chimney, with a total lack of care. a massachusetts man attempted his best santa claus impression. or maybe it was just the closest thing he could jump into while running from police. jumping into onto a rooftop and then into a chimney. and that is where he got stuck. they say the 33 year old man quote, police do invoked the essence of the seasonal icon and attempted to hide inside of a chimney, quickly became stuck in the chimney, and required the assistance of the very detectives he was previously fleeing from. that, kids, is how you find yourself. well, he was already on the naughty list, but, uh, you know, also just don't jump into chimney. that's my only suggestion. new hour of cnn news central starts now breaking news in syria. >> this morning. an american discovered in damascus. why was he there? what he heard while

he says he was imprisoned. and what happened to him? we're following the latest details as they come in on that story and the forensic evidence that could be key against luigi mangione. what police say they now have linking the suspect to the murder of the unitedhealthcare ceo. and fear, frustration and questions are growing over the mysterious drone sightings in new jersey. a local mayor saying they are, quote, literally being invaded, while another just telling cnn the federal government owes them answers. i'm sara sidner with kate baldwin and john berman. this is cnn news central. >> so major news overnight. police have now said the gun found in the man charged with killing unitedhealthcare ceo brian thompson. they say that gun is the murder weapon. they say it's based off ballistic evidence they collected. luigi mangione is in pennsylvania fighting extradition to new

york, where manhattan's top prosecutor says new charges could soon come. let's get right to cnn's brynn gingras. for all the latest here. good morning, brit. >> hey, john. good morning. yeah. so this was something that police were, you know, waiting for the evidence that they could find to tie mangione. they say directly to the crime scene here in manhattan. and it appears, according to them that they did so the police commissioner saying that they now know the ballistics of the gun that was found on mangione in pennsylvania matches the shell casings that were found at the crime scene last week when a the ceo of unitedhealthcare, brian thompson, was killed. they also say the fingerprints match of mangione to the water bottle and the kind bar that was left behind, if you remember, from the the getaway route of their suspect, their suspected killer. and this is a big deal if you also remember about those fingerprints when we were reporting they had partial fingerprints, but they didn't. they ran them in through all the systems and they couldn't find a match.

well, now they say that is a match. they were able to sort of cross-reference that. so that was something they were certainly waiting for. of course, there's more evidence that investigators have been collecting as they continue to fight this, as the defense continues to fight the extradition of mangione back to new york. they have all the surveillance video, they have the fake id that mangione was carrying that police say he used to check into a hostel on the upper west side, and then more of his writings in a spiral notebook about, you know, referencing sort of the killing as far as his defense is concerned. he says he hasn't seen the evidence to make that connection. and he talked about that to erin burnett last night. take a listen saying you have something and getting that admitted into court are two different things. >> we need to see it. we need to see how do they collect it, how much of it matches, you know, like, i don't want to get too technical, but fingerprints, they go by ridges, different things like that. and then we would have our experts. we would have experts take a look at that.

and then we would challenge its admissibility and challenge the accuracy of those results. >> clearly you can see from there that he was continuing will continue to fight extradition for his client. i have to tell you, sources telling me, you know what, they're not in a rush. as they continue to build their case, the top prosecutor here in new york saying that it's possible more charges could be coming. in the meantime, investigators still trying to piece together john exactly where mangione was. the days, the weeks, the months prior to this alleged murder. they are now we are now reporting from sources that his mother even said he didn't know where her son was. she reported him missing to the san francisco pd on november 18th and at that time, john, she said she didn't believe he was a threat to himself or others. >> brynn gingras doing great reporting on this since the minutes after this first happened. thanks so much for being with us this morning and keeping us posted. >> kate. and joining us right now is chris swecker, former assistant director for the fbi's criminal investigative division. chris britton really

did a nice job kind of rolling through the latest of what we know, what investigators are at least revealing right now. when you hear mangione attorney say that he still needs to see the fingerprints and ballistic evidence that they have, that's one thing, right? but in terms of what evidence now, linking mangione to the crime scene and to the murder well, yeah, before i was an fbi agent, i was a prosecutor. >> i've been an attorney for 18 years since i retired. so i think i know a strong case when i see one. this is one of the strongest cases i've ever seen. it's nice to get a match to the gun with the shell casings to the gun. anytime metal strikes metal, which is the the the trigger lock or the trigger hits the gun casing, there's a very distinctive mark. so that's been matched up. you have fingerprints, you have eons of video of his

movements going to the crime scene. and from the crime scene. and you have his own confession in his own sort of manifesto. so this is a very, very strong case. the defense attorney, who i think is just a placeholder right now because he's in pennsylvania and he won't be practicing law in new york, defending him in new york is buying time. he's trying to get as much information as he can. he's trying to gather up all the, you know, see what the what the evidence is at this point. but he's, you know, he's only got about 30 days to do that. and he's buying time so that they can get a high powered firm in new york city. the family has money and they will get someone other than this attorney in pennsylvania. but it's a strong case. they're just trying to do what defense attorneys do at this point. at this stage in the proceedings. yeah. >> let's talk about motivation or the search for i mean, you have a spiral notebook that says a lot. you have the loose leaf papers that also say a lot that were found on mangione when he was picked up. what types of things are

