hello. thank you for joining us. you're watching a special edition of "newsroom." we begin with breaking news out of nashville. police are investigating an explosion this morning as an intentional act. the mayor warning residents to stay away from the downtown area. a briefing is set to begin any moment. we'll bring that to you live. police believe the explosion came from a parked vehicle outside the at&t building. that's the tallest building in

the state. that happened around 6:30 this morning local time. three people were injured and taken to the hospital. we are told thank fully they're not in critical condition. nearby businesses shared surveillance which captured the moment of the blast. tennessee governor bill lee tweeted we will supply all of the resources needed to determine what happened and who was responsible. cnn's evan perez joins me with more on this. evan, we know the fbi is now involved in the investigation. what more can you tell us? >> bianna, the fbi field office has taken over the lead of this investigation. i'm told that's an indication, not necessarily that they've decided what this is. the fbi has a lot of resources available that perhaps local

authorities don't have, so that's one of the reasons why they took over the investigation. still very early. there's very little known. we saw from earlier briefing the police gave on the scene there that they said there had been reports of gunshots before the emergency responders arrived on scene and it appears those responders were there when the explosion happened. it appears it was an rv that was the source of the explosion. what exactly caused it is still very much a mystery. you can see from pictures that we are getting from the scene that the destruction, that this was an explosion that caused a lot of destruction for buildings nearby. clearly there was a lot of force from the explosion. again, exactly what caused that explosion from the rv is still not yet known. you can see that it goes on for a couple of blocks, even windows

on a street adjacent were blown out as a result of the force of the explosion. it happened just before 6:00 a.m. again, because it happened at a time of day when there were not a lot of people around, there was no -- appears to be nobody injured seriously. a couple of police officers on scene were knocked down. i think they said one police officer may have suffered some hearing loss, but apart from that. thankfully on christmas morning here there was nobody around and therefore people count their blessings that this could have been a lot worse if it happened at a different time. >> thankfully indeed. for those just joining us, looking at live aerial images, this is downtown nashville, tennessee. could be mistaken for a war zone. it gives you sense of the magnitude of the explosion and the fact that only three people

nearby were injured and not critically tells you what a christmas miracle the tragedy turned out to be because it is devastating to look at the buildings completely wrecked. windows blown out blocks away. evan, we know there's new reporting, there was no known credible threat in nashville area that would have signaled an impending attack on or before christmas. a source telling cnn this. why is this significant? >> this is significant. one of the first things the investigators would look for is trying to see whether threats were made, anything from the fbi is always gathering possible indications of a threat. any significant area. that's one of the first things investigators would check to see did we have any indication that something could be happening in nashville, whether any threats

perhaps for christmas morning. obviously it is one of those times when law enforcement is always on alert for the possibility that someone might try to carry out a terrorist attack, for instance, again, nothing like that was anticipated or even at this stage, the fact that they've gone back to double check and still have no indication of that, i think that's a good indication at least that they didn't miss something. now, the question is what exactly caused this. explosions like this just don't happen just like that. one of the first things you have to immediately put on your list of suspicions is whether it is domestic terrorism incident. that's something the fbi would normally, one of the first things they're checking. again, we have no indication of that, but it is one of the things that obviously the fbi and the other investigators who are on the scene are going to be

looking for. the police earlier today said they're going to deploy officers to try to gather pieces of this to see with a vehicle blown up, whether that would indicate what kind of explosive caused this. again, that will be a big clue as to whether or not it was a terrorist incident or whether this is some kind of accident. those are the things they're looking for now. >> we know the police were called around 6:00 a.m. this morning and shortly thereafter the explosion took place. this is early into the investigation, evan. i know you'll continue to follow this as well as the forensics team starts to analyze what they find there as evidence at the scene. evan, thank you so much. we'll be checking back with you later. a morning explosion in nashville interrupting christmas for that city. authorities believe the explosion was an intentional act and received multiple reports of a suspicious vehicle minutes

before smoke planked second avenue. we're going live to the briefing in nashville now. >> responded to a call for shots fired in the downtown area. specifically second and near commerce. also responded, encountered an rv that had a recording saying that potential bomb would detonate within 15 minutes. officers upon hearing that decided to evacuate the buildings nearby, so they began knocking on doors, making announcements, having emergency communications, communicate with everyone to get people safe. shortly after that the rv exploded. we had one officer that was knocked to the ground. another officer is fine. currently what we have going on

