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CNN This Morning

Netanyahu Says, IDF Intensifying Operations Inside Gaza; DHS Official Says, Near Record Number of Border Encounters Last Week; Taylor Swift Wins TIME Magazine's Person of the Year. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 25, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

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[07:00:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. It is Christmas. I'm Phil Mattingly with Poppy Harlow. Thank you for joining us on this special edition of CNN This Morning. We hope you and your family are having a wonderful Christmas morning.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Merry, merry Christmas. Best day of the year, I think, for our kiddos.

MATTINGLY: It is a very -- well, definitely for the kids. There's no question about that.

HARLOW: A little stressful for the parents sometimes.

MATTINGLY: Yes. But now this is the point where you start to relax a little bit, hopefully.

Well, it was a busy night for Santa for those kids. We'll go through his naughty or nice list and see which U.S. lawmakers got a present under the tree and who's waking up to a lump of coal.

HARLOW: It was also a big year for women. Was it the year of Barbie or Taylor Swift or maybe Beyonce or maybe all of them? Any way you spin it, powerful women left a remarkable impression on 2023. We'll take a look at that impact.

MATTINGLY: And New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has been spearheading an effort to counter hate in America. We spoke to Kraft about his efforts. Why he says that despite a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, he's learned that Americans instinctively want to do the right thing.

HARLOW: But, first, let's get to the top stories of the day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning and Merry Christmas. I'm Danny Freeman.

This morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the military is intensifying operations inside of Gaza. It comes after the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry said at least 70 people were killed at the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. IDF says it is reviewing the incident at the camp.

CNN's Will Ripley joins us right now from Tel Aviv. Will, Merry Christmas first, but I want to get to this news. Prime Minister Netanyahu said the IDF forces are intensifying operations. What more are you learning?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Merry Christmas, Danny. Yes. It sadly is yet another day of war here in this war-torn country, this war-torn region. You have, as you mentioned, at least 70 people dying on Christmas Eve in Gaza in the latest Israeli expansion of their military operation, now that they essentially say they have operational control of Northern Gaza for the most part after dismantling a massive Hamas tunnel complex, they're now moving their operation to Central Gaza and Southern Gaza.

And what that means, unfortunately for people, is that they might get notices, being told that they have to move yet again. A lot of these families, 80 percent of those who live in Gaza, 80 percent of more than 2 million people are already displaced. And some of them have had to move twice, even three times or more. And now they have to move again in order to avoid a potential death in an Israeli airstrike. And well over 20,000 people have died so far, according to the Hamas- controlled health ministry.

The one Christmas miracle today is that we do have beautiful weather after several days of thunderstorms and chilling, intense rain, cold wind, the kind of conditions that just make it miserable for you if you're living out in the elements. At least today in Gaza, the sun is shining, and hopefully people can find some semblance of comfort in that, even though everything else about life is extraordinarily difficult right now for them.

FREEMAN: Will, quickly, I want to touch on something you said. You mentioned the IDF has dismantled Hamas's northern underground headquarters. Just tell me, how significant is that?

RIPLEY: It's pretty significant. This is the location where the IDF just confirmed last night that they actually recovered the bodies of five Israeli hostages, three of them soldiers, two of them civilians. And after those bodies were recovered and brought back to Israel, the entire tunnel complex was essentially destroyed.

They believe this was the headquarters for Hamas leadership, including apartments where they might have been living, offices, command centers that they might have used to plan and even carry out attacks. So, it's a significant step forward for the IDF, but they surely have a long way to go because Hamas has a lot of tunnels and a lot of ways to evade the Israeli forces on the ground there. Danny?

FREEMAN: Will Ripley, thank you very much. I hope you stay safe on this holiday.

Turning now to the southern border, it is seeing nearly 10,000 migrant encounters a day over the past week. That's according to the Department of Homeland Security. And that number is close to the highest ever recorded. Border officials are telling CNN that the situation is nearing a breaking point and continues to worsen.

CNN's Rafael Romo joins us right now from Eagle Pass, Texas. Rafael, you spoke to migrants over this weekend. Just what did they tell you?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They are desperate to get to the United States. Many left behind everything that took great risk to be able to get here, and many of them have been able to do so.