investigators looking into still, to get the clearest picture possible of this? >> yeah. well, first, this is going to be premeditated murder. so motivation is not an element of the offense. but it's good to have and it's relevant and it's and it i think it's relevant to to what drives him in terms of his ideology. because it could be that this was an act of domestic terrorism. they're trying to affect social change through violence. so they'll be searching through all his social media, all his writings, all his, you know, they will interview everyone that he's ever known since his childhood to get a good picture, particularly in the last year or so. what, you know, what kind of drove him to this? just as more of a case study than as an element of the offense itself. so yeah, all there, the fbi in particular, because they're interstate, you know, they can they've got agents everywhere are digging up all

this information and it'll it'll become very clear what his motivation was. but i think i think we have a general sense of it right now. he was a he was a true believer. he, he sort of self-radicalized himself during a period in his life where he had been laid off from his job. he was in great pain and he just latched on to this ideology, like the olympic bomber, eric rudolph, like the unabomber. and he felt like this was an act of nobility to go out and kill somebody. >> you've seen people online, you know, calling him you kind of like fawning over him and lionizing him, calling, you know, calling him a vigilante. but i am hearing i'm interested when you talk about that. we could be looking at domestic terrorism here because i've started to hear more law enforcement analysts starting to point to that. talk to me about why this is important, to start honing in on. >> yeah. but in this case, we still don't know whether there were coconspirators, you know, who made the gun for him or did

he make it himself? who was he talking to on the phone? but, you know, if it's an act of terrorism, it's something against society as a whole. not just that particular ceo. it makes it more dangerous, more sinister. it invites followers, if you will, which we've seen and you just pointed out, and you don't want to see something like this become viral and have a copycat type killing or a copycat copycat type of operation, because, you know, for the for obvious reasons, i mean, this kind of thing, we've seen sort of an underground movement developing, and that in itself is sinister yeah. >> chris swecker, it's always good to see you. thanks for coming in. sara. >> all right. coming up, growing frustration in new jersey as officials struggle to uncover who is behind the mysterious drones that have been circling the skies for weeks now. >> they don't know where the drones are coming from. they don't know who's doing it. they don't know why they're doing it. but they say there's no credible threat. it was

annoying to be there. >> and more than 4000 acres now scorched by the fast moving, raging wildfire in malibu, 20,000 plus people have been evacuated. homes and properties burned and schools closed. we will speak to the mayor of malibu on the latest. his community is facing this morning. and breaking overnight new video into cnn. an american who's been missing for the last six months found alive in syria. what he says he was doing there when he was jailed. and right now, president elect donald trump at the new york stock exchange, where he's going to be ringing the opening bell this hour. but he's got a lot to say about being named time's person of the year. those stories ahead can't fool myself. >> it was the most exciting time in the world. >> his life has truly 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

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season. >> find the perfect gift at cnn. underscored from the latest fashion to expert approved tech to the best beauty finds. discover it all at underscore. com. >> breaking news out of syria. a man believed to be missing u.s. citizen from missouri has been found just south of damascus. travis timmerman told reporters he had just been freed from jail in syria. the search for austin tice, the journalist who disappeared in syria 12 years ago and whose family has been begging for help to find him, does continue now at this hour. secretary of state antony blinken is in the middle east and jordan on an urgent trip amid the fall of syria's assad's regime. and a lot of questions about what may lie ahead. democratic congressman gregory meeks of new york, joining me now. he is the ranking member on the house foreign affairs committee. thank you so much for joining us this morning. congressman

meeks we just talked about the fact that secretary of state antony blinken is in jordan, and he's there really to promote a syrian led transition. i want to ask you about the rebel group hayat tahrir al-sham, which led the assault that toppled al assad. they were formed as an offshoot of al qaeda, initially, the founder then claimed that they broke with al qaeda in 2016. i'm curious how concerned you might be about what the new leadership might mean to the region and to the relations with the united states. >> i'm concerned, i think, that we have to look into it. i know that the administration secretary blinken, had a chance to speak to him briefly yesterday before he left. >> and i know that the administration is looking and been in communication with a number of the rebel groups on the ground there. >> it is important to us to try to figure it out. it is still a question mark of who they are.

we know who they were. they're still on our terrorist list. so we've got to figure out who they are and whether or not it is a good thing for them being in charge. we do know it's a good thing for assad to be gone. and i think that that's what we can all agree upon. and hoping and looking for a better day. but, you know, we've got to take. and i think we're trying to find if there are any chemical weapons or other kind of weapons there, because we do not want them to fall in the hands of anyone at this stage of the game. so there's a lot to be done. you know, there's some upsides and there's some questions. and those questions, i guess, will be answered in the next few days. >> i do want to ask you about some new reporting that we've been seeing where, you know, they are trying to dismantle the the regime's military that was there. and we saw this happen in iraq. and then what led to sort of isis and all this just absolute confusion and chaos in that country. what

do you see potentially happening here when you have a military being dismantled? obviously, they are armed. and how do you see that playing out? >> so the question that, you know, and i think what took placq. and you don't want to was a lