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CNN This Morning

39 Southwest Flights Cancelled Today as Airline Resumes Normal Services; Putin Invite's China's Xi to Moscow as War in Ukraine Drags On; January 6th Committee Releases Donald Trump Jr. Interview; Santos's Claim About Mother, 9/11 Face Scrutiny as Finances Investigated; McCarthy Huddles with GOP Members as He Works to Lock Down Votes. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 30, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Doesn't get much cheddar than that, Whitney, although you do have today, N.C. State taking on Maryland in the Duke's' Mayo Bowl, where the winning coach -- yes, you guessed it -- gets doused with mayo.

[06:00:13]

Is that the worst or the best condiment out there?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: It's in the middle, but I'll tell you, it's good for your hair. So at least there's that.

WIRE: I wouldn't know about that.

WILD: I had a whole "It's good to Brie a winner" thing teed up, but then we, like, went to the Mayo Bowl and then, you know, we moved on. So --

WIRE: I love thinking that you have put mayo in your hair to spruce it up.

WILD: You got to do what you got to do.

WIRE: You, too.

WILD: All right. Coy Wire, thank you.

And thank you at home for joining us. Whitney -- I'm Whitney Wild. Christine Romans coming back on Monday. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. It is Friday, December 30th, don is off today.

Recovery, though, is in sight. I mean, this -- we'll see. I think a lot of people will be skeptical, but that is what Southwest Airlines is saying this morning as the airline is hoping to resume regular service today, quote, "with minimal disruptions."

Overnight, the Biden administration issued a new warning as airports are still trying to figure out what to do with the piles and piles and piles of unclaimed luggage. We are live at Chicago's Midway International Airport.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Also overnight, Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping holding a bilateral meeting. That's happening this morning as Russia has escalated its strikes in Ukraine.

COLLINS: Also the House January 6th Committee releasing a new batch of transcripts. What we are learning, and what we're reading, about texts from Donald Trump Jr. and a meeting involving Georgia Senator Lindsey Graham after Trump's loss.

HARLOW: Also, a newly-resurfaced claim from Congressman-elect George Santos is now putting his own mother's death into question. That's right.

COLLINS: This morning we start with Southwest Airlines saying it is resuming a full schedule after an operational meltdown led to mass flight cancellations.

Currently, the flight-tracking site FlightAware shows just 39 Southwest cancellations for today, compared to the thousands that we've seen over the last few days. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg overnight called the disruptions unacceptable and laid out his expectations for how the airline can fix this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: The airline said to me that they were going to go above and beyond what's required of them. I'm looking to make sure they actually do that.

And if they don't, we are in a position to levy tens of thousands of dollars per violation, per passenger, in fines.

I can't go in and fix an I.T. system for an individual airline that is failing to do its job. But as a watchdog, our department is going to do everything it takes to hold them accountable for their treatment of their passengers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is live at Chicago Midway International Airport. Adrienne, what are you seeing this morning?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kaitlan, something I haven't seen all week. I don't see any cancellations on this flight information board. So this could be a sign right over here that things are starting to return to normal.

For example, this says "boarding," "on time," "on time." "Boarding," "boarding." And just moments ago, we saw a sign here that said, "Departing." And it looks like that flight has taken off, at least, based on the information here.

Over here, we also see people at the bag drop section. We hadn't seen that earlier this week. You know where we saw those bags? Piled up downstairs in the baggage claim area.

And as you all just heard from the Department of Transportation, they are vowing to take stiff steps. For example, the Department of Transportation has already taken steps to increase the standard of customer service. But Secretary Buttigieg saying he can't fix the I.T. system for the airline, but they will do everything it takes to hold Southwest accountable for their treatment of their passengers.

This morning, as passengers prepare to head for their final destination, we have seen file [SIC] -- or smiles. That's after nearly 15,000 canceled flights. I guess I'm excited this morning, because we've seen so much sadness this week, people stranded here at the airport. And now it looks like they may be getting out.

As far as those other passengers who were not able to find their luggage, Southwest is vowing to reimburse for canceled flights and what they called reasonable expenses. They've set up a form online where travelers can take care of that -- Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Yes. Adrienne, we can tell. I mean, it's amazing to see what the scene looks like behind you, compared to just days ago.

