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Manufacturing Jobs Shrink for Seven Straight Months; Economists Say Blue-Collar Jobs May Rebound as Tariff Shock Eases; Former Special Counsel Jack Smith Testifies on Trump Probe; Nick Reiner Makes First Court Appearance on Double Murder Charges; Police Search for Person Who May Have Crossed Paths With Person of Interest in Brown University Shooting. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired December 17, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: -- interest rates, a shortage of skilled workers and yes, the president's chaotic tariff and trade policy. If you look at -- this is a monthly look at manufacturing jobs over the last two years. And so the left side here is 2024. And you could see there was some job loss last year as well, although there were also some months where manufacturing gained jobs. What stands out is, recently, really the last seven months in a row, manufacturing jobs are down. And again, it's every single month since those Liberation Day tariffs were rolled out.

Similar situation for transportation jobs, which had been growing last year. This year, they're shrinking. And perhaps this helps explain why the public has such negative views on this economy. Right? Back in January, a plurality (ph) 40 percent said that the U.S. was on the right track when it comes to jobs and employment. Now, a majority says it's on the wrong track. Back to you.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right, Matt, thank you so much for the latest there. And a new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Nick Reiner making his first court appearance after being charged with murdering his parents. What we know about the holiday party the Reiners attended the night before the gruesome deaths.

KEILAR: And former Special Counsel, Jack Smith on Capitol Hill, testifying right now behind closed doors about his investigations into President Trump and the 2020 election. And later, President Trump ordering a blockade on sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers. What this could mean for the economy that heavily relies on that industry. We're following these major developing stories in many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

We begin with Breaking News in the stabbing deaths of Director, Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele. Moments ago, the first court sketches of their son, Nick Reiner, were released. The accused killer there're in handcuffs and a long blue vest-like outfit as he made his first court appearance. KEILAR: Nick Reiner is facing two counts of first-degree murder related to his parents. He did not enter a plea today. A new arraignment date was set for January 7th, his lawyer speaking out just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN JACKSON, ATTORNEY FOR NICK REINER: We ask that, during this process, you allow the system to move forward in the way that it was designed to move forward, not with a rush to judgment, not with jumping to conclusions, but with restraint and with dignity, and with the respect that this system and this process deserves and that the family deserves.

We're joined now by Criminal Defense Attorney and former Prosecutor, Mark O'Mara. Mark, help us understand this because Nick Reiner being held without bail. He's waived his right to a speedy arraignment. What do you make of this decision and what's going to happen next here?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARK O'MARA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY AND FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, let's look at it this way. There's two tracks running, right? There's the track of did he do it? And it seems as though there's forensic evidence already compelling for that. So, there's no rush to doing or making a decision regarding that. I know what the defense should be doing and are, which is really starting to build up that mitigation, right? The why it happened, the mental health concerns he had, the addiction concerns he had, even the fight that may have happened the day before the event.

So, I don't think there's going to be a rush to judgment from the defense, entry a plea of guilty or doing anything other than the long road they have to try and build up mitigation to try and explain the way the why as to how this happened.

SANCHEZ: Mark, another thing discussed today in court was media access. In the courtroom, there was concern of not having Nick Reiner on camera or in photos. We've just seen sketches of him. How unusual is that?

O'MARA: It actually is unusual because in California court, normally media has great access to it. I know the defense doesn't want it because they do not want their client to become another spectacle. And we've already dealt with several of those in the past year, even. So, I know that the defense is trying to minimize all of that. Particularly you have someone like Mr. Reiner Sr., the one who was killed. He's liked by a lot of people. He has a great presence to him, or had.

So I'm certain what they're trying to do is just tamp all of that down because they have to be very careful, maybe six months or a year from now, tainting the potential jury in this case. And I think they're starting right out of the box. And quite honestly, it's a good move by the defense. KEILAR: I wonder what you thought hearing the lawyer talk about respect for the family here. I imagine it's very difficult to navigate such deep family trauma that is involved in this case. You have one child accused of the murders, another found her parents. You have two of the children here, who have lost their parents and their brother is accused. That's a lot to navigate.

O'MARA: It truly is. And Alan Jackson, the defense attorney, is doing a good job with what he said to begin with, which is give us time. He didn't say those words, but respect for the family, respect for the process, avoid this rush to judgment because, everybody, when you see someone like Mr. Reiner pass away, you want to rush to judgment.

