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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

Home From "Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air On The Market For $29.5 M; Deal To Secure TikTok's Future In U.S. Finally Sealed; U.S., Ukrainian, Russian Officials To Meet In UAE; Former Special Counsel Defends Investigations into Trump; Iranians Describe Brutality of Regime's Crackdown; Why Ai WeiWei's Quiet Return to China Matters; Congresswoman's Personal Connection to Delroy Lindo. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired January 23, 2026 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:01]

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Move over "Fresh Prince". Someone else now has the chance to own the famous TV home of Will Smith. That House, the 90s hit sitcom "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" is on the market for a cool 29.5 million bucks listed by luxury real estate agency Douglas Element of California. According to their listing, the 10,000 square foot mansion was used for establishing shots of Uncle Phil's house on the show the big rap at the open. You know it.

Now the home actually is not in Bel-Air. It's in Brentwood Park. It was last sold in 1978 for $732,000 and is now sold for $29 million. That is a good return on your investment if you can get it. If it actually goes for that.

Thanks for watching this hour, The Story Is. The next hour starts right now.

MICHAELSON (voiceover): The story is TikTok deal popular social media app secures its future in the U.S. just one day Trump's deadline. We're live in Asia.

The story is peace in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Now I think they both want to make a deal. But we'll find out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON (voiceover): The story is making history at the Oscars. Will the most nominated movie ever, sinners, actually win best picture? Film critic Grae Drake joins me live to discuss.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles, The Story Is with Elex Michaelson.

MICHAELSON: And welcome to The Story Is. I'm Elex Michaelson live in Los Angeles. Tonight, the top story is TikTok, the video sharing platform has now established a majority American owned joint venture to run its U.S. business. That deal revealed just one day before President Trump's deadline for the app's American assets to be spun off from Chinese company ByteDance.

This is a relief. More than 200 million American users who's used TikTok for everything from lip sync battles to cooking tutorials to CNN breaking news videos. You can follow me if you want to on there. CNN's Kristie Lu Stout is covering all of this live from Hong Kong.

Kristie, this is a big deal and it's a long time coming.

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely it's a big deal. And as you mentioned just now, a huge relief for over 200 million Americans who use this platform. TikTok can officially stay and keep operating in the United States. It has sealed the deal for a new majority U.S. joint venture, a deal that has been already commended by U.S. President Donald Trump.

He thanked JD Vance as vice president. He thanked his administration. He also thanked the Chinese President Xi Jinping for the deal and comments that he posted on Truth Social.

There you see it. He said this quote. "I would also like to thank President Xi of China for working with us and ultimately approving the deal. He could have gone the other way but didn't and is appreciated for his decision".

Now we are awaiting fresh reaction and comments from Beijing and this is a long time coming. This comes after years and years of uncertainty going back to the year 2020 when then U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok over national security concerns. Also going back to 2024, that was when that bipartisan law passed under then President Joe Biden saying that the U.S. version of TikTok had to be spun off and away from ByteDance, the Beijing based parent company of the app.

Now we're also learning more about this new joint venture and how it plans to deal with the issue of national security. I want to bring up this important line for you that we took from the statement that was released late on Thursday saying this quote, "The majority American owned joint venture will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users", unquote.

Now key details. This new entity says it is going to retrain the TikTok algorithm for U.S. users based on U.S. user data. We also know that one of the key investors here, Oracle, is going to be responsible for overseeing the storage of American user data.

The user experience from an American point of view on TikTok is not going to change. It shouldn't change, but the algorithm through this retraining process could shift. Another important note to feature here is the links with China. ByteDance still has about 19.9 percent control in this new U.S. majority owned joint venture and ByteDance, based in Beijing, will still be responsible for the TikTok shop in the United States as well as advertising and marketing. Elex.

MICHAELSON: So ByteDance still will be making plenty of money from this whole thing. Of course, Oracle is run by Larry Ellison, whose son David Ellison, now running Paramount and Skydance. There's a lot of familiar faces involved in this whole thing.

