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Trump Hints At Cabinet Picks On Campaign Trail; The Future Of President-Elect Trump Criminal Cases; Joe Biden Prepares For His Transition Out Of The White House; Charges Brought In Iranian Plot To Kill Donald Trump; FBI Investigates Racist Text Messages Sent To Black People Across US. Twenty Five Killed, 53 Injured After Explosion at Pakistani Train Station; Judge Rejects Diddy's Request to Gag Potential Witnesses; Notre Dame's Bells Ring for First Time Since 2019 Fire. Aired 6-7a ET

Aired November 09, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

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[06:00:27]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: You're up early and I liked it. Welcome to CNN This Morning. It is Saturday, November 9th. I'm Victor Blackwell.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: It is still dark out there. What are you doing up so early? Good for you.

I'm Amara Walker. President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet is coming together with one big name already on board for his second administration. The other names being considered for top posts coming up.

BLACKWELL: Special counsel Jack Smith signals it's the beginning of the end of the federal criminal cases against now President-elect Trump. The looming deadline to wrap things up.

WALKER: And more than seven years after the brutal murders of two young Indiana girls, a jury is deciding the fate of their accused killer.

BLACKWELL: Plus, fire and ice. The California wildfire still raging out of control while Denver and Colorado are buried under nine inches of snow. And more is falling right now, of course, we have your weekend weather forecast.

President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is working quickly to fill critical White House positions. And sources tell CNN we could learn some of those names at any moment. They could come during the show or sometime during the weekend.

President-elect Trump made history Thursday by announcing the country's first ever female chief of staff, Susie Wiles. As for his other cabinet positions, a lot of people in the GOP sphere are filtering in and out of Mar-a-Lago this weekend, jockeying, of course, for a spot on the team.

WALKER: A source tells CNN North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum is under consideration for a role as Energy czar, Representative Elise Stefanik could become the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. And sources say Trump's former trade adviser Peter Navarro is trying to get a job as well.

CNN's Erin John is here to walk us through what we could see in the coming hours and days. Hi there, Arit. So how many positions need to be filled?

ARIT JOHN, CNN REPORTER: So this transition is going to involve filling 4,000 seats and about 1,200 of those are going to be political appointees. And what we know just in terms of President-elect Trump's like mindset is these are going to be positions that he wants to fill with as many loyal supporters as possible. So it's not clear how many people from the first Trump term we're going to see transition over to this new term.

BLACKWELL: And so the president-elect has praised Elon Musk. He's been in and out of Mar-a-Lago. He promised to let RFK Jr., quote, go wild on health. But what will their roles be? Will they be cabinet positions? I can't imagine that's the case for Musk. How will they play into this new leadership?

JOHN: That's a great question. For weeks we've been hearing Elon Musk sort of pitch this idea of being an efficiency czar of government efficiencies czar, cutting cost. And that's sort of the role that he seems to be heading towards, not a cabinet position. And he specifically said, you know, I don't need the titles, I don't need the pay. I just want to go in there and cut costs.

And you know, this is obviously going to pose some conflict of interest questions because his various businesses, SpaceX, X, Tesla, these are all companies that are regulated by the very government agencies he's proposing that he goes in and like cut costs in. Then we have RFK Jr. who Trump has said he's going to do -- he's going to handle women's healthcare, he's going to make America healthy again.

And he sort of just said that he would let RFK Jr. just dig into health. But we do know that he's also not -- he doesn't appear to be heading towards an actual position in the Department of Health or to be, or any sort of cabinet position.

BLACKWELL: Yes, these czars, the health czar, energy czar, efficiency czar, kind of this pseudo cabinet that the President-elect is putting together. Arit John, thanks so much for the reporting.

Donald Trump will be the first president to take office while several criminal cases are pending against him.

WALKER: Trump's ascent to the presidency while facing dozens of criminal charges has left the country in uncharted territory. CNN's Katelyn Polantz has more on the future of Trump's criminal cases. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Victor and Amara, this is the beginning of the end of the case against Donald Trump related to the 2020 election in federal court in Washington. The special counsel Jackson Smith went to court at noon on Friday to say we need to cancel everything that is on the schedule now.

