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Wildfires Scorch Los Angeles, Killing at Least 11; Firefighters Battling at Least Six Fires in Los Angeles; Resident Tells of Losing Home to Wildfire; South Korea Plane Crash; Trump Avoids Jail, Fines but Remains a Felon; SCOTUS Signals It Will Uphold TikTok Ban; Venezuela's Maduro Sworn in for Third Presidential Term; Amanda Gorman Recites "Smoldering Dawn," New Poem about L.A. Fires. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired January 11, 2025 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to everyone watching in the United States, here in the U.K. and all around the world. I'm Ben Hunte in London and it is so good to have you with me. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: This is probably the, I don't know, the fifth or sixth water drop we have seen just over the last 10 minutes, I'd say.
HUNTE (voice-over): Making progress. But the fight is far from over. CNN takes a closer look at how firefighters in California are battling the deadly flames for a fifth straight day.
The aftermath: entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Shocking images reveal the destructive impact of the Los Angeles wildfires.
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HUNTE (voice-over): And why the future of TikTok in America appears to be in doubt, as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a ban on the popular app.
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HUNTE: We, of course, begin with the wildfires in Los Angeles, where officials have issued a new evacuation order. It borders one of the city's busiest freeways and several offramps have now been closed. The death toll has risen to 11.
Firefighters are battling at least six fires, racing to save homes and communities as winds are expected to intensify. Meanwhile, authorities have ordered curfews in evacuation zones in an effort to prevent looting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHIEF JIM MCDONNELL, L.A. POLICE DEPARTMENT: I want to assure the community that we're working tirelessly to protect lives, property and maintain public safety during this critical time.
I want to thank everybody who has worked with us, who has cooperated with the request that we have made, the orders that have been given as far as evacuation and maintaining, as best we can, a semblance of order during this very, very difficult time.
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HUNTE: Fire crews are starting to make progress although the two largest fires burning right now are still barely contained. The Palisades and Eton fires now rank among the five most destructive in California history.
The county assessor says at least 10,000 properties have been destroyed.
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HUNTE (voice-over): Take a look at these before and after pictures in Altadena. The fires completely flattened entire blocks.
Los Angeles fire Chief Kristin Crowley is now slamming city officials for cutting the department's budget by $17 million. She says those cuts are making it even harder to battle these raging wildfires.
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CHIEF KRISTIN CROWLEY, LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT: The fire department needs help. We can no longer sustain where we are. We do not have enough firefighters. And I warned, I rang the bell that these additional cuts could be very, very devastating for our ability to provide public safety.
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HUNTE: A source tells CNN the fire chief met with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass after those comments. It's not clear what the meeting was about but the mayor's office denied reports that she'd fired Crowley.
CNN's Anderson Cooper gives us a closer look at the efforts to get under these fires under control and stop new ones from breaking out.
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COOPER (voice-over): In the mountains of Topanga, the battle rages on. By air and on land, firefighters are trying to save the community of Fernwood.
COOPER: They've been hitting this fire here in Topanga with a number of aerial assets. Fixed wing aircraft, there was a large one, there was a smaller fixed wing aircraft. They just dropped fire retardant on it. That's what the reddish pink color is.
They've also brought in helicopters that have been dropping water on this spot as well. They have a lot of assets in this area on the ground. They're also putting water on it from fire trucks down there. But this is a spot that they are focusing on right now.
COOPER (voice-over): One after another, choppers move in. They sound an alarm to let anyone on the ground know water is coming.
COOPER: You can hear the sound, kind of a siren going. That's the warning that they're about to drop water. This is probably the, I don't know, the fifth or sixth water drop we have seen just over the last 10 minutes, I'd say.
They're devoting a lot of resources trying to trying to nip this in the bud.
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It looks like from this vantage point, I'm told it is likely a structure fire. You can tell because of the black smoke.
COOPER (voice-over): New fires pop up all the time. There's one also in the distance near Entrada.
COOPER: It looks like from this vantage point that there now may be another issue, another fire over this ridge. You can see the dark smoke rising from there as well. So there's a fire that they believe is a structure down off to the right.
