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can't rent a car to go back to boseman. there's no flights back to boseman, no flights to nashville until christmas eve or christmas or like the 26th. so stressed. >> boy, oh boy. that's the situation at the airport. but then out on the roads, people at home with no elect electricity. good morning, it is friday, december 23rd, poppy and kaitlan are off. sara sidner is with me. >> i'm happy to be here. usually i'm out there and you're in here. >> but it's dangerous and getting worse by the minute. we're covering the blizzard wreaking havoc ahead of the

holidays nationwide. living in limbo, migrants braving freezing temperatures for a chance to reach the united states. a cnn report from the border. one man is responsible. the january 6th committee report declares donald trump caused the insurrection. what the panel recommends now. but we begin with this, more than 200 million americans spending the holiday weekend under wind chill alerts as an arctic blast plunges temperatures to dangerous levels across the country. the storm causing the extreme cold is expected to unleash more heavy snow and blizzard conditions on parts of the country. strong winds causing poor visibility. authorities urging people to stay off the roads. more than 650,000 customers across several states are without power right now. that number is expected to rise. the storm also creating travel chaos ahead of christmas. this morning more than 3,000

flights have been canceled already. let's begin with polo sandoval live in buffalo, new york for us. good morning to you. conditions i imagine worsening for you, still pretty warm but the temperature is going to plunge? >> reporter: it's warm but the rain is coming down here, don. i can tell you in a few hours we're going to wish all we had to worry about was the wet, soggy mess because temperatures will plummet. we end the day closer to 18 degrees. that doesn't even factor in the wind chill. the big concern in western new york is the flooding with the -- near the lake and the freezing as well. these roadways as you can see, completely drivable right now. but what authorities are doing in the last hour since we spoke to you, they are in the process of closing down some of the major interstates around b buffalo, recommending only essential travel be done. there is no driving ban in place yet like we saw in the snowstorm last month when we got 6 1/2

feet of snow south of here. the big point officials are stressing here in buffalo, the snow, won't be the big issue. it'll pail in comparison to what we experienced last month. it's going to be the flooding and also the freezing conditions and that's why new york governor katy hochul recommending that new yorkers resist the urge to travel out today and especially tomorrow with the blizzard white out conditions and the coastal flooding some of the communities a few miles from where i'm standing are under evacuation orders. >> best advice, let us stand outside, reporters to tell you what's going on. you stay out and watch. polo thank you. be safe. polar plunge creating travel headaches as millions of americans head home for the holidays. this morning thousands of flights have already been cannesled. let's go to pete mun ttean livet

chicago o'hare airport which is always busy but more so now. what are you hearing from people? i'm sure there's campomplaining being on. >> reporter: no doubt. today things are more desperate as it's more of a challenge simply to find a seat on board a plane. look at the latest numbers from flight aware. 3,100 flight cancellations today. we saw it go up by 100 cancellations in the last hour, way worse than what we saw yesterday, nationwide 2,600 flight cancellations in the u.s. yesterday they were localized in airports in the west and midwest. now this is worse as the storm tracks east. look at the numbers of cancellations across the country. laguardia is rising, denver, sea tech, also places like d.c. and boston on the list.

42% of all flights have been canceled at the detroit. that is a big hub for delta airlines. the faa says now the ground game begins. that's really what will determine the delays and cancellations as airports rush to de-ice planes. for passengers, though, it's more of a game of finding a needle in a hay stack. airline experts say as passenger levels have gone up now that we're rounding this other side of the pandemic, the number of seats are still down. i want you to listen to travel expert scott keyes of scotts cheap flights. >> you hear about how travel volume is down 5 or 10% but folks may not have realized the number of flights in the sky is down 15 or 20%. so the planes that are actually flying are more full today than they were pre-pandemic. >> reporter: airlines say the big challenge for them is not necessarily the snow.

