of 2023. coy? >> yeah. happy new year's eve eve to you. we talk a little football. the college football playoffs semifinal happening tomorrow without alabama. big 12 show down at 4:00, the michigan facing tcu. the wolverines looking for their first national title since 1997, a ground and pound power house averaging 240 yards per game rushing. going along with a top five brick wall defense that they have to stop quarterback max dunagan for tcu. prime time, the peach bowl, georgia, stetson bennett, and ohio state, cj stroud, the third in the nation with quarterback rating some of the best receivers to go out there. but georgia, they have 15 players taken in the nfl draft, including five defensive players in the first round and still rolling.

one of the best defenses in the country. of course we would be remiss if we didn't mention how most teams would love a trip to the sugar bowl but the alabama crimson tide not one of them. they lost two games this season by a combined four points both on the last play of the game against texnnessee and lsu, so they miss the playoffs. they'll face kansas state tomorrow, some of the georgia fans in our sports department told me to remind you you can't spell sugar bowl without uga. i apologize for that. >> i've been to the sugar bowl more times than i can count on two hands. spent a lot of time in new orleans in college. >> she was so annoyed we were doing the sugar bowl situation in the show. >> i'll be watching tomorrow. we kickoff at noon, it's fine. actually love nick saban said yesterday this has been one of the most enjoyable nonplayoff

bowl preps they have had. >> that's one way to see it. >> yeah. >> coy wire, we'll be watching. roll tide. thank you so much. >> all right. "cnn this morning" continues right now. ♪ good friday morning, everyone. we are so gload you're here. don is off. returning to normal. that's the hope. southwest airlines said it is resuming a full schedule after a week of mass cancellations as officials demand the airline must make things right. and in buffalo we're monitoring a growing death toll where as cleanup efforts are under way after the catastrophic storm that happened city leaders fear the number will rise. president biden signing the $1.7 trillion government spending bill. he did that while vacationing in

st. crocroix. big develops in ukraine where they say their forces have shot down 16 iranian-made drones as russia's attacks are intensifying. the u.s. scrambling to step in and stop iran from providing these drones to russia. the top story this morning is southwest airlines saying it is resuming normal operations with minimal disruptions after canceling more than 15,000 flights in the wake of this historic winter storm. flight aware shows the carrier only has 39 canceled flights all day today. that is a huge improvement. transportation secretary pete buttigieg said it willed hold the airline to do what's necessary to make passengers

hole. >> if they don't do that, we are in a position to levy tens of thousands of dollars per violation per passenger in fines. i can't go in and fix an i.t. system for an individual airline failing to do its job, but as a watchdog our department is going to do everything it takes to hold them accountable for their treatment of their passengers. >> adrienne broaddus is smiling, right, at chicago midway this morning, for the first time all week it's better. >> reporter: it is better. one traveler said things are flying, no pun intended. and this is the type of line travellers want to see, poppy. they are waiting to check their bags, not find their bags like we've seen all week. but checking their bags. those bags will hopefully continue on to their final destination ahead of this final holiday weekend. over here, something else we haven't seen, the flight information board for departures on time. on time. a small delay here on flight 3224.

it was scheduled to leave at 7:45 a.m. now it's a minute delayed. another flight down here, flight 2064 was scheduled to leave at 7:40, about a 5 minute delay, now departing 7:45. we see flights boarding now. this is incredible news for folks stuck and stranded. i went downstairs to the baggage claim area and i saw on that information board, five canceled flights. a stark contrast to what we've seen the last week where southwest had more than 15,000 canceled flights. travelers who were impacted by all of this, southwest is promising to make it right, by reimbursing them for their expenses. poppy? >> the question is, how much. it's a big focus. we'll see. thanks. and thanks for your coverage there all week. ahead we'll take a closer look at the meltdown, what happened, can it be prevented next time?

we'll be joined by an aviation consultant and former manager at southwest airlines. the death toll in new york's erie county has risen to 39 people after the blizzard we saw in recent days. the county executive is warning that sadly more deaths are expected as crews are clearing roads, conducting wellness checks of people stranded or stuck in their home. and now apologizing after he criticized the mayor of buffalo for his storm response saying that his emotions got the best of him. athena jones is live in buffalo this morning. what are we hearing from the officials as they are starting to clear up the roads behind you and really assess the damage from this storm? >> reporter: good morning, kaitlan. a lot of the roads have been cleared as you can see. the temperature has already risen. trash pick up resuming today. city hall opened yesterday along with the courthouse, so things getting back to normal but not for the families who may be missing loved ones still.

