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Trump Vows to Push Federal Death Penalty; Luigi Mangione Case Moving Forward; American Airlines Briefly Grounds All Flights; New York Subway Murder Suspect Arraigned. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 24, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:30]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: The suspect in a brutal New York subway murder has just been arraigned. What we're learning about the man now charged and what we're learning about the victim of this shocking crime.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN HOST: Plus, American Airlines flights resume after a technical issue led to a nationwide ground stop. But what caused the glitch? And is it still impacting travelers?

And Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. American territorial expansion seems to be on the mind of president-elect Donald Trump. So what's behind all this? We will take a closer look.

And we're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HILL: And we do begin with the breaking news. I'm Erica Hill, along with Danny Freeman, in New York.

The suspect who allegedly set a sleeping woman on fire on the New York subway discharged from a hospital and has been arraigned.

FREEMAN: Police say the man accused in the horrific burning death is a 33-year-old undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, noting he was likely homeless and has been living in the U.S. illegally for years.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino joins us now from New York.

Gloria, you have some new reporting on the suspect. Please tell us what you're learning.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Danny, Erica, we were just in the last few minutes finally getting some confirmation that the suspect in this case has been arraigned.

He was just presented in front of a judge in Brooklyn criminal court, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33 years old, accused of setting fire to a woman who was sleeping inside of a subway car on Sunday. Now, he is facing three charges. I'm looking at the complaint right now. He's facing murder in the first and the second degree, as well as arson. Now, this has been a little bit of a delay since Sunday, when he was

first arrested following the incident. We learned just a few hours ago that the suspect was actually hospitalized overnight. We don't know the details of what led to that hospitalization just yet, but in the last few minutes, we have learned that he has now been presented in front of a judge and he has been remanded back into custody.

So, no bail hearing, nothing about whether or not he entered a plea yet, likely because he has to appear at Supreme Criminal Court because these are felony charges. So, he is going to be remanded back into custody and is expected to appear back in court next Friday.

So, we are getting some details about what this complaint says. I will read through it as soon as I can, but this is happening just at a moment where there has been so much focus about the safety of the transit system here in New York City.

These two people, apparently, suspect and victim, both believed to be homeless. The suspect also entered the United States illegally in 2018. He was deported shortly after that, but then he reentered the United States. That's according to Customs and Border Patrol, who shared that information with us.

We have also know that he reentered the country and ended up here in New York City, where in the last few months he's been in and out of several homeless shelters. Now, police officials believe the woman in this case, the victim, was also homeless. She was likely taking shelter from the cold while she was sleeping inside that subway car.

One of the things that the suspect had on him when they apprehended him was the lighter that police officials say he used to set fire to her. Now, the suspect was arrested after a remarkable amount of police work, as well as the images that you're seeing now. They were captured by surveillance cameras installed inside of those subway cars.

And it was actually three high school-aged New Yorkers who were riding the same train line that spotted him and reported him to police, who were able to move in and make the arrest.

Now, I do want to mention that, since the pandemic, there's been an incredible focus on the safety of the transit system, and crime has actually decreased, in fact, 10 percent decrease since May, when Governor Kathy Hochul announced a brand-new safety plan, and, overall, a 42 percent decrease since January of 2021, right after the pandemic.

But, still, these high-profile incidents that happen from time to time return the focus to the transit system and whether or not people feel like it is safe to ride it, and concern about these two really complicated longstanding issues, homelessness, mental illness and public safety on the public transit system here in New York City.

[13:05:12]

So we will see what the suspect says when he appears in court, expected again next Friday. He will likely enter a plea, but for now he is back in the custody of the Corrections Department to await that next court appearance -- Danny, Erica.

HILL: Gloria, I really appreciate it. Thank you.

We are also following developments in another high-profile case here in New York City, the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO earlier this month. Mayor Eric Adams' office is now pushing back after the suspect's attorney criticized the mayor in court for the mayor's public comments about the case and for joining police in what the attorney called a staged perp walk.

