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The Lead with Jake Tapper

FBI: New Orleans Attacker Acted Alone; Las Vegas Police: Cybertruck Driver Shot In Head Before Explosion; Speaker Johnson Fights To Keep His Job Ahead Of Tomorrow's Vote; Apple To Pay $95 Million To Settle Lawsuit Over Siri. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired January 02, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: -- foundation that is at GNOF.org.

[16:00:05]

And THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: This is a big hour for the city of New Orleans.

THE LEAD starts right now.

As Bourbon Street reopens and a major football game kicks off. Brand new details about the deadly New Year's Day terror attack that killed 14 people. The timeline, new surveillance video and chilling details about witnesses who likely saw key evidence.

Then, the other terror investigation, this one in Las Vegas after a Tesla Cybertruck exploded in front of the Trump Hotel. What authorities believe happened just moments before that blast.

And we're just one day away from a House vote that could disrupt Congress, delay plans for the president-elect and upend Speaker Mike Johnson's political career.

(MUSIC)

MATTINGLY: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Phil Mattingly, in for Jake Tapper.

We begin with brand new video exclusively obtained by CNN showing the New Orleans terrorist attack suspect outside his Airbnb rental -- rental hours before officials say he drove a rented white pickup through a crowd on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring at least 35 more.

This Ring camera footage captured the moment the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar unloaded the truck around 10 p.m. local time Tuesday night. We have even more footage from this doorbell cam, which will show you this hour.

But today, amid all of the grief and shock, we also want to show you this -- displays of resilience in true New Orleans style. A brass band marching down Bourbon Street to mark its official reopening just a few hours ago. And happening right now, less than a mile away from the attack site, a moment of silence and then kickoff for the Sugar Bowl matchup between the University of Georgia and Notre Dame, a game postponed yesterday because of the attack.

Now, officials are insisting the Superdome and the rest of the city are now safe, though many residents and visitors remain shaken.

We'll have more this hour on what we're learning about the 14 people who did not survive the attack, among them Drew Dauphin, a 2023 graduate of Auburn University.

We are also learning new details about the suspect, his motivation and ties to ISIS, and how he carried out the attack. One major change from yesterday, while police initially believed he may have had accomplices. Now they say he acted alone. The FBI explains some of the confusion stemming from those IEDs that were found in coolers around the French Quarter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER RAIA, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION: A lot of the early reports came out that there were people that extra people that were setting the coolers down, right? It turns out those were just patrons on the street that were looking -- looking inside the coolers, right? We didn't know that at first. We had to kind of track all that down and put that to rest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: President Joe Biden, speaking just moments ago, said the FBI briefed him that the suspect had a remote detonator in his vehicle that could have set off the explosives in those ice coolers.

Today, investigators laid out a brand new timeline of how the suspect prepared for this attack.

CNN national correspondent Ryan Young is in New Orleans. With that, and his conversations with the New Orleans police superintendent.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAIA: This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A change in theory and a brand new timeline laid out one day after the deadly attack on Bourbon Street.

RAIA: We do not assess at this point that anyone else is involved in this attack, except for Shamsud-Din Jabbar.

YOUNG: The FBI now saying they believe the suspect acted alone after initially saying Wednesday they believed he was not solely responsible for the deadly attack.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar first rented the white pickup truck in Houston, Texas, on December 30th.

RAIA: He then drove from Houston to New Orleans on the evening of the 31st, and he posted several videos to an online platform proclaiming his support for ISIS.

YOUNG: Dark details also revealed about Jabbar's Facebook videos the morning of the attack. His last one, posted at 3:02 a.m. just moments before he plowed down crowds on Bourbon Street.

RAIA: Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the, quote, war between the believers and the disbelievers, end quote.

YOUNG: The FBI also sending an important message to the public.

RAIA: So far, we have received just over 400 tips from the public. Whether you know Jabbar personally worked with him, served in the military, or saw him in New Orleans or Texas.

[16:05:01]

We need to talk to you.

YOUNG: Investigators reveal that two laptops and three phones were recovered, linked to the suspect, and are being reviewed for leads, and more evidence was released about the reported explosives found nearby the site of the attack.

RAIA: FBI bomb technicians also recovered two IEDs in coolers, one from the cross section of Bourbon and Orleans Street, and the second at an intersection approximately two blocks away.

