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Tomorrow's Tennessee Special Election to Test Democrats' 2025 Momentum; Immigration Crackdown Expected in New Orleans this Week; Supreme Court Hears $1 Billion Music Piracy Dispute; Early-Age Phone Use Tied to Obesity, Depression, Poor Sleep; Senior FDA Plans Changes to Vaccine Approval Process. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 01, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Tomorrow, voters in Tennessee will head to the polls in a key special election. Both parties are pouring millions into the race in its final stretch, with Republicans scrambling to avert an electoral disaster. This is a congressional district that President Trump and Mark Green, who recently resigned the seat, easily won by more than 20 points each back in 2024.

But with polls showing a surprisingly close race, President Trump is pleading with voters to head to the polls. He wrote, "All America First Patriots in Tennessee's 7th congressional district who haven't voted yet, please get out and vote. And warning, the radical left Democrats are spending a fortune to beat one of the best candidates we've ever had, Matt Van Epps."

We have CNN's political director, David Chalian, joining us now. Always interesting to pay attention to a very local race that has these national implications here. Does the Democrat in this Afton Bain really have a shot?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, listen, both sides would not be pouring in millions of dollars to this race if they didn't think it was competitive. The issue is, Brianna, this race has no reason to be competitive if, except for the political climate we're in. So remember, a special election for the House of Representatives in an off year.

That is, like, it's not on cycle. It's totally off everyone's radar. So the most committed, dialed-in voters are the ones likely to show up and participate.

Right now, that's the opposition party that are dialed in and motivated. That's Democrats. We saw it in New Jersey and Virginia in a regularly scheduled off-year election.

We've seen it in special House elections earlier this year. And so that's what Republicans are guarding against here. Yes, it is a ruby- red district, but if only the people that are dialed in and motivated in opposition to Trump are the ones that show up, that creates a problem. Look at how House special elections, how Democrats performed this year. There have been four of them that have been completed. You see here that number on the right, the percentage, is the Democratic performance improvement over the presidential race in that district just last year.

So in Florida's first congressional district, the Democrat improved their performance, the candidate there, by 22 points, closed that margin. It went into the Democratic direction by 22 points compared to the Harris-Trump race in that district. 16 percent, 17 percent, Democrats made up 16 percent ground in Arizona.

Now, they didn't win all those races, Florida, those two races were Republican districts, but Democrats significantly improved their standing because Donald Trump is at a low in popularity and the motivated voters right now are on the Democratic side.

KEILAR: And in this case, 16, 17 percent, that's not going to be enough, right? It would need to be like 22 percent, maybe, really.

CHALIAN: Trump won it by 22 and the congressman, Mark Green, that resigned, won it by 20 points last year, yes.

KEILAR: Yes. Really interesting to watch here. So, and what is the role that the president is going to have?

Because it seems like everyone is flooding the zone here. Speaker Johnson was in there for Van Epps. What is the president doing?

He was on this speakerphone call.

CHALIAN: Yes, a sort of tele-rally that he's going to be hosting, and the, you know, the mission for Donald Trump is to counteract what I just described, to make sure that his supporters show up, that people understand from his camp that this is happening, they need to get out and vote, because if they do, it's a ruby-red district. The Republicans should be fine. So, Donald Trump's mission right now is just to really pour a spotlight onto this race and make sure Republican voters in the district know to turn out.

KEILAR: All right. We'll see what happens. We'll be watching.

David Chalian, thank you so much.

CHALIAN: Sure.

KEILAR: Boris.

[14:35:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: So, this week, President Trump's immigration crackdown is expected to begin in New Orleans, but local officials say they're being kept in the dark about the operation, with one city council member saying there is, quote, mass chaos and confusion as this campaign looms.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez joins us now. So, Priscilla, walk us through what we've learned about this.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, what we're hearing from city officials is pretty much in line with the way that this has occurred in other cities. What we're expecting here is for Gregory Bovino, the top Border Patrol official, along with over 200 agents descending on New Orleans to carry out the president's immigration agenda. This is the fourth city that he's done this at.

