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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Jack Smith Defends His Trump Investigations in Fiery Hearing; Trump Heading to U.S. After Announcing Framework of a Deal on Greenland; Worst Winter Storm in Years Taking Shape. Rahm Emanuel Calls For DC Age Limit: "75 Years -- You're Out". Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 22, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, nearly 125 million Americans are under winter storm watches tonight for what's shaping up to be one of the most extreme winter storms in years. Some areas could see more than a foot of snow. Others will be crippled by an ice storm that threatens mass power outages. We're tracking every forecast update in the CNN Weather Center.

Plus, former Special Counsel Jack Smith testified in public on Capitol Hill today for the very first time about his two investigations into Donald Trump. Smith trying to beat back allegations that he was motivated by politics saying he only charged Trump because the evidence showed Trump, quote, willfully broke the law. I'm going to get reaction from both a House Republican and a House Democrat. Each of them questioned Smith during today's hearing.

And we're just over two weeks away from the 2026 Olympics in Italy. And for American figure skater Maxim Naumov, it's about so much more than competing for a medal. You might remember he almost quit the sport after losing his parents in that Washington, D.C. plane helicopter crash last year. And now he's preparing to live out the dream that they all shared as a family.

The Lead tonight, an ugly and partisan scene playing out on Capitol Hill, not surprisingly, as former Special Counsel Jack Smith testified today about his prosecutions or attempted prosecutions of Donald Trump. Republicans painted him as an overambitious partisan prosecutor who did everything in his power to take down Trump before the 2024 election. Democrats, on the other hand, praised Smith as a hero and patriot who paid a large personal price to defend the U.S. Constitution.

For his part, Smith defended his investigations and warned of potentially catastrophic threats to democracy if people in power are not held accountable for wrongdoing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK SMITH, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL: I think if we don't hold people to account when they commit crimes, it's sends a message that those crimes are okay, that our society accepts that. I believe that if we don't call people to account when they commit crimes in this context, it can endanger our election process. It can endanger election workers and ultimately our democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Jack Smith also strongly criticized Trump's mass pardons for the violent January 6th rioters, and he predicted this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BECCA BALINT (D-VT): Do you believe that President Trump's Department of Justice will find some way to indict you?

SMITH: I believe that they will do everything in their power to do that because they've been ordered to by the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Almost on cue, minutes after the hearing ended, President Trump posted on Truth Social that, quote, based on his testimony today, there is no question that deranged Jack Smith should be prosecuted for his actions, unquote.

Congressional Republicans today slammed Jack Smith for obtaining cell phone metadata, known as toll records of some lawmaking. It doesn't include the contents of the calls, but does include who was being called. That includes the records of then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The court issued a non-disclosure order, meaning it prevented phone carriers from notifying the lawmakers that those records have been requested. Part of the court's justification being that disclosure could result in a flight risk.

Watch this exchange between Smith and Republican Congressman Brandon Gill of Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BRANDON GILL (R-TX): You think the speaker of the house is a flight risk? You think he's going to hop on a plane and leave the country?

SMITH: No. What I was trying to explain is with respect to a non- disclosure order. The risks aren't necessarily associated with the subscriber to the phone. They're the risks to the investigation.

GILL: Okay. I think that you were using -- this was clearly in reference to Speaker McCarthy, and you were using clearly false information to secure non-disclosure order to hide from Speaker McCarthy and from the American people the fact that you were spying on his toll records.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Smith went on to say that the flight risk portion was part of boilerplate language and that the non-disclosure order was really about protecting witnesses.

Congressman Brandon Gill, Republican of Texas, joins us now. Congressman, without getting -- first of all, thank you for being here. Without getting too much into the weeds of the phone records, it is true that there was an effort to stop the 2020 electoral vote count, and members of Congress seem to be part of the effort. Is that not worth investigating?

GILL: Well, we are investigating that. That's why we brought Jack Smith in. What we have questions about is about a highly partisan investigation whose sole objective was to go after President Trump. This was not an investigation that was following the facts. It was an investigation that was following one man, and that was President Trump.

And throughout that entire time, and the toll records are a perfect example of this, Jack Smith was willing to invent novel legal theories to go after his political enemies and walk all over the Constitution. And the American people want answers for that.

