ring off of his finger. i'm not no surgeon. >> reporter: with her three children by her side sha'kyra tried to comfort joey. >> joe. >> yeah. >> you feeling better? are you trying to feel better? pardon me? >> i'm not going to die. >> no, you're not going to die. we're not talking about death. see, this is how you knee he needs help. >> reporter: and that help was about to come. good samaritans showing up in a vehicle that can make it through the snow. joey was on his way to the hospital. >> i'm right here, joe. >> reporter: and sha'kyra rode with him. >> i'm right here. are you okay? i love you too, sweetie. you're okay. >> reporter: joey arrived at the hospital safely. >> this man could have died. 64 years old. could have died outside. i wasn't going to let that happen on my watch and he wasn't going to die in front of my kids. >> reporter: joey has severe frostbite and is in the icu in the hospital burn unit. his severe yvonne telling us it's touch and go whether his

hands can be be saved. but overall he's in stable condition. and she is so grateful for sha'kyra autry. >> this woman did something that an angel would do. okay? to take in a perfectly -- a stranger. a stranger. you took him in in your home on christmas eve. >> reporter: joey white's life was saved by a woman who cared deeply about a man she had never met. >> i'm right here. i'm right here. >> reporter: gary tuchman, cnn, atlanta. the news continues. let's hand it over to alisyn camerota and "cnn tonight." >> thanks, pam. good evening, everyone. this is "cnn tonight." i'm alisyn camerota. the january 6th committee putting out more new witness testimony tonight, stuff we have not heard before, including how mark meadows allegedly burned documents. and how much talk about qanon there was in the white house. also tonight, the question thousands of angry stranded passengers are asking at this hour. what's going on with southwest airlines?

why are they subjecting travelers to so much chaos? how will the airline make it up to those passengers? and the supreme court allowing that trump-era border policy to stay in place. that's the one that sends migrants back to mexico to wait for their asylum hearings. so what does this mean for the mess at the border tonight? will it change anything? and whose responsibility is it to fix this? we have a lot to talk about tonight. but let's start with the new transcripts from the january 6th committee and cnn's justice correspondent jessica schneider. tell us what's in these, jess. >> reporter: alisyn, there are a lot of new details here. particularly because one of he these new transcripts is cassidy hutchinson's final deposition from june 2022 that was actually right after she had fired her trump world attorney and her new attorney was letting her correct the record and really tell every truth to the committee. so first off she told the committee that she saw mark meadows burning documents in his office fireplace around a dozen times, which she guessed amounted to about once or twice

a week, all between december 2020 and january 2021. and he she says at least twice she saw mark meadows burning documents after he met with republican congressman scott perry. perry, meanwhile, he'd been subpoenaed by the committee but he never complied. then there's another account that hutchinson says mark meadows actually told white house staffers during the transition that they should keep a close hold on their meeting. she says he put it this way. "i remember him having a meeting with oval office saying let's keep some meetings close hold. we will talk about what that means but for now we will keep things real tight and private so things don't start to leak out." and hutchinson expanded upon that. she said that these meetings were essentially kept off the books. they were out of the oval office diary. essentially, you know, there would be no record of these meetings. so alisyn, between this detail and also hutchinson observing meadows burning documents a lot of questions, a lot more tonight now that this transcript is out, about what exactly meadows was

trying to hide and alisyn, really who he might be trying to protect. >> those are excellent questions. also, how about all this qanon stuff that has come out? i mean, how much qanon crazy talk there was in the white house around the president. >> reporter: it seems like there was a lot because hutchinson, she talks about these multiple conversations within the white house where all these people seem to endorse these qanon conspiracy theories. she said that mark meadows for one brought it up. also congresswoman marjorie taylor greene made mention of it. and then she said she had this exchange with the white house trade adviser peter navarro. she said, "at one point i had sarcastically said, oh, is this from your qanon friends, peter? because peter would talk to me frequently about his qanon friends. and he said, have you looked into it yet, cass? i think they point out a lot of good ideas. you really need to read this. make sure the chief sees it." and then hutchinson said she later replied to the committee, "i did not take this as sarcasm." alisyn, navarro has since been