[06:05:07]

We need to figure out what we are going to do in this, quote, unprecedented circumstance of Donald Trump coming in as the president- elect and serving as the president in the next four years for that term. So what happened in this case? It had been headed toward trial. There had been much debate about whether Donald Trump would be able to be tried for actions he took after the 2020 vote where he allegedly tried to obstruct Congress by using private lawyers, others to spread the lie of election fraud.

That case is now paused. There's no work to be done on it. It is not moving forward toward trial. The judge did agree very soon after the special counsel made this ask.

And we're going to be getting an update from the Justice Department at the beginning of December. So about a month and a half before Trump's inauguration at the end of January as president again, where the Justice Department will be updating the court about what they want to do, they say they need to have deliberations. We know that they have a policy on the books already not to prosecute a sitting president for any criminal charges because he has to be serving in the presidency at that time.

There's other questions about what to do while Trump is president- elect formally. And we will be waiting to see exactly what happens with this case in its wind down. Victor and Amara.

BLACKWELL: Katelyn Polantz reporting from the Washington bureau. Thanks so much. Let's get to the latest now on the balance of power in the Senate. CNN projects Nevada Democrat Jackie Rosen will win reelection defeating Sam Brown and retain her seat in the Senate, holding off Republicans from adding to their incoming 52 seat majority.

With Donald Trump projected to win Nevada, Rosen is now one of several Democrats who were able to win Senate seats this year a president elect Trump was able to carry their states.

After years of calling Donald Trump a threat to democracy, President Biden will have to turn over the White House to him.

WALKER: Now, Biden sought to comfort Americans who fear the prospects of another Trump term in office following the election, all while his own legacy remains in question. CNN senior White House producer Betsy Klein is live in Rehoboth Beach. Betsy, does the president plan to meet with Trump to help in this transition? BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER: Well, Amara, we are

learning that President Biden does plan to host former president and now President elect Donald Trump at the White House for that traditional transition meeting.

Now, notably, that is something that Trump refused to provide Biden as he was contesting the results of the 2020 election. Now, we have talked for weeks about how Biden and his aides and allies believe that his legacy is so intrinsically tied to a Harris win.

And now with her loss, it is crunch time for the White House to shore up some of the president's key accomplishments. And as you mentioned, there is that added dynamic of Republicans now likely to control both chambers of Congress, which could eliminate some of the guardrails on Trump.

BLACKWELL: And talk about more what's at stake here for the president.

KLEIN: Well, just to take few key areas, we have these legislative accomplishments. I'm talking about the CHIPS bill, infrastructure, the climate, health care and tax package known as the Inflation Reduction Act. Now, a vast majority of that funding has already gotten out the door, been spent or allocated.

But there is some money that is not going to be accessible until the next fiscal year or even beyond. So not a lot Democrats can do. But they are hoping that some of these programs are so popular that Republicans don't try to call that back. Shifting to Ukraine, of course, the U.S. has provided tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine and the future of that now uncertain under former President-elect Donald Trump.

And there is an effort now to get as much money and weaponry out the door as possible before January 20th, as well as to spread more broadly that aid across alliances like the G7 and NATO. On the topic of climate and environmental regulations, a lot of efforts to make those regulations more legally durable. They can be rolled back, but it just would take a little bit more time through the lengthy rulemaking process and of course, judicial nominees, another area where the president is looking to leave his mark, nominating a few more in the recent days. And will we do expect him to try to get as many through as they still have Democratic control of the Senate. Victor and Amara.

WALKER: Well, how much of Biden's legacy will be undone that remains to be unseen. Betsy Klein, thank you so much. Joining me now is political anchor for Spectrum News and CNN political analyst Errol Louis. Good morning to you, Errol.

So as Biden is facing doubts over his legacy, which may hinge on his decision to stay in the race for as long as he did, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested in an interview Friday with the New York Times podcast that President Biden's late withdrawal from the race was partially to blame for Harris's loss. This is what she said.

[06:10:00] Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race. Kamala may have. I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don't know that didn't happen. We live with what happened, end quote. What are your thoughts? Do you agree with that sentiment?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No, I don't. There's a certain amount of chutzpah involved here. The reality is there are forces that are sweeping the entire world. All across the democracies, in every corner of the world, from New Zealand to Italy, France, Canada, South Africa, governments have been falling. There are some global phenomenon following the pandemic, global inflation. And it's led to extreme anger and unrest all over the world.