TAPPER: There were members of the Senate that were delivering alternate or fake elector names on Capitol Hill. Isn't it possible to disagree with some of how Jack Smith might have handled some of the investigation but also saying he wasn't part of some grand Democratic conspiracy to take down President Trump, and there are serious questions about what some lawmakers did?

GILL: Well, let's ask what this investigation was. First, it began based on information from a highly partisan January 6th committee, including witness testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, which was basically a hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay. Jack Smith then took that information and started launching a massive dragnet of subpoenas going after sitting members of Congress, including the then-sitting speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, to go after their phone data in flagrant violation of the speech or debate clause of the Constitution.

He then took all of that information also going after sitting United States Senators and put together a prosecution that gave it an entirely unreasonable timeline for the president. Remember, he launched this prosecution, or launched his charges in August 1st, 2023, giving the president based on his own proposed timeline, Jack Smith's timeline, five months to defend himself while the president also was defending himself in other cases.

There were 13 million documents for the president and his team to go through during that time. That works out to about a hundred thousand pages of documents, every single day for them to read through. And yet Jack Smith forged ahead and, unironically, whenever we deposed him, said that he thought that was a reasonable timeline.

I mean, every single step of the way, the goal of this was to go after President Trump and the Constitution be damned.

TAPPER: And point of fact, I think there were two parts of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony that were hearsay, but most of it was not. But -- and I am going to ask a Democratic congresswoman about that in a second but --

GILL: She claimed that the president had jumped forward and was trying to steer a car. I don't think --

TAPPER: She had heard that. Yes, no, she said that she heard that from -- I don't want to get into this. I agree that's hearsay. She heard that from somebody else and I'm going to -- like I said, I'm going to ask a Democrat about that in a second. Do you think President Trump did anything wrong related to January 6th?

GILL: Well, listen, what I think was wrong was the way this entire prosecution and investigation went through. I think the president has the authority as commander-in-chief and as president of the United States to debate issues about the legality of an election. He has every right to talk to members of Congress, to talk to other people in his cabinet. And yet Jack Smith was trying to go after him basically just for fulfilling his own presidential duties. He can believe whatever he wants to believe. The president has that right. And we have that right under the Constitution under the speech and debate clause. And that's what Jack Smith was going after.

TAPPER: Ye. But I'm not asking you about whether or not the president has the right of free speech. I'm asking you -- I'm not even talking about law. Just as a matter of right or wrong, do you think President Trump did anything wrong on -- related to January 6th?

GILL: Well, listen, the president was clear. He said, anybody who's there, we want you to be peaceful. Don't be violent. He was very clear. And, you know, we get this narrative from the left that the president was the one who was egging people onto the Capitol. That is just simply not true. It was President Trump --

TAPPER: He said, if we don't fight, we're not going to have a country.

GILL: It was President Trump who was telling people to be peaceful, to not be violent in any way. That was the president's own words.

TAPPER: He also said, if we don't fight, we're not going to have a country. And he said falsely that the election had been stolen from the American people. That's not true. It wasn't.

GILL: We use political rhetoric all the time about fighting each side. You know that. And everybody knows that that is not a call to violence. Once you start going after words that politicians use widely, including pundits as well, it's not just politicians and trying to say that very benign words are being used to egg on violence. I think you're going after very core, constitutionally protected First Amendment rights, particularly whenever you're talking about the president of the United States.

And, again, what this investigation was doing was trying to make -- trying to portray President Trump as guilty for upholding the law, for fulfilling his duties and for engaging with members of Congress of his own party especially, and members of his cabinet, and that's wrong. TAPPER: I'm not sure that if we don't fight, we're not going to have a country, is peaceful advice to the people there, but you obviously disagree.

Republican Congressman Brandon Gill of Texas, thank you for being here.

Let's talk to a House Democrat now opening up his time in today's hearing with an observation aimed right at his Republican colleagues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): How scared are Republicans of talking about the Epstein files? They're so scared that they literally are calling Jack Smith, the distinguished federal prosecutor who secured multiple indictments against Donald Trump with multiple felony counts.

[18:10:05]

I demand this committee, this chairman and Republicans to call an immediate hearing asking why the Department of Justice is refusing to release 99 percent of the Epstein files and why the DOJ is violating the law right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu from California is here with me now. He's a veteran.