indicted for refusing to comply with subpoenas from the committee. but really cassidy hutchinson here now that we have four complete transcripts from her, we are seeing a ton more details revealed to the committee than we really previously knew. and that begs the question here, she's cooperated with the justice department. you know, what might she lend to their investigation and what potential criminal charges based on her accounts could that potentially lead to? that's something we're going to really be keeping an eye on into the new year, alisyn. >> every new revelation contains surprises. jessica, thank you very much for all of that reporting. i want to bring in now cnn legal analyst norm eisen, counterterrorism analyst phil mudd, political commentator maria cardona, and olivia troye, former homeland security and covid task force adviser to vice president pence. great to see all of you tonight. norm, i'm no lawyer, but burning documents in your office fireplace doesn't sound that great. burning dozens i think was the word. and so but of course it's hard

to know what mark meadows burned. so how legally damning? >> well, alisyn, it's quite legally damning when you're looking at potential obstruction of justice and you have these bangs, these indicators of trying to keep things secret. it's not just burning the documents. a couple of those episodes were after meadows met with congressman scott perry. we know he's in the justice department bullseye, alisyn. they seized his phone. that's another bad sign. and then there's keeping the meetings secret, keeping them on the q.t. so there's a lot of evidence here that is troubling, and it adds to the accumulation that suggests crimes were committed. meadows is one of those doj is making -- receiving criminal referrals from the committee. and now we know more why. >> olivia, it's interesting.

it came out tonight that cassidy hutchinson wanted to clarify or i guess expand on, elaborate on her original testimony because first she had a trump-supported, trump-endorsed lawyer. and then he she thought that she was getting bad advice from that lawyer who basically according to reporting had told her to not remember certain things. so then she contacted the committee and wanted to clarify some things. so here is this clarification. so the committee asks her, "on page 43, lines 9 through 11, you were asked was there discussion about it needing to happen, it being the rally, before the joint session started at 1:00 p.m. on january the 6th. you said then, not to my recollection right now. you want to clarify that." miss hutchinson says, "after reviewing my transcripts and thinking further into this moment, i do recall conversations about having the rally prior to congress convening on january 6th to

certify the results of the election." the committee asks, "do you remember why?" cassidy hutchinson says, "at the time i understood the reason to be the president's desired movement to the capitol as congress convened that day." and then liz cheney asks her that the president wanted to be at the capitol in time for the joint session to convene? and miss hutchinson says, "that's correct. or around." and of course now we know what happened at the capitol. so having been in the administration, what do you see when you read through and hear these transcripts? >> i think cassidy wanted to tell the truth and she was being sort of confined by these trump people around her who were basically sort of keeping her from doing so. and she felt that she needed to come forward and really speak truthfully about what had happened here. i think one of the more striking things is that conversation that she has with peter nafrvarro.

and i just want to state this because i actually personally have had those types of conversations with peter navarro earlier in the year in 2020 in regard to the covid pandemic and the q conspiracies he would bring in trying to give them to the vice president at the time. and i used to intercept them and i used to take the documents out of his hand, believe it or not. and he would say to me, but olivia, have you looked into this? have you looked into hydroxychloroquine, all these things? and i'd sit there and look at him and i'd think like if this actually comes out of the vice president's mouth or we actually send this out to the american people you could kill thousands of people. a lot of these theories were just flat out random false conspiracies. and to see cassidy talk about that and say this was a regular occurrence where he would drop these things and walk them in to mark meadows during her tenure, i can speak truthfully that i dealt with that as well. and i know because i remember mark meadows walking some of these theories in to the vice president's office where i would then have to counter the situation. and as you can imagine, as a homeland security or covid task

force adviser at the time, this is so out of the realm of the possibility that this is something that's happening in the west wing. this is something that i'd never dealt with in my entire national security career. >> oh, my gosh, olivia. that's incredible. you really had your hands full running interference so that it didn't make it to the vice president's desk. and phil, that leads me to you. i mean, the qanon crazy stuff that was floating around the president between marjorie taylor greene, so some of these transcripts show that she was babbling about it, and peter navarro. how gullible are these people to fall for these conspiracy things and then talk about them with the president of the united states? >> boy, this tells me more about -- or at least as much about 2024 as it tells me about what happened years ago. my point is going into 2016, 2017 when president trump forms a new government you look at the executive branch and whether you like president trump or not you look at the secretary of defense, general mattis, you look at the secretary of state, you look at the counselor to the

