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The Situation Room

2 People Killed, 20 Injured In PA Nursing Home Explosion; DOJ Scrambling To Find Holiday Volunteers To Redact The Epstein Files, Internal DOJ Email Says; Roblox Launches AI Age Verification Tool; Top Political Stories Of 2025. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 24, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:47]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Good morning and Merry Christmas Eve, everyone. Welcome to a special edition of The Situation Room on an hour early for you today. I'm Kate Bolduan in for Wolf and Pamela.

We do need to begin this hour in Pennsylvania, where a gas leak is suspected as the cause of, just look at this, a fiery explosion at a nursing home. Two people are now confirmed to have been killed in this. Twenty others injured.

CNN's Danny Freeman is tracking this, joining us now with the very latest. Danny, what are you learning about this this morning?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, just a terribly sad and scary story, especially on the night before Christmas Eve. Here's what we know. Basically, we're talking about a nursing home in Bristol, Pennsylvania. That's just outside of Philadelphia on the outskirts of Bucks County.

And basically, according to PECO, the local utility company out there, they got a report of people smelling a gas-like odor around that nursing home just before 2:00 p.m. Crews got on site there, and then there was an explosion. Of course, there was a big fire then that came out of it.

First responders rushed to the scene to try and help people and get people out of that mess. But then first responders say they also continued to smell gas. There was actually a second explosion. And then part, you can see on your screen right there, part of the building actually collapsed.

Sadly, two people were killed. Twenty people were injured. But thankfully, at this time, everyone else has been accounted for. And I'll just note, Kate, the governor and local officials say that first responders heroically came and were carrying people, elderly people, out of that building to save them.

So very much thankful for our first responders on this Christmas Eve, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank goodness for them. I'm so sorry what they're dealing with now in the aftermath of this.

Danny, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Let's turn now to California, where big portions of the state are bracing right now for a major storm that's forecast to bring with it months' worth of rain in just a matter of days. Overnight, the entire California coast started to see this rain and wind really pick up. Just look at this. Look at these rocks. A rock slide happened because of it. That is all expected, then, to continue in Southern California all today and through tonight.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones is following this one for us. She's in Altadena, north of Los Angeles. Julia, thank you for being out in it for us all. Where could be seeing the worst of it? What are you seeing?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The worst of it, Kate, is going to be on those foothills, on the Sierras, in those higher areas. They're going to see up to 8 to 9 inches of rain over the next few days. Here, where we are, of course, Altadena, the concern is, where is all that rain going to go?

More than 6 million people are under this four out of four level of flooding for this area. It's not just Los Angeles. San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, all around Southern California. Also, what we're seeing at this time, sheriff's deputies making their way door to door to everybody who has not yet evacuated, if they are under those evacuation orders. That's for specific houses that are just way too dangerous, too close to those parts that could flood and could be dangerous.

Also, officials saying, Kate, if you don't have to leave your house, you don't have to drive on those flooded roadways on this Christmas Eve. Do not leave your house.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Thankful for you being out in it to report for us, Julia. Thank you to you and your crew.

Let's turn now to a CNN exclusive for you. An internal email revealing that the Justice Department is right now scrambling. Here's why. Trying to find volunteers to work through the holidays to help with the -- what's become the gargantuan task of working through the Jeffrey Epstein files to help with redactions. And they are up against and already passed the legally binding deadline for a full and complete public release of the files.

CNN's Marshall Cohen joins us now. He's got more on this. Marshall, what are you learning about this request?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, Kate, this is some new reporting from our colleague Katelyn Polantz that Justice Department leadership sent what was described as an emergency request to their colleagues down in Florida to raise their hand and volunteer to pitch in over the holiday weekend to assist with the Epstein files.

They needed volunteers to work through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the next few days as New Year's approaches to review these materials, redact the materials, which, of course, means that more releases are expected in the next week or so.

[09:05:06]

According to one of those emails obtained by CNN about this request to the prosecutors in Florida, the person who sent it said, quote, "The timing could not be worse." And they are right. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Marshall, thank you very much for that reporting.