they're used to that here in chicago but it's the cold that makes it hard for ground crews to work, load bags, push planes back to the great. the high temperature forecasted here in chicago, 1 degree fahrenheit and that is not factoring in the wind chill. >> people are tough in chicago. i know this one sitting next to me has spent lots of time there. but that's brutal, dangerous. be safe out there, pete muntean. georgia as well. the governor there declaring a state of emergency as frigid temperatures descend on his state. atlanta opening up two warming centers ahead of the chill, helping those living on the streets. out there right now is allison chinchar. good morning to you, it's very cold for the south. how low is it now? how low is it going to get? >> right now it's 18 degrees. it's actually flurrying here in

atlanta, not a common sight for folks who live here. but it's going to get colder the next 24 hours. this could end up being one of the coldest christmas eves on record here in atlanta. just to show you how cold. this is a towel, frozen, rock solid. that's because the temperatures here dropped so quickly overnight. which also means if there is any left overrain on the roads this morning, some puddles those freeze other making for dangerous conditions on the roadways as well. we're not the only ones cold. you have wind chill alerts across much of the country right now, including portions of georgia, the eastern u.s., as well as areas of the midwest. but again, we also are talking about the winds. and that's going to be the key issue here. you have winds across the southeast, 40 to 50 miles per hour gusts higher off to the north. if you have holiday decorations out, you may want to strop them down and secure them, unlike my

sister who is having to retrieve her inflatable santa from the neighbor's yard after the wind picked up. so again also the snow too, keep in mind that wind, any snow that falls is going to blow that snow around reducing visibility in some areas to less than a quarter of a mile. that's going to add to any of the travel problems across much of the northeast and mid atlantic. most of the areas likely to pick up an additional 4 to 6 inches of snow. some areas however could pick up as much as a foot. >> alisyn, tell your sister i can relate. i've had to retrieve it from a tree. it happens. listen, be safe out there, thank you very much. >> thanks. a message to migrants, do not risk your life and that of your loved ones trying to cross the river or the desert. that's from u.s. border officials warning migrants of the dangerously cold temperatures on the southern border now. let's go now to el paso, texas,

where camilla burnal is standing by for us. i know the temperatures are dropping quickly, it's cold there. how is this impacting the migrant surge on the ground? i see behind you many people just lying on the frigid, you know, ground trying to -- trying to figure out what they're going to do next. >> reporter: it really is difficult, sara and don, good morning. a lot of the people here are just not used to these temperatures. and these are the critical hours. it's 21 degrees now. it's going to be in the 20s all the way through about 11:00 a.m. local time when the sun comes out. but as you hementioned, there a many that have to sleep out on the street. there's piles of people, they're trying to sleep next to each other. you see the red cross blankets. this is the only option for the people that are here. some of them have been able to get on a bus and that way they can warm up for a little bit,

but there are many that also are afraid to get on the bus because they don't know what could happen to them next. so again, just piles and piles of people trying to warm up together, because this is their only option. and if you talked to them, they will tell you that they're doing this for their future, that they're doing this for their children and this is not the first hardship that they're going through. they have already spent months trying to get to this country and all they want is to be here even if it's freezing, sara. >> i want to ask you, we know the migrants, in order to be admitted to shelters have to show u.s. immigration documents but there are a lot of people that don't have those documents. they don't have the papers. do you know if they will be allowed into shelters there in el paso without documents? >> reporter: so they will not be allowed in the government-run shelters. so anything that the city of el paso has organized, meaning the

convention center, there are some hotels and some schools, they will require the proper documentation that you get from border patrol. the only other option is a nonprofit shelter and the problem is, the nonprofit shelters, they are over capacity. the one i'm at now, sacred heart church, they're saying we have capacity for about 130 people but we're fitting about 200 people. so the people that don't fit into the shelters they're the ones here on the streets, but they're willing to do it to remain in this country, sara. >> yesterday i spoke with a counsel woman there who said she's never seen it with this many people and dealing with this many problems and she's begging for federal help. thank you. let's bring in tara braddock from our affiliate in cleveland. good morning, i know we have a bit of a delay here, so we want to be mindful of that. i'm so glad you can join us, i

see you're out on the road right now. how are the conditions? >> reporter: yeah, good morning, don. conditions are very dangerous out here. i want to flip it around so you can see what i'm talking about. we are on 480 east, which is a main artery in our area, about 30 minutes from downtown cleveland. visibility isn't that great right now, as you can see, i can barely see the car in front of us. the wind, that's our biggest issue so far, it's blowing that snow onto the highway, making it hard to see, not to mention the snow packed on the ground, making it difficult to get through. if you are on the roads in the ohio area, keep that in mind. if you can see, the car in front of us has their flashers on because they're trying to take it slow. this isn't the only car we have seen with their flashers on. right now the temperature is 6 degrees.

