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NATO Calls for Plane Crash Investigation; Russian Attack on Ukraine Energy Infrastructure; Trump Picks Ambassador for Panama. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 26, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: In the first game of the day. Patrick Mahomes leading KC out to an early 13-point lead, and they were never really threatened by Pittsburgh.

Mahomes threw three touchdown passes, including one to his favorite target, Travis Kelce. Travis' 77th career touchdown catch early in the fourth, breaking KC's all time touchdown receptions record. He dunked the ball to pay tribute to the former record holder, Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez. The Chiefs lock up the top seed in the AFC for the fourth time in seven seasons with a 29-10 win.

And, Kate, it was a very Merry Christmas for the Chiefs. Santa showed up to help them celebrate in the locker room, but this is actually their head coach, Andy Reid. And then check out the jolly old elf showing up to give coach, aka Santa, a game ball. The Chiefs earning their franchise record 15th win on the season. Incredible stuff.

Now, I know earlier we talked about how good we would all maybe look in a Santa Claus outfit, but I don't think anyone could top head coach Andy Reid. That's stellar.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I love Andy Reid. Not only for how he acts on the field, but with - the commercials that he cuts. I mean the man is hysterical and clearly just loves his life.

Coy, great to see you.

WIRE: (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: Thank you, darling.

WIRE: You got it.

BOLDUAN: A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A dispute over what caused a plane crash in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people on board. Russia initially blaming a bird strike, but others pushing back on that and saying Russia may be to blame for the crash.

The president-elect has floated the idea of taking back the Panama Canal, and now he's named the man who will be front and center as Donald Trump potentially pushes for U.S. expansion.

The presents have been opened, and the bags are now packed for the return trip home but you might find some delays. Snow and rain on the way. We are tracking the forecast.

I'm Sara Sidner, with Kate Bolduan. John Berman is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

This is just in to CNN, NATO now calling for a full investigation into the Christmas Day plane crash that killed at least 38 people in Kazakhstan. It is preliminary report, Russia is claiming that a bird strike may have forced the attempt to make an emergency landing with the plane looking like it was falling out of the sky. But Ukrainian officials and others now pushing back on that this morning, saying that a Russian air defense system shot down the aircraft. Twenty-nine people, including two children, remarkably survived the crash. Some of them walking away from it. But 11 people are still in critical condition in the hospital this morning.

CNN's Nada Bashir is joining us now from London.

What are you hearing about the possible causes of this crash?

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Sara, there is certainly a lot of speculation at the moment as to what led to this fatal crash. As you mentioned, we heard earlier yesterday from Russian aviation officials saying that initial preliminary information would suggest that the pilot had been forced to attempt an emergency landing as a result of a bird strike. But we have been getting more details and, of course, that investigation that is being conducted by a commission set up by the Kazakh government is still ongoing. But there are questions around why the flight - the plane may have been rerouted, why the pilot was forced to attempt that emergency landing.

There have been images and videos now emerging showing the wreckage following the aftermath of that crash, appearing to show perforations and holes in the fuselage, which might be consistent with the impact of debris and shrapnel.

And, of course, as you mentioned, we have heard from one Ukrainian security and defense official who has alleged that this plane was downed as a result of Russian air defense systems, accusing Russia of failing to close down the airspace in this area. And, of course, this is an area which has seen airport closures in the past as a result of drone activity.

We have learned that, of course, the plane crashed shortly after a drone strike had taken place in parts of southern Russia. So, real questions as to how these all may be connected, if indeed they are.

Important to underscore, of course, that the investigation is still ongoing. There are no firm conclusions coming from this newly established commission just yet. Those questions remain up in the air. And we are waiting for those final confirmed details as the investigation continues. But certainly a tragic moment for many of those who, of course, have

had their loved ones on board. As you mentioned, it was remarkable to see 29 people surviving that crash, including two children. They were all, of course, taken to hospital for immediate medical care.

[09:05:01]

Some are still said to be in a critical condition. But, of course, dozens were also killed. And Thursday is being treated as a day of mourning now in Kazakhstan.

Sara.

SIDNER: And again looking for a full investigation now. The rest of the world wondering what exactly caused this plane to go down and if it was nefarious.

Nada Bashir, thank you so much for your reporting this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And that deadly crash came around the same time that Russia unleashed a massive attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, with explosions reported across the country. The president of Ukraine says that Russia launched more than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than 100 attack drones in that onslaught, causing blackouts in several regions in the midst of the bitter winter cold.

