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Man Plows Car Through Crowd at German Christmas Market; U.S. Narrowly Avoids Government Shutdown; Source: Trump Disappointed No Debt Ceiling Hike in Deal; GOP Rep.: Trump Got the deal "He Needed This Week"; Israel: Tel Aviv Hit by Projectile Fired From Yemen; Search for Answers After Deadly Christmas Market Attack; Funding Bill Passes Without Key Trump Debt Demand; House Speaker in "Constant Contact" With Trump During Process; Incoming House to Be Most Closely Divided in Recent History; Trump Threatens to Raise Tariffs on European Union Nations Unless They Buy More U.S. Oil and Gas; U.S. Lifts $10 Million Bounty on Syrian Rebel Leader; Activist: On Release, She Felt Liberated, and Started Chanting; Demonstrations in South Korea; Ukraine: Russia "Unleashed Real Hell" on Kherson; Zelensky Calls Russian Leader "Dumbass" Over Missile Duel Idea; Mangione's State Trial in NY to Begin Before Federal Trial; Mangione Transferred to Notorious Federal Detention Center. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired December 21, 2024 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:36]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, welcome to all you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. We begin with breaking news on two big stories this hour.

A deadly attack on a crowded Christmas market in Germany. At least two people were killed, dozens more injured. And the United States avoids a government shutdown with a last minute deal.

CNN VOICEOVER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN Newsroom with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: German officials are working to learn more about the deadly attack on a crowded Christmas market. It happened in the city of Magdeburg. German's chancellor is scheduled to visit the city in the coming hours.

Two people were killed and 68 injured when a car drove through the crowd. Now this video appears to show police arresting the suspected driver on the scene. Officials say he's a 50-year old man from Saudi Arabia who's a permanent resident of Germany.

Investigators haven't said what the motive for the attack might be. Our Juliette Kayyem explains that the man has been in Germany since 2006 and worked as a doctor.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: The killer's ties to Germany were deep. He had been there almost 20 years. You are not talking of, the sort of, you know, is it a Syrian refugee or is it a young person. You know, recent from another part of the country who got radicalized. It's that deepness of ties to Germany, a profession. We don't know about family, presumably an income that is different about this. And so, that's what they're going to be looking to. So it might be the ties to Saudi Arabia.

It might be something related to Gaza and Israel, which has amplified a lot of protests in Europe and elsewhere. Or it could be something uniquely German, and that, and we will determine whether it was politically motivated given what's happening in Germany. Or someone with just, you know, a particular reason for doing this.

BRUNHUBER: Now videos of the horrific attack are being uploaded to social media. We want to warn you the video we're about to show you may be disturbing. Now, have a look.

It shows the moment the vehicle plowed into the packed Christmas market Friday. As you can see the crash left items in disarray as people rushed to tend to the wounded. Here's CNN's Fred Pleitgen with more details from the scene.

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is still very much a mass casualty event that the authorities here in Magdeburg are dealing with. In fact, we're gonna get right out of your way and you can see that there's still a lot of fire trucks, a lot of ambulances that are here on the scene with the emergency medical personnel working here. This is a gigantic event.

And one of the things that the authorities here tell us is that the hospitals in the Magdeburg area, it's actually a very big city. They're completely overwhelmed with all this and had to fly some of the casualties to other places for increased treatment. The latest that we're hearing Is that this incident started the authorities say at around 7 p.m. local time when the driver plowed into the Christmas market.

And if you look from here, the Christmas market is actually a little bit over that way. That fencing over there is the Christmas market and he plowed through there. Now there are some barriers that I've seen to that Christmas market, so it's unclear how the car made it in there.

But you just showed that video, that devastating video of the car plowing through the Christmas market with people trying to jump out of the way. And that it would have been very difficult for them to do that, it's a very compact area. And, of course, 7 p.m. on a Friday night is exactly the time when most people would go to that Christmas market.

Families, people coming off work, the last Friday before Christmas. So the authorities are saying the place was packed. It was almost impossible for people to get out of the way, and that's one of the reasons why so many people have been so badly injured.

The governor of the state that Magdeburg is in has said that he fears that the death toll could continue to rise.

BRUNHUBER: Alright, I want to bring in CNN's Barbie Latza Nadeau in Rome. So Barbie, what more are we learning about what happened and the alleged perpetrator?

