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YouTubers Teach People to Eat on $1 a Day; Trump's Push for Peace in the New Year; New Era of College Football. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired January 01, 2026 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
BRIAN ABEL, CNN ANCHOR: We've heard this before and we've actually heard President Biden give some praise to this concept. Let's take a listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You know, within the first two months of office, I signed the American Rescue Plan, the most significant economic recovery package in our history. And I also learned something from Donald Trump. He signed checks for people for $7,400 because we passed the plan. And I didn't. Stupid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABEL: So, is this strategy a winning one? And are Republicans on board with it?
BRYAN LANZA, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: Yes, listen, at the end of the day, Republicans are always on board for returning taxpayer money to the taxpayers, right? And so, whether it's these checks, whether it's these other components that are taking place, taxpayer funds is being returned back to taxpayers, and that's a good thing.
I do think it will work. I mean, I disagreed with President Biden on a lot of things, but he clearly saw the magic, or at least the marketing behind it. We saw the results of it in the -- in Trump's first term in office. People are still talking about the Trump checks that they received.
I think it will work, but also it can't be the only thing, right? You have to do something to address the cost of rising prices in the U.S.
I think one of the good things that they're doing -- this Trump administration is doing is you're seeing wages that are outpacing the growth of inflation. That didn't happen under Biden. In Biden you had the price of inflation outweighing the price of wages.
So, there's been a flip. They have more to do, obviously. But the checks are going to work. People want their money back.
ABEL: And we're going to come back and check on you to see if that was the proper outlook. LANZA: Geez (ph).
MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: If they get those checks. That's a big question, right?
ABEL: The affordability crisis hits home for millions of Americans. And some YouTubers are teaching people how to eat on just a dollar a day as a result. CNN's Elle Reeve reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROOKE SOUTHERLAND, YOUTUBER, @SOUTHERNFRUGALMOMMA: Today's video is more broke meals. Meals to make when you're broke.
ELLE REEVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): These YouTuber sisters are a different kind of mom-fluencer.
EMILY ANDERSON, YOUTUBER, @SOUTHERNFRUGALMOMMA: We're going to the Dollar General Market first.
REEVE (voice over): Making super low budget food videos for people who are broke.
SOUTHERLAND: They have a clearance event?
ANDERSON: What?
REEVE (voice over): How to eat on a dollar a day. A week of meals for $10. These videos are in demand as a growing number of people are struggling to afford rising food, power and rent bills.
SOUTHERLAND: It doesn't look like inflation's going anywhere except up.
REEVE (voice over): Since last year, eggs are up more than 16 percent, coffee, 14 percent, and beef, 11 percent.
SOUTHERLAND: Oh my gosh, that is $43.
REEVE (voice over): There are fears tariffs could raise food prices more in the future. Electricity prices have grown more than twice as fast as the cost of living. At Central Services, a food bank here in Morristown, Tennessee, says it's seen 22 percent more new families this year than last.
Brooks Sutherland and Emily Anderson have expertise in how to make something from nothing, because they did it as kids.
ANDERSON: Most of the time growing up it felt like it was me and Brooke against the world. I would try not to cry but if I --
REEVE (voice over): Sutherland says she wanted to start making these videos after their older sister died.
SOUTHERLAND: When my sister passed away, me and my mother were going through her purse, and I got this little card out and it was from a food bank and it said her next available date to pick up a box of food. She had never told anybody that she was struggling like that. And that just made me sad that she thought she couldn't talk to family about her food insecurities.
REEVE (voice over): The sisters say they want viewers to feel less shame about having to make tough choices.
SOUTHERLAND: Y'all I think I'm going to take away the extra pack of Franks hot dogs and get a bell pepper.
SOUTHERLAND: There are some viewers that think that vegetables are the most important choice. And to me that just shows that they've never had to really struggle. Fresh vegetables are really a luxury in some instances. And that -- it shouldn't be that way at all.
REEVE: Sometimes you have to go to a whole bunch of Dollar Generals?