And then, over that ridge, it looks like there is now another fire to deal with. And obviously, on the horizon you can see some other smoke trails as well.
So they are trying to save this community. That is where the battle has been joined. A lot of air assets, trucks on the ground, fixed wing aircraft like this.
Wow, I mean it's extraordinary to be standing here and feel the power of that aircraft go right over you and watch it just swoop down so low. This is rare, you see an aircraft swooping that close to houses.
COOPER (voice-over): We watched three choppers drop their loads in quick succession.
It's a sign of how vulnerable this neighborhood is. On Medley Lane in Fernwood, we find James Larson, a firefighter from Orange County. He's been doing this for 30 years.
JAMES LARSON, ORANGE COUNTY FIREFIGHTER: Right now, we're setting up a defensive stance. There's some fire coming up the ridge here. We're protecting these properties., of course, our main priority is life safety for not only the citizens here but for the firefighters.
COOPER (voice-over): Nearly everyone who lives here has evacuated but Adam Weber and some others have come back to try to save their homes. COOPER: What is it like for you to see this?
I mean --
ADAM WEBER, RESIDENT: It hasn't hit yet. It's a very surreal and devastating to watch and at the same time, I have so much respect for the fire and really taking in the medicine of what's happening. It's a moment I've never experienced before in my life. It feels like LA is having its 9/11 moment.
COOPER (voice-over): Firefighters will likely stay here all night. The situation changes with the wind. As we leave, we notice a new fire is now raging on a distant mountain. There is no end in sight -- Anderson Cooper, CNN, Fernwood.
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HUNTE: Joining us now is Deisy Suarez, who lost her home in the fires in Altadena.
Deisy, firstly, I'm so sorry you're experiencing this. The images have been so, so shocking.
Can you just tell me what is the latest on your situation and how are you actually doing right now?
DEISY SUAREZ, ALTADENA FIRE VICTIM: You know, I'm just trying to -- still trying to process this, taking this one day at a time. My current situation is that I am staying at a hotel.
I have two small kids that I, you know, they went to Florida today to be with my family because I don't have a stable, you know, housing situation.
So I just don't want them to be, you know, bouncing from room to room and having to deal with that. So I just wanted to have a little bit of stability until I can gather my thoughts and see what's going to happen next.
HUNTE: My goodness, I'm so sorry. One of the things that I'm trying to get my head around is how it seems as if there weren't any warnings for these fires and how people like yourself evacuated their homes with nothing, maybe expecting to be able to get back in but just initially trying to get out for safety.
Can you just tell me, when did you first hear about the fires?
And how long was it before everything was gone?
SUAREZ: I found out because I received text messages from friends. I didn't get any notification on my phone. I there was no warning. I had no idea. I was just home, going on with my life.
And they, personal friends just messaged me, "Hey, I'm worried there's a fire in Altadena."
I was like, "Well, there's no fire. I haven't heard of anything."
And then I -- sure enough, I look out the window and I see the smoke. And I was like, oh, there is a fire. And, you know, I was still a little bit naive to think that maybe it was something -- I didn't think how dramatic the fire was. I didn't expect it to be that.
But then I kept watching out the window, just for safety, just to see what was happening. And then the power outage came and I'm getting a little bit more worried. I'm like -- and the wind was just blowing. It just looked so angry that the, you know, the weather was just so upset.
And the flame just kept coming closer and closer to the house. And then I saw that it was just, you know, possibly two houses behind the house in front of me. And I'm like, this is just getting bad. Like, we have to get out of here. And that's when I woke up my kids and my husband and I said, "It's time to go.
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"We got to go."
And I just grabbed pillows and I grabbed blankets. And -- because I didn't know if I was going to be able to sleep in a hotel. I thought I was going to sleep in my car because I heard from neighbors that all the hotels were already busy.
HUNTE: There are concerns that some people don't have insurance, right?
Or at least the right insurance to get their money back or get their homes rebuilt.
Have you had any conversations yourself with insurers yet?
SUAREZ: We did. We submitted a claim. You know, they -- we do have insurance. So we're blessed to say that we do. It's just like they pay for the house. They don't pay for the land. So the value of the house. So the house is pretty much not what we paid for it.
