian officials met separately with a U.S. delegation.

While Ukrainian officials and the lead U.S. negotiator described the talks as, quote, productive and constructive, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov would not give any specific details. However, he did tell reporters that Moscow would formulate its next steps and continue to maintain contact in the near future through existing channels. Nada Bashir, CNN in London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: Now a look at some of the Christmas celebrations around the world. Stay with Ukraine, where some displays families had a traditional Christmas dish saying they're hoping for peace and reunification with relatives. Ukraine moved its Christmas holiday to December 25th two years ago, thus distancing itself from the Russian Orthodox Church, which of course celebrates Christmas in January.

Palestinians in Gaza are also hoping for peace and better lives for their children. They gathered at Darregh Latin Church for Christmas Eve Mass with a ceasefire entering its second month. To Notre Dame and the cathedral in Paris, Christmas Eve Mass for the

second year since it reopened, the fire of 2019 nearly destroyed the cathedral. And as you're going to see and hear beautiful today. The astronauts aboard the International Space Station celebrating Christmas in their own way orbiting way above us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WILLIAMS, NASA ASTRONAUT: One of the special things about the holidays is traditions. And while we're all away from our traditions at home, we get to enjoy some new traditions on board. So as you can see, we've got a little bit of decoration here. We've got a little tree and we've also hung some boots by the airlock with, you know, we get to make some new traditions here and that's something that's really nice and special and we're really glad to be able to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[03:25:00]

QUEST: One of the long standing traditions, the King's Christmas message. In the U.K. and across the Commonwealth will hear King Charles III give his Christmas Day speech. The message was recorded at Westminster Abbey. It will be about pilgrimage, the landmark speeches. Westminster Abbey has seen more than a thousand years of royal events with the King's coronation and weddings.

And now to our own very special Christmas tradition. The best part, the Christmas crackers. Nick is with me. So, seasons greetings to you. Choose. You can choose whichever one you want, right? Go on. One, two, three. Well, I got that, so let's just do this.

Now, remember this year they've got these awful sort of PC things mottos. I think you need this to make yourself look suitably festive. Go on. There we go, sir. Oh, perfect. Perfect. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. I say. I see. I say, how do you scare a snowman?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know.

QUEST: With a hair dryer? Hairdryer. I don't know. Have you time for one more? Why not? One, two, three. Yes. Oh, cheap. Just pull the little bits. Go on. Yes, there we go. And another little Christmas hat.

And see if you can find the joke in there. We also have a fun fact. Gunpowder was used in the first fire extinguisher. True or false? It is true. Here we go. What do snowmen like most about school?

Oh, no, just don't even get that snow and tail. Oh, good to see you, sir. Seasons greetings to you. And let me say this. We've got some awful things. What can be messaged but has -- what can be measured but has no length, width or thickness measured. No length, width or thickness. The temperature.

I'm Richard Quest. Thank you for joining us. Seasons greetings to one and all. Japan's Cultural Imagination is next season. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)