[07:05:04]

And on the other hand, we also have law enforcement authorities here telling us that they're under a lot of pressure because they have to deal with this huge migrant surge. In addition to the regular duties of tackling crime and protecting the community, thousands of immigrants are spending this Christmas Day, Danny, being processed here at the border while Border Patrol, CBP agents and other law enforcement are trying to solve this new crisis.

We've been traveling to different points along the border, and we have seen how immigrants keep crossing even when immigration officials and the state of Texas have installed obstacles, including barbed wire on the banks of the Rio Grande and buoys in the river itself that serve as floating barriers.

We talked to a mother who traveled with her 3-year-old son and 16- year-old daughter by land from Honduras in Central America. All three of them surrendered to immigration authorities at the border on Christmas Eve, and were hoping to spend this Christmas Day at a shelter.

We also talked to a woman from Cuba who says she was kidnapped as they traveled by land in Mexico with her sister and her sister's young daughter after their family paid ransom. They were then robbed before getting to the border. In spite of all that, she says she feels blessed this Christmas Day.

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MILAIDIS DUARTE FELIPE, CUBAN IMMIGRANT: That I'm going to spend it with my family, that I'm going to live in a free country, that at least I don't know, I'm going to be happy because I'm going to live in a free country where the rights of citizens are respected. That wasn't the case where I lived. I was under a lot of pressure.

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ROMO: And, Danny, while this is happening here at the border, another migrant caravan is making its way from Southern Mexico. Thousands of migrants departed Tapachula on Christmas Eve. That's a city at Mexico's border with Guatemala. And this is happening ahead of a meeting in Mexico City later this week between Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and two top U.S. officials, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The meeting is expected to take place in the Mexican capital on Wednesday.

Danny, Merry Christmas to you, back to you.

FREEMAN: Merry Christmas to you, too, and just a very challenging Christmas for so many. Rafael Romo, thank you so much. Now, let's get back to Poppy and Phil.

MATTINGLY: It has been 79 days since Hamas brutally attacked Israel and the start of the devastating war that has caused far too much death and destruction. Through all the pain, some glimmers of hope have emerged.

This is the story of three families intimately affected by the Israel- Hamas War that we are thinking about from this holiday season.

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MATTINGLY (voice over): Thomas Hand has been through hell and back. On October 7th, his then eight-year-old daughter, Emily, was sleeping at a friend's house when Hamas fighters stormed their kibbutz, killing roughly 130 people in a community of 1,100. Thomas was unable to reach his daughter and would go two days before receiving news that would destroy any father. But it was his reaction, in its visceral candor, that laid bare a horrifying reality in a way that captured international attention.

THOMAS HAND, HAMAS ATTACK SURVIVOR: They just said, we found Emily, she's dead. And I went, yes. I went, yes, and smiled, because that is the best news of the possibilities that I knew she'd be in a dark room filled with Christ knows how many people and terrified every minute, hour, day and possible years to come. So, death was a blessing.

MATTINGLY: Thomas says he planned to bury his daughter next to her mother, who died of cancer when Emily was just two years old. Then almost a month after the attack, the Irish-born Thomas was told by the Israeli army that it was highly probable Emily was alive and a Hamas hostage, a sudden flicker of hope but one overwhelmed by the realization of his greatest fear.

HAND: I'm extremely worried about her, obviously, what conditions she's been held in. The unknown is awful, the waiting is awful, but that's what we've got to do now.

MATTINGLY: But he did more than wait, launching a relentless campaign to keep Emily's captivity in the headline, even traveling to New York to feature Emily's picture on a billboard in Times Square on her ninth birthday.

HAND: Help us to get her back, please.

MATTINGLY: Then about 50 days after she was taken, Emily, also an Irish citizen, was freed during a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas. The emotional reunion seen here.

HAND: I'm not going to send her to school for at least a year.

[07:10:00]

We're going to give her the world.

MATTINGLY: Three year old Abigail Edan, an Israeli American citizen, was taken hostage by Hamas after her parents were killed in the October 7th attack.

