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>> this is cnn, the world's news network. >> it's wednesday, december 11th, right now on cnn. this morning, i haven't seen any evidence that says that he's a shooter, a defiant suspect. new details about the man police accused of gunning down the unitedhealthcare ceo. >> and we have a menu of options. what we're deciding right now is the sequence of how we run those plays. >> trump's game plan, how the president elect and his allies in congress are planning to make his promises reality and assault on capitol hill. police arrest a suspect after republican nancy mace says she was physically accosted by someone she calls pro trans plus. >> the winds coming straight down malibu canyon like a

blowtorch out of control. >> fire crews struggle to get the upper hand against raging wildfires threatening southern california. all right, 6 a.m. here on the east coast, a live look at new york city on this wednesday morning. good morning, everyone. i'm kasie hunt. it's wonderful to have you with us. we begin with the suspected ceo killer's first public words since his capture and his possible motivation. 26 year old luigi mangione defiant, fighting extradition back to new york, where he faces five charges, including second degree murder. these are new images of mangione eating a hashbrown at an altoona, pennsylvania mcdonald's moments before he was taken into custody. he was in court in pennsylvania yesterday where he was denied bail on his way in this angry outburst

whoa, whoa. >> back up and clearly out of touch. >> and insult the intelligence of the american people and claimed experience. >> according to mangione lawyer, his client maintains his innocence and pleading not guilty. >> i haven't seen any evidence that says that he's the shooter. so that's, you know, like i like i said earlier and i wasn't kidding around. a couple of things. if you're going to report something, report it accurately. and remember and this is not just a small thing, the fundamental, uh, concept of american justice is a presumption of innocence. and until you're proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. and i've seen zero evidence at this point. >> police say there's plenty of evidence they have recovered several handwritten pages of mangione notebook containing a to do list. in one passage about the unabomber, he writes using a bomb against his intended victim, quote, could kill innocents, end quote, and that a shooting would be more targeted. he also writes it would be better to, quote, kill the ceo at his own bean,

counting conference. end quote. according to people who know him, mangione suffered from debilitating back pain in the wake of a recent surgery. the suspect even posting his spine x rays on his social media. police are examining that surgery and its impact on the suspect very closely. >> he was posting an x ray on his social media, showing numerous screws being inserted into his spine. some of the writings that he had, he was discussing the difficulty of sustaining that injury. so we're looking into whether or not the insurance industry either denied a claim from him or didn't help him out to the fullest extent. he knew that this conference was taking place at that time. >> the new york times reporting that mangione mother filed a missing persons report on her son in san francisco on november 18th, just weeks before the shooting. our next guest has a unique take on how mangione managed to elude law enforcement for nearly a week. she writes this, quote the

gunman has succeeded in avoiding identification, in part by understanding how technology is used and what its limits are. this killing raises the possibility that our surveillance network, an intricate web meant to enhance public safety and private security, has become so obvious and intrusive that criminal perpetrators can figure out how to dodge it. joining us now, the author of that atlantic piece, cnn senior national security analyst juliette kayyem. juliette, good morning. always wonderful to see you. can you explain a little bit more about what you're saying here and how some of these surveillance techniques maybe should be updated yeah. >> so, i mean, basically in those first couple of days, what you saw was a perpetrator. we now know it was mangione really seemed to sort of. evade a lot of the safety and security features that are put into place in new york city and elsewhere to protect cities, including video and and

electronic surveillance. so basically, i call it the surveillance state because that's essentially what it is. you have cameras everywhere. and he evaded it through, you know, basically using cash or fake ids, but also in the perpetration of the assassination itself. he really was good at sort of keeping his profile from being identified. his big mistake ultimately, of course, was there were so many cameras that eventually they were able to capture additional pictures. in particular, one in in the taxi cab. but now that now that he's been caught, a lot of those surveillance features helped come up with pictures that would ultimately at least be publicized so that the the person at the mcdonald's was able to identify him. no family member came forward, as we now know, and it was just the sort of see something, say something aspects of this. i'm not sure what needs to be updated. it does take a long time for the