the medical examiner has confirmed 39 dead but the erie county executive said that number is almost certain to rise because there were several other bodies found, whether in a house or outside. they need to be autopsied and reviewed by the medical examiner to determine if they were deaths caused by the blizzard. you mentioned him apologizing him to the mayor of buffalo for criticizing him for a lack of engagement. he said that criticism was misplaced, lost his focused and apol apologized. but the death toll is one thing we're watching today. >> as we're monitoring that, one thing that stood out is the stories we have heard. we had someone on talking about how she helped joey white stuck in a snow bank. we're hearing so many of these stories, have any of them stood out to you? >> reporter: sure. they call this the city of good neighbors and this is what this

story represents. a mechanic, jay white was stuck in the snow at one point, trying to drive his car to help a friend, couldn't make it there. he had an adventure on the way, a woman who ran out of gas, she joined his truck, they took turns sleeping that night. earlier he tried to go to at least 10 houses offering up to $500 to let him sleep on the floor, all of them said i'm sorry, turned him away. so he returned to his vehicle, he and another woman slept in their vehicle and eventually they decided to break into a nearby school because they knew it would have heat and bathrooms. and then he went out into the school's parking lot and found a bunch of parked cars people stranded in the vehicles so he said come into the school i broke into and that's where they spent the rest of the blizzard

until about evening of christmas day. and he said, you know, if one of those houses had let me in, i wouldn't have had this opportunity to save so many lives. he said that ages ranged from about 26 years old to around 73. and he left a note in the end at the school and he said, to whomever it may concern, i'm terribly sorry about breaking the school window and breaking the kitchen got stuck 8:00 p.m. friday, slept in my truck with two strangers trying not to die. there were seven elderly people also stuck i had to do it to save everyone and get them shelter and food and bathroom. and police said later these people were stuck in areas they could not be reached. we know about the emergency calls that went unanswered so this mechanic took it upon himself to not only save himself but other people. yes, he had to break into a school to do it but he apologized. >> i think jay gets a pass for this one. thank you. new this morning the leaders

of russia and china meeting virtually just a short time ago with vladimir putin calling relations between those two countries the best they've been in history. putin also invited xi jinping to moscow in the spring. xi declared that china is ready to increase political cooperation with russia. this meeting comes as both leaders, both authoritarian leaders face domestic crisis at home, china facing a covid outbreak as the pandemic enters a third year. and the war in ukraine which has not gone anywhere close to what russia had anticipated. putin said the two nations intend to strengthen military relations. but it's important to note china has not directly supported ukraine. this morning "the new york times" is reporting the biden administration is working to stop iran from making deliveries

of these iranian-made drones to russia. which have appeared to have some u.s. made parts to them. it's really critically important reporting joining us with more on all of this from "the new york times" david sanger. we'll get to that reporting from you in just a few minutes. but could you just respond, david, to what is now going to be a spring meeting between xi jinping and putin and what that could mean for this war? >> you know, if there's one thing to watch for in the new year, it is the nature of the relationship between russia and china. and in some ways the triangular relationship between russia, china, and iran. this is one of the surprises of the whole war effort. as you said, poppy, there was no evidence that china has entered into the war in a military way. and they were warned by the u.s.

that if they did, there would be secondary sanctions on china that would further hurt its economy. but in every other way, every political way, they have come together. and mostly that is an alliance of convenience to frustrate the united states. the iran element is a new and different one. that's largely between russia and iran. china's not as big a player in that. but in that case, both countries were under severe sanctions from the u.s. and both countries see some considerable advantage in getting arms from each other that they're running short of. we know that the iranians are providing the drones and the russians are thinking about providing electronics components and maybe even fighters. >> and the context here is ukraine is saying they shot down