Congressman, it's quite an allegation you opened there, and we have been certainly calling for all of the Epstein files to be released on this show because, obviously, that's the law. Your questions today focused on the interactions between the Biden administration and Jack Smith. Why did you choose that line of questioning?

LIEU: Thank you, Jake, for your question. Let me just first start out by saying that this hallway I'm standing in, insurrectionists went through it and attacked the House floor to stop the certification of election and Republicans roundly criticized and condemned Donald Trump that week. It's pure hypocrisy to see the Republicans reverse a few years later.

Now, to your question, I wanted to show that the Biden White House and President Biden himself did not, in any way, direct Jacks Smith to do anything. They let Jackson Smith look at the facts and to decide whether to charge Donald Trump. And he looked at the facts and he decided, I have more than enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump tried to overturn the election illegally, tried to get fake electors, and on a separate case, stole classified documents and tried to hide them.

TAPPER: Congressman, you just heard Brandon Gill, Congressman Brandon Gill bring up Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump White House aide, her testimony. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, did the same. And now just to remind people, Hutchinson spoke before the January 6th committee. Some of what she was called to testify, and this is not her fault, this is what the committee asked her to do, some of it was hearsay. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Did you ever confirm the president leaping across the seat, grabbing the steering wheel, this whole concoction she brought up in the January 6th hearing? Did you ever confirm that?

SMITH: Right. We interviewed another firsthand witness who was in the car who did not confirm that that had happened, but also --

JORDAN: Your deposition to the committee last month, Mr. Smith, you said this, my recollection with Ms. Hutchinson was a number of the things that she gave evidence on were secondhand hearsay. You remember making that statement to us last month in the deposition?

SMITH: I did, and I was referring particularly to what we're talking about now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, just again, as a factual matter, Cassidy Hutchinson, most of what she testified about was not hearsay, and she answered the questions that were asked to her by the January 6th committee. I wonder if you think in retrospect it was wrong of that committee to ask her to relay stories that she didn't witness firsthand.

LIEU: I don't. Jacks Smith's investigation was based on multiple witnesses, and as you heard, a lot of documents as well as a video and audiotape. And just because one witness says something that may be hearsay doesn't mean another witness can't confirm that. But what we do know is two grand juries indicted Donald Trump based on evidence presented to them.

And what is remarkable, if you looked at Republicans today at this hearing, none of them actually disputed Jack Smith's findings. He issued an entire report, volume one of his report. They didn't even talk about that report. They didn't dispute that Donald Trump engage in conspiracy to try and get fake electors and fake documents to overturn this election.

TAPPER: Do you have any issues as a former prosecutor with the fact that when Jack Smith got the phone records of members of Congress, and, again, that's not the content of the call, but it's the metadata who called who, that he asked the Justice Department to not alert the members of Congress that that had been requested. Do you have any issues? Because the new Justice Department policy is that lawmakers get to be notified if their phone records are ever subpoenaed.

LIEU: Right. And I just have to say, as a former prosecutor, you would never notify anyone if you're trying to get their toll records and the metadata on their phones and say, hey, by the way, we're going to send this subpoena to Verizon. Watch out for it. You would never do that. You do an investigation. You want to keep this stuff secret. So, it's idiotic what these Republicans were saying, and I just bet they weren't former prosecutors, because no former prosecutor would ever do that. And, by the way, I am not above the law. If someone's doing criminal investigation and they think a member of Congress or an American has evidence or phone records that could be important, absolutely, we should be subpoenaed just like anybody else. And the speech and debate clause is very narrow. It only applies with legislative acts. Conspiracy to overturn election is not a legislative act.

[18:15:02]

TAPPER: Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu from California, thank you, sir. Good to see you.

President Trump says he had a good meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Davos earlier today. Did they make any progress in having some sort of treaty to end Russia's brutal war? CNN's Kaitlan Collins just spoke with President Zelenskyy. She's going to join us live next.

Plus, New York policemen minutes ago announcing two arrests after swastikas were painted on a playground in a largely Jewish neighborhood of New York. There's new details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our World Lead right now, President Trump is heading back to the United States, capping off 48 hours of consequential foreign policy moves in Davos, Switzerland, which includes this framework of a future deal on Greenland. We're going to try to find out more about that deal.