SOUTHERLAND: Yes. Everybody in our area wants to save money. And they take everything off the shelves before we can get to it.
No.
REEVE: How many hours a week do you think you put into this?
SOUTHERLAND: Eight, ten hours.
REEVE (voice over): We talked to more than a dozen people in downtown Morristown. Everyone was mad about prices.
LINDA BRADLEY, MORRISTOWN, TENNESSEE RESIDENT: Sometimes things is four times what they was a year ago. A roast I used to get for $12, $15, $35. It's awful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything, you know, it just keeps going up.
TONY MAYES, MORRISTOWN, TENNESSEE RESIDENT: Well, I used to spend $40 a week. Now it's $140 or something like that. I just don't think it's going to go down for a long time. They're not concerned with people like us.
BRADLEY: They said these tariffs that they've got on, it's going to bring prices down. They're not. Because it's going to have to charge more to make up for them having to pay to bring it in. And I just say everything's going downhill.
REEVE: Did you vote for Trump this last time?
BRADLEY: No, I didn't. I didn't see no choice of a good president.
[08:35:00]
No choice, I'm not choosing. Maybe we'll get somebody good in office and it'll change. Not before I'm gone, though.
REEVE (voice over): For Sutherland, she says she wants to keep the conversation positive. And to do that, she bans certain words from her Facebook page.
SOUTHERLAND: The banned words, I can give you a list as long as my leg. Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, tariffs, Trump. Biden.
REEVE: So, I was looking for videos kind of like yours on TikTok. And the nasty comment I saw the most, and maybe that's just my algorithm, was, well, this is what you voted for, you know, that's what you get. Did you get -- do you see stuff like that?
SOUTHERLAND: Yes. The politicians are politicians and they're doing a job. They're making money. But we are here together. We are real people. And we need to help each other get through this, get through these hard times, because they're not seeing us on a personal level, but we can see each other on a personal level.
REEVE (voice over): Elle Reeve, CNN, Morristown, Tennessee.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ABEL: Coming up, will 2026 bring armed conflict between the U.S. and Venezuela? More on Trump's foreign policy in the new year.
Plus, college football bowl games are a New Year's Day tradition, but for how long?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:40:30]
ABEL: As we begin the second year of Donald Trump's second term in office, foreign policy will continue to loom large over his presidency. He spent the last week of 2025 hosting world leaders at his Mar-a-Lago estate as he tries to strike a peace deal in Ukraine, while also maintaining a fragile ceasefire in Israel. And he continues to claim he's ended multiple wars during his second term.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thirty-five years of fighting and they stopped. Do I get credit for it? No. They gave me --
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: No, I think you do.
TRUMP: I did eight of them. India. How about India and Pakistan? And then -- so I did eight of them. And then I'll tell you the rest of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABEL: It is worth noting, CNN's Daniel Dale has fact checked the president's claim about ending eight wars. At least three of the conflicts the White House has listed either weren't current wars or mentioned countries where fighting has since resumed.
Joining me now to discuss what we are looking for in the year ahead, Kim Dozier, CNN global affairs analyst. So, Kim, there is no shortage of global issues for the president to focus on. What are you going to be looking for heading into the new year?
KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: What is happening next with the Ukraine-Russia negotiations? Will Europe and Ukraine together be able to convince Donald Trump that Putin is not in the mood for peace? Convince Donald Trump that, no, the Ukrainians didn't try to hit one of Putin's residences. One of the latest Putin claims that seemed aimed at unseating any progress that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy made in his visit to Mar-a-Lago.
ABEL: OK. We also -- I want to ask you specifically about Venezuela. There's a lot of issues here as well with Venezuela from the boat strikes, to now a targeted strike. I want you to listen to what the president said about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs. They load the boats up with drugs. So, we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area -- it's the implementation area. That's where they implement. And that is no longer around.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABEL: The Trump administration has talked about everything from disrupting the drug trade, to taking oil tankers, to toppling the regime. What do you believe is ultimately the goal here?