police to put together all those different pieces, to come up with a picture that was then eventually identified, but it does show in many ways, because now that we know his background, that he used his smarts, his his his expertise in engineering and technology, his his sort of obsession with gizmos and apps and computers to help help him in this murder. this was not he evaded police for a long time. >> he sure did juliet, can you actually dig in a little bit on that piece where his family didn't come forward? is that typical in cases like this? i mean, would you have expected. i mean, obviously they were worried about him. his mother reportedly fired this, filed this. police report about him. i mean, what do you make of that? >> yeah. so, i mean, there was a definite break with with his past six months ago. family and friends. we saw were trying to

reach out to him. you saw on social media that friends were saying, you know, hey, where are you that that break may have come because of the surgery or some other issue that will probably be explained in his defense. and he is clearly a different person to them. there's no the family never came forward and i don't want to guess why not. but you know, it is worth raising that those pictures. let me put it a different way. if you were the parent of the person in those pictures, you would know that that was your son. there were enough pictures by the end of the week. any of us who's a parent are able to pick out our kid. they did not come forward. they were clearly desperate to find him with the the mother, you know, looking for missing, filing a missing persons report. there's no legal duty to rat out your son. there just isn't. unless they actually knew that he had committed the crime or could stop him from a future crime. there's no legal

obligation to to see something and then say something. it's a gap in the law. but. but as anyone could guess, it's probably quite complicated morally as well for that family. and we'll learn more about what the family was doing this week. it seems hard to believe that someone in the family did not know that that was him. >> all right, juliette kayyem for us, starting us off this morning. juliette, thanks very much for your time, i appreciate it. >> thank you so much. >> all right. coming up here on cnn this morning, syria in transition, the power vacuum after the fall of assad's brutal regime. congressman jake auchincloss is here to discuss u.s. interests in the region. plus, congresswoman nancy mace, quote, physically accosted on capitol hill. a suspect arrested. and donald trump's cabinet picks lobby for support. looking to win over key republican moderates. >> are you ready to support him? >> i had a good exchange, and we'll see what the process bears. >> welcome to times square.

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things you don't need. take control of your money. download rocket money today. >> i can't move again. >> you've gotten used to chaos. we can get rid of that. >> don't sell. oh my gosh! is this our house? when leaving just isn't an option. the brothers are here to help. >> thank you. you're welcome. you're welcome. >> don't hate your house. all new tonight at 9:00 on hgtv the one thing i can tell you coming out of that conference is republicans united around making sure that president trump's nominees are put in place and ready to roll up their sleeves and go to work. >> one week ago, several of donald trump's cabinet nominees appeared to be on shaky ground. but there is a sense of growing momentum for picks like pete hegseth. the president elect's choice to lead the pentagon. just after his announcement, he faced mounting allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and

financial mismanagement at veterans groups. but a pressure campaign to support hegseth from outside is breaking through for senators like joni ernst, who seems to be softening her initial stance. marc caputo writes this in the bulwark. shortly after ernst offered a chilly reception to pete hegseth nomination to head the department of defense. she recognized she was in trouble politically, with grassroots republicans calling for her head. quote, how do i make this go away? a flabbergasted ernst said to an intermediary, according to a top donald trump adviser who received the message. ernst buckling underscored the choice facing 53 republican senators in the weeks ahead. board the trump train or get tied to the tracks. now, another gop senator who's seen as a potential obstacle for his confirmation, lisa murkowski, met with the former fox news host. she's not a yes. publicly, but perhaps just as importantly, she's not a no. either. >> i had a good exchange with

mr. hegseth. >> are you ready to support him? >> i had a good exchange, and we'll see what the process bears while the senate works through trump's cabinet nominees, it will be up to house speaker mike johnson to push trump's agenda through what will be one of the narrowest majorities in congressional history. >> we have a menu of options. what we're deciding right now is the sequence of how we run those plays, and it's really important. the house and the senate have different calculations on how that's done, but we all have exactly the same priorities. president elect trump and i will be talking about this in depth this weekend before the army navy game. so we're going to we're going to come up with a play call that we have consensus on. and that will work for the american people. >> all right. our panel is here to discuss. annie linskey, white house reporter for the wall street journal jonah goldberg, cnn political commentator, co-founder of the dispatch. kendra barkoff, former press secretary to joe biden and matt gorman, former senior adviser to tim scott's presidential campaign. welcome to all of you. thank you so much for being here. jonah

