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Indiana Senate Rejects Voting Maps; Ivo Daalder is Interviewed about Ukraine; NTSB Warns of New Defense Bill Safety; DOJ Fails to Reindict James. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 12, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:32:05]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It's half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

Thousands of people remain in harm's way in Washington as historic flooding swamps the state. Dozens of rescues have already been made from record high floodwaters. No fatalities reported so far.

And former University of Michigan head football coach Sherrone Moore faces arraignment today. He was arrested yesterday just hours after his firing from the school was announced for an alleged inappropriate relationship with a staffer. It's possible he's released today without charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What a nice group of Democrats. We do, we have a lot of Democrats, and we welcome you, honestly, we do. And I think we're going to start working together on health care. I really predict that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Is President Trump ready to work with Democrats on health care? His comments come hours after the Senate rejects two health care bills. The Republican bill would have expanded health savings accounts. The Democratic bill would have extended tax subsidies, which expire at the end of this year.

And a bitter fight among Republicans in Indiana to redraw their congressional districts is over. And the White House is on the losing side. The Republican-controlled Indiana State Senate just rejected a proposed map which would have wiped away the only two Democratic- controlled districts in the state. Now, this is a blow to President Trump, who had lobbied hard in recent weeks to pass the maps. Some Indiana senate Republicans who voted no said the entire process was ruined by over-the-top pressure

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG GOODE (R), INDIANA STATE SENATOR: Threats of primaries, threats of violence, acts of violence. Friends, we're better than this, are we not?

JEAN LEISING (R), INDIANA STATE SENATOR: You wouldn't change minds by being mean. And -- and the efforts were mean spirited from the get go.

I, very frankly, you know, I wish that President Trump would change his tone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: After the vote went down in flames, the president did not change his tone. He also distanced himself from the effort altogether

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wasn't working on it very hard. It would have been nice. I think we would have picked up two seats if we did that. And you had one gentleman, the head of the senate, I guess, Bray (ph), whatever his name is, I heard he was against it. He probably loses next primary, whenever that is. I hope he does. Because he's done a tremendous disservice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, the group chat is back.

Any time there are Republicans who do not do what is asked for them by Trump, I want to know why. I just do, right? Like, because there's no incentive politically for them the way things are to do that.

[06:35:01]

And that state lawmaker, Leising, I want to show her, she was sort of like, it was mean spirited. Earlier she had posted on Twitter, I -- "my house was the target of a pipe bomb threat, the result of D.C. political pundits for redistricting." And she posted a picture of herself that said, "I will not cave."

So, the writing was on the wall from the last couple of days. Why do you think they were able to push back?

ROB BLUEY, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE DAILY SIGNAL": Well, first of all, no tolerance for any sort of political violence. That's not how we debate these issues.

At the same time, I do think that the Indiana Republicans are out of step with Donald Trump and the new Republican Party that he has created in his image and around the issues that are motivating a lot of Republican voters right now. I think Donald Trump was probably correct, they will face primary challenges. Some of them will lose in their next election.

And I think what is at stake here is the House has such a narrow margin that he knows that even a couple of seats in Indiana could make or break the difference between whether Democrats have control and pursue impeachment, which they were talking about again yesterday, or whether he's able to advance his agenda with a -- with (INAUDIBLE).

CORNISH: Yes. And let's help people (INAUDIBLE) of the map here of where things stand. Republicans have basically drawn themselves this year another nine seats. Democrats have drawn themselves another six seats. So, that's where things stand on this battle. And, meanwhile in Indiana, you've got Republicans there that are, like, oh no, we'll be back. We're going to have this conversation again.

Jerusalem, I'd love to get your point of view.

JERUSALEM DEMSAS, FOUNDER AND EDITOR, "THE ARGUMENT": Yes. I mean, I think there are so many cross pressures here, right, because at one level, like, Trump is a lame duck president and lame duck presidents always see diminished power to push their party in their direction because people know, you're not really going to be defining the terms of the next major election. And so, I think that's part of why you're seeing this diminishment of his control.

But I think, on top of that, with redistricting there are a lot of incentives for incumbents not to want to see redistricting, because your current district is often the place where you won.

CORNISH: Yes, people have brought that up. Yes.

