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Weather Impacts Millions Traveling Home; Biden Leaves for Winter Vacation; Economy Takes Center Stage in Biden Presidency; 2024 Top Ten Climate Stories. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 26, 2024 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:48]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Over the next few days, snow and rain might slow you down as millions of people head home after holiday trips. Here's a live look at flight delays as storms in the west and south put a damper on some of those plans.

Meteorologist Elisa Raffa is here.

So where is it that this is going to be a problem? It's not across the whole country. And to be fair, it is winter. So, winter storms, pretty normal this time of year.

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely. And I think our biggest problem spot the entire week is going to be the Pacific Northwest. We've got an atmospheric river setting up with a series of storms. We're looking at some problems with rain and snow pretty much for the rest of the week. You've got rain and snow right now, from Seattle, down towards Portland. Some lightning strikes coming onshore with some of that snow there too, as this storm again really starts to develop.

We have winter alerts in effect, especially these highest elevations, where we can have a foot of snow possible just from this round. Wind gusts could also get over 60 miles per hour. It could cause some problems with downed trees and power lines, could blow around that snow in the highest elevations as well.

So, you can see, that rain and snow coming on shore today. And we'll continue as we go into Friday. It's just going to be like train cars, one storm after the next. Through Friday alone we're looking at 2 to 4 inches of rain, a foot or so of snow in some of the highest elevations. But that's just through Friday. We'll still have more rain and snow to contend with through the weekend. So, problem spots again expected, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.

We have another storm that's brewing along the Gulf Coast here. That will cause some problems from Dallas to Houston, Memphis today, where we have showers and storms firing up and they could be strong to severe. We have a level two out of five severe risk today for damaging winds, large hail, and even a couple of tornadoes. That tornado risk could be highest around that Houston area, from Houston to Austin. Something to watch out for today. And then you could see there, the travel headaches that could come with that from the heavy rain and the severe weather.

All of this starts to shift east as we go into Friday. That storm moving east. And then by the weekend we could be looking at those travel headaches up and down the eastern seaboard, from Atlanta, up through Nashville and then D.C., New York, Boston, as we go into Sunday, as all of that rain starts to move east.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, spelling it out for us. Thank you so much, Elisa Raffa. Appreciate it.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, moments ago, President Biden's motorcade left the White House. He's headed to the U.S. Virgin Islands for vacation. He's also setting his agenda for the final days of his presidency.

And President-elect Donald Trump, well, next month he inherits Biden's economy. So, will Trump's promise of tax cuts and tariffs become a reality? If so, what are they going to mean for 2025?

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[09:32:46]

BOLDUAN: All right, welcome back.

You're taking a look, just moments ago, of Joint Base Andrews. And that is Air Force One. And that is the president and the first lady boarding Air Force One, where they will be soon taking off for vacation in St. Croix. After that, with just 25 days left in Biden's term, he has still another major international trip in store.

Let's get over to CNN's Kayla Tausche. She's tracking all of this for us.

So, they've left the White House. Now they're off to St. Croix. But what are you hearing from the White House about Biden's agenda in these final days?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Kate, President Biden is expected to spend the next 25 days on events and travel meant to burnish his legacy on causes that have been central, not just to this term, but also to his five plus decade career in public service.

The White House has announced that he will be traveling to Rome and to the Vatican in particular for a visit with Pope Francis in mid- January. President Biden, in 2021, met with the pope before attending the G-20 summit in Rome. And at the time it was a very consequential visit because he accepted communion from Pope Francis after questions from the church about whether Biden's position on abortion would disqualify him. So, this is expected to be yet another consequential visit for President Biden.

Then we also expect him to deliver what is a continuation of speeches on his record on various topics. He gave a speech at the Brookings Institution back in December on his economic legacy. And we also expect, based on our conversations with aides, for him to highlight his work on climate and foreign policy in the coming weeks. Of course, as the forthcoming Trump administration looms large.

But as far as policy. Kate, White House officials don't really expect to be able to advance much policy because of the expectation that anything they do in this 11th hour could be overturned by President- elect Trump and his team. So, certainly, this is going to be more about capstone events and trying to frame the narrative of Biden's presidency rather than trying to check off any last items from his campaign to do list.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Kayla, thank you so much for your reporting.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, new this morning, the weekly jobless claim report showing layoffs activity slowed, but the number of people receiving ongoing jobless benefits, more than 1.9 million people, hit a three- year high.

[09:40:08]

President-elect Trump is about to inherit this economy in just a few weeks. So, what will his plans bring?