goldberg, when you listen to some of those senators talk about pete hegseth, you've watched kind of his public campaign, it does seem to put an incredible amount of pressure on the hearing. but he's also clearly in much better shape than he was. >> yeah, i don't think i think a lot of these guys weren't as bad shape as it seemed at the time, and i don't think they're necessarily in as good shape as as they seem now, simply for the reason that you bring up, which is that this is always going to for all these guys, the hearing is the make or break thing. and if they have, i think if tulsi gabbard has a bad hearing, i think she loses. i think if robert f kennedy has a really bad hearing, he could lose. and i think if pete hegseth has a bad one, it depends what's brought up, how they react to things, whether they're circuses or not. so, you know, a lot of these senators are just basically saying, i don't want to tell you what i'm going to do one way or the other right now until i have better political cover to do one thing or the other. >> yeah. although it's still i mean, gates obviously didn't even get that far, right. >> yeah. and i think, look, i mean, you know, this is sort of a race against time for these guys. and one of the key things, particularly with hegseth, but with all of the

people that you mentioned, is does moore come out? you know, i mean, if you had some of these women making their allegations in person showing up, i think that could certainly halt his momentum. but the other piece of it, too, is i think you saw with joni ernst statement that there was a conversation between hegseth and the senator and joni ernst about an issue that she cares a lot about, which is women fighting in the military. this is something that hegseth had talked about on a podcast and said that he does not support. but afterwards, after their meeting, he softened on that. so you do see a little bit of, you know, trading going on in these meetings. it seems like ernst is getting something for her. softened. right. >> well, and i mean matt gorman, the other dynamic here is that when you're out there by yourself, when you're out there alone, then these forces that, you know, mark caputo reported on in the bulwark feel much more intense and have an impact. oh, absolutely. >> i mean, look, there's strength in numbers right now. ten days ago, right after

thanksgiving, kash patel was the one in the proverbial hot seat. then it was pete hegseth a couple days ago, it was tulsi gabbard. it's a shell game where who's getting the most attention at any one moment in 2016 and 2017, betsy devos, after andy puzder, who was the original labor secretary, dropped out. betsy devos got almost all of that kind of left wing attention. and lisa murkowski and susan collins ended up voting against her. now, look, i think to the point in the opening, there are different kind of tranches to this. i expect lisa murkowski and susan collins to vote against at least one of these nominees. that doesn't mean they don't get confirmed. but let's also face that susan collins is up next year. or excuse me, two years in maine. she needs to have a little separation. so it's when you start getting into the joni ernst and the other people where this bleeds past that three vote threshold, that it becomes a problem. we're not there yet on anyone as of right now. >> kendra, let me show you what senator lindsey graham had to say, because, again, there are different pieces in terms of the hegseth nomination

specifically, there was my sources have told me that the new yorker piece about his management of veterans groups, some republicans found, you know, got their backs up over it. but there is this sexual assault allegation that he paid a settlement for. and here's what lindsey graham had to say about that. watch the accusations about mismanaging money and about non-consensual behavior. >> if they come forward, i will listen to those accusations. but they have to be credible and they have to be presented in a fashion that pete can rebut. so he's much better off this week than he was last week. >> what do you make of that piece of this? the especially the non. he used the phrase non-consensual behavior. >> yeah i mean if i were a woman in that place, it would be really hard for me to publicly come forward. when you see this pressure campaign that's happening on the senators as a woman, especially one who works in this space, why would i at this point come

forward knowing what could face me, knowing what has already been out there? i mean, people have been trashing her left and right all over the internet. why would she come forward and do something in this space? it's a really, really tough spot for her to be in. and it's, you know, the american people deserve to know what happened. if this man is going to go and lead a 3.4, you know, troops who run an agency with 3.4 million people, they deserve to know. but it's going to be a really tough, a tough fight if she does come forward. >> all right. coming up after the break here on cnn this morning, caught on camera, a mysterious explosion. on a garbage truck suddenly blows up, sending debris across a chicago neighborhood. that's one of the five things you got to see this morning. plus, a lasting legacy. how president biden is trying to emphasize his achievements during his last weeks in office

