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New Fallout from Trump Chief of Staff's Explosive Interview; Person of Interest in Brown University Shooting in Area 5 Hours Before the Attack; Former Special Counsel Jack Smith to Testify Privately on Capitol Hill; Second Levee Fails in Washington, Forcing More Evacuations. Aired 8:00-8:30a ET

Aired December 17, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: ... accused of stealing a Ferrari in Miami and then crashing it. Just keep watching and you will see it crashing right into a light bulb. A lot of people watching all along the way. According to the CNN affiliate, WPLG, yes, the suspect first stole the Ferrari by posing as an employee of a vehicle transportation company. When the Ferrari never made it to the intended destination, police were then called.

Officers tracked him and the car down and now say -- and then say the suspects sped off and crashed as they closed in. And in case you have not been in the market recently for a Ferrari, that one is apparently worth $400,000. Past tense, clearly.

ChatGPT, will you marry me? A woman in Japan is taking her love of AI to a whole new level and marrying it. She's 32 years old and says after months of talking with ChatGPT, she started to have feelings for it.

Eventually, she gave the chatbot the name Klaus. Says the two dated, and then he, ChatGPT, popped the question. You can see her reading her vows, her wedding vows, right there. All the while, the virtual image of Klaus appeared with her on her phone.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the president to address the nation tonight after his White House chief of staff addressed Vanity Fair at length on tape in great detail, naming names, dishing dirt. We've got new reporting of what the president will say and what is next in their plans for scoopy insider interviews.

And the person seen on tape connected to the mass shootings at Brown University, seen for five and a half hours casing the neighborhood, authorities say, beforehand.

And new information coming to the light of the murders of Rob Reiner and Michelle Reiner. What we are hearing happened with their son just before at Conan O'Brien's Christmas party.

Sara is working the night shift. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BOLDUAN: So this morning, tensions between the United States and Venezuela are entering a whole new and potentially dangerous territory. President Trump targeting Venezuela's economy now, trying to hit Maduro where it hurts, ordering a quote unquote, total and complete blockade on sanctioned oil tankers to and from the country. He says Venezuela is surrounded now by a massive armada of U.S. ships.

The specific wording that he used in making this order may give some leeway when it comes to enforcing an actual blockade, but this is yet another escalation. And it comes after the United States Coast Guard. You remember this video from last week? They released it -- the administration released this. This is Coast Guard members seizing an oil tanker off of Venezuela's coast.

We're going to hear from President Trump this evening in prime time as he looks to turn the focus back to his agenda, giving a speech to the nation from the White House. And it also comes on the heels of -- John was talking about -- that wild Vanity Fair interview with his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. The interview sending shockwaves. One of the many attention grabbing things that Wiles said on the record to journalist Chris Whipple was about the boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela.

The strikes that the Trump administration has said all along and maintained are all intent on stopping the flow of drugs into the United States. But Susie Wiles now says on the record that it's actually more about Venezuela's leader. Saying that Trump, quote, "... wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle."

CNN's Alayna Treene is live at the White House for us once again. And the White House is very quickly, once this release, the White House began publicly defending Susie Wiles. What are you hearing from the inside?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, they quickly rallied around her. And I should note, this interview overall, it definitely left people stunned. There was no question about that. White House chats, we know from our conversations with people here, were blowing up with some of the comments that she made to Vanity Fair. And part of that is because it's so uncharacteristic of Susie Wiles.

She is someone I've covered her for years now who very much likes to operate in the shadows. She doesn't like attention, and she's very, very much strategic in everything she does. And so did lend itself to a lot of questions about what was the goal here, what was she trying to accomplish. But despite all of that, and despite some of the, you know, at times unflattering rhetoric that she used, we saw Cabinet officials and other top Trump allies like the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., immediately jump to her defense.

And again, from my conversations with people in that building behind me, a lot of this is because of who Susie Wiles is. There are few people that the president trusts as much as Susie and few people in his inner circle who see such little attention and credit.

[08:05:00] And so part of this was them trying to show their loyalty to her. Actually, one administration official said, yes, she's not necessarily someone who is, you know, threatening, but she is intimidating and she demands a lot of respect.

And so people wanted to show that in the immediate aftermath of this. Some of the comments that I found most striking was one from the president himself. President Trump was described by Wiles as having an alcoholic personality.

The president didn't just brush that aside. He kind of embraced it. He talked to the New York Post after this piece from Vanity Fair dropped and he essentially said, you know, I don't drink alcohol.

He famously is a teetotaler. But he said, I often said that if I did, there's a very good chance I'd become an alcoholic. He said, I have a very possessive personality.