now, we have canine dogs, all of them out, partnered with two or three highway patrol and federal partners, sweeping the downtown area as precaution to make sure that everyone is safe and that any service is needed, we can provide that. with that said we don't feel there's any concern in the downtown area of anything else right now, but we're doing that as a precaution to search with the bomb dogs. at this time, i will turn it over to the attorney. >> good afternoon, merry christmas, unfortunately, not the way any of us wanted to spend christmas morning, i know. but i'm don cochran. this morning, i briefed jeff rosen on the situation in nashville. he told me to tell the police chief in nashville we're devoting the entire resources of department of justice to help in

their investigation. fbi and atf are taking the lead in the investigation. i want to turn the stage over first to assistant special agent in charge, matt foster of the fbi and special agent in charge from the atf to explain the resources the federal government will bring to bear on the situation. matt? >> thank you, don. the fbi stands with the city of nashville today in this very tragic christmas day event. this is our city, too. we live here, we work here, and we're putting everything we have into finding who is responsible for what's happened here today. as part of doing that, there are investigative leads to be pursued, also technical work that needs to happen, and we're standing with metro national police department and our federal partners and state partners to bring every resource we can possibly bring to bear to find out what happened here today and to bring those

responsible to justice. the investigative leads i'm sure you understand is not something that we can talk about as we continue to pursue every tip, i would ask the public to go to www.fbi.gov/nashville. where an online tip submission process has been set up. please tell us what you know. we need your leads, we need your help. you can also call 1-800-call fbi. call in tip information. if you know anything about what's happened today, we'd appreciate your help. on the technical side our focus will be on bringing the technical experts of the fbi from across the country, including the fbi laboratory, hazardous devices school, and experts from evidence response teams nationwide into nashville to process the massive crime scene, along with the atf, metro

national pd and many other partners part of the effort. we will find out what happened. >> good afternoon. i am special agent in charge for the atf field division. atf continues to be a critical partner with metro nashville police department as well as our federal counterparts. atf responded with several groups and personnel from nashville field division. also activated the national response team. that particular team is made up of specialists as well, certified specialists, chemists, engineers as well as evidence recovery, interview teams and so forth. we'll be coordinating that with metro national police department as well as the fbi, and we'll put together a team that will

collectively work this investigation to the fullest. the main priority is obviously to keep the nashville citizens safe and secure and we will work jointly with everybody here to do that. thank you. >> good afternoon. i want to give you a quick update. i know don earlier mentioned as far as the fire department's role, we did transport three individuals with minor injuries, but right now what we're doing is with the structural engineers along with our search and rescue, hazmat teams, we're going into the buildings making sure the building is sound and ensuring that there are no other victims or anyone that are there. so a lot of moving parts. again, my hat goes off to all of the teams working together as one unit. we'll continue to work until the job is done. so thank you.

>> ladies and gentlemen, that's the update as we know it at present. if there's another briefing for this afternoon, we'll let you know. you pretty much know what we know at this juncture as far as our community is concerned. again, to reiterate, we know of no other imminent danger to the city at this point. the bomb dogs going through the downtown area now are doing that as a precaution. okay. i can't hear you. >> do we have a number, estimate of how many buildings have been damaged in this incident? >> i'll talk with joseph pleasant from oem. i can tell you several buildings on second avenue have structural

damage. several of them have been damaged, some more than others. we'll get that for you. i know chief swan said the fire department is looking at those structural issues now to determine any more potential impact. >> at this point do you know the target, do you know the purpose of why this happened? >> as the fbi said, we will find that out. there are a number of people working right now on christmas day running leads throughout the city, from our police department, the fbi, atf. answers will be foerrthcoming. we can't discuss those with you now what we're looking at. answers will be forthcoming. i have no information about any body being found. we do not know whether anyone was in the rv when it exploded.

we do not know whether anyone was in the rv when it exploded. so i can't tell you at this point whether there's a potential for a fatality in that scenario. >> megaphone was warning people coming from the truck or from somewhere else? >> it is believed it was coming from the rv. >> yes. >> there were announcements coming from the rv. that's the extent of what we can say at this point. >> is there surveillance footage that police are investigating now? >> there are cameras throughout the downtown area. yes. we have been reviewing downtown cameras and that is all part of the totality of the investigation. >> you mentioned some people may have been taken to central precincts, whether just witnesses, to give a statement, share what they saw. has anything come to fruition from that that you can share?