The attorney also raising concerns about her client getting a fair trial, that all coming up during yesterday's arraignment. Well, today, a spokesperson for Mayor Adams releasing a statement, which says in part -- quote -- "Critics can say all they want, but showing up to support our law enforcement and sending the message to New Yorkers that violence and vitriol have no place in our city is who Mayor Eric Adams is to his core."

Joining me now to discuss, legal analyst and trial attorney Mercedes Colwin.

Good to have you here, Mercedes.

So, when we look at this statement, not unexpected, I would say, from the mayor's office, as he pushes back on these allegations.

MERCEDES COLWIN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right.

HILL: But her allegation was that this perp walk was unconstitutional because it did not have an objective for law enforcement and that Adams really had no need to be there. Is there anything in that argument that you see actually influencing the case and what could happen?

COLWIN: Well, say for Agnifilo, who's the attorney, she's got a great reputation. She is very well respected in the defense bar.

She was raising her concerns and putting it out there that she was truly concerned about prospective jurors. And when you have this type of high-profile client, you don't want there to be an outlandish perp walk. You shun away from it. You definitely don't want that to influence your prospective jurors, which is what she's doing.

And she's also laying the foundation for a motion to change venue. If she's saying New York City is not where he can have a fair trial, then she's already planting the seeds for her to make that motion to change venue, where she is going to argue before the same tribunal and say, let's -- we need a different jury pool. And that jury pool cannot be in New York City because of what took place.

HILL: There are also some concerns about the jury poll. Usually, there is a concern that perhaps the jury pool could be tainted against the defendant, that it may be a little bit tainted for the defendant.

So, interesting to see how that plays out. As we know, there is going to be this state case, but also the federal case. COLWIN: Right.

HILL: If he is found guilty in a federal murder charge, he could potentially face the death penalty.

Donald Trump yesterday, in light of President Biden commuting 37 death row inmate sentences, right, he posted yesterday that he would direct the DOJ to vigorously pursue the death penalty. How do you think this could impact that federal case?

COLWIN: Well, when you have the death penalty at issue, that has to be discussed with your jury, because the jury has to be comfortable with convicting individuals that may face that death penalty. So this type of argument is going to be vetted during the jury selection process.

And it'll be interesting to see whether that will have any impact. Certainly, that's going to be a question raised by the defense, that there were reportings of the president-elect making comments about the death penalty being imposed on the client. That has to be vetted to that jury. The jury has to make an acknowledgement that, one, they did hear the comments and it doesn't impact their thinking at all and they can still sit and be a fair and impartial juror in that trial.

And, secondly, maybe they didn't listen. They didn't hear that comment at all. But, either way, that comment could have some impact in that jury selection. And you're going to have to impanel jurors that are fair and impartial. And so comments from the president-elect that may impact their thinking, that's something that absolutely has to be vetted.

And if it's not vetted, shame on the defense attorneys. They need to make sure that there's an understanding that that jury is not at all influenced whatsoever.

HILL: I'm also curious to see what happens with the timeline, right?

COLWIN: Sure.

HILL: So, we know for the state case, the next hearing, the next time we will see Mangione in court is February 21. The state is expected to go before that federal case.

But is there any way that -- once Donald Trump is in office come January, we will see changes at the DOJ. Is there any way that could influence the timeline?

COLWIN: That's a great question, Erica.

It really depends on what happens with the incoming -- we don't have the SDNY U.S. attorney as of yet. But we will definitely have to make sure and look at the timing. Really, frankly, the discovery is much quicker in the federal action. So it's interesting that the state action can actually go forward.

So there will be a coordination between the state prosecutors and the federal prosecutors to make sure that they have discovery and they don't duplicate efforts. So there will be some coordination. And maybe, in that coordination, there will be some agreement between the state and federal prosecutors to change the timeline at all.

[13:10:14]

HILL: Mercedes Colwin, great to have you here. Thank you.

COLWIN: Thanks for having me. Happy holidays.

HILL: And to you as well. Thank you -- Danny.

FREEMAN: Thanks, Erica.

All right, the good news is, American Airlines flights are taking off again, but that follows a technical issue that briefly grounded all of the company's planes earlier this morning.

You can take a look at a moment at the long lines that we were seeing at Chicago's O'Hare Airport you can see right there, but that outage on one of the busiest travel days of the year sparked delays at airports really across the country.

