♪ hello and welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm laila harrak.

coming up on "cnn newsroom," the u.s. attorney general appoints a special counsel to oversee mr. trump's criminal investigations. well, take a look at who the new counsel is. plus, the new time line into the stabbing deaths of four idaho college students, as we also learn at least one victim tried to fight back. and ukrainians bracing for a cold winter. as russian attacks put the country's power grid at risk. we're live in kyiv with the latest. ♪ live from cnn center, this is "cnn newsroom." with laila harrak. donald trump and other republicans are lashing out against the latest move to oversee the criminal investigations he faces. the u.s. justice department has appointed a special counsel to take over two of the most sensitive probes involving the former president. on friday, u.s. attorney general

mare rick garland named veteran prosecutor jack smith to take over the mar-a-lago investigation. he'll also handle key elements of the january 6th investigation as they relate to mr. trump. mr. smith has held numerous posts at the justice department and has served as chief prosecutor in a special court in the hague where he investigated war crimes. for more on friday's announcement from the justice department here is cnn's evan perez in washington. attorney general merrick garland appointed war crimes prosecutor jack smith to serve as special counsel to oversee two criminal investigations related to donald trump. now, the decision was triggered in part by the former president's decision in recent days to declare a third run as a presidential candidate. smith most recently worked as a prosecutor in the hague overseeing kosovo war crimes. he'll take over investigations stemming from the alleged mishandling of classified

documents which the fbi retrieved in a search from trump's mar-a-lago home. as well as portions of the january 6 investigation, dealing with trump's efforts to impede the transfer of power after the 2020 election. now, garland said that the appointment was intended to show that the investigations will be done with independents. >> based on recent developments, including the former president's announcement that he's a candidate for election in the next election and the sitting president sitting as a candidate as well. i have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. such an appointment underscores the department's commitment to both independence and accountability. >> and smith is expected to set up a separate office with teams and the fbi currently heading

the investigation reporting directly to him. in a statement, smith said the pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. i will exercise independent judgment and remove the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly, to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate. >> and evan perez reporting for you from washington. as for mr. trump, he's given every indication he intends to ignore the new special counsel calling him quote, super radical left. and even know the doj investigations have been going on for months, the former president acted surprised they are still very active. here's what he told a crowd friday night at his florida resort. >> this horrendous abuse of power is the latest in a long series of witch hunts, started a long time ago. i thought the investigation with the document hoax was dying or dead or over, and the investigation into january 6 and

my very peaceful and patriotic speech, remember? peaceful and patriotically was dead especially after the record-setting 40-point loss of liz cheney, in the great state of womens. i thought it was dead. >> well, earlier i spoke about the special announcement of the appointment at lawyer lola. here's what she said. >> i actually don't know it's going to impact the campaign that much. because we've already seen the former president say all of this is illegitimate. the investigations are illegitimate. any sort ever indictment he'll say is also just a political witch hunt. so the decision to apoint a special counsel i think is department of justice and those who believe in the rule of law and independence for the department of justice. but as far as his campaign, he's

just going to keep feeding people the same diet of investigation and say there's no there there. >> but why bring in a special counsel right now? why not allow the doj to move forward with its investigations? >> i think because two things have happened. one, the midterms are now over. and, two, the former president has said i am a candidate for the presidency again. and so what we see here is potentially another mashup between president biden and far president trump. and we have an attorney general who was appointed by one of those two men, obviously who was appointed by president biden. so while the department of justice is independent, what think merrick garland recognized today he doesn't want it to look like a political appointee of the one of the candidates, president biden is just trying to take down the other candidate former president trump. the other thing is, this actually insulates attorney general merrick garland a little bit, because now that house

republicans will be in control, they're going to have a lot of hearings about these investigations. and if she has a special counsel, he can say, you know what, i'm not involved in these investigations anymore. i can't answer your questions. so, i think there are really a number of reasons why this is the timing that he chose. >> now, talk to us a little bit about the counsel? who is the counsel and what can you tell us about mr. jack smith? >>s who a former federal procedure, and people used to hear former federal prosecutor. we know he has experience in the public unit dealing with public corruption crimes i think that's significant. the other significant thing here, he's actually beenal broad working in the international criminal court, dealing with things like war crimes, also corruption, and investigations and charges against former government officials of foreign states. that's about as close to the