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>> if you or a loved one have mesothelioma, we'll send you a free book to answer questions you may have. call now and we'll come to you. >> 808 two one 4000. >> all right. 25 minutes past the hour. five things you have to see this morning. a wildfire threatening malibu in southern california. the franklin fire has scorched more than 3000 acres after igniting late monday night. the fire, not contained at all. right now. and. you were looking at a fire at a garbage truck exploding just outside chicago. it was on fire moments before the blast. two police officers and a firefighter were injured a 64 year old hiker who had been missing for two days, now rescued by the u.s. coast guard, a ground rescue team heard shouting from a remote area of the oregon state park and found her a wild deer

causing chaos in pennsylvania. it smashed into the window of a local nonprofit, leaving behind thousands of dollars in damages. community members came together to raise money to help with repairs, and then this to talk to yourself, and picked up the mail and delivered it two miles down the road that's you. >> i hope you got that on camera. miles down the road. >> that was the postmaster general, louis dejoy, covering his ears during a congressional oversight hearing after georgia congressman rich mccormick accused him of overseeing the fall of the postal service. i don't know, my my toddler does things like that sometimes. i don't i don't know if that has ever happened to you, jonah, but i do things like that all the time. >> should we have our ears to deliver mail faster, too? >> but you know. >> oh, boy. all right. >> ahead here on cnn this morning, speaking out one of diddy's accusers speaks exclusively with cnn about his

experience at one of the music mogul's famous white parties. plus, the killer obsession, why the internet seems to be rallying behind luigi mangione, the suspected killer texting all my friends in new york that i hope they get called to jury duty. >> god, i want to do jury duty so bad. well, at least it's stirring up a passion for civic duty, i guess. what is going on? >> can't fool myself. >> it was the most exciting time in the world. >> his life has extremely joyful moments and some really difficult moments. >> you only come across an artist like luther vandross once in a lifetime. >> luther. never too much new year's day on cnn. >> liberty mutual customized my car insurance, so i saved hundreds. with the money i saved, i thought i'd get a wax figure of myself. >> cool, right look at the craftsmanship. >> i mean, they even got my nostrils right. it's just nice to know years after i'm gone, this guy will be standing the

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california coast. and this is cnn. >> all right. welcome back. the killing of unitedhealthcare ceo brian thompson, sparking a flurry of pent up anger against the health insurance industry. and there are some online that are now casting his alleged killer, luigi mangione, as a modern day robin hood. cnn's jason carroll reports on what's fueling this. reaction. >> this ivy league hottie named luigi is the robin hood that we never knew that we needed. >> i listened to luigi's manifesto this morning three times, and i cried. honestly, it's beautiful and i agree with him. >> at least he left a very powerful message, and he highlighted how terrible the health care system is in america. i think he'll go down as a hero in history. >> he had been a named suspect for less than 48 hours, and yet within a fraction of that time, many in the world of social media had already made up their minds about luigi mangione. >> i'm just eating it up

because this is like. regular, everyday person becoming our hero, our vigilante. >> these types of comments angering law enforcement and public officials. >> i don't care your views about health care companies because i don't think they're great right now either. >> but you do not celebrate the assassination of another human being who was just doing his job. >> but interest in mangione just continues to grow. on x before his arrest announcement, he had just 64 followers. now more than 320,000 and counting. his initial 827 followers on instagram grew exponentially monday as we watched. by 3:00, more than 32,000. an hour later, 53,000 by 5:00 monday, more than 71,000 followers before that account was suspended. many of the comments calling for his freedom and calling him a hero. >> hear me on this.