For more on this, we have CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean.

Pete, tell us, where do things stand right now?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, just got new information about the cause from American Airlines.

It says it's all hands on deck now to get things back to normal. We now know this was an outage of a system that is key to American getting flights boarded and on their way pushed back from the gate. The carrier says it has about 3,900 flights scheduled for today. Good news for the half-million people traveling on the airline, no major cascading effects yet.

Here is the latest data from airline analytics firm Cirium, about half of all American flights departing from American's Charlotte hub, one of the biggest, departing late, 20 percent departing late from Miami, another big American hub, but no cancellations to report yet. So the real story right now is delays.

American spokesperson Sarah Jantz tells me it's to be expected throughout the day, but today's airline schedule a fraction of what it was yesterday. Most of the travel rush has already happened. And American insists to me it does have the staff in place to get things back on track pretty quickly here.

This outage started about 7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, flights held on the ground by American for about an hour. American just said for the first time that this was an issue with a vendor. That network hardware feeds into what's called American's flight operations system. Without that, flights can essentially not be dispatched.

Want to read you now the new statement from American. It says: "A vendor technology issue briefly affected flights this morning. That issue has been resolved and flights have resumed. We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning."

History has shown, Danny, that these airline technology issues can have a huge impact. In July, the CrowdStrike outage caused a meltdown for American Airlines. It canceled about five -- or sorry -- Delta Air Lines -- scratch that -- caused about 5,000 Delta flights to be canceled in total.

And remember back to two years ago, pretty much right at this moment, Southwest holiday meltdown was just starting. It canceled 15,000 flights over about a week's time. The Department of Transportation's really turned up the heat on keeping airlines accountable.

And outgoing Secretary Pete Buttigieg says that that Delta investigation is still ongoing, though airlines are pretty hopeful that the new Trump administration may be more sympathetic to them when it comes to snags like we saw today. Still more information to come from American here, Danny.

FREEMAN: Pete Muntean, thank you so much, and a sigh of relief that at least things are back on track after a bit of a scare this morning.

(LAUGHTER)

MUNTEAN: Darn right, yes.

FREEMAN: Appreciate it, Pete. Thanks.

All right, of course, weather, though, also impacting travel, as storms hit parts of the U.S. today.

CNN's Derek Van Dam is tracking the holiday conditions, and he's joining us now with your Christmas weather forecast -- Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Some lucky few will get their white Christmas dreams realized, including here in Staten Island, New York, where a fresh layer of snow blanketed the roadways and the landscape here early Christmas Eve morning.

I think temperatures will remain cold enough to where this sticks around. Maybe we will get that white Christmas in and around New York City, something we haven't seen in quite some time. This is going to have impacts, though, on the roadways, of course, one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.

And with the FAA ground stop with American Airlines earlier on Christmas Eve morning, which has since been lifted, this could, of course, have compounding issues through the course of the day.

Now, the storm system that brought the snowfall to New York and surrounding areas has moved offshore. There is still some light drizzle reported in and around Washington and Baltimore. The higher elevation bridges and overpasses could have some slick spots, so do take care. Now we're focusing our attention just a little further to the west,

where heavy rain could be an issue for eastern sections of Texas. This area you see shaded in green has a marginal risk of excessive rain that could lead to localized flash flooding. There has already been flash flood warnings in and around the Dallas-Fort Worth region, two to four inches, locally, higher amounts expected across the area.

Plus, you will want to keep an eye to the sky. We have a slight risk from the Weather Prediction Center of severe weather today, basically from Waco to the south and east outside of Houston, although there is a marginal risk all the way to the Gulf Coast, damaging winds, hail a possibility, especially where you see that shading of yellow.

That is why we have at least minor to moderate potential here for some airline delays, because of the weather across eastern sections of Texas. You saw the snow, the icing potential along the East Coast, but then let's focus out West, because a series of storm systems have been impacting the western coastline of our country lately, bringing rough surf and also strong winds and heavy rain.

[13:15:15]

We will measure the snowfall in mount -- in the mountains here in feet, not inches.But, again, it's all about the coastal surf that has been very rough. That will continue at least for the next 24 hours -- back to you.