experience of investigating the former president as you can possibly get. so, i think for those reasons, this particular decision makes a lot of sense. >> i'm sure i'll be talking again with it now, jessica levinson, thank you so much. >> thank you. some want the justice department to appoint a special counsel in another investigation. its probe into the foreign business dealings of president joe biden's son hunter biden. senator john cornyn tweeted by appointing a counsel in the trump case the doj admitted that was a conflict of interest. and he says the department must admit there's also a conflict in the hunter biden probe and that a special counsel should oversee it. a potentially historic winter storm is pounding parts of the great lakes region. two people in new york's erie county died after suffering cardiac events related to clearing the snow. the storm has cancelled flights, halted traffic on major roadways

and knocked out power, as temperatures plunge. 5 1/2 feet of snow, nearly 1.7 meters has fallen 0 the city near buffalo. and the region is bracing for more. buffalo's mayor told cnn they are prepared for what comes. >> so, we do have the resources that we need to fight the storm which has been pretty unpredictable with the snow band hovering over the south, getting ready to move back north. >> well, cnn meteorologist derek van dam joins us now live from the scene and weather center with the latest. the snow event rages on, derek. >> and moved north, it did. that wall of snow, which you're literally watching, this is a time lapse from buffalo on midday on friday, and just look at how quickly that enveloped the entire city instantaneously almost, reducing visibilities to next to zero. that is the nature of the

lake-effect snow band. it's only about 5 to 10 miles wide in diameter. so some places getting a dusting of snow. some places getting 50, 60, 65 inches of snowfall. that's over 1 1/2 meters of snow, that's just a mind-boggling amount of snow. i'm going to talk about the dangers of that in just a moment. but here's some of the highest snowfall totals i could find. these are in south town, south of the downtown area of buffalo. now, you can double-check my math, we've done this for you, ease of use, when we talk about the average square foot of house, we're calling it 2,000 square feet. you start to talk about the heavy snow band, talking about four feet. you put it all together, the density of the water, the ratio of the water to melted liquid equivalent and you're talking about 50,000 pounds. that is roughly ten suvs piled on top of your house or

business. that means structure collapse is a real threat going forward. back in 2014, they had a similar lake-effect snow event take place. they had roofs collapse. there were fatalities associated with that, so that's my concern, not to mention the impossible driving conditions going on along the great lakes at the moment. especially the i-90 corridor that runs parallel to the lake erie region. winter storm warnings reissued for portions of lake michigan. by the way, lake-effect storm warnings now extended into the cleveland, ohio, region. that's because the fire hose of snow is literally going to fluctuate into the northern sections of ohio, in the next coming hours, in fact in the next 12 to 18 hours, as the wind direction changes. here it is at the moment, it's moving through buffalo, it's kind of veering, oscillating to the north. many extreme northern portions

of canada will snow the snowfall in the hours to come. we do expect a wind shift and backing of the wind, that will bring that heavy snow band once again through buffalo, through the middle part of today. and eventually impacting the southern suburbs once again and even into portions of cleveland and northeastern ohio as well. it's all about the wind direction here. that's all important in this forecast. yet, another foot to foot and a half of snowfall to come out of this incredible lake-effect snow event ongoing. laila. >> you said it, mind-boggling. derrick van dam, thank you. >> you're welcome. the university of idaho will hold a vigil at the end of the month, the four were found death that has left the community in shock and grief. we'll get more on the details

and investigate from cnn's brian todd. >> reporter: critical new information as investigators continue to hunt the killer or killers of four university of idaho students. police now saying where the in house the bodies were discovered. >> i believe the chief provided that information, i believe it was the top floor and middle floor. third floor and second floor. >> reporter: scenes described. >> i saw lots of blood on the wall. >> reporter: investigators releasing a map and time line of the students' movements. ethan chapin and zannah kerr nobile attends a party. and then they picked up food only a food truck. police say all four victims are back at the house sometime around 1:45 sunday morning. >> you look for cameras, you look for ring doorbells, you look for anything that you might pick up, that shows the movement of these individuals around

whether or not was there somebody following them, you know, were they driving, were they walking. >> reporter: police say this was a targeted attack. the four victims stabbed to death inside their shared campus home sunday morning. adding to the mystery, there were no named suspects, no murder weapon, and two additional roommates were inside the home at the time of the murders, police say. neither of whom were injured or held hostage. police say the roommates have been fully cooperative, but won't say if they're witnesses or neither. she did give the nature of the wounds. >> there were stab wounds on the hands at least one of the students that would make it appear it would be defensive wounds. >> reporter: jeffrey kerrnobile the father. >> she said she slept in.