But most important question for most people that use TikTok here, is it going to be any different? Is my dancing video still going to work? What's it mean for the average person who is used to posting on there?

[01:05:09]

STOUT: This is the core question, the important question. Elex, thank you for asking it. You know, to our fellow Americans, you do not have to download a new app. You can continue to use the TikTok app. The user experience should stay the same.

But as I mentioned just a bit ago, because the algorithm is now going to be retrained using U.S. user data. User data that's going to be stored at Oracle's cloud. That system may cause us to see a shift in the type of videos that are fed to us.

So please keep me posted, Elex. It's a bit complicated, but I don't get TikTok here in Hong Kong. I have to use Douyin, the Chinese version of it. Let me know how your TikTok experience goes for you.

MICHAELSON: Okay, we got to get you a VPN or something. Thank you, Kristie. Thank you very much. It'll be interesting to see what that does, especially to political videos and news videos. And if those change, the delivery to that changes. That's what a lot of this has been about.

Kristie, thank you so much. Good afternoon to you and everybody in Hong Kong. Thanks for joining us.

STOUT: Thank you so much. Take care.

MICHAELSON: Another part of the world now, U.S., Ukrainian and Russian officials are set to meet in the coming hours in the United Arab Emirates. It would be the first time that diplomats from all three countries are at the same table since Russia's invasion began. That's a big deal. It is the latest in a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at trying to finally end the war in Ukraine.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin hosted U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump's son in law Jared Kushner in Moscow on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: You know what's happened here is there were times when Putin didn't want to make a deal, times when Zelenskyy didn't want to make a deal. And it was like opposite times. Now I think they both want to make a deal, but we'll find out.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MICHAELSON: President Trump's comments there coming after he met with

Ukraine's President Zelenskyy in Davos, Switzerland. Zelenskyy says documents aimed at ending the war are, quote, "nearly ready".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: During any dialogue with any president, I have to defend the interests of my country. That's why the dialogue is maybe it's not simple, but it was today. It was positive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Daniel Treisman is a distinguished professor of political science at UCLA Co-author of "Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century". Welcome to The Story Is for the first time.

DANIEL TREISMAN, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UCLA: Thanks.

MICHAELSON: When I was first designing questions for you, I wrote down the term Groundhog Day. Feeling like we've been here over and over again. I did more research and realized that Zelenskyy himself used the reference to Groundhog Day today, the old Bill Murray movie. Feeling like, what's different this time? So what is different this time?

TREISMAN: Well, that remains to be seen. Zelenskyy was referring to the fact that every time he comes to Davos, every year, he tells the Europeans, wake up. You need to do more to defend yourselves. And nothing seems to get done. But there's another sense in which the story keeps repeating itself, which is the story of the negotiations over a ceasefire led by President Trump.

It seems every few months, Trump decides to put more effort into it. He puts a great deal of pressure on the Ukrainians to make more concessions. Eventually, they come up with some sort of written document, and then Putin says no. So we're about to find out whether this is just another reiteration of this familiar cycle or whether, unexpectedly, Putin will actually agree to something.

MICHAELSON: Yes, because to that point, like they say, the dispute now is over territory, which is the last thing to resolve, which is what the dispute has been about kind of the whole time. So if Putin says no on the territory thing, what kind of leverage do the United States or Ukraine have to change his mind?

TREISMAN: Well, the United States actually has significant leverage. The strange thing is Trump has never wanted to use it. There could be much tighter sanctions. There could be -- now there is a bit more pressure on the oil sales of Russia. The oil price is low. That is having an impact. The revenues of the Russian budget are down.

A lot more could be done to just increase the economic pressure on Putin to bring this to an end. But so far, Trump has never been willing to do that.

He's talked about it a little bit. He's edged towards it. He's threatened to put high tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil. But we've always stalled right after the tough line was about to go into effect.