And so that was just one example of the many people kind of downplaying some of what she said. I will say, though, from other people we talked to, this question of getting back to why would Wiles do this type of interview and kind of sow some division that we saw in the piece. They said, one, she often looks at these kind of stories that, you know, media and different reporters are going to write what they have. It's better to try and control the narrative.

And we, of course, as well, I should note, heard from Wiles really pushing back on this and criticizing the way that Vanity Fair wrote this piece, saying that it was a disingenuous hit piece on her, saying that it lacked context. We heard from Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, arguing that there was bias by omission.

But another -- one of the things in this piece that I actually found very striking as well was what she said about the vice president, of course, someone that many people in this building behind me, but also in the broader MAGA community see as potentially being carrying the torch to become the to ultimately succeed Donald Trump.

She said that his conversion from a never Trumper to a MAGA acolyte was somewhat political. She also argued that he was a conspiracy theorist. Vance was actually pressed on this.

He was doing an event yesterday on affordability in Pennsylvania, and he was asked by reporters about this. You could see him stumbling a bit, but this was his response. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, UNITED STATES VICE PRESIDENT: Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true.

And by the way, Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time.

And the last thing I'll say is, if any of us have learned a lesson from that Vanity Fair article, I hope that the lesson is we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So a few things I took away from that. One is that in the beginning, he kind of brushed aside the conspiracy theorist part. But that last line was interesting, saying if we've learned anything, it's not to talk to these people.

I should note, Kate, that he was one of the people who posed for some of those glamour shots that Vanity Fair did with a ton of the president's top officials they labeled the inner circle. Vance was seen, you know, posing for some of those as well, just to add a little context there.

BOLDUAN: Oh, yes, yes. And on the record, those photographs were not secret. Those were on the record, as well as the 11 interviews over 11 months that Susie Wells did with Chris Whipple. Alayna thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: Yes, he seemed pretty chummy with a photographer based on the account in Vanity Fair, as well as they were taking those on the record photographs.

All right. Today, search teams could begin canvassing new areas in the neighborhoods surrounding Brown University. Authorities there have released what they're calling enhanced images now of some of the video taken of this individual walking around the neighborhoods. This is all from before the attack took place in the engineering building that killed two students and wounded nine others. And authorities now say this individual was there for five and a half hours on these streets in those neighborhoods for five and a half hours before the shooting.

With us now is Chris Swecker, former assistant director for the Criminal Investigator Division at the FBI. Just talk to me about that. Five and a half hours walking around like this, looking at things. What does that tell you?

CHRIS SWECKER, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION: Yes, it tells me that a really thorough and timely neighborhood canvas can yield a lot of evidence. People, this is a residential neighborhood. In fact, some of those houses are gated. So, you know, these are people that are very protective of their houses and their grounds. And they notice people, they notice things that are unusual.

A car or a person like this, who four years after COVID is wearing a surgical mask. He's wearing very bulky clothing. He's just hanging around in the neighborhood. So, you know, I think there's a lot to work with here, given, you know, the video that has surfaced, not from the campus, primarily from Ring cameras in the neighborhood, that, you know, and the now a very aggressive, proactive outreach to the general public to try to get tips and leads generated.

[08:10:00]

I think we're going to see some movement in this case here over the next day or two.

BERMAN: Yes, it's interesting because these neighborhoods where I was just walking around. Brown University is on College Hill, and, you know, it's a big college with a lot of buildings, and it sort of seeps into different neighborhoods. The engineering building where the shooting took place is sort of on the edge of the main campus area, and then you do get into this residential area.

So whereas the campus cameras may have gone up to the edge there, then they have to rely on all the houses here. And I think one of the issues is they had to go back to some of these residents to say, hey, can you look again to see if you have any footage here? Does it still feel to you, Chris, like they're playing catch-up in this investigation?

SWECKER: Yes, it really does. An analogy for me is bank robberies. We work those in the FBI very, you know, very aggressively, particularly in the early days, and we would do the neighborhood canvas. We'd have a grainy photo from the bank. But always, they canvassed the bank. They always hung out in a nearby neighborhood. There was always a car.

And these neighborhood canvases have to go out right away. They can't just be in the immediate neighborhood. You have to go out further and further and just do it, you know, very, very thorough interviews and knock on doors and walk the area and look, you know, people notice cars, they notice things. And, you know, I don't know that that happened in the very beginning here.

In fact, I heard yesterday that it took them three days to get to a nearby business and ask for their video. And we live in the age of video now, and that often solves crimes. And everybody has a Ring camera or some type of home video surveillance system.

So yes, one, I think they were behind the eight ball there. Two, I think they're playing catch up, as you mentioned. And I think there is, you know, when you see them reach proactively out to the general public that tells you that they're sort of stumped.

BERMAN: Yes, well, look, let's hope this does shake something loose. Chris Swecker, great to speak with you this morning. Thanks very much.