NOA NAFTALI, COUSIN OF FORMER HAMAS HOSTAGE: Her brother and her sister have survived. They hid in a closet for 14 hours after watching their parents murdered, thinking that Abigail was murdered too.

MATTINGLY: Then, after about 50 days, Abigail, who turned four while in captivity, was released.

ELLA MOR, AUNT OF RELEASED HAMAS HOSTAGE: She just landed in the hospital and she's being checked and taken care of now.

MATTINGLY: Home in the arms of her aunt, uncle and grandparents.

And this Massachusetts couple and their almost two-year-old son were visiting relatives in Gaza on October 7th.

ABOOD OKAL, PALESTINIAN-AMERICAN WHO ESCAPED GAZA: First instinct is to run for my son and my wife and try to see how we could scramble and get to safety. But the reality is there is no safe place right now.

MATTINGLY: The family quickly headed south to escape the horrors of the war. But after several unsuccessful attempts to cross into Egypt, they ended up staying at a house with about 40 people about ten minutes from the border. They shared food, water and supplies, eventually running out of milk to give their young son. Finally, the family did cross into Egypt and return to the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're still processing what we experienced. I can't believe our short trip just turned to a nightmare.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (on camera): There were the stories of hope where there was so little hope, but yet still a very long path ahead for all of them.

HARLOW: I'm so glad you showed us that.

Also, 2023 will go down as the hottest year on record. And for certain months this year, scientists say it wasn't even close. A look back at some of the climate disasters and a look ahead at what could come next year.

MATTINGLY: And it's been a very busy year in politics. In the spirit of Christmas, John Avlon has got a copy of Santa's -- Santa Avlon is not here. Nice list. We're going to share it with you, next.

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[07:15:00] MATTINGLY: We'd like to think Santa Claus is back home resting after another busy but successful Christmas. But this year, one man is not resting. It is John Avlon. He's making the list. He's checking it twice. And he's here to tell you right now who in politics has been naughty and who's been nice.

John, we obviously need to start with the bad news.

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You start with the bad news. Who's getting the coal in the stocking.

MATTINGLY: Yes, (INAUDIBLE) upswing, but talk about the naughty.

AVLON: All right, number three, and this frankly could be much higher, but a man named George Santos and a senator named Bob Menendez, two buffoonish examples of corruption in both Houses of Congress. Both men indicted on a bewildering array of charges. Of course, in Santos' case there's been firm accountability, if not yet in courts, than among his colleagues, becoming just the sixth person to be kicked out, expelled from Congress, really kind of stunning.

Menendez, a much more established figure, hard to explain gold bars that show up in your closet. The story gets weirder the more you dig into it. Accountability to come, at least if Senator Fetterman has his way. His Democratic colleague was trying to push him out.

HARLOW: Who's next?

AVLON: All right, numero dos, there's a man named Markwayne Mullin. He's a senator from the state of Oklahoma. You might remember this outburst from November.

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SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay, that's fine. Perfect.

MULLIN: You want to do it now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd love to do it right now.

MULLIN: Well, stand your butt up then.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You stand your butt up.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Hold on. Stop it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that your solution to every problem.

SANDERS: No, sit down. Sit down. Look at you. You're a United States senator.

(END VIDEO CLIP) AVLON: What -- I mean, physical altercations under Congress. It's not unprecedented. Joanne Freeman, a great Yale historian, wrote a book called Fields of Blood, showing 72 acts of violence on the Congress floor before the Civil War. Just saying it's not a good thing, people, grow up.

HARLOW: Things should be getting a little more civilized as we progress.

MATTINGLY: You think. Give me number one.

AVLON: Numero uno is the Donald, the way he's been campaigning, the way he's been dividing. Think about the Christmas season, peace, goodwill, kindness, and then there's this.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.

It's poisoning the blood of our country. It's so bad. And people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you can have.

President Xi is like central casting. There's nobody in Hollywood that can play the role of President Xi, the look, the strength, the voice.

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AVLON: It's Christmas. Let's remember the feelings that we all aspire to and the spirit of kindness and not demonizing people we disagree with and then the people who are doing it right now.

HARLOW: So how about the good, because it is Christmas, Avlon?

MATTINGLY: I'm a Jimmy Stewart kind of guy. Give me it's a wonderful life every time.