president, general kelly, these are serious people who talk about guardrails around the president. as the presidency proceeds under president trump you get people like peter navarro who are talking about qanon, which is nuts. my point about 2024 and the candidacy of president trump going into the next election is if you take out people like the president had in 2016, '17, you bring rationality into the oval office and you assume the next round will be the peter navarros of the world, you tell me what's going to happen during those four years. i'm not looking forward to that. and by the way, cassidy hutchinson, she didn't want to do that. a lawyer told her go in because you have legal jeopardy. i don't believe her for a heartbeat. >> what do you mean, phil, that you don't -- what don't you believe? >> we're saying she wanted to go correct the record. let me tell you what happened. a new lawyer came in who wasn't paid by the trump people and said the committee's done hundreds of interviews, they

have thousands of pages of transcripts. if you don't correct the record you're in legal jeopardy. i don't think she did any of us a favor. i you think a lawyer said you better speak whether you want to speak or not, you better speak because you might be in legal jeopardy if you don't. i don't trust her for a heartbeat. >> but i mean she did end up providing -- >> i disagree. >> she had to. what's her choice? >> she could have said she didn't remember things. but go ahead, olivia. you know about this. go ahead. >> i understand the legal aspect of that and yes she probably got counseled of that and thinking of the implications of that. i think we all need to take a step back and understand what we're dealing with here in terms of the intimidation and remind ourselves of what she also says these people were going to destroy her and ruin her life because she watched this firsthand happen to me. when they came out and attacked me. when they went on public tv and fried to destroy me for telling the truth about what was happening. she was inside the white house living that. so i think that's also part of it, right? is just the fear of it. i'm not discounting what phil mudd is saying completely but i

just have to say that is also part of the equation here when people come forward and try to tell the truth as part of this whole sort of mob-like trump administration that many of us had to live unfortunately. >> yeah . maria, there's more that has just been released by the january 6th committee. this is from judd deere who was the deputy press secretary and he says something that we did not know before, which is that president trump was about to do the right thing and concede but then i guess -- i don't know. i guess he changed his mind. but here's what judd deere says. "in the week after the election there was gossip around the building that he," meaning trump, "was considering conceding evening strongly considering. inviting the president-elect and the incoming first lady to the white house." now, he calls it gossip, but i think we had had reporting that it took a while for trump to fasten onto his new plan the big lie and to say there was all

sorts of fraud. >> i don't believe it, alisyn. i really don't. because one of the things that really sticks out from all of these transcripts and from the lurid detail that we have gotten from the january 6th committee reporting from the very beginning is that this was not something that was done on a whim. this intention to overturn the election and to lie about winning the 2020 election and that it was all a fraud that was com mifted upon donald trump and the american people, it was all very well, nefariously, maliciously planned. not just the lie itself but literally what to do when joe biden won in terms of making sure that either the vice president was not there to -- or was not willing to certify the election on january 6th, the fake electors plan. you don't do that if at some point you really have the intention of conceding and of

inviting your most elaborately vicious enemy that you have made during the presidential campaign over to the white house along with the new first lady. i'm sorry. maybe it was gossip from people who were trying to push trump into that direction. but i don't believe for a minute that he actually really had the intention of doing it. because the nastiness with which he did everything from the very beginning in terms of lying to the american people and still lies about it today, alisyn, is not something that really comes from somebody that had the intention at some point to concede the election and to invite the president-elect and the first lady over to the white house. >> yeah. i would say that your skepticism is well founded in terms of all of that. friends, thank you. and stick around. i have many more questions for you on all sorts of subjects

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the supreme court ruling that title 42, that's the trump-era border policy, it will remain in place indefinitely while legal challenges play out. it was initially set to expire last week until a temporary hold was ordered by chief justice john roberts. this means that federal officials will be able to swiftly turn away migrants as they've been allowed to do since the start of the pandemic. this is a victory for republican-led states that urged the high court to step in. president biden said this tonight. >> the court is not going to

decide. meantime we have to enforce it. >> let's get to cnn's leyla santiago. she's in el paso. that's the border city that declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the end of title 42. so what's happening, leyla? >> reporter: you know, when you talk to the migrants there's certainly a mood here of disappointment. i spoke to one mother, alisyn, from venezuela. she said she escaped as she was trying to flee violence from venezuela and made it up here. her intention was to cross legally but because of title 42 was sent back. and she and her two children, one a toddler, crossed illegally for what she is hoping to be a better life here. now, the officials here in el paso are not by any means just waiting to see what happens next. they are continuing with some of their contingency plans, in fact have two schools, two vacant schools that they plan to have