>> he is no hero. >> the real hero in this story is the person who called 911 at mcdonald's. >> that mcdonald's in altoona, pennsylvania, where a worker spotted the 26 year old eating and called 911 monday, targeted by mangione supporters. >> what am i going to do? i'm going to stop eating mcdonald's. >> it got so bad google had to remove reviews after that location was flooded with negative comments. someone hung a banner above i-83 with the words deny, defend, oppose, health care for all, a reference to bullet casings left at the crime scene. amazon pulled apparel and home goods featuring the phrase online mangione may be a folk hero to some, but offline and in person, no shortage of those condemning him. >> health care is a mess in this country, but to celebrate someone's death is sickening. >> the people in these higher positions like ceos, they need to look at themselves and their company and ask themselves, why

are people so ready to condemn us? why are they so willing to call someone who supposedly killed another human being a hero? >> while some suspect support for mangione is not all about rage against health care, but instead something far more subjective and superficial. >> it's the halo effect, like manifesting in real society. >> you really like? >> i truly believe so. >> like people treat people who are attractive, like way differently. people are like giving him leeway with this because they are fantasizing him a little bit. but i don't think violence should ever be the answer. no matter the circumstance. >> what this could end up being is a case that just captures the attention of the american public for a period of time. i mean, you look at what's happening on ebay where you can find merch related to the case being sold and the hashtag free luigi mangione has been steadily trending on x. jason carroll, cnn, new york. >> all right. our thanks to

jason for that. and as he noted there, mangione arrest has spawned spotify playlists, fan art, and tattoos that glorify the alleged murderer and his crime. tiktok's nickname for him, quote the adjuster, an apparent nod to the health care insurance adjusters who process claims mangione lawyers saying yesterday that his office has even received emails with offers to cover the suspect's legal bills obviously, my client appreciates the support that he has, but i don't know, i just it it i'd have to look in, but it just doesn't sit right with me. >> really. the supreme court says, you know, all these rich billionaires can give all kind of money to candidates, and that's free speech. so maybe these people are exercising their right to free speech and saying, that's the way they're supporting my client jonah goldberg, just a remarkable cultural moment here. >> um, a difficult one. obviously, i did think it was

interesting that when jason went and talked to normal people, even some of whom, you know, who were willing to say, like, our health care industry has got a lot of problems. they were not saying the things that people are willing to say online. >> yeah. so that's what struck me in the piece, too. and it proves yet again, you know, we say this, we talk about this a lot in politics. the very online world is very different than the real world. and um, and, you know, that said, i find all of this appalling. um, i agree, it's a big cultural moment and it says something interesting. you know, i wrote a book where a big part of my argument was that one of the reasons our politics are so screwed up is we're following politics like it's a form of entertainment. when you follow entertainment, you just root for the hero. you want them to win. you don't really care whether they break the rules and all that kind of stuff. and i think that's bleeding out into these other things. we've seen some of this before. d.b. cooper, some of you might remember, was the guy who hijacked a plane and got all his money and parachuted out. famously, they made a movie about him. um, he had copycats, and normally, i'm one to say

that mass shooters and those kinds of people don't have a lot of copycats necessarily. or at least it's overstated. sometimes when you start calling me a hero and a hottie and all this kind of stuff, it creates a much more perverse cultural incentive structure for somebody else to do this kind of thing. >> and there is something different going on here, too, where the algorithms on these social media platforms are rewarding people who are saying the most extreme things. and so those kinds of messages are being amplified, whereas, you know, the person on the street from that piece isn't necessarily being amplified. so i really think that plays into how this dynamic is unfolding. >> yeah. thousand i mean, when i talk to ceos and corporate leaders i talked to are very concerned about their security in a new way, where they were a lot of them were like brian thompson a week or two ago, just being a little bit more carefree about it, being willing to walk around without major security presence. that has changed a major way now. and joan is right. like if you looked at you or i, jonah, like, he's not getting the same attention that he would looking, you know, kind of. what are you trying to say?

yes, exactly. but, you know, you're right. you're absolutely right. >> but this is also a trend, i think, that you're seeing online across the board, where people are very angry with everything, they're angry with politics, they're angry with ceos, they're angry across the board, and they're taking it out on social media. and, and, and i think the fact that people are making him a hero, it is it's abhorrent. it is. they should not be connecting health care with murder. and and i think as a society, i mean, not to be the, you know, we just need to be doing better. we need to be we need to be, you know, lifting people up as opposed to, you know, trying to do what we do, what these people are doing on, on the internet. >> all right. coming up next here on cnn this morning, antony blinken will be in the hot seat today to answer questions about the withdrawal from afghanistan. congressman, former marine jake auchincloss is here to discuss what he wants to hear from the secretary of state, plus an attack on the hill. congresswoman nancy mace says she was physically accosted on capitol grounds. and president biden's warning about what