we are really worried about the pavement freezing over and making that black ice which i don't have to tell people how dangerous that is. i know a lot of us ohioans are saying i can drive in snow. these conditions aren't drivable. it's hard to get through. we are going around 40 miles per hour and taking it slower as we get onto the highway. it is very dangerous out here. this is what we're dealing with right now. >> tara, even 40 miles per hour, sara and i were looking saying slow down, you're giving us anx anxiety. so maybe it looks faster than it feels. i can see the traffic on the other side of the interstate. i'm sure a lot of people driving through ohio, it could be workers, truck drivers, whatever. does it look like people are heeding the warning? one car in front of you. i hope they are. >> reporter: well, you know, as with most people some people are taking it slow, some are taking

it fast. flip that camera around for you in one second. you get some people who are taking it a little faster and some people taking it slower, but that's also because of people's comfortability driving in the conditions. i would be taking it slow because i can't see too far ahead because of the wind chill and the wind blowing. and also you want to keep this in mind, going through darker parts of the highway with less light, that will make it more dangerous. we hit some traffic earlier this morning, as you can see the oncoming traffic in the other lane, more people there. a little less in our area right here. when you get more people on that area in the highway, you want to take it slow too because you do not want a pile up. that's the last thing we want out here. >> tiarra braddock from ohio, thank you so much. we appreciate it. we may check back with you throughout the hours on cnn.

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taking a look at the roadways, you can tell people are heeding the warning that this is going to be a frigid and dangerous time because of this crazy storm that is basically going across the entire united states. okay.

the upper midwest and the great lakes region are feeling the brunt of the storm as we speak. joining us now from detroit, which is under a winter weather advisory is the deputy mayor of detroit. thank you for joining us. i appreciate you. >> good morning, how are you doing? >> i'm doing great. glad to see you are inside. i have felt the detroit winter and it doesn't like me i don't like it. can you tell me what things are like in detroit. >> it's 13 degrees. the roads are clear. we're always in a constant state of preparedness, we're used to a lot of snow. and so we were ready. we don't have a lot at this point so our roads are clear. i got 50 salt trucks out there salting the roads. we're definitely prepared. it's cold we understand the wind chills and want our detroiters to know and be prepared. so take those proper precautions. >> can you give me a sense of what the biggest threats are for

people? i see people on the roads. there's a lot of snow, like you said, people in detroit are used to this kind of weather but this is a little bit different. >> absolutely. that's what i want to stress because of the anticipated wind gusts, the high winds, which definitely creates a issue as far as to knock down power lines and of course that can cause a issue as well. and with these frigid temperatures out there and no power then your furnace is not going to work. therefore, if a senior apartment building or your home loses power, you're not going to be able to stay there. so you have to go to a warming shelter. in the city of detroit, we have to make sure that we have -- we have two warming shelters open, our public libraries will be open as well. we partnered with the detroit red cross, the detroit rescue mission our outreach ministries so we'll be able to take in as many folks as necessary and also look at our most vulnerable population, our unsheltered, our

homeless. we were already in preparation for this and we're working weeks in advance to get them off the streets and get them into shelters early. >> you have the trucks, the salt, shelters. i do want to ask about power outages that you just mentioned. do you put more people on staff to deal with those after the storm passes or how are you going to deal with that with a lot of people possibly without power and in a dangerous scenario when temperatures drop the way they are? >> so we're definitely prepared and with the public/private partnership between the city of detroit government, wayne county and also dte, which is our energy consumption, they've brought in extra crews. so they're prepared. we're working in coordination and the emergency management falls under my purview, my previous background, 27 years in law enforcement, so i have a director of homeland security. so we are coordinating and right there on the spot if a resident