as shelters for migrants who are coming because on the other side of the border there are a lot of migrants in mexico, in ciudad juarez that are waiting to come in. so let me show you what's happening behind me. i'll step out of the way so you can see. we are at a shelter. this is near the church. and there are a lot of migrants that are taken to the streets. young men, old merngs children, toddlers, babies, alisyn, that are now under blankets on the sidewalks. now, many of these individuals could go to another shelter. the city says they have capacity, they have availability with beds. but they are fearful. when i talk to them they say we don't trust getting on any sort of bus because we don't know exactly where we will end up. so this is an issue that the city is going to have to deal with, despite the supreme court's decision and what has come of title 42. but while this is a win for those republican states and

republican governors and while it is finally a decision that many had been waiting for just to see what the court decided, there is still very much a feeling of disappointment, uncertainty among the migrants, and among the city officials sort of plowing forward regardless because they still know that they could see a potential surge at any time. >> yeah. >> alisyn? >> there's just all sorts of uncertainty at this point. leyla, thank you very much for being there and for reporting. let's discuss with norm eisen, maria cardona and olivia troye. also joining us is cnn political commentator scott jennings. norm, what does this change? what changes tonight? the fact that the supreme court has sort of kicked the can down the road, there's still a migrant crisis tonight at the border as leyla just told us. >> alisyn, the supreme court has continued the trump-era policy that is frankly heartbreaking.

these are individuals who have come to the border, they have a right under u.s. law and under international law to seek asylum and they have been turned away literally by the millions under this trump-era policy. it was supposedly based on covid. we all know that's not the real reason for it under trump. but despite the fact that an order that was entered at the peak of the pandemic, those facts have changed. and the district court was right to strike this down. but we're going to be left with the status quo and this heartbreaking rejection of migrants for many, many months ahead while the supreme court decides. >> i hear you, norm. maria, i want to come to you. i hear what norm's saying, it's obviously heartbreaking for people with families outside freezing in the cold right now and they've fled nicaragua or venezuela and the authoritarian regimes. however, let me just give you what the backlog is in the u.s. the u.s. is not equipped to handle this number. that's a demonstrable truth.

there's 1.6 million asylum applications pending right now. that is seven times more than the asylum cases in 2012. 3 out of 10 of them are children. and in el paso alone they're making something like -- i can't remember. 3,500 interceptions a day. they say that they're overrun. and so i understand that it's heartbreaking all around. but what is the solution? >> i'm so glad you brought this up, alisyn, because those numbers that you just mentioned are heartbreaking because it does demonstrate that our immigration system is absolutely broken. but you know what happened under four years of donald trump? they proceeded to systematically dismantle and destroy any kind of legal asylum processes and procedures that existed. they proceeded to close off any known asylum legal ways that migrants could come and ask for

asylum under u.s. law. they proceeded to cut off any aid to western hemisphere countries that were dealing with migrants who wanted to flee their countries and come to ours. they proceeded to implement a heartless, cruel and inhumane policy that ripped babies from the -- >> the separation. yes. >> so what happens is now when the biden administration came in, they were dealing with a completely destroyed immigration system. you know what needs to happen? alisyn. >> yeah, quickly. >> members of congress, both republicans and democrats, need to come together to fix this. the first thing biden did in office was to offer a comprehensive package of legislation that increased resources to the border by the billions to secure the borders. you hear that, republicans? in addition to focusing on legal pathways, in addition to more asylum ways for migrants to come

here legally. >> i hear you. >> we need workers here. let's do this. republicans need to stop using this as an excuse to exercise their xenophobia and their racism -- >> i want to get scott in here because that is true that president biden did offer that on his first day in office. scott, what is your response to this? >> i mean, you asked maria what the solution was and she spent five minutes whining about donald trump, who hasn't been the president for over two years. the reality is joe biden has failed. he's not been to the border. kamala harris, who's supposed to be in charge of this, has failed. the administration has been dishonest with the american people. the biden administration doesn't want border security. if they did, they wouldn't be in court suing arizona governor doug ducey, who tried to put up shipping containers to block the yuma gap in arizona -- >> scott, i hear you. the only reason i'm interrupting is you say that the biden administration has failed. isn't it congress? i xwhaerngs do you want president biden to do? >> i want them to secure the

