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CNN This Morning

President Trump Urging Federal Appeals Court to Grant Him Immunity in Criminal Election Subversion Case; Large Storm System Currently Bringing Rain and Snow to Majority of Central U.S.; Year of Intraparty Conflict for House Republicans Reviewed. Pope Mourns Israel-Hamas War in Christian Message; 2023 Saw Major Labor Action Across Various Industries; Looking Back at the Crime Stories that Gripped the Nation. Aired 8-8:30a ET.

Aired December 25, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:49]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Merry Christmas, everyone. We are so glad you are with us on this special morning. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly. This is a special edition of CNN THIS MORNING. Hope you're having a great holiday with your loved ones. Merry Christmas.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Merry Christmas. I just want to stay on this set forever.

HARLOW: Isn't it beautiful?

MATTINGLY: It's beautiful.

HARLOW: I love all of the poinsettias all around. We got a Christmas tree. We've got kind of a fire. You're going to see it all right here.

MATTINGLY: We've got some news, too. The Iowa caucuses now just three weeks away from today. This morning, we'll highlight the key moments on the campaign trail so far and how they could shape the final months in the race for the White House.

HARLOW: And seasons full of strikes reignite the labor movement in America. From Hollywood to the Motor City, workers won pay raises and new protections. How technology could bring more change to the economy in the year ahead.

MATTINGLY: And coming together this holiday season, as antisemitism and Islamophobia sentiment rises, we'll talk to faith leaders about how we can find common ground in these very turbulent times.

HARLOW: But first, let's get a check on the morning's headlines.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, everyone, and merry Christmas. Thank you for joining us. I'm Danny Freeman.

Former President Trump is urging a federal appeals court to grant him immunity in his criminal election subversion case. Right now, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing Trump's request Saturday to overturn a lower court ruling rejecting his argument that he was working as president to ensure election integrity when he allegedly undermined the 2020 results. For more on this, let's bring in CNN's Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, please break it down for us. What happens next?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Danny, what happens next is everybody goes to court yet again. So this is one of those issues that has to be worked out through appeals before Donald Trump can sit for trial. He has some rights as a criminal defendant, and one of them is to try and see if the courts will grant him immunity from prosecution. That's the question on the table as he awaits his trial set for March in this federal case against him related to the 2020 election and January 6th.

But Danny, what is happening here and what happened over the weekend is that Donald Trump's team is prepared to argue and is arguing already in written briefs to the D.C. circuit court of appeals, this intermediary court. And they're arguing that he can't be prosecuted for any official duties that he had while he was president, and also, he can't sit for trial because he was already tried once during his impeachment in Congress, and he was not convicted by the Senate, even though he was impeached by the House.

And so he's arguing that, no, he should not have to face trial. That was what was said in the briefs. There was a lot of language in the briefs from Trump's team over the weekend, too, about how damaging it is to the country to have a former president on trial. But that is going to be determined by the court of appeals first, and then very likely, the Supreme Court. Oral arguments are the first or second week of January, January 9th.

FREEMAN: Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much for that insight. We'll be keeping more on this with you. Appreciate it.

And new this hour, we now know where Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny may be. His spokesperson says Navalny is at a penal colony in northwestern Siberia. Navalny's legal team had said last week they did not know where he was after he didn't appear at two court hearings. The spokesperson also said that Navalny's lawyer managed to see him, and at this point he's doing fine. We'll keep you posted on that story, as well.

To this now, a large storm system currently bringing rain and snow to the majority of the central U.S. is making its way east and could have a significant impact on your post-Christmas travel conditions. CNN's Chad Myers joins us right now from the weather center. Hi, Chad. Merry Christmas.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Merry Christmas, Danny. The rain is now going to be moving into Florida and all the way up to Minnesota. So this is a top-to-bottom kind of storm. Severe weather possible across parts of Florida, heavy rainfall in places that really need it. And then, this is going to turn into a blizzard into parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, and even Kansas. And in fact, blizzard warnings are posted there already. Difficult travel across I-80, 76, I-90. Now, it's a long drive across

those interstates, and I take that from experience. But that's a foot of snow in parts of South Dakota. That's a lot. And then the rainfall here across parts of the mid-Atlantic states.

[08:05:00]

So now let's get to it, 6:00 tonight, it's raining from Chicago all the way down to Florida. Move you ahead until tomorrow, and this is where people are maybe driving back home. I-95 is going to be wet, 75 as well. And there's your blizzard back out, even getting some snow to Denver and maybe even in the mountains. We'll take that in the mountains, but maybe not so much along I-25 and Denver. They don't like driving in that. And then by Wednesday and Thursday, that's when the weather gets towards the northeast, and you could be slowing down planes, especially on Wednesday.

Danny, I have a question for you.

FREEMAN: Shoot.

MYERS: I heard John Avlon last hour talk about getting coal for Christmas, that he was going to give some politicians some coal. Have you ever had coal for Christmas?

FREEMAN: Yes, every single year. It is a family tradition. I mean, if I don't get coal, who will? But Chad Myers, you are on our nice list for keeping us abreast of the weather every single day.

MYERS: I got coal when I was five. And I was excited because then I could really make a real snowman.

FREEMAN: That's fair.

MYERS: My parents didn't know what to think about that.

FREEMAN: You've got to have the eyes. You've got to.

MYERS: That's right.

FREEMAN: Thanks, Chad, appreciate it.

Now let's get back to Poppy and Phil.

MATTINGLY: Well, candidates are racing to the finish line in Iowa, where the first ballots will be cast in the Republican presidential primary. The key moments that could influence the election year, those are ahead.

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HARLOW: One thing is certain. There is never a dull moment when it comes to politics in America, but even by Washington standards, 2023 has been quite the year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: He says, you're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no, other than day one. We're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After than that, I'm not a dictator.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R-CA) FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: Whether I'm a speaker or not, I'm a member of this body. I know what history has had. And I can lead in any position it is.

[08:10:03]

REP. GEORGE SANTOS, (R-NY): Happy birthday to you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The chair declares the House in recess subject to the call of the chair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: See what I mean?

MATTINGLY: Impressive.

HARLOW: Joining us now -- I put that together myself -- former Obama administration official Sarah Feinberg and political reporter at "Politico" Emily Ngo. It is great to have you guys. Thank you so much. What a year, and I feel like 2024 is just going to be like even more.

SARAH FEINBERG, FORMER NEW YORK STATE OFFICIAL: Twice as much.

HARLOW: What do you think?

FEINBERG: Yes, it sort of feels like that. 2023 feels like the year when a bunch of chickens came home to roost that actually started in 21 and 22. So Trump, for everything that happened on January 6th, now starting to pay the price for that with all of the indictments, economic sentiment in the tank, which feels like the last couple of years of inflation. And so, 2024 is it going to be more of this? I think it's go to be more of the same, but also the heat of the campaign. And frankly it's going to be ugly. And I don't know that Americans are really in the mood for it. But they're about to get it regardless.

MATTINGLY: Emily, what's striking about the montage we just showed, three of the people in that montage on January of 2023 were members of the House of Representatives in the Republican conference. By the end of this Congress, none of them will be in Congress anymore. The intraparty warfare we've seen inside the Republican party has been like nothing I've experienced before.

EMILY NGO, POLITICAL REPORTER, "POLITICO" NEW YORK: Yes, and me neither. And I'll say first and foremost, that super cut, I can't believe that all happened in a year, but I really feel like what Sarah is saying. It seems like a lot of scene setting in 2023. And when you look forward to 2024, the House looks different. They're going to have a much slimmer majority. So some of these more competitive congressional races in swing seats, including in New York, where there are about six competitive seats, could go either way, same for California. That's really going to be where the money is spent, where the attention is directed.

But take a look also at the legal calendar that Donald Trump has versus the primary calendar, and I just really wish I could see what that Google set-up looks like, the colors, because you have the Iowa caucuses, but then he has the jury deciding what the damages are in the defamation case. You have New Hampshire, and then another civil trial begins. And then you have South Carolina, and that's the start of this big criminal trial into whether he interfered in the 2020 elections. It is going to be back-to-back and it's going to be nonstop. As much as 2023 felt like nonstop, 2024 is really when the foot hits the gas pedal.