President Biden condemned the attack and asked the Defense Department Wednesday to continue surging weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

Joining me right now is David Sanger of "The New York Times," political and national security analyst for CNN.

It's good to see you, David.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Great to see you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: This war now grinding into its third winter. You've got this new attack from - new attack from Russia on Ukraine's energy infrastructure. With Biden on the way out and Trump on the way in, he's been unclear, I'll say it best, in how much support he's willing to offer Ukraine. What's Ukraine preparing for? What are NATO allies preparing for here?

SANGER: Well, Kate, first, happy holidays.

I thought it was striking that President Biden issued that statement yesterday, but we didn't hear from President-elect Trump on this issue. We heard from him on Panama and Greenland, but not on the strikes on the - on the Ukrainian grid.

It seems pretty clear that the Russians are quite intent on gaining both as much territory and as much upper hand as they can ahead of the president-elect coming in to see whether or not he's willing to go ahead and, you know, negotiate his - the deal he said he could make in 24 hours.

Now, he's backed away from that a little bit lately. And I think it's because he recognizes that if there is a deal that is given to or foisted on the Ukrainians that basically says you have to give back to the Russians the 20 percent of territory in Ukraine they already hold, I think the president - president-elect may be concerned that that looks weak, looks like he's giving up territory and it's not clear what he would get in return.

We also don't know that Vladimir Putin is ready to negotiate.

BOLDUAN: Good point.

And this also fits into the bigger picture of countering Iranian influence. The outgoing national security advisor had a very interesting take in speaking with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. He was talking about in an interview that played over the weekend, that the one lesson that he's learned in the four years that they've been in office is that something good - when something good happens, something bad is lurking right around the corner.

Let me play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE SULLIVAN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: One of those things is if you're Iran right now and you're looking around at the fact that your conventional capability has been reduced, your proxies have been reduced, your main client state has been eliminated, Assad has fallen, it's no wonder there are voices saying, hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And, David, you have some really interesting new reporting on the internal debate in Trump world on what their approach to Iran will look like. What are you learning?

SANGER: Well, the first thing is, Mr. Sullivan's got it exactly right, the Iranians have never been weaker. I mean Hezbollah and Hamas are - have their capabilities largely destroyed. And that was Iran's main way of being able to reach into Israel. Iran's own missile attacks into Israel largely failed.

So, the big concern right now in the U.S. government, and he was giving voice to this, is that Iran will conclude that its only option right now is to raise for a bomb. They have not seen the evidence of that yet, but certainly the Iranians have the fuel around for at least 4 or 5 weapons. It would take them a number of months to build it.

It is not unreasonable to think that Prime Minister Netanyahu, once President-elect Trump is inaugurated, will come to him and say, there's never been a better moment to destroy the Iranian nuclear complexes. He has gone right up to the edge of that before.

It may also be that President-elect Trump sees a moment here to negotiate, Kate. And - but basically to do a coercive negotiation to say you're going to turn over all of this or you're going to lose it.

BOLDUAN: How much of a new, like, nuclear Iran threat that is out there, or could be coming, that Trump might face, could be a - in part a problem of his own making given that he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal.

[09:10:16]

SANGER: It's very much of his own making. I mean the Iran nuclear deal was working when he pulled out of it in 2018. I know he argued at the time they were cheating. There was very little evidence of that.

Once he was out, the Iranians, a few years later, began to say, well, if the United States isn't going to abide by it, and, well, we impose sanctions, which the U.S. did, Iran would build up its own capability.

And that's exactly what's happened. There was an effort by the Biden administration to revive the old deal. That failed. Today, though, I think the idea of putting the old deal together is pretty much gone, Kate, because it would have expired in 2030. That's not all that far away. There would be no sense in reviving a deal that would basically allow the Iranians to make what they wanted after 2030, just five years from now.

BOLDUAN: Yes. The choices in front of the incoming Trump administration and how to counter Iran and what - and the choices that Iran will be making, that is going to be very important and interesting to watch.

Great reporting, David. Thank you so much for coming in.

SANGER: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Great to see you.

SANGER: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: So, the president-elect also has a new obsession with the Panama Canal. And he now has a new ambassador who's got an even bigger job, it appears, ahead of him.

And a pet food recall linked to bird flu. What you need to know.

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[09:15:44]

BOLDUAN: President-elect Donald Trump making more job announcements. Announcing his pick for U.S. ambassador to Panama as he continues suggesting that it is time for the United States to take back the Panama Canal. His pick, Florida County Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera will now be tasked with sorting out what exactly the president-elect wants there.

