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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Trump: U.S. Took Out "Big Facility" Tied To Alleged Drug Boats; Trump, Netanyahu Meeting Yields No Clear Progress On Gaza; Trump: "Thorny Issues" Remain Amid Peace Talks On Ukraine; Trump Downplays China's Military Drills Around Taiwan; Powerful Winter Storm Sweeps Across Parts Of U.S.; More Questions Remain After DOJ's Epstein Files Release. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired December 30, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:27]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers joining us from the United States and all around the world. I'm Fredricka Whitfield, Rahel Solomon is off today. It is Tuesday, December 30th, 5:00 a.m. here in New York.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The CIA has carried out a drone strike in Venezuela.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Trump saying he will try to initiate the second phase of the ceasefire deal.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: He's achieved remarkable things in the Middle East because we work together.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fireworks have become widely recognized as a way to mark the new year. But around the world, there are a multitude of lesser known traditions and rituals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

WHITFIELD: And we begin this hour with CNN exclusive reporting. Sources are telling us that earlier this month, the CIA carried out a drone strike on a Venezuelan port facility. This comes as President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that the U.S. took out a big facility tied to suspected drug boats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: There was a major explosion in the dock area, where they load the boats up with drugs. They load the boats up with drugs. So, we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It's the implementation area. That's where they implement and that is no longer around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: If true, it marks the first known U.S. operation against a target inside the country and could dramatically escalate tensions.

Earlier, CNN spoke with a retired U.S. marine intelligence officer who explained why this is different from other recent strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. COL. HAL KEMPFER, U.S. MARINE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER (RET.): The strikes have always been in international waters, which means they're not in the territorial waters of Venezuela, nor are they on the territory of Venezuela. We've been hitting boats. We've had what's called go fast boats. Those boats with lots of outboard engines. And we've been hitting the semi-submersibles, which kind of look like a submarine, but they don't completely submerge. That's what we've been hitting, but we've been waiting until they get into international waters, avoiding a strike on the sovereign territory or sovereign, sovereign lands and waters of Venezuela.

This is the first strike that we've actually done on Venezuelan soil. And as such, the blockade itself that we have could be construed as an act of war. But when you do a military strike on foreign soil, that's almost always considered an act of war. I would have expected that when they got hit, they would have said something. I think Maduro is very concerned that this could cause a great deal of uncertainty with the cartels. Also, maybe stir up the Venezuelan people. They may say, hey, the time is nigh, you know, that it's time to go out to the streets or something like that. So they're staying very, very quiet about this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The U.S. military also carried out yet another deadly strike on an alleged drug boat on Monday, and this time in the eastern pacific, according to U.S. southern command, which reports that two men were killed in that attack. As the U.S. continues to ramp up pressure on alleged narco trafficking, the total death toll under Operation Southern Spear now rises to at least 107.

Two other key stories were following this hour. President Trump's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his call with Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Trump and Netanyahu met at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday, where both leaders praised each other.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The relationship has been extraordinary and Bibi is a strong man. He can be very difficult on occasion, but you need a strong man. If you had a weak man, you wouldn't have Israel right now. Israel would have been, you know, Israel with most other leaders would not exist today.

NETANYAHU: I think Israel is very blessed to have President Trump leading the United States. And I'll say leading the free world at this time. I think it's not merely Israel's great fortune. I think it's the world's great fortune.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: President Trump said Hamas will be given a very short period of time to disarm, to move to the second phase of his Gaza peace plan, and that Israel has 100 percent lived up to the agreement, the president's words.

President Trump also held what he described as a productive call with the Russian president.

[05:05:04]

They spoke by phone after Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday.

Trump says there are still a few thorny issues that must be resolved in order to secure a peace deal in Ukraine. Trump also says Putin told him that a Ukrainian drone had targeted one of his residences, a claim Kyiv immediately denied.

Well, here's the reaction from President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's another thing to attack his house. It's not the right time to do any of that. And can do it. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Clare Sebastian is in London with more on the Trump Putin call.