DOZIER: Well, I think as Trump's chief of staff said in the "Vanity Fair" interview, it is to unseat Maduro. To finally pull his regime down. This is something that the first Trump administration tried to do. And I spoke to officials who were part of that campaign, and they said, we just don't understand how we could sanction every possible thing coming out of that country and he could still survive.
So, this is a revisitation of that, but with more firepower. And it looks like what Trump is doing is ratcheting up the pressure, hoping that something will spell the combination that pulls Maduro down.
ABEL: There was something that sounded eerily familiar when you started that, saying something that they tried to finish during the first administration. I'm reminded of the Bushs.
DOZIER: Yes.
ABEL: And the argument of something that, you know, Bush two tried to complete from Bush one. There was a vacuum in that situation. What are the challenges here? Could we see the same thing?
DOZIER: The problem is that Maduro is so entrenched in power through an interlocking series of various security officials and other high governing officials who are all drinking from the same trough of drug money, oil money, et cetera. So, they are all equally paid off and they are all equally guilty. So, you have a vested interest among all those groups in keeping him in power.
Also, there have been several coup attempts against Maduro. At least four in the past several years. But Cuba has helped by putting infiltrators throughout the military ranks to spot just those kind of insurrections.
So, Maduro is entrenched in a number of different ways, backed up by the country's vast oil wealth and narco money.
[08:45:02]
Look, nobody in Latin America, none of his neighbors want him to stay in power, but it's going to be really hard to unseat him. And it's something that Trump knows he can't do by putting boots on the ground because his base doesn't want it. No one in America wants to get into another endless war, but that might be the only way to pull Maduro down.
ABEL: OK. So, there are a multitude of conflicts that we could talk about. Let's talk about China. China and Taiwan specifically. Because just this week we've seen China launch war games around Taiwan, seemingly practicing this naval blockade of the island. So, this comes just weeks after Taiwan signed this new arms deal with the U.S.
How do you think the Trump administration will handle this situation, and could it escalate in the new year?
DOZIER: You know, China has been playing this sort of good cop, bad cop with Taiwan, menacing it with exercises like this, but also reaching out to various Pacific islands to sign lease agreements, business agreements related to one belt, one road.
I think, in the long term, China will probably take its Hong Kong strategy with Taiwan in that it doesn't want to take the country by force, but it wants to encourage elements within Taiwan that want reunification, that just want this problem to stop, to let those get stronger. But in the meantime, it is very useful to rattle the saber to keep the U.S. off balance and to keep U.S. allies off balance. And we see what it's also doing with patrols expanding in places like the South China Sea, around the Philippines, a U.S. ally. We're more likely to see some sort of clash in a place like the Philippines than we are to see some sort of outright invasion within this Trump administration.
ABEL: Another thing that has put U.S. allies off kilter a little bit, tariffs. Let's talk about tariffs related to China specifically though. Right now there remains a sort of uneasy truce since October. How could that issue impact global trade coming into the new year?
DOZIER: It's been weighing down global trade, and it's also been making new connections that are not necessarily good for the U.S. long term.
Same thing can happen with sanctions. The sanctions hurt in the first six months, and then the system adapts. What you see right now is because the U.S. is so hard to trade with, various large market traders, India, et cetera., are finding other suppliers, finding other ways. You see people like U.S. soybean farmers very worried about this because they say now that China has learned to source from places in Latin America, made new long-term contracts with them, say the tariff situation improves, why would they change suppliers? And those businesses, those markets, could be lost to U.S. suppliers for good.
ABEL: OK. So, I do want to talk about foreign policy here. The impact on the midterms. What do you feel is, is the impact of all of these global conflicts that that the U.S. now kind of has their hands in?
DOZIER: Well, I have to say, this is, you know, a hard lesson learned when I was a foreign correspondent for many years, Americans don't pay a lot of attention to foreign policy unless they really feel like it affects their daily lives. So, in terms of Israel, in terms of Venezuela, in terms of strikes on Iran, as long as it looks like it's going in the right direction, people are more worried about their daily lives.