>> just providing more pieces to the puzzle, more information. as the chief said, we had a number of officers, several officers on second avenue who were working to protect the public when the explosion occurred. as he said, one of the officers was knocked off his feet. we have some counselors with our officers, behavioral health folks are with those officers, ensuring they're okay. i mean, they went through a very traumatic experience themselves. >> it is amazing how the officers and first responders brought into the face of danger, they knew that there was some threat and continued to use time to get people out. >> they went to the residential areas on second avenue and did their best to get people to safety. obviously they heard the announcements coming from this vehicle. they took them seriously. they were working to seal the

streets to protect folks and we think it worked. we think lives were saved by the officers doing just that. thanks very much, folks. >> and just to recap what you were listening to, a press conference there in nashville where just a few hours, shortly after 6:00 a.m. local time police were called to an rv. after that, there was a message, a recording that the rv would be detonating in 15 minutes. at that time, the police chief john drake said the police were on the scene located others in the area, trying to get them out of the scene, given that message from the rv. they also called the bomb squad as well. subsequently the rv did in fact explode. the police there saying there was an act of heroism because lives were saved given the 15 minute time window where police were able to get local residents

and civilians out of harm's way. police went on to say one officer was knocked to the ground. they're an emotional trauma, and minor injuries, they're sweeping the downtown area to make sure everyone is safe. as of now, there's no concern about additional devices throughout the area throughout downtown nashville. they're just taking extra precaution to make sure the area is indeed safe and the fbi, atf, federal agents on the investigation early into the hours, this could have been much worse as you look at the damage given the massive explosion caused by the rv at 6:00 a.m., christmas morning. thankfully it was a deserted area at the time. there were three injured, not life-threatening injuries. they were taken to the hospital. also of interest is that they don't appear to have many leads at this point, asking the public to call in and notify them if

they have any information. they are interested in hearing from the public and no indication as to whether the bomber, suspects were inside of that rv, maybe giving you a sense of the magnitude of the explosion at this moment. i want to bring in evan perez and juliette kayyem. juliette, reassuring to hear they believe there are no more devices in the area, but from what you heard from the presser and that voice recording that went off when police arrived at the rv, what does that tell you? >> so we're going to be really careful about motivation today. there's been lots of discussion. we don't know the motivation. the u.s. attorney was clear on that. there's a difference between intentional and something like terrorism which would be a targeted attack. what we are looking at now obviously, i am quite confident that within the next 48 hours, this is how it always happens, we'll have more evidence, likely

suspects. there are too many cameras. there's a car there with evidence in it. fingerprints, whatever else they can get. i'm pretty confident the physical side of this will get solved relatively quickly. and i just want to make it clear, this is an interesting attack, intentional attack because it appears, more than appears that whoever did the announcements did not, not want a mass casualty event. then you have to ask what did they want. investigators will be looking at two things, either a building or facility or did they want first responders to respond to the call. those are the options essentially that investigators will be looking at this stage, without clarity on motivation. cnn will be very careful about that right now and simply look

at whether the investigation is going. but that's basically your options, not a mass casualty event, thank goodness. you look at the building, facility, critical infrastructure, or the possibility of a first responder attack. people rushing in. >> an important point. if you look at the evidence as it played out this morning before even knowing about the prerecorded message that went off from the rv, one would have to say if the intent was mass casualty, this is not how you would do it on christmas morning in a deserted area, thankfully, that's not what transpired. evan perez, we know the acting attorney general has notified rosen. he said nashville area will have all the help they need and resources they need from the federal government. we heard from the fbi and atf. what are they doing the next few hours?