All right, torrential rains burst a key river barrier. There is heavy flooding and concerns of even more dangerous weather on the way.

And we're standing by for former special counsel Jack Smith to appear before Congress, what they want to hear from him and the unusual way they're going about this.

Now, that is a point of order, the parliamentary brawl when legislation goes wild.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BOLDUAN: This morning, Jack Smith is headed to Capitol Hill. He's about to face House lawmakers for a closed door deposition with the House Judiciary Committee. He was subpoenaed to testify by the Republican chair of the committee, Jim Jordan, who has long, long criticized Smith's investigations of Donald Trump, calling the probes and the cases against Donald Trump politically motivated, something that Smith, who was special counsel, of course, has denied.

The focus here are the cases that he built against Trump on Trump's handling of classified documents and the president's role in attempting to overturn -- allegedly overturn the 2020 election.

Joining me right now for more on this is Sarah Krissoff, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. It's good to see you again, Sarah. So Jack Smith, even before going into this and what we could learn, he wanted to testify publicly. He had said that. President Trump had even said about this whole thing, I'd rather see him testify publicly, but they are not doing that.

How much can he say and what restrictions are there still on what he can disclose since the final reports of these investigations, these massive investigations are still blocked by a judge from being released?

SARAH KRISSOFF, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Yes, there are pretty big restrictions on what he can say. And so he is hindered in a few ways. First, he has the grand jury secrecy rules sort of overlaying everything he does. So to the extent parts of the investigative record are still protected by grand jury secrecy, he's not going to be allowed to talk about that.

And then he has sort of this prohibition set by Judge Cannon on the release of information related to the classified documents probe. So he's going to have to navigate very carefully around those restrictions during his testimony today.

BOLDUAN: And look, you know, people close to Smith I've seen reported say that they're concerned that the committee is less interested in fact finding and more interested in trying to trip him up and incriminate him. How hard is that to navigate? What is he walking into?

KRISSOFF: Yes, this is going to be very challenging for him. I know he has counsel to sort of navigate him through this. But on one hand, he has the Republicans who are just out to trip him up and try to show that Jack Smith did something wrong in connection with these investigations.

And on the other hand, he has the Democrats who are very eager to get as much information out there about these prosecutions as possible. So you've really competing interests coming from the congressional members themselves. It's putting Jack Smith in a really tough spot.

And I'm sure he has spent a lot of time preparing for this testimony today. BOLDUAN: And then the question being, as Katelyn Polantz has told us, there will be a trans -- it will be transcribed. How much will be learned and what then comes of it? That is an official standby to standby.

It's good to see you, Sara Krisoff. Thank you so much.

So President Trump is set to address the nation from the White House tonight as he continues to face sinking approval ratings. Top of mind for Americans -- yes, the economy still. We'll see how he addresses that.

Plus, The Weeknd signs a massive 10 figure deal over his music catalog, one of the industry's biggest, most unusual deals ever.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, happening now. More than half a million homes and businesses are without power in Washington, Oregon, after a storm overnight in light -- unleashed intense winds. This comes after a levy failed in Washington from heavy rain, setting off deadly flooding in parts of the state and forcing evacuations.

Let's get right to senior meteorologist Allison Chinchar. This has just been a really difficult situation in that part of the country.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, and there's another round of rain showers on the way as well. Here you can see the radar as we speak. Again, you've got a lot of these showers now coming back in.

Thankfully, we'll get a little bit of a break is we go through the day today. That's going to allow some of those showers to kind of give the area a necessary break that they actually need to have. Can't get it to move forward here. Just a second. Give me a moment.

But yes, we are going to have a little bit of a break. And then as we start to go into tomorrow, we get that next round of rain showers. One of the other concerns we've had is power outages.

[08:25:00]

That's going to be a big concern for us going forward as we take a look into the next couple of days -- the power outages because of the wind. Keep in mind, because that ground has been so saturated, what we're really going to be noticing is the fact that you're just going to have -- actually, I'm just going to go ahead and toss it back to you.

Sorry, guys, we're having some technical issues.

BERMAN: The weather so bad out west, it's affecting the technical operations inside CNN's Atlanta headquarters. Alison Chinchar, I appreciate what you're saying there. But the bottom line here is they've been dealing with a lot of wind, a lot of rain in the northwest, a little more rain coming on the way.

This has been quite a weather system. Thank you so much for reporting on this. We'll get back to you when we can.

All right, new vaccine action from the CDC this morning. Why it says it is abandoning long-held guidance for newborns.

And standing by for the first court appearance for the son of Rob and Michele Reiner arrested for their murder. What we're learning about his behavior at Conan O'Brien's Christmas party.

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