So the lucky winner has still not won, which means a $1.7 billion jackpot is still up for grabs. And it's going to be an eye popping. Christmas Eve drawing with the now fourth largest payout in powerball history up for grabs. And yes, with all of our wishful thinking comes a necessary dose of reality on this one.

The odds of winning are still basically impossible, one in 292 million. Let's blame the Grinch on those odds. And speaking of not the Grinch, but all things Christmas for all the kitties out there, kiddos, a Christmas Eve tradition continues. The NORAD Santa tracker is up and running. This has been going on since 1955 that the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, has helped children follow a live updating map of Santa's travels.

You're looking at it, even offering a gift counter of how many presents have been delivered so far. And it is racking up fast. Santa's already started making his way from the North Pole and has already been spotted in New Zealand and Antarctica.

NORAD reports that Santa usually visits the South Pacific first, then New Zealand and Australia, and then shoots up to Asia, across to Africa, then on to Western Europe, Canada, United States, Mexico and the rest of Central and South America.

Still to come this holiday morning, protecting your children online. The wildly popular game Roblox is about to face some new restrictions, mandatory age verification. Pamela Brown sat down with the CEO to discuss the best of the situation room right after this break.

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AMELIA MCAKRON, SPECIALIST: Hi, my name is Specialist Amelia McAkron with (INAUDIBLE) 2ID. Just want to say happy holidays to my family in Saint Catherine, Jamaica.

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Well, it is one of the most popular gaming platforms out there. Now, Roblox is rolling out an age verification tool to protect its 150 million users, one-third of whom are younger than 13 years old. Children will soon have to verify their ages on Roblox with a government ID or by letting an AI feature photograph their face.

Here's my interview with founder and CEO of Roblox.

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BROWN: This was founded in 2000. As you well know, there have been numerous cases of people convicted after using Roblox to harm kids. Now your company faces lawsuits alleging negligence and wrongful death. What do you say to the parents who argue this safety effort is too little too late?

DAVID BASZUCKI, FOUNDER & CEO, ROBLOX: Hey, thank you for having me on. And I do want to share ever since we started as our top priority and we've been innovating constantly, what we're here sharing today is we're really introducing what we believe will be the new gold standard for safety and civility on the Internet.

We're the first major gaming platform and really major social platform to lean into knowing the estimated age of everyone on our platform. We're going to use AI to do a facial age check for everyone on Roblox who uses communication. And I want to highlight that this goes hand in hand with a lot of other things we do on Roblox.

We filter all the text. We don't allow image sharing. We monitor everything for critical harms. So we continue really to believe we want to innovate and lead into the future of safety on the Internet.

BROWN: And you say safety is priority. I want to just get your response to what the National Center on Sexual Exploitation has said, it is said, Roblox is a "quote, "mainstream contributor to sexual exploitation. So I want to get your response to that. And also what you would say to those who might be concerned about workarounds of this age verification feature?

BASZUCKI: Yes, we would reject that description. You know, every day over 150 million people come to our users come to people on Roblox and they have amazing experiences. They learn, they communicate with their friends, they get interested in STEM. And it's an enormous responsibility for us at Roblox.

It's why we built safety into the platform. It's why we know a lot of parents don't have the time to work with their kids, so we have to build safety in by default. And it's why we have a history really of innovating almost every few weeks with new safety innovations. So we're really optimistic what we're going to do today and what we're introducing over the next few months will become the standard really knowing the age of everyone and calm of the things we do like no image sharing.

BROWN: I want to play what one mom suing Roblox after her teenage son's death by suicide told me last month.

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BECCA DALLAS, SUING ROBLOX AFTER SON'S DEATH: Ethan loved gaming. That was his favorite thing to do. We put the parental controls. We talked to my son about the dangers. Don't click any links. Don't trust basically anybody. You have any questions, please feel -- you know, safe enough to come tell us.

Just we wanted to be -- we were up front with him because of the dangers of anything out there, viruses and let alone little did we think this would happen to our child. A predator, somebody would reach out to my son.