border. >> how? >> i want them to support the border patrol. ask border patrol agents if they feel supported by this administration. yes, i want them to exercise some leadership. not every single person who shows up here at our border is a refugee. i know that's the position of maria and the democrats and the biden administration. but we can't take on the entire population of all of central america and just say, well, these are all refugees. you said it yourself. we have a massive backlog. we can't possibly process this. the supreme court today saved biden from himself. and you'd have to forgive a judge for being confused about the biden position because one day they're claiming the pandemic is still going on to relieve student debt and today the solicitor general is in court saying, well, we know the pandemic is over, so let's end title 4 2. you cannot have it both ways. it's confusing and it's dishonest. >> olivia, there's obviously a lot of politics around this and there's a lot of frustration. but i just keep looking for the

solution and i don't know what it is because congress won't -- i mean, congress has failed administration after administration on this. it's not just biden and it wasn't just trump. congress has not done anything about this. >> yeah. and i'm listening to all of this and i'm thinking to myself it's always been ping-pong. i'm a person who grew up on the border. i grew up in el paso. that is my hometown. they have shouldered this burden for years now. i have seen this firsthand. yes, it's a tough issue. and i see ping-pong. i see ping-pong between democrats and i see ping-pong between republicans as well. and look, great. go to the border. go and visit. i saw this during the trump administration numerous times with republicans going to the border looking at people in cages like they were sitting animals. what did that do? did that resolve anything? no. then we talk about the migration crisis, not all of them are refugees. yeah. and you also throw in some of these people are terrorists crossing the border. i also had to defuse that talking point because factually the intelligence community reminded people that that was just not true. but to all of --

>> thank you. >> -- of those points, title 42, i mean, it was not meant to be a public health measure when it was enacted in the trump administration. i know that for a fact because i lived it. and the head of the global migration unit at the cdc never signed off on it, by the way. they were blindsided. and i know this because i was in those meeting with stephen miller and it was an anti-immigrant policy that was enacted. bottom line. and it was rammed through. and it remains today. so i actually think it's actually very shameful that the supreme court held this ruling because it is a policy decision that is based on a fallacy. it's not correct today. so all of these things i think -- you know, i think it is congress. i think people need to come together instead of using migration and immigration as a political talking point from both sides of the house if you really want to get there. but i think there's no incentive when you can bus people around the country and drop them off at the vice president's residence on christmas eve and claim that is a win. i was looking at that and i was thinking to myself how would mike pence -- what would he have

felt like if somebody had dropped off the migrants at his residence when he was there? as a christian. right? to see them freezing in the cold like that. is that okay? is that where we are right now? is this how we're looking at solutions to the migration crisis? because i think if he we don't actually start to have serious conversations this crisis isn't going away anytime soon. >> yeah. >> and cities like el paso, my hometown, are going to continue to shoulder this. >> maria, i'm sorry, we're out of time and i have to move on but i think you've all given such great perspectives. and olivia, it's so helpful to have your insight from you having been in the room during all of this. and yes, i mean, we will continue to talk about this because we're not clearly helping the migrants who are freezing right now but we're also not figuring it out. so thank you very much all of you. we do need to talk about this also because if you're trying to fly somewhere right now good luck. thousands of flights canceled yet again today. and now the transportation secretary is calling out southwest. we'll tell you what they plan to do about that.

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if you're flying southwest airlines this week, you may want to get comfortable. you could be waiting a while. even with the weather clearing in much of the country, nearly 2/3 of all southwest flights were canceled today. and look at this that we're about to show you. on the far right side of this chart 99% of tomorrow's flight cancellations, tomorrow, belong to just one airline, and that would be southwest. this evening the company's ceo offered an apology and an attempt to explain in this recorded message. >> our network is highly