16 of these iranian-made drones that they are giving to russia. you have fascinating new reporting about how the biden administration is trying to step in to stop this ability to produce and provide these drones to ukraine. i mean, to russia. >> that's right, kaitlan. there were sort of three elements to this. one element is going after the components themselves. and cnn did some very good reporting on this last week with natasha bertra trand. and that's an effort to stop the american-made components from getting in. the second is an effort to try to help the ukrainians target the drones from where they're taking off. it's not easy because these are mobile launch sites, you can launch the drones from moving around on trucks and launch them from a parking lot or soccer field. and the third element is to

provide the terminal defense right around the electrical substations and other infrastructure. the problem is, every time you erect one of these anti-missile defenses around one of the infrastructure elements, you're giving up the chance to put that around a civilian location or an army base. so it's a tough choice each time and they're in short supply. so that's the three elements of it. and, of course, suddenly we discovery that the americans are talking about this with the israelis. >> which is fascinating. quickly on the aspect of running in short supply, what happens when russia runs out? >> that's an interesting question. when they run out of missiles, the question is, do they then turn to the iranians and say we now need missiles in addition to the drones. and on the drones themselves, they've used almost exclusively iranian material.

so that's why stopping the iran supply is so critical. >> i was fascinating by your reporting especially not only how easily they can move these from soccer fields, parking lots, but also how hard it is for the biden administration to try to stop it. you compared it to their attempts to stop iran's nuclear capabilities. can you speak, though, to what you just brought up to kaitlan and i, and that is the israel c component? >> sure. two parts of this. first, on your point, poppy, it really is hard to cut off a country's components when they're dual use. they're used in commercial products as well as military products. if we were good at this, the iranians would not be building nuclear centrifuges now but they're building them just as they were prior to the 2015 nuclear accord that president trump left. so if you can't stop the

centrifuges, it's hard to imagine they're going to stop the drone production. they might slow it down. the second part, the israel part was really interesting. last week the united states and israel had a quarterly meeting, security meeting, that's usually devoted largely to the iran nuclear program. this time, for the first time, the u.s. brought up the iranian drones. now the read out from the meeting, which was a classified meeting, did not say what, if anything, they decided to do together but we do know that israel and the u.s. have a long history of working together on trying to sabotage or undermined the iranian nuclear program, they did so famously ten years ago on the cyber attack on the nuclear enrichment site, the israelis have done other sabotage work and it would be interesting to know whether that became a subject of conversation. we don't know that right now.

>> david sanger thank you. i hope everyone reads your latest reporting on this. it's fascinating. thank you very much. >> thank you and happy new year to all of you. >> happy new year to you too. next what "the new york times" found as they dug into congressman-elect george santos's finances. what went wrong with southwest, why did they cancel thousands of flights? that's the question passengers are asking. we are going to take a closer look at what happened behind the scenes ahead. er supports cognitive health in older adults. it's o one more step towards taking charge of your health. so every day, you can say... ♪ youuu did it! ♪ with centrum silver.

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save hundreds a year over t-mobile, verizon, and at&t with xfinity mobile, and for a limited time get $400 off a new eligible 5g phone. switch today. welcome back to "cnn this morning." scrutiny intensifies on new york republican congressman-elect george santos after a new york times article revealed questionable details about his campaign finance forms and disclosures. federal and state prosecutors are already investigating his finances and the loans he took out to fund his campaign. we're tracking the developments. what have you found? >> reporter: poppy, there certainly are so many questions now on multiple topics that

george santos has not yet answered. and today there's new questions about items found on his campaign disclosure forms that says his finances are also being formally investigated by federal prosecutors. >> we stand here today watching this slow george santos train wreck take place. >> reporter: new york congressman-elect george santos facing continued scrutiny after he admitted to lying about key parts of his biography. >> now it's going to be incumbent upon me to deliver those results. >> you're exactly right. >> reporter: "the new york times" reporting late thursday night details found on santos' campaign disclosure forms one is a company called cleaner 1, 2, 3 which received $11,000 from his campaign and was listed as an apartment rental for staff but the address listed is a home on long island the times reports where neighbors say santos and

his husband were regularly seen coming and going. also reported dozens of expenses of $199.99. one cent below the amount at which federal law requires receipts. and travel expenses exceeding more than $70,000. it's not clear if the spending was allowed under campaign finance rules. an attorney for santos tells "the new york times" campaign expenditures for staff members, including travel, lodges and meals with normal expenses of any competent campaign. the suggestion that the santos campaign engaged in any irregulatory risk responsible spending of campaign funds is just ludicrous. santos has faced questions over his wealth and loans totaling more than $700,000 he made to his successful 2022 campaign.