HARLOW: A lot of legal drama ahead for President Trump in 2024.

For Biden in 2024, he really needs a new year, doesn't he? He really needs a reset. And his most recent polling numbers are not good at all overall, and on the economy.

FEINBERG: Yes, that's right. And the economic sentiment, to go back to it, I think is driving so much of this. And economists are trying to figure out, the economy could be so much worse. Why do people feel so badly about it? And I think the reality is, is inflation is coming down, but it's not coming down superfast, and prices aren't where people feel like they should be or what they would be used to. And people just don't feel good about sort of day-to-day life generally. It feels like there's a lot of disruption. It feels like there's chaos. It feels like there's a lot of uncertainty. And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, and so that's going to be a big hill for Biden to get over.

MATTINGLY: The margin is razor thin. Do Republicans hold on to the House, given New York, your area of expertise in particular will be critical. Are Republicans going to be the majority in 2025?

NGO: It's hard to say because now Mike Johnson is the speaker of the house. Kevin McCarthy couldn't even last a year with the gavel and Mike Johnson is someone who could easily be portrayed as too extreme, as someone who has very scary views on abortion, on LGBTQ Americans, and that's really going to hurt some of these more moderate centrist Republicans than they know. He's also not as strong a fundraiser as McCarthy was. McCarthy really knew how to bring in the millions, especially for these Republicans that flipped some blue seats. I don't know if they can hang on to the majority. The margin is so thin that really every single seat will count now.

MATTINGLY: And I have to ask, just because he was such a defining figure of everybody's 2023, what happens to George Santos in 2024?

NGO: Are you telling me you want a Cameo as your Christmas gift?

MATTINGLY: I'm not going to say no, but I'm not going to say yes. You're going to have to surprise me.

NGO: Someone asked me if he could win elected office again, and I think that answer is pretty definitively no, but I don't think he's going to disappear from the media. He is pretty masterful at social media, at trolling, at making allegations, filing complaints or at least threatening to file complaints, and he wants to be part of this conversation. So I think he'll elbow his way in. It's kind of our job to make sure that if he's not relevant, he stays that way.

MATTINGLY: I couldn't agree more on that.

HARLOW: Emily, thank you. Sarah, good to have you. Merry Christmas, guys.

MATTINGLY: This year, the union workers rose up to fight for their rights. How 2023 totally reshaped the labor movement from coast-to- coast.

HARLOW: And later, our conversation with college basketball legend Coach K. His name is synonymous with success on the court. We'll talk, though, about life after coaching and what is more important than winning.

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MIKE KRZYZEWSKI, FORMER FOOTBALL COACH: I have three daughters.

HARLOW: They hold you down to earth?

KRZYZEWSKI: They have whatever humility I did not have, they try to interject in me over and over.

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DANNY FREEMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and Merry Christmas. Thank you for being with us. I'm Danny Freeman.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu says its military is intensifying operations inside of Gaza. Now, this statement comes after the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 70 people were killed at a refugee camp in Central Gaza.

Meantime, Pope Francis who has repeatedly called for a ceasefire said the message of peace is being drowned out by the war. He said that during his Christmas Midnight Mass.

Those remarks come as Christmas celebrations were actually canceled in the city of Bethlehem.

CNN's Will Ripley is live for us in Tel Aviv.

Will, you spoke to residents of Bethlehem. What did they tell you about this time?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Danny, it is really a sad moment for Bethlehem. Every single person that we spoke to, some of them who have lived there their entire lives, decades and decades and decades, they never remember a Christmas season like this.

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RIPLEY (voice over): Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem. Church bells ring, but no one is listening.

The season's magic, missing from Manger Square, along with the Christmas tree and dangling decorations.

In the biblical birthplace of Jesus, only sadness fills the air.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): My son asked me why there is no Christmas tree this year? I don't know how to explain it.