But first we go to Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi for more on Trump's meeting with Netanyahu -- Paula.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, if we were expecting any significant headlines to come out of this meeting, they did not. There was no indication of when the phase two of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was going to be put in place, something that many had hoped would be moving along faster than it has been so far. We did hear, though, from the U.S. president that he didn't seem concerned at this perceived slow walking by Israel to this phase two. We have heard from the Israeli prime minister consistently that Israel will not move its military further out of the Gaza Strip, one of the conditions of phase two, until Hamas has disarmed another condition of phase two. But we've heard that Hamas saying they're not going to disarm until

there is a power in place, a Palestinian governance, which we did not hear anything about, and also the Board of Peace. There were no further details about that. We did hear intense flattery from both of these leaders, and we also heard the U.S. president putting the onus not on Israel to push this process forward, but on Hamas.

Let's listen to President Trump

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We talked about Hamas and we talked about disarmament, and they're going to be given a very short period of time to disarm. And we'll see how that works out. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be in charge of that from our side. But if they don't disarm as they agreed to do, they agreed to it, then they'll be held to pay for them. And we don't want that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Now it is clear that up until this point, Hamas has shown no indication that it is going to disarm. In fact, we've seen power plays within Gaza itself.

Now, this phase two was always going to be extremely difficult. There are agreements that have been made by both sides, Hamas and Israel, that they don't particularly want to keep to.

So, it is certainly going to be difficult to push this forward. Now, although they did talk about Iran, this was something Benjamin Netanyahu did want to point out, that Iran is trying to restock its missile capabilities. And we heard the U.S. president saying that he had heard that this was the case, presumably from Mr. Netanyahu himself, saying that if it is in fact the case, then they may have to strike Iran again, saying if they are, we are going to have to knock them down. And usually where there is smoke, there is fire.

So, this focus once again on Iran will be exactly what the Israeli prime minister was wanting to shift the focus to -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi, thanks so much.

Now to London and CNN's Clare Sebastian, who's covering the Trump Putin phone call.

And what more are you hearing about what truly came out of it?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think what we learn from this call and certainly from the Russian readout of it, Fredricka, is that while Ukraine really wants to keep up the momentum in this diplomatic process, Russia quite clearly wants the opposite. President Putin reiterating, according to Russian readout, that Russia will be revising. He said its negotiating position after what Russia claims was a massive Ukrainian drone attack on Putin's residence in the Novgorod region that sits between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Ukraine, of course, is flatly denied that Russia hasn't presented any

evidence that this happened. And Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, was just asked about this in the last hour on a call with journalists. He said I don't think there needs to be any kind of evidence, he said. As for the wreckage of these alleged drones that Russia claims that it shot down, he said that's a matter for our military. And he called the Ukrainian denials insane assertions, going on to claim that this was a, quote, terrorist act aimed at disrupting the negotiating process.

So, I think the fact that Trump took initially Putin's word for this without asking for evidence, and then claimed to be angry at Ukraine, that is certainly a win for Russia.

[05:10:06]

But as I said, though, we cannot verify whether or not this happened, there isn't any video or imagery that has come out, as tends to be the case when Ukraine launches these kinds of deep strikes. We know that the Russians claim the Russian authorities. Initially, the foreign minister claimed 91 drones were fired at this residence. But the governor of that region only talked about 41 drones on that same night without mentioning the residents.

So, there's a -- there's a few bits that sort of don't tie together around this. And I think the other part of this is that clearly Zelenskyy and Ukraine are very keen to keep up the momentum. As I said, a knock, not rock the boat in their relationship with the White House.

This is what Zelenskyy had to say in an interview with Fox News that broadcast on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: If we're speaking, can we win without American support? No, because we can't. First, we will think about all the soldiers, will think only about their families. And without American support, we can't defend this guy. Even now, it's very difficult. And on the battlefield, we use some weapon which we buy from American, some rounds, artillery and et cetera from American side. Without it, of course, we can't win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So look, despite Trump's outrage over this alleged drone attack being clearly a propaganda win for Moscow, it's clear that Zelenskyy and Ukraine also see progress coming out of these talks in Florida and are quite keen to keep up that level of progress going into what we think will be a whole new round of talks in 2026.