So we get in back around, I would say 60 percent of what we pay in, pretty much for our mortgage and what we pay in and --
HUNTE: Goodness.
SUAREZ: So it's not -- so the actual value is not what we're getting back because they don't pay you for the land the way I understand it. So they only going to give us to rebuild, to rebuild the house on the land. But that's what they expect you to do.
HUNTE: So based on what you've seen over the past few days, considering you've clearly lost so much and you're not actually recouping back even the financials of what you put into this, do you think that L.A. was ready to tackle these fires? Could the level of devastation that you're seeing somehow been minimized in some way?
SUAREZ: It doesn't seem like they were prepared. To me, it just doesn't seem like it. I didn't know -- we were -- we weren't notified. There was no text message. I didn't see like firefighters trying to take down some of the fires that were happening, at least not in my area where I was in Altadena.
It didn't seem like much was being done. There has been a lot of conversations and there have been a lot of, you know, things that we have seen about budget cuts that has happened.
So, you know, I do believe that that did impact their ability to really help, you know, attend and, like, you know, mitigate this problem quicker, because they just didn't have the manpower to do it. I mean, based on what I saw.
HUNTE: I really want to talk about some of the reaction on the internet. Now I hate comment sections on articles. They're usually absolutely horrible places. But people have been so openly posting across the internet about their lack of empathy for people like yourself.
I saw one just now that said, "They're rich. They chose to live in an area where wildfires are common. They'll be fine."
What do you have to say to those people?
SUAREZ: You know, obviously they have not lost, you know, a home. They have not been, you know, they will only understand when they go through this pain and when they have to grieve the loss of memories and your home and everything that you have worked for.
You know, I was -- I didn't grow up in money. I've been working hard to, you know, to have what I have. So it's -- the lack of empathy is just surreal. It's just, you know, I don't understand, I really don't understand.
I think every house matters and everybody deserves to be to, to have, you know, people need to have empathy for others. That's what human, you know, that's what we should be doing, you know, caring for one another, not like being so, you know, feeling happy for people that are losing their home. It's just terrible to even see that.
HUNTE: And are you seeing that on Instagram and on social media?
Are you seeing some of that negative reaction?
SUAREZ: Yes. I have seen stuff like, oh, you know, like even, for me, like I did a couple of other interviews for some other network. And I was wearing a Stanford sweater because that was the only thing I was able to grab when I left because I just wanted to, you know, it was cold.
And they're like, oh, she's there with her Stanford sweater. She, you know, like it was just so painful to see those horrible comments. You know, I'm like, people are just so mean. But it is there, you know. It's just that like, you know, like if that means something.
HUNTE: Well, I'm so, so sorry for what you're experiencing. And I really appreciate you being with me. And I hope things that do get better for you and for the others in your situation. Hopefully speak to you again soon. Thank you so much, Deisy.
SUAREZ: Thank you for your time and for having me here today.
HUNTE: You're so welcome. Anytime.
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HUNTE: What started as a gathering of food trucks to feed people affected by the L.A. fires has turned into something so much more. Two hot dog carts set up outside the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Those carts were soon at the center of a popup donation site.
Now people can get food, clothing, toiletries, baby items and much more, all to help them through what's sure to be very difficult days ahead.
Investigators may not get some badly needed data about last month's horrific plane crash in South Korea.
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They say the passenger jet's two black boxes stopped working about four minutes before the crash and it's not actually clear why. Officials were hoping the information from those devices would help them to understand what went wrong.
But they say that they're using data from various other sources and that they'll still do their best to get to the cause of the disaster. The Jeju Air flight went down and burst into a fireball, killing 179 people on board. Two crew members survived.
Donald Trump is a convicted felon but avoids punishment in his hush money case. We'll take a look at how that happened next.
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NIC ARNZEN, TOWN COUNCIL MEMBER AND ALTADENA FIRE VICTIM: It's like half the town is gone. It's just too overwhelming.
He told me, "Dad, I just want to come home."
And it gave me pause.
Because how do you answer there is no home?
We're just living with the clothes on -- I've had this sweatshirt on for three days and we're just living with the clothes on our back and lucky to have friends that are bringing us in. And I had to tell my Marine son, I want you home, too.