>> flooding agents and some technical experts into that area. the memphis fbi office is sending agents in. the atf says they're bringing in national response team. this is frankly some of the best people. what they do is investigate scenes like this. bomb scenes, fires, things like this. and they have all of the expertise, they have chemists that will come into try to examine the rv and the buildings around there to see what was the ak sell rent that burst into flames. that's one of the first things the witnesses reported. they said there was damage to some buildings, even some fires that resulted from the large explosion. one of the things i want to call attention to, it appears that

the building, the closest building that suffered a lot of damage is the at&t switch building. like a technical building. doesn't have frankly usually a lot of people in there, if any people at all, and especially at 6:00 a.m. on christmas morning. there's hardly anybody in that area. certainly that building is the type of unoccupied, largely unoccupied building. that's another thing that plays into this investigation and so that i think is part of what the investigators are looking into. as you guys said, whoever did this, broadcasting a message saying this -- to stay away from the vehicle. it is going to explode in the next 15 minutes. things like that appear to be geared towards not causing a mass casualty incident and that's one of the things that's obviously a big clue that investigators are pursuing. >> again, juliette, you look at

images, looks like a tornado ripped through downtown nashville or a war zone. that gifves you sense of the magnitude of the explosion, why it was reassuring to hear from police and local authorities they do not believe there are other devices throughout the area and that the area will be safe and civilians hopefully will be allowed back sometime soon. what does that tell you about what they know and being able to say that at this time? >> so the clarity by which they said the state or city weren't under threat is a clue. in other words, they're not going to tell the public you're safe if they believe there are other bombs out there. do they have someone in custody, they're not saying yet that they're hearing from. something that we may find out in the next couple of hours. i want to focus on what evan said about the building. so if you want a lot of people dead for a political reason, you don't do this because this is

serious, serious explosives. this is something that would have killed a lot of people but for the fact it is at 6:30 in the morning or 6:00 in the morning christmas morning in a sort of industrial part of downtown. when your producer first called me this morning, the first thing i asked is was it a church. because it is christmas. this is my fear. so that gratefulness makes you wonder well, what's going on here. so you're looking at the building. it is a piece of critical infrastructure. i know people will look at at&t and its relationship with cnn. we don't know, but what we know, it is a piece of critical infrastructure. if it was the target, that's where the investigation is going to head. and the final thing i'll say is thee these are serious explosives looking at the pictures. this was a well planned out, coordinated nonmass casualty

event. someone is thinking this through what they wanted to do. that's where the investigation will head. >> extremely sophisticated when you look at the scale of the explosion and the debris there on the streets in downtown nashville. thankfully no one critically injured. the police saying they don't have concern about additional devices and are sweeping the downtown area just as a precautionary measure to be sure everyone is safe. this could have had much more tragic, much worse impact. thankfully that's not the case. we will be covering this throughout the afternoon. for now, thank you to evan perez and juliette kyrayyem. what we are hearing from the president's team next. you can even order on the subway® app! did i just get picked ofoff by dedeion sanders? you sure did! now in the a app, get a free footlong when you buy two.

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more now on today's breaking news. the massive explosion in downtown nashville upending a quiet christmas morning. let's get to jeremy diamond in florida where the president is staying over the christmas holiday. jeremy, good to see you. the president we know has been briefed about the incident. has this impacted his schedule for the day at all? >> reporter: well, so far the president has been spending most of the day today at his golf club. arrived there shortly before 10:00 a.m., is still there now. but despite that, the white house does say the president has been briefed on this incident. deputy white house press secretary saying president trump was briefed on the explosion in nashville, tennessee, and he will continue to receive regular um updates. he says the president is grateful for the incredible

first responders and praying for those that were injured. of course, we don't have many more details on this incident, the motivations, what exactly happened here. obviously if the details do emerge, we can expect the white house will have additional reaction, perhaps even hearing from the president himself, depending on what the motivations are here and who was involved in perpetrating what appears to be an intentional act according to law enforcement. as of now, president trump still at his golf course this christmas day, no additional um updates. >> and no sign whether he will sign that bill to keep the government open that expires monday. a lot on his plate to deal with. jeremy diamond, thank you so much. hundreds of thousands of americans spend christmas in the hospital today. the country continues to see record coronavirus cases. new today, the u.s. announcing new measures to try to contain the spread of the