CNN economic and political commentator Catherine Rampell is here with us now.

Thank you so much for being here. Happy holidays to you.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Happy holidays.

SIDNER: We are in the final stretch, of course, of the Biden presidency. Where is the economy right now? Everybody, of course, over these last few years have been struggling with prices of things, while the economy seems to be revving up.

RAMPELL: Yes, it's interesting. The typical consumer, they're still pretty dour about the U.S. economy. But on paper, the U.S. economy looks pretty darn great. Certainly better than most of our peer countries around the world.

GDP growth is strong. Investment is strong. Unemployment is not at an all-time low, but - but close to historic lows. Inflation is, you know, always the outlier here. But even that has come down quite a bit. And it's not at the target, but it's - it's far below what its peak had been. And kind of a stone's throw from where the Federal Reserve would like it to be. All of those things suggest that the economy is doing quite well,

that, you know, we seem to, you know, knock on wood, have pulled off - potentially pulled off this desired soft landing that the Federal Reserve has been trying to achieve. Now that - that doesn't mean that consumers are making things up, obviously, when they are frustrated by the economy because the price increases that we saw a couple of years ago are still very salient. You know, people are still experiencing price shock every time they go to the grocery store and perhaps wrongly anticipating that grocery prices are going to go back to what they were, which is not going to happen. Basically what the Fed is hoping for is instead that grocery prices and other prices kind of plateau. Not that they revert to what they were pre-pandemic, but that they plateau.

So, the way a wonky economist would look at things would be to say, things look pretty good, even if consumers are still frustrated by what they've experienced over the past couple of years.

SIDNER: So, if economists are saying, look, he's being handed an economy that is in good shape and, you know, is going to do better, Trump is - is looking at, you know, tariffs. And he's - big ones for he said Canada, Mexico and China. Can he do this unilaterally or does Congress have to weigh in here. And if so, how would this all work and what would be the repercussion?

RAMPELL: So, as I have said before, I think the best thing Trump could do for the economy is just basically nothing at all. You know, be the hype man that this U.S. economy needs because, as I said, it has a lot going for it, even if consumers aren't yet recognizing it. The kinds of policy measures that you just mentioned, you mentioned tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Remember, Trump has threatened them on all imports from around the world. And a lot of that, yes, he can do unilaterally. Some of it will be challenged in court. But the president has a lot of discretion to levy tariffs, particularly if he uses excuses or pretexts like national security, which he used quite a lot in his first administration. And so I think it's quite likely that he will do something.

Now, we don't know what. We don't know if he's actually going to carry out the exact promises that he made on the campaign trail. Certainly, markets don't think that because if markets did believe him and take him at his word, you would see a lot more turmoil in the stock market because automakers, apparel maker, you know, retailers -

SIDNER: Everything, yes.

RAMPELL: All of those companies would be badly hurt, as would their customers, right? That's - that's the real risk here. That again we've been talking about how inflation has come down a lot. But if you levy tariffs, if you raise the - the cost of almost everything Americans buy, almost all the goods Americans buy, some of that, if not all of that, will be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

SIDNER: Let's talk also about Trump's proposed tax cuts. When you look at those and what that might mean, how might that impact the economy as a whole? Certainly people worried about the debt the United States has, the deficit.

RAMPELL: Yes. So those would cost a lot of money. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, which is sort of a neutral scorekeeper for Congress, has made that quite explicit, as have many other outside independent analysts. That would cost quite a bit of money just to extend the existing tax cuts that were put in place in 2017. And then remember that on top of that Donald Trump has also pledged to lower the corporate tax rate down from 21 percent down to - to 15 percent.

[09:45:06]

Also to exempt taxes or exempt from - from - from income taxes, a bunch of other categories of income, tipped income, Social Security income. What am I forgetting? Overtime income, all sorts of other things. So, all of these things would be very expective.

In the near term, that would potentially stimulate the economy. But in the longer term, the CBO has found that it would likely slow economic growth and potentially contribute to higher inflation.

SIDNER: We are going to leave it there.

Catherine Rampell, thank you so much for coming in on this holiday week. Appreciate your time this morning.

All right, just ahead, a recall this morning after a house cat died from eating pet food. The pet food tested positive for bird flu.

And, wouldn't winning $1 billion be nice? A nice way to start the new year? Well, you got a chance. It might be a really, really, really, really small chance, but we're saying there's a chance.

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[09:50:30]

BOLDUAN: We do have some breaking news coming in, in an update on that deadly plane crash in central Asia. Moments ago Reuters is now reporting that, according to multiple unnamed sources in Azerbaijan with knowledge of the investigation, they now believe the passenger jet was downed by a Russian air defense system.