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, you know, I mean, the focus today in the first light this morning is going to be just on what that motivation might have been. We know this is a 50-year old man. He was from Saudi Arabia, been in Germany since 2006, and he rented the car, and that's going to give investigators, you know, a lot of information when he did it.

Was there a lot of pre-planning and things like that? So the focus is going to be on why? And of course, the support for all of those victims, 68 injured, you know, you just have to imagine the chaos of those jovial shoppers.

You know, the last Friday before Christmas, then being, you know, just horrified by this car getting through there. There would have been children. There would have been elderly people, you know, really a devastating devastating scene, Kim.

[02:05:10]

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, such a horrific attack. Barbie, what's been the reaction in Germany and elsewhere in Europe?

LATZA NADEAU: Yeah, there's just been an outpouring of support. Of course, every, you know, across Europe, these Christmas markets are very, very, very popular. And so everyone's thinking, wow, you know, it could have happened anywhere.

You know, it has happened in Germany before. This is not the first time a Christmas market has been the focus of an attack. And we've heard from the prime minister of Italy, saying that she's devastated with, you know, this terrible attack, the president of France, we've heard from the NATO chief, the Pentagon, everyone sending their support.

And also offering to help with the investigation in any way that they can, as they go forward, which, of course, is going to be the focus now, Kim.

BRUNHUBER: All right. I appreciate that. Barbie Latza Nadeau in Rome. Thanks so much.

All right. So for more on this, I want to bring in Glenn Schoon, who's a security and terrorism expert and joins us live from the Hague, Netherlands. Thank you so much for being with us here again.

So we don't have many details at this point, but this, it doesn't seem as though this attack bears the hallmark of a typical ideologically motivated attack that we've seen before, right?

GLENN SCHOEN, SECURITY & TERRORISM EXPERT: Correct. And it appears that there's a bit of a pivot in the investigation in the last few hours in Germany, where they're looking at sort of a mixed or convoluted motive that was probably fairly personal in nature. This person apparently felt somewhat persecuted by German authorities. And investigators are now pouring over at least three to four different social media channels. Checking out the details that we're already hearing through media channels, and trying to verify those if indeed this was more of a personal than a purely political motive.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, unfortunately, as we mentioned before, this isn't the first attack on a Christmas market in Germany, the one in 2016. The truck attack in Berlin, much more deadly. It is a real challenge, as we saw with Fred Planken pointing out, even there were barriers there, a real challenge to secure these types of soft targets.

SCHOEN: Absolutely. And right now, what we've seen, of course, in this new cycle is a lot of focus on the vehicle as a point of attack, rightly so. But we should all remember that the other big horrific attack on a Christmas market in Europe in recent years.

In 2018 in Strasbourg, France, actually featured firearms. So, vehicles certainly are not the only element here in terms of what poses the gravest danger. And authorities still also have to deploy, not just thinking about those barriers for cars and trucks, but also explosives and firearms.

So it's a challenging mix, not just on the intelligence side, but also the physical, and the organizational measures that are being brought to bear across Europe.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah. And especially this time of year, it's definitely a warning for other. Whether they be Christmas markets, holiday events, New Year's celebrations that are happening around the world over the next couple of weeks.

SCHOEN: Absolutely. And you just mentioned it, New Year's celebrations. So, we've seen in the last three years plotting against events set around New Year's.

Not just in Northwest Europe, but elsewhere in Europe as well over recent years. So, that's definitely an additional focal point beyond Christmas here that authorities will be looking at.

BRUNHUBER: What is the threat level these days more generally with what's going on in the Middle East? Whether it's the war in Gaza or the fall of the Assad regime and the possible resurgence of ISIS. Has there been a lot of chatter? Do you expect a ramp up of attacks?

SCHOEN: Well, authorities are and have been in several countries, the British government, the French government, Belgian government, the Dutch, the Germans have all in recent weeks, if not recent days, come out with statements for the public to be on the alert. When you look at it in the different threat alert scales that are still used in different countries, most of which range from a level one low end to five high end. Most of these are around the number four.

