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Bondi Says There Will Never Be an Enemies List at DOJ; Red Flag Warnings Expire in Los Angeles, But Fire Danger Remains; Justin Baldoni Sues Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds for $400 Million. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 16, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: ... to the individual judgment of prosecutors. And John's right I served at DOJ half the time under Republican administration half the time under Democratic. It didn't make a difference to me on the line but it absolutely, I mean, it absolutely makes a difference who the Attorney General is. What if Donald Trump says, I want an investigation of Liz Cheney, I want an investigation of Jack Smith. That's not going to be decided by someone who is what I once was someone working on the line doing trials. That's going to be decided by Pam Bondi and that's going to be the litmus test for her.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And if someone goes along with it --

HONIG: Yes.

KEILAR: -- who are you -- someone who is a you.

HONIG: Yes, well, Amy --

KEILAR: Adios.

HONIG: Amy should refuse to do that. But ultimately it's important to understand the AG has so much discretion so much power that if Pam Bondi says I'm going to do that there's -- there are guardrails down the line there's grand juries and judges and juries and appeals but there's no one who can stop her from opening investigation that in itself can have a real cost.

KEILAR: Yes that's a really good point. Elie thank you so much. John, thank you so much for being here and for the manual. We appreciate it.

Still to come this hour, firefighters in Los Angeles are holding the line. Mother nature thank goodness giving them a much-needed break. We're going to talk about when residents may be allowed back into their neighborhoods to survey the damage.

[15:35:00]

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KEILAR: Red flag warnings in Los Angeles County are expiring today, but the wildfire danger is definitely not over. Those strong Santa Ana winds that fueled the deadly Palisades and Eaton fires are forecast to return early next week.

We have CNN's Veronica Miracle in Altadena. Veronica, officials are really stressing the need to secure reentry spaces before they let people return. How are they feeling?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's been a really kind of complicated mess here. You know, people wanting to get back in, they're really frustrated, they're anxious, as you can imagine, so many emotions here. And we've seen a lot of that at this checkpoint where people are driving up, people are walking up, just really wanting to get inside.

But there is incredible safety concerns. So we actually went inside and we were driving around and, you know, you really see at pretty much every single block, you have utility crews working to restore power, but also repair some power lines, so many that were damaged that are just dangling. And so they're working on that.

There are a lot of other hazards. There's gas line issues. There are toxic -- there's toxic ash in the air that the EPA is going to be contending with.

They are actually sending in their personnel to both of the fires, and they're having crews kind of sift through some of the toxic waste to try and clean some of that debris up. We even saw firefighters who were just cleaning up some of the mess just to make sure that when people are able to get back in, they'll be able to navigate the streets because there's a lot of downed trees that they have to, you know, contend with and get those out of the way.

Officials today saying that it may be about a week before people will be able to get back inside. Not necessarily good news to those who want to come in. And then for those whose homes are still standing, FEMA and the EPA, they're estimating that it's going to be three to six months before all of the cleanup will be done. So the question is, will those people be able to live in those homes while all of that cleanup is happening and the toxic ash is in the air, possibly asbestos?

There's so many concerns here. So, as you can imagine, Brianna, a lot of mixed emotions as people are just trying to navigate these next few days and these next few months, potentially years of rebuilding and repairing this community.

KEILAR: Yes, they want to be home, but they really, obviously, officials are very much considering the dangers of doing that too soon. Veronica Miracle, thank you for the report.

MIRACLE: That's right.

KEILAR: More fallout from the film, It Ends With Us. Justin Baldoni, who starred as the lead male in the movie, telling his side of the story in a 179-page lawsuit filed against Blake Lively, who starred opposite him and Ryan Reynolds, her husband. We are digging through this. We'll have this next.

[15:40:00]

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KEILAR: Justin Baldoni is suing actor Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds for $400 million, alleging defamation and extortion. Baldoni alleges they and others tried to hijack the recent movie that he directed and co-starred in with Lively, It Ends With Us, and sought to, quote, destroy him.

CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister is following this. Elizabeth, tell us what you're learning.

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Breonna, this is a legal mess. I mean, this is an all-out war by Hollywood standards. And this is just the latest lawsuit in an escalating saga between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively.

So let me take you back first. So Blake Lively, she first filed a civil rights complaint back in late December alleging that she was sexually harassed by Justin Baldoni on the set of their film, which is called It Ends With Us. And in that complaint, she said that after she raised her concerns over sexual harassment, that then she was retaliated against and that Justin's team ran a smear campaign behind the scenes to ruin her reputation.

Well, then, Blake Lively, she did end up filing a lawsuit against him, so, you know, advancing that civil rights complaint. Well, Justin Baldoni, he then sued The New York Times for $250 million because The New York Times was the first to report on this lawsuit. His team claimed that The New York Times was essentially in bed with Blake's team. Well, The Times denied that.

Now we have this expected and long-awaited lawsuit against Blake Lively and not only against her, her husband Ryan Reynolds. In this suit, which he is asking for $400 million and demanding a jury trial, Justin Baldoni says he did nothing wrong.

[15:45:03]

It is actually Blake and her husband and their team, the publicist is also named in this suit, who they were running a smear campaign against him. Now, I want to read you part of this complaint, Brianna.

It says, quote: Though Lively claimed Baldoni was the one smearing her, the reality is that it was Lively and her team who carefully planned and implemented a vile smear campaign against Baldoni -- and Wafer, which is Baldoni's production company -- to deflect attention and blame for Lively's disastrous misjudgments.