Here's CNN's Anchor and Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins, who's live for us in Davos with a very fashionable winter coat. Kaitlan, what details are you learning, if any, about this deal? Is there anything even written down on paper that's been shared with anyone?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, Jake, it's been about 24 hours since the president announced that there was a framework of a deal, and, really, that's still pretty much what we know so far.

[18:20:05]

There is no written document based on what we've heard so far. It was a verbal agreement that President Trump and the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, came to yesterday when they were behind closed doors here at this Davos summit.

And so it was the president who emerged from that. He talked about this deal. He praised how good it is and said that it's going to basically last until infinity, a lifetime, in terms of how long this deal is.

But, you know, the clarity that we've sought, whether it still includes the president seeking U.S. ownership of Greenland, which is something that Mark Rutte told Sky News in an interview actually did not come up during their interview, and instead it seemed to focus on Russia and China and the president's concerns there of them trying to wield their influence in Greenland and the lack of security forces there, as the president has complained that there's not enough there.

So, I likely expect that will change given they're going to rework this 1951 agreement that the United States had with Denmark, allowing the United States to put more bases there, to put more military troops there. That was something that already existed. We may just see it take a new form with President Trump and his clear desire here.

But it doesn't seem like a lot has changed from that agreement. And so that really is the question of what that's going to look like, Jake. And just a remarkable turnaround from the president saying that he wanted to acquire Greenland, he wanted those negotiations to start now, but it was very clear the NATO chief showed up here in Davos wanting to try to come to an agreement with the president. And he's someone who praises him publicly, Jake, and obviously is effective with him in private.

TAPPER: So, the president also met today with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine right before he left. You also spoke with Zelenskyy. What did he have to say?

COLLINS: Yes. We saw the president as he was leaving that meeting. He had just described it as a good meeting. It was clear there were no breakthroughs, which we weren't really expecting, Jake, frankly, because, obviously, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, they just arrived in Russia to have their own meetings with the Russian president and his senior staff. And then President Zelenskyy came out a little bit later, talked about that meeting with the president.

And, you know, one of the questions I had for him was. President Trump said earlier to us today when he was departing Davos to head back to the U.S. that everyone wants this war to end. I asked Zelenskyy if he felt that way, if that included Vladimir Putin, because, obviously, he's still waging this war, he's still striking Ukraine multiple times, and still killing innocent civilians. And, obviously, he disagreed with that because Putin could make the call to end this war tomorrow, tonight, if he wanted to. And so there are real questions though about the path forward.

And one thing Zelenskyy himself emphasized Jake was the president's influence here. He was saying that he believes this was really going to be up to the negotiating tools and tactics used by the president. Though one thing is clear, you know, the president just hit that one- year mark in office. This is something he said he could solve in one day, Jake. It has not even happened in one year. And the president himself has acknowledged the difficulty and how much more challenging that has been than he even expected it to be.

TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins live in Davos, stay warm. Thanks so much.

Don't miss Kaitlan with her interview with the Ukrainian president on her show, The Source with Kaitlan Collins. That's tonight at 9:00 Eastern, only on CNN. Still ahead, that latest prediction for the path of this coming weekend's winter storm, who's getting the worst ice, who gets the most snow. The forecasts are starting to come into focus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:25:00]

TAPPER: In our National Lead, nearly 125 million Americans across 24 states are bracing for what could be the very worst winter storm in years in the U.S., and if folks lose power while the storm is forming with natural gas prices on track for their biggest weekly increase since 1990. What a coincidence.

Let's get to Meteorologist Chris Warren. And, Chris, when you look at the new forecast models coming in, who's going to get hit first?

CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's going to start Jake tomorrow in New Mexico and Texas, and it's going to get bad and last throughout much of the weekend. The effects of this winter storm are going to go throughout the weekend, and then the hangover from the storm is going to go through most of next week with the bitterly cold temperatures.

Winter weather alerts here from New Mexico to Maine, and this is the cold weather alerts from border to border, from Canada to Mexico, cold air dropping down, this Arctic cold air dropping down. And then the wind, wind's going to do a couple of things. First, it's going to make things dangerous with the wind chills, and it's easy to see that by tomorrow morning. Some areas it will feel like it's 50 degrees below zero, but these winds will also be blowing where ice is going to be accumulating on trees and power lines, and the winds can lead to more trees coming down, or parts of trees and power lines coming down with more power outages that low as it tracks across the south, tapping into the moisture that will be needed for what, in some cases, will be more than a foot of snow, or a lot of ice that could leave people without power in extremely cold temperatures for days.