[14:05:00]

You want to blame somebody. When you hear about Nick and some of the fights that they had and some of the previous dispositions and the addictions and whatnot, you want to rush to judgment. And that can be the death nail for a good defense when you're trying to at one point convince a prosecutor, maybe a jury, maybe a judge, to give the defendant a break. For some reasons, you just don't want to preempt all of that and really have that landslide of public opinion against him.

SANCHEZ: Folks may recognize Nick Reiner's defense attorney, Alan Jackson from other high profile cases, a very prominent attorney. We don't actually know who hired him. He wouldn't answer yesterday whether or not he was hired by the Reiner family. Can you talk about his reputation and what you make of that?

O'MARA: Yeah, Alan is a great lawyer. I've known him personally and he is really good. He's going to be good at what he does. He's going to overturn every rock. And again, that perspective of giving him the time, respecting the process, respecting the family is going to be very important. You're not going to see a lot of theatrics out of Alan. He's going to do this sort of "private book." But obviously, this is going to be a case with, as I mentioned, the mitigation, the explanation is going to be so very important and I think is going to do a great job at it.

As far as who hired him, that's very interesting because maybe Nick Reiner has his own money. I don't -- I presume he has some, but I don't know because I know that there are arguments of homelessness and whatnot. Maybe Alan has taken this case on with the possibility of getting paid in the future. You don't have to have a dollar in your pocket to represent somebody, but it's going to be an interesting case to watch him work.

KEILAR: Yeah, I think a lot of folks would expect there would be conditions, right, on whatever family money would go to Nick Reiner. There are questions though, I think about what the family does want in this, and what his brother and sister want. The L.A. County D.A. said last night that his office hasn't decided if they would seek the death penalty, that they would take the thoughts and desires of the family into consideration when making that decision. Can you talk more about the decision of the prosecution on that? O'MARA: Very difficult decision. They do need to listen to the family and should. While California has a death penalty still on the books, they haven't used it since 2006. And I think since 2019, there's been a moratorium. I don't think that this is a death penalty case. Whenever there's a family dynamic to it, generally speaking, we're looking at second, that heat of passion kind of defense. I hope they do not put death on the table.

Having said that, the family is destroyed. They've lost mother and father. They've lost a mother and father of the defendant. They're about to lose Nick to something. It's going to be an extraordinary long-term incarceration no matter what the outcome. So they're devastated. And now, the responding family members have to figure out what to do with what the remnants of what is left of their family. And it's going to be very difficult. Today, I'm sure there's anger, hopefully that will calm down and a better understanding that Nick probably did this out of the frustrations, the addictions or whatever else that may have a better impact than some truly intentional act to kill his own mother and father.

SANCHEZ: And Mark O'Mara, thanks so much for sharing your perspective. Now, some Breaking News in the manhunt for the Brown University shooter. Police are confirming that they're looking for someone who may have crossed paths with the person of interest seen in these enhanced videos released just yesterday. Police emphasizing that this new person was in proximity to this person of interest, but is not being sought as a suspect. This is not a person who they believe is involved in the shooting, but someone who they believe came into contact with them.

KEILAR: Now, FBI agents, once again today canvassing, you can see here the campus where two students were killed and nine were injured in this shooting ambush that happened on Saturday. Police say the shooter used a 9-mm, the most common caliber weapon used in crimes. Investigators are sifting through hundreds of tips after the release of enhanced videos and photos showing a person of interest walking the streets of Providence for hours before the attack. We're joined now by CNN's Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John Miller.

First off, John, I mean, how are they processing law enforcement at this point, all of the tips? What do you think about this video of a person who may have come into contact with the person of interest? How do they sift through all of this?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it's triage and what they have is, today, they are probably approaching thousand different tips. And I say that because they were rounding 700 yesterday. And then, these videos must have generated many more in that there was so much more to look at and associate with.

[14:10:00]

I might know this person, I might have seen this person. So triage is when you -- as the tips come in, you populate that form and you add it into the database so it's searchable, but you also take the ones that are most viable, right? Here's a person we can go interview right now. This person has a piece of video or a picture. This person has a suspect who fits a lot of the parameters we're looking at. Those are the ones that'll go to the top. And then the ones that will go to the bottom are the more vague, harder to investigate, more amorphous, sometimes crazy tips that come in when you have something with a lot of publicity.