GOV. JEFF LANDRY (R), LOUISIANA: You can't go out there and say, oh, I'm going to put this in place and that in place and hope that evil doesn't show up on your doorstep, because it will. You have to crush it.

YOUNG: A ubiquitous message being sent by all those investigating the attack.

What message are you trying to send?

ANNE KIRKPATRICK, NEW ORLEANS POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: Presence and making sure that people know that we're confident that we can keep them safe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG (on camera): And I actually have the my hand next to my ear because the music is now back on Bourbon Street. They are celebrating the reopening of the street. And you can see this barricade that has been in place.

Now, of course, this was down the night that this accident happened because they were worried about the function of it. And, Phil, one other thing we want to show you, as the mayor and the

police chief, walk down the street with the clergy, they place these roses to memorialize all the ones who were lost here. And you can understand how tough this has been for people. I talked to one police officer who said they will never forget what they saw when it comes to the evidence and the bodies and the human carnage that was left behind. This has been so very tough -- Phil.

MATTINGLY: Remarkable resilience from a shattered community. Ryan Young, thank you so much.

CNN is covering every angle of this story.

Let's bring in Michael Weiss, editor of the insider and author of the book "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror". We're also joined by CNN's Evan Perez, Andy Scholes and Kyung Lah.

Kyung, I want to start with you. You have this brand new exclusive video. What's your sense of its role in the investigation that's ongoing?

Well, you were just talking about Ryan and trying to put together that timeline. This is critical video because it places the suspect with a time stamp of this Ring camera video. What you are looking at here was recorded at approximately 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time, a full five hours before. What would happen on Bourbon Street.

This is a Ring camera owned by Jeff Gonzalez. He lives next door to the Airbnb that was rented by Jabbar, and you can see the bed of the Ford F-150 and Jabbar removing items and bringing them inside the Airbnb.

I want you to listen to Jeff Gonzalez.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF GONZALEZ, RING CAM OWNER: The white truck was parked right in front of our place and what you see in the second video is, is the terrorist unloading boxes into the Airbnb. And it just seems like even if anybody had seen him and not the Ring camera, it wouldn't really have been suspicious. You know, it wasn't anything that anybody would have taken notice of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: And there's a second Ring camera video that was captured on Gonzalez's Ring camera, and that one simply shows the truck it's idling there. And that timestamp is approximately 11:00 p.m. Central Time, so four hours before. And the way Gonzalez views this is that this truck was idling, the lights were on, and that he believes that the suspect appeared to be going back and forth, although you don't see him here in this second video.

Now, inside the Airbnb, authorities do say that Jabbar was manufacturing some type of explosive device. Gonzalez says that he was out celebrating New Year's Eve. He came home approximately 12:30 in the morning and he detected a smell. But it thought he thought it was just simply fireworks because it was such a weak smell.

And then he was up very early the next morning, at approximately 4:30 in the morning. And he thought that that smell was stronger. And then the fire department showed up at 6:00 a.m. We are learning from that press conference that that we saw from the FBI that there was some type of delayed fire that they believe was set in order to potentially remove some of the evidence or burn up that evidence in the Airbnb.

MATTINGLY: Two new pieces of an expansive investigative puzzle that policy officials that law enforcement officials have been trying to put together.

Evan, as part of that puzzle, investigators clearly trying to understand how the suspect got to be so radicalized. What are you learning about that?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean, that's a big focus of what the FBI is doing now. They're going to spend time going through those five devices that were recovered. There's three cell phones or two laptops.

And one of the things that they did talk about at the press conference, the FBI did today, they talked about these videos that he recorded in the hours before he carried out these attacks and before this attack.

[16:10:04]

And one of the things he talks about is that he initially thought about killing his family, gathering -- gathering his family members, and as part of a ruse of a celebration and then killing all of them.

But then he had changed his mind because he had become inspired to join ISIS. Now, the timeline of that radicalization is going to be key, because one of the things that investigators want to know is, does this go back to when he was in military service? Was this something more recent?

All of that is going to be, I think a picture of that is going to emerge from looking at what is on those devices over the last, say, year, two years. They're going to know what websites he's been looking at, one of the references he makes in one of these videos, Phil, he talks about a trying to ignite a war between believers and nonbelievers. That's classic ideology from -- from ISIS.