Notice now through Sunday morning, it is still snowing and it is still freezing rain falling in parts of Texas and Oklahoma. Some areas get a combination of the rain, the sleet, the freezing rain and snow. Here's the snow still falling. This is Sunday at 11:00 with the winds whipping around. The wild card for snowfall totals in the 95 corridor is if there's going to be a change over terrain. It may start as snow go over terrain that would kind of hamper or dampen some of these snowfall totals. But this is looking like a very high impact snow event. In fact, there could be, by Monday morning, a foot of snow on the ground for about 1,500 miles from Oklahoma all the way up to New England, D.C. more than a half a foot of snow, certainly on the table.

[18:30:01]

But, Jake, it is going to be this ice that will last for a long time with the power outages and be extremely dangerous, crippling to travel in many spots.

TAPPER: All right. Chris Warren, thanks so much.

A news conference just wrapped up in Minneapolis after a father and his five-year-old son were detained by ICE yesterday after returning home from preschool. The father had come to this country in 2024 requesting asylum. That story, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Two viral images coming out of Minneapolis, the epicenter of recent unrest over the Trump administration's illegal immigration crackdown. The first image, an image taken by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, it shows a federal agent spraying an orange colored chemical irritant in the face of a protester who is frankly already pinned to the ground. Another image which has gone viral is ICE with custody of a five-year-old named Liam Conejo Ramos, seen here wearing a backpack and a blue bunny hat. His father had been taken into ICE custody. He had come to this country in 2024 and requested asylum.

The Department of Homeland Security just released a statement in which they claim that, quote, our officers made multiple attempts to get the mother inside the house to take custody of her child.

[18:35:05]

Officers even assured her that they would not take her into custody. She refused to accept custody of the child. The father told officers he wanted to the child to remain with him, unquote. A lawyer representing the family just wrapped up a news conference in Minneapolis.

CNN's Sara Sidner was there. Sara, what did the attorney have to say?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The attorney said many things, as did a superintendent and a member of the school board who happened to be leaving the school to go home when she saw the commotion and stopped. And she said, yes, indeed, the mother was inside. And so there was this whole commotion going on outside. She said, I don't know if this person -- if the father tried to flee, but what she saw was that there was a car there that was still running and officers had him in custody already in their lot there, right in front of their house, in their driveway. And they were trying to take the boy, but the mother would not open the door because the father was saying, do not open the door for fear that she would be detained.

Now, we heard from J.D. Vance who said, look, he was an illegal alien, he shouldn't have been in this country in the first place. There is a contention that that is not the case, according to the attorney that said, look, he had, along with the family, asked for asylum and it was going through the process of that was signed up, wasn't trying to hide, wasn't trying to run, wasn't trying to get -- you know, disappear into America without going through the process. And so you have these very different stories that you are seeing coming out of, for example, DHS and from -- particularly from Vice President J.D. Vance, and what happened on the ground, according to the people that were there. Now, the mother completely distraught according to -- as any mother would be seeing their five-year-old being detained, not knowing where they were potentially going to be taking that child. But we do believe that the school district, you had two members from the school district there, officials who said, we will take this child. We can take this child to safety, bring the child to the school and work out the details from there. They were able to get to the mother, talked to the family, and no one that was on the ground understands why that couldn't have happened.

So, there's a lot of consternation, but there are really differing stories being told from DHS's side to the local folks on the ground who were there watching all of this unfold. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Sara Sidner in Minneapolis, thanks so much.

Let's bring in former Federal Prosecutor and CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams. We should note, he's the author of a brand new book. It's called Five Bullets. It tells the story of Bernhard Goetz, the subway vigilante from the -- what was that, the 80s?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: 1984.

TAPPER: 1984. And we're going to talk about that in one second, fascinating book. But, first, this immigration issue.

So, first of all, if somebody is in this -- comes to this country, yes, asks for asylum, the country knows he's here, says the process is going through, is that person, quote/unquote, an illegal alien?