loses power, apartment building, we have reached out, we have those senior complexes and those large apartment buildings we have those emergency plans at the city. so we respond asap, we have transportation set up through d-dot which is our busing system where we can move large amounts of people to our warming shelters. >> states of emergency, a lot of places are putting that in place do you see that happening for detroit? >> absolutely. we're monitoring it right now. we're at level one but all of our folks are on stand by. if we get more snow, we'll of course take that in which we're not anticipating but prepared, but with the wind gusts we're monitoring it and i have staff working and i'm getting updates every hour. >> i love when i come to detroit and people are wearing the shirts that say detroit versus everybody. it's detroit versus the weather.

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welcome back to "cnn this morning." coming up, the january 6th committee has released its final report. we'll break down what's inside with maggie haberman in just a bit. plus thousands across the country are in the dark this hour as severe weather is moving

through. how the storm system is stressing power grids. and. santa is for everyone, a look at the demand for wider representation. the house january 6th committee has released the report placing the blame squarely on shoulder of donald trump. calling him the one man that caused the riots and recommends barring him from holding office again. it is huge. it is 845 pages and summarizes a year and a half long investigation by the committee which conducted over a thousand interviews. in a newly released transcript, cassidy hutchinson said she felt pressure not to talk and instead face contempt charges. she testified before the hearing she told her mom i am completely indebted to these people, they will ruin my life if i don't do

anything they don't want me to do. she also testified, when she had a trump aligned lawyer beside her, she said this, i quote, it wasn't just that i had stephan sitting next to me it was like i felt i had trump looking over my shoulder because i knew in some fashion it would get back to him if i said anything that he would find disloyal and the prospect of that scared me. i had seen this world ruin people's lives or try to ruin their careers, i've seen how vicious they can be. >> passantino said in a statement he believed cassidy was being truthful in the hearings he represented her for. so joining us political correspondent at "the new york times" maggie haberman. thank you for joining us. we're going to get -- good morning to you by the way -- to the full report. what we learned about cassidy hutchinson where she learned

about her estranged relationship with her father, she went to him for help. i just want to read something about what she said because i think it just shows you, she said her dad was a trump supporter and they had an estranged relationship. she said, let's see, my biological father, but i went to, i didn't have a relationship with my biological father but i went over to his place one night, i drove to new jersey and went to his house one night and begged him, probably one thing i regret in this, i wish i didn't stoop to that level because it was a no. i begged him to help me. i said i would pay him back, name your interest rate, i just need help. and i remember saying to him, you have no idea what they're going to do to me. >> terrifying. >> terrifying. >> she sounds incredibly scared in this transcript. and cheshe lays out a culture o

trump land we heard many other aides talk about over the years, and she was clearly worried about what would happen to her. not just in terms of trump land but she had no money. she had no lawyer, she had no anything. and mark meadows was not responding to her. mark meadows who had been her boss for two years. so you can see how she ended up with stephan passantino. you just played the statement from stefans passantino, she alleged he was not just representing her but trying to shape her testimony. and that is very serious and very specific and something the committee has said the doj is looking at it, i suspect we'll hear more about this in the coming months. >> can you give us a sense with the 845 pages i know you went through them because you had a report out at 2:00 in the morning so i know you haven't slept. what stood out to you? you've been reporting on trump

world for so long, what stood out in this report? were there things we haven't seen during the committee? >> there was a lot of new meat on the bone. the story is the same, the committee finds him unfit to serve. shows that he was not -- you know, they stressed this over and over again, he was an active participant in this, he wasn't some person beset by bad advice which is something his allies have tried suggesting but he was the center of the wheel on all of this. so that's the main takeaway. there's new information about how frustrated the national guard was waiting to be deployed. it was striking to read. there was new details about specifically at which moments during the 187 minutes trump knew certain things so when exactly he realized a riot was in place, soon after the capital. late in the 2:00 hour, there's a note put on his desk saying ashli babbitt has been shot.