And of course, a lot of people want to know what that reasonable definition is for Southwest. We'll be checking in on that.

Adrienne Broaddus, thank you.

HARLOW: All right. This morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin extending an invitation to Chinese leader Xi Jinping to visit Moscow in the spring as the two leaders met on video link.

[06:05:08]

Putin also called relations between the two countries, quote, "the best in history."

According to Russian state media, Xi says he is ready to, quote, "increase political cooperation" with Russia.

The timing of this conversation comes hours, of course, after Russia has bombarded Ukraine with dozens of missile strikes that have just been crippling to their energy structure.

Ben Wedeman joins us live in Ukraine this morning.

Ben, good morning to you. Give us a sense of where you are this Ukraine and what this could potentially mean, an even tighter relationship with China, for Russia's war on Ukraine?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, we're in Bucha, the site just outside of Kyiv, where by all accounts, serious Russian war crimes were committed.

In terms of this -- continuing the closer relationship between China and Russia, it's a problematic one, given that China depends so much on its extensive trade with Europe, the United States, and the West in general.

So they, the Chinese, are walking a fine line.

Certainly, the Russians would like to have even better relations with the Chinese, in terms of the provision of its advanced weaponry, given that they've expended a lot of theirs in this so-far failed invasion of Ukraine.

But the Chinese are hesitant for the reasons I mentioned already.

But President Putin, in this video call, said he was looking for closer military-to-military relations between the two countries. Certainly, for the Chinese it's questionable, given the performance of Russian military equipment and the Russian military, what they would actually get out of that better relationship -- Poppy.

HARLOW: That's a key question but also really concerning, a potential powerful relationship. Ben, thank you very, very much for that reporting from Bucha -- Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Also this morning, the House January 6th Committee has released a new batch of transcripts, including its interview with Donald Trump Jr. They provide new context to a text message that he sent, laying out these various ideas for how to keep his father, potentially, in power, by subverting the Electoral College process.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz joins me now.

Katelyn, this transcript is the one, probably, that stood out the most, one of them, of the ones that were released yesterday. Donald Trump Jr., obviously, was there on January 6th as his father gave that speech on the Ellipse before the attack actually happened.

What did you learn from this transcript?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kaitlan, we know what happened after the election. We know that Donald Trump Jr. was texting people like Mark Meadows about this plan to use the states and fake electors to try and overturn the election.

But now what we're learning is his perspective about why he did what he did.

Now, there was several questions that he didn't recall answers to. He didn't give answers about the planning of the riot, the money that he was being paid to speak there.

But in one of these transcripts, he did talk about why he sent a text to Mark Meadows on November 5, the White House chief of staff, about this plan.

And he said that he sent that because that plan to him sounded plausible, and that at the time, that idea was sophisticated to him.

That is very much in line with some other information we learned from a different transcript, a transcript of Christina Bobb, a lawyer for Donald Trump.

She, too, was giving a little insight about why people were doing what they were doing. And after the election, she remembered that Senator Lindsey Graham was in a meeting with Meadows, as well, and basically told Meadows, "Just give me five dead voters. Give me examples of illegal votes. Give me a very small snapshot that I can take and champion."

So Graham, that senator, he ended up getting a memo from the Trump campaign team. He didn't find it plausible, didn't do anything with it. But he, too, was one of these people that was very receptive to the idea of what Donald Trump wanted to do after the election. We're seeing that perspective now in these transcripts.

COLLINS: And also, the calls that Graham was supposed to have with Pence world the day before January 6th.

We also saw the transcripts from Stephanie Grisham, who was the former chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump. She also was the White House press secretary for about a year. Did anything come from her transcript that was released yesterday?

POLANTZ: Yes. So Grisham was an example of how there were eyes and ears everywhere in the White House. She was an aide to Melania Trump, and she was witness to quite a -- quite a few different juicy conversations.