DEMSAS: And so, it's quite difficult to expect someone to go, like, well, maybe for the good of the party I will give up my own seat. Like, that's a hard thing to ask someone. And then to do it in a way that's going to get their hackles up, which is already sort of like treating them almost like a servant.

CORNISH: Yes.

DEMSAS: Like not just, like, hey, like, I would like to persuade you, but, you know.

CORNISH: What if you use language like this. I'm' going to play for you an Indiana lawmaker who's upset about what happened -- yes, let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE BOHACEK (R), INDIANA STATE SENATOR: The folks that are trying to push me to vote for this are now -- have turned their -- turned their anger at her, unfortunately. But, you know, at some point we have to stand up and you can't -- you can't validate slurs like that and rhetoric like that, because how do we expect our children to not use terms like this, to be respectful of each other, when the most powerful person in the world is using them?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And in the flip side you have these other lawmakers that are like, look, this is the second U.S. civil war. NOEL KING, CO-HOST AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, "TODAY, EXPLAINED" PODCAST:

Yes.

CORNISH: That this -- like the language between, let us appeal to our better angels, and, we're going to war is, like, pretty striking.

KING: It's pretty striking. And Indiana said, we are out.

CORNISH: Unsubscribe.

KING: Unsubscribe. This has been a race to the bottom since Texas. Everybody is frantically trying to gerrymander. It stinks. It is not a good way to do politics.

CORNISH: You say that as a voter or as a --

KING: I say that as a voter.

CORNISH: OK.

KING: And Indiana -- I think what the Indiana Republicans did was heroic. I really do. It makes me want to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Like, they said, don't threaten us. And they also said, and this, I think, has sort of gone unnoticed, it does not make sense to redraw these maps. There is no reason to redraw these congressional maps. If there were, you would also be redrawing the senate maps. But you don't want to do that because this is purely partizan politicking. There is no reason to do this.

CORNISH: Now, President Trump was sort of like, ah, I didn't work too hard on this one. But at one point there was threats to strip federal funding from the state if they didn't do it.

KING: Yes.

CORNISH: So, my next question is going to be, what are we going to see? Is there actually going to be punishment, or do they take the "l."

All right, you guys, I want to turn to something else, Ukraine. They have actually submitted a 20-point peace plan to the Trump administration. And the bottom line is they want to lock in their legal borders. They don't want to cede any land to Russia. The Ukrainians are proposing a demilitarized free economic zone in the Donbas region where U.S. businesses would be able to operate. Now, Russia has been trying to take control of that region completely for months.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: This would be -- would mean real, solid, legally binding security guarantees for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, it's not clear how Zelenskyy's plan is actually being received by the U.S. But with Ukraine refusing to accept the surrender of Donbas, the head of NATO is issuing a pretty dire warning.

[06:40:04]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: We are Russia's next target. And we are already in harm's way. When I became NATO secretary general last year, I warned that what is happening in Ukraine could happen to allied countries too. That we had to shift to a wartime mindset

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now is Ivo Daalder, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO. He joins us live from Brussels and NATO headquarters.

Thanks so much for being with us.

IVO DAALDER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Great to be here, Audie. Thanks for having me on.

CORNISH: So, first, I want to talk about what we just heard, the wartime footing. Is this intent -- is this fear real, palpable, that you're feeling in that office. And if it is, is Europe really acting that way, right? Are they pushing as hard as they can?

DAALDER: So, the fear is -- is in parts of NATO headquarters and in part of the NATO countries. It's particularly strong, of course, in the countries that border Russia, the Baltic states, Poland, other states in eastern Europe, and the Nordic countries. Indeed, the Nordic countries, Sweden, Finland, Norway have prepared for many years for the possibility of a confrontation. It's one of the reasons why Finland and Sweden joined this alliance just a couple of years ago. And the Swedes have just issued a leaflet saying war is -- what to do in case of war. There is this sense that war is no longer a theoretical possibility. It's a very real possibility.

So, one of the things that they are doing is they're spending a lot more on defense. A very significant amount. An agreement to spend up to 3.5 percent on real defense capabilities and another 1.5 percent on defense related capabilities, five percent of GDP. It's a big deal.

CORNISH: Yes.

DAALDER: The biggest fear, though, is actually not from Russia, it's from the United States. And the question whether the United States shares this view of Russia or not.