So, there's definitely been a heightened awareness about this threat in recent weeks, a concern that we might see incidents such as just occurred during the holiday period. And that will probably carry forward for some time yet to come. BRUNHUBER: Yeah, and it's worth stressing again. We don't know the motive of this particular attack in Germany. But according to authorities he did act alone.

It certainly appears that way anyway right now stopping alone will force attack. I mean, this is the nightmare for police to try and stop those. Are we getting any better in terms of looking at social media and being more active and trying to maybe proactively stop these types of things?

Or is it just impossible?

[02:10:15]

SCHOEN: Well, we're definitely getting incrementally better yet with groups, but I can't say we've made a lot of progress recently. Part of that is because these people sometimes now don't signal, don't have the leakage of their intentions, either towards people intermediate environment or in their digital world. It's not always that there's an elaborate statement or a clear pathway of breadcrumbs so to speak to follow for analysts.

The other problem we're getting is not just that they're not always leaving these statements. But sometimes, other than not going on media, they're using different platforms. So people will leave a statement on one and go to a Telegram channel and be in a different chat group and maybe give an indication there.

So, it's also becoming harder for analysts not just to find where the breadcrumbs are, but also then to harken them together. And that's still a tremendous challenge, and particularly here where there's no firearms involved. So, it's a matter of running a car instead of somebody trying to buy an illegal weapon that might be traced.

So yes, major challenge.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, such a huge challenge. A reminder to everybody to remain vigilant. Glenn Schoen, thank you so much for speaking with us.

Really appreciate it.

SCHOEN: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: All right, to our other top story. Just after the deadline and after days of chaos, lawmakers have averted a crisis. The U.S. federal government is avoiding a shutdown after the Senate just passed a stopgap funding bill by a vote to 85 to 11.

The House of Representatives passed it earlier and the bill still needs President Biden's signature. Now, the so called Plan C extends government funding into March. It includes disaster relief and farming provisions, but it doesn't include a debt limit suspension, which was a key Donald Trump demand.

That piece was stripped after a bipartisan revolt on Thursday. Apparently frustrated yet resigned, Trump lamented to one lawmaker that he was disappointed the deal couldn't include a debt ceiling hike, but some believe the president elect did, in fact, get what he wanted. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUSTY JOHNSON, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICAN: The reality is that President Trump did get what he wanted. He got a commitment that we're going to address the debt ceiling early next year, and that's no big surprise. Everybody knows the debt ceiling is going to be addressed next year.

Of course, we are not going to default on our debts. That would be catastrophic. The debt ceiling is a leverage point for whatever the minority party is.

President Trump wants to make sure that that's not a leverage point for him, for Chuck Schumer and the Democrats into the middle of next year. We, of course, are going to take care of that for him. And so, I do think he was able to get the deal that he needed this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: CNN's Lauren Fox with more.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At the last minute, members of the United States Senate able to avert a government shutdown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAIRMAN SENATOR: On this vote, the yeas are 85, the nays are 11. The 60 vote threshold having been achieved, the bill is passed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: This happened just a few minutes after midnight, but lawmakers coming together after what has been a whirlwind 36 hours in which Elon Musk and Donald Trump injected an 11th hour request to include the debt ceiling as part of these negotiations. Ultimately, after a day and a half of Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, trying to find a way to satisfy Trump's request, Republicans decided to move forward without an increase in the debt ceiling and instead use just a pared back spending bill, that includes $100 billion in disaster aid, $10 million in assistance for farmers, and a spending bill that will go until just March 14th, meaning that lawmakers are going to have to do this all over again in Donald Trump's first 100 days. On Capitol Hill for CNN, I'm Lauren Fox.

BRUNHUBER: Israeli authorities say a projectile launched from Yemen struck Tel Aviv overnight in a rare instance of the city's air defenses failing to intercept a target. Their sirens rang out over central Israel. At least 30 people suffered minor injuries in the attack with the projectile landing in Tel Aviv's southern Jaffa area.

The Houthis say they launched a hypersonic ballistic missile at an Israeli military target. This attack comes about a day after Israel said it successfully intercepted another missile launch from Yemen. Tensions between Israel and the Houthis have escalated for months as Israel has carried out its war on Hamas in Gaza.

The man suspected of that deadly attack on a Christmas market in Germany has worked there as a doctor for years. A closer look at a suspect is just ahead on CNN Newsroom and the latest on a deadly stabbing at an elementary school in Croatia, and he's left residents in shock.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:19:31]

BRUNHUBER: An update now on the breaking news in Germany. A deadly attack on a crowded Christmas market. Two people were killed and 68 injured when a car drove through the crowd.

It happened in the city of Magdeburg. Now this video appears to show police arresting the suspected driver at the scene. Officials say the driver was a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia who's a permanent resident of Germany.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAMARA ZIESCHANG; INTERIOR MINISTER, SAXONY-ANHALT STATE: As far as we know now, there have been two fatalities and a large number of injuries. The perpetrator has been arrested. He is a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia who entered the Federal Republic of Germany for the first time in 2006.

He had a settlement permit and thus a permanent residence and has been working as a doctor in Bernburg. According to our current knowledge, he acted as a lone offender. There is no information about other perpetrators.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[02:20:23]

BRUNHUBER: CNN's Matthew Chance has more on the attack and the man suspected of driving the car.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This is the moment a vehicle ploughed into a packed Christmas market in Germany, causing horrific casualties. Video from the immediate aftermath in the city of Magdeburg shows the market in disarray, with items scattered all around and people tending to the wounded. It's now known an adult and a toddler were killed in the attack about 100 miles west of Berlin, leaving the city on edge.

DORIN STEFFEN, MAGDEBURG RESIDENT: We are shaking. We are full of sympathy for the relatives. Also, we hope nothing has happened to our relatives, friends and acquaintances.

CHANCE: Police say they've arrested the driver of the car identified by a senior German government official as a doctor originally from Saudi Arabia. The suspect is reported to have lived in Germany since 2006, and to work in the region. A government official says it's believed the suspected attacker acted alone.

REINER HASELHOFF, REGIONAL PRIME MINISTER OF SAXONY-ANHALT: We are currently in the process of compiling all further data and also carrying out the interrogation. According to the current information, it is an individual perpetrator, so there is no longer any danger to the city because we were able to arrest him.

CHANCE: It's not the first time a German Christmas market has been targeted. Back in 2016, a dozen people were killed and many more injured when a crowded Christmas market in Berlin was struck by a truck driven by a 24-year-old Tunisian man. That attack was later claimed by the Islamic State. Now, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is set to travel to the scene of the latest attack as Germany reckons with a horrific act of violence just days before Christmas. Matthew Chance, CNN London.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: A seven-year-old girl was killed and several other people, including children, were injured in a stabbing attack on Friday at an elementary school in Croatia's capital, Zagreb. The alleged attacker, a 19-year-old believed to be a former student, is in police custody. CNN affiliate N1 reported he entered a first grade classroom and attacked the teacher and several children with a knife. A community official was among those gathered outside questioning how this could have happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARKO PALADA, PRECKO COMMUNITY OFFICIAL: A school should be a safe place. Even the children who are not directly attacked found themselves in a situation where they had to worry about their lives, which is an inappropriate situation for children of that age.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Mourners held a vigil outside the school, lighting lanterns and leaving toys to honor the child who was killed and those who were hurt. All right, after the break, lawmakers avoid a crisis on Capitol Hill. We'll bring you more coverage coming up next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:27:42]

BRUNHUBER: We return to one of our top stories. After days of chaos, the U.S. federal government remains open for business as Congress adopts a deal to avoid a shutdown. The plan extends government funding into March and includes disaster relief, but it doesn't include a debt limit suspension, which is something Donald Trump wanted.

Sources Trump is disappointed the deal couldn't include a debt ceiling hike. I want to bring in Natasha Lindstaedt, who's a professor of government at the University of Essex, and she joins us now from Colchester, England. Thank you so much for being here with us again.

So, listen, you and I over the years have done this a couple of times, talked about a last minute deal to avert a shutdown. Congress always seems to get it done in the end, but this time there were a couple of unique factors here that seemed to increase the jeopardy. These two wild cards in Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

So are you surprised that they got there in the end?

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: I am a little bit surprised that they did get there in the end because the end result is actually not what Donald Trump wanted. Trump was hoping that they would raise the debt ceiling or deal with the debt ceiling issue while Biden was in power. And Trump was also hoping if that didn't happen, that there would be a government shutdown because then that would look, that would make the Biden administration look bad.