so it's not as if he was a passive observer and new information about his aides over and over again, it's important to remember, these are his advisers painting this picture of him not caring, him ignoring things. another important detail i thought was him acknowledging to aides that sidney powell was saying about voting machines sounded crazy. that fed into the point that several people testified to, he knew some of this was not true -- >> he lost. >> correct. and yet he continued pushing this. >> that obviously shocking. but more shocking the fake electors plot. >> um-hum. >> if there's any liability perhaps criminally, legally, it would be for the fake electors plot. >> that's one element. we know the committee recommended other charges, insurrection, a couple others. i think on the fake electors plot it's not just donald trump with potential exposure. a lot of people with exposure

because it's clear they knew they were doing something that was legally questionable. i think they will argue, no we thought it was real but you can see in their communications that there are things they were doing that they knew were problematic and this plan began really early. that's one of the things the report documents. this didn't spring up in mid december. this was going on for weeks. the report cites reporting i did shortly after the election, where trump was asking advisers, i think it was november 11th or 12th about how to get states to choose electors loyal to him. this started early. >> i want to ask you about some of the recommendation, and also talks about others surrounding donald trump, people that did not come in when they were subpoenaed. do you think there's any teeth that this will provide teeth to another agency, obviously the doj going forward to go after anyone else? >> we know the doj wanted these transcripts and they didn't have them for a long time. they're going to have them all now, i think they looked at a

bunch of them already because i know folks have been going over to doj to review or at least been going over the house to review. excuse me. so it does give them more evidence, especially for people who wouldn't cooperate with other aspects of the investigation. but how flung this is going to go, i don't think we know. i want to make one point that i think is overlooked. this is not related to the report other than it's adjacent to it. there's a lot of focus will donald trump get indicted? even if he doesn't get indicted, he is facing this huge flurry of litigation this year. he is facing trials in a number of cases. he is facing a tough legal year no matter what happens here. >> georgia, new york, the states and the federal -- >> a fraud lawsuit related to acn, two suits related to jean carol. >> what about passantino, if what's alleged in this report from cassidy hutchinson, he could be disbarred if for that.

>> at least. he's facing severe legal jeopardy, i don't know what happens with this. we'll see what the doj does. it is on the doj's radar. i think they are taking it seriously, i don't know how aggressively they're taking a it, but these are serious allegations and he has a problem. >> it takes a lot to be di disbarred. it'll be interesting to see that happen. >> we saw it with giuliani, too. but this is a different type of allegation. >> thank you, maggie, merry christmas to you. this morning incoming republican congressman george santos facing growing scrutiny as his entire life story has really come under question amid the troubling holes in his resume. now he says he's ready to address those concerns. jessica dean joins me now with more. good morning to you, sarah. he said that he's going to address the concerns next week that he's going to tell his story. but the fact of the matter is, more and more discrepancies continue to pop up almost daily.

incoming congressman george santos finally acknowledging the growing scrutiny surrounding many apparent discrepancies in his biography saying i have my story to tell and it'll be told next week. one part of his background in question. his family history. >> my grandparents survived the holocaust. i'm proud of my grandparents' story. my grandfather fleeing ukraine, going to belgium, finding refuge there. marrying my grandmother, fleeing hitler, going to brazil. >> but those claims are contradicted by sources reviewed by cnn's file, including family trees, records on jewish refugees. >> as i joke i'm jewish. i come from a jewish family, my grew up and i was raised roman catholic.