CORNISH: I want to talk about the money a little bit more because this free economic zone is -- it looks kind of like an appeal to the Trump administration whose peace plans often have something like this economic model built in. It's something that they use in the past. I think it was Serbian Kosovo back all the way in 2020. Obviously, with Israel and Palestine. They talked about making like a resort area. And so, what do you make of Ukraine basically trying to say, look what you could have. Do you think that's a winning move? DAALDER: Well, it's clear that President Trump and his administration

look at the world as a real estate -- set of real estate areas in which the resources that may be in the ground are critical. Remember that a few months ago Ukraine actually signed an agreement with the United States about the exploration of critical minerals and natural resources if and when a ceasefire and a peace were to be settled. So, I think what President Zelenskyy is trying to do is to say, we're the good guys. We are not the ones who are standing in the way of peace. It's the Russians who are standing in the way of peace. And putting on the table a plan that says, this is what we would accept, including an economic incentive for the United States to buy into it.

I don't think this will get us any closer to peace. Peace will require the Russians to agree to something that the Ukrainians and the Europeans can agree to. And for four years that hasn't been the case.

This is more a public relations effort by the Ukrainians to demonstrate to the president of the United States that his statement that the problem is Zelenskyy not accepting the peace agreement, that that's not correct. He's more than willing to accept a ceasefire and indeed perhaps open up economic opportunities for the United States.

CORNISH: That's Ambassador Daalder. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

DAALDER: My pleasure.

CORNISH: And if you missed any part of that conversation or any other part of the show, please know we're a podcast, which means you can listen later, you can share it. Scan this QR code now to find it. CNN THIS MORNING is available anywhere you get your podcasts.

Next on CNN, a major step backwards for air safety. A federal safety board is sounding the alarm over a new bill that just passed the House.

Plus, this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAYLOR SWIFT, MUSICIAN (Singing): I love you. It's ruining my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: There is a tortured poet suing Taylor Swift. We're going to lawyer up and find out why, next.

And a special programing note. This Sunday, Roy Wood Jr. hosts a holiday special with music from the U.S. Air Force Band and comedy from Roy and Craig Robinson, and music from Jessie James Decker and much more. "Roy Wood Jr.'s Very, Very, Very Merry Holiday Special" Sunday at 8:00 p.m. on CNN.

[06:45:05]

You, of course, can watch it on the CNN app. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we are here to see this process through, however long it takes, to ensure that our family members have a lasting legacy that makes the world safer for everyone who flies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, immediately, after the air collision in D.C., which killed more than 60 people, families demanded action to make the skies safer. And now a key safety board is worried that this accident could happen again.

[06:50:00]

An investigation into the January collision between that passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter revealed that the helicopter wasn't broadcasting its position leading up to the crash.

So, the National Transportation Safety Board then got the Defense Department to agree to fly with those systems on. Now, a new defense spending bill passed by the House rolls all that back and lets the Defense Department basically waive those rules when they're in D.C. airspace. And the NTSB is warning that this new bill is basically a step back for air safety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER HOMENDY, NTSB CHAIR: What it does is it puts back in place what existed on January 29th prior to the midair collision. And then it says that they can waive that with the secretary's concurrence. So that's even less safety. So, you know, again, I don't know the motivation. I know that this needs to be fixed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, joining me now, Mary Schiavo, CNN transportation analyst and former inspector general at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Good morning. Thanks for being with us.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Good morning.

CORNISH: So, just so people understand this technology, most passenger jets have to constantly send their location. So, in air traffic control, they see a little dot on the screen, blip, blip, blip. What happens with the military that was different, especially back in January?

SCHIAVO: Well, what happened back in January, and what had been happening for years, and why the NTSB is so frustrated, they found 15,241 near-misses at DCA in just three years. So, what they found is that the military helicopters were not using a system called automated dependent surveillance broadcast, ADS-B for short. And it turns them into little lightning bugs, if you will. They send out a little signal that says, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. And if they have a different part of that system, they can also receive other people's signals.

So, it makes the system much safer because the equipment on commercial passenger service aircraft, TCAS, which is a collision avoidance system, hugely life-saving, really doesn't work below 900 feet. And the helicopters almost always operate at 300 feet or below. So, that's why they needed this new system to be required to be turned on. And that was the agreement after the horrible tragedy in January at DCA. That agreement, under this bill, will be gone.

