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Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire Deal Now In Effect; NYC Prepares For Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; Progressive Social Media Star's Election Postmortem Draws Dem Party Attention; Suspected Wife-Killer Dentist Accused Of Trying To Kill Detective. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired November 27, 2024 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00]
GEN. WESLEY CLARK, (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Russia is obviously going to go in there and try to fix it up. So there's a window of vulnerability here in Iran that wasn't present in the past.
Iran's moving forward on its uranium enrichment. It probably can have a nuclear weapon within weeks. And so I think that -- I think Prime Minister Netanyahu, in an ambiguous way, is saying he's going to take action against Iran, and he wants U.S. support to do that.
That action has to be more than simply taking out some of the technology that was done in the last raid. It means really stopping the nuclear program and -- and perhaps forcing a new government in -- in Iran through the act of destruction.
I hear from Iranians all the time who tell me the governments very not well thought of. The economy is faltering. They want to get these ayatollahs out. They're basically a pro-Western population that's been held in repression.
That's the story you get now. Whether it's true and complete is, of course -- it's not possible to know. You have to be a little careful on this.
But I think -- I think Prime Minister Netanyahu sees this as a critical window of opportunity to deal with a lasting serious threat to the survival of Israel.
And I think he's going to look for a way to take that opportunity, either in the coming weeks or after the Trump administration comes in.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yes, a potential flashpoint to continue watching.
General Wesley Clark, thank you so much for the expertise. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, sir.
CLARK: Thank you, Boris. Same to you.
SANCHEZ: Of course. Up next, he is a progressive social media star with millions of loyal
followers and his audience is predominantly young men. What he says Democrats need to do to crack the manosphere.
Plus, the highlight of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? The balloons. Our Harry Enten is live on the ground in New York City.
Harry, I was told you might have a turkey costume with you. Why aren't you wearing it?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: You're going to get it next hour, my dear friend.
I'm here with my friend, Marshall, the fire dog, and we're going to see you right after this break. I'm so excited, Boris.
(Gobbling)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:36:37]
SANCHEZ: So this might be the only occasion where the day before a parade is as fun as the actual celebration and parade itself.
We're talking about the inflating of the balloons for the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. They're actually going up right now.
RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN HOST: The only inflation that anyone really likes.
(LAUGHTER)
SOLOMON: So that's a business reporter joke.
Let's bring in CNN's Harry Enten, who is right there in the middle of all of the action. Harry, how has it been so far?
ENTEN: I have to tell you, this is so much better than covering elections. Elections are boring compared to balloon inflation, right? There I used that word inflation in this particular case is a good word.
I've been here now for two hours. The energy is magnificent. Earlier on, I was with Minnie Mouse. It's her first time in the parade. Mickey Mouse has been on the parade route for forever. But it's about, gosh darn, time that Minnie Mouse is part of it.
Now I'm here with my dear friend, Marshall, the fire dog from Paw Patrol, and Nickelodeon. And the bottom line is this. We've got 17 giant balloons, 22 floats. We have a whole slew of other balloons.
And it's a day like this that makes an adult like myself into a child again. Of course, my girlfriend might argue that I'm a child all the time anyway.
(LAUGHTER) SANCHEZ: Harry, is there concern about the weather tomorrow? Because there's all this talk of rain along the eastern seaboard. What is it going to look like where you are?
ENTEN: I dare say it is going to be quite dreary in the skies. But the smiles will be on the faces.
You know, Boris, my Uncle Neil Sedaka, a very well-known singer/songwriter from the 1970s, wrote a song called "Laughter in the Rain." And I dare say that there will be laughter in the rain.
I will be out there with my anemometer. I'll be taking the wind speeds. I'll be taking the temperatures. I'm going to go back to my weather camp days, back when I was a teenager. And even if it's raining, which is what we expect, the good news is it's probably not going to be that windy.
So my dear friends, my dear balloons will, in fact, be flying in the air despite the fact that we will, in fact, have cloudy skies and likely some rain.
SOLOMON: All right, Harry, we know, as a journalist, you're -- you're impartial, you're neutral.