>> reporter: former police chief charles ramsey says new indications are raised that one of the victims fought the attacker. >> which means there was noise. it wasn't quiet. i don't know how you could quietly kill four people with a knife and no one in the house would know anything. so it's very important that we know more about the roommates. >> reporter: brian todd, cnn, washington. coming up on "cnn newsroom," a bit of life from before the war is back on track in the ukrainian city of kherson as the russians pull out. plus, the ukrainians work to get the nation's power grid back on line following recent attacks. and now it's coming under new pressure of the bitter wind cold. thatat's ahead. why do nearly one million businesses choose stamps.com to mail and ship?

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♪3, 4♪ ♪ ♪hey♪ ♪ ♪are you ready for me♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪ ukraine is grappling with shortages of electricity, after a barrage of russian strikes on its electrical system. the attacks knocked out all half of the nation's energy system earlier this week, leaving 10 million people in the dark. president zelenskyy now says the

electrical supply is an issue in 17 regions, and the capital of kyiv. it's all happening, as temperatures are dropping across ukraine. just putting the power system under even bigger strain. well, for more, nic robertson joins us now live from kyiv. nic, what impact are these strikes on ukraine's power grid having on everyday life? how are people preparing for the months to come? >> reporter: yeah, the energy sector is trying to prepare for the next round of strikes. it was very interesting to hear from one of the city officials within that energy sector yesterday say they need a 10 to 12-day pause in the russian missile strike campaign so that they can get the electrical system back to the position where it can withstands the next round of attacks. of course, russia doesn't wait that long, each time is attritional and is degrades the system as they come through. it completely threw the power

control of the power grid across the country out of kilter. that's what took those 10 million homes offline. although the power grid is more stable now, stabilized across the country, it is not able to deliver power to everybody all the time. so there are, as president zelenskyy said, 17 different regions in this country where they are power outages in homes from four to eight hours but some of the worst affected places are places where the war has already rolled through, where ukrainian forces have retain territory from the russians. towns and villages there, they will take far, far longer to be reconnected to the grid. and they themselves, in those towns, really right now, and we were visiting one just before the snows came, already in a difficult situation. the road is a prelude for the destruction to come. russian troops turned the church into a military base as ukrainians forced them from the

eastern village six weeks ago. nicola, a former firefighter, stayed, survived the russians. surviving the coming winter, his next challenge. he's going to show us where he's stacked the wood for the winter. work here could be brutal. he's proud, he's been working hard. all of the wood is stacked in the back there, there's a little generator as well. in the village. we'll survive, we'll survive the ge germans, he tells us, a reference to world war ii. i must stay, the russians killed my brother, i bury him. he needs a proper service. he showed me his destroyed house. tells me, he'll rebuild. mostly self-sufficient, he has his own well, although he says the water must be boiled. his 91-year-old mother who also refuses to leave plans to

survive the winter as she lived through the fighting in that bunker. when she comes out, she tells us, she worries about the cold, too. how much can you suffer, she says. the matches are wet, the candles are bad. this is a torment. across town, yuri is back for the first time since he left in may. his house, and everything in it, 55 years of memories, destroyed. we had plans to rebuild, he says, getting emotional and turning away. as deminers clear his house of explosive, he sees his long lost cat. it's scared.

it comes back for food. they show him a grenade they found, gently tell him his beehives are all smashed. yuri wants to show us where he used to fish. childhood memories. upriver, the water pumping plant he used to work at. can it restart, i ask. in principle, yes. so what are the problems going to be? the high voltage cables across the river and transformers powering it are destroyed, he says, it can be done if there is funding. every house here destroyed or heavily damaged. no matter, no electricity, no shops. it's water weight every town in this country. if the war front rolls through

them. dozens around here, likely hundreds across the country, battered by each wave of this war. so, all of those villages, and we've been through quite a few of them, there are still handfuls of people living there. trying to hold on, trying to stay in their property, waiting for deminers to come along, waiting for the army to better secure the area. for them to be going into the snowy period now, the heavy cold of winter is very hard to imagine, when you see these houses, when you see the level of destruction, it's hard to understand how that actually happened through the course of the war. but it has. and this is replicated in so many places. i think perhaps the fortune of kherson, if one could call tell fortune, where we were last weekend, the first railway -- the first train has gone from kyiv to kherson today, they've managed to get electricity to