But what can we do?
There is no home.
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HUNTE: That was an Altadena town council member, who lost his home to one of the fires in Southern California.
Nic Arnzen said he returned to his neighborhood to record video of the charred ruins, to help anxious residents know whether their homes are still standing. He estimates there's only around a dozen homes left. We'll have more on these fires in the hours ahead.
Donald Trump is walking away a free man but still a convicted felon after a final sentence was handed down in his hush money case. For his part, the president-elect was more combative than contrite when he addressed the court. He was admonished by the presiding judge.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I'd lose the election and obviously that didn't work.
And the people of our country got to see this firsthand because they watched the case in your courtroom.
JUDGE JUAN MERCHAN, NEW YORK STATE SUPREME COURT: It is the legal protections afforded to the Office of the President of the United States that are extraordinary, not the occupant of the office.
Ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections. And it was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections.
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HUNTE: On Friday, Trump received an unconditional discharge and will not face prison time or any other penalties. CNN's Paula Reid has more.
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PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, president- elect Trump appeared virtually for his hearing on Friday. He appeared alongside his attorney, Todd Blanche. Now the judge allowed Trump to appear remotely because he is, of
course, the president-elect. And the judge had made it clear before this hearing that he was not really going to subject Trump to any punishment.
It was not expected that Trump would really face jail time here. But fines and probation were options the judge had.
And Judge Juan Merchan took some time to lay out why he was giving Trump no punishment and the judge explained that he believed that, now that Trump is president-elect, he is entitled to some protections, that that office conveys certain protections.
He also gave a nod to the fact that the American people saw what happened with this case, saw what happened with this conviction and still sent Trump back to the White House and conferred upon him those protections.
And Trump's reelection is something that we've seen other prosecutors and other cases and judges overseeing those cases sort of grappling with. But Judge Juan Merchan also wished Trump best of luck in his second term.
Trump will be the first president to take office as a felon. But his lawyers are going to continue to appeal his conviction. And after the Supreme Court's big ruling on immunity last year, which came after this trial, there is a possibility that Trump's conviction could be overturned -- Paula Reid, CNN, Washington.
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HUNTE: I want to stay on this story. So let's bring in Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at the University of Essex. She joins us now from Colchester, England, just around the corner from here.
Hello, Natasha.
How are you doing?
NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Good.
How are you?
HUNTE: I'm good, thank you. I'm good. Thank you for joining me. So 34 felony convictions but no penalties, no punishments. Each of Trump's 34 counts was punishable by up to four years in prison and or a maximum $5,000 fine. It was obviously unlikely to happen.
But the harshest sentence could have seen Trump imprisoned for the rest of his life.
What's all of your reaction to this? LINDSTAEDT: Well, you just see that the rule of law in the U.S. is deteriorating. There's two justice systems. There's one justice system for everybody else and then there's the justice system for Trump.
He continues to receive special treatment even though he keeps attacking and undermining the rule of law, showed no contrition, wasn't apologetic at all. In fact, he sees himself as the world's biggest victim.
Well, at the same time, he thinks that he's completely invincible. And I think this emboldens him to do whatever he feels like doing.
If we look at a YouGov poll just recently released on Friday, you have 48 percent of Americans that do think he committed a crime where 28 percent did not; 19 percent thought the punishment was too harsh, 39 percent thought it wasn't harsh enough and 42 percent of Americans think that the justice system is way too lenient on Trump.
And so we're really in a difficult situation in American politics right now, where a lot of Americans think there is this two-tiered justice system and Trump flouts it as often as he can.
HUNTE: I mean, Trump will be the first convicted felon to become president just a few days from now. Even saying that, it's so wild.
But does anyone actually care?
Are we past it?
Is this just the new normal now?
LINDSTAEDT: It is the new normal. I mean, Trump has shattered norms left and right, democratic norms of what a president is allowed to do. He seems to be completely scandal proof. I mean, normally just even a small scandal would force a politician to resign out of embarrassment or shame or pressure.