And so, he clearly got that from perhaps watching videos which are readily available online. And so the FBI is going to want to know a little bit more about the timeline of how that occurs. Is this something that happens just -- just in the last few months or last few weeks, or is this something that was more of a -- of a -- of a continuum that happened over the last couple of years?

MATTINGLY: Michael, you have done extensive reporting and writing in this space on these topics, probably more than -- than anybody in the field that we work in, based on the profile that has emerged, its been fleshed out over the course of the last 24 hours. Is it -- what stands out to you about this suspect?

MICHAEL WEISS, EDITOR, THE INSIDER: Well, the FBI has already said that he's 100 percent ISIS-inspired, which indicates he's probably been imbibing all kinds of propaganda, social media postings and literature by the terror organization, going back, I would guess more than even months, probably years.

His ex-wife's new husband said that he had converted to Islam and started to act very erratically and crazy. But, you know, I think the key thing here that that Evan just said was, this is a man who wanted to massacre his family, then changed his mind and pledged allegiance to ISIS in a video posted to Facebook.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest this guy does not have the greatest amount of emotional and psychological well-being to begin with, right?

So the question is, was he genuinely converted to ISIS? Would he genuinely believe in their genocidal and obscurantist doctrine? Or was this a guy who just went nuts and was looking for an outlet and decided, let's align with an apocalyptic death cult that the United States is at war with?

That's the question I have, and I'm sure the FBI is all over it and will know more as the reporting comes out.

But the other point I would make, though, and this is very worrisome to me. This guy was in the military, right? The seemingly unrelated attack in with the Cybertruck also a tier one Special Forces operator. In October, another U.S. Army soldier was sentenced to 14 years in prison for offering material support to ISIS to target and ambush U.S. forces in the Middle East.

I don't know what's going on with members of our Armed Services, but there seems to be a real problem here of radicalization and recruitment, or lurching into all kinds of other extremist ideologies. I mean, I know a lot of people are talking about this, the southern border and the threat posed by migrants, these are American citizens who serve their country, some of them quite patriotically, according to their family members, and then suddenly, all of a sudden, or not so all of a sudden, they turn and they turn rather horrifically, as we've just seen in New Orleans.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, it raises a lot of questions that I think law enforcement officials will have to have answers to or try to have answers to in the weeks and months ahead.

You know, Andy, through all of this, there has been a major football game that has been expected to be played, was delayed by a day. The Sugar Bowl, now kicking off in the Superdome amid heightened security. The backdrop obviously somber for one of the most anticipated college football games of the year. But tell us what you've been seeing and hearing there.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, the law enforcement officials there in New Orleans said there certainly was going to be beefed up security in and around the Superdome. They had hundreds of law enforcement officials, you know, lining the streets where fans were walking to the stadium. They've had extra bomb dogs just scouring the area in and around the stadium for the last 24 hours.

And we've been hearing, though, from fans, you know, who've been there in the city for the past 24 hours or even more. We talked to many of them, and many of them say, you know, they have felt safe in the city heading to the game. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, we feel for all the families and the victims that were involved. You know, we want to make sure that they're taken care of. And I think New Orleans has done a great job securing the city. But at the same time, we don't want to let terrorism disrupt what we're doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In terms of like public safety, I had no concerns. You know, I figured it's probably the safest place to be right now anywhere around here. Plus, you don't want to let the terrorists win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yeah. So that was the theme we were hearing from a lot of fans not letting the terrorists win. And they felt like they were very safe considering the amount of law enforcement that was around the stadium.

[16:15:01]

The game has kicked off in the last couple of minutes, and before the teams took the field, they did hold a moment of silence to honor all of the victims from the terrorist attack on Wednesday.

But the game is now underway there in New Orleans, Phil. They -- you know, they encouraged all the fans to get there early to get through the extra layers of security, and by the looks of it, a full stadium. None of the fans did have a problem.

The winner from that game between Georgia and Notre Dame, they play a week from today in the Orange Bowl against Penn State.

MATTINGLY: I think we're going to say the word a lot when it comes to this city. In the weeks and months ahead, resilience, no question about that.

Thanks to you all. Appreciate your time and expertise.