The first lady at the time, she told the House Select Committee that Melania Trump was expressing how much she didn't trust a lot of different people in the campaign. At times, Melania Trump was not even trusting Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, his fiancee. Didn't believe that they may be acting in the best interests of her husband, the president, Donald Trump.

[06:10:02]

She also said -- Stephanie Grisham said, "She would say" -- Melania -- "I think they're giving him bad advice. I don't think this is smart."

That quote is about Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, two lawyers that were working for Trump after the election.

So that's what Grisham relayed, as well.

COLLINS: That is fascinating to -- to see that insight of someone who worked so closely with Melania Trump, talk about what she was thinking that day.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you for taking away those highlights from the transcripts.

HARLOW: Well, there is fresh scrutiny this morning, though it seems to be every morning, for Republican newly-elected congressman, George Santos. He is now facing questions about comments he made about his mother being at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and what role the terrorist attacks may have played in her death.

Prosecutors are already looking at his finances after he admitted to making those false claims about his biography.

Now, new analysis from "The New York Times" shows that during his campaign, Santos spent $30,000 on hotels, 40 grand on airfares, $14,000 on car services.

For comparison, Nick LaLota, another GOP representative-elect from New York spent roughly $900 on hotel stays, $3,000 on airfare, 9,000 -- 900, I should say, on taxis during his campaign.

Our Sunlen Serfaty joins us from Washington.

And that comparison, Sunlen, is important, because it shows just how out of the norm spending like that is that Santos did.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, Poppy. There are big questions over his financials, and there's also big questions about claims that he's made about his background, as you know.

Specifically here, we're talking about very sensitive questions on a very sensitive subject, as you referenced, over his mother's death.

Now, Santos has claimed multiple times in the past that his mother was at the World Trade Center on 9/11, and he says that played a role in her death. If you look at these tweets from the last year, he says very clearly here that "9/11 claimed my mother's life."

Now, his mother died 15 years after the terror attacks, in 2016. Santos has said she was in the South Tower, that she made it out. He says that she was caught up in an ash cloud and fought cancer until her death.

Of course, many first responders and survivors went on to develop many health conditions after the attack. Now, Santos says his mother did not sign up to get financial relief, because she did not want to take away money from the first responders.

It's not clear, though, if his mother was actually in the World Trade Center as he claims. And Santos has previously claimed his mother was a financial executive, but that description has since been removed from his website.

And Poppy, we have, of course, asked Santos and his representatives for more information on this, but they have not clarified or provided any more.

Certainly, a lot of questions not only about his mother's death but all the financial questions that are being raised this morning.

HARLOW: So many questions. And this one, again, just like his claim about, you know, employees being killed at the Pulse nightclub shooting, really center on American tragedies; and the facts are very important. Sunlen, thank you.

SERFATY: Thanks. COLLINS: All right. Also this morning, Republican leader Kevin

McCarthy is working the phones today, literally, in hopes of locking in more support for next week's vote for House speaker. It's happening on Tuesday, in just a matter of days from now.

CNN has learned that he's scheduled a conference call this afternoon to try to iron out potential rule changes out of the new Congress on Tuesday.

CNN's Melanie Zanona is live on Capitol Hill.

Melanie, what are we learning about -- you know, I know there's a lot of negotiations happening behind the scenes as McCarthy is trying to get to those votes. Some members want these rule changes. What exactly are they debating over behind the scenes?

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: OK. So the big debate is the over this tool known as the motion to vacate. That would force a floor vote on ousting the sitting speaker.

Currently, the majority of the entire conference has to agree to use that rule. But McCarthy's critics want to change it so that any single member can force a floor vote on deposing the sitting speaker.

Up until this point, McCarthy has not wanted to budge on that issue. However, as he has struggled to lock down the speaker's votes here, I am told that, in private conversations this week, he had made an offer to his critics that he's willing to agree to a lower threshold than what it currently is.

In fact, one of the numbers that's come up in conversations has been a five-person threshold. So potentially, a really big concession from McCarthy here.

But of course, time is running out, and it's unclear if even that could get him enough votes for speaker on January 3, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Yes. The five-person threshold would be incredibly notable. We talked to Fred Upton in recent days. He's leaving Congress, but he said he does not believe McCarthy should agree to -- to these terms.