Besides the Panama Canal, Donald Trump also used his Christmas Day message to continue his talk of taking Canada and buying Greenland. CNN's Steve Contorno tracking all of it for us.

Steve, on Panama, what are you learning about Donald Trump's pick to be the next ambassador?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Cabrera is a south Florida Republican. Republican. Someone who is very representative of Donald Trump's sway in this part of Florida that we have seen in recent years, and also among the Latino community. Cabrera is someone who was a member of the Latinos for Trump group that was part of Trump's campaign. He is a - elected to the county commission in Miami-Dade, where he has served for the past two years. It's a job he won, in part on the strength of an endorsement from Donald Trump. And he, after taking office, actually sponsored legislation to rename a road down here after Donald Trump.

He also was a member of the platform committee at the Republican National Convention, which wrote a very pro-Trump agenda for the GOP moving forward. And he's someone who also previously worked on Trump's campaign back in 2020.

Obviously, he comes into this job with a potentially busy agenda given what has transpired in the past week, not necessarily a job that we anticipated would become a contentious nominating process, but certainly there will be questions on Capitol Hill about Trump - Trump's plans for Panama given everything that's transpired.

And Trump, even in his announcing Cabrera, nodded to his newfound interest in Panama, writing, quote, "I am pleased to announce that Kevin Marino Cabrera will serve as the United States ambassador to the Republic of Panama, a country that is ripping us off at the Panama Canal far beyond their wildest dreams." Not sure what their wildest dreams were in terms of their plans to rip us off but that is Trump's verbiage there.

So, what remains to be seen going forward is what Trump actually wants out of Panama, and how far he is willing to go to get it. I've asked the Trump transition team, is he talking about getting the military involved, or is he just trying to - to pressure Panama to give the U.S. a better deal? And so far I haven't got a response. All - all they have said is this is in line with Trump's other agenda on trade, and it's in fitting very much with his focus in that area.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: The vagueness there may be entirely intentional.

Steve, it's great to see you. Thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, let us discuss with Democratic strategist and former White House director of message planning under President Biden, Meghan Hays. Also, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton.

Welcome to both of you on this holiday week.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning. Merry Christmas, Sara.

SIDNER: It's good to see your faces. Merry Christmas to you both. I see the tree behind you there, Meghan. It is beautiful. I wish we could just talk about this, or maybe Beyonce, or something else, but this is what we're doing today. Buckle up.

Donald Trump, you know, announced his pick for ambassador, as you heard, to Panama. But he's been threatening to take back the Panama Canal. And I want you to sort of listen to what "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board said this morning about Trump's newest obsession. It says, "forgive us if we missed it, but we don't recall Donald Trump campaigning to invade Panama and retake its famous canal. But there was the president-elect on the weekend threatening our central American ally with punishment if it doesn't meet his demands."

Don't they have a point, Shermichael, this - that this is sort of a sideshow the American public didn't vote for?

SINGLETON: Yes, I don't - I don't think it's a sideshow. And I actually disagree with that editorial.

There are five principal zone ports in Panama. China controls two. The United States doesn't control any.

[09:20:01]

We controlled the Panama Canal completely up until '77. We entered into a mutual agreement with the Panamanian government. In 1999, we handed over complete control to them. And fast forward to 2023, 2024. Now China controls two of those zones. Trump is mad about it. And in my opinion, Sara, he is right to be mad. The Chinese government, they're not playing checkers here. They're playing 4-D chess to dominate the global stage. And in my opinion, they're moving in what I would argue is an area and a pace that should concern U.S. leaders.

And this idea of the U.S. trying to at least somewhat usurp China's complete dominance in - in the - in the region isn't necessarily new. Members of Congress have been concerned about this in the past, there have just been debates about what is the right course of action to sort of minimize China's growing influence in the Panama Canal. And I think it's important for Trump to really put a spotlight on this.

SIDNER: We should talk about the fact that it is a subsidiary of a Hong Kong company that is in control of - or not in control of, that is administering a couple of ports. But there is an autonomous government agency that controls the canal. So, it doesn't mean that China is in full control.

When you look at this - this influence, I mean, what is the end game here, Meghan? What do you see as the end game? Is it to get a better deal of transit fees or, you know, where is this coming from in your mind? MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: He doesn't have an end game. He

doesn't have an end game for anything he does. He's throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It's Panama today, Greenland yesterday, who - Canada a week ago. He is just trying to muddy the waters to under - to get people all jack - riled up about something because really governing is harder than campaigning. And these are campaign things that he is just throwing out there. And to actually get these things done is going to be extremely challenging. He will not be able to just take the canal away from a sovereign government or take Canada from another sovereign government. That is a dictatorship.