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And this seems to get his supporters even more riled up. It's almost as if, every time he gets in trouble with the law, that his base is even more fervent in their support for him. And we see the way he's treated the justice system.
And he was directly calling one of the Supreme Court justices, Samuel Alito. And this is actually something that happens in authoritarian regimes. We refer to it as telephone law or telephone justice when there's sort of direct calls and pressure campaigns made to justices.
And this is not normal to do this, of course but Americans are almost numb from it all. There are -- they're resigned from it. Yet we have 42 percent of Americans that think he's been treated too leniently.
But do Americans really care about that?
And what we saw with the election, it was noted in the report, it is that they don't care enough. They might care a little bit but not enough to really do anything about it.
HUNTE: Well, let's stick with that, because I know there's going to be a debate for years to come from now.
But do you think that Trump's legal battles may have helped him to get back into the White House?
Did voters have all that necessary information?
Did voters just want to support him more?
What do you think?
LINDSTAEDT: So what we have learned is that a lot of voters were not paying attention at all to any of these court cases. They were receiving just different types of information, either that these court cases were a complete hoax, a witch hunt and it was either not focused upon in the news that they consume.
And then the people who were following the news on this were people that already didn't like him, that were his opponents or were critical of him. So the court cases in all didn't really help the Democrats.
And the one that -- the one that he was convicted of, you know, the 34 counts, that was probably the weakest of all those four cases that were in the news nonstop. Had it been the January 6th case, had that gone through, that might have been a little bit different because there were real serious implications.
People actually died there. And there are still eight ongoing civil suits that Trump is facing regarding the January 6th uprising, which he's trying to dismiss. And so he's engaged in appeals as we speak.
But it just never was quite enough in terms of Americans, who were more focused on inflation and other issues, to be paying attention to his legal battles.
HUNTE: Yes, indeed, so many twists and turns. And it is not even over yet. Natasha Lindstaedt, thank you so much. I'm sure we'll be talking very soon.
LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.
HUNTE: So welcome.
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HUNTE: Still ahead, hope for Los Angeles. Firefighters are beginning to make some progress containing the deadly fires ripping through Southern California. But more than 100,000 people are still in danger.
Plus, as TikTok's deadline fast approaches, the U.S. Supreme Court is signaling it will likely uphold a controversial ban of the social media platform. A closer look at what that would mean after this break.
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HUNTE: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States, here in the U.K. and all around the world. I'm Ben Hunte and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
Right now, emergency crews are making some progress against the devastating wildfires that have been burning for days in Southern California. More than 100,000 people are under evacuation orders in the Los Angeles area. At least 11 people have died.
Whole neighborhoods have been devastated. More than 10,000 structures destroyed, including homes, businesses and vehicles. The scenes are truly hellish. Thousands of people have lost absolutely everything.
Former U.S. Olympic swimmer Gary Hall Jr. is actually among them. He says he had just three minutes from when he saw the first plume of smoke near his house and when the flames reached his door.
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GARY HALL JR., FORMER U.S. OLYMPIC SWIMMER: I thought I had more time. I saw the fire charging down the hill and I knew that I had to get out of there. I opened up the back of my SUV. I loaded a painting, one other object. By the time I was going back in from that run, hot embers were raining down from the sky.
And I knew at that point that I just didn't have much time. I could see the embers hitting the roofs of the houses around me and made that decision. It's time to go. And the medals were in a closet in my bedroom, 70 feet away. I didn't have time to go get them.
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HUNTE: Satellite images captured the destruction from above, showing entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. CNN's Tom Foreman has more with our Wolf Blitzer.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a view of part of the neighborhood there beforehand. Clean, tidy streets, a lot of people proud of how much they know each other and get along, baseball diamonds over here.
Give you a sense of scale, look at it. After the fire went through, very few structures untouched in here. This is the Elliott Arts Middle School drawing a magnet school over in a little bit north of Pasadena there. This area over here, they were hit in the middle of the night. And look what the result was -- tremendous, tremendous damage over there. The Will Rogers home here, this was one of the most famous -- right there he is one of the most famous humorists in this country back in the 1920s, 1930s, social commentator. He bought this ranch and he had some stables near here. Big attraction out there, this very building now looks like this.