But what we've seen is the original bill that was backed by Trump was not able to get through, did not get through in the House. In fact, there were 38 Republicans in the House that voted against it. And so, what we're seeing here is that Trump's hold on the Republican Party, while it is incredibly strong, it is not iron clad, but he definitely along with Elon Musk, we're trying to maneuver things behind the scenes, mostly through social media.

And Musk has become an incredibly powerful figure in American politics. Putting out information in this case, some of it was not truthful information about what was going on with the bipartisan deal. He was claiming that falsely that there was going to be aid to Ukraine in that deal, and you know, he has over 207 million followers on Twitter.

So he can have a very big influence.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah.

LINDSTAEDT: And he definitely was an agent at chaos, making it difficult for the deal to get through. But in the end, Congress came up with the solution.

[02:30:06]

BRUNHUBER: All right. So the solution, the winners and losers here in practical terms, it's those in, you know, hurricane hit areas who will get emergency relief. People in the military will get their paychecks, farmers, but politically democrats are celebrating this as a victory, is it really?

LINDSTAEDT: It's a small win for the democrats definitely. I think what they can see along the line is that because the margin that the Republicans hold over the democrats in the house is so razor thin. That it's going to be difficult for the Republicans to get things done without democratic support, without democratic cooperation, and the Democrats were able to remain fairly united in what their demands were, which was they didn't want to support the Trump back deal, which in their mind would allow Trump to go ahead with massive tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the middle class.

So, they were able to prevent that, prevent the government from shutting down, prevent the raise of the debt ceiling and also ensure that some of these programs that are important to the Democrats were remained in that bill.

BRUNHUBER: This has raised more questions about House Speaker Mike Johnson. So, what do you think all of this says about his future?

LINDSTAEDT: I think it's going to be incredibly hard for Mike Johnson to remain a Speaker of the House. He has to balance too many different views, too many different components, too many different actors that want him to either adhere to a complete MAGA line, whatever Trump wants but he's got to deal with Democrats. He has to engage in some kind of bipartisan cooperation.

And when he does that, every time he reaches across the aisle, the MAGA Republicans punish him. In fact, you've already heard about Elon Musk as a possible Speaker of the House because you don't have to be a sitting member of Congress. Senator Mike Lee and Rand Paul floated this idea along with House member Marjorie Taylor Greene.

So he's already facing the type of scrutiny, attention and conflict that Kevin McCarthy face when he was speaker of the house. So it's going to be incredibly difficult in this environment with such a thin margin Republicans leading in the house for Mike Johnson to be able to maintain the party discipline that he's going to need to do to get things done without having to cooperate with Democrats.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, so his future kind of hangs in the balance and looking down the road to the future here. This this kind of kicks the can down the road. So, basically we're headed to a showdown in a couple of months.

We know Donald Trump wants to raise the debt ceiling. Many conservative Republicans don't. So this does give Democrats some leverage, right?

LINDSTAEDT: It does. But that's one of the things that Donald Trump likes to do when he's been at least president, is he uses. The threat of a government shutdown.

I mean, there were three government shutdowns that took place during his administration, one of which in the end of 2018 the longest in history lasted 35 days. And it was about the battle to build the wall. Eventually he did cave to the democrats, but he's won some battles as well by using this thread of a government shutdown, which he doesn't seem to think is a huge problem all the time to get done what he wants to.

So, I think in our future we're going to see more of these battles to take place and possibly another government shutdown that actually happens.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, we shall see certainly plenty to be decided down the road Natasha Lindstaedt thank you so much. Really appreciate uh talking to you.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

BRUNHUBER: All right. So when lawmakers returned to Washington in January, the incoming class will be the most closely divided house since the great depression, nearly a hundred years ago. Republicans will hold a historically narrow margin, leaving them little room to maneuver CNN's Phil Mattingly reports.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF U.S. DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: All 435 house races have been called. And we can say definitively that house Republicans once again, have the majority, barely. And what do I mean by barely?

I mean, to a historic degree, barely. Because when you pull up. But the actual numbers are 220 Republicans, 215 Democrats.

That is a five seat majority in the balance of power. And that means House Republican leaders can only afford to lose two of their members in a party line vote and still win that vote. And yet, that's actually a lot easier than how it's going to be.