complex, and the operation of the airline counts on all the pieces, especially aircraft and crews, remaining in motion to where they're planned to go. with our large fleet of airplanes and flight crews out of position in dozens of locations and after days of trying to operate as much of our full schedule across the busy holiday weekend we reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up. we're focused on safely getting all of the pieces back into position to end this rolling struggle. >> cnn's lucy kafanov is with some of the people still stuck in this mess. >> unfortunately, our next available seats for rebooking are on the 31st and beyond. >> reporter: it's another day of travel chaos. >> every flight is canceled. so i don't know when i go back home. >> reporter: another day of flight cancellations, delays and frayed nerves. >> phone calls were busy. you couldn't get a hold of anybody. it's awful. >> reporter: exhausted passengers braving long lines,

only to receive more bad news. >> because they said even if you go through this line it might be up to new year to get a flight. >> reporter: travelers on southwest bearing the brunt of the post-christmas cancellations. many stranded until the new year. >> the next flight that was offered was in january. and they couldn't even get us home back to pittsburgh. >> reporter: southwest's ceo bob jordan warned of more tough days ahead, according to a transcript of a company-wide message cnn has obtained. while chief operating officer andrew waterson said the airline's systems were unable to match available crews to available aircraft and it had to be done by hand. >> from what i can tell southwest is unable to locate even where their own crews are, let alone their own passengers, let alone baggage. their system really has completely melted down. and i made clear that our department will be holding them accountable for their responsibilities to customers both to get them through this situation and to make sure that

this can't happen again. >> this is a deep failure of management, not to have supported its i.t. infrastructure. >> so i don't know where my luggage at. >> reporter: the travel chaos leaving mountains of lost luggage. in las vegas a sea of unclaimed bags. some passengers told it would be days before they can get their luggage. denver's airport leading the nation in terms of delays and cancellations. passenger nick favaza has been stuck here since december 21st. >> i will never fly southwest airlines again. and i will tell anyone i know never to fly southwest airlines again. >> reporter: why is that? what do you want to do different? i mean, you just can't leave people stranded for eight days and just say it's the weather when it's not the weather. >> reporter: and what a difference a day makes, alisyn. yesterday the line for southwest was snaking around the corner. very few people behind me right now. but it does not mean that southwest's problems are over. you heard that apology video from the ceo, bob jordan. he used a lot of words to

basically say the airline's going to be flying at a reduced schedule for the next few days. he hopes to get back on track before next week, but a lot of people aren't here frankly because they've given up and a lot of the luggage has yet to be reunited with customers. this is unfortunately going to be a vacation to remember for all the wrong reasons. alisyn? >> you're so right, lucy. that's the story of our next guest. we want to bring in now monica buenavidez. she's a southwest passenger who got caught in a delay and cancellation drama during christmas trying to get home to texas from las vegas. monica, thank you so much for being here. as i understand it, youyou spen1 hours on christmas day in the vegas airport trying to get home. what was that experience like? >> it was just really hard. my father passed away on christmas. it was a very hard day to be traveling. and so i just wanted to be with family. and to just experience delay after delay, it was just really

heartbreaking. so many other people had it worse than i did. there was people that were elderly with wheelchairs and parents with small children. overall we were just trying to help one another and make the most of it. but it was just really an unacceptable situation. >> we're really sorry to hear about your father, first of all. that sounds awful. you did send us video of the things that you were seeing. all of the people who were stranded including, as you said, elderly people. and it was just -- people were just like languishing there in the waiting room. what was southwest telling you? >> we all got in line very excited. and then eventually we were just told it would be five to ten minutes. and that five to ten minutes became half an hour, became several hours, and we were just being told that we needed one more crew member and then when that one crew member got there the gate agent, who was very kind and was trying to help, you know, just said that she had to call and wait on the phone just like everyone else did to try to get us off the ground.

so it was really hard for the southwest employees. and my heart goes out to them as well as the passengers because it was just an awful situation. >> it looks like it. i mean, that video that you sent us, it's just a sea of people. nobody going anywhere. it's just people as far as the eye can see. so ultimately your story is that it took you 26 hours to get from vegas to corpus christi, back home. and i know you want to be compensated somehow by southwest for the hotel that you had to rent, the different transportation that you had to take to and from the airport, the food you had to buy. how much -- what is the price tag of everything that you endured during this ordeal? >> i mean, luckily for me i think it's going to be right around maybe 300 to $500. but i have family members that are spending upwards of over $1,000 to get home from various destinations. and so the stories will vary. but overall it's just a very unacceptable situation, that southwest keeps using the

weather as a scapegoat for their outdated scheduling software when no other major u.s. airline has had the level of disruption that they've had. >> well, if southwest can get away with paying you just $500 for what you endured, that's a bargain i would say. but we'll keep in touch, monica, and find out what happens with you. take care of yourself. >> thanks for having me on. >> thanks for being here. okay. so what's it like to be dealing with thousands of angry customers calling you out? well, the head of southwest's flight attendants union is going to join us next with their frustrations. introducing the new sleep number climate360 smart bed. only smart bed in the world that actively cools, warms and effortlessly respon to both of you. our smart sleeperset 28 minutes more restful sleep per night. proven quali sleep. only from sleep number.