WHITFIELD: All right, fascinating. Clare Sebastian, thanks to you as well.

All right. On to China now, where it is ramping up its war games around Taiwan. Taiwan says rockets fired by China today have landed in waters near the island. Beijing launched the military drills, which include live fire activities, after the U.S. announced a landmark multibillion dollar arms package for Taiwan.

President Trump, however, downplayed the issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, I have a great relationship with President Xi, and he hasn't told me anything about it. I certainly have seen it, but he hasn't told me anything about it. And I don't believe he's going to be doing it. They're doing naval exercises for 20 years in that area. Now people take it a little bit differently, but in fact larger than they're doing right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The drills have caused major flight disruptions in Taiwan. Taiwan's president expressed his strongest condemnation at the drills, vowing the island will not back down in the face of threats.

All right. A powerful winter storm is sweeping across the U.S., bringing heavy snow, high winds and drastic temperature drops ahead of New Year's Eve.

Meteorologist Chris Warren has the forecast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: A powerful storm system creating some big problems from the Midwest all the way to the northeast. This was in Detroit, where parts of Interstate 75 in Detroit shut down for a while. At least a couple dozen vehicles involved with this mess. And at the time of this, you can imagine the snow squall that caused this dropping a lot of snow very fast, decreasing visibilities in a big way.

Now that cold front has moved on. We did see temperatures go from record warm in some areas on Sunday, with temperatures upper 70s to around 80 degrees by Monday afternoon. Temperatures were in the 20s for some of the same areas. So more than a 50 degree temperature drop for many locations in parts of the Plains and the Midwest.

Lingering snow showers still expected coming off of and near the Great Lakes. And this is where another disturbance comes through. This is where we're going to see the majority of the snow really pile up here. It's coming off of the lakes, the pink getting into some of the red colors here shows us where there could be more than a foot of snow.

And then there's the wind. So, the winds are also going to create some travel issues. So, some of these lingering travel effects will be with us throughout the day here on Tuesday. Up to about 35 to 40 mile an hour winds early on and then the cold. It's going to be bitterly cold.

These are daytime high temperatures, mind you, with readings running only in the 30s for highs, which is below normal here for New York City. And, of course, looking ahead to New Year's Eve and for the middle of the day, 30s, lower 30s, the evening, lower 30s by midnight, also lower 30s. But you factor in the breezy to windy conditions, it's going to feel

like it's in the 20s for Chicago, temperatures staying below average, occasionally getting above the freezing mark with temperatures at times dropping down into the teens. For Minneapolis, staying below freezing through next weekend.

[05:15:00]

Atlanta, though one of the spots that will be getting up a little bit warmer than average and at times, temperatures running in the lower 60s.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Wow, okay, well that is nice. Thank you so much, Chris.

Hey, still to come new findings in the Epstein files are raising more questions about what the Department of Justice has yet to release. We'll recap what we have learned so far.

And the man police say planted pipe bombs around Washington, D.C. the night before the Capitol riots is heading to court today, and prosecutors are revealing new details. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Welcome back.

More questions emerging after the U.S. Justice Department recently released hundreds of thousands of files on Jeffrey Epstein. The DOJ notably missed a deadline to release all of the documents. So additional releases are expected in the coming weeks.

[05:20:01]

Officials say there are over 1 million newly discovered files potentially related to the late sex offender.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz brings us up to speed on what we know so far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: There's so much more to come in the Justice Department's releases of the Epstein files. That's because there's a million more documents or so that the Justice Department just began working through before Christmas, and we still haven't seen the fruits of that effort. This is a file release that began on the deadline that Congress had set for full transparency of the Epstein files, and we've learned some things in the documents that have come out so far, although there haven't -- hasn't been that much new or revelatory about Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes of sex trafficking.

What we have seen, though, is we've seen more about the investigation around him, including what was happening when he was in jail in 2019 and then after his death, when his coconspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, was being taken to trial. Among that, we have seen more about the depth of his relationship with high profile people, including Donald Trump. There were prosecutors writing in January of 2020 that they saw Trump's name on flight logs with Epstein.

Now, he hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing, nor have anyone else outside of that wider circle of just Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

But watching those investigative steps unfold in the documents is quite notable. We are, though, waiting to see exactly how much the Justice Department is going to be releasing. They're under criticism for having heavy redactions throughout the Epstein files, at times deciding to redact things because they believe it's their own internal work product of attorneys in the Justice Department. We'll see if those go unchallenged. Those redactions blacked out lines of text throughout the files.

We also are waiting to see how much more there is. The Justice Department has also faced criticism from Capitol Hill for not meeting their deadline for transparency. Two weeks following that, they are supposed to tell Congress the summation of their work and everything they did to redact. We will even see if the documents are released by then. Just before Christmas, the justice department had said that they had a million more files to go, having only released a few hundred thousand.

So there is much left to come. And as far as the Justice Department has said, as of now, this could drag on for many more weeks.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. Katelyn, thank you so much.

Accused Washington, D.C., pipe bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. is due in federal court in the coming hours. The Justice Department wants him kept in detention as the case moves forward. Cole is accused of placing two pipe bombs in the U.S. Capitol -- around the U.S. capitol, rather the night before the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, 2021.

Prosecutors say the 30-year-old Virginia man told investigators after his arrest that he is not a political person, but that he believed someone needed to, quote, speak up, end quote, for people who believe the 2020 election had been stolen.

Earlier, we spoke with a former federal prosecutor about how Cole's views could factor into the case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERIT BERGER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I don't think it plays into any of the legal substance of the case. Certainly, it's not a defense to the charges, so it doesn't have a lot of legal relevancy. What it could have is relevancy for prosecutors, as they're trying to make the argument that he should be detained. So, prosecutors just put forth a memo that was, very comprehensive, outlining all the reasons why he's a danger to the community and should be detained prior to trial.

This plays into that because here he's not saying, you know, I was really just after one person. He's saying, I didn't like the Democrats. I didn't like the Republicans. I was just angry. He says, you know, I just snapped.

This all paints the picture of somebody who's not stable, the prosecutors argue, who should not be allowed to remain in the community because he would prove to be, a potential threat. So I think that's the most relevant part of the confession right now for the government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: A mid-air collision between two helicopters in New Jersey has led to another fatality. The latest on that straight ahead.

Plus, the Trump administration sends more federal law enforcement to Minnesota after a viral YouTube video by a MAGA activist accuses Somalis of committing childcare fraud.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:28:43]

WHITFIELD: Police say a second pilot has died after two helicopters collided in the air over southern New Jersey. It happened Sunday morning shortly after they took off from the Hammonton municipal airport outside Philadelphia. Police say the two pilots were the only people on board when they collided and crashed in a field not far from the airport.

Video shows one of the helicopters spinning out of control, as you see right there, and then plummeting to the ground. Federal investigators are trying to figure out what caused the collision.

The Trump administration is responding forcefully to a viral video accusing Somalis in Minnesota of committing fraud. It comes after a MAGA activist posted a YouTube video of himself trying to enter several childcare centers. He claims they are Somali run and that they are taking government money without actually caring for children. Experts are skeptical about these accusations, saying it's not unusual for daycare centers to keep doors locked or to require a keycard for entry to protect the children inside.

CNN's Whitney Wild has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: The FBI says it is surging more resources into Minneapolis to combat fraud. This is just the latest chapter in a sprawling fraud investigation that goes back several years, all the way back to 2022.

Director Kash Patel, the head of the FBI, seemed to be reacting to a YouTube video from a man named Nick Shirley.