He was in Los Angeles, he was in Chicago, and then a few weeks ago, he was in Charlotte, North Carolina. In each of those cases, we heard a lot of the same from the communities there, which is that they were kept in the dark as these agents were coming in to carry out this immigration crackdown. And what we're expecting to see in New Orleans is pretty much what we've seen everywhere else, which is Border Patrol-led operations happening across the city as they target undocumented immigrants that are there.

Now, of course, the tactics they've used so far are aggressive, they're heavy-handed, and they're controversial. And they've also been at the core of some litigation, especially in Chicago, when dealing with protesters. So that is going to be something to look out for in New Orleans as they survey the space, as they carry out this crackdown.

New Orleans is also a place that Gregory Bovino is familiar with. He actually used to be the chief patrol agent of the New Orleans sector. So this is an area that he knows, he knows well.

So he is returning there with these agents to move forward with these operations. Now, the community itself is bracing for this in ways that we have seen other communities do. In fact, what has happened since Chicago especially is that communities have been taking notes as to what happened in each of these cities with Gregory Bovino and his agents, and how they too can either protest or also protect their own rights.

So we'll see how that plays out in New Orleans specifically. But as of now, we are expecting that they will be in New Orleans carrying out their operations this week. Again, that is a Border Patrol-led operation with Gregory Bovino, particularly at the helm.

SANCHEZ: And Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much for that update.

Still ahead, before you add your kid to your cell phone plan, you may want to hear about a new study that's out today. We'll explain with an expert in just moments.

[14:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Right now, the Supreme Court is considering a case that could change how you listen to music online. Following a jury trial in 2019, Cox Communications was ordered to pay a billion dollars for not doing enough to stop music from being pirated across its digital services. Cox is appealing to the Supreme Court, arguing the judgment could, quote, jeopardize Internet access for all Americans. And that is where we find ourselves today.

CNN's Chief Supreme Court Analyst, Joan Biskupic, is following this for us. All right, Joan, tell us what's at stake here.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Yes, big stakes all around today when we had a very lively two-hour hearing at the court. You know, first of all, you have the interests of musicians and their creative teams and engineers and producers. And the lawyer for Sony dropped several names in his brief that you would recognize and that Chief Justice John Roberts would recognize.

He led with Bob Dylan, who happens to be the chief's favorite. You know, Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, these musicians that have, you know, their livelihood is in their music. But on the other side are Internet users.

And Cox Communications talked about, you know, they're trying to be vigilant of getting people who infringe and do these peer-to-peer file sharing that, you know, download pirated music. But that, you know, it's hard to think about taking out a certain subscriber as the American Library Association and others warned, you could take out a single subscriber and that could involve, you know, swaths of households, schools, community centers. The question is, the legal question is, what constitutes liability for contributing to infringement?

Is it knowledge that there's a subscriber that's infringing out there? Or does the Internet service provider have to have taken some sort of -- engaged in some sort of purposeful conduct? So much of the back- and-forth, Brianna, had to do with the legal standard for assessing liability.

But I do have to say that there was a considerable amount of the discussion was over just what Cox Communications had been doing to -- with information that there were these infringers out there. Let's listen first to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is skeptical of Joshua Rosenkranz representing Cox.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SONIA SOTOMAYOR, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: Your client's sort of laissez- faire attitude towards the respondents is probably what got the jury upset. Here, you know that a particular location is infringing, and most of the time you're doing nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BISKUPIC: Yes, but also I should say that the lawyer for Sony, Paul Clement, also got a grilling, especially on just, you know, how workable the standard of the lower court would be going forward, or in the standard that Sony was pressing. Let's hear from Justice Samuel Alito.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAMUEL ALITO, SUPREME COURT JUSTIC: The ISP tells the university, look, you know, a lot of your 50,000 students are infringing my copyright. Do something about it. Now the university then has to try to determine which particular students are engaging in this activity.

And let's assume it can even do that. And so then it knocks out 1,000 students, and then another 1,000 students are going to pop up doing the same thing. I just don't see how it's workable at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:45:00]

BISKUPIC: Yes, Brianna, so you can see there were kind of dilemmas going in both directions, and I have to say that there seemed to be some sentiment for at least narrowly ruling at this point, because there's just a lot of money at stake here, a lot of interest at stake, and you could feel that justice is a little bit hesitant to do something that would totally reorient this area of the law -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Really interesting. That will impact so many of us. Joan Biskupic, thank you.