But they divide those into teams between Providence PD, FBI agents, HIS agents, mixed teams, and they send people out. In the meantime, they have active leads that they've generated through the investigation involving specific people. And as we saw the other day, sometimes you work through those and you end up exonerating somebody. And sometimes you keep working those to see if they bear fruit.

SANCHEZ: John, we saw more FBI agents out today looking for clues. We played video a moment ago of that canvassing. We're now five days out from this incident. It gets more challenging as the days goes on -- as the days go on. What do you think they're looking for now?

MILLER: Well, I think, as we saw yesterday, they not only expanded the video canvas and then were able to give us basically, the entire route from the first place they pick up images of the shooter to the school where they lose him, because there's no camera coverage on that side, to his leaving after the event. So now, they have basically a map of most of his route. Going back over that ground now that it's expanded, they could be looking for a couple of things.

Number one, look at some of the images we saw the other day where we have him wearing a side strap -- a cross-strap kind of a backpack thing. We see that's not with him in the later pictures. So there's one possibility, he discarded that at the scene and they have it, or there's another possibility that that may be one of the things they're looking for along the way. But when you look at these agents from the other day pushing the snow away, they're looking for, did he toss a gun? Did he toss a magazine? Is there something covered by the snow? Did he drop a cigarette butt that could contain DNA? Did he toss a piece of paper that may have a map or a diagram or even a communicate (ph) on it? They really needed to scour that route. And I think you're seeing more of that today.

KEILAR: Yeah, really interesting there.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. John Miller, thank you so much for the expertise. Still to come, President Trump said to address the nation amid growing tension with Venezuela and a healthcare battle on Capitol Hill. What we're expecting from tonight's speech.

KEILAR: Plus, former Special Counsel, Jack Smith defending his decision to bring charges against President Trump after the 2020 election. Details from today's closed-door testimony.

SANCHEZ: And Australians gathering to remember victims of the Bondi Beach shooting, as we learn more about the charges against the surviving suspect. That and much more coming your way next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:17:59]

KEILAR: The writer of the explosive Vanity Fair article on Susie Wiles, the Chief of Staff for President Trump, says that nothing was taken out of context, the claim the White House made in defense of Wiles. Journalist and author, Chris Whipple says, neither Wiles nor the White House has actually denied any detail in this report. Whipple said there are 11 interviews over 11 months. This was a lot of material here, were actually recorded, adding the Vanity Fair is not releasing that audio. Whipple also revealed why Wiles chose to open up to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WHIPPLE, WROTE VANITY FAIR PIECE ON SUSAN WILES: She knew I was working on a book at the outset. When I told her that Vanity Fair had agreed to do a piece, to publish a piece, she was all in and enthusiastic about it.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST OF "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Why? Because she is so legendarily averse to being out front.

WHIPPLE: That's why I say that this was lightning striking. All I can tell you is what she told me. She felt the Trump 1.0 had been unfairly covered, that Trump was vilified.

COOPER: During the first administration?

WHIPPLE: During the first administration. She wanted a fair hearing and I think she thought she would get one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Just a recap, among other comments Wiles made, she said in the piece that the president has "an alcoholic's personality," something that Trump later came out and told the New York Post that in fact he feels that he does have. The Attorney General Pam Bondi, also according to Wiles, completely whiffed the handling of the Epstein files. She also said that Vice President Vance is a "conspiracy theorist."

Joining us now, Terry Moran, former ABC News Senior National Correspondent, also the publisher of "Real Patriotism with Terry Moran" on Substack and the Host of a YouTube podcast with the same name. Terry, what are you hearing about the aftershocks related to this piece?

TERRY MORAN, FORMER ABC NEWS SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the main audience that you want to watch is the president of the United States. And he and Wiles are very, very close. But no president, no CEO of any company wants your chief of staff to be making the news, right? That's exactly what they shouldn't be doing.

[14:20:00]

And I think, this has been a chaotic administration from the get go. And this is a window into it. I mean, why did she do it? I mean, Vanity Fair, that's the name and that's what they counted on. And I think it was irresistible to her. And is she going to get in trouble? She's in trouble already with J.D. Vance, who's come out and responded not by name, but by saying that people who say one thing in private and say another thing to reporters, you know, that that's a problem.