WILLIAMS: If he's actively in process with the government, no. Now, if he has a final order of removal or the government has told him to leave, then, absolutely, he's unlawfully present here. And I think the administration's just being fast and loose with some of the rules and how they're handling people.

TAPPER: How surprising. Immigration advocates are pushing back at this release of this internal memo from ICE that says that ICE officers are authorized to enter residences without a warrant from a judge. They're relying on something called an administrative warrant. Is that legal?

WILLIAMS: They're saying it's legal. Now, let's be clear, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution says that government agents can't enter your house unless there's an emergency or a warrant from a judge. They are saying here that because someone has an administrative warrant that now that's grounds for entering someone's home, right?

They are playing with fire in court right now and the litigation that's going to spring up over this because of the fact that people's Fourth Amendment search and seizure rights are really being violated by this policy, they're just going to invite a lot of lawsuits, it's going to be a mess.

TAPPER: Let's turn to your amazing new book, Five Bullets. It tells the story Bernie Goetz. He rose to fame or infamy, depending on your point of view, in New York City in '84 after this encounter with four black teenage boys on the subway in which he shot them. You write how the boys were getting rowdy when one of them, quote, Troy Canty, then took an action that would prove to be a key moment in a decades-long saga about race crime, vigilantism, self-defense, and a host of other very fraught, very abstract nouns. He asked Bernie Goetz for $5. Tell us what happened next after he asked Bernie Goetz for $5.

WILLIAMS: Bernie Goetz says, I'll give all of you $5, pulls out a gun and shoots the four boys right away. One of the two boys, he stands over and apparently, sort of factually in dispute, says, you don't look so bad. Here's another, and shoots him again, paralyzing him in the chest and ultimately giving him brain damage. And that is the intelligence -- mental capacity of a nine-year-old.

[18:40:00]

TAPPER: And how did you come to write this book,

WILLIAMS: Would you believe in Wikipedia deep dive, Jake? I grew up in New Jersey, just outside the city. I was born in Brooklyn and sort of knew this and lived it firsthand, witnessed it in the nightly news every night. And just one day was poking around, and just what Bernie gets up to right now and called my agent up and said, wait, what do you think about a Bernie Goetz book?

The amazing thing here is that all of the origin stories of big players today from New York, Rudy Giuliani, Al Sharpton, Rupert Murdoch, and the National Rifle Association, which all have their own chapters in this book, really came through this story. They could use this vigilante to make themselves grow and capitalize on all of the tragedy and around it.

TAPPER: And the book just came out. It's in bookstores today.

WILLIAMS: It is in bookstores today.

TAPPER: Check out your local independent bookstore or go to amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. The book right now is Five Bullets, the author, Elliot Williams. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

In our National Lead, New York Police say they've arrested two teenagers after dozens of swastikas were painted on a playground in the predominantly Jewish area of Brooklyn. The 15-year-olds both face aggravated harassment charges, with one also facing a charge of criminal mischief, as a hate crime.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement, quote, anti-Semitism has no place in our city, and I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish New Yorkers who were targeted, unquote.

The new proposal today that would force all politicians in D.C. to retire at a certain age, that's next.

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Our politics lead, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a prominent Democrat who has hinted at his Oval Office dreams in 2028. I think he's also a CNN commentator. He is making his thoughts on the gerontocracy that we have here in D.C.

In remarks made yesterday here in Washington, Mr. Emanuel said, quote, "Across all three branches of government, 75 years, you're out. That's the proposal he's making. Clean it up all of Washington.

And when you're 75, you can't do that in the military. You can't do it in corporate America. You should not be in government at all. Thank you for your service. Up and out."

Our panel is with me.

So that is blunt, Joe. Do you agree with that?

JOSEPH MORENO, FORMER GOP STRATEGIST: Well, it's not true that it's not allowed in corporate America. It's allowed. It's allowed in the military under certain circumstances. If you're a general officer now, whether it's a good idea, I don't know. But ultimately, look, as a conservative-leaning guy, I would say it's a voters choice.

Voters decide if they think a person is within or beyond his or her prime. And so, I would say, you know, you're not going to get the broad support if its seen as disproportionately helping one side or the other. It's going to have to be grandfathering people in, which is going to kind of defeat the purpose. Which again, leads me to my point let the voters decide.