They manage to get some of the artwork out and they got the horses out of the stable but that's it.
And, of course, there are many, many just local attractions, restaurants and hotels that people liked. This is a Starbucks that was down on Western Sunset, right near Swarthmore in Pacific Palisades. That's what it looked like. This is what it looked like as it lit up the night.
It's important to remember that these really are the communities of L.A. If you go out there as a tourist, you're going to be down on Hollywood Boulevard, Capitol Records, Universal Studios, out to the beach?
Maybe. But this is where the people live who make all of that work.
And people like this. Look at this family here. This is a -- this is the Navarro family. They we're living in the house of their dreams, house. They all loved and had a great time. And they got out alive.
But this is what was left. They lost photos. They lost mementos. They lost so much. And as we saw in so many places, Wolf, only the sort of ironic fact that the chimney stays standing, that story repeated thousands of times over.
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HUNTE: Millions of TikTok users across the U.S. are anxiously waiting to learn the social media app's fate.
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The Supreme Court held a closely watched hearing on Friday, deciding whether the looming U.S. ban on the platform should be upheld or put on hold. The ban is set to platform should be upheld or put on hold. The ban is set to take effect January the 19th if the justices refuse to step in or if TikToks owner doesn't announce a sale.
Justices appeared skeptical of TikToks argument that a ban would violate free speech and appeared to take the side of the federal government, which says TikTok is a national security risk because of its reported ties to Beijing.
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JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES: So are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is, in fact, subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?
It seems to me that you're ignoring the major concern here of Congress, which was Chinese manipulation of the content and acquisition and harvesting of the content.
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HUNTE: The Chinese government hasn't yet commented on Friday's Supreme Court hearing but Beijing has in the past called the case against TikTok a, quote, "act of bullying and an abuse of national power."
Marc Stewart reports that some believe Beijing has been the guiding force behind TikTok all along.
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MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Among the questions I've been asking to the Chinese government, is it giving guidance to ByteDance, the parent
company of TikTok?
No clear answer at the daily press briefing. A spokesperson referred me to past statements saying the U.S. doesn't respect
free markets and there isn't any evidence of a national security risk.
We did have a chance this week to sit down and talk about this with the U.S. ambassador to China as he prepares to leave office. Listen to part of
our conversation.
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STEWART: How much influence does Beijing have in this debate?
NICHOLAS BURNS, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CHINA: We make the assumption, I certainly do as ambassador here, that the Chinese government has ultimate,
complete authority and access to convince a state enterprise here in China or a private company to do what they wish them to do.
This is an authoritarian government in an authoritarian environment, so that is an issue.
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STEWART: This current chapter of the TikTok debate is happening as the incoming Trump administration prepares to take office. It was just last
month the CEO of TikTok met with President-Elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago -- Marc Stewart, CNN, Beijing.
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HUNTE: Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro begins his new term as a wanted man in the U.S. Still ahead, Washington offers a new reward for information leading to his arrest while the opposition slams his inauguration as a coup.
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HUNTE: Welcome back.
Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro has started his third presidential term after being sworn in on Friday. He's facing major pushback both at home and abroad. Venezuelan officials and companies face more international sanctions.
Maduro's legitimacy is being questioned and the U.S. has issued a $25 million reward for information leading to his arrest. But as Stefano Pozzebon reports, Maduro denies allegations of wrongdoing and remains defiant.
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STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deaf to the international outcry around his election and to the cries for liberty of thousands in Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro is sworn in for a third presidential term in Caracas on Friday, sending a message of defiance to anyone daring to criticize his rule, especially the U.S.
NICOLAS MADURO, PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA (through translator): I was not put here by the U.S. government or by any pro-imperialist government of the Latin American Right. I'm here because I come from the people.
POZZEBON (voice-over): The White House and the European Union are among several international powers who did not recognize his July win, now slapping new sanctions on more than a dozen government officials and a $25 million reward for Maduro's arrest.
Neighboring Colombia saying Thursday it will not recognize Maduro's victory, sending Venezuela further and further into isolation as its government temporarily shut down its western border on Friday.