Fourteen people were killed in the New Orleans attack -- a college student, an engineer, a former football player. What we know about the lives they lived and were taken from just as this New Year began.

Plus, new details on that Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas. The suspect, the odd circumstances and the weapons involved purchased on New Year's Eve. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: In our national lead, new details about the person who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day. Law enforcement officials believe Matthew Livelsberger, a decorated, active duty Army Special Forces sergeant, rented the truck and was in it when the explosion occurred. Police are still waiting on final DNA confirmation because the body was, quote, burnt beyond recognition.

The sheriff of Las Vegas police department added this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF KEVIN MCMAHILL, LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE: The individual had sustained a gunshot wound to the head prior to the detonation of the vehicle. One of the handguns was found at his feet inside of the vehicle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: CNN's Natasha Chen is on the scene in Las Vegas. CNN's John Miller joins us from New York.

Natasha, to you first, the sheriff said investigators demonstrated that the investigators worked through the night, came up with a ton of evidence. What more can you tell us?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. At the press conference, Phil, they showed pictures of these charred pieces of evidence. There are two semiautomatic handguns that they found, that they said were legally purchased, just very shortly before this explosion happened on New Year's day, they found the person's military ID, a passport, a fireworks and iPhone smartwatch credit cards, saying that most of the material in there was to help fuel a greater explosion.

But again, that it was contained more, did less damage than it could have done because authorities credit the construction of the Cybertruck itself. And I did talk to a couple of guests, though, who felt the shaking from that explosion all the way up above 40 floors up in the hotel. They said there was even smoke billowing into the stairwell out of the elevator doors.

Here is one of the investigators speaking at the press conference about the nature of that explosion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNETH COOPER, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, ATF SAN FRANCISCO FIELD DIVISION: I just want to be careful with my language here, but the level of sophistication is not what we would expect from -- from an individual with this type of military experience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: And then that truck was seen on surveillance video going up and down Las Vegas Boulevard that same morning. And then the hour before the explosion, actually circling around here in front of the hotel and actually drove up and through the valet area and then came back for that explosion that we're talking about. Definitely very frightening moments for people inside, but did not do any damage to the glass at the front of the hotel at all -- Phil.

MATTINGLY: Which is remarkable when you see the video of that explosion.

John, the police laid out a sequencing here. I think that was news, at least for me while watching it, that the individual was shot in the head. Then the explosion occurred afterwards.

Can you explain kind of the sequence of events here?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So one of the things that we were wondering about yesterday is how does someone roll up in a car, start the fuse or detonation process of this conflagration of flames and heat, and then just remain in the driver's seat? That requires, even in a suicide a tremendous amount of willpower to sit through that.

What we learned today was the answer to that question, which is, according to the sheriff, it appears he self-inflicted a gunshot wound to the head with one of the guns that Natasha just told us he had bought, literally a day before, and that by the time that explosion happened, he was probably already dead.

MATTINGLY: John, the FBI spent hours at a Colorado Springs home they say was related to the explosion. Still looking into whether this was terrorism. I think what's striking about particularly in contrast to the New Orleans attack, where the profile very much fits with kind of what we've seen over time related to somebody who was radicalized by ISIS. There are a lot of questions that we don't have answers to in terms of motive right now. What do you know?

MILLER: Well, one of the things that's been so time consuming about these searches is not just putting together the documentation to get a federal judge to sign off on the warrant, but also when they were on the line of thinking that these might be connected, that they might be both connected to terrorist groups, that they might be connected to other accomplices.

When you enter a place to do a search like this, it's not the investigators who are going through the door. First, it's the bomb squad and they're not walking through the door.

They are literally scanning every surface in front of them, looking for, where's that tripwire? Where's this? Where's this third and fourth device? Where's the booby trap when you open this door?

So they clear the place, and that takes a long time to do it. Under these circumstances, your normal search warrant, you walk in and you're looking for what you're looking for. Then the crews that go in, they're looking for everything, they want to know fingerprints.

Who's been here? How about our subject? How about anybody else that registers in here? DNA? What's in the drains? Chemical residue, explosive residue, and so on.

So that's been time consuming. But in -- these cases are starting to separate, Phil.