[01:10:15]

MICHAELSON: One thing the U.S. has done over the years is freezing some Russian assets. Some of that, of course, happened during the Biden administration. Now, Putin says that he would donate $1 billion to President Trump's new Board of Peace, which is this idea of bringing together world leaders to try to work towards peace, especially in Gaza. Putin says, I'll give you a billion dollars if the U.S. unfreezes Russian assets. Is that a fair trade blackmail? What do you make of that?

TREISMAN: Well, it's totally ridiculous. This is just taking advantage of this opportunity that Trump has handed him on a silver platter. So Trump, rather than putting extra pressure on Putin, has invited him to join this Board of Peace. It's not clear yet exactly what that board is supposed to be other than a sort of fan club for Trump where all the world leaders who need something from him can assemble and talk to him. But he's invited Putin and asked for a contribution bringing him out of isolation rather than imposing tighter pressure on him.

And Putin quite intelligently tries to use this to his advantage to try and pry the frozen Russian assets out of the deep freeze and get Trump because he wants to benefit from some of those assets for his board to unfreeze them all.

So it's a smart move on Putin's part, but it just goes to show that it really doesn't make any sense to be simultaneously trying to get Putin to end the war and offering him these concessions and inviting him to new boards, new opportunities.

MICHAELSON: Daniel Treisman of UCLA and his very impressive bookcase behind him. Thank you very much for joining us here on The Story Is for this first time. Appreciate your insights.

TREISMAN: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: We are learning more about the case of a five-year-old boy who was taken from the driveway of his Minneapolis home by federal agents. That boy is being held with his father at an immigration facility in Texas. The Vice President of The United States, JD Vance, addressed that controversy during his visit to Minneapolis on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JD VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I see this story and I'm a father of a five year old, actually a five year old little boy. And I think to myself, oh my God, this is terrible. How did we arrest a five-year- old? Well, I do a little bit more follow up research and what I find is

that the five-year-old was not arrested, that his dad was an illegal alien. And then they went -- when they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran. So, the story is that ICE detained a five-year-old? Well, what are they supposed to do?

Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: The boy and his family are originally from Ecuador and the family's lawyer says they came here legally, presenting themselves to border officers to apply for asylum back in December 2024.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARC PROKOSH, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING THE FAMILY: This family was not eluding ICE in any way. They were following all the established protocols, pursuing their claim for asylum, showing up for their court hearings and posed no safety, no flight risk and never should have been detained.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: School district officials say Liam Canejo Ramos is one of four students detained by ICE in the last few weeks. That school board chair who witnessed Liam's detention rejected the vice president's justification. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez has more on all of this.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All the same, however, both the child, who's 5, and the father are now at an ICE facility in Texas for families. So they were detained at the end of the day. And this is something I've been covering at length, is these children who have been living in the interior of the United States, they have lives in schools, as was the case here, and then they are suddenly put into these detention settings and it just completely changes everything for them.

And the reason that's so striking is because generally with family detention, when it is used when families are crossing the U.S. Mexico border, so they don't have roots here necessarily. They they're going there and then they're going through their proceedings and they may be released. And the Biden administration had paused family detention, of course, but it's now back.

And I do, however, want to take a step back because we should note the tone of the vice president during this. It was a strikingly different tone than two weeks ago or so at the White House podium. Here, there was an attempt to try to get to the middle ground here. And I didn't count how many times he said chaos, but it was a lot. And we have seen that there is polling to show that there are fractures within the American public about how immigration enforcement is happening. And that is exactly what he appeared to be speaking to there.

[01:15:21] Yes, he plays the onus on local law enforcement, but there is an element here of the administration that he himself is acknowledging that is going astray and is potentially hurting their overall campaign here that Americans originally, or a good share of them originally did want to see executed.