So, she probably has a problem with all the people that she named, Bondi, Vance and others. But the president seems to be standing by her right now. She does what he wants and doesn't really inject her own opinion and that's what he likes.

KEILAR: It can make it tough to do her job though if she's ticked off those other people, for sure. That that could be an interesting dynamic.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: I think we can all connect with that and hers has a lot of stakes. But I want to talk to you about one of the things that she said in this interview about where she'd like to see the president go when it comes to what he talks about, which is she'd like to see him pivot more from world affairs to kitchen table issues. He has an address tonight, but there's this whole thing going on in Venezuela, even as there is an affordability crisis.

MORAN: Absolutely and it seems like a lot of presidents, they have much more freedom of activity around the world. He likes to hobnob with the greats and the powerful men around the world, and getting things through Congress and dealing with the intractable cost of living, that's no fun. It's a lot more fun to go swat at the dictator, although no one in the United States that I know of has asked him to do that. I think he's got a real problem if that's what he's going to do with his address.

I do not expect that. I expect him, as the White House is telling us, he's going to tout his record over the last year and that's a dangerous thing because you can't tell people things are better when the facts of their lives say differently. Joe Biden learned that. Donald Trump at the bottom line, I think, this is his first really big salvo into the midterms.

SANCHEZ: There's also this disparity between what the White House and the president have said publicly about why they're blowing up boats in the Caribbean. It's about cutting the flow of drugs into the United States and then what Wiles told Vanity Fair, which is they want to keep blowing up boats until Maduro taps out. I mean, that's effectively regime change.

MORAN: It is. And it seems like that's the goal that, once again, nobody asked for. And yet, the actual sequencing of the use of American power to accomplish that goal is apparently, but according to people who are close to it, that there is no real plan that they're executing on. They're more or less popping off and seeing what happens. And I think the bottom line, at the end of the day, Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, more than Saudi Arabia, and that is exactly the kind of thing that'll get Donald Trump's eye. KEILAR: The unintended consequences of regime change, especially when oil is involved. I mean that could be -- that might be the defining story in a way of our careers.

MORAN: Yes.

KEILAR: Right? It's -- we've seen this play out for decades, so has Donald Trump.

MORAN: Yes. And it's amazing that the no-more-wars candidate has become a guy who's brought us to the brink of a war that no one, it's almost without justification. I mean, Maduro is a bad guy. A lot of people don't like him, but does the United States really want to topple him and engage in regime change? I mean the one lesson we've learned in this century is it's very easy to start a war and very easy to get out of it -- very hard to get out of it.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Terry Moran, thank you so much for the perspective.

MORAN: You bet.

SANCHEZ: Appreciate it. Still ahead, President Trump now suggesting Venezuela give up some of its land and other assets to the United States. We're going to have a live report on that from the White House. Plus, parts of Washington State under go-now evacuation orders as the already flooded areas brace for even more rain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:18]

KEILAR: President Trump says he has ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela as he's ramping up pressure on Nicolas Maduro. The move is a serious escalation against a country dependent on the revenue from oil exports. Venezuela's government calling it a reckless and serious threat. Let's go to CNN White House Reporter Alayna Treene on this. Alayna, what's the president saying about this latest move?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, well, it's not even just the blockade, but one thing that the president also said yesterday in this post announcing it, was that he was designating what he called the Venezuelan regime as a foreign terrorist organization. T hat does give the U.S. a little bit more leeway and legal backing really, to continue some of the military operations that they're carrying out. And also, could make it easier for them to sanction or seize any of these vessels.

But as you mentioned, Brianna, this is a major escalation of this. It's also unprecedented pressure that he's putting on Nicolas Maduro and his government. And one thing that's still unclear is what the full impact of this is going to be. We have to actually see what the extent of this blockade really is, but there's no question that it's likely to impact Venezuela's already struggling economy. Now, in the post that the president shared announcing some of this, I want to read for you some of it. He said, "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before until such time as they return to the United States of America, all of the oil, land and other assets that they previously stole from us." Now that last line, I should be clear, it's not very clear what he meant by that. We have asked the White House about that, this idea of stealing land and resources. We are waiting for clarity. Now, of course, the Maduro government have responded as well. They argue that this is just revealing the true intention --