What do I mean by that? Well, House Republicans can thank the guy that many of them credit for helping them win the House majority for making it even harder. Because Donald Trump is taking House Republicans to be in his administration.

He started with Matt Gaetz, picked him to be his Attorney General. That nomination, or effort, failed catastrophically, as was expected. But Gaetz, Gaetz resigned.

That's minus one Republican. What about Elise Stefanik, close ally, New York Republican? Donald Trump's pick to be an ambassador. She's expected to be confirmed by the Senate, that's minus two Republicans. And Michael Waltz, National Security Advisor for Trump, he doesn't have to be confirmed at all. He will start on day one with the administration. That means three House Republicans won't be there for a period of months likely, which means if you do the math.

[02:35:29]

MATTINGLY: Take 220, minus 3, and this is where you end up. 217 to 215. If you thought losing two votes was the maximum and that would be complicated, try losing barely one.

That would be borderline suffocation for any Republican leader. And historically, difficult moment for House Republican leaders. What do I mean by that?

Put this away for a minute because I want to pull up some context here. If you take a look at majorities at every scale over the course of the last five decades, like right here, you'll see after decades of democratic dominance post Watergate, you got 149 seat majority at one point back in 1977. You can track that down hundreds, hundreds, 80s, 70s back to 182 that flipped when the chamber flipped. Of course, when House Republicans took over in 1994, they didn't have a huge majority, but 26 seats. Not bad. 1912 narrow at nine, but then starting to pop back up.

And we saw that toggle back and forth as both sides took majorities over a period of years until the most recent period where a new trend started right about there. 10 Democratic seat majority, then nine Republican seat majority, then five Republican seat majority. So, let's take this away and go back to where we are right now.

Because again, was 220, 215. At some point during this process, it's going to be 217 to 215.

And that makes it really, really hard on one person in particular. This guy, Speaker Mike Johnson.

BRUNHUBER: President elect Donald Trump has pledged to raise tariffs on European Union nations if they don't meet one demand. He posted on Truth Social that he'll raise tariffs unless the EU buys more American oil and gas. Trump claims the move would narrow the trade gap with the U.S., which he has consistently criticized as evidence of unfair trade practices.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, America is already the largest supplier of liquefied natural gas to Europe, but Europe exports more goods to the U.S. than it imports from the U.S. The U.S. is taking steps to work with Syria's new interim government after the fall of the Assad regime. The Biden administration is lifting a longstanding bounty on the former rebel leader who is now leading Syria's transition.

CNN's Alex Marquardt has the details from Washington.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. announced on Friday that it is removing the $10 million bounty for the leader of HTS, which is the group that just led the overthrow of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The announcement was made by Barbara Leaf, who is the top State Department official for the Middle East. She visited Damascus on Friday.

Part of the first high-level U.S. visit to the Syrian capital in years. Leaf and others sat down with the head of HTS, Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose group is still designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. Leaf said the meeting was good and productive.

She called Sharaa pragmatic and noted his moderate statements. But she said the U.S. will, quote, "judge by deeds, not just by words." Sharaa and others are calling for the U.S. to lift its sanctions on Syria to help jumpstart the economy.

Meanwhile, these U.S. officials also raised the case of Austin Tice, the journalist who has been missing in Syria since 2012. The head of hostage affairs, Roger Carstens, says that he has been amazed by the number of secret prisons in Syria being uncovered, and he said that in their search for clues, they're focusing on around six facilities where Tice may have been held. Carson's acknowledged limited resources and suggested that American investigators, including from the FBI, could join the search on the ground soon, but for now, sadly, there is no news about Tice's whereabouts.

Alex Marquardt, CNN Washington.

BRUNHUBER: Iran's most prominent human rights activist is vowing to keep up the fight for equality even as she faces a return to prison. Narges Mohammadi is the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner. She spent most of the past two decades as an inmate of Tehran's notorious (inaudible) Prison, where many critics of the regime are held.

Supporters say she's a political prisoner detained for working to advance women's rights and democracy during a temporary medical leave from prison. She spoke exclusively with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARGES MOHAMMADI, IRANIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: The moment they let me in the ambulance and I saw the streets, I felt liberated and I felt I could see a woman who was crossing the road without a headscarf and they recognized me and they greeted me and I started chanting women, life, freedom. And I felt that this is not a movement that is going to lose its strength, and it's still going strong because our women are very strong. And I was filled with joy to see our women like that.