their train station in kherson. there have been power banks set up there, places for people to go and get warm, to charge their phones. to try to get some sanctuary from this cold weather. the government in kherson, trying to sort of do what it can there. but you can see from the number of places around the country, and the scale of the problem, staying on top of and maintaining and repairing the power grid across the country is only a tiny fraction of trying to sustain the lives of people across the whole country through this winter. and of course, those where the war has been absolutely the worst affected. >> nic robertson, reporting, thank you, so much, nic. well, ukrainian officials are now taking part into the investigation into a deadly missile blast in poland. ukraine's foreign minister said they've joined the u.s. and polish investigators at the site of the explosion. ukraine has been pushing to join the probe after a missile hit a

polish border village on tuesday killing two people. poland and nato said the blast was likely an accident caused by a stray ukrainian missile. but western officials also said that russia is ultimately to blame because it started the war in ukraine. and there's no letup in russian efforts to gain ground in eastern ukraine. kyiv says russian troops launched new attacks across the region's front lines on friday. that includes in that area. despite the russian pressure, president zelenskyy says the defense lines are holding. >> translator: military action of extreme violence is still ongoing in the donetsk region. no softening. in the past 24 hours, about 100 russian assaults have been bombarded in the donetsk region. >> meanwhile, a sign of some semblance of ordinary life is coming back to the newly liberated city of kherson.

the first train bound for that city left the capital kyiv on friday, just a week after a russian pullout from kherson. one longtime kremlin watcher says russia has more than one reason for locking in on ukraine's power grid. cnn contributor and former moscow bureau chief jill dougherty will talk about that in about 15 minutes. a dramatic turn in the numerous criminal probes into donald trump, the justice department assays a special counsel will take over two of those investigations now that the former president is again running for the white house. plus, the u.s. house is poised for new leadership. republican kevin mccarthy faces hurdles on the path to being the next speaker. while democrats look to who will succeed nancy pelosi as party leader. and north korea's leader introduces his young daughter to the world. but he picks an unusual setting

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♪ welcome back to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm laila harrak and you're watching "cnn newsroom." donald trump is lashing out after a special counsel was apointed to take over two major investigations into the former president. he called the move the latest in a series of witch hunts, even though the investigations have been under way for months. well, attorney general merrick garland said he made the call, in part, because of trump's announcement this week to run for the white house again.

well now veteran prosecutor jack smith will oversee the mar-a-lago documents case, and he'll handle key aspects of the january 6th probe. mr. trump falsely described mr. smith's appointment as horrendous abuse of power and vowed not to cooperate. nor democrats in the u.s. house of representatives have announced they'll run for top leadership spots. hakeem jeffries has launched his bid for house minority leader. while katherine clark will seek the house minority w.h.i.p. position and pete aguilar will run for democratic caucus chairman. if jeffries is elected, he will be the first ever black party leader in congress. cnn's manu raju has more on the leadership races including the obstacles house republicans are facing. >> reporter: now kevin mccarthy wants to be the next speaker of the house, but he still does not have the votes to get there.

he did get the support from the house republican conference earlier in the week, when 188 of his members voted to nominate him to be the speaker. but that doesn't make you the speaker. in order to get the gavel, you need to be elected by a majority of the full house. that means 218 votes that you'll need in january to get there. right now, he's working behind the scenes to lock down the votes. but he has a problem. a math problem, that he's trying to resolve. because there are some members of the hard-right faction known as the freedom caucus, that are withholding their support. in fact, there are two members that are considered hard nosed right now. matt gaetz of florida, andy biggs of arizona, both say they cannot support the speaker. there are others who are threatening to vote against mccarthy as well for the speakership. matt rosendale of montana being one of them, also bob goode, avirginia republican telling me that mccarthy does not have the votes to get there. they have not ultimately shut

the door. the reason why they're is not supporting mccarthy, he's expected tovy narrow house majority. with don't know the numbers yet, it would be 220 or 222 range, meaning he needs only a handful of votes. he is leaning to lock down support to get there. that is what's happening on the republican side. on the democratic side things are actually a bit smoother after the nancy pelosi decision to step aside after 20 years dominating and running her caucus. now there's leadership transition under way. hakeem jeffries, a new york democrat, is poised to become the first black leader of any party in congress. now his party is getting behind him for the top job as the democratic leader in the minority in the new congress. we expect number two to be katherine clark from massachusetts. and number three to be pete aguilar, all members of a different generation than the current trio, leadership trio which included pelosi, steny hoyer of maryland and jim