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so why is southwest airlines having such a travel meltdown? the other major u.s. carriers got back to business fairly quickly after the snowstorms. southwest has been around for more than half a century, and it used to pride itself on its top ranking for customer satisfaction by the transportation department. lynn montgomery heads the flight attendants union for southwest, and she joins us tonight. lynn, thanks so much for being here. i know it's been a busy day. what has this meltdown been like for the flight attendants? >> it has been absolutely horrific. the most despicable working conditions that you can imagine. you know, flying during the holidays is already a challenging time, even on a normal year. it's filled with busyness and wanting to be with your family

and hustle bustle that creates a lot of stress. so it's really, really difficult with this happening. >> and so when you say despicable flying conditions, what is it like? are they stranded at various airports? we just heard from a passenger who it took her 26 hours to get home over christmas. are flight attendants also stranded? >> yes. flight attendants have been stranded. not only have they been stranded but they've been left to try to contact crew scheduling for hours on end. we have flight attendants sending us their screen shots of how long they've been on hold. we have anywhere from 3 to 17 hours of having to wait on hold just to find out what your next assignment is going to be, what your next flight needs to be, where your hotel assignment might be. i mean, that is really despicable to have to wait that long. >> it's unconscionable. but what is the problem? and what is going on with southwest? why is this happening? >> it's been a reluctance over many, many years for southwest airlines not to invest properly in its i.t. systems.

in fact, twu local 556 has indicated over the years that they need to invest in this money, that we're going to come up with one of these major disasters, like that just happened. and it's happening over and over again. and each time it gets worse and worse and worse. and as you can see, now it's created a huge implosion that's completely unacceptable. >> so lynn, just so i understand this, in other words, southwest does not have an up-to-date phone system? it doesn't have up-to-date i.t. equipment? the other airlines have outpaced it in terms of modern technology? is that the problem? >> there's i.t. systems that southwest airlines uses that are unique to southwest airlines, and they would be able to reschedule the operation when massive cancellations occur. however -- and our ceos have reported to us -- our ceo has reported and our c.o.o. has reported that they can't keep up with the demand, that these systems can't do things quickly

enough. and we've been promised that they're putting enough into the systems, that they've spent enough money. but they started so late in trying to update these systems that even all those efforts really haven't come out to make any reasonable changes. >> the ceo of southwest airlines tonight put out a statement. he said, "i have nothing but pride and respect for the efforts of the people of southwest who are showing up every day in every way. i'm apologizing to them daily and they'll be hearing more about our specific plans in the future." what do you want from him? >> we're so tired of apologies. we're so tired of southwest airlines just getting through one major catastrophe and then going on to the next one and saying oh, we're sorry again. we need to see an action plan. we need to see an investment. we need to know what people are going to be -- he's going to be using, the best in the world technology that southwest

airlines can buy should come and help us figure out what these systems need to be. and we also need to know when the go live date is going to be. it's also important for southwest airlines to remember that its workers and its employees are the heart of the company. we are the ones who really helped make this company successful in the '90s. and here today. and they need to start investing in their employees again like they used to. they've completely abandoned that. we have been in contract negotiations with them since 2018. its pilots as well. and we're having to beg and plead for them to make the necessary changes for these infrastructures to be remedied. >> i home he's listening. he's also invited on our program here anytime. he has so far declined our invitation. but lynn, it doesn't sound like what you're asking for is unreasonable. thanks so much for your time. and we really hope that the flight attendants can get where

they need to and get back to work as effectively as possible as well. thanks so much for being with us tonight. >> thank you. >> it's a company that has designed more than 900 power stations, thousands of miles of power systems. they also handle nuclear security issues. and they work with the defense department. and they've just been hacked. who is targeting this country's energy grid? how vulnerable is our energy grid? all that is next. i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life iurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the threes? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase,