And I greeted freedom because I realized I was not surrounded by guards and I could leave prison. But it was I had a kind of dual feeling about leaving prison.

[02:40:57]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: I understand what you're saying, but I'm also, I mean, I'm just so amazed that you would be leaving prison for only a period of time. You're jailed for defying the state and yet you still come out and you shout the slogan woman, life, freedom. You're on an international television interview right now that will be shown all over the world and in the United States.

And you're still standing up for what you believe in. Are you not afraid of the consequences?

MOHAMMADI: I have been tried for nine times, but, you know, and I, they continue to convict me of various crimes. But I think the path that I have chosen will never stop. Not even the prison walls and all these convictions can ever stop me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: And Narges Mohammadi has been writing her memoirs from prison, which she said is an attempt to show how the sparks of activism can spread hope in society. Demonstrators in South Korea are marching to the constitutional court where President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment trial begins this week. We'll have details after the break.

Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:46:40]

BRUNHUBER: All right, more now on the breaking news in Germany. A deadly attack on a crowded Christmas market. Two people were killed, 68 injured when a car drove through the crowd in Magdeburg, Germany.

Well, this video appears to show police arresting the suspected driver on the scene. Officials say he's a 50-year old man from Saudi Arabia and a permanent resident of Germany. Demonstrators are holding a rally in South Korea as they prepare for President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment trial to begin.

Now these are live pictures from Seoul where people are marching to the constitutional court. Yoon was suspended from office last week after attempting to impose martial law on the country. That shocking decision triggered weeks of unrest and protests.

Now, Yoon's fate is now in the hands of the constitutional court, which has up to six months to decide whether Yoon will be formally removed from the presidency or reinstated to office. The court plans to hold its first pretrial hearing on Friday. Ukraine says Russia has, quote, "unleashed a real hell on the southern city of Kherson."

More than 1, 000 artillery shells hit the city over a period of 40 minutes on Friday, leaving two people dead and 10 others injured. Kherson is just across the river from Russian positions, and officials say Russian troops regularly try to cross over with hopes of reoccupying the city at some point. Similar scenes played out in Kyiv, where at least one person was killed and 12 others injured.

Ukraine called it a barbaric attack that also damaged several foreign embassies. Officials say all Russian drones and missiles were shot down or failed to reach their targets, but their falling debris caused damage and casualties. Now, those strikes came a day after Russia's president bragged about his new Oreshnik hypersonic missile.

It was fired at the city of Dnipro last month in what could be the first time it's ever been used in combat. The missile has multiple warheads, which can be either conventional or nuclear. And as Nathan Hodge reports, it Russia's leader dared Ukraine to pit its air defenses against it.

NATHAN HODGE, CNN SENIOR ROW EDITOR: Russia's attack Friday on the Ukrainian capital comes one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted about the capabilities of the Oreshnik. His new nuclear capable intermediate range ballistic missile system. Putin, in the press conference, also proposed that the Oreshnik be tried out in a technological test as a proposed duel between Russia and the West, seeing how this Russian weapons system would fare against US supplied and Western supplied air defense systems that the Ukrainians rely upon to defend Kyiv and other cities against Russian attack from the air. And of course, Putin's brazen boasts and his pledges to test the Oreshnik have been described in terms, well, quite bluntly by the Ukrainian president as something, basically, nothing less than ghoulish with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky quite undiplomatically calling Putin a dumbass for his remarks. And it's also worth pointing out that Putin, in that press conference, also made some fairly glib remarks, kicking off his press conference by talking about the fact that war makes life interesting. And, in addition to going on to boast about his foreign policy successes and his successes on the battlefield in the grinding war of attrition in Ukraine's east.