[16:25:03]

We're seeing New Orleans start to look like what New Orleans is, which is a self-radicalized individual who took it upon himself to say, I'm doing this on behalf of ISIS. They'll still go back through his material to see if he was in contact with ISIS, or a consumer of propaganda, but that's what he says on the tapes, allegedly.

Las Vegas, more complicated, a higher level of military training, an active duty member, a member of Special Forces who has been deployed in Germany most of this time, comes home for Christmas and they've interviewed his command on both sides of the pond in Germany and at Fort Carson, Colorado, the people who worked with him and served with him.

They've also interviewed family members, his wife, his mother included, and they are starting to get a picture of issues that came up within the family situation, part of the pressures of long term deployments and other things that might make this more personal and more suicide than anything else.

MATTINGLY: We will have to watch for those questions become answered as the investigation continues.

Natasha Chen, John Miller, great reporting, great context as always, thanks to you both.

I want to turn back to New Orleans mother. A father urged their 25- year-old son not to go out on New Year's Eve, the tragic loss for this family and 13 others. As we learn more about the victims killed in this horrific attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:30:34]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVIS HUNTER, REGGIE HUNTER'S COUSIN: Reggie was a brother, a friend, an awesome cousin and most importantly, definitely was a great father.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That was the cousin of 37-year-old Reggie Hunter, a father of two who was one of the 14 victims killed in the deadly New Year's terror attack.

Among the other victims, a former football player, an engineer and a 21-year-old.

CNN's Danny Freeman has more on their stories.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINA BOUNDS, MATT TENEDORIO'S COUSIN: My grandma, grandpa, everybody is just crying, wailing together. And yesterday my grandma cried nonstop for eight hours like, we just can't believe it.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-five-year-old Matthew Tenedorio was from Slidell, Louisiana, the youngest brother of three, loved working with his dad at the superdome. Matt had dinner with his family earlier on New Year's Eve, and his cousin said matt was not hit by the truck that night, but died from a gunshot.

Matt's mother devastated.

BOUNDS: She wanted people to know that he was so lovable and kind and that he liked skateboarding, you know, and he loved his niece and nephews and, yeah, and that they're heartbroken.

FREEMAN: Matt is just one of 14 who were killed in the New Year's Day morning horror on Bourbon Street.

MAYOR LATOYA CANTRELL, NEW ORLEANS: They mattered. The families matter and matter to the city of New Orleans.

FREEMAN: Thirty-seven-year-old Reggie Hunter was a father of two, an 11-year-old and a one-year-old. He was from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

HUNTER: Reggie was a beautiful person inside and out, to know Reggie was to love Reggie.

FREEMAN: Reggie survived the initial attack, but passed away at the hospital from internal injuries.

HUNTER: He can change the environment in the room, always smiling, just a pure person. Good, pure-hearted person.

FREEMAN: Tiger Bech was 27 years old, the former Princeton football player from Lafayette, Louisiana. According to his sister, Virginia, Tiger was walking back to his hotel with his best friend on New Year's Eve when they were both struck. His friend survived, but Tiger passed away at the hospital. Tiger's sister Virginia, telling CNN she's heartbroken, but evil will not prevail.

Twenty-one-year-old Hubert Gauthreaux was killed in the attack as well. His high school in Marrero, Louisiana, asking the community to pray for the repose of Hubert's soul, his family and friends during this difficult time.

Drew Dauphin graduated from Auburn University in 2023. Words cannot convey the sorrow the Auburn family feels for Drew's family and friends during this unimaginably difficult time, wrote the university's president, Christopher Roberts. The University of Alabama confirmed student Kareem Badawi was also one

of the victims. The president of that school, writing, I grieve alongside family and friends of Kareem in their heartbreaking loss.

We're still learning more about the 14 people lost and the dozens injured on New Year's day. Parents, siblings, students, locals and tourists loved and not forgotten.

Danny Freeman, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: As the mayor said, they matter, their families matter.

Danny Freeman, thank you for that reporting.

Much more from New Orleans ahead.

We're also looking ahead to the major House vote. Will House Speaker Mike Johnson be able to keep that job? He can only lose one GOP vote. Today, he's trying to shore up roughly six. Exactly what's at stake here, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:38:13]

MATTINGLY: At this hour in our politics lead, still unclear if House Speaker Mike Johnson has the votes to hold on to that speaker's gavel, scrambling now to meet with a half dozen holdouts from his own party with less than 24 hours until the 119th Congress kicks off. He has the slimmest House majority in nearly a century, and even one defection could cost the speaker's gavel.