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>> okay, now a troubling story. hackers stole data belong to multiple electoral pull utilities and saw coburg ransomware attack on a u.s. government contractor that handles critical infrastructure projects across the country. this is according to a memo describing the hack that it's been obtained by cnn. the contractors, chicago-based sergeant and lucky, it's an engineering farm, designed more than 900 power stations and thousands of miles of power systems. that firm also worked for the

department of defense, energy, and other energy agencies to strengthen nuclear deterrence. so this news comes just days after an attack on for power substations in washington state that left thousands of people in the dark on christmas day, as well as another of attacks on power stations across the country over the last few months. joining us now to discuss this is phil -- . thank you for coming back. does it sound like these are in -- facilities are isolated incidents to you? >> no, i kind of look at this in a few categories. the first to figure out is these attacks that we've seen recently, the anti government, people who don't like government or big utilities, you go a step up and you get into criminal organizations that are conducting ransomware, that is stealing stuff or shutting down a system in telling a company or contractor they want millions of dollars to get that system back up and running. i guess the thing i worry about when i see all of these events going into this century is

looking at the chinese, the russians, the iranians who have to be reading u.s. newspapers and watching cnn, and try to understand how much they may have stolen or compromise over the past decade and what they would do if they got it. we really don't know the answer to, that alisyn. >> i don't like that, phil. i don't like hearing that. because that's -- shutting down our electrical grid, we always hear, that it's sort of an abstract anxiety that we have. maybe our electrical grid or our power grid is bone-able. but it's starting to feel like i'm reporting on this a lot. it's starting to feel like something is picking up the pace with this. >> i think so. and i think as someone who worked in government for a long, time there's something behind the scenes that would trouble me. the first is if you're the department of homeland security or department of defense, how do you plan for a massive outage that might be orchestrated by someone like russia or china? i'm not suggesting that would happen. i'm thinking about, for example, ukraine, if something unpleasant happens with the russians in 24, 25, 2026, how

do you plan for that? how do you deal with u.s. consumers who are not lose power? we lost power in the house i'm in in memphis early in the week for 11 hours. and i will tell you, it was freezing after 11 hours. and the second is how you coordinate not just with the government, but with private companies that are going to be reluctant to share data about how they are vulnerable. how do you force those companies to say, i don't care if it's embarrassing, you're going to share that data, because we've got to figure out how to address this. >> you are the law enforcement genius. how do we protect against all of that? yes phil, genius. >> can we roll that tape again? [laughter] >> surely, you are in meetings where there was a plan, i hope, for this. >> sort of. but i will tell you the problem here is, and you see it in the case or talk about it a moment of go, you are not dealing with the defense department or homeland security, you're dealing with a contractor or a subcontractor. you've got to have a

requirement for the white house, for example, that those people have plans to respond to an event like this, that they are required to report it. and by the way, companies don't like reporting the stuff because it's not that great for the stop when people outside realize that your company is vulnerable. you've got to have plans with dealing with private entities, contractors who are vulnerable. that is not easy for the government to do, to go out in the private sector until some relatively small company, here's what you've got to do to address that. people in this country don't like, that alisyn. >> yeah, definitely, because it sounds like this data breach happen in october. but cnn's just able to reported. now so hear what you're saying. all right phil, i thought you have watts of logs for the fire season get conked out there in memphis. thank you so much for being. on >> thank you, and i'm happy to be a genius. i'll see you next time. >> i may reneged on that. later that we'll see. meanwhile, huge this isn't today from the supreme court. they left thousands of lives in the balance, so much uncertainty, it's up ending president biden's plans for

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well, we fell in love through gaming. but now the internet lags and it throws the whole thing off. when did you first discover this lag? i signed us up for t-mobile home internet. ugh! but, we found other interests. i guess we have. [both] finch! let's go! oh yeah! it's not the same. what could you do to solve the problem? we could get xfinity? that's actually super adult of you to suggest. i can't wait to squad up. i love it when you talk nerdy to me. guy, guys, guys, we're still in session. and i don't know what the heck you're talking about.

- [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. >> tonight, the biden administration will not be allowed to let a trump era border policy expire. supreme court says that title 42 must remain in effect until the legal challenges play out, which could take until june.

title 42 i