But I got to ask, is there a balloon that is your favorite? Are you allowed to -- to have a have a preference there?
ENTEN: Oh, I think, Rahel, I'm allowed to have a favorite. I can't have favorites in politics, but when it comes to balloons, I absolutely do have a favorite.
And the bottom line is this. Perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising to you that I'm hanging out with my favorite, Marshal. I love dogs. Every single dog I see in the street, I go up and I try and pet it if the owner allows me to.
Now I'm not going to get too close to Marshal right here. But the bottom line is he is the biggest dog that I know and I have a lot of heart for him.
SANCHEZ: They do a lot of important work at Paw Patrol, and so clearly you have to respect the work of a -- of a service animal like Marshal.
I frown at you saying that you're impartial, Harry, given that you're wearing a Buffalo Bills jacket on live television --
ENTEN: Well -
SANCHEZ: -- revealing your biases.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: Harry Enten --
SOLOMON: Carve out.
Harry Enten, we will check back in with you, because that was quite a tease.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
SOLOMON: The turkey costume is coming apparently in a later hour so we will stay tuned. You stay tuned.
Harry Enten, thank you.
[13:39:53]
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SOLOMON: Welcome back. Vice President Kamala Harris is speaking out for the first time since her concession speech. She's thanking her grassroots volunteers and donors during a video call, and also urging them to stay engaged in politics as Donald Trump returns to the White House.
The leaders of Harris' campaign are also speaking out.
SANCHEZ: Yes, they're blaming several external factors for her defeat, including the abbreviated campaign time, a news media that held Harris to a higher standard than Trump, and a hurricane that they say, quote, "F'd up" two weeks of campaigning.
But while they point the finger externally, many others are pointing the finger at them, at the campaign itself.
CNN senior correspondent, Donie O'Sullivan, visited one of the biggest progressive social media stars for his election postmortem.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HASAN PIKER, SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER & PODCAST HOST: Donie O'Sullivan!
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Hasan Piker.
PIKER: This is my dog, Kaya. I thought you legitimately were going to work out.
[13:45:01]
O'SULLIVAN (on camera): I could do some weights.
(voice-over): He's a social media superstar with almost three million followers on the video streaming platform Twitch.
(SCREAMING)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: They're eating -- they're eating the pets.
O'SULLIVAN (on camera): So this is that whole masculinity thing people are talking about, huh?
(voice-over): And he's part of a growing group of streamers and podcasters reaching young men online, a space Trump tapped into to reach young male voters.
PIKER: You punch in, then you won't be able to see that he's not doing any weights.
O'SULLIVAN: But Hasan is not a Trump supporter. He's a progressive, a fan of Bernie and AOC. The Democratic Party even invited him to the DNC in August.
(on camera): One thing we've been hearing for weeks now is that the left needs a Joe Rogan.
PIKER: Yes. I don't think that the Democratic Party can podcast itself out of this issue. Joe Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020. Maybe they should do an autopsy on why he left the party.
O'SULLIVAN: I've heard you say, when it comes to stuff that guys like, you seek that stuff out online, whether it's watching a streamer, whether its watching guys talking about working out and fitness. You say that the right wing just dominates that space.
PIKER: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: Why?
PIKER: Well, I think that's why I started on Twitch right? I know for a fact that the video game space is like people who consume this -- this culture. People who are a part of this culture are not all right wing.
I wanted to showcase the people that are like, no, you can be a progressive person, you can be a leftist and, like, have fun at the same time.
O'SULLIVAN: How many people are watching your live stream on election night?
PIKER: The total unique number was 7.5 million.
O'SULLIVAN: There's a general sense that when it comes to the world of podcasts, alternative media, I don't even know what you want to call it, that Trump did a much better job with that than Democrats, and Harris.
PIKER: Absolutely. I think that's true. When I saw the Aidan Ross collab, I thought, this is not -- this doesn't have motion. It was awkward. It was weird.
(SINGING)
PIKER: But then I saw Trump on Theo Von, and he started talking about cocaine, and I was like, uh, oh, this -- this humanizes him.