RIPLEY (on camera): Are you sad?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course. Of course I'm very sad.

[08:20:07]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The root of the tree, and we carve it, the Nativity scene.

RIPLEY (on camera): Beautiful.

RIPLEY (voice over): Bombs may not be falling here, but everyone feels the fallout.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since three months, honestly, we don't have one sale. I don't keep my father at home for not to give up from hope.

RIPLEY (voice over): Hope is in short supply in Bethlehem. For businesses banking on a busy Christmas, no comfort and joy, only silent nights.

The usual crowds, gone. Shops and restaurants, shuttered. The handful still open, empty.

KHALID BANDAK, TOUR GUIDE: Most of the festivals were canceled during that -- because of the war in Gaza.

RIPLEY (voice over): Across Bethlehem, red and white warning signs instead of red and green, barbed wire instead of mistletoe, barricades instead of decorations. Israeli bulldozers left behind piles of rubble, blocking every road in and out. Walls and checkpoints part of life for Palestinians, this is a new extreme.

Israel blames the blockade on security threats. Palestinians, the UN, and human rights groups call it collective punishment, cutting people off from their homes, their loved ones, their livelihoods.

RIPLEY (on camera): When you see it empty like this --

FATHER SPIRIDON SAMMOUR, HIGH PRIEST, ORTHODOX NATIVITY CHURCH: I have never seen it like this.

RIPLEY: You have never seen it this empty?

SAMMOUR: Like this year, no.

RIPLEY: The restaurants, the hotels, the shops, the square -- emptiness surrounds you here in Bethlehem, perhaps nowhere do you feel it more than here, the Church of the Nativity

SAMMOUR: It is very bad.

RIPLEY (voice over): Father Spiridon Sammour has been in Bethlehem since 1970, fifty four years. He's never seen a Christmas season like this.

SAMMOUR: Christmas is joy, love, and peace. We have no peace. We have no joy.

RIPLEY (voice over): Long lines usually wrap around the Basilica, the grotto always standing room only. Now, you can practically hear a pin drop.

Priests are still praying, praying for all this madness to end, but these days, only God is listening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY (on camera): Businesses that rely on tourism say the economic impact of this even just after less than three months is worse than the COVID 19 pandemic and because this war does not seem to be winding down at all, they worry it could continue on into Easter. Some businesses, Danny, may be forced to shutter altogether.

FREEMAN: Well, Will, thank you for that piece. It is a sad moment for that entire area. Stay safe and Merry Christmas, Will.

All right, back to Phil and Poppy in the studio.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, 2023 has without a doubt been the year of the union worker. After months of strikes, the country's autoworkers, writers, and actors all claimed victories in contract negotiations.

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SHAWN FAIN, PRESIDENT, UAW LABOR UNION: We have won several astonishing victories. The result is one of the most stunning contract victories since the sit-down strikes in the 1930s.

SEAN O'BRIEN, PRESIDENT, TEAMSTERS: I'm confident based upon what we accomplished at UPS, we've set the model for how to get a deal done, and a deal done in the best interest of the members and the best interest of working people.

FRAN DRESCHER, PRESIDENT, SAG-AFTRA: Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and it never will.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: Joining us now with perspective on all of it, she covered all

of it all year, CNN business and politics correspondent, Vanessa Yurkevich.

From the actors, to the writers, to UPS workers, to UAW, how many days did you spend in Detroit this year?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, a lot. Weeks.

HARLOW; To the auto workers. What a year for the worker? And I wonder why you think that is?

YURKEVICH: There's a couple of reasons. A lot of these workers that ended up going on strike, they worked throughout the pandemic. They were the essential workers who kept the economy running when we were all, presumably, some of us were at home.

And also, they at the same time watched their companies -- Kaiser Permanente, General Motors, UPS -- make record profits. They were also at the same time dealing with the high inflation that all of us were dealing with. So they had really strong economic grounds to stand on.

And then we just played for you the three leaders of the UAW, UPS and the actors union. Those were all new leaders of these three unions. It was fresh blood, they would not take no for an answer on these contract deals. And in the end, all three -- UPS, the UAW, and SAG got a lot of what they wanted at the end of the day, because they pointed back to those three reasons of why they really felt like their workers deserved so much more in these next contracts.