CORNISH: And the lawmakers who talked about this said, look, the military guys say we can't be broadcasting every minute because national security reasons. If we're doing training exercises, again, we don't want to be telling everyone what we're doing and how we're doing it. What do you make of that argument?

SCHIAVO: Well, I think that argument doesn't hold up. ADS-B just sends out a signal. It doesn't say what your -- you know, what your mission is, what exactly you're doing, et cetera. And if you're going to operate around DCA and our nation's capital, you have to be seen by commercial traffic. And, of course, air traffic control also be -- has to be able to keep the traffic separated. So that argument really doesn't hold up.

And this is old technology. I mean this ability has been around for, not years, but decades. This has been able to be placed in planes for many, many years. So, it doesn't hold up that they aren't able to operate. And when the NTSB investigated, and I monitored all the hearings on this accident, they found many things with the Defense Department was just completely sloppy, not even adhering to the altitude limitations. And so, because of the, you know, the willy nilly sort of loosey goosey way that they were flying, these were necessary. But that argument doesn't hold up. And that was shown in the NTSB hearings that many of these missions were just executive transport.

CORNISH: In the end we've got Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell issuing a statement saying, we might actually try and repeal this. They think the military has basically abused this authority in the past to ask for waivers. Do you think this is going to be shifted?

SCHIAVO: I think that it might. So, Cruz, Cantwell and other senators came up with a ROTOR Act. And this was even before this National Defense Authorization bill was passed by the House on Wednesday. And this ROTOR Act requires the military to have this ADS-B signaling system operational and turned on. By the way, the NTSB found on a lot of the helicopters it wasn't even working. And they owned it, but it wasn't turned on. And this would do it.

And I think there's hope because this is a bipartisan effort. And that's the way aviation safety should be. So, with Cantwell, Cruz and others requiring this or demanding this in this ROTOR Act, if this act is passed, it would still keep this requirement in place and give us a huge measure of safety at DCA.

CORNISH: Mary, thanks so much for talking with us.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

CORNISH: I want to turn to something else. A second grand jury in Virginia fails to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on mortgage fraud charges, this time in Alexandria.

[06:55:03]

So, the initial indictment was dismissed by a judge last month, claiming that interim U.S. attorney and Trump loyalist Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed.

So, it's time to lawyer up. CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams joins the chat.

Thanks so much for being here.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hi there.

CORNISH: First time with a judge. Second time with a grand jury. What's notable about it being a grand jury?

WILLIAMS: It's the fact that people have heard the evidence and found that it was not sufficient. It means for the --

CORNISH: Regular people.

WILLIAMS: Regular people grand juries. And so, there are really two big problems or infirmities here. One is the legal one. This question of, were these charges brought by a prosecutor who was lawfully installed. Well --

CORNISH: Meaning, should you even have this job because you weren't approved by Congress?

WILLIAMS: Should you even have -- yes. And that's -- that was what the first judge had said. OK, fine, so get new prosecutors to do it.

Then new prosecutors did it, brought it before a grand jury, and, you know, the grand jury rejected the charge.

What's notable to me is that the standard for getting something past a grand jury is actually remarkably low. The saying, a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, you know, rings true, you just need probable cause.

CORNISH: So, in the group chats, lawyers were like, you couldn't even get these guys to sign on.

WILLIAMS: You couldn't -- yes.

CORNISH: OK.

WILLIAMS: So, been -- you know, when you go to trial, I think they just have very little chance of winning. CORNISH: I also noticed that this week Alina Habba, basically she

resigned.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: I think we talked about this earlier. Again, this concern about, you're not in the job.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: You were not approved to be in the job.

WILLIAMS: Right.

CORNISH: But, more importantly, it's hurting other cases.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: Can you talk about the implications of this? She said, I just want to show this online. She said, "do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me. My fight will now stretch across the country." I don't know if the last part, but the rest is like, look.

WILLIAMS: Sure. No. And I think her fight can continue across the country and she's free as a citizen to speak out with however she wishes. If she wishes to be U.S. attorney for New Jersey, the president ought to appoint her to the job, and the Senate can confirm her to the job.

I think what you've seen a few times with the current administration is that folks who could not make it past even the Republican Senate through the confirmation process are getting installed through this jiggery pokery of temporary appointments that don't last a full 120 days. And it's messing up the office if they want -- there's many great Republican lawyers across the country who could serve in these roles, who could probably sail through confirmation. The administrations just choosing to do it the hard way and actually jeopardizing cases that could be brought.