I mean, the governments in Japan and in Korea are under severe pressure, people marching in the streets in Israel, all kinds of things, because there's been a lot of inflation, there's been a lot of disruption. The economy's not working for people. A lot of that sounds familiar, doesn't it? The United States was not exempt from that.

So it was not clear to me, at least, that any Democrat was going to survive the level of anger that was being aimed at the establishment here. It certainly is, I think, imaginary or wishful thinking that there was going to be some primary process that would magically produce a candidate. I would love to know who that person was supposed to be.

WALKER: Yes. Well, if you believe this, Democratic infighting is misplaced. Are there, though, some lessons the party can take away from what really was a resounding repudiation of the party? I mean, this wasn't even a close race. And also, does the party need to change in fundamental ways, not just in its messaging, but also how it understands what Americans are most concerned about. And in this election, they were concerned clearly about the direction of this country, the economy, inflation, immigration, what have you?

LOUIS: Well, Amara, I think that goes too far. I mean, this is certainly a vindication of Donald Trump. There's a Trump wave, but there's not really a Republican wave. I mean, you mentioned Jackie Rosen just a minute ago. The same thing happened in Wisconsin, where Trump won the state, the Democrats won the Senate. In North Carolina, Democrats were elected as governor, as lieutenant governor.

If this really was, people liked Donald Trump, and Donald Trump got himself back into the White House, but Democrats did fairly well. I think you're going to see close control of Congress, both houses of Congress.

And I don't know if Democrats should feel like they did something fundamentally wrong and have been swept out office. Now, is there room to talk better and more intelligently and run at certain problems, like economic problems, the migration crisis that this country, again, like every other major industrialized democracy is facing? Yes, you could definitely talk about it better. You can engage people differently. The party structure itself probably has to rethink whether or not they

want to just do all of this door knocking and these incessant ads and blow up everybody's phone with all of these spam fundraising messages. Or is there a better way to deal with people? But I don't know if there's anything fundamentally wrong with the way this election went down.

WALKER: I am still going through my phone and deleting all those spam messages that I've got through this election cycle. I do want to ask you then, because you mentioned the balance of power and of course, Trump is poised to return to office with the Republicans having the Senate majority. There are still dozens of races that need to be called when it comes to the House. But if the Republicans also win the House, I mean, what does this mean then for Trump's agenda and of course, the undoing of Biden's legacy?

LOUIS: Well, look, it is the norm, by the way, for there to be a unified party control that if the White House changes hands, that both houses of Congress come with the new president. So, you know, you'd have to go all the way back to the 1980s to find anything different.

So he gets a crack at moving some policies along, undoing some policies as he has promised. I think we're going to have to go promise by promise and see what he means. Donald Trump and what he doesn't really mean, what he has the power to get done and what he doesn't have the power to do. When he talks about opening up detention camps and finding ways to deport upwards of 10 million people, that's fairly serious stuff. That's very disruptive. It could cost as much as a trillion dollars over a ten year period.

But in the end, he may not mean that. He may not be able to do it. And that is going to be what the politics of the next years -- next couple of years are going to really be about.

WALKER: He doesn't want to talk about the price tag either of this mass deportation plan that he has talked about. Errol Louis, we'll leave it there. Good to have you. Thanks.

BLACKWELL: After sometimes dark and contentious election season, black students now in dozens of states have received racist text messages. What we know about this investigation, that's next.

[06:15:00]

Plus, how Donald Trump's second term in office could impact interest rates and the economy. And after two days of deliberations, there's still no verdict for the man accused of killing two teens and dumping their bodies in the woods nearly eight years ago. Details of the trial ahead.

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WALKER: New this morning, Iran is categorically denying that it is behind a failed assassination plot against President elect Donald Trump.

[06:20:00]

But prosecutors say Iran hired 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri to spy on and eventually kill Trump. He is now living in Iran.

BLACKWELL: The Justice Department says Shakeri worked with two American citizens to surveil the victims of Iranian officials wanted to assassinate. CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez has more. Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Victor Amara the Justice Department says that the latest Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump was part of a broader effort to carry out attacks on a prominen critic of the Iranian regime as well as against U.S. And Israeli citizens.