>> reporter: an author and professional genealogist who helped research the santos family tree at cnn's request. said there's no sign of jewish or ukrainian heritage and no signs of name changes along the way. it's the latest development since "the new york times" first reported and cnn confirmed that santos may have misrepresented parts of his resume regarding his college and work history. while some are calling for an investigation and potential consequences. >> this is what is clearly a serial effort to defraud voters in his district. and if george santos did that, and he certainly appears to have made false statements in his disclosure forms to the ftc, i think it's worth looking into

this. >> reporter: on thursday, house gop leader kevin mccarthy refused to answer any questions about what may happen to mr. santos or what should be done. santos is part of a slim four seat majority republicans hold when they take over the house in january. and so the looming question here, of course, is what comes next, especially as it relates to capitol hill and the slim majority that house republicans have when they take over the house in january. as you saw there in the piece, kevin mccarthy, the house gop leader not answering any questions, refusing to answer any questions about this. will santos be seated as a new member? will mccarthy do anything? if so, what is that? will house ethics get involved? these are things we don't have the answers to but will unfold over the coming weeks. >> that looks suspicious. i can't wait to hear what he said to say to all of this. >> he has to answer. and the best thing for him to do

right now is to come out and answer the questions. >> as my grandmother would say come clean man. >> he's getting it from both democrats and republicans. does he want to take this baggage to washington and make the whole thing bigger in he has to do it now. >> agreed. straight ahead, the latest on the power outages across the country, more than 820,000 without power right now and growing. my bad. here's a live look at conditions on a highway in nashville, tennessee. what you need to know before heading out on the roads right there. it is 19 below with the wind chill. whoa. >> don't do it. >> it's pretty icy and very slick. even in the areas that have been plowed well, if you get above 40 miles an hour you start sliding around. hot tub, why not? and of course, puppy-friendly. we don't like to say perfect, but it's pretty perfefect. booking.com, booking.yeah.

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yeah. we're definitely -- >> just caught that on camera, hello. >> this is definitely horrible conditions. i'm not getting the mail today. the mail can stay in there. >> this man in pittsburgh, kansas, recording the fierce winter storm as it blows past his house. a huge swath of the country is in the grips of a once in a generation storm. cold, winds, dangerous roads and

gnarled travel, another threat. and that is, of course, the power grid. let's look at that, white out conditions there. about 820,000 customers are without power. the most outages seen in georgia, connecticut, south carolina and texas. let's go to craig miller, professor of electrical and commuterr -- computer engineerig at carnegie university. thank you for being here. what strain do you expect the storm to place on the power grids across the country. >> there are two strains we have to worry about. the first is the fact that ice is going to be building up on the electrical wires, the ones in your neighborhood, the so-called distribution wires. and a lot of them will fall and have to be replaced, which is very difficult under the current

circumstances because with gail force winds you can't expect a lineman to go up a pole right now. the other thing to worry about is there's going to be tremendous load. people will be substituting space heaters to bring their house up to temperatures. and that huge load is going to stress the grid. it's going to be particularly difficult if there's a power outage as we're seeing all over the country right now, or all over the east. when power comes back on, everybody has all the switches turned on, the lights, heaters hoping for the best. there's a hit to the grid when we restore power and that can destabilize things. >> listen, if you can explain that a little bit more. >> sure. >> why this storm poses such a threat to the electrical infrastructure. high demand, right and then there's issues with the equipment.

>> hi degh demand and the equipt being fatigued from the weather hitting it. electrical lines actually like to be cold. we have limitations on capacity during the hot months. but in winter, the wire is more brittle, the insulation particularly. and when ice builds up on it, the stress can cause the wire to break the pole, bend the pole or just drop to the ground. at that point the power hopefully cuts out right away for safety reasons. and it takes manual restoration. we need linemen, brave linemen, real first responders there, that have to go out and climb the pole, put the conductor back in place. and under the conditions that are now with zero wind chill and 50 mile an hour winds, there's no safe way for a lineman to do that. so they need to wait until there's a bit of a break in the

weather to weigh in. then when they do restore power, everybody will have all their switches on. you know, when the power goes off, you try to get everything going. and so there's an instantaneous demand to immediately supply all the heaters and lights. and -- >> that's stressful on the -- stressful on the system. >> terrible. >> craig miller is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at carnegie university, happy he's here this morning to share his expertise. you be safe and thank you for joining us this morning. happy holidays to you. >> you're welcome. bye-bye. >> this next thing is going to make you laugh because it's the truth. cnn affiliate kwwl sent their sports reporter mark woodley to cover the storm. he had a memorable time.