It all stems from the controversial 2024 election. Venezuelan authorities announcing Maduro's victory without showing any proof and the opposition publishing thousands of electoral tallies that independent observers and several organizations say they prove their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, actually won.
Now pledging to continue to protest.
MARIA CORINA MACHADO, VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER (through translator): Maduro will not be able to govern by force a Venezuela that has decided to be free. POZZEBON (voice-over): Gonzalez himself fled abroad, fearing for his
safety. He gave a speech in the Dominican Republic on Thursday and, on Friday, he said he decided to remain in exile until conditions in Caracas improve.
But with Maduro cementing his grip on power for more than a decade, many are increasingly looking at U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to take a stand. Trump on Thursday voiced his support for a free Venezuela, as the fate of its people remains uncertain -- Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, Bogota.
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HUNTE: Meanwhile, Maduro's main challenger at the polls, Edmundo Gonzalez, says he still plans to return to Venezuela. He said he would return on Inauguration Day but didn't. After the ceremony, Gonzalez said he would return very soon and take office as president.
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EDMUNDO GONZALEZ, FORMER VENEZUELAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (through translator): I'm very close to Venezuela. I'm ready for safe entry at the right time. I will assert the votes that represent the recovery of our democracy. We are coordinating all the indispensable factors to guarantee a prompt return to freedom.
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HUNTE: Maduro's government has accused Gonzalez of terrorism and is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
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HUNTE: Let's dig more into this story for more analysis. We're joined by Carlos Solar, a senior research fellow in Latin American security at the Royal United Services Institute. He's speaking with us from London.
Me, too. Hey, Carlos.
How are you doing?
CARLOS SOLAR, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE: Hi, Ben. I'm good, thank you.
HUNTE: Good. Thank you so much for being with me. Let's talk Venezuela. So the Venezuelan president took office in 2013, clinging to power even after two successive reelections that have been massively rejected because they weren't seen as being free or fair.
Global leaders said that Maduro wouldn't be able to govern by force. But that's exactly what he's doing.
So what now?
SOLAR: Well, it's difficult, what's going to come now, mostly because you had a window of opportunity, which were the elections of last year. Everyone had lots of hope. And if you look at the elections, the elections ran well, right?
Everyone participated in Venezuela. Everyone went and voted. What happened is that they didn't count the votes the right way. All right.
[04:45:00]
So what's going to happen now?
Maduro will stay for another six years.
What window of opportunity do you have for another peaceful democratic transition in Venezuela if you don't wait for six years?
So in the short term, we're waiting for the Donald Trump presidency, what's going to come. You need to know that Trump was -- had an iron fist policy on Venezuela for his first four years.
Then Biden changed that into a more -- into a dialogue, trying to build a bridge, looking at the at the democratic transition, with the elections in sight. And that didn't work. So we'll need to see what Trump's plans are as he takes in this month.
HUNTE: Interesting. OK. So I want you to just break down for me because this is what I've not understood.
How is it that we know that Maduro didn't win last year's election?
SOLAR: Well, he didn't allow most observers, international observers, beyond the Carter Center from the U.S., to go into Caracas and look at the tallies. All right.
So what has happened is that you had a grassroots movement in Venezuela of political scientists, economists, students in Venezuela and abroad who have actually looked at the tallies in an independent way, of course, with the help of Maria Corina Machado and the whole opposition movement in Venezuela.
So their calculations is that actually Edmundo Gonzalez won by at least 65 percent.
HUNTE: Interesting. So we've got a lot of U.S. viewers right now. So I want to ask a U.S. question, of course,
Antony Blinken, U.S. secretary of state, put out a statement yesterday, saying the Venezuelan people and the world know the truth. Maduro clearly lost the 2024 presidential election and has no right to claim the presidency. But he has claimed it.
So what influence does the U.S. actually have here?
SOLAR: Well, it's hard to measure, mostly because the plan that the U.S. had, it didn't work. OK. So the U.S. always had the economic side and the -- and being the largest country and the most powerful country in the Western Hemisphere. So what the U.S. rules in terms of international policy, it might work
and sometimes it doesn't. What happens is that you also need Latin American support. So this cannot only be Antony Blinken leading on what's going to happen in Venezuela.