Not only will this vote determine Johnson's political future, but also the GOP's ability to push Donald Trump's expansive second term agenda.

Let's break this down with CNN's Lauren Fox and Kristen Holmes.

Lauren, I want to start with you. I believe the speaker wants to be speaker, speaker designate, what do we call him in this in-between period of time? Made a pretty bold prediction on Fox Business just a short while ago. What was it?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. He essentially said that he's confident that they're going to be okay tomorrow. He believes that they could even get this done in the first round of voting. Earlier today, we were reporting that some of Johnson's allies were preparing for a scenario where perhaps they could go multiple rounds just to remind everyone. It was just two years ago that Kevin McCarthy went 15 rounds, took five days to clinch that speakers gavel.

So there's just a lot of questions about what happens tomorrow, because some of these undecided members that he met with, they were pretty jolly as they came out of this meeting in terms of congressional readouts go. But they also were not yet committed to Johnson.

I talked to Tim Burchett earlier today, and he was getting on a plane to come to D.C. He said he's going to pray about it tonight. He's going to think about it overnight and then he's going to decide tomorrow.

Although he did say that Johnson gets a lot of credit because he's been having these one on one conversations with members. He's been reaching out. He said that's more attention than he's gotten in the past.

MATTINGLY: And it will be interesting to see if that's going to be enough or if they want something more tangible going forward.

Kristen, you cover the president-elect and his team. Obviously, he has endorsed Mike Johnson. Let him hang out there a little bit before he actually did that. This is the quarterback of the agenda in the House.

[16:40:02]

What's the Trump team thinking right now?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, they want to get this done and they want to get it done quickly. Donald Trump remembers exactly what happened during the entire Speaker McCarthy fight. And it took a lot of attention off of Donald Trump and what Donald Trump was doing. It also made the Republican Party, especially in the House, look completely chaotic.

Those are two things that Donald Trump does not want to have to deal with as he's going into his inauguration. It is January 3rd. He is set to be inaugurated on the 20th. He is coming to Washington, I believe, on the 18th, to start that process.

They don't want to be looking down the throat of a chaotic Republican Party. They don't want to be looking down a situation in which Donald Trump is not the center of attention. He wants this to be done.

Now, when it comes to Johnson himself, we know they have had a number of conversations. Donald Trump privately has told people they just he just believes that Johnson is the guy who can get the votes. Maybe right now, he doesn't have all of the votes, but of the entire landscape in the House. The more people Donald Trump talks to, he believes Johnson can get the votes.

On top of that, he believes Johnson is an ally. Johnson has proven that he has shown up at Mar-a-Lago. He's been by his side. He flew down on election night to say, I am one of a small group of people.

Johnson has basically jumped through every single hoop that he has needed to jump through to appease Donald Trump and show him that he is loyal. Donald Trump wants somebody like that, the speaker of the House.

FOX: And its also not a small thing that Trump put out this endorsement a couple days ahead of this election, in part because it is weighing on Republican members. When I talked to Burchett earlier, he said that Donald Trump's endorsement was not a small thing and that it was a deal breaker for some Republicans who were maybe on the fence about Johnson just last weekend.

HOLMES: And Johnson said that he actually asked for that endorsement to come early, that essentially they had talked about this idea that it would come on New Year's Day when they had their meeting, that that's how this was going to play out. But as Johnson started to see the writing on the wall, he believed this needed to come sooner. So he actually asked Donald Trump to put it out there sooner for exactly the reason that Lauren said it does carry a lot of weight.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, and Trump delivered on it.

Can I ask you the time we have left? What tangible can the holdouts get? Like is there something that Johnson can offer them to give them? What's out there right now?

FOX: Yeah, I mean, I think right now what they're staring down are some of the process changes. How do you deal with spending bills? Can you try to do individual spending bills? We've seen this show many times in the House. It's very difficult because Johnson is going to have a narrow majority with each of these pieces of legislation.

You also are hearing from conservatives that they want more buy in from individual members on legislation overall, this means the tax package. This means immigration package. They want to be negotiating these packages in real time.