CORNISH: Yes. OK. Another blonde justice news.

WILLIAMS: Love it.

CORNISH: Taylor Swift being sued by a poet claiming the artist stole her lyrics in various songs.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: Swifts' attorneys actually dealing with this. Does something like this even have a chance?

WILLIAMS: It does -- it absolutely does not have a chance. Look, art is about taking people's work and modifying it and building on it. Now, this woman, who's a poet, not a tortured poet, as it were, but she is a poet. CORNISH: Yes. Though she does mention that album, "Midnights,"

"Evermore," "Folklore" and "Lover." So, good ones.

WILLIAMS: Yes. Right. But she claims --

CORNISH: Just if we're being honest.

WILLIAMS: She does.

CORNISH: She's not claiming the newest album.

WILLIAMS: She's not claiming -- she's not. She's going with the deep cuts.

CORNISH: Yes.

WILLIAMS: But the point is, she's claiming that themes like love, patriarchy, a woman being gaslit were themes that came up in her poetry.

Now, number one, she only sold 300 copies of her book. Not to dunk on her, but the -- but that's an element in the law. It's, could the artist have actually seen your work? And is it so strikingly and substantially similar such that it's seen as a copy? It's just not. It's a lady with a bunch of books.

CORNISH: OK. All right. Well, best of luck to you, ma'am.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: Keep writing.

WILLIAMS: Right.

CORNISH: Group chat. Jerusalem.

DEMSAS: Keep writing.

CORNISH: What's in your group chat?

DEMSAS: I'm obsessed with the woke font controversy.

CORNISH: In the State Department are generally?

DEMSAS: I -- yes. No, the --

CORNISH: OK.

DEMSAS: So, Marco Rubio has changed the font from calibri to times new roman.

CORNISH: On official communication.

DEMSAS: On official communications because apparently it was changed by the Biden administration for -- because there was accessibility reasons with some fonts. Some fonts that are rounder, for instance, people are familiar with comic sans can be easier to read. And it was changed for those reasons. I had no idea that was what's happening. But as my font nerd group chat is very, very obsessed with this.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: You also have a font nerd group chat?

DEMSAS: Yes. Yes.

CORNISH: Oh, my God. So into this.

(CROSS TALK)

CORNISH: No, I had a vigorous argument about sans serif and serif fonts this week.

DEMSAS: To be clear, I prefer serif fonts. But I'm just sort of like, it's kind of weird to me --

CORNISH: What?

DEMSAS: Yes.

CORNISH: You're off the panel. Time for -- time for Rob Bluey.

BLUEY: I've got (ph) to be invited to this -- this font chat.

CORNISH: Oh, are you a serif person?

BLUEY: I don't know. I'm not going to take sides.

CORNISH: Go ahead.

BLUEY: Forty-four-year-old Philip Rivers is making a comeback and could start this weekend for the Indianapolis Colts. Now, they've had a series of injuries and so they are in desperate need of a quarterback. And they've reached all the way back to somebody who was drafted in 2004 to try to save their season.

CORNISH: Hope they've been working out.

OK, sorry, Elliot, I'm going to go to Noel.

WILLIAMS: OK.

CORNISH: And tell me, Noel, what's going on in your group chat?

KING: My group chats are inflamed over the various end of year best of books, movies, podcasts, (INAUDIBLE).

[07:00:01]

CORNISH: Oh, those are good to fight over.

KING: Yes, yes, yes.

CORNISH: "Rolling Stone" had the list that did not have "Sinners" for best film.

KING: And a lot of people noticed, right?

CORNISH: Yes, unsubscribed.

Did you want to throw in yours?

WILLIAMS: Oh, I do. Real quick, because we're almost out of time. I've seen the most beautiful things in the world. The smile of a child. The waves crashing against the Indian Ocean. But nothing like the New Jersey themed Nike Air Force Ones.

CORNISH: Fair. Fair.

WILLIAMS: We, the great garden state, now have sneakers based on the Garden State Parkway (INAUDIBLE).

CORNISH: Subscribe.

WILLIAMS: Subscribe.

CORNISH: OK, thank you for waking up with us. The headlines are next.