clyburn of south carolina. clyburn himself wants to be the number four leader in the new congress. those issues will play out november 30th when the democrats elect their new leadership team. on the senate side, things are a bit more settled after internal feuding led to mitch mcconnell ultimately once again to be re-elected as republican leader after their disappointing performance and republicans retaining control of the u.s. senate. all of this playing out in the final days of this congress before the new congress comes in in january. manu raju, cnn, capitol hill. u.s. vice president kamala harris is scheduled to be meeting this morning with thailand's prime minister, he's been in bangkok with the ssummi just concluded. chinese president xi jinping is also there and the two spoke briefly. the vice president reiterated the importance of open communications to manage

competition between the two countries. harris also condemned north korea's latest missile launch on friday. the young daughter of north korea's leader made her first public appearance during that launch. these images appear to show them holding hands as a inspect a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile. cnn's will ripley has more. >> reporter: u.s. vice president kamala harris and chinese president xi jinping exchanged brief words at the asia summit here in bangkok, talking about the urging of issues on the concern. on the readout of the brief condition, one issue that the united states and china are not really cooperating on is the issue of north korea which has been launching missiles at an unprecedented pace throughout the year including the icbm launch that could strike anywhere, potentially in the

united states and most portions of the world in south america. if you look at the possible trajectory distance of this missile that was tested. and the missile at the time was pretty striking when you look at the photos released by north korea state media on saturday morning. it was rising up over the area of pyongyang. the pyongyang international airport. kim jong-un, the north korean leader with there with his wife. for the first time his daughter, 11 years old, identified by state media, and walked around with her dad as they walked around this missile that dwarfed and the vehicle used to fire the missile, basically more than 3700 miles or 6,000 kilometers up into space, before it splashed down in the waters near japan. had the trajectory been different, the missile could have traveled much farther, the japanese government warns. and yet there have yet to be

substantial consequences, if you look at north korea claiming to launch around 50 ballistic missiles so far this year. more than any other year in history. and certainly with the growing concerns of a seventh underground nuclear test. china what has ability to put sanctions on north korea from perspective of its allies and it's not doing that. with the veto power at the national security council, both sides need to remain calm, although they say it's north korea that continues to provoke the situation. will ripley, cnn, bangkok. vladimir putin makes a rare public appearance at his security counscil, the first tie thatat the russian president ha attended since the war in ukraine began. with 1/4 moisturizing cream, dove is the #1 bar dermrmatologists use at home. why do so many businesses use stamps.com?

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♪ russian president vladimir putin made a rare in-person appearance at a meeting of the

security council for the first time since he invaded ukraine in february. well, aside from a brief clip of the meeting that aired on state television showing mr. putin with key members of his inner circle, the rest of the discussion took place behind closed doors. well, this comes as ukraine has been under a barrage of missile strikes, many of them targeting its energy infrastructure. cnn contributor and former cnn moscow bureau chief jill dougherty joins me now from washington, d.c. she's also an adjunct professor at georgetown university. so good to see you, jill. a number of ukrainian cities including kyiv have come and you attack again hitting critical energy infrastructure. ukraine president volodymyr zelenskyy is now warning up to 10 million people are in the dark with no power. now, the prime minister is warning that the capital could

face a complete shutdown of its power grid just as temperatures are expected to drop to minus 10 degrees celsius. what's your read on mr. putin's plan hitting the critical infrastructure in this phase of the war? >> you know, this is obviously, laila, part of his plan, both to decimate the possibility that ukraine can really respond very strongly, after all, this is affecting any type of power, and that affects civilians, as well as the military. but especially civilians. and then i think also what he's doing is sending a message to the west, you know, that the price that you're going to pay for supporting ukraine is going to be very, very high. so, it's really a dastardly approach to, you know, attacking civilians. but that is the war that he is waging right now. so, it's very difficult, because even though they try, and i saw some reports that they have been

very quickly trying to restore powers in many cases, it's going to be a very brutal sand difficult winter for ukrainians. >> in a striking development, jill, russian state television aired images of russian president vladimir putin of a meeting of his security council, the first -- a long time, since february, when this all began. especially coming after the setback in kherson. what message, do you think, this is meant to send? >> well, you know, when he was -- when he was last, personally, at a meeting with his security council, it was precisely, as you said, at the beginning of the war. and then after that, he would participate, but he would participate virtually. and, of course, there was a lot of concern. and a lot of protection for president putin in terms of covid. they've been very, very worried about exposing him to anything. you remember those pictures of him at the very long table.