U.S. prosecutors unsealed in federal court in Manhattan complaint against an alleged IRGC operative living in Tehran and two U.S. citizens who he allegedly recruited in at least one of these assassination plots. The two Americans are in custody and have been ordered held pending trial.

According to court documents, Iranian government officials tasked Farhad Shakeri, 51 years old, to focus on in recent weeks to focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Donald Trump. He couldn't come up with a plot in a short timeframe before the election and the Iranians believed that Trump would lose and that they could target him later.

Shakeri is still at large in Iran, the Justice Department says. Now, also on the target list of the Iranians, journalists and activists Masih Alinejad, a prominent critic of the Iranian regime who the FBI says that the Iranians have tried to kill several other times. Prosecutors say Shakeri told the FBI in voluntary interviews about the tasks that he was given by the IRGC.

Now this includes plans for a mass shooting targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. And he also told the FBI that he was tasked with surveilling and assassinating two Jewish businesspeople living in New York City. The U.S. government has repeatedly raised concerns that Iran is trying to retaliate for a 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed IRGC General Qasem Soleimani. They have plotted to kill Trump, who ordered the strike, as well as a number of prominent Trump administration officials.

And more recently this summer, a Pakistani national was arrested and charged with seeking to hire assassins to target Trump as well as other U.S. political figures, including some in the Biden administration. Victor, Amara.

BLACKWELL: All right, Evan, thanks so much. State attorneys general across the U.S. are trying now to figure out who is behind racist text messages they're being sent to black college students, business professionals, children and at least two dozen states.

Now some of the messages use really highly offensive and painful historical references, claiming that slave catchers would round them up to pick cotton. Talaya Jones shared her reaction to receiving the anonymous text message.

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TALAYA JONES, RECEIVED RACIST MASS TEXT MESSAGE: What is going on in the world? There's no way that it's 2024 and things like this are happening again. And it's just insane. Like the level of disrespect that people have for other humans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Joining me now is CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. Andrew, it's been a minute since we've spoken. Good morning to you. Thanks for being with me. These messages reprehensible, but are they illegal?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT: You know, that's a great question, Victor, and good morning. Good to see you as well. It's the legality and whether or not there is an opportunity to pursue criminal prosecution here is I think, really a question that has not been resolved yet.

So the text of the messages, the content of the messages, from my analysis, as abhorrent as they are, as destructive and hurtful as they are, they're not -- they don't -- doesn't appear that they are absolutely criminal in nature. They are clearly hate speech. But the question is, do they rise to the level of being a hate crime? Are they inciting, directly inciting some sort of criminal action? Which is generally the standard that people look at to determine that. So that's something that I think investigators and particularly prosecutors will have to look at for some time.

There are other ways that these men messages might be criminal and that turns to the actions of the people who are behind sending them. So if they are based on and using information that has been, for instance, stolen from people or stolen from data brokers or other repositories of personal information, then that could lead to a criminal prosecution.

But we have a long way to go because we don't even know who is behind these texts at this point. So that's a lot of work for investigators to do here.

BLACKWELL: Yes. One question I've been asking since this story broke is that how does this source get the phone numbers of just black people? I mean, I don't know that my provider knows my race.

[06:25:05]

MCCABE: Yes, that is a really intriguing piece here. Not only does the sender seem to know the ethnicity of the people that they're sending to, but they're actually using people's names in, you know, individualizing these messages, even though they're sending out, you know, likely thousands. And they're also changing the message from time to time.

So there are individual details about, you know, things that they're saying in the message that they are changing from recipient to recipient. I would -- it looks to me like they are probably utilizing the data that is contained and accumulated by data brokers. So there are businesses out there that are pulling together all of our data and trying to build kind of profiles of each of us, and you can access that data if you're willing to pay the price for it.

So that's one way that a group or an individual might be able to put their hands on the sort of information that would enable them to craft these messages. But clearly they're also doing it at scale, sending them out broadly to many people at the same time. So there's a lot of elements, intriguing elements here, I think, for investigators to work with.

BLACKWELL: Let me get you to weigh in on what we heard from the Attorney General in Louisiana. She says that the messages in her state were routed to an encrypted network in Poland. Now, of course, these came out right after the election. We've discussed the chaos campaign that some foreign bad actors want to lead here in the US. Post- election, though, if these are overseas sources, are they as motivated now that the election has been settled?