If something kicks off in Venezuela that the U.S. can't conveniently get out of, say a Venezuelan terror attack on one of the ships patrolling in that region off the coast of Venezuela, that could pull us into something that could really be a dead weight around Trump's neck for the rest of his term.
ABEL: Kim Dozier, very much appreciate your expertise. Thank you.
DOZIER: Thank you.
ABEL: While New Year's Day rings in the start of 2026, today is also ringing in a new era in college football, where the bowl games just don't mean as much as they used to. We'll have three more college football playoff games today as part of this year's expanded field of 12 teams. And while the expanded playoffs are bringing in millions for participating teams and conferences, the old bowl system seems to be at risk.
For example, just this year, Notre Dame had an Irish goodbye of sorts for bowl season after they were left out of the college football playoffs. They turned down a bid for any non-playoff bowl. And Notre Dame's athletic director didn't rule out the possibility it could happen again in the future.
[08:50:02]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE BEVACQUA, NOTRE DAME ATHLETIC DIRECTOR: Team making the decision not to play in this year's bowl game was a decision solely isolated to this year. We can't speak for future years.
Does that mean that if we're in this situation again in the future that the same decision would be made? No. It's year by year, case by case. It was the right decision for this team at this moment.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ABEL: All right, joining me now to discuss, Alyse Adamson, former federal prosecutor and host of the "At-Lyse You Heard it Here" podcast, and Mike Leon, anchor for The Legal Podcast Network.
All right, Mike, I'll start with you first.
What is the deal with bowl games these days? You know, like --
MIKE LEON, HOST, "CAN WE PLEASE TALK?" PODCAST: What's the deal. The Jerry Seinfeld (INAUDIBLE).
ABEL: Right?
LEON: All right, so why are we turning to two legal anchors, right?
ABEL: Yes.
LEON: Well, first off, in a previous life I hosted a college football show.
ABEL: Yes.
LEON: And I formerly was a producer at ESPN. So, let's turn there.
OK, so you got the bowls, which are, again, pitting matchups of six and six, eight and four, seven and five teams playing in Tampa, whatever, there's warm weather.
ABEL: The toilet bowls.
LEON: The toilet bowl. Correct. Rutgers, my school, my alma mater here, we love playing in those type of games.
Now, we've got the New Year's Day bowl system. The college football playoff a few years ago was introduced. And now we warped that into the bowl system. So, long days of watching the Rose Bowl Parade and, you know, and then seeing the Rose Bowl game and the traditional Big Ten versus Pac-12, those days are gone.
ABEL: Yes.
LEON: The Pac-12 doesn't even exist anymore.
So, now we've got this new playoff system and we've got these new bowl games, and we've got the playoff wrapped around the bowls. And eventually what's going to happen is, it sucks because the smaller teams, the group of five teams that are not in the power four conferences, they're going to lose these opportunities because corporate sponsors are going to start pulling back from these bowl games. We saw it this year. You mentioned Notre Dame, but Rutgers as well opted out of a bowl because they didn't have enough six and six teams. They went to the five and seven teams, because my school sucks, and we whatchamacallit (ph). We said no. Baylor said no.
ABEL: Sorry, not sorry, as a fan of another B1G intense (ph) school.
LEON: So, exactly. Exactly.
But that's what's going to happen. Eventually we're going to see that the bowls, the traditional bowls, are going to start to collapse. The ones that have been around for a lot, like the Dukes Mayo Bowl is -- do you even know what the Duke Mayo Bowl is? Exactly.
ABEL: Right.
LEON: It's a mayonnaise company that has a bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the winning coach gets dumped with mayonnaise.
ABEL: OK, so does the public at large really care then if these bowls go away?
LEON: Let's ask.
ABEL: When they're like, there's so many with such obscure corporate sponsorships, you know?
LEON: I mean, well, here's the thing, right? And you know this as a Michigan guy and me at Rutgers.
ABEL: The Pop-Tart Bowl.
LEON: Like, I would -- I would -- I would travel to these bowl games.
ABEL: Yes.