in a 2022 financial disclosure santos listed a salary of $750,000 for the years 2022 and 2021 at a family firm described as handling $80 million in assets. the firm, which was registered in florida has no linked in profile or website and was deemed inactive by the state. but now records show it was reinstated on december 20th. >> i'm not a criminal. i committed absolutely no crimes. >> in an interview, santos said he made his money through capitol introduction and deal making for high net worth individuals. >> if you make a false statement about your assets or anything else that matters that could be a crime. >> reporter: the legal road ahead for santos could be treacherous and there are calls for him to resign from congress. >> there's going to be so much pressure on him to leave. >> reporter: as his potential

legal woes mount for him, santos has remained defiant saying he intends to serve in congress. republican leaders have remained silent as things continue to stack up one week before he is to be sworn in to congress. >> will we hear more from republican leadership is the question after the speaker vote. thank you. let's bring in senior political analyst ron brownstein. ron, every day it's something new but what big questions do you have about george santos beyond the stuff about how his mother died, where he was living about the finances, the money seems to be the real point of scrutiny here. >> absolutely. i feel -- first of all, on the overall story we're moving into the talented mr. santos level where virtually every aspect of the story that he's told, you know, unravels. and because of that, i don't -- i think the key point is that based on the amount of lies and

deception we've seen, there's no reason to believe we're at the bottom. that there are almost certainly going to be further revelations. and the money, where his resources came from, this radical increase in income and these loans to the campaign. but also in the detailed new york times reporting all sorts of questionable spending, a lot on travel and expenses, a lot put one penny below the cutoff for what you have to provide receipts. so a lot of questions where he was getting his money and what he was doing with it. and the republican leaders haven't wanted to talk about this. it's hard to imagine they can sweep it all under the rug. >> i should note his attorney has spoken out. he said they talked about the campaign expenditures saying they were for staff. he said, you know, the suggestion that the santos campaign engaged in any irresponsible spending is ludicrous. but when you look at the numbers here. during his campaign, santos spend $30,000 on hotels.

$40,000 on air fare. $14,000 on car services. when you compare that to another republican in new york who ran in the first district, they spent $900 on hotels. 3,000 on air fare. $900 on taxis. just the discrepancy there is raising questions alone in addition to all of this. >> and the question of where he was living. the fact that all of this travel, you know, this is a campaign that claims it was largely self-funded through these loans. so what exactly was all of that money going toward? obviously the question is whether he was using campaign funds to, in effect, subsidize his day-to-day life. we haven't heard from any republican leader except for marjorie taylor greene who has defended him and said why aren't we talking about the way democrats lied that donald trump tried to incite an insurrection on january 6th? why are we talking about this? that's the vacuum that kevin mccarthy has allowed to exist by

remaining silent. the fact that there are these local, state, and federal investigations going on, means whatever the new house republican majority wants ultimately there are going to be a lot more revelations coming out here. >> i talked to some republicans about this. they said you are seeing it being quiet at the top but not seeing people come out and back him because they have questions about his spending as well. thank you for your incite this morning. >> happy new year. southwest airlines resuming regular services today they say after a major meltdown left thousands of people stranded. up next we have a closer look what went wrong, when are they going to fix it? we'll talk to the former manager for southwest. ng... the pain. emerge tremfyant®. with tremfya®, most people saw 90% clearerer skin at 16 weeks. the majority of people saw 90% clearer skinin even at 5 years. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them.

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♪ after a holiday travel meltdown, southwest airlines said it expects to return to normal today, it would be welcome respite from a chaotic week that saw thousands of flights canceled, stranded passengers, a sea of orphaned

baggage. yesterday southwest canceled more than half of the scheduled flights for the day. but this morning the ceo just spoke about what happened and how they're going to fix things. >> let me just be straightforward here. the storm had an impact but we had impacts beyond the storm that obviously impacted southwest very differently. it really was the scope of the problems attempting to be solved just to move crews around, keep the airline moving. we have great tools. we have regular operations those tools and processes serve us well but this is something we have never seen in our 51 years. and we're making investments in our operational areas like always, there will be lessons learned from this and we'll continue to make more investments. >> the federal government, congress, are going to look into how this happened. but what do we know so far? how did this go so long? union leaders blame the airline's reliance on antiquated booking and staffing technology.