well, i think, physically being there is probably a sign to show that he's on the case. he is, you know, talking with the -- with his security council that he's controlling things. i think it's a symbol of what they're trying to get across is some part of stability and strength on the part of the president. >> i know it's very difficult to gauge, but do we have any way of knowing whether there is dissent within his inner circle, especially seeing what has happened in this past week? >> yeah. that is always hard to gauge. i mean, we do know that there is some second thought, there are some second thoughts, about this, among some members of the elite. but when you get into putin's inner circle, it's very hard to say precisely what is going on. and that is one of the problems is, his inner circle is very small, or at least we are led to

believe that. but the people really he is surrounded by are people from security forces, from the military. and, you know, police, police sfb, et cetera. so, a lot of those people, obviously, you know, are many times on the side of putin in terms of really taking the war to the ukrainians. and sometimes, even harsher than mr. putin himself. but it's very hard to gauge that. we do know, however that we have some people in the business community who have spoken out, and certainly there is, you know, protests diminishing protests, among the people themselves. >> and in conclusion, jill, what does the state of play on the battlefield do for the influence avenue oligarchs like the wagner group of mercenaries are now on the literally the front lines?

>> with the bodnar group, i think that gives him business, his people are hired for fight. but also that gives him political clout. he already had it. but now in the war, he's a very important element in the way the russians are fighting the war. so, i think his influence certainly has increased, that would be one thing. but, you know, whether or not really is what's driving things perhaps it is, but i think a lot of this is simply driven by putin himself, who shows no sign of going back. you know, there's a debate in the united states right now, in the biden administration, as to whether or not, you know, they would urge ukraine to come to the negotiating table. and i think, you know, the division there is that some people feel the ukrainians actually have been doing very well and maybe now is the time

to lock in some of those gains. but there are others who look, as we've just been discussing, at this, you know, prospect of a very long war. and say, well, you know, the ukrainians ought to just continue, but we cannot tell them what to do. that's the mantra from this administration. and the phrase, again, you know, is nothing about ukraine without ukraine. and they continue to say they really mean it. >> jill dougherty, thank you so much. family and friends are preparing toed by good-bye to one of the two people killed in a missile blast in poland. these are live pictures from the border town in eastern poland where a man who was killed in tuesday's blast will be laid to rest. nato and poland said the explosion was likely an accident caused by a stray ukrainian missile. the investigation into the explosion is still under way.

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the start of qatar 2022 is just a day away. and it's set to be a historic world cup. the first ever to be held in the arab world. this is the first time the tournament will be played outside the months of may, june or july. and qatar is also making its debut on the world cup pitch. competing in the tournament for the very first time. the u.s. has been pressing qatar on human rights ahead of the tournament. the host nation has come under international scrutiny, name with for abuses committed against migrant workers. and discrimination against the lgbtq plus community and women. top representative antony blinken is expected to to visit. meanwhile, fifa gianni infanttin

talked to reporters and expressed the migrant workers. and also said some the criticism of qatar was, quote, profoundly unjust and hypocritical. >> a feel as well, very much, for all of the fifa staff. for all of the supreme staff. for all the q2 q staff. all of the volunteers, brian here, all of the others. they are all here because they want to deliver to you, and to the world, an incredible football event. they're all proud to be here. i'm proud to have this fifa sign on my jacket. it's not easy every day and every day to read all of these

critics for positions that have been taken 12 years ago, when nobody was there to watch us. it was there. and now everyone knows that we have to make the best out of it. and we have to make the best world cup ever. and doha is right, qatar is right, it will be the best world cup, of course, because the magical football, as soon as this ball rolls, people will concentrate on that. because that's what people want. >> well, mr. infantino also has a message for anyone upset about a ban on beer at the eight world cup stadiums. they'll survive. the fifa chief described the move as a joint decision made by qatar, alcohol sales and usage are tightly regulated in the nation. but this is an issue for major world cup sponsor budweiser. the company initially put out a tweet that said "well, this is awkward." but the company issued a

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good morning, everyone, and welcome to cnn this morning.