MCCABE: You know, you would think at first blush that maybe no. Right. If they were weighing in to try to impact the results of the election, that task is behind them now, we have to remember that what our foreign adversaries actually want to accomplish their basic goal in most of the things they do is to sow division and chaos and disunity within America because a divided America is a weak America.

So it is possible that a foreign entity could look at this timing and think, hey, this is actually the perfect time to do this, because people are really emotional and reacting to the results of the election. Tensions are high. There were a lot of racial elements and kind of dark elements in some of the campaign rhetoric that led up to Tuesday night's results.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

MCCABE: So it may be some -- there are adversaries who might see this as the perfect time to sow this kind of disunity and chaos within America.

BLACKWELL: Andrew McCabe, always good to have you. Thank you.

WALKER: The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point. Next, we're going to break down how President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House could impact interest rates and the economy.

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[06:30:00]

WALKER: All right, to some of the other stories we are watching this morning. At least 25 people are dead and 53 others injured after a powerful explosion at a train station in southwestern Pakistan. A warning, the video you are about to see is disturbing. Officials say the explosion happened around 9:00 a.m. local time on a

platform at the station, and they believe it was a suicide attack. In a statement seen by CNN, a separatist militant group claimed responsibility for the attack. A federal judge has rejected an attempt by Sean "Diddy" Combs to silence all potential witnesses in his criminal sex trafficking case.

Combs attorneys requested a gag order to stop any potential witness and their attorneys from speaking publicly following media interviews one witness gave after he appeared before a grand jury. The judge stated that Combs' concerns do not out-weigh an alleged victims right to free speech.

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WALKER: Those are the beautiful sounds of Notre Dame's bells ringing out for the first time since a catastrophic fire destroyed large parts of the historic cathedral five years ago. Friday morning, eight of the cathedrals restored bells tolled for the first time, representing an important milestone in the cathedral's recovery. French President Emmanuel Macron promised the cathedral's reconstruction would be completed and reopened by December 8th of this year.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CO-ANCHOR, CNN THIS MORNING WEEKEND: The Federal Reserve cut interest rates this week, something that was long expected, but future cuts could depend on the policies of the incoming Trump White House. CNN Business anchor Julia Chatterley explains.

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Victor, Amara, the election result this week certainly putting the economy and American voters' financial wellbeing front and center at this Federal Reserve meeting. So, it was some comfort at least for American borrowers that the Fed cut rates by another quarter of a percentage point, and good news, they left the door open to another cut in December.

And just be clear that wasn't a given because as Jerome Powell said, actually even if people don't feel it, the economy is relatively solid, inflation is coming back to target, the jobs market, yes, is slowing, but it's supported and they can be, quote, "patient in bringing rates back down".

So, why are so many Americans impatient about the economy and why did CNN's exit polls show that three out of four Americans feel that they're the same or worse off than they were four years ago. The truth is because many of them are.

[06:35:00]

Just take a look at this chart. Now, wages for people in manufacturing and not supervisory jobs actually rose under both President Trump and President Biden. In fact, as you can see, they actually rose more under Biden, but then look at the price rises, they were huge under Biden. And the bigger that gap between the blocs, the richer you are and you feel the smaller that gap, the poorer. And as Jerome Powell said, feeling richer again will take time, years.

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JEROME POWELL, CHAIR, UNITED STATES FEDERAL RESERVE: It takes some years of real wage gains for people to feel better. And that's what we are -- that's what we're trying to create. And I think we are well on the road to creating that.

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CHATTERLEY: So, the good news is wages are still rising so people are going to continue to feel better, but of course, President-elect Trump will benefit from that and not Biden nor Harris. Assuming of course, policies like mass immigration limits, blanket tariffs don't end up ultimately forcing prices higher again, and the Federal Reserve forced to slowdown their rate cut cycle.

Now, Jerome Powell refused to talk about politics and future policies, and that's a good decision because we simply don't know enough yet about what will happen. But we do know that he's staying in the chair, he made that very clear when he was asked this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of the President-elect's advisors have suggested that you should resign. If he asked you to leave, would you go?