MICHAELSON: Thanks to Priscilla Alvarez for that. Now to the weather. Nearly 170 million people across most of the U.S. are about to be walloped by a storm that could deliver historic levels of snow and ice. Meteorologist Chris Warren joins me now from our studios in Atlanta. Chris, that is a scary board behind you.

CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, I'll tell you what, Elex, it's going to get even worse to be honest here. This is a far reaching, widespread, possibly historic high impact winter storm. And these are winter storm warnings. So expecting high impact, either snow or ice.

There's an ice storm warning here for parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. This is when the ice can lead to long term power outages. And I would expect more warnings over the next day or two to go all the way up into New England. And you can see these alerts stretch for more than 2,000 miles.

On top of the winter weather that's coming, and really what's going to be kind of fueling this or setting the stage is this cold air. Dangerously cold air with over the next couple of mornings some of these wind chills feeling like 40 to 50 degrees below zero. And then, Elex, what we're going to watch by Friday evening it's going to be going. And notice it is going for several hours with this ice.

Pink is ice, purple is snow. And you would much, much rather be in the snow than the ice.

Now both of them are difficult for travel, but it's this ice, this pink, Elex, where the rain comes down into freezing, below freezing air freezes on contact to sidewalks with trees, power outages of the power line. So it becomes a big deal here and then into the Northeast.

MICHAELSON: Yes, I mean, I can only imagine in terms of when do we think it's going to impact travel the worst?

WARREN: Well, it's going to be all weekend, I think it's fair to say, right? So it's going to start tomorrow night. And notice this system is not even out of New England by Monday evening. So we're talking Friday night, Saturday, Sunday and into Monday. And take a look at this footprint of snow from New Mexico all the way up to New England. We're looking at about 1,500 miles of heavy snow. So some areas could have a foot of snow on the ground for this huge stretch here.

But again, the ice. And Elex, this is something else. This ice, what makes this dangerous, both just walking out the front door, you can slip and fall. But also without power, especially some of these rural areas with the kind of cold that we're going to be seeing for several days. And again, this could be a catastrophic crippling ice event.

MICHAELSON: Chris Warren joining us from Atlanta, one of the cities that will be impacted by this major weather event. Chris, thank you. Hope you and your family are able to stay safe through all this.

Oscar nominations are out and a blockbuster movie has broken the record for most nominations ever. Our film critic Grae Drake will be here on set to break it all down. One of our favorite guests, she joins us live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELSON: The blockbuster genre defying film "Sinners" has now broken the record at the Academy Awards, earning 616 Oscar nominations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me in, man.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Ryan Coogler's vampire horror period drama surpassed the previous record holders for most Oscar nominations for single film. "Sinners", not the only film racking up lots of nominations.

Paul Thomas Anderson's one battle after another scored 13, setting up a very competitive race for best picture. The winners will be revealed when the academy awards air on March 15th on ABC for a few more years with returning host Conan O'Brien.

Let's get into it all with our film critics. CBR.com's Grae Drake is here. Welcome, Grae. You've been going since the nominations were announced at 5:00 o'clock in the morning.

GRAE DRAKE, FILM CRITIC, CBR.com: Yes. Because it's movie nerd super bowl, and that's what I do. It's a very exciting day.

MICHAELSON: Yes. We're about to have sports nerd super bowl in a couple of weeks. So 16 noms for "Sinners". Would some people hear that, they might think, okay, then it's got to win best picture. Not really, right?

DRAKE: Not at all. And it's actually super hard to predict how this new academy with all of their new voters are going to behave. We don't really know what they're going to nominate or what they're going to vote for. And so even though we've got, like amazing nominations for Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku for the supporting actor categories, Ryan Coogler, screenplay and also director. I don't know what exactly it's going to win because one battle after another seems to have a lot of support from people.

[01:25:02]

MICHAELSON: One battle after another. So let's talk about who's in the Academy. For many years, it was a lot of old white guys. Who were really snobby about their film choices and they liked a lot of, like, British stuff. And when you play the queen or something, right? DRAKE: Yes. If it was a movie --

MICHAELSON: If you got an accent or your personal drama, you win.

