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Trump Rings Opening Bell at NYSE, Named TIME "Person of the Year"; Firefighters Work to Contain Malibu Fire as Weather Improves; Mounting Fear, Frustration Over Unexplained Drones Flying Over NJ. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 12, 2024 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: You mentioned the covers that he held or posted in his club before he was even TIME Man of the Year. He has repeatedly posted on social media, commentating on the winners, saying that because it wasn't him, it wasn't valid.

So this is clearly a big moment for him. He also has not been to New York much in recent months, really only for his legal troubles. So this is quite a moment for him as well.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And there it goes, the ringing of the opening bell. I think it all happens by just pressing a button now.

All right, but it has happened, it is happening, and, again, I think if one thing is clear here, it's how important this is to him. J.D. Vance, Ivanka, Melania, Tiffany, all there to share in this moment.

All right, Steve Contorno, thank you so much for being here.

I'll turn it over to Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We can keep an eye on that. At the very same time, let's talk much more about this TIME Magazine cover that we were just talking about.

TIME Magazine Correspondent Eric Cortellessa, he is joining us now. He wrote this cover piece. He sat down with the President-elect for this lengthy interview. And going through it during the show, quickly in commercial breaks, I have to say, Eric, very interesting and some important parts to get to.

But first and foremost, I think I saw there was like a 65-minute sit- down. Your -- what was your overall impression from your interview with the President-elect?

ERIC CORTELLESSA, TIME STAFF WRITER: Well, you know, he's less defensive than he was in recent years. I met with him last in April, and, you know, you could sort of sense that the volume was turned down. He has felt that sense of vindication.

And there was almost a kind of wistfulness on the part of Trump that his last campaign was over. He actually said it's sad in a way this will never happen again. So he was much more calmed down than I think I and others expected of him.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about some of the highlights and important pieces to discuss from your sit-down. On vaccines, you all asked him about RFK Jr., who he's picked to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. RFK joining him this morning at the Stock Exchange just to show how important he is to him.

RFK is a known cynic of vaccines, and the question that you all posed to him was this. If he, RFK, moves to end childhood vaccination programs, would you sign off on that? And Donald Trump's response is, "We're going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at -- if you look at things that are happening, there's something causing it."

You all did not even ask about autism, as it was linked, as I see in this -- in this transcript, in the false link to vaccines, and that's exactly where he directly went?

CORTELLESSA: No, I mean, Trump brought it up himself. I mean, he suggested there was a connection between autism and vaccine. I followed up and said, you know, President Trump, do you think there's a connection? He says, I want to see the numbers. He's going to look into it. But I think that was one of the major takeaways from this interview is that Donald Trump is preparing to listen to Robert Kennedy Jr., who he has nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, to potentially remove childhood vaccination programs, routine vaccinations that have been in place for generations. And, of course, this would be very controversial.

It's also noteworthy that, you know, one of Donald Trump's historic achievements from his first term was Operation Warp Speed, and there is a bit of a discrepancy between what he thinks on that issue and what Robert Kennedy Jr. thinks on that issue, which is that they should not have released those vaccines until further testing. So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out once he takes office.

BOLDUAN: And TIME doing a great job linking directly in that portion of the interview to an entire pullout article just reminding everyone once again there is no link between vaccines and autism. It has been disproven since that fake study came out in the 90s. But it has fueled the anti-vax movement, which is why it's dangerous when people continue to perpetuate what is completely not based in reality or science.

Let's talk about January 6th pardons. You guys asked him, you said J6 pardons. Do you have -- do you have in mind -- what do you have in mind for the first 24 to 48 hours -- do you have in mind what the first 24 to 48 hours will look like? His response was, I'm going to be looking at J6 early on, maybe the first nine minutes. And then, Eric, he jumps to talking about, he's also going to look at oil prices and bringing those down.

Did you -- did he seem serious about going directly to looking into pardoning people J -- January 6 -- people convicted -- connected to January 6th as part of -- when you were listening and speaking with him? CORTELLESSA: Yeah, he's planning to do that very early on, on his first day in office. He said it would be in the first hour. He even said maybe even in the first nine minutes.

I think, you know, the nation should be prepared for many, many pardons of defendants who have been either prosecuted, who have pled guilty, who are going through the process. There's more than 1,000 cases that have gone through our court system.

[09:35:00]

You know, I specifically asked President Trump whether that would include those who committed violent acts, and he did not rule it out. He said he would take a case-by-case approach to evaluating which people he would pardon or not. But I think he is most certainly prepared to pardon many January 6th defendants within his first hours in office.

BOLDUAN: And what was your impression then on Ukraine? Because he said he disagrees vehemently with Ukraine launching missiles into Russia, deep into Russia. Did you get the impression that he is preparing to change the Biden administration policy allowing Ukraine to use U.S. weapons in order to conduct those strikes?

CORTELLESSA: Well, that was certainly the impression he made at that portion of the hour. Which is that he doesn't want to see actions like that taken, which he thinks risks escalation. But the most striking part of that segment of the interview to me was when, you know, I sort of pressed Trump on how he was going to approach this issue, whether he was going to continue military, humanitarian, and intelligence assistance to Ukraine.