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reputationdefender.com or call 1877866 8555. >> cnn news central. next closed captioning is brought to you by uqora. >> help maintain a healthy urinary tract with uqora. >> i keep having utis for ten years. at uqora, we make uti relief products. we also make proactive urinary tract health products. uqora is a life saver. try it today at uqora. com elena kagan. >> we have no intention of interfering in syria's internal affairs. >> however, we do intend to do what is necessary for our society. as such, i have approved the air force bombing of strategic military capabilities left by the syrian military so that they will not fall into the hands of the jihadists israel striking syria 480 times over the past two days and moving its forces beyond the demilitarized buffer zone and into syria for the first time since 1973. >> the move, according to prime

minister benjamin netanyahu, meant to prevent extremists from seizing the country's strategic weapons stockpiles. as netanyahu looks to shape the new balance of power in the region, the white house, hoping to contain the chaos, confirming tuesday that they are in touch with syrian rebel groups. the situation in syria reinvigorating a broader debate about the role that the united states should play in the region and the world. >> i have as much experience in foreign policy. any president in the history of the united states has had. if we're not leading the world, who does? not a joke. i'm not being a wise guy. if we do not lead the world, what nation leads the world? who pulls europe together? who tries to pull the middle east together? how do within the indian ocean. what do we do in africa? we, the united states, lead the world. >> all right. joining us now to discuss democratic congressman jake auchincloss of massachusetts. congressman, thanks very much for being

here. good morning. let's start in syria, where the israelis have moved beyond this buffer zone and into syrian territory. there is, of course, concern about, in particular chemical weapons. are you comfortable with how far the israelis are going? and do you think the u.s. government should be supportive of that? yes. >> american israel on the same page here, we collectively, i think, have three interests. one is the syrians themselves. the second is our friends, and the third is our enemies. the syrians themselves have been under brutal rule for 50 years, and we want them to be able to self-determine and to throw off those shackles. and that really starts with a tolerant regime that's a multicultural society. and hts or whatever group ends up taking over. governance needs to be affording protections for women, for kurds, for other minority groups. number two, israel needs to be able to defend itself, their right to be taking out chemical weapons stockpiles or long range missiles. there's a lot of bad actors walking around syria right now. nobody needs their hands on those. and then finally, our enemies, most importantly, iran severing

syria as a transit corridor between iran and hezbollah is a major win for the united states and for israel. and we should be doubling down on that when your enemy's on their back foot, push them. >> let's talk also about afghanistan. we're of course, going to hear from the secretary of state, antony blinken, later on today in front of the house foreign affairs committee. the administration seems to have been reluctant to send him to capitol hill to discuss the you know, i mean, there were some americans who died right at the gate, and we haven't seen him answer for that. what do you expect to hear from the secretary of state today? and what responsibility do you think he bears for what we saw during that, that horrible day of withdrawal? >> 13 americans died at abbey gate, and secretary blinken absolutely should be testifying in front of congress. that is a responsibility that congress has is oversight and accountability. and i think he really has three jobs to do today. the first is defending the president's decision to leave afghanistan, which remains the right decision. i would challenge you to find

that american right now who's sitting there saying, boy, i wish we had 100,000 american troops fighting in afghanistan against the taliban with all the other things that are happening in the world. it was the right call to get out of there. number two, he should talk about mistakes that were made. just because it was the right decision doesn't mean it was executed perfectly. and then finally, he needs to draw a line that protects the generals and the officers who executed the strategy from political retribution under trump, because going after officers who swear an oath to the constitution, who were executing orders given by politicians, is unfair, and it demoralizes the military. >> on that point. we've obviously had a lot of conversations recently about pardons, the pardon power, preemptive pardons that's been in the political space. but considering your military background. on that point, you make about we have also seen reports about potentially holding some of these officers accountable. is there anything president biden could or should do preemptively to protect some of the people that you're talking about? >> regrettably, there isn't a lot he can do proactively, because when trump comes in as