Now, Russia has denied that claim, and lawmakers in Kazakhstan have so far suggested it was a bird strike that brought down the jet. But this Reuters reporting now changes things dramatically as this investigation is underway. NATO calling for an investigation of this as well.

At least 38 people were killed in this crash. Another 29 people survived, including two children, many of them still in critical condition. We'll continue to bring you updates on this.

Sara.

SIDNER: Thank you. Kate. From devastating wildfires, to record breaking rain and scorching

temperatures, the impacts of global warming on our planet dominated climate stories throughout 2024.

CNN's chief climate correspondent Bill Weir has a look at the top ten stories.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): At number ten, a rare moment of national unity and wonder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow.

WEIR: Thanks to the celestial dance of sun and moon. April's eclipse stretched from Texas to Maine, putting over 30 million Americans in the path of totality. We won't see another one over the U.S. until 2044.

At number nine, this year's hajj fell in June, drawing millions of Muslim pilgrims to mecca just as thermometers hit 125 degrees. And the Saudi kingdom reported over 1,300 heat-related deaths.

At number eight, wildfire nationwide. While July's Park Fire was the fifth biggest in California history, Texas saw their biggest ever with the million acre Smokehouse Creek blaze. And in the northeast, the worst drought in decades led to over 500 wildfires just in New Jersey.

At number seven, and fueled by record high ocean temps, Hurricane Beryl roared to category five strength in July. The earliest storm to ever hit the top of the scale. While it hit Texas as a weaker cat one, millions lost power around Houston, and it took nearly two sweltering weeks to get the air conditioning back on.

At number six, tornadoes, and lots of them, the most in a decade. Of the two dozen billion-dollar disasters this year, over half included twisters. And while Oklahoma saw two monster EF-4s, climate change is shifting tornado alley from the Great Plains to the southeast.

At number five, earths overheating atmosphere is like a giant sponge in the sky, soaking up more water, wringing it out with a vengeance, and causing the National Weather Service to issue an unprecedented 91 flash flood emergencies this year.

And at number four, the deadliest rain fell in Spain, where in late October a year's worth fell in hours around Valencia. The surge broke riverbanks, turned streets into raging rapids and took over 200 lives.

At number three, the devastating duo of Helene and Milton. Back to back hurricanes that began with a 15-foot surge in Florida's big bend, but got worse in the mountains of Appalachia. Up to 30 inches of rain around Asheville, North Carolina, brought horrific flooding, while spun up tornadoes helped make Helene the deadliest since Katrina. And then came Milton, just two weeks later, jumping from a tropical storm to a category five in 24 hours, Milton is just the latest example of rapid intensification in the age of climate change. But at number two, we have the rise of climate denial. After promising

fossil fuel executives deregulation, Donald Trump retakes power with a promise to hamstring the nations clean energy momentum and pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord for a second, and possibly final time. The American election cast a pall over Cop 29 in Azerbaijan, where petrol states that agreed to transition away from fossil fuel at Cop 28 transition back to praising oil.

And at number one, the heat driving so much of this destruction.

[09:55:04]

Eight years ago in Paris, the world agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but this year topped it. It was over 100 degrees in Phoenix for 113 consecutive days, shattering the record by 37 days. So, first responders now carry body bags and ice. And the city has embraced a policy of shade, signs that humanity will have to adapt because 2024 could be the coolest year of the rest of our lives.

Bill Weir CNN, New York.

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BOLDUAN: Bill, thank you so much for that.

We're also watching this, a brand of pet food has now issued a nationwide recall for one of its products after testing positive for bird flu. Northwest Naturals is the company. It says people should toss what you're looking at right here, this raw, frozen cat food with a best by date between May 21st and June 23rd of 2026. This comes after a cat in Oregon died after reportedly eating the contaminated food.

And you've got another chance at $1 billion, friends, albeit a very slim chance with the Mega Millions jackpot. The jackpot ballooned to $1.15 billion after no one won the Christmas Eve drawing. This is now the fifth largest Mega Millions jackpot in history. The next drawing, tomorrow night.

SIDNER: What's the first thing you'd do if you won?

BOLDUAN: Call in sick.

SIDNER: I was going to say I'd shut my trap. You'd never hear from me again.

BOLDUAN: Right. Exactly.

SIDNER: Thank you so much for joining us. CNN NEWS CENTRAL - "CNN NEWSROOM," actually - NEWS CENTRAL is done - that's up next.

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