They don't want staff negotiating them, leadership negotiating them, then turning around very quickly and asking for their votes. Those are some of the structural changes. I think what's so difficult about making those promises now, it might get you votes, but it also can lead to disappointment later because you're going to have such a narrow majority if you're Mike Johnson. And if you get the speakers gavel tomorrow to really follow through on some of those.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. Current Speaker Kevin McCarthy can vouch for the fact that when you give things to people, it may not -- former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Real quick, before I let you go, how's the Trump team feeling about their agenda, given what they're watching right now with the speaker's race, but also that very, very narrow majority?

HOLMES: Look, I think they're just waiting to see how it's going to play out. I think they feel really good. Donald Trump and his team have come up with a lot of solutions that they could possibly bypass Congress on, and they've looked into that. We know he did that the first term as well, but they are looking at how this is going to unfold and waiting for each step to unfold.

I mean, one really interesting thing to watch right now has been how the Trump team is absorbing how Washington works so differently than what happened four years ago, because now they actually understand how all of the pieces are supposed to move together. So what they believe now is okay if we want to get this stuff done in

the house, the first thing that has to happen, and we have to have a speaker of the House that everybody agrees on. So a lot of this is not just Donald Trump trying to strong-arm people because he believes he wants to get his way, but a lot of it is that he actually understands how Washington works now. And they're trying to get this done, hence why he believes that if Johnson can get the actually get the votes and no one else can, he's going to back Johnson.

MATTINGLY: Underappreciated element of why this is a very different administration than we saw or at least could be. Well actually see how this plays out. We've been through the first one.

All right. Lauren, Kristen Holmes, thank you guys very much. Appreciate it.

Well, the weather is not on your radar. It probably should be. A major winter storm is about to hit the East Coast. But first, a big dip in temperatures. We'll explain, next.

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[16:48:28]

MATTINGLY: Also in our national lead, at this hour, arctic wind gusts are bringing exceptionally cold air into the eastern U.S. temperatures are expected to plunge up to 30 degrees below average, with freezing conditions reaching as far south as the gulf coast and Florida. That means we could see one rare sight again, iguanas plummeting from trees. No one is safe this weekend.

A winter storm could bring snow and ice from Kansas to the Atlantic coast, with the heaviest snow expected in the central U.S. and icing in parts of the Tennessee Valley. Authorities are urging residents to prepare for dangerous conditions.

Meteorologist Chad Myers has the latest forecast.

Chad, lets talk about this major snowstorm on the way. What are you seeing?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: A couple of things.

Right now, we have a snow globe that when you got it for Christmas, you took it and you spun it like this and made all the snow go sideways. That's Utica. That's Barrie, Ontario, that's really the Cattaraugus, Chautauqua counties of Buffalo.

This is the first event that were getting into right now, and there are winter storm watches and warnings posted in the areas you likely know that. There goes the snow. We could see a little bit of snow even in D.C. tomorrow morning. Not enough to really do much, but enough for some effect getting on the grassy surfaces. And then the next storm system for the weekend starts to ramp up. And this thing is still in the Rockies, so we still don't have a perfect idea yet. But anywhere from the Ohio valley through Tennessee, all of Ohio,

Indiana, that's a lot of snow coming down. There could be places models are putting out 16 inches of snow, and in that pink area right through here, Phil, that's an ice storm that could possibly be coming in, where a quarter inch of ice could bring down power lines, bring down trees.

[16:50:04]

This is a big event here with the cold of the north warm to the south. And whenever that happens, snow, sleet, ice and freezing rain.

MATTINGLY: Chad, this is admittedly a selfish question. Tell me about the Arctic air that's moving in here. What are we seeing? Oh, yeah.

MYERS: Oh, yeah, this is not -- we're not calling it a polar vortex, but it kind of resembles one. It's just not.

This isn't going to be the coldest air of the season that were going to see, and it's not really going to break a lot of records, but it's going to be the coldest air so far this winter, without a doubt. We've had a very mild winter. I mean, just put it bluntly, but the frigid air gets here next week.

Literally, I would say, seven days from right now will be the coldest that you've felt the entire time we've had, now going from fall into the winter time. Temperatures are going to be well below normal, 20, 30, 40 degrees below zero. Wind chill factors out there need to take care of your pets, your plants for sure, and the people that you care about because this will be a dangerous event not just yet, but 3 to 4 days from now. That air really makes it all the way to the Gulf Coast -- Phil.