>> our software can't keep track of it. they don't know where we are, where the airplanes are, and it's just -- it's frustrating for the pilots, the flight attendants and especially our passengers. we're tired of apologizing for southwest. the pilots of the airline. and our hearts go out to all of our passengers, it really does. >> so we've learned this week southwest has made some software improvements. cnn's reporting is that last year the airline connected the reservation system with booking software, that system was overhauled in 2017. in recent years southwest also introduced bar codes and scanners to replace pen and paper methods for counting checked bags but according to union officials other tools remain in 1990s technology and that was a driver of this meltdown that took a human toll. >> it was very frustrating. this was something i was looking

forward to. i feel they don't have a remedy for it. >> i'm beyond frustrated and hurt. because i can't see my dad. so yeah, it's very disappointing. >> i've been a long-time southwest fan, 20 years, travel a lot. this year has been a bad one. they have really disappointed me. >> do you have a message to the ceo if he's watching? what do you say to him? >> fix it. fix it. he has a lot of loyal fans and he's losing them left and right. >> experts point to southwest's point to point flying model that has the advantage of direct flights to smaller cities but it can make it hard to contain disruptions. the other carriers use hub and spoke. that means more layovers yes but bigger hubs with more planes, crews to jump in if needed. as southwest faces the

possibility of enormous fines from the federal government, there are questions about how they spent their money in recent years. quote, what's particularly egregious is they had the chance to upgrade systems but released it to shareholders instead, releasing a dividend to $428 million a year. southwest did get more than $7 billion for the u.s. federal government to help shore up operations in the pandemic. it paid a quarterly dividend for years before the covid crisis, signaling the airline had cash to spare. in other words, given a choice, southwest put investors ahead of customers and crew. and we took a look at the 2019 annual shareholder letter in which southwest wrote this, quote, during 2019, the company continued to return value to its shareholders. the company returned $2.4 billion to shareholders through $372 million in dividend

payments and $2 billion through four separate accelerated share repurchase programs. those are the facts. let's bring in claire tate a former manager at southwest airlines she worked for years planning and scheduling crews and in charge of updating the technology that handled some of the scheduling systems. he was bound by an nda while a manager at the airline so she can't get into the deep specifics but she has knowledge about this. thank you very much for joining us this morning. >> thank you, poppy. thank you for having me. >> i'd like to get to that question this morning that "the washington post" raises. a question on my mind when i looked at the shareholder letter a few years ago about how the airline chose to spend its money. they did a lot of dividend payments, continuing to do it. did big share repurchases and the technology it appears was not upgraded the way that it could have been. what do you make of that? you were there.

>> i'm certainly not an investor relations expert my expertise is crew manplanning and scheduling. crew planning makes the schedules in advance, crew scheduling handles the 24/7 operation of those schedules. and i saw huge technology investments during my career there. i spent 20 years in that area of the airline before i left in late 2020. and, you know, a lot of the technology upgrades and investments are things that customers and crews don't see. for example, this is something that's publically available, southwest made a huge investment to move the crew systems to the cloud with aws in the more recent years. that's sort of a foundational thing that has to be done before other capabilities can be developed. >> aws being amazon web services, a big cloud provider. so you make an important point you were in there, you saw money going into technology for these

systems that melted down during this crisis. bob jordan, you heard the current ceo saying we're going to invest more. is there an investment fix, a money fix to this? >> i think it's not just a money fix. it's developing the capabilities, developing the technology, airline scheduling and planning is more complex, in my opinion, than any other part of the airline. it's a huge mathematical problem to solve. there are operations research groups studying this. and i'm not aware of technology that solves for an airline of southwest's scope. the crews, the customers and the airplanes all together in the daily operation and what's really needed to get past something like this quickly. >> you make a good point. you said that to "the washington post" as well which is what i