SANCHEZ: So it's a huge question a lot of parents face, given that technology has gotten so accessible and so potentially scary nowadays.

When do you give your kid a smartphone? New research is backing up some serious concerns, especially when it comes to early access.

KEILAR: A pediatric study of more than 10,000 12-year-olds is out today, and it shows kids who got phones at younger ages were more likely to be obese, to be depressed, and to not get enough sleep. This study doesn't even look at how kids use their phones and for how long. With us now is Tom Kersting, a psychotherapist and author of "Disconnected, How to Protect Your Kids from the Harmful Effects of Device Dependency."

You are the guy to talk to about this. All right, so this study is focusing on 12-year-olds. Talk to us about this age and the lead-up to this age, according to these findings, why it's so important.

TOM KERSTING, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: You know, interestingly Brianna, the average age of first smartphone issuance is like 10 to 10 and a half years old. So I've been lecturing on this topic for many years all over the country, and if I have a group of parents in front of me, you know, I will say, raise your hand if you think it's a good idea for an 11-year-old to have a smartphone. Nobody has ever raised their hand, right?

Yet the majority of people sitting in the audience, their kids have these smartphones. It's become a social conformity. And the biggest fear that parents have is, well, if my 12-year-old doesn't have a smartphone, then my 12-year-old's, you know, going to be the only one without one, and they're not going to have a social life.

Is that 100 percent truth to that? But we've got to get our heads out of the sand. I've been writing about this and lecturing about this for so many years. SANCHEZ: Is it really, Tom, just a matter of age and waiting, or is there a way to sort of carve out a device that is dumbed down, that wouldn't produce the kinds of results that we saw in the study?

KERSTING: Yes. So one of the questions that I get asked all the time is, you know, what is the appropriate age to get my child a smartphone? And the answer I give is when you're comfortable with your child watching adult content, because it's going to be there.

The later we can delay the age of first smartphone issuance, the better off our children are, because this is impacting them socially. We have an obesity epidemic. It's shaping them mentally and emotionally and not in a very good way.

And it's also fracturing the family system, because families aren't really operating like families. It's more like, you know, four individuals living under the same roof, staring at his phone. So parents have to practice what we preach as well.

KEILAR: Yes, we did that. We found as we were sort of taking our kids not off of phones, but off of essentially tablets, we had to diminish our use. And that was probably the most arresting thing that we noticed as we did that.

I wonder -- there's a group of school districts that's claiming social media companies, quote, deliberately embedded design features in their platforms to maximize youth engagement, to drive advertising revenue, and that it's contributed to a youth mental health crisis that schools must address. Can you tell us, what do we know about this? What do we still have to learn about the effects of phones on mental health and this kind of stuff?

Considering some of it is being used, you know, for learning and in schools.

KERSTING: Yes, so the smartphone, you know, became mainstream in 2012. And if you look at the data, the statistics, from 2012 until the present day, the mental health epidemic is like Mount Everest. It has just climbed up and continues to climb up.

Schools, I get those questions all the time. You know, most schools are one-to-one learning. You know, the kids have either an iPad or a laptop in front of them.

And there are certain rules, but these kids really can't control themselves. So schools are doing the best that they can. And I'm going to predict that in the near future, schools are going to start going backwards again and start to implement more paper and pencil learning, because there's plenty of research that shows that schools that are doing that, that don't use technology, that those kids are actually performing better on written assignments, on tests and things of that nature.

SANCHEZ: What about beyond school? I mean, is the answer large-scale regulation, as you see it? For instance, in Australia, they're going to make some platforms eject or block kids who are under 16 off their sites in lieu of facing very hefty fines.

Do you think there should be some action by Congress?

[14:50:00]

KERSTING: You know, I am not a big fan of, you know, the government getting involved in everything. But in this context, I am, because we need to do something. Parents, we're just not cutting it. We're trying the best we can.