[02:50:07]

HODGE: But the context for all of this, of course, is the incoming administration in Washington of President elect Donald Trump. The Kremlin expects, of course, that Trump, who has quite publicly pledged that he intends to bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Kremlin now expects that it needs to enter into any kind of negotiation over Ukraine from a position of strength. And of course, the Kremlin is reeling in recent days and weeks, particularly from the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was forced to flee and took refuge in Russia, giving Russian foreign policy a black eye, despite attempts by Russian President Vladimir Putin to spin Russia's military involvement in Syria. As a success, it's clearly been a setback and Russia in the coming days is clearly and Russian President Putin as well is trying to show the world that he remains on the front foot when it comes to the war in Ukraine, as well as when it comes to coming to the table with an incoming President Trump.

Nathan Hodge, CNN London.

BRUNHUBER: All right, this is a live look now at Capitol Hill where U.S. lawmakers just avoided a government shutdown shortly after the midnight deadline. House of Representatives approved a stopgap funding bill that also passed in the Senate by a vote of 85 to 11. President Joe Biden has to sign the law bill to make it law.

The so-called Plan C extends government funding President elect Donald Trump lamented to one lawmaker he was disappointed the deal couldn't include a debt ceiling hike. The source says Trump now realizes there are some issues conservatives won't budge on, even for him. The man accused of killing an insurance company CEO is expected to be arraigned on murder charges in New York as soon as Monday.

State officials say they expect Luigi Mangione's trial there to start before his federal trial starts. This comes a day after Mangione was transferred to a notorious federal detention center in New York. Kara Scannell has that.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER" It's one of the most dangerous federal jails in the country, and the current home of suspected shooter Luigi Mangione, who is facing a federal murder charge for allegedly gunning down the UnitedHealthcare CEO on the streets of Manhattan. Inmate number 52503-511. Mangione is housed in a facility described by one judge as having dangerous barbaric conditions and an environment of lawlessness.

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ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: All prisons are miserable places to be, but boy, the MDC is maybe the most miserable of all the federal facilities that I've been in. It is dark. It is overcrowded.

It's loud. It's too hot in the summer. It's too cold in the winter.

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SCANNELL: Violence, contraband and drugs plague the facility on the edge of Brooklyn. That is how some of the highest profile defendants in the federal system.

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SAM BANKMAN-FRIED: I feel really, really bad and regretful.

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SCANNELL: Among them, crypto king Sam Bankman Freed, embattled music mogul Sean Diddy Combs and Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Mangione will likely be isolated given his notoriety. A spokesman for MDC Brooklyn tells CNN for privacy, safety and security reasons, we do not comment on the conditions of confinement for any incarcerated individuals, including housing assignments.

More than 1, 100 people, male and female, are currently housed in MDC's notorious cells and dorm style barracks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HONIG: It's bad enough that various federal judges have actually given reduced sentences or given defendants bail because of the conditions inside the MDC.

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SCANNELL: In 2019, during a polar vortex, Over 1600 inmates were locked in their cells, some with frigid temperatures, inadequate blankets, and toilets that wouldn't flush, according to a lawsuit. Resulting in a $10 million settlement with inmates.

UNKNOWN MALE: We determined that heating issues had been a long standing problem at the jail.

SCANNELL: In August of this year, the director of the Bureau of Prisons created an Urgent Action Team to support the warden there and fill staffing shortages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLETTE S. PETERS, BUREAU OF PRISONS DIRECTOR: They are certainly riveted with a staffing crisis, which I think is a major driver of some of the issues that are bubbling up out of that institution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCANNELL: But in September, the DOJ announced five inmates were charged in two separate murders of other inmates. A six was charged with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing another inmate 44 times with a makeshift weapon. Another inmate was sent to the hospital with an ice pick stuck in his back.

A multi-agency sweep of the facility in October found a number of electronic devices, drugs and associated paraphernalia, and homemade weapons. And illegal cell phones are common. Federal prosecutors accused alleged gang members of taking photos from inside their cells, posing and showing off their tattoos.

Inmates are not the only criminal offenders. In June, a corrections officer at the jail was sentenced for accepting more than $20, 000 in bribes to smuggle drugs, cigarettes, and cell phones to inmates, according to the Department of Justice. It's unclear how long Mangione will stay at the MDC.

He could be back in court as soon as Monday for an arraignment on the state charges. Kara Scannell, CNN New York.

[02:55:25]

BRUNHUBER: Alright, thanks so much for joining us. I'm Kim Brunhuber. We'll have the latest on the German Christmas market attack at the top of the hour.

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