Now, I know that this is messy and there's a lot of moving parts, but wait, there's more. Taylor Swift has now been dragged into all of this. Taylor Swift is publicly and famously very close friends with both Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, and Baldoni is now essentially saying that Blake and Ryan used their famous friend Taylor to assert more power.

There is an alleged scene in this lawsuit where Baldoni says that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds rewrote part of the script and that when he went over to their place in New York City to discuss this part of the script, that Taylor Swift was there and that she was praising Blake for this script, which Baldoni claims he took as a sign to say, OK, there's very famous, wealthy, powerful celebrities here. If I don't acquiesce to this script, I'm going to be in trouble.

So, again, a messy situation, undoubtedly much, much more to come, and we're going to stay on top of it -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Wow. Wow. I mean, so much going on here. Elizabeth Wagmeister, thank you so much for the latest there.

Those space boots were made for walking, and that's just what she did. Stranded astronaut Suni Williams stretching her legs today in a spacewalk. She's got some time to kill. So, hey, look at this. She's making history. She's not even supposed to be up there, but she's up there doing a spacewalk, and we're going to have much more on it ahead.

[15:50:00]

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KEILAR: NASA astronaut Suni Williams just finished a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. Williams, of course, is one of two astronauts who has been stranded in space since last June. Much longer than the planned one weeklong trip.

Today she was alongside astronaut Nick Haig during the spacewalk. The two spending about six and a half hours outside working on upgrades and maintenance on the station.

And joining us now to talk about it is retired NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao.

Leroy, tell us more about this spacewalk. And you're really the person to do it because you've gone on six of these. What's it like to get out of the space station, stretch your legs a little bit and do something like this?

LEROY CHIAO, NASA ASTRONAUT (RET.): Well, doing spacewalks are what we call EVA for extravehicular activity. That's kind of like the coolest thing, in my opinion, that you can do in space. You know, of course, getting up in space for the first time especially is fantastic. But then if you get to do a spacewalk on top of that, you know, it's just surreal is the word that I use.

But you're also working very hard. It's not at all like the movies. It takes a lot of physical effort. You have to be in good shape. You're working against the suits. It's bulky. It's hard to move your fingers and your arms.

And what Suni and Nick were doing today was, you know, not too bad. I mean, this was not the most challenging of EVAs, but they are all challenging. But this was not an especially difficult one.

They're repairing some thermal blankets for the X-ray telescope. And they were also prepping the landing zone, if you will, for an upgrade for the alpha magnetic spectrometer, which is helping us look for dark matter.

So important task for sure. Sounds like everything went very well. And I believe they're back inside by now and probably going through all their steps to clean up their suits and back out of the EVA situation. But it looks like everything went really great.

KEILAR: I think an astronaut's version of not so complicated is different than the average person's definition. I will say that, Leroy. But we can't ignore the fact that Suni's been stuck up there for seven months. So has Butch Wilmore. The stay was extended again just last month.

You were on the ISS for six months. I'm assuming that was a planned deal. But just tell us what it's like.

CHIAO: Sure. Well, I mean, you know, the long duration flights a lot different than a two week shuttle mission. It's what we used to compare, say, like a marathon compared to a sprint.

But you know what? If you know when you're coming down, you're kind of mentally prepared for that. In the case of Butch and Suni, of course, they were expecting a seven to 10 day flight. Now it's going to be, you know, an eight plus month flight.

But Butch and Suni are both consummate professionals. They've both flown long duration missions before, done spacewalks. This is certainly not Suni's first spacewalk. And so, you know, we're trained to be adaptable and adjust to the situation, which is exactly what the two of them have done. And they've done a great job of it.

So I'm sure they're looking forward to getting back. You know, this was certainly disruptive to their personal lives, their families, their friends. But, you know, they're making the best of it.

KEILAR: Yes. I mean, I know astronauts like to be in space. That's why they're astronauts. So I guess it makes sense.

But overnight, Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin had a historic night launch of its new Glenn rocket into orbit. Can you talk a little bit about why that's critical and what it means for competition against SpaceX, Elon Musk's company?

CHIAO: Sure, you bet. And I'm really happy to see that they were so successful. New Glenn, you know, finally made it into orbit. It's been in the works for a number of years. Blue Origin has been around about the same time as SpaceX, right around 25 years or so.

[15:55:00]

And, of course, SpaceX has been very successful for a number of years. The Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy. And now they're getting ready to launch tonight. Flight test number seven for Starship.

And so really exciting stuff happening. It's important that Blue Origin get in there because it's always good to have competition. It's the American way. Right. When you have competition and that makes things -- you get the best product for the lowest possible prices for the consumers or the users.

And SpaceX has been, you know, dramatically brought down the price of a launch by reusing first stage boosters for Falcon and Falcon Heavy. They demonstrated they can catch the super heavy boosters from the Starship. And they're going to try again tonight. Try, try for the second time.

And so it's really going to be a game changer. Payload wise, the New Glenn is kind of positioned in its capability between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. So that's kind of a nice place to be. But glad to see that they were successful.

They didn't catch the booster. I don't think they really thought they would. They wanted to try. Something didn't go right. But they'll learn from the experience. Just like SpaceX did before they finally started capturing the Falcon 9 boosters on a routine basis now.

KEILAR: Yes, it's cool to watch for sure. Leroy, always great to have you. Thank you so much.

CHIAO: My pleasure. Thank you.

KEILAR: And we'll be right back.

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[16:00:13]

KEILAR: Before we go, some good news from Los Angeles. The Hurst Fire in northern L.A. County is now 100 percent contained. The fire burned nearly 800 acres. Some progress in the battle against these fires in California.

And "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts now.

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