DRAKE: Fancy person drinking tea.

MICHAELSON: Right.

DRAKE: Give it all the awards.

MICHAELSON: But then there was a whole controversy because it was too many old white guys. So now --

DRAKE: As well there should have been.

MICHAELSON: And now there's a lot more foreign voters. People around the world, which we saw a lot of winners of that last year and a more diverse group of people who are voting --

DRAKE: And much younger overall.

MICHAELSON: Yes. And like, we have no idea who's voting for the Golden Globes. And they really snub "Sinners", right?

DRAKE: Right. They did not give sinners a lot of awards. And so I think the Academy is going to reward it more. I just don't know how much more. Because all these other movies are really winning a lot of stuff.

MICHAELSON: Yes. One battle after another has been thought of as the favorite going into it.

DRAKE: I mean, the real winner is Warner Brothers, by the way, both of those movies come from the studio.

MICHAELSON: Yes. Which owns CNN for now. So great year for horror movies. I mean, if you think about it, Amy Madigan, Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi.

DRAKE: Right.

MICHAELSON: I mean, and then obviously "Sinners" too.

DRAKE: Totally. So horror -- as a horror movie fan, I couldn't be happier. I love that.

MICHAELSON: I don't love horror, but you do.

DRAKE: Well, I love that Amy Madigan gets that nomination for weapons. She's been entertaining us for a long time.

MICHAELSON: Yes. And entertaining when she's won awards this season.

DRAKE: Yes, that would be a great win.

MICHAELSON: Yes. Here's one that surprised me. Best Picture, "F1", starring Brad Pitt. They've added to the number of nominees to try to get more movies in there. And I enjoyed "F1". It was great in theater, but when I saw it, there was no part of me that thought, that's going to be an Oscar nominee.

DRAKE: I agree with you completely. I don't know how. I think it's what the old white guys did this year. They were like, yeah, we got "F1" in there.

Now "F1" deserves technical awards for sure. I think that was its major strength. Not only is Brad Pitt great, his costars amazing. But nothing about that movie surprised me for even a second, except for the technical aspects, like really mounting a camera, an IMAX camera nonetheless, to an "F1" race car. I mean, Unbelievable stuff they did.

So Best Picture, I think they should be very happy to just be nominated.

MICHAELSON: Yes. They had this really cool sort of F2 cars that they met in there as well. Okay. Another one that people love, love, love, love is K-Pop "Demon Hunters", which is the biggest movie in Netflix history.

DRAKE: Right.

MICHAELSON: And now it's an Oscar nominee.

DRAKE: Yes. And the minute that I saw it, I went, that's going to win Song. That's our best animated movie of the year. For sure. For sure.

MICHAELSON: Even more than Zootopia?

DRAKE: Yes, very much so. Because I am a little perplexed by the outpouring of love for Zootopia 2. It was missing a little something for me. It didn't have quite the magic of the first one. That doesn't --

MICHAELSON: Did you made a billion dollars or something in the theater?

DRAKE: Sure. Yes. There's so many people who don't agree with me and that could be the Academy voters as well, because Disney is such a juggernaut in that category that they are certainly going to give K- Pop "Demon Hunters" a run for their money. However, if ever there was a year for Disney to have to stay in their seats, I think it's this one.

MICHAELSON: And "Demon Hunters" probably going to win for Song and poor Diane Warren not going to get her award this year.

DRAKE: Oh God, it's like 17 nominations.

MICHAELSON: Yes. So testament, nominations. We see lots of publicity, but that's out now, though.

DRAKE: So testing -- "Testament of Ann Lee" is available for people to watch on the big screen. And Amanda Seyfried's performance is really what you want to pay attention to here. It is a big swing of a movie.

MICHAELSON: We're out of time. But "Mercy", good, bad, it's out this weekend. See it. Skip it.