All right, so let's start with the nice list. Let's start with Liz Cheney discovering her love for Nancy Pelosi, odd couple.

HARLOW: Yes.

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FMR. REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): I don't know that I had ever spoken more than a few sentences to her before she called me and asked me to be on the committee. I learned later that her staff put together for her a list of the top ten worst things Liz Cheney has ever said about Nancy Pelosi and gave it to her. And she apparently took one look at it and said, why are you bothering me with things that don't matter?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you take back some of the ten?

CHENEY: Oh, sure. We've all said things about each other that we probably, in hindsight, wish we hadn't said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: To me, that's not only about cross aisle friendships and allies, which we need more of in our politics, but it's also about grace. It's about not taking the bait when somebody, however well- intentioned, tries to gin you up about what someone has said, and the grace to say, you know what, I said things that were wrong. That's an exemplary moment from our politics.

MATTINGLY: What else did you see?

AVLON: You know what? This is an unexpected one. I like some pop culture in my politics, Strike Force Five. This was the podcast put together by competing late night hosts during the writer strike. And what I love about it is that these folks are all leading figures in their field. They're also competitors, direct competitors in some cases to one another. But they got together in an enduring writer strike, in part to help raise funds to help their teams who didn't have the benefit of the economic cushion that they had done. That's nice.

HARLOW: I love that. Number one?

AVLON: Number one.

HARLOW: Nicest.

MATTINGLY: This better be good.

AVLON: To me, this is the nicest. There are two governors you might not have heard of, but you should have, Democratic Governor of Colorado Jared Polis, Republican Governor of Utah Spencer Cox. And they've been pioneering an initiative called Disagree Better through the Governors' Association. Take a listen to a video they had.

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GOV. JARED POLIS (D-CO): Had our nation was founded by people who profoundly disagreed.

GOV. SPENCER COX (R-UT): So, next time your uncle, your niece or anyone else brings up that one topic that just drives you nuts, take a deep breath.

[07:20:00]

POLIS: Be curious. Ask questions. If you still disagree, that's okay. But you might find that you aren't as far apart as you think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: This is good and important advice, but more than that, it's actually part of an initiative that governors are putting forward to set an example of how to disagree more agreeably and constructively in their states, in their state legislatures, leading by example. That's an example on the holidays. When we get -- it's a reminder that we're all one big family. We don't have to agree all the time, but we need to figure out how to find that common ground. And that's what they're modeling.

HARLOW: I love that. Thank you, John Avlon, appreciate you.

AVLON: Merry Christmas.

HARLOW: Merry Christmas.

MATTINGLY: Well, there have been a record number of weather and climate disasters this year, each causing more than a billion dollars in damage. A look back at those major climate events and what we could expect in the year ahead.

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FREEMAN: Good morning and Merry Christmas. I'm Danny Freeman.

A large storm system is currently bringing rain and snow to the majority of the central U.S. and it's making its way east and could have a significant impact for your post-Christmas travel conditions.

CNN's Chad Myers joins us now from the Weather Center. Chad, your red tie, my green tie, we're a Christmas picture here. I like it.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I have a green pocket square, but I think that may be overdoing. Good job. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to everyone out there.

It is raining from Minnesota all the way down to Florida. This is a large storm system affecting so many people. The problem with that I see is that this rain gets to the northeast on Wednesday. A lot of people have flights on Wednesday. That's a big day to get back home.

Back out here, if you're traveling across I-90, 80, 76, this is the area that has a blizzard warning going on right now because that's where the snow is going to be. Everywhere that you see pink right there, that's a foot of snow or more.

[07:25:01]

And if that's blowing around, that's where your blizzard is going to come from. There's the rain across parts of the Gulf Coast all the way up to the Mid-Atlantic.

So, let's spell it out for you today, lots of driving going on, not as much flying as yesterday, but driving. So, it's going to be raining even at 6:00 from Chicago all the way down to Florida. The snow is back out again into parts of Nebraska, the Dakotas and into Colorado.

And then as we work our way into the beginning of next week, all of a sudden now the rain tries to get up here up toward the northeast, especially on Wednesday, even at noon, airports could be very problematic with wind, rain, low clouds all the way through the northeast. That's the real big problem.