TAPPER: I also think there probably would be constitutional challenges about it, but as long as were just talking theoretical, that's talking. So right now, there are 45 members of the House and 17 members of the Senate who are 75 or older. What do you think?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, for one, let me just say people are always for this when they're not in office. And when they get in office, it gets a little harder to let go of power. I think we've seen that play out a few times.

Look, I agree with Joe. I think it is for the voters to decide. Obviously, there are very real substantive reasons given how we run elections, why that actually doesn't. It's not always a fair race, right? I mean, people get prevented from actually even challenging some of these folks. I'm for it. I think that at a point also, it's just good to get new ideas.

TAPPER: So you're for -- you're for the 75 up and out.

FINNEY: Yeah. Why not? I'm also with his brother, though. I'm not looking to live much longer than 75, so I know that's a whole other discussion.

TAPPER: That's a different Emanuel. That's Zeke Emanuel.

FINNEY: Exactly.

TAPPER: So, I mean, look, here in D.C., we have a delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, civil rights hero. People love her. She's 88 years old. She got scammed earlier in this year. By people pretending to be with, like an HVAC system or whatever.

And the police report, according to local NBC, said that she was in early stages of dementia. She's still running for reelection. And I think the point is of people like Rahm, nobody wants to say this out loud is that voters aren't paying enough attention to know that.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. So, look, we like to say age is just a number until it's not, Joe Biden at the debate that you anchored, that was obvious. I would say the NATO countries right now are looking at Donald Trump and wondering -- wondering, just saying, is it Iceland? Is it Greenland?

I actually think so. My mother's going to kill me. She served on senior status on the bench as a judge in New York until she was 87. But the retirement age there is 70. You have to be certified to keep going.

TAPPER: Turning to New York, where a judge is tossing out the boundaries for New York City's only Republican congressional district. He's ordering state officials to redraw the map on the grounds that it unconstitutionally, in his view, dilutes the vote of Black and Hispanic residents.

Jamie, this could be a big setback for Republicans trying desperately to hold on to their very slim majority. I think that's Congresswoman Malliotakis' seat represents a lot of Staten Island and a little bit more of some of the other boroughs.

GANGEL: Look, we're seeing this across the country. This is -- I think we're going to see hand to hand combat state by state, because at the end of the day, Republicans and Democrats see holding the House or taking the House as existential.

TAPPER: And Maryland is following New Yorks lead. A commission led by Maryland Governor Wes Morris recommending a new congressional map that targets the states lone Republican in that state. In the House, CNN has confirmed that Governor Moore met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries today to discuss this matter.

Joe, as more Democrats than Republicans in these redistricting schemes do you think the GOP is having any regrets? Because redistricting has been going on for a long time, gerrymandering, blah, blah, blah. But this round of it started with Trump pushing Texas to do it mid-decade.

MORENO: No, Texas broke the dam. And I've said on this show, I really wish they hadn't done that. I mean, we conservatives kind of like to see ourselves as rule followers, right? We're not ones to push the boundaries. We're not ones to kind of break the mold.

[18:50:05] And we kind of did here. So, we have no one else, no one but ourselves to blame. It's especially ironic that it sounds like courts in Texas are stopping that redistricting, but that other blue states might to go ahead. So, it really might come back to bite us now.

TAPPER: So, the FCC, Karen, is warning TV broadcasters that daytime and late night talk shows must give equal time to opposing political candidates, to Republicans, not just Democrats. Jimmy Kimmel, who has obviously faced the wrath of the FCC, Brendan Carr last year, he had some fun with this last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, COMEDIAN: In honor of his anniversary, I invited President Trump to appear on our show tonight. FCC be damned. Unfortunately, his head was unavailable to talk, but we were able to book another part of his body. So please welcome President Trump's badly bruised right hand, everybody.

Hello. Hello, president's hand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, America. It's me in the flesh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: Thoughts?

FINNEY: Yes. Many thoughts.

TAPPER: You missed. By the way, we don't have. He had Marco Rubio putting hot dogs into the -- into the mouth.

FINNEY: I love it.

TAPPER: And then a cankle made an appearance. I'll say keep going. Anyway.

FINNEY: So let's start with the fact that, look, this president we know is very sensitive about these late night talk show monologues, but can I just say, I actually thought about putting the legal issues aside in terms of First Amendment rights and all that. That's all very serious.