POWELL: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you follow up on -- is it -- do you think that legally, you're not required to leave?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHATTERLEY: Yes, that was a mic-drop moment. Look, President-elect Trump likes lower interest rates, borrowers like lower interest rates, it makes credit cards and mortgages cheaper. And the Fed is trying to cut rates of course until they're forced perhaps to do otherwise based on government policy. It's going to be an interesting year, guys. Back to you.

WALKER: It will be, Julia Chatterley, thank you. Well, this morning, jury deliberations will continue in the Delphi murder case. Coming up, details on the complicated evidence that jurors are wading through to reach a verdict in the tragic murder of two teen girls. And a programming note, a look at how new weight loss medications are transforming lives. Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports, is Ozempic right for you? Premieres Sunday, November 17th at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

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[06:40:00] WALKER: Jury deliberations continue this morning in the Delphi

Indiana double murder trial. Richard Allen is accused of killing two teenage girls, 14-year-old Liberty German and 13-year-old Abigail Williams more than seven years ago. The girls also known as Libby and Abby never returned home after going for a hike in February 2017.

The case gained national attention partly due to a photo and audio of the suspect on Libby's cellphone. Joining me now from Delphi is Susan Hendricks, a veteran broadcast journalist and one of the first reporters to cover this case and speak with the victims' families. Susan is also the author of "Down the Hill: My Descent Into the Double Murder in Delphi".

Susan, it's great to see you this morning. This was not a slam dunk case for the prosecution, was it? You've been watching this trial. It's day three of deliberations. Based on everything that you have seen and heard in court, are you getting any indications as to which way the jury may be leaning?

SUSAN HENDRICKS, JOURNALIST & AUTHOR: Yes, Amara, good to see you. It's so stressful at this point because you never really know -- I was in court every day looking at the jurors, listening to the testimony. And in Indiana, this is what gave me a little bit of an indication was you're allowed to ask questions and they had a lot of Intelligent questions. But they have a lot to go through.

There's I think, 387 pieces of evidence, and you mentioned that call, Amara, what was on that video, Libby German's phone that day? She knew well enough that there was a man on the Monon High Bridge, she didn't recognize him, so, she hit record on the phone. Well, we finally after more than seven years we're able to hear in court what was on that phone.

I looked over at Abby and Libby's families that were to the left of me in the seating there and tears all around because you heard their voices sounding so young and scared, saying there's no path down here, I think it's this way. Then you hear the man's voice and you see him on Libby's phone.

She was holding it down and kind of not wanting him to see this. That's when he said guys, down the hill which we've been hearing about and finally we were able to see.

WALKER: And would you say that is -- excuse me, the most powerful piece of evidence the state has? And I ask you this because they -- have they been able to connect the person in that video from Libby's phone to Richard Allen?

HENDRICKS: Well, the defense says absolutely not. It's not him. They botched the investigation. The state is saying we absolutely can because he came forward a few days after the girls were murdered and said, went to the district sheriff's office, they followed up with him in a grocery store parking lot.

[06:45:00] And he said, I was out there but I really didn't see anyone. His name

is Richard Allen, it was filed as Richard Whiteman, the street that he lived on, and that's tip went away. And he lived in a small town. So, he put himself there also, what's on Libby's phone and the other students. It was a day out from school, it was a Monday, the girls who were down there at the time, the prosecution is kind of piecing together a timeline.

And saying, look, this was Richard Allen, he put himself there, we have surveillance of a car that he drove, that didn't have the plate still, but the defense is saying, look, there's no DNA, nothing links from there, it's circumstantial. So, the jury has a lot to go through, but they did say they wanted extra hours.

So, they're coming in this morning at 10:00 a.m., I will be outside of that court house, and I'm wondering like, does that mean they want to pack, that they're going home because they are sequestered, but you really never know.

WALKER: Yes, that's interesting to hear, but like you said, mostly circumstantial because there is no DNA evidence that links Allen to these double murders. You have been following this case as we said off the top since it happened in February of 2017. But Richard Allen was not arrested until five years later in 2022. And you mentioned it's a small town of what? Just 3,000 people.

HENDRICKS: Yes.

WALKER: Did any of this come up in the trial, the fact that it took so long for investigators to --

HENDRICKS: Yes --

WALKER: Track down a suspect?