FREEMAN: Derek Van Dam, thank you very much.

Still ahead: Millions of dollars are pouring in for president-elect Trump's inauguration. We will show you which company is the latest top dollar donor and why so many major corporations are eager to donate.

Plus, a ski lift collision high over the slopes of a popular resort sends people plunging to the ground -- coming up next, why one witness says they were lucky that it happened when it did.

And North Carolina's governor-elect reportedly says the areas hard-hit by Hurricane Helene are not only open; they're desperate for business. We will speak with a tourism official for Asheville on how the city is trying to rebound from that disaster.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:20:00]

HILL: Twenty-seven days now until president-elect Trump's second inauguration, and already some big businesses are lining up to show their support. Ford Motor Company says it is pitching in a million dollars for the inauguration fund, also supplying a small fleet of vehicles to help with transportation.

Ford, of course, isn't alone. We told you about tech companies, including Meta and Amazon, making million-dollar contributions. CNN's Fredreka Schouten joining us now with more.

So, it's not unusual, it's important to note, for companies to contribute to inaugurations. What feels, I think, a little bit different this time around is just how vocal they seem to be about it, almost another example of maybe kissing the rain to curry favor.

Is that why it's so much more public?

FREDREKA SCHOUTEN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL WRITER: I don't know, Erica.

It's really interesting. As you noted, it is traditional. A lot of companies stand up to support this very American tradition of the transfer of power. But you do see this time around a lot of companies, CEOs making the trek down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald Trump.

You see them announcing donations at a fast clip. I mean, earlier today, GM confirmed to me that they too were going to donate a million dollars to the inauguration and also working on getting a fleet of vehicles.

I think people understand that the stakes are really high. Donald Trump has made no mistake -- has been very, very clear, rather, about his interest in changing the way things are done in Washington. For instance, he's talked a lot about getting rid of subsidies for electronic -- electric vehicles.

Now customers get about $7,500 per E.V., and he wants to do away with that. And these companies have invested a lot of money in that. By the same token, he's talked about slapping tariffs on Mexico and Canada. That's going to affect automotive supply chains.

But you're seeing not just companies. You're seeing individual billionaires saying that they're going to stand up and donate. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has talked about a personal donation of a million dollars., Ken Griffin of Citadel hedge fund is also donating a million dollars.

And so we are going to see, I think, a lot of money coming into this inauguration. The last time he was sworn in, he raised a record at the time. It was $107 million, or just slightly below that, far more than Joe Biden raised when he was inaugurated. That was about $62 million, $63 million.

And you saw big companies step up to help him. But I really think that people are very interested in having his ear. And one of the things that's striking to me this time as well is that, the more you donate, the more access you're going to get at the festivities. Folks are going to be able to attend candlelight dinners if they donate at a high enough level, go to receptions with Cabinet members.

So it's a real opportunity to get in on the ground and make sure that Donald Trump knows who you are and make sure that he knows about your issues, Erica. HILL: It's interesting. In many ways, it's an extension of the

campaign, right, because we see what happens with big donors certainly after someone is elected and the types of access they gather, even perhaps appointments. And now we see it here with what is looking to be a bit of a big cash cow when it comes to inaugurations.

They're not cheap, but a lot of money.

Fredreka, I appreciate it. Thank you.

SCHOUTEN: You're welcome.

HILL: Danny.

FREEMAN: Meantime, the president-elect is announcing more major policy shifts for the White House as he prepares to take office, Trump posting to his TRUTH Social account just this morning that he will -- quote -- "direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty."

It comes just a day after President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly all of the federal death row inmates, 37 in total, something Trump said makes no sense.

For more on this, joining us now is Axios senior contributor Margaret Talev.

Margaret, I want to start here on this issue of the death penalty.

In 2020, Biden campaigned on this, on being against the federal death penalty and vowed to stop using it. We know it. But now president- elect Trump is leaning into it. What do you make of his new threat here?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS: Well, Danny, I do think that we're going to see a lot of efforts by the incoming president to reverse or blunt or turn around policies of the outgoing Biden administration.