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the first christmas day under the pandemic, already we know today at least another 330 lives have been taken by coronavirus. in los angeles county, california, the most populous county in the state with most

cases, the health director says every ten minutes a person is dying from covid. so far, december has recorded the most infections of any month. more than 4.8 million new cases. christmas travel is expected to intensify the spread. the tsa says travel is drastically down from prepandemic levels. still, tallied 7 million people passing through airports in the past week. those trying to enter the u.s. from the uk, new mandate. they must present a negative covid test no more than 72 hours before departure. the u.s. joining 40 other nations that placed some form of restriction due to a more contagious variant of the virus detected in britain. turning to dr. lena wen, thank you for spending your day with us. many restrictions restricted travelers, they did it a few days ago. is it smart for the u.s. to impose the restrictions starting

next week, especially when jeannet geneticists believe it could be here. >> i think, bianna, the variant from the uk is probably here. was first discovered in late september. there's been a lot of travel back and forth. we just don't have the surveillance testing in the u.s. as the uk does to pick up on the variant which is a major problem. prearrival or predeparture testing is a good idea. there are going to be some people who will find out they're asymptomatic and test positive and can take themselves out of circulation, not make that trip. we should be doing even more, specifically involves quarantining individuals after they arrive and then testing after the quarantine. it shouldn't just be from the uk, there's a variant from south africa that also looks to be more transmissible. we should be doing more testing throughout the country. that's the way we are going to

eventually rein in the infection. >> any additional testing we can do is helpful, right? many governors in the u.s., including new jersey and new york, are asking airlines to test passengers as well. the tsa says that the travel numbers are a third of what they were christmas eve last year. many people did listen to cdc guidance not to travel. what is your reaction when you continue to see 7.1 million people travel through check points this week alone? >> i am very worried because we know when people travel, the virus also travels and it is not just about the travel itself, the going on planes or driving in cars, it is about what people are doing after they get to the destination. likely they're getting together with loved ones, having dinner, gathering indoors for long periods of time. i hope that people know it is up to us to try to reduce the burden of covid-19 in the communities. that means trying to gather

outdoors as much as possible. if you're indoors, having a meal, try to space out as much as you can. limit time indoors, make sure windows and doors are open. and keep in mind cumulative risk. just because you had one high risk event doesn't meanwhile you're together you need to keep having high risk events. >> if it is a christmas like no other, everyone must make a sacrifice. we want a normal christmas next year, minimize the spread and minimize the deaths. doctor, thank you very much. we appreciate it. >> thank you. merry christmas. >> you too. back to breaking news. a significant and what police call intentional explosion rocks downtown nashville. so, uh, yeah, just a silly mistake.

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welcome back. we are continuing to follow breaking news out of nashville, tennessee. the fbi is investigating an intentional explosion in that city's downtown. police say they initially responded to a call for shots fired. when they arrived, they found an rv broadcasting a message of sorts, warning a bomb would go off in 15 minutes. soon after, that vehicle detonated. three people were injured and taken to the hospital. we are told they're not in critical condition. this is still a developing and fluid story. we'll bring you updates as we get them throughout the afternoon. right now, we turn to the key to unlocking some relief for millions of americans, that's

sitting on president trump's desk. the massive $900 billion bill centers on jobless benefits and checks to millions suffering this christmas. whether or not he will sign it is unclear. joining me, alice stewart. merry christmas to you. a busy day indeed. you say the president is holding americans hostage. so if that's the case, how good are the negotiators here? there's a lot on the line. >> well, i think the negotiators were good. steve mnuchin, nancy pelosi, members of the house and senate. the problem is they never got the memo from the president early on what exactly he wanted and that's on him. this was hill bil th this was his bill. until he decided to change terms at the last minute. that's unfortunate. i know a lot of conservative fiscal presumptive republican nominee house members that are frustrated. look, they would not have voted

for some aspects of the big package, wasteful spending and some of the appropriation if they had known this is what the president was going to do. they feel as though the president and steve mnuchin, our treasury secretary, drove this train and ended up walking the plank on this. many of them are frustrated. but i am hopeful that we will come to terms on this, and the president will do the right thing. while he is discouraged that he didn't win the presidency, he cannot be taking this out on the american people. this is not about the fact that he lost the presidency, this is about this is costing americans. it is time to do the right thing and get money as you mentioned. this is valuable money the american people need for jobless benefits in order to put food on the table and roof over their head and it needs to get done as quickly as possible. i know that the house and senate members who negotiated in good faith on this would like to see the same. >> you've got millions of