HENDRICKS: It finally did. And Kathy Shank is her name. She's lived in Delphi her whole life. She was a volunteer. They're moving offices, she looks through files and sees that and says wait a minute, there is no Allen drive. There's a Whiteman drive, looks at that tip, hands it to police, they go to his house, they connect him to that by saying, look, this is on Libby's phone, it looks like this guy, they interview him.

So, if it wasn't for Kathy Shank who's been in the courtroom every day, just the sweetest lady, I think she's the one, obviously that connected him to the crime, meaning they could investigate him, otherwise I don't think he would have been arrested, he blends in, hiding in plain sight as the authorities said.

WALKER: Well, I know this is a case that this town of Delphi is watching very closely as is the country. Susan Hendricks, thank you for being there, appreciate it.

BLACKWELL: Coming up, raging wildfires have devoured thousands of acres of land in California, destroying businesses and homes in its path. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is like surreal. I mean, I know we live in a fire danger area, but this is like, it came out of nowhere. It was so fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:00]

BLACKWELL: Well, now that the winds have died down, firefighters in California are hoping to get the upper hand fighting that so-called Mountain Fire.

WALKER: Officials say the fast-moving fire has burned more than 20,000 acres and destroyed dozens of properties since it started Wednesday, about 45 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Officials say the blaze is now about 14 percent contained.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's devastating, you know, and you look around at your neighbors --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are just glad that everybody was OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: Well, as the fire threat dies down in California, drought conditions in the northeast are increasing the threat there.

BLACKWELL: CNN's meteorologist Allison Chinchar has a look at it. What are you seeing?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, METEOROLOGIST: Right, so as we mentioned. You know, the fire threat in California is going to start to improve on the coming days as those winds begin to go down. But the fire threat still remains across portions of the northeast, especially as we head into the weekend here.

So, one of the things we're going to notice is, you've already got a lot of those alerts in place because of the fire. One of those fires in northern New Jersey, the New Jersey Forest Fire Services talking about smoke being visible from Interstate 287 in those locations. And we know that several structures are nearby in that fire.

But again, the fire threat is not just for New Jersey. You can see all of these areas here in pink, about 28 million people under that potential for the red flag warnings and the fire risk. All of these areas are extremely dry right now. So, when you get those new fires, it really doesn't take much to spread them very quickly even with lower-than normal winds.

Look at some of these. All of these areas are well below normal and not just for this month, but since September 1st. Now, they are going to get some rain as we head into the latter half of the weekend, but it's going to go by very quickly, which means it's not going to be a lot. It's not going to be a drought-buster for these areas that they would really like to see.

But at least, at this point, something is expected to help. Now, out into the west, we're not so much talking about rain, but we're talking about the snow and incredibly high amounts of snow. Look at some of these numbers, 40 inches, 36, 32, and this one right here, 31.7 inches in Las Vegas, New Mexico, that is an all-time November record, the most snow they've ever had for the entire month of November.

And in some of these places, Denver's only had maybe single-digit numbers, but that number is going to keep rising because they're still expecting more snow as we go to the next several hours before that system finally exits, which is why you have the Winter weather advisories in effect.

WALKER: All right, Allison Chinchar, thank you. Over the next three weeks, you get to vote for your favorite CNN Hero of the Year.

BLACKWELL: And with Venezuela's violinist and conductor Ron Davis Alvarez arrived in Sweden in 2015, he saw large crowds of refugees arrive, again, he wanted to help, and now, he gives them a chance to learn an instrument and connect with others.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One, two and three and four.

(ORCHESTRA)

[06:55:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dream Orchestra is open for anyone who wants to learn an instrument, especially families who are arriving to Sweden.

(STUDENTS RECITING MUSICAL NOTES SYMBOLS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it's an orchestra where the main language is music.

I need one more chair!

We have more than 300 people. Kids, parents, youth, more than 20 language and more than 25 nationalities, and kids who born here. We all need to learn from each other.

This orchestra offer more than just notes. This orchestra offers something for your soul. Music connect us. Dream Orchestra is a dream, but it's a dream who comes true.

(APPLAUSE)

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: You can vote for Ron Davis or any of your top five CNN Heroes of the year at cnnheroes.com. You get ten votes a day every day to choose the hero who inspired you the most.

WALKER: All right, coming up, Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions on how to respond if Donald Trump issues controversial orders to deploy troops for domestic law enforcement. Details in the next hour of CNN THIS MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)