You know, he only has a few days left to really get the votes that he needs. It's not clear that there's any alternative to him, I should say. We haven't seen anyone who's been able to garner a lot of support. So where does it seem headed, you know, as of Friday, December 30, before we hit Tuesday?

ZANONA: Kaitlan, I think we're going to learn a lot later this afternoon. As you mentioned, there is a critical conference call that McCarthy has convened between some of these different wings of the party.

[06:15:03]

I do suspect that motion to vacate, that tool you were talking about, that will come up. McCarthy is going to try to find a sweet spot that will essentially, you know, appease enough of his critics to allow them to vote for him without alienating the moderates in his party.

But, you know, January 3rd is fast approaching. Their -- the members aren't here right now, so that makes it also more difficult for McCarthy to sort of round up the votes.

So it is very possible that we could see this thing go to multiple ballots for the first time since 1923.

COLLINS: All right. We'll be watching closely. Melanie Zanona, thank you.

All right. A colossal intelligence failure. That's what law enforcement officials told the January 6th Committee about what happened in the leadup and the immediate response to the Capitol attack.

HARLOW: Also, why the CDC is raising concerns about new COVID variants developing in China.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: The January 6th Committee has released another batch of witness transcripts involving some of those who were the closest to former President Trump, including his son, Donald Trump Jr., who believes he had a, quote, "sophisticated and plausible plan" to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Also, a former Trump attorney, Christina Bobb, who recounted a conversation between Rudy Giuliani and Senator Lindsey Graham, in which she recalled Graham saying, quote, "Just give me five dead voters. Give me, you know, an example of illegals voting. Just give me a very small snapshot that I can then take and champion."

That was to prove evidence of election fraud that they were never able to actually produce, as we all know now.

With us now for perspective on this is the former deputy director of the FBI and CNN's senior law enforcement, Andrew McCabe.

Andy, I just wonder, when you -- when you look at these transcripts and you see what this attorney is recounting that Lindsey Graham was saying in these conversations. He was looking for the smallest example of fraud, potentially, so then he could go out and use that and sell that to people to back up what Donald Trump was saying publicly.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think it's really fascinating, Kaitlan, because it shows you the -- the length that these Trump surrogates were willing to go to, to try to perpetuate this fraud, essentially, that there had been a massive, impactful, you know, irregularities, with the election.

[06:20:07]

I mean, Graham comes right out and says, basically, Give me a thread. Throw me a lifeline. Give me an example of a couple of voters or a couple illegals, and then I will go out and champion that as evidence that the entire election should be thrown out.

Now I guess, to his credit, Ms. Bobb also says he never actually did anything with the memo they sent him, which you know, I guess we can only assume that he looked at it and thought that, you know, even from his perspective, that likely seemed preposterous.

HARLOW: Can you speak, Andy, to Donald Trump Jr. sending Mark Meadows that text message two days after the election asking for a, quote, "plan" to keep his father in office, and then explaining that by saying, I thought these were the most sophisticated and plausible ways.

And then Christina Bobb testifying that Lindsey Graham in the background -- testifying that Lindsey Graham was there, as well, you know, saying, Give me five dead voters or examples of illegal voting.

Those are interesting, but I'm more -- I'm interested in how DOJ would actually use those in their investigation.

MCCABE: Sure. So let's take Don Jr. as an example. After going through his entire transcript, I have to tell you, I found his answers to be really not very persuasive.

He is -- seems to be deliberately vague in a number of points. He's very -- claims to have no recollection of many events that you would likely remember something about.

And I'll give you the best example is that text you raised. So Don Jr. first tells the investigators that he -- he -- they ask, Do you put out your own tweets?

And he says, yes, oftentimes. Like, what that means, I have absolutely no idea. They didn't -- unfortunately, they didn't ask him if anyone else had access to his account.

He then goes on to say that he often sends out tweets that other people send him. So he identifies that tweet, the infamous two-part plan tweet, as he maybe one of those tweets that he saw it somewhere else and just forwarded it to Meadows.