>> how are you feeling out there? >> the same way i felt eight minutes ago when you asked. i normally do sports. everything is cancelled the next couple of days. so what better time to ask the sports guy to come in about five hours earlier than he would normally wake up, go stand out in the wind and snow and cold and tell other people not to do the same. it's fantastic. i'm used to the evening shows that are only 30 minutes long and generally on the shows i'm inside. so this is a really long show, tune in for the next couple hours to watch me progressively get crankier and can i go back to my regular job? i'm pretty sure somebody added an extra hour because somebody likes torturing me. live in waterloo for the last

time this morning, kwwi. >> he's saying what we think when everyone goes out there and they don't want to go out. >> what do i say every morning? are we in the 8:00 hour yet? >> we're close. >> that guy speaks for the people. so listen. we have to talk about this. he's out there for serious reasons. we have this historic storm that's happening across the country and our storm team is out there, weather officials are standing by. we're going to tell you what's going on. pete buttigieg will join us in moments to tell us what's happening. >> and you know the song but not the story. cnn dives into the case the music world couldn't shake off. "taking on taylor swift" airs

tonight at 9 p.m. >> how does a person feel when they've come home to find their house has been robbed? >> we had to take action somehow. >> songwriters nathan butler and sean hall sued her. >> this situation is bigger than me. >> when you have a hit song, you're probably going to get sued. >> it's sort of like trying to copyright what's up? >> taylor's team has been arguing it's a money grab. >> if we know anything from taylor swift, it that she does not shy away from a fight.

nothing says christmas and presents like the image of santa claus. while many things change with time, the traditional face of the jolly old helf has remain unchanged for decades. now the call for more representation is growing. >> good morning, sara. >> what kind of changes are we seeing with good ol' st. nick?

>> santa is in demand across the country. it's been hard to hire the bug guy. parents have been driving even extra long miles to find diverse santas. >> what did you want santa to bring you? >> a monster truck. >> tell him just a couple of things. >> santa, one of the most joyful and recognizable characters across the world. at malls across the country, some kids have noticed a different diverse santas popping up. "mommy, it's a black santa." people ask me how can you be this santa and a different santa of a different color? >> it's important for us to have

one that looks like us. >> now that we have diverse santa in, we can get whatever kind of santa you want to make you feel good about christmas. >> is that important? >> sometimes for the kids, yeah. >> merry christmas. >> one of the nation's largest santa hiring service tells us the demand to hire diverse santas is on the rise across the country. >> we can't keep up. we're able to let santa look and sound like the people he's speaking to. >> representation means so much to a lot of people. >> had you ever when you were a kid met a santa like yourself? >> it wasn't a good experience for me. i had throw sisters and one brother, all of them are hearing. they're all very exciting to see santa, they're chatting,

sometimes for my turn and santa just gives me this look, it's flat, expressionless, he hands me a gift and for me i felt deflated inside. >> santa charles is one of the few santas who is deaf and uses his tremendous personality to connect with kids who are too often left out. >> you know, santa is, you know, a magical experience for children. it's about bringing joy to their lives. it really brings a lot to me. >> these moments will last a lifetime for these families. say cheese! it will cherish these pictures which help enhance the season. >> do you sigh merry christmas? >> we work on some of these stories all year long and it stood out to me the effect he

had on some of those kids. it's really in his heart that he talks about as a child he got that blank stare from santa. people driving more than 35, 40 minutes to find a black santa was something that stood out to me. it's something you didn't see when we were kids. and this spreads all across the country, you have asian, hispanic santa so this is cool as you see the mix. you saw some kids of different nationalities hanging out with santa like it just didn't matter. >> that was really good. i learned asl when i was a kid. i'd forgotten a lot of it. i loved the signing santa. it's about communication and about representation so that people relate. i love that story, ryan. >> did you ever look back on your pictures as a kid and then people would comment to me and say, look, that was a white santa, like you didn't really think about it thean