HARLOW: One of the big sticking points in both the writers' strike and the actors' strike was artificial intelligence, AI and the role of AI and compensation for all of that.

How do you think that plays in the new year and going forward in labor and tech negotiations?

[08:25:00]

YURKEVICH: We're in the age of artificial intelligence. Companies, businesses -- all of us are grappling with what this means. In terms of these negotiations with the actors and the writers and the studios, this was the sticking point.

For the actors and the writers, they said that this was an existential threat to their livelihoods. In many ways, it was. ChatGPT could write scripts. A lot of the studios could use artificial intelligence to recreate actors in the background and the actors and the writers fought tooth and nail to get protections in their contracts. They did at the end of the day.

But remember just how fast artificial intelligence is moving? Every day it is changing, growing, evolving, learning more. So I don't doubt that in the next couple of years, we're going to see artificial intelligence talked about in contracts with health care, manufacturing, hospitality, e-commerce. This is just the beginning.

And when the actors and the writers negotiate again in a couple of years, I guarantee you that they're going to be trying to get more protections in place to protect their jobs. So this will be a key issue going forward in union negotiations,

MATTINGLY: The rise of labor by far the most important stories of the year. You've covered every step of it very well.

YURKEVICH: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much.

YURKEVICH: Thanks, guys.

HARLOW: 2023 was another very busy year for law enforcement. From a 14-day manhunt for a convicted killer that began and ended in a dramatic fashion, to the arrest of a suspected serial killer behind some of the Gilgo Beach murders. These stories captured the nation's attention and have raised serious questions.

With us now is CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller. Let's start with the Gilgo Beach alleged murderer.

I mean, how long was that a case where they just didn't think that they had leads, and then all of the sudden this?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So that was an issue of leadership.

Rodney Harrison, a new police commissioner came in to Suffolk County and not knowing anything about the case said one of the things I'm going to do is we're going to solve that case.

What he knew was how to solve the case. He brought in the FBI. He brought in the New York State Police. He brought in the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office. He sent them all to a place away from their offices to work as a team and said, don't come back until you get this done.

And literally within a couple of months, 13 years of mystery was unraveled with a suspect.

MATTINGLY: Danilo Cavalcante, the prison break. We were sitting on this set when he was captured and we got first video of it.

What stood out about that search and the eventual capture?

MILLER: You know, what stood out about that search was, you know, we think of a fugitive hunt. We usually think of an urban fugitive hunt where, you know, you're pressing informants in the alleys and the streets and you know, waiting for someone to pop their head up or make a phone call.

In this case, you had an individual who, you know, had great skills in the wilderness, a determination to get away. And, you know, a lot of people looking for him deep in the woods, and eventually he was caught, but it tells us something about the condition of the prisons and the jails.

HARLOW: Of prison security, right?

MILLER; Well, that's right, because what we're seeing is, you know, increased types of these escapes, Cavalcante was the third in a row in Pennsylvania that resulted in major manhunts. What's that about? That's about, you know, as police departments are having trouble recruiting officers, given the current climate about law enforcement, the people who have even more trouble are the jails and the prisons, and they are the first to get their budget cuts, they're the first to not get renovations and physical security updates, staffing is the issue.

And as you see funding going down and staffing getting smaller and people working more overtime, you're seeing the hole show in the system, literally.

HARLOW: John Miller quite a year. Thank you.

MILLER: Thanks.

HARLOW: We appreciate it.

MATTINGLY: Well, the holidays can be challenging for a lot of people across the country especially with the very real uncertainty in the world.

Today, we're going to talk to faith leaders on how to keep faith alive through the end of the year.

HARLOW: And is it ever okay to return a Christmas gift from your in- laws? I'm going to answer that. I'm going to tell you no.

Well, what does America think? Harry Enten -- I am right.

MATTINGLY: The answer is no.

HARLOW: Harry Enten here with the numbers, ahead.

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