So, I think that - let's not have the American people be fooled here. He - there is actual policies that he wants to enact. And we'll see if he can get them done. But this is just muddying the waters, just like he did in his first term when he said Mexico was going to build a wall that never was built and never paid for. So, you know, this is just, I think, Donald Trump's policies. This is how he - he governs.

SIDNER: All right, I do want to talk to you about what's happening -

SINGLETON: But - but, Sara - Sara -

SIDNER: Go ahead. Go ahead.

SINGLETON: If I - as a possible recourse, nothing happens in a vacuum as it pertains to China. And you're right, Sara, to point out that it is a Hong Kong based company that runs these two ports. But what if they have one company from China that manages one port and a U.S.- based company that manages another port? I don't think that's necessarily a bad argument for the president-elect to make. It's a very pivotal port for U.S. trade. And so I think, again, to pinpoint this and say, wait a minute, this appears to be unbalanced, I don't think is necessarily wrong in that regard.

SIDNER: But, Shermichael, he's saying he's going to take back the Panama Canal. That is very different than - why not have these negotiations with the country, with the president, who he has completely pissed off, for lack of a better word, with just throwing this out there that he's going to take over. I mean it's one of those things that you wonder, is - was there not a negotiation that could have happened when he is in the seat of the presidency?

We will move on, though, to Russia. We have seen this intense Christmas Day attack on Ukraine that was clearly, you know, meant to make the civilians miserable and suffer because they went after infrastructure in the frigid cold. So, attacking things, you know, like the electricity grid.

I do want to ask you about whether you're seeing a shift here, potentially, in what Donald Trump may do and the policies towards Ukraine, because we heard his pick for the special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Also on top of Joe Biden criticizing this, criticizing Russia's assault, saying that "Christmas should be a time of peace, yet Ukraine was brutally attacked on Christmas Day." That was from retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.

Is this a signal, you think, Shermichael, that Trump might be more into helping Ukraine than previously believed?

SINGLETON: Yes, it's certainly possible. I mean General Kellogg is certainly more of the traditional American disposition as it pertains to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. We're already dealing with China in terms of being an international adversary. Now you have Russia appearing to want to be more of a regional adversary. We certainly don't want them to also potentially make their way to looking at the international stage. And so if you can set up roadblocks wherever possible against the Russians so that we can put most of our focus on the Chinese, then I certainly think it's in the U.S. interest to do so.

I agree with General Kellogg, I think you are going to potentially see some shifting policy positions long term here, Sara, coming from the president-elect, as he gets more details about how important this region actually is to U.S. interests.

SIDNER: Meghan, I want to ask you about something else Donald Trump said, you know, over the weekend. He talked about the Department of Justice and saying he's going to direct the department to vigorously pursue the death penalty.

[09:25:04]

This is, of course, after President Joe Biden pardoned all but three of the 40 federal death row inmates.

The law dictates what offenses are eligible for the death penalty, right? So, what is - what is the end game here, do you see, Meghan? Is this to make himself, you know, sort of look powerful and going after crime or what?

HAYS: I think it's just to disagree with President Biden. I think that anyone who has followed President Biden or voted for him in '20 knew that he was not for the federal death penalty. It was on his platform in '20. He had put a stay - a moratorium on the death penalty - federal death penalty cases when he took office in '21. So, this is not a surprising move. I think that the president-elect is just trying to look powerful, and this is a policy difference, and that is fine. And, you know, people voted for him, so he can then now vigorously pursue whatever he would like to do when he takes office.

But this is a policy difference. And I just think that this is, again, just like more muddying the waters, more throwing stuff at the wall just to see where it sticks.

SIDNER: Meghan Hays, Shermichael Singleton, thank you both for coming in on the day after Christmas.

SINGLETON: Thanks, Sara.

SIDNER: How lovely of you.

SINGLETON: And, Sara, we're matching, green and blue. Green and blue.

SIDNER: We are matching. I have noted that. Thank you for that Christmas miracle.

All right, you guys have a great rest of your day.

All right, Kate.

SINGLETON: Thank you, Sara.

BOLDUAN: One of the busiest travel weekends of the year is now upon us. Also upon us, some soggy wintry weather. So, we have the forecast for you coming up.

And a record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot is still up for grabs. The price now topping $1 billion, even though you have a 1 in a billion- dollar chance of actually getting it.

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