DRAKE: It'll be on prime video eventually. I hated it.

MICHAELSON: Okay. Skip it.

DRAKE: Yes. Sorry. Chris Pratt.

MICHAELSON: Plenty of other stuff to check out. Grae, thank you. Congrats to everybody who got their Oscar nominations today. We'll be right back. More of The Story Is.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:33:34]

MICHAELSON: The former U.S. special counsel is publicly defending his investigation into President Trump. Jack Smith's cases never got their day in court. They were dropped after President Trump won reelection.

Since then, he has come under repeated fire for daring to prosecute President Trump. And he asked for this opportunity to openly testify at Capitol Hill. And Republicans surprisingly said, yes, let's talk about January 6th, which, of course, was the scene of the insurrection.

Smith said that he was "shocked" when he saw that riot five years ago. He accused the president of willfully breaking the law and engaging in criminal activity, and he slammed President Trump's blanket pardons for hundreds of violent rioters on his first day back in office.

Smith also pushed back hard against claims that he was a crooked prosecutor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK SMITH, FORMER U.S. SPECIAL COUNSEL: Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused January 6th, that it was foreseeable to him, and that he sought to exploit the violence.

REP. HANK JOHNSON (D-GA): Mr. Smith, were you a Biden prosecutor who weaponized the Department of Justice against Donald Trump?

SMITH: Absolutely not.

JOHNSON: Did Attorney General Merrick Garland direct you to prosecute Trump because Donald Trump was running against Joe Biden in the presidential election?

[01:34:50]

SMITH: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MICHAELSON: Smith also warned of potentially catastrophic threats to democracy when asked about the failure to hold the president accountable for trying to overturn an election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: If we do not hold the most powerful people in our society to the same standards of the rule of law, it can be catastrophic. It can endanger our election process. It can endanger election workers and ultimately our democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Republicans pushed back against him hard.

Meanwhile, President Trump is sending a mixed message about Iran following a brutal crackdown on anti-regime protesters. He says a large U.S. military armada is headed towards the region. But he also indicated that Iran wants to talk and he's ready to engage.

This comes as the death toll from the crackdown reached more than 4,600 people, according to a U.S.-based rights group. Iran has been under an Internet blackout for more than two weeks now.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh has been piecing together what has happened since that blackout began. We warn you, some of the images may be disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, January the 8th. Just as these incredible images were emerging from protests in Tehran and other cities, Iran went dark. Under the cover of the vicious (ph) darkness it imposed, the regime launched one of the bloodiest chapters in the history of the Islamic Republic.

KIARASH, PROTESTER: I saw army and they were attacking us. I saw shotgun. I saw heavy guns. They didn't allow many of the injured bodies to go to the -- to the hospital.

KARADSHEH: This protester spoke to us from an undisclosed location after leaving Iran. Kiarash (ph) is not his real name, but for his safety, we're not identifying him. He's one of the countless Iranians who joined the protests.

KIARASH: The blood was all over the streets. Three bodies collapsed. A girl on my left hand. Another girl just two steps. She was near me and a guy who was like four meters forward.

KARADSHEH: Kiarash took to the streets again after a day spent in Tehran's largest cemetery, where scenes like this played out. Surrounded by grief, anger and chaos, he searched through the dead for the body of Nasim, a family friend who was shot in the neck.

KIARASH: I saw two layers of dead bodies. In my eyes, I can say minimum 1,500 up to 2,000 just in one warehouse and small bags. I realized that, oh my God, these small bags, they're children, many of them.

KARADSHEH: His harrowing account is consistent with other testimony and verified visual evidence collected by CNN and human rights organizations from various reported protest sites across the country, pointing to a widespread, coordinated armed attack by regime forces turning the streets of Iran into something that resembled a war zone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were shooting at us from the top of the building and the Ashrafi Esfahani Bridge. They were aiming with lasers and the shooters were shooting people in the face. They massacred people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We started hearing gunshots and feeling tear gas from behind. In Iran, we call this "the scissor". They sent forces to the back of the protests to start hitting people from the back and the front.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From 12:00 a.m. Thursday night onward, the type of injuries changed. The live round started. I've never seen anything like this. The sound of heavy machine guns in the city is something you only see in movies.