TRUMP: So you're way up with cocaine more than anything else you can think of?
THEO VON, PODCAST HOST: Cocaine will turn you into a damned owl, homie. You know what I'm saying?
O'SULLIVAN: Harris did consider going on Joe Rogan.
PIKER: Yes, but she didn't.
O'SULLIVAN: What is this that the Democrat Party has to do differently?
PIKER: Well, I think that they need to change their policies.
O'SULLIVAN: It's a policy thing?
PIKER: Yes, it's 100 percent a policy thing.
(CROSSTALK)
O'SULLIVAN: Because I'll say boring.
PIKER: Which is the boring answer, although it would be very self- serving for me to say I'm the left's Joe Rogan, the Democratic Party should give me millions of dollars. That's not going to solve this problem.
What will solve this problem is if the Democratic Party actually adopts real left-wing economic populist messaging instead of purposefully avoiding that stuff because they're terrified of upsetting their corporate donors.
I think Trump speaks to male insecurities better. And I think Trump speaks to the anger that people have. Whereas the other side of the political spectrum does not speak to that anger at all.
O'SULLIVAN: There's been a lot of controversy around you.
PIKER: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: The way you talk about Israel is viewed by some as anti- Semitic.
PIKER: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: Are you anti-Semitic?
PIKER: Of course not. The real problem here is that I'm an anti- Zionist. The real problem here is that I'm extremely critical of Israel.
And all of the information that's readily available, especially on social media, for so many people that don't necessarily rely on mainstream media any longer to get their information, and that's why you see this generational gap.
If you're over the age of 35, you're still operating on the old boundaries. You're like, no, Israel is the most moral democracy in the Middle East, maybe in the world, right?
Like -- and I think that the major generational divide that is, I think, in a very damaging way, feeding into the mistrust overall that people have with mainstream news in general is coming from that.
O'SULLIVAN: Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Another fascinating conversation brought to us by Donie O'Sullivan. Appreciate that report.
Coming up, a shocking twist in a Colorado murder case. Prosecutors say a dentist accused of fatally poisoning his wife's protein shake allegedly plotted another murder from behind bars. Wait until you hear who his target was.
[13:49:29]
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: A Colorado dentist is just about to start his murder trial for allegedly poisoning his wife and is now accused of trying to put a hit out on a detective in his case.
Prosecutors filed the new charges just a day after the defense for the dentist, James Craig, abruptly withdrew from representing him.
SOLOMON: And the father of six, who lived in a Denver suburb, allegedly poisoned his wife Angela's protein shakes in 2023 with arsenic and cyanide.
Let's get into CNN's Jean Casarez, who has been following this case.
So, Jean, what exactly are prosecutors accusing Craig of doing against this detective?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, a very serious charge, soliciting to murder him. And this is a detective that was on his case.
Now, his trial was just about to begin. I mean, they had just started jury selection and, all of a sudden, the defense team quits, they recused themselves. We cannot represent this man anymore.
[13:55:03]
And everyone thought it was a little strange because you -- normally, you don't do that. And then came brand new charges of solicitation for murder against James Craig. And according to court officials, it was a detective in the case.
Now there's going to be a preliminary hearing on these brand-new charges upcoming. So we'll get more information on this. But this is just a continuum here. Because, ever since he was charged
with murdering his wife -- and it's because Angela Craig always had a daily protein shake. She tried to take care of herself. Six children, 23 years of marriage. And James always made it for her.
Well, he tainted it by potassium cyanide that he bought, along with arsenic. Because the arsenic didn't kill her. So he had to go a little further, according to prosecutors. And that is how he was charged with these murders.
But it goes on and on with the inmates that he was trying to get to -- to facilitate and send notes to make it look like a suicide. And he has -- he has continued to say, I am not guilty here, I am innocent, and the trial will prove it.
SOLOMON: OK. Really disturbing allegations.
Jean Casarez, thank you.
CASAREZ: Thank you.
SOLOMON: We're going to have much more on CNN NEWS CENTRAL. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