americans suffering now, and a lot of these asks came from the president directly, especially what's in the omni bus bill that he is blowing up. even the $600 stimulus checks that steve mnuchin said would go out next week, that's clearly not going to happen. that wouldn't have been a number he settled on had the president not signed off on that as well. it is head scratching. you touched on this. could part of the president's thinking on holding up the relief bill have anything to do with attempts to undo the election and what can possibly be done if that's the case? >> nothing can be done to undo the election. and the sooner that he realizes that and others realize that, the better. look, he wrote the book on "the art of the deal." i'm not the expert. seems to me the art on the art of the deal is when talks are under way, not when the ink is dry. members of congress negotiated for months understanding this was what would be agreeable to people on all terms.

look, the president might have wanted to win re-election, but it just didn't happen. look, i voted for him. i wanted him to win. i would love to see his policies in place the next four years. i also respect the will of the voters and respect the outcome of the elections these are key provisions that the house and senate voted on that the beneficial not just to what's immediately at hand, which is covid relief, but the die fence spending bill certainly has to move forward as well. >> the irony being he seems to want to play president so badly. and all of his duties are waiting at his desk and he's not signing them and millions of americans are suffering. thank you so much. happy holidays to you. >> same to you, bianna. >> and still ahead, the u.s. says it will now require a

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. u.s. now says it will now require a negative covid test for air passengers flying to the u.s. from the united kingdom over concerns about a variant of

the coronavirus that may be more contagious. anyone entering the u.s. must have a negative pcr or antigen test 72 hours before entering the u.s. >> this will be familiar for passengers in other parts of the world but not the united states. you're required to have a negative antigen test up to 72 hours. it will be expected upon at rival at one of the designated airports in the united states. only a certain number of airports are allowed to receive international passengers. bearing in mind the travel plan that is already in case. only u.s. citizens and grown

card holders can make the journey across the atlantic and now it will be even greater roo -- restricted. some days there are just a handful of people on the planes. >> some question whether it's a little too late as some suspect that variant is already in the u.s. we also know 800 more personnel are being called out to help with tests. how bad is the backup at the border at this point? >> terrible. there were 3,000, 4,000 truckers that were trying to get across. they can process 30 in about half an hour, 45 minutes. it gives you an idea of how long it will take to get them on ferries and get across. it going to take many more days and the opening of the tunnel and the various more ferries to

get this backlog done and that's before the new free trade agreement comes into force on january the 1st. we don't really know how that's going to play out, how much customs facilitation will have to actually be done on trucks and goods and going across the english channel. >> the headaches there continue in the u.k. richard quest, thank you so much. happy holidays. >> and to you. >> thank you. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> hello and welcome to this special edition of cnn newsroom. i'm bianna golodryga. police say officers responded to reports of gunfire in downtown nashville early this morning when they stumbled on an rv playing a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15

minutes officers sprinted to clear the area and then the rv delivered on that promise. [ explosion ] >> that is the sound of sheer terror and the mag sunitude of t explosion. in a news conference last hour, police say quick action by first responders saved lives. >> they went to the residential areas on second avenue and did their best to get people to safety. obviously they heard the announcements coming from this vehicle. they took them seriously and were working to seal the streets, to protect folks and we think it worked. we think lives were saved by those officers doing just that. >> some heroic actions no doubt. the explosions happened near the at&t building in the downtown corridor. the building is the tallest in the state. the scene showed the explosion's

destructive power. second avenue now lined with charred trees and shattered glass. the city's mayor says the explosion damaged 20 buildings in the area. the tennessee governor says he'll commit whatever resources are required to find out who was responsible. miraculously, only three were injured and those injuries are not life threatening. as of now they have no motives and no suspects. local fbi is taking control of the investigation. let's go to josh campbell. federal law enforcement fgettin very very quickly here. what are your sources telling you about this incident? >> the reason why we're not hearing details because we're old in a sense they're simply baffled. they don't have many details on what transpired. the details so bizarre. as you mentioned, authorities were called just after the 6:00 hour there ito