You need Brazil. You need Venezuela's neighbors, you need Chile, you need Argentina, the Andean countries. So you need the U.S. to actually rally support in the Western Hemisphere to deal with the Venezuelan issue. It won't be solved just by bureaucrats in Washington.
HUNTE: Well, this isn't also the first time we've seen this. We saw similar scenes a few years ago with Juan Guaido, right, who is still living in exile in the U.S., I believe, in Miami.
How is this time different to the last time?
And is it not time for the global leaders to just get on with Maduro same as before?
SOLAR: Well, let's go with the second part of the question. If you accept Maduro, you are actually accepting authoritarianism. And that sends a very bad signal. And Maduro is taking power because he has the signals from the globe. All right.
So the world is telling him that he can bend the rules and stay in power. All right. So look at Maduro partners internationally and within the region. Everyone is an autocrat and everyone is saying the same rules, stay in power, hold onto power. Stay with the armed forces, don't respect the opposition. Run for elections. OK?
So Maduro needs to be pressed, OK, with force and with a joint movement by all countries in Latin America. But that's hard because there's politics inside. All right. So Maduro also represents a left wing project, which actually ran quite smoothly with the first years of Chavez.
And he had a bunch of alliances with Latin America and with the United States and Europe and so on. All right.
So there are a bunch of Democrats in Latin America who will say, look, we cannot turn Venezuela into the new Syria, right?
If there is a transition, it has to be run by peace and by the Venezuelan people. So it's different from (INAUDIBLE). This time, you have different actors pushing and, well, history repeats itself. But we need a new push. We need a new force and 2025 might be different.
HUNTE: We will soon find out. Carlos Solar, joining us from London, I learned so much from that, I appreciate it. We will see what happens next. Thank you so much for joining me.
SOLAR: Thank you for having me.
HUNTE: So welcome.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HUNTE: Next, poet and Los Angeles native Amanda Gorman says she
reacted to the fires the only way that she could: with words. Her poem, when we come back.
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HUNTE (voice-over): OK, check out the snow in Atlanta. A rare snowstorm slammed much of the southern United States on Friday and caused more than 3,000 flights in and out of the U.S. to be canceled.
Some parts of Atlanta got up to 8 centimeters or 3 inches of snow. It's the most snow the city has seen in nearly seven years and more than officials there are used to dealing with. Georgia's governor says the state is working with Atlanta officials to keep people safe.
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GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): Been in direct communications with Mayor Dickens and the city of Atlanta, a lot of our local elected officials, preparing and coordinating with them as well. Local warming stations have been activated as well. And we'll certainly continue to monitor and respond as needed throughout this weather event.
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HUNTE: Snow also made some roads in parts of northern Alabama treacherous. Four people were hurt when passengers on a Delta jet had to use emergency slides to evacuate onto a snowy runway in Atlanta.
Officials say the pilot aborted takeoff because of an engine problem. More than 200 people were on board the Boeing 757. This wasn't the only problem at Atlanta's airport. A rare southern snowstorm forced airlines to cancel more than 40 percent of all flights.
[04:55:00]
Los Angeles native and poet Amanda Gorman has written a new poem about how the California wildfires affected her. Gorman was named the U.S. national youth poet laureate in 2017. Here she is, reciting "Smoldering Dawn."
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AMANDA GORMAN, YOUTH POET LAUREATE: All our angels have gone. This smoldering dawn, we soldier on.
We've proved ourselves strong, not from how badly we've burned but how bravely we bond. Apocalypse does not mean ruin but revelation.
In devastation, this infernus (ph) has injured us but it cannot endure us. Even in the surreal, we do not surrender. We emerge from the embers.
The hardest part is not disaster but the after. Scorched earth is where the heart hurts, where we restore first, where
we start the work. Today we mourn. Tomorrow, reborn, we end the burning. Befriend the
hurting. Mend those who face the flame.
We reclaim our city's name, a revelation that only this place tells. To find our angels, all we need do is look within ourselves.
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HUNTE: That wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ben Hunte. It's been real. It's been a lot but it's been real. Let's do it again. I'll be back with more news in just a moment.