LEON: You know, if Rutgers played in the Papa Johns Bowl in Birmingham, right? So, you'd go. You'd bring, you know, 10,000 alumni. You sell your tickets as part of your allotment. The sponsor's happy. It's on ESPN. You know, the kids that are, you know, seven and five season. Hey, we get to go play for something and a trophy. Now the participation trophy era is starting to move out because this college football playoff is here.
ABEL: Yes.
LEON: It's circumvented and worked with the big bowls. And now we have that system and nobody really cares about these other -- the Louisiana Carriers Bowl and stuff like that. You don't even know that they exist.
ALYSE ADAMSON, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR AND HOST, "AT-LYSE YOU HEARD IT HERE" PODCAST: I was going to say, if I represent the public at large --
LEON: Yes. You are (ph).
ADAMSON: And I'm not the biggest college football fan.
ABEL: Yes.
ADAMSON: I was always in it for the pageantry of the big bowls.
ABEL: Yes. ADAMSON: And so, I agree. I mean, if all of these go away, I didn't even know they existed in the first place.
ABEL: Right.
LEON: Right.
ABEL: Well, and to your point, like, I remember back when Rose Bowl, Citrus Bowl, Orange Bowl, those are the big ones. And I guess to some extent some of them can still be because those are the entry level of the playoff system, right?
LEON: Second round now.
ABEL: The second round. But, you know, when we get to these Pop-Tart Bowls and things like that, it seems like it might be just more for the corporate sponsors than it is for the student athletes.
LEON: And if you know anything about corporations, they need an ROI, right? Return on investment. And so, if I'm not getting that return on investment because --
ABEL: Something, something at Arrowhead Field or Stadium or --
LEON: Exactly. Right. Exactly. And so why would I -- I would put that money into a field and get more usage and mileage out of that, as opposed to a bowl game that's randomly in December in Birmingham versus two teams and schools that you've never heard of from two different conferences.
So, that's eventually, I think, going to start to shrink down. And it sucks because a lot of student athletes don't get that chance to play on a nationally televised game like that.
ABEL: So, is it -- is it the playoff system or is it the corporate overlords that have changed the dynamics of these bowl games? Because as we were talking earlier before here, this discussion, of how corporations have taken over almost every single stadium name.
LEON: Yes.
ABEL: They're so few and far between that are like a Wrigley Field or a Fenway Park anymore, right?
LEON: It's the -- it's the corporation. ESPN. Because what happens is, is that these corporations do have influence on game time, right, location.
We see the college football committee and what they're comprised of. But where do they go first when they turn to an outlet? They go to ESPN, right, because that's where the college football playoff unveil and the brackets unveil on that network.
[08:55:06]
So, corporations have -- ABEL: For weeks in advance, over and over and over again now.
LEON: For weeks in advance. Corporations have so much influence on this. So, you're right, it will shift where I'm not going to have the Pop-Tarts Bowl anymore and put my money there. It'll shift potentially more to working with the teams individually, stadium licensing and things like that. But I think corporations, in general, in life, have way too much influence.
ABEL: And, Alyse, because I know you have very strong opinions on this subject, last word to you.
ADAMSON: Yes, biggest, biggest college football fan ever, right?
LEON: Yes, right. Right. Right.
ADAMSON: I mean, look, again, I wasn't even aware of this issue, but I think the larger issue, which is corporate influence, I mean that kind of permeates so many other things, right, as Mike just said, is a more interesting one and how would you, if you wanted to, limit that interest, right?
ABEL: As somebody that grew up in Michigan, I just want Tiger Stadium again. I want the stadiums to be corporate free.
LEON: Yes, I got SHI Stadium, so I feel you. I don't even know what SHI is.
ABEL: And whatever way --
ADAMSON: I had Fenway.
ABEL: The big house. The big house, right, you know? Anyways, great conversation. Really appreciate you guys. Alyse Adamson, Mike Leon, thank you.
ADAMSON: Thanks so much.
ABEL: The Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl are later today, so catch them while you can at least.
The news continues after this. Happy New Year.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