But it's a huge social conformity. And I'm hoping we see some legislation which bans kids from having access to social media until they're minimum 16 years old. Again, the later that we could delay it, the better off their mental health outcomes will be.

Additionally, what people might not know, and your listeners would like to hear, is that the number one predictor of a child's mental health outcomes is the relationship that they have with their parents. And relationship can't be, you know, Johnny's in the basement playing video games, Sara's in her bedroom, and mom and dad are doing their own thing. Relationship has to start around that dinner table.

So we have to get back to those basics, because that's critically important for our children's mental and emotional well-being.

KEILAR: Yes, very good points. Tom Kersting, thank you so much. Your book is "Disconnected, How to Protect Your Kids from the Harmful Effects of Device Dependency." We appreciate your time today.

And still to come, First Lady Melania Trump has made some dramatic choices for the White House Christmas decor in the past. We'll have a first look at this year's decorations.

[14:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: There may be more changes to guidance about what shots kids should get. CNN has obtained an internal FDA memo saying the agency will adopt a new vaccine approval process. The memo from a senior FDA official claims new analysis shows 10 children died from the COVID-19 vaccination and that more evidence of safety should be required to get the agency's green light.

CDC data shows more than 1,800 children died from COVID between 2020 and 2023. But the chief medical officer says deaths from the virus versus deaths from the vaccine is a, quote, flawed comparison. CNN's Meg Tirrell has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this memo was sent late last week by Dr. Vinay Prasad, who was named in May as the director of the center at FDA that oversees vaccines. And as part of this memo, he says that FDA staff have identified 10 deaths among children that he says they've deemed related to the COVID-19 vaccine. Now, outside experts say they haven't seen these analyses and have a lot of questions about them before understanding whether they should accept these links.

But as part of that finding, Dr. Prasad says in this memo, they are going to take what he calls swift action regarding this new safety concern. Now, it's not exactly clear what that will entail. But also as part of this memo, he details a new approach to vaccine regulation writ large, including more stringent requirements for approvals in the kinds of trials that are run before vaccines are cleared for for the market.

In addition, he says they're going to look at the framework for approving seasonal flu vaccines as well as looking at the risks and benefits of giving vaccines at the same time. So whether that means things like the COVID and flu shots at the same time, or whether he's talking about combination vaccines given in one shot, like the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, which has been done that way since the 1970s, is not exactly clear. But this memo also comes just about a week before a key meeting of that really influential group of advisors to the CDC on vaccines called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Now, remember, these -- this group of advisors was replaced entirely by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this year. And they've sort of been systematically going through established vaccine guidelines and reexamining them, introducing a lot more focus on what they perceive to be risks of vaccination into the process.

So later this week, they are set to examine the childhood immunization schedule as well as the hepatitis B vaccine recommendations. So a lot of questions about what is going to happen with vaccine regulation and with recommendations with all of these new health officials under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for that.

Now, to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. Young people in Beirut turning out in droves to welcome Pope Leo XIV on the second day of his trip to Lebanon. Here's the faithful to, quote, build a better world than the one you inherited after hearing from some in the crowd about the challenges their country faces.

Pope Leo also urging leaders from Lebanon's many diverse religious sects today to unite to heal the country after years of conflict that's prompted waves of migration abroad. The Pope urging them to become builders of peace by confronting intolerance.

Some scary moments for a family in Missouri to tell you about after a suspected drunk driver crashes into their home. A teen girl was asleep in her bedroom and was injured. The girl's dad fought back tears describing what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've seen smoke everywhere. At that point, I just started kicking it and I kicked the door down and I just I thought I was in a dream. I saw a literal truck in my daughter's room and then I heard her screaming.

I think every parent's worst nightmare came true that night and no one thinks that a vehicle is going to come crashing through your home and just change everything that you had that day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: The girl's parents went on to say that she needed stitches and suffered a concussion.

And at the White House, first lady Melania Trump has unveiled this year's holiday decorations. The theme this year, home is where the heart is, a nod to America's 250th birthday next year.

Meantime, the official White House Christmas tree in the blue room ...

[15:00:00]