read and wanted to have you on. yesterday we asked lynn montgomery, the head of the flight attendants union, your husband is a southwest flight attendant. >> yes, he is. >> i asked her about that. and here's what she said. listen. >> i do know claire tate i respect her very much and i worked with her many times. if that's the case, then you're going to have to completely relook at the airline and how it operates. because, you know, we know that weather is going to affect travel. that's obvious. that's a given. but as you see, you cannot be hit for this many days aft afterwards once the weather has dissipated. this is just unacceptable. >> it sounds like she's saying southwest may need to rethink how it operates. maybe it doesn't have as many flights maybe the point-to-point system changes more to hub and spoke. i don't know, what do you think? >> yeah, i mean, that's a great

question. i -- i think what's really needed, and this is not just an industry -- or not just a southwest thing. i think it's an overall industry problem. crew scheduling is a really complex job that takes about a year to learn to do the hardest parts. it's kind of still an entry level job and this is worldwide. i co-lead a linked in group of airline crew and professionals called the airline crewing enigma. we call it the enigma because no one really knows, outside of those who do the job, how it works. i think it's something that airlines really need to invest in the technology to do. southwest, i agree, is more difficult problem to solve because point-to-point. so an airline who has more of a hub and spoke operation, for example, one of our southwest competitors if they cancel dfw to la quad ga and back that's an

easy crew problem to system of law. but if a crew is scheduled from oakland to boise to albuquerque on day one and other flights day two, that's more difficult. so i think it's technology, it's training, and it's really having those operational plans. i know they instituted a plan this week to have extra hands on deck and taking phone calls, et cetera. i think that helped them catch up but i think one of the things that happened, and again, i don't know about flight volume. i'm sure there will be many analysis done on this, i i agree southwest needs to do better. but it's not an easy fix. i'm not sure scaling back the airline or changing what makes

it unique is the answer. >> what makes it unique is what makes it affordable for folks and going small city to small city makes it accessible to folks. you have helped us understand this so much better. thank you. >> thank you. for the first time since 2020 crowds will be gathering at full capacity in times square for the new year. we have the president of the times square alliance to tell us what's in store for tomorrow night. my brain. so i choose neuriva plus. unlike some others, neuriva plus is a a multitasker supporting 6 key indicators of brarain health. to help p keep me sharp. neuriva: think bigger.

i screwed up. mhm. i got us t-mobile home internet. now cell phone users have priority over us. and your marriage survived that? you can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. oh i can't hear you... you're froze-- ladies, please! you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. that and the paycheck. 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. ♪ five, four, three, two, one. >> for the first time since 2020, crowds are expected to gather at full capacity in times square on new year's eve to bring in 2023. so, now let's us bring in live from times square the president of the times square alliance, tom harris. tom, i know this is exciting news, this idea of having everyone back there as it normally is. how has that affected your

preparations for tomorrow night? >> so first, thanks for having me. we're very excited to welcome everyone back to times square. we have been working for the last 364 days with the city of new york, with our production team, with our partners at countdown entertainment for this moment we can welcome everyone back to times square. >> i have been there. i'm not going to be there this year. i've been there so many years, pre-covid. and it's so incredible to be with the crowd, talk to people from all over the world. folks don't know but they stand there for like ten hours before it even gets dark just to get their spot. what are you most excited for? >> we're most excited to welcome people back. we're most excited that we're returning to our new normal. we're most excited that the whole world at midnight is going to turn to times square to see that ball drop so that we can look forward to 2023.

we want to celebrate the present and then look forward to a fantastic 2023. >> i think a lot of people agree with that. we know you have a lot of work, been putting a lot of prep in. thank you for taking a few minutes to join us this morning. >> thank you very much for having me. happy new year. >> happy new year. >> in just a few hours, house democrats are set to release former president trump's federal income tax returns. what we could learn from them ahead. tributes have been pouring in for the soccer icon, global soccer icon, pele, we'll talk about his legendary career and the mark he left on sports next.