And I specifically said, Mr. President, would you abandon Ukraine? And his answer really struck me. He says, well, part of getting to a deal means you don't abandon. So I think that President Trump signaled in that moment that in his efforts to sort of reach an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the war, which is really what he wants, I think he wants the ability to tout that as an accomplishment, that means he would not pull the plug on Ukraine, as many of his supporters, many members of his base would like him to. Obviously, his choice for vice president is a vociferous critic of continued U.S. aid to Ukraine. We'll have to see how things play out.

Trump is an unpredictable person. But in that instance, he signaled he's not getting ready to just remove U.S. assistance to Ukraine because he thinks that's leverage he can use against Russia to strike an accord.

BOLDUAN: Really interesting. And a lengthy interview, really worth taking a look through. Eric, thanks for jumping on to talk about it this morning. Really appreciate it. Great reporting.

Sara?

SIDNER: All right, ahead, Southern California residents still facing the threat of new evacuations as firefighters work to contain the explosive, fast-moving Franklin Fire. The Mayor of Malibu joins us next.

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[09:41:35]

SIDNER: The weather may be improving a bit in Malibu, California, but firefighters still say it will take time to contain the explosive Franklin Fire. The fire spread at a devastating pace, devouring more than 4,000 acres. We are joined now by the Mayor of Malibu, Doug Stewart.

Thank you so much, sir. I know you have lots to do in your community and lots of people relying on you. You know, at first, Mayor, this fire at one point was burning so fast and so furiously, it was consuming an area larger than five football fields every single minute. Can you give us a sense of just how extensive the damage is and what conditions are at the moment now there?

MAYOR DOUG STEWART, MALIBU, CALIFORNIA: Well, first off, thank you for having me. This was a very traumatic event, as you can imagine, but wildfires are not anything new to Southern California, especially in Malibu. It -- you're correct, the wind was howling. We probably had somewhere between 30 to 50 knot winds going through the canyons. And where that fire started is like a chimney. And it was as though a fan was blowing that fire straight down the canyon, straight to the heart of the city.

As far as doing that many football fields in a minute, you're absolutely correct. That fire, when I got the first notice, I was actually on the phone with the assistant city manager. We were talking about how to deal with power shutoffs that the Edison Company had done. And within a matter of moments, it went from 10 acres to 30 to 100. And it was ripping.

So it was a fire to fight. And thankfully our first responders were ready for the attack and they did all they could. When you ask about what the conditions are, we had major fire burn, but we didn't have major fire damage. We lost a few homes, but when I was looking at the aerial shots from the TV news stations as the fire was burning, I thought we were going to lose major, major areas of very critical infrastructure and homes right in the heart of our city. So we were lucky and very thankful that we're where we are today.

SIDNER: Yeah, I've been in Malibu and actually during fires when I lived in Southern California and sort of seen just the difficult terrain because of the canyons and the ridges there to try and get to those fires, to save property and save lives. The fire did catch a lot of people off guard with just how fast and furious it was. Many telling us that they literally left with the clothes on their backs.

But so far we've not seen any reports of fatalities or injuries reported. Why do you think that is? What was the key to saving lives in this really fast-moving fire?

STEWART: Well, I think the best thing I can tell you is we had a Woolsey Fire in 2018. It was called the Woolsey Fire. Major fire

burned for several days. And in our town, we have about 8,000 homes and we lost almost 500 of those in that fire. The after-action reports from that were taken very seriously. There were three of them.

I read every page, so did everybody else that was in charge. And we took that to heart and said, this is what we need to do to fix this. We should not be in this kind of position again.

[09:45:02]

So in the five years, six years since then, we've made major changes, especially the fire department has and the sheriff's department, as well as our city to be ready. And I can tell you one of the big changes that happened in that is instead of escalating fire response based upon as the fire develops, everything's turned over now. It's now everybody rolls. We'll back them off if we don't need them. And they were pre-positioned on Monday night because of the red flag warnings that the weather service had given us. And they were able to respond quickly and in force.

I would characterize it as a three-alarm fire response in a matter of minutes. It didn't take long to get everybody there, still more people rolling in, but we didn't have to wait 30 minutes or so to get a fire trucker to arrive on scene. They were already here.

SIDNER: Wow. I do want to ask you about one issue that has really, you know, captured people's worry because these fires are coming more frequently and they're much larger often and causing a lot more damage, the issue of insurance. And I know from that Woolsey Fire that we've spoken to people who are having issues trying to get insurance after that because the insurance companies are either pulling out or they're making their costs much higher.

What is your concern that you're hearing from residents when it comes to that as climate change and the fires just continue to burn in a really big way there?

STEWART: Well, I think you're absolutely correct about the insurance issues as far as the climate change being directed to it. That's probably a factor. There's no question about it. But I think we've also got an insurance system here, at least in Southern California and California that is not up to match the kind of risk as being assigned to them or their undertaking.