In this case, to your point, we saw Biden's own views on the death penalty change over the years from his time in the Senate, when he actually expanded death penalty-eligible crimes to his current stance.

And Biden's decision coming right under the wire like this that converted back to life in prison, took the death penalty off the table for nearly all of those federal death row inmates, what it does immediately is, it makes it much harder for president-elect Trump to do what he's talking about doing, at least in the case of these folks who have, in various ranges, been there on death row or in prison for the last three decades in some cases.

[13:25:13]

So -- but Trump, he cannot undo what Biden has done in the case of those 37, but he can proceed with his own approach towards federal death row enforcement going forward. But Biden's action, commutations like that are not reversible.

FREEMAN: Can I just ask you on that? I mean, just to pull that thread a little bit more, what does that actually look like? I mean, if -- to make good on this promise that president-elect Trump is making, I mean, what does a more aggressive DOJ on the death penalty look like? Does it just mean pursuing maybe more -- pursuing the death penalty more in cases coming forward?

TALEV: It could both a combination of pursuing it and then actually using it.

As we were just talking about, these inmates largely were on death row for decades, but Biden had placed a moratorium on the use of the federal death penalty. And his actions here in the final weeks makes that permanent for this group, but it doesn't apply going forward.

And president-elect Trump can use the law as it exists and he can enforce the law. And it's possible that his Justice Department, if courts agree, can be more aggressive in the way they pursue some of these cases.

FREEMAN: Margaret, I want to switch gears for a moment to talk about one of the other big topics that we have been seeing coming from president-elect Trump.

He's continuing to push this idea of the U.S. reclaiming the Panama Canal. Panama's president has now responded, and I want you to take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSE RAUL MULINO, PRESIDENT OF PANAMA (through translator): That is a manifestation of gross ignorance of history. So, all those speculations and all that range of eventualities that are not going to happen, well, I leave them there as totally irrelevant issues and quite bordering on historical incoherence with what the Panama Canal has been, is and will be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: So president-elect Trump then posted on social media saying -- quote -- "We will see about that."

I don't think anyone necessarily had this on their bingo card for the end-of-the-year topic we'd be discussing, but is president-elect Trump essentially threatening Panama here?

TALEV: He is, but it's more complicated than it seems on the surface, like so many of these things.

And this is not the only kind of chess piece on the foreign policy board that we're seeing the president-elect look at rearranging. Of course, there is -- he's renewed his call for the U.S. to be able to buy Greenland from Denmark, which is complicated because Greenland actually has home rule. In any case, you look at these two things together and you say, is he

really serious? Is Donald Trump, who has said that the U.S. should kind of dial back a little bit from foreign policy engagements and focus more on the needs at home, is he really talking about trying to grab back the Panama Canal and buy Greenland?

And the short answer is, it's impossible to legally see how he could take back the Panama Canal. Panama has had control fully of the Panama Canal since the 1990s. And Greenland's not for sale. So the short answer to both of these seems to be no, but the question is, why is he talking about it?

And I think that's where this really gets interesting, Danny. On the one hand, obviously, he is trying to maneuver better business and trade arrangements from Panama. He's complaining about the cost of shipping, and he's sort of suggesting that, if Panama can make a deal with him, maybe he would stop talking about this.

And then in the case of Greenland, that Arctic Circle, you're really seeing this as a strategically important area, both maybe from a national security perspective, potentially a shipping perspective, and also like rare earth minerals, the kind of stuff that goes into computers and emerging technology that the U.S. wants to be able to rely on more sources for, rather than be beholden to China on any of this, or just purely in competition with China.

Greenland has the potential to help in all of these areas. The question is, is Trump going to get what he wants by sort of creating tensions with a nation that you would think of as naturally allied with the us? Or is he laying the ground works for some sort of enhanced partnership with Denmark and Greenland?

So it's easy to sort of think of Trump's foreign policy as isolationist, especially as he's calling for ending the wars and ending the war in Ukraine. But this shows a different side. This is even an expansionist or imperialist sort of approach.

The difference seems to be that he's saying that he doesn't want to withdraw from the world, but he wants U.S. engagement to be on his terms.