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BROWN: Obviously, these new rules can't bring back kids like Ethan. But what is your message to her and other parents who blame Roblox as a vehicle for their child being harmed? And do you think at a certain point a parent just has to accept there could be some level of risk?

BASZUCKI: Any situation like what we just heard is extremely tragic. I want to highlight much of what you hear about is not happening on Roblox. And many parents aren't aware that many other apps that kids have access to --

BROWN: But just to be clear, it's a vehicle --

BASZUCKI: -- allowed image sharing, allowed texting.

BROWN: -- for other platforms. Right.

BASZUCKI: So it is why one of the biggest things we do on Roblox is literally try to keep people on our platform where they're not sharing images, where text can be filtered, where we can monitor for critical harms. We are optimistic what we're rolling out today, which is a gold standard, will become the thing that all of the apps start to look at for keeping kids safe.

BROWN: That's what everyone wants to keep kids safe.

David Baszucki, thank you very much.

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BROWN: Joining us now is CNN Tech Reporter Clare Duffy. Hi, Clare. So what are you hearing from parents in response to this policy change by Roblox?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Yes, Pamela, I think parents are happy to hear this move from Roblox. I think the real question is, why did it take the company this long to take this step to make it harder for children to connect with stranger adults on the platform. I think the other big question here is, how well this technology is going to work at correctly identifying the age of children. I think it's sort of a wait and see moment to see is this actually successful at blocking kids from talking with adults on the platform. So we'll be watching that closely as we continue to see this technology roll out.

BROWN: Yes. Is this making people feel safer about allowing their kids to use the platform?

DUFFY: I think that is the real question here. I mean, I think we've heard these parents asking for the platform to do more. We've seen sort of across the social media landscape, technology platforms rolling out these tools for parents to have more control over their teens and their children's experience on these sites. But parents are saying we need your help too. We need more tools to make sure that our kids aren't sort of going around these control features.

So this is a step by Roblox, I think, to put in more of the controls by the platform to try to identify who's a child on their platform, who's an adult, and make it harder for those two different age groups to interact on the site.

BROWN: And how does this move by Roblox compare to the kids' safety efforts we've seen other platforms make this year?

DUFFY: Yes. This is something that we've seen sort of across the board. A number of major platforms are trying to institute more features, more controls to keep kids safer on their platforms. YouTube, for example, is also rolling out an AI age estimation feature where it's trying to identify teens on its platform and put them into a more controlled experience.

Instagram also said this year that it is aligning its teen accounts feature with PG-13 movie recommendations. Again, trying to crack down on the types of content that teens are seeing on that platform. And all of this, I think it's important to note, is coming as we're seeing more regulatory pressure, not just in the U.S., but around the world, on the big tech platforms. And so I think they're trying to make an effort to say, no, look, we really are trying here, and perhaps as a way of trying to avoid some of these stricter regulations that we're seeing.

BROWN: Right. Because now you have Australia enacting a law that bans children under 16 from many major social media platforms. Do you expect we'll see other countries pursue similar policies in the coming year?

DUFFY: I think we absolutely are going to see regulators around the world watching closely to see how this Australia ban rolls out, how effective it is at actually protecting young people online, and in particular, how effective it is at actually keeping kids off of these platforms.

Again, this is going to rely in large part on these AI age estimation features where the tech companies are going to be scanning people's faces and guessing how old they are. I think we're also going to be watching to see if kids can just get around this policy by using a VPN that disguises where their internet traffic is coming from.

But I think if Australia is at least largely successful at keeping under 16s off these platforms, and we're seeing kids in that country feeling better as a result, I absolutely think that you'll see regulators in other countries try to model legislation off this Australia ban.

BROWN: What else are you watching for in the online safety space in 2026?

DUFFY: The big thing that we're going to be watching for is this case that is going to trial in Southern California at the end of January.

[09:20:06]

This is a case that is being brought against the major social media platforms, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, by families who say their kids have been impacted by these social media platforms. And what's really important here is that this is the first time that these social media platforms are going to have to answer to these claims in front of a jury.