That's completely inconsistent with what the tweet says, as it's been reported. He endorses this supposed two-part plan as the most sensible and logical thing he's seen about how to address the election problem.

So his -- his actual statements and his actions at the time are not consistent with his answers. That opens a door for DOJ, because all -- as you know, this testimony was given under oath. There may be inconsistencies between his testimony and what he actually did or said.

And investigators will use those inconsistencies as leverage to maybe force someone to be more revealing or even cooperative with their investigation.

COLLINS: Yes. That's why the DOJ wanted these transcripts. They didn't get them until now that they're becoming public. They're seeing them when you and I and Poppy are all seeing them for the first time.

You also had an interesting perspective on -- you know, a criticism of the January 6th Committee was they didn't talk about the actual law enforcement security aspect of what happened that day and what went wrong there.

A lot of people said they didn't go far enough into it. And you think part of that had to do with the testimony they got from the former FBI deputy director.

MCCABE: Yes. I think that criticism of the -- of the committee is totally valid. And I think that the former deputy, David Bowdich, his testimony shows you why the January 6th Committee was not well- positioned to do a legitimate review of institutional performance failure, particularly in the intelligence community with elements like the FBI and DHS.

So in Bowdich's testimony, it's not very detailed. His recollection is not very good. He doesn't actually exhibit a great knowledge of FBI policies and standards for opening cases, things of that nature.

And that's basically as far as they can go in that one-on-one interview format. What they should have done was sent a team into the FBI to review raw source reporting, to review internal documents about internal decisions, to get an assessment of the climate as to how people were thinking about their responsibility in respect to January 6th. None of that was done.

And it doesn't -- we don't have any indication that the FBI is actually pursuing a legitimate review like that. And my concern is the failures at the FBI and DHS, and other agencies, that ultimately helped enable or lead to the January 6th attack, we have no indication that those failures are being fixed.

HARLOW: So let's talk about some of those failures on the intelligence front, because included in these transcripts are two key quotes.

Let's start first with this one from the former chief of Capitol Police Steven Sund, who told investigators, quote, "I'd say that colossal intelligence failure. Because the value of the intelligence for us is [SIC] -- an agency is in planning." There's that.

And then Major General Walker, who was commander of the D.C. Guard, said response was delayed because of the optics of the Army's involvement.

He said, quote, "Somebody or somebodies were willfully deliberately delaying making the decision." He goes on to say, "I think it would have been vastly different response if those were African-Americans trying to breach the Capitol."

[06:25:06]

MCCABE: Yes. That's -- that is a very powerful allegation or suspicion, and it's one that might, in fact, be valid.

The problem is we don't have enough legitimate investigation here to back up or to make -- draw conclusions along those lines.

But I think that those -- those are two perfect examples of some of the many intelligence failures that -- that created the situation where January 6th could basically occur.

You know, even -- again, look at the FBI. They initially said they knew nothing about the plans of violence and the people that were coming.

And then over time, we've had things dribble out that, oh, in fact, they did receive a significant amount of information from the social media companies about concerning traffic and conversations that were taking place on their forums.

And so, when you add up all the things that we now know they knew, the question is how did they handle that information? What did they do with it? How did they communicate it to others? And what decisions did they make to take or not take precautions for violence on that day?

And I've got to tell you, this is the thing that causes me the most loss of sleep these days. I don't think there's any indication that we're actually looking at that in a legitimate way and changing the way things are done in these institutions to be better the next time this sort of threat comes down the pike. Because I guarantee you, it will happen again.

HARLOW: You don't think we're learning from it?

MCCABE: I do not. I do not. There's no public indication that we've -- that we're doing the work. Now, maybe they are behind the scenes and not telling us about it. I doubt that. But let's hear that from them.

HARLOW: Scary thought and reality, actually. Andy McCabe, thank you very much.

So next, we're going to take you live to Brazil. The country, really the world, is in mourning this morning, mourning the death of the soccer legend Pele.

COLLINS: Also, we have an urgent plea coming from Italy this morning to the European Union. They want to test their travelers for COVID if they're arriving from China. That is something they're not doing. The United States is putting that in place. We'll talk about the response this morning.

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