commander in chief, he does have a tremendous amount of authority over the military command structure. that's one of his core responsibilities. and so that's why i think it's important that secretary blinken, as part of this testimony today, makes clear that for 20 years, u.s. military officers executed a fundamentally flawed political strategy in afghanistan. they did so honorably. they did so competently. and to go after them under a trump administration would be unfair, and it would undermine the nonpartisan nature of the military. >> congressman, this morning we woke up to news that someone has been arrested after congresswoman nancy mace, republican, came out and said she was assaulted, that she ended up with a brace on her wrist and that the capitol police had arrested someone. she obviously has been, you know, focused on trans related issues that have raised her profile in recent days. but i my question to you, the capitol office buildings are open to the public. how concerning is it, do you think that there has been an incident like this reported of someone assaulting

a member? >> it's concerning. and that person should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. i've been on the capitol when it was a fortress right after january 6th, and we had fences and we had very, very tight security. it really was not permeable to the public. i've obviously been here now when it's much more open. open is better. it's the front porch of democracy and americans should be able to walk through it. >> do you think that there are. do you think that this is a sign that america, as as a country, as a culture, is becoming more inured to violence as a means to political ends? i mean, we saw obviously we were just having a long conversation about what happened with unitedhealthcare ceo and what we've seen online in terms of sympathy for him. now, something like this, someone coming to capitol hill to assault a lawmaker. yeah. >> unfortunately, social media amplifies anger, right? that's what gets clicks. that's what draws people in, is the anger of it. and i think that sometimes can crystallize the worst elements of human nature. and then when you add that into the fact that the united states has the most lax gun laws of

any developed nation in the world, you get a real recipe for violence. i mean, we make assault weapons purchasable by anybody at a walmart with very few days of of background checks. so we need to one condemn unequivocally violence wherever we see it against nancy mace, against a health care ceo. and number two, we need to get our gun laws in order so that safe storage, background checks, red flag laws, keep people safe. >> all right. congressman josh levs, thanks very much for your time today. really appreciate it. thanks for being here. all right. 51 minutes past the hour. here is your morning roundup. a massive wildfire threatening malibu has now burned more than 3000 acres. the franklin fire ignited late monday. it's being fueled by high winds. the fire tripling in size in just a matter of hours everything. >> all these mountains were covered in flames. >> just covered like you took a crayon and just colored everything 18,000 malibu residents now under evacuation orders or warnings.

>> one of sean diddy combs accusers speaking out with cnn. he is a john doe who filed a civil complaint against combs in october, claiming he was drugged and sodomized at one of the rapper's infamous white parties. in this exclusive interview with cnn's elizabeth wagmeister the first drink started to have some effect on me, and i just thought, wow, these are really strong drinks. >> it wasn't until the second drink and it was already too late, that i realized that there was something wrong with the drinks. >> diddy's accuser says he kept the alleged assault secret since 2007, not even telling his wife at the time because of the shame that he felt. diddy has denied all the allegations. cincinnati bengals quarterback joe burrow's home, broken into while he was away facing off against the dallas cowboys earlier this week. the incident

comes just a month after the nfl, nba and nhl all warned teams about being targeted by thieves. in october, both patrick mahomes and travis kelce's homes were burglarized. now this with just a little over a month left in his presidency, joe biden is defending his economic record and has a warning about what comes next. during his 40 minute address, the president took aim at donald trump's stated plans to impose tariffs on some of america's largest trading partners, including mexico and canada he seems determined to impose steep universal tariffs on all imported goods brought to this country, on the mistaken belief that foreign countries will bear the cost of those tariffs, rather than the american consumer who he thinks pays for this. >> i believe this approach is a major mistake. >> biden also taking credit for signing the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package into law early in his administration, but also seems

to regret not signing something else related to the rollout of that plan you know, within the first two months of office, i signed the american rescue plan, the most significant economic recovery package in our history. >> and i also learned something from donald trump. he signed checks for people for 7400 bucks because we passed a plan and i didn't stupid. >> all right. our panel has returned. kendra was kind of a joke. >> i think it was a joke. >> but also, i mean, people have reacted to it because, well, maybe he was actually right. i mean, he was stupid not to. yeah. >> look, he's out there. he's talking about the 16 million jobs that he created. he's taking a victory lap. lowest unemployment rate. i think, you know, if you if you see the facial expression that is a joe biden classic, i am joking. maybe, you know, kind of self-deprecating kind of joke. i think that's exactly what he's doing when he's talking about some really great things