The other thought, I thought that this is a former communications staffer. When you make decisions about what shows you're going to put your person on and who's the right audience. And I sort of thought, you know, what, if some of those Republicans showed up on some of these shows where they weren't necessarily in this friendly audience, like when they go on Fox, that actually could do be good for Democrats, might help us raise money, because the more people see how outrageous some of the things that these people are saying, it might actually help us. So, I don't know, maybe I'm for it.

TAPPER: I actually thought you were going to go in a different direction. I was do you think that Republicans actually going into the, quote/unquote, lion's den could do them some good? Donald Trump, whatever people think about him, he can be disarming. He can be charming. I'm not saying that is his normal status, but like, he's capable of it.

MORENO: One of the best things Trump did in the last election was go on Joe Rogan's show, which Kamala Harris did not. She refused to do it. So I think that shows that he does have the guts to go into unknown and sometimes even hostile territory. So I think it would do good for anyone to be able to kind of wade into that and show that they can exist beyond just friendly territory.

TAPPER: What do you think?

GANGEL: They used to look, Mitt Romney, went on late night. Barbara Bush went on late night. I agree with you. I actually think if they have a sense of humor about themselves, they --

TAPPER: A lot of these guys have a charm, whether you like them or not, whether it is Hakeem Jeffries or Mike Johnson or J.D. Vance or Kamala Harris, they have a charm. Now, maybe you don't -- people don't see in the other side, but it does exist. They're capable of channeling it.

FINNEY: I just think it's, you know, these shows are hard. It's hard not to --

TAPPER: Oh, yeah.

FINNEY: -- you can be funnier than the funny guy.

TAPPER: No, no, you don't. You don't try to be funny.

FINNEY: I know.

TAPPER: Try to be nice and effusive.

Anyway. Thanks everyone.

He lost his parents in last year's plane crash near D.C., and now he's set to compete in the upcoming Winter Olympics. It's a dream that he shared with his parents. His resilience story, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:57:53]

TAPPER: Quick correction. In our pop culture lead earlier, we reported that the movie "Sinners", which has received 16 Oscar nominations, had not received Golden Globe nominations for directing and acting. It was nominated in those categories I misspoke. It did not win in those categories. That's why it's considered a snub, which is why all the Academy Award nominations are so joyous for "Sinners" lovers.

In our sports lead, the winter Olympics in Italy. They're nearly two weeks away, and for one figure skater representing the U.S., this is a bittersweet moment. Maxim Naumov lost both of his parents in last year's horrific mid-air collision between an American airlines plane and an army Blackhawk helicopter.

CNN's Coy Wire has more now for us on the figure skaters resilience in the face of this tragedy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAXIM NAUMOV, FIGURE SKATER: Life. Unfortunately, you know, made me grow up really fast.

COY WIRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a fateful night in January of 2025, Maxim Naumov life changed forever.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Breaking news tonight, an urgent search for answers after a midair collision kills 67 people in the nation's capital.

WIRE (voice-over): Maxim's parents, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were aboard American Airlines Flight 5342. After their tragic deaths, he was left devastated, but he found returning to the ICE to be therapeutic.

NAUMOV: Lacing up those gates for the first time was one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life but as soon as I stepped onto the ice, I mean, again, just the overwhelming support, the hugs, you know, the tears, the path to healing was in doing the difficult things.

So, I knew I needed to pursue that if I wanted to get through, you know, one of the most difficult things in my entire life. And that's when I knew I had to. And it was for them as well. I know they would have said the exact same thing.

WIRE (voice-over): A year after losing his parents, 24-year-old Maxim's perseverance is leading him to the Winter Olympics in Italy. He won't be going alone, though. He held up pictures to honor his parents while waiting for his scores at the U.S. figure skating championships.

NAUMOV: I really wish anything in the world for them to be there, so I just told them that we did it. We did it, and we made it. I prayed, they're smiling down on old them that we did it. We did it, and we made it. I old them that we did it. We did it, and we made it. I prayed, they're smiling down on me now.

The value of resilience in our family never giving up, pushing and gritting your teeth and fighting tooth and nail for every single thing that you possibly can. And I know that whatever it is that life throws at me, I'll be -- I'll be still standing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.