KARADSHEH: The little video that has broken through the regime's wall of censorship not only captures the horror, it also shows the forces and weaponry deployed to suppress protests in major urban centers like Tehran and Mashhad, a tactic not previously seen on this scale outside of minority-dominated border regions.

This is a regime that has never tolerated dissent, one with a long history of crushing protests violently. But this was like nothing anyone had ever seen before.

MAHMOOD AMIRY-MOGHADDAM, DIRECTOR, IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS: It's a completely different level of violence and brutality.

[01:39:46]

KARADSHEH: Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam has spent his life documenting atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic. He says this crackdown is unparalleled in scope and lethality.

AMIRY-MOGHADDAM: Everywhere we have had witness testimonies, they have been going -- doing it the same way, you know, using live ammunition, military-grade weapon with the aim of killing as many as possible, even those injured on the ground.

KARADSHEH: Iran's leadership has admitted that thousands were killed, but blamed the deaths on rioters and agents of Israel and the U.S. They've released video like this on state media, claiming to show violence committed by protesters.

The regime has long used the narrative of a foreign plot to justify its crackdowns. This time, it had an exiled opposition and a U.S. president urging a revolt.

AMIRY-MOGHADDAM: I think that the regime has never been closer to a fall, to a complete regime change. They are doing it for survival, but also to prevent more protests in the coming years. The aim is to traumatize a generation.

KARADSHEH: Even for those who know the regime's brutality all too well, this is just too much to bear.

I'm so sorry.

AMIRY-MOGHADDAM: We have no other option. Those who have lost their loved ones, but they still speak out and that inspires us.

KARADSHEH: The world may never know the real scale of the loss and pain as a scarred nation slowly emerges from the night Iran went dark.

Jomana Karadsheh, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Powerful storytelling. Thank you for watching.

For our international viewers, WORLDSPORT is next. For our viewers in North America, I'll be right back.

[01:41:47]

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MICHAELSON: Welcome back to THE STORY IS. I'm Elex Michaelson. Let's take a look at some of today's headlines.

In just a few hours, officials from the U.S., Russia and Ukraine will meet for peace talks in the UAE. President Zelenskyy announced the talks after meeting with President Trump in Davos. This is the first time all three parties have met since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine. Officials said territory is the big unresolved issue in the U.S.-led peace plan.

More than 150 million people in the U.S. are bracing for one of the most sprawling and menacing winter storms in years. The storm threatens to deliver historic amounts of snow and ice over a 1,500- mile path from Texas to the northeast.

Major travel disruption expected through the weekend. Widespread, potentially long-lasting power outages also possible.

The Federal Aviation Administration is set to permanently ban helicopter flights near Reagan National Airport in D.C. This comes nearly one year after the deadly midair collision there, involving an Army Blackhawk helicopter and American Airlines regional jet. All 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed. The new policy takes effect today.

Outspoken Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei relentlessly criticized China's policies for years after living in exile for a decade. He then returned to China.

CNN's Stephy Chung explains why all this matters.

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STEPHY CHUNG, CNN ASIA EDITOR: After ten years of self-imposed exile, China's most famous dissident artist, Ai Weiwei, made a visit back to Beijing in mid-December. The three-week trip has largely gone under the radar, but photos and videos of the trip posted on his Instagram show him being reunited with his 93-year-old mother, as well as chatting with friends, capturing the city and its food.

These scenes of everyday life are quite extraordinary, given that this is the same artist who relentlessly produced works critical of the Chinese government on everything from alleged human rights abuses to censorship and corruption.

He consistently clashed with authorities who in 2011 placed him in secret detention for almost three months for alleged tax evasion, charges many felt were politically-motivated.