And we're also expecting that the CEOs of these big companies are going to testify during this trial. So we'll see Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok CEO Shou Chew, have to testify about these claims that their products have harmed children. So this is going to be really a landmark moment to watch. And then there are expected to be a number of other social media online safety cases that go to trial over this next year.

BROWN: All right, Clare Duffy, thanks so much.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And nearly a year into President Trump's second term, we've seen a number of moments that shifted the political landscape in our country. We'll go through the biggest ones, that's next.

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BRYAN RIOS, U.S. ARMY SPECIALIST: Hello, I'm Specialist Bryan Rios with 2ID at Columbus, Korea. I just want to say happy holidays to my family back at Corona City. Happy holidays.

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[09:25:30]

BLITZER: And welcome back. As we prepare to turn the page on 2025, we're also taking a closer look at some of the top political moments throughout the year and what they could signal potentially for 2026.

Joining us now to discuss CNN Political Commentator Michael Smerconish. He's the host of CNN's Michael Smerconish and also the host of the Michael Smerconish program on SiriusXM. Michael, thanks very much for joining us.

I want to start with the very beginning of the year when President Trump took office, the oath of office for a second term.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I returned to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country. Sunlight is pouring over the entire world. And America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.

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BLITZER: So what do you think, Michael?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Agree or disagree with him, but he came with a plan. Maybe it was Project 2025. And this time, Wolf, surrounded by loyalists who all knew how to operate the levers of power, dramatically different from the way Trump 1.0 began.

BLITZER: And of course, immigration has been a very core part of President Trump's second term so far. We've seen the administration launch immigration operations in cities around the country, including right here in Washington, D.C. But it started with Los Angeles over the summer, when mass federal officers carried out crackdowns at worksites and area neighborhoods. What do you think the impact of those initial raids has been?

SMERCONISH: So there was one in particular that stands out in my mind. It was last August, and it was one at a Home Depot where a Penske rental truck, you know, I've rented a Penske truck, maybe that's why it stands out in my mind. Only in this case, it was a panel truck.

And federal agents jumped out of this around the country, where homeowners go to a Home Depot on a Saturday morning, and they hired day laborers. That was the one that said to me, no pun intended, there's a new sheriff in town. And I think it was designed to and effective at sending a message.

BLITZER: Another dramatic moment, of course, that shocked the nation was the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, while giving a speech at a university in Utah, Utah Valley State University. What did that moment do to America's political landscape, in your view?

SMERCONISH: It crystallized the problem that we have today with political violence. And I don't want to play the game of whether it's from the left and the right. I've looked at all the data. It comes from all sides. But we are living in an era of heightened political animus, and it's dangerous. And it was tragic on that particular day.

BLITZER: Very tragic, indeed. President Trump's second term hasn't been without public resistance. We saw millions of people gather and have No Kings rallies. What do you think those demonstrations told us about voters views of President Trump's policies? SMERCONISH: 2,700 different rallies, 7 million people attending if I have my numbers right. I think that's the day that in the midterms, you might look back the one that was held in October, I think you might look back and say, do you remember that day when they had the No Kings rally?

There was no violence. Everybody came out. They used humor effectively. It really showed a groundswell of opposition and maybe was a harbinger of the midterm elections.

BLITZER: Another significant moment, of course, in 2025 was the tragic shooting of National Guard members right here in the nation's capital, not far from the White House and what investigators say was a targeted attack. The suspected shooter is an Afghan national. And after that attack, the Trump administration took steps to limit immigration. How do you think that shooting affected our country?

SMERCONISH: Well, that was as tragic, I mean, sort of a bookend to the Charlie Kirk assassination. And this one had a lot of elements in one. OK, you had a female member of the guard from West Virginia. You had an Afghan national. And as you point out, Wolf, consequently, there were actions taken by the administration relative to immigration policy.

There's also the issue of how the guard troops are being used, whether they have enough authority when they are deployed. There were a lot of different ways that that event could have been interpreted. What we should all agree on is that it was one of the most tragic of the year.

BLITZER: Certainly was. Michael Smerconish, as usual, thanks very much for joining us, looking back and looking ahead.