And then the storm kind of dies and moves away, but in the meantime, there will still be snow across the upper Midwest here that's kind of still on the ground, driving through that could be a problem, and there's your rainfall up into New England.

High temperatures though for today, who's ever heard of 55 and rain in Chicago? Danny, you told me yesterday that you were in Chicago. It was like ten below zero on Christmas and you were doing live shots outside, right?

FREEMAN: Yes, yes.

MYERS: How would 65 degrees warmer field than that?

FREEMAN: It would have been a much merrier Christmas for me in that situation.

MYERS: I agree. And we found out -- we were tracking Santa yesterday, we found out that Santa delivered 7.8 billion parcels.

FREEMAN: Oh my God, that is wild.

MYERS: That's pretty good.

FREEMAN: Fantastic. Well, good. I'll be running back to my tree once we're done here to check if anything was left there. Thanks so much, Chad. I appreciate it.

MYERS: You bet.

FREEMAN: All right. Now take a listen to this.

HARLOW: Closing out the year with a huge accolade, the pop star superstar one TIME Magazine's 2023 person of the year this month, because according to TIME, quote, no one else on the planet today can move so many people so well, achieving this feat is something we often chalk up to the alignments of planets and fates, but giving too much credit to the stars ignores her skill and her power.

Swift's Eras Tour grossed $2.2 billion in North American ticket sales alone and her concert film's opening weekend raked in $96 million at the box office in the U.S. and Canada. That is the highest-grossing concert film domestically ever for an opening weekend.

MATTINGLY: And it's worth pointing out, she's not alone in helping boost the U.S. economy this year. She joins a list of powerful women making significant contributions, including, of course, Beyonce. A documentary about her record-breaking world tour, Renaissance, topped the box office earlier this month with $21 million in its opening weekend.

HARLOW: And this summer's Greta Gerwig's Barbie became the highest- grossing movie of 2023. That was back in August with a domestic haul of over $570 million at the time. Joining us now, CNN Economics Commentator in Washington Post Opinion Columnist Catherine Rampell and CNN Business Correspondent Rahel Solomon. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Rahel, let me start with you. What a year. Obviously, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, so many other women boosting this economy.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, really boosting consumer spending at a time when we thought that consumer spending would actually start to fall.

So, what you have to understand, Poppy, you did a good job going over some of the numbers there, is these women have monumental fan bases. And these women and the men who support them are spending a lot of money. Colorado, for its part, said that it expected Taylor Swift and her tour to pump $140 million into the Colorado GDP on average. They expected the average Swifty, who was attending, to spend about $1,300.

And what you have to remember is we're not just talking about --

HARLOW: Per person?

SOLOMON: Per person. That's like, more than rent for some people.

HARLOW: Many times over.

SOLOMON: Not in New York, but you have the floor, sure.

But what you have to remember is we're not just talking about the ticket sales, but we're talking about the flight to perhaps get to Denver, Colorado, or to Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Fed, by the way, has talked about Taylor Swift and the impact on the hotel occupancy, also the apparel. I mean, you got to look good once you go to see these ladies in concerts. So, they are huge monumental businesses.

MATTINGLY: Catherine, to that point, it felt like at various points of the year, even economists would say these one, two, or three extraordinary women were lifting up the economies of various places on their own. Is that an overstatement or is that actually close to accurate?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR: I think at least in the near term, yes, it had a big impact on local economies. As Rahel just pointed out, it meant higher sales for hotels, for example, lots of other kinds of local spending, any other kind of hospitality, restaurants, local transit, that sort of thing.

So, yes, these amazing women not only generated likely billions of dollars for themselves and for the people who worked on their respective tours or other kinds of artistic projects but also had some knock-on effects for the local economies that were hosting them.

HARLOW: For even countries, I was just looking it up, remember when we were talking about I think it was Sweden and Beyonce, right, Rahel? [07:30:00]

SOLOMON: I remember.

HARLOW: Beyonce and --

SOLOMON: Flaming (ph) Beyonce for the inflation. Yes.

HARLOW: Come on, come on, come on. You had a really interesting piece, Catherine, about the --