Ai has since lived in Europe and the U.K. and continues to make works critical of China, but also of the West, where he says changes over the past ten years have shocked him.

He told CNN that Western society was in decline, while China's overall trajectory was on the ascent. The fact that authorities let him in may suggest that they are confident that they have effectively censored his works from the Chinese public, and that their surveillance systems are far-reaching.

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MICHAELSON: Coming up, a California congresswoman explains her very personal connection to the Oscars and this first-time nominee. We'll explain next.

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MICHAELSON: All right. Let's get back to the Oscars for a minute.

One of "Sinners" 16 nominations went to Delroy Lindo for best supporting actor. That's his first Oscar nomination.

Now, earlier, I spoke with Democratic Congressmember Sydney Kamlager- Dove, who used to be Lindo's personal assistant, to get her reaction.

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MICHAELSON: Let's talk Oscars. 73-year-old actor Delroy Lindo just received his first Oscar nomination for his role in "Sinners". You've got a personal connection to him, right?

REP. SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE (D-CA): Yes. I mean, I just want to scream when I was reading it. I started jumping up and down in my chair in committee. I'm so excited for Delroy. I mean, he has a wonderful resume. He's

been in so many great movies. He's an amazing thespian and so many folks who go to movies are like, oh my God, I know that guy. I love that guy's work.

And so it's -- it's just an honor to see him get recognized with this nomination.

MICHAELSON: And you were his personal assistant.

KAMLAGER-DOVE: Yes. So I've known Delroy for a really long time, and I was his personal assistant on a number of shows.

I helped him with his production company. He would come to Los Angeles. We did a bunch of movies for Jerry Bruckheimer and a number of others.

And he's so funny. People don't know that about him. He's incredibly serious, but he's witty and he's so sensitive and he's just incredibly -- he's incredibly deserving of this honor.

MICHAELSON: It's such an L.A. Story that the congress member was an assistant to the Oscar nominee. So that's how you started out.

KAMLAGER-DOVES: It's so -- it so is. I mean, I remember night shoots and everything. I mean, staying up late, you see how movies get made, you meet teamsters.

I mean, you see how the sausage gets made. You see actors up close that, you know, you've only seen on the big screen and you're amazed. I mean, that's how I felt as a young person.

And so to just see this now, it's just exciting.

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MICHAELSON: And "Sinners" -- more nominations than any other movie ever, 16 nominations. I'm guessing that's the movie you're rooting for?

KAMLAGER-DOVE: Well, I am rooting for "Sinners" because Ryan Coogler is also a USC alum, and I think the composer, Ludwig is also a USC alum. So go Trojans.

But there are a number of other amazing movies that I would be rooting for to "One Battle After Another", "Sentimental Value". I mean, it's a very strong list this year.

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MICHAELSON: Our thanks to the congresswoman.

The smash hit animated movie "K-Pop Demon Hunters" has been nominated for two Oscars. It's already won trophies at the Critics' Choice, the Golden Globes.

I spoke with the film's director earlier this year right here on our set.

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MAGGIE KANG, FILM DIRECTOR: It's wild. I made a movie because I wanted to see all the things in this movie. and I didn't really realize that so many other people wanted to see this too. And so many other Asian people wanted to see Asian characters on screen.

I think, you know, we've all wanted that, and we've all wanted to see our culture represented correctly and in the modern world, because a lot of times in animation, we do, we do see Asian cultures, but it's like a fantasy version or, you know, a more of a hodgepodge. And so I really wanted to show Korean culture on its own.

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MICHAELSON: Note to Hollywood, Maggie came here as part of her Oscar campaign, and now she's an Oscar frontrunner. Maybe you should, too.

Tomorrow night, an exclusive sit down with Emma Willis, wife of Bruce Willis, who is using her platform for good. You're going to like this one.

Thanks for watching THE STORY IS. We'll see you tomorrow.

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