In Malibu, myself included, we all have had trouble getting insurance or there's no insurance available. Or if you get insurance, it's so priced up, you can't afford it. And I have to tell you, my biggest concern in this fire and this fire season is that people that are underinsured and, you know, Malibu is viewed as being a millionaire city, but there's a lot of people that I assure you that don't have a million dollars that live here. We're just a typical suburban area, although in a beautiful area, but we don't have insurance necessarily.

And some of these people are going to sit there and see that fire coming and say, send the wife and children away. I'm going to stay and fight the fire and at great risk. And we can't let that happen. Insurance is hard to come by. It's very expensive. I think this is a state issue that's going to have to be addressed in a better manner. But right now, we're probably as a city and as a state underinsured, underprotected.

SIDNER: Mayor Doug Stewart, I'm so glad that you're OK, that the residents there and there has been no loss of life. Thank you very much for coming on and sharing the story with us this morning about what is happening in Malibu due to the Franklin Fire. Appreciate you.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: This morning, confusion and frustration still over dozens of mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey. It's been going on for weeks and some state officials now have gone from asking questions to now demanding answers.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now I'm legitimately concerned for what the hell is going on because that nobody knows.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are literally being invaded by drones and we have no idea who's doing it and where they're coming from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[09:52:56]

BERMAN: So this morning confusion, fear, anger, and now conspiracy theories over the waves of these mysterious drones that keep flying over New Jersey. The Department of Homeland Security still has no answers as to where the drones are coming from or who was behind it all. One New Jersey mayor called it a "literal invasion."

Our CNN's Gary Tuchman has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Questions abound about what these moving lights in the sky are. But there seems to be certainty about what they are not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It definitely wasn't a plane because it was too low. And it was also going back and forth and then forwards and backwards.

TUCHMAN: Mark Taylor is the mayor of Florham Park, New Jersey.

MAYOR MARK TAYLOR, FLORHAM PARK, NEW JERSEY: They look like a small car to me. Their wingspans are probably six feet across.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): What they appear to be are drones, clusters of unidentified drones, flying much lower than a plane would. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the creepy part is not that it's just a drone, that they're so large.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): In New Jersey's Ocean County, sheriff's deputies took their own video of the drones.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw something flying a little low. So we took some video of it, you know, and not really sure what it was. Definitely something flying low and fast.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Lower, faster, and larger than a recreational drone, says the deputy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was coming in our direction. It spun around 180 degrees. Went back out the other way. Then it kind of looped around and then took off past us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Planes, they have, you know, a white tail light coming from them. And each -- each wing has a different color, whether it be red or green. Whatever it is, it's different.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Understandably, there is concern. The drones are occasionally flying near military facilities. But the Pentagon knocked down this social media post.

New Jersey Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew, who claimed on X that the drones are, quote, "possibly linked to a missing Iranian mothership."

SABRINA SINGH, DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: There is not any truth to that. There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States. And there's no so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): But it's all still a mystery. Homeland Security and FBI officials in New Jersey have just met with state and local lawmakers. They and the state's governor have stressed the drones do not appear to threaten public safety.

[09:55:01]

Nevertheless --

TAYLOR: People are calling myself, my home. You know, it's just, it's one of those things where they are alarmed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's definitely something, and we're just going to be looking into it a little bit more to see if we can figure it out.

TUCHMAN: Gary Tuchman, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: All right, y'all know this. It is the holiday season, which means it's the season to eat a lot. But a vegan diet for many of us doesn't sound so appetizing. There is, however, an entrepreneur and restaurateur who is changing

the game, making it her mission to make veganism not only tasty, but sexy.

Pinky Cole's vegan restaurant business is booming. She's expanded across the U.S., serving up great food with a name you simply cannot forget. Slutty Vegan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PINKY COLE, BUSINESSWOMAN: When I first started Slutty Vegan, there were a lot of people that were uncomfortable with the idea of me having a brand and saying slut. And I'm like, OK, so your kids are on TikTok and all these other channels, and they hear worse. But what I've been able to do is re-engineer word in a way that you've never seen it before.

I said, OK, I'm a former television producer, so I know what people pay attention to. I know what's going to make them watch it. I need to merge sex and food together in a way that you've never seen it before. And when I did that, it was a recipe for success. All I'm trying to do is get your attention.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And she did. Pinky Cole is our next game changer. She has some sage advice for how to live life. Join us for the full story tomorrow right here on CNN News Central at 9 a.m.

BOLDUAN: I'm a yes.

SIDNER: I'm -- let me tell you something. The food is good. Now, John is keeping quiet. He likes --

BERMAN: You merge food and sex. Have you seen "9 1/2 Weeks?" Just saying.

BOLDUAN: Wait, guys, we've come up with another nickname for someone.

SIDNER: Yes, we have.

BERMAN: All right.

BOLDUAN: John, don't take it.

BERMAN: We have to say goodbye. Thank you for joining us.

Jim Acosta better do something soon.

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