that he's done for our country. and also sending sort of a sign to congress about these tax cuts and what it could mean for middle class america. >> jonah does this not, though, kind of underscore what it is about donald trump that has sort of cut through for a lot of americans who are otherwise disengaged from politics that like when they all got an economic stimulus check, it had his signature on it because president biden i mean, he uses the language of washington. he's been in washington for decades and decades. it's a really different approach. >> yeah. no, look, i agree, and my own personal theory is that joe biden, who watches another show early in the mornings, famously, on monday, bill clinton gave an interview with joe scarborough where he said donald trump knew what he was doing by putting his name on those checks and then boom, joe biden picks up on it. so that's my theory about that. um, that said, um, yeah, i mean, look, i mean, look, i'm a noted critic of donald trump doesn't mean i'm a critic of everything that he does. but,

um, one thing that you can give him credit for or blame for or whatever is that he does not talk like he relies on focus groups, and he does not talk like he poll tests his phrases, or that he has been inured and shaped by the culture of washington. and there are a lot of people who pick up on that and and who like it. um, and joe biden is a creature of washington to his core. he's been here longer, i think, than i've been alive. and i think i'm the oldest person on this panel. uh i'm and, uh, so, yeah, no, i think your point is right. >> i mean, it reminds me a little bit. so when social security was first created, they were obviously uncertain about the future. they didn't think it would be lasting this long. right. and fdr really insisted that it be put in people's pay stubs because people thought, like, if they see it coming out of their money, people will demand it when it's their time. and it's that sort of kind of mindset. and in a, in a similar way that you see kind of with the trump checks now and, you know, sure, you see those infrastructure signs on the highway or at certain places to

have joe biden's name very prominently, but it doesn't cut the same way as getting a check in your in your mailbox. >> the signs are often right before there's like construction on the highway. >> there's there's a lot of traffic after a big highway jam. >> yeah, i think the biden people have been really frustrated. they feel like they were good stewards of this economy. they got a really you know, they came into office when covid was going on. you know, the country didn't go into a depression. and at least to me, a lot of that speech. and then jared bernstein was in the white house briefing afterwards, was about saying like, look, hey, these are the benchmarks we're handing over an economy that was in rough shape. we did a lot to get it into, to stabilize it. inflation is is closer now to the target that the fed wants. so i think that's what they were trying to lay out. but they've never the white house has always struggled to articulate its message. >> and again he also has a problem that he took all of trump's first term trade policies and kept them in place essentially. and so it makes it for requires more nuance to explain why trump is wrong on

trade. when you took all his policies. yeah. >> very interesting. all right. i'll leave you with this google just released their year in search, which shows the things people around the world googled the most in 2024. >> yep. it's google's nice little way of saying we're absolutely spying on you. meanwhile, tomorrow will be way more fun because they'll be releasing the top searches done with incognito mode. >> google is releasing their spy. i mean search results for the year. perhaps it's no surprise the top trending search for the year was the us presidential election. the paris olympics also starred heavily in searches this year. the top performance search yes, you guessed it, the australian breakdancer who went viral for her, shall we say. unorthodox routine. now how about the top recipe do you know the muffin man? >> the muffin man? the muffin man we got olympic chocolate muffins after a norwegian

summers. >> swimmers, tiktoks showcasing those treats at the olympic village took off. the village started selling out of the muffins after his viral reviews hailed the muffins as 11 out of ten. >> see how i do my makeup for work? very demure, very mindful if you're like me, i had no idea why everybody was suddenly saying demure this year. >> oh, guys, come on, you're not giving me enough credit. the people who i do actually know what this is. the term took off after this video from tiktoker jules lebron. according to google, the word became the top search for people trying to figure out the meaning of that internet trend this year. i mean, i guess i, i guess i did probably have to google it, i don't know, did you guys have to google it like, i don't think i would have picked it up. i'm not that cool. all right guys, thank you very much for being here. thanks to all of you for joining us. i'm kasie hunt, cnn news central starts right now