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the sports world is warning the passing of the king, the king of soccer, brazilian soccer legend pele died yesterday. he was 82 years old and had been battling colon cancer, brazil declaring a three-day national mourning period for the legend. reactions have been pouring in from around the world. cristiano ronaldo writing on instagram a good-bye to the eternal king pele will never be enough to express the pain that currently engulfs the entire futbol world. brazilian star forward neymar writing, quote, pele changed everything. he turned futbol into art, entertainment, and we'll all

remember pele himself famously said i was born to play football just like beethoven was born to write music and michaelangelo to paint. a public wake will be held monday for him at his first football club santos fx in sao paulo. joining us now is the executive founder of seton hall university center for sports media, bob ley. he was also a broadcaster for seven fifa world cups. thanks so much and good morning to you. >> good morning. you know, we use the word mourn in tragedy but it is really a celebration of what a life. it really is uniting the globe in appreciating what a life this man led on the pitch and off the pitch more importantly. >> someone knighted by queen elizabeth. >> exactly. >> when president reagan met him

and stuck his hand out to him he said my name is ronald reagan i'm the president of the united states. you don't need to introduce yourself because everyone knows who pele is. >> when you look at what for example what jordan did for basketball, what gretzky did for hockey, what babe ruth meant to baseball and roll it all up you begin to approximate what this man did for soccer. it was said in the 1970s three people could walk in any village and be recognized immediately and that was muhammed ali, the pope, and pele. even years after he played on the pitch, magnetic personality. i was seated five or six feet from him at the world cup in 1998. it was a thrill to be calling the game between denmark and brazil and we weren't alone. everybody on press row was gaga. he had been retired at that point for a quarter century. he was electric. i had season tickets to the cosmos and saw him play in

person and to have 80,000 sets of eyes on you and he knew it and responded to it and, you know, the poetry of his passing just 11 days after leo messi, we all rushed to knight him as the greatest of all time, but pele had that "it" factor, that magnetic smile, that personality. and as good a player, as great a player, as trans endent a player as messi is, pele with the whole package you'd have to say in reflection was even greater. >> you said the poetry of that. andy warhol had this great quote and said he was the only person who contradicted his theory about the 15 minutes of fame because he said he'll have 15 centuries of fame with the way he is remembered. >> it's the truth, because wherever you would go in this world, there is a legend. he i think tried to dissuade people from believing it but during the nigerian civil war back in the '70s that his presence caused a truce for a match to be played. if it is not true it's too good.

it tells the story. >> it's true. i read it yesterday. >> if it's on the internet it must be true. >> there you go. >> we are embracing those stories because of his personality and because, yes, you know, a lot of the numbers associated with him in the early years in brazil, domestic numbers of goals might be suspect because of the record keeping but he was so important. when he was a teenager brazil declared him a national resource so european clubs could not swoop in and buy him and so he stayed with santos, the city where neymar grew up. they share that link and heritage. >> such a special moment. who better to talk about it than you, bob. thank you for joining us to talk about his legacy. >> a pleasure. we celebrate him and happy new year. >> happy new year to you, too. "cnn this morning" is going to continue right now.

we are so glad you're with us. the last hour for us of 2022. >> and we'll talk about our new year's resolutions. >> apparently i have 60 minutes to make one. no one can even see your great sparkly silver skirt for new year's. >> ready for the new year. >> it's great. we have a lot of news to get to. it is friday, december 30th. welcome to "cnn this morning." house democrats are set to release six years of donald trump's tax returns this morning ushering in a new era of presidential oversight, the move just days before republicans take control of the house and potentially begin a series of promised investigations into president biden and his son hunter. >> also on capitol hill, the house january 6th committee is releasing more and more transcripts, all of those people they interviewed, including one with donald trump jr. what he said about why he went to the chief of staff instead of directly to his dad that day. >> and the ceo of southwest

airlines speaking out this morning as the airline takes steps to resume regular services today after thousands of canceled flights and a week of travel headaches. that is putting it mildly. travel crises across the u.s. >> i'm under a routine audit and it will be released and as soon as the audit is finished it'll be released. >> in just moments that is actually going to happen. trump's taxes will finally become public but not because he is releasing them. instead, the house ways and means committee is going to make public six years of the former president's tax records. this will end that battle that began back in 2015 when trump announced his first run for president and he broke with modern precedent by refusing to disclose his personal financial information as a candidate and as a sitting president. so why are they coming out now? well, it is the supreme court in short. that november decision following a lengthy court battle is what paved the way for the release that's about to happen in just moments from now. this i