MATTINGLY: Oof! Chad Myers, appreciate you, man. Thank you.

And we'll be back in a moment.

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[16:55:23]

MATTINGLY: One day after a terror attack that shattered a community, a familiar sound returned to the heart of New Orleans.

Those notes from the second line band this afternoon, marching down Bourbon Street as it reopened to the public, playing in honor of the 14 victims killed in the New Year's terror attack.

I want to bring in New Orleans City Councilman Oliver Thomas.

Councilman, really appreciate your time. We have all been thinking and praying for your community.

As we watch the activity return to the streets that the entire country knows so well. What have you heard from your constituents as they learn more about this attack, as they continue to grieve? OLIVER THOMAS, NEW ORLEANS CITY COUNCILMAN: Well, one of the things

that we've been concerned about is a lot of misinformation, a unified message coming from law enforcement and our officials and trying to have some clarity about what were the issues, what this a lone wolf? Did this person have accomplices? Should we be concerned about a secondary explosives, or other locations?

And hopefully, today's press conference, cleared that up with the young man from the FBI, our governor, our mayor and other officials. But just a combined message where we could at least count on the fact that the government was being transparent, law enforcement was being transparent, and we would know whether we were clear at least of this particular danger that we were in.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, it was a very different press conference than we saw 24 hours prior. We've learned a lot more about the suspect here. It appears he uploaded videos, place coolers with suspected explosive devices out in the public. You know, to your point, how chilling was that over the course of the last day?

THOMAS: Well, it was extremely chilling. Of course, you know, we're a town that relies heavily on tourism, special events. We love to host people, and it was just man to be in limbo. First of all, to know that there was an immediate threat that where people lost their lives, over 30 people were injured, a few law enforcement, members sustained gunshot wounds in a gun battle in or a gunfire exchange and to not know where or if there were more devices planted in the quarter or planted in our community to learn that this person had an Airbnb where explosives were -- were found.

I mean, that was -- as chilling as the event was, the suspense about not knowing who and what and how many, and if we were clear of that particular threat left us all in a lot of limbo. So it's good to at least now that we have some confirmed, answers, some confirmation.

I think in that our government and our federal government, our state and local government are on the same page so that we can have this event that's happening right now. I mean, Sugar Bowl is on now.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. To that point, quickly before I have to let you go, where does the community go from here? The game is underway obviously Super Bowl upcoming but the community. Where do you go from here?

THOMAS: Well, great question, Phil. You know, I harken back to standing on a corner of Bourbon and contact with Anderson Cooper, man, almost 20 years ago when he asked a similar question about after Katrina. Where New Orleans goes is we go -- where we've always been, always been, one of the most iconic cities in America with the great Afro-centric, Afro-Caribbean culture, with music and food and revelry.

And we go back to being resilient. We're -- we're -- look, we're New Orleans. We're one of the most authentic different places in the world, and definitely in this nation. So we go back to being who we are, but hopefully with a sense of confidence in knowing that what wasn't done will be done moving forward. And I think that's essential right now. How do we work out the kinks? But a lot of pressure is being put on

cities like ours. And even if no one is hurt, the people who are trying to hurt us just by making us have to spend millions and billions of dollars more on security, whether it's airport security, whether its access to streets, access to sidewalks, we need to be as aggressive as we can at stamping this evil out, not allowing them to destroy our way of life and our country, and protecting our -- our democracy and our freedom.

MATTINGLY: No better town, no better people.

New Orleans City Councilman Oliver Thomas, thanks so much.

THOMAS: God bless you. And thank you, team, man. We appreciate y'all.

MATTINGLY: Well, also today in our money lead, Apple will pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit filed five years ago in federal court. It alleges that Siri was covertly activated to eavesdrop on people using iPhones and other devices that use Siri, according to the lawsuit. The alleged recordings happened even when users did not say "hey, Siri", and those recordings were then shared with some advertisers.

It's not clear how or if this will affect Apple's reputation as a protector of personal privacy. The company has not acknowledged any wrongdoing.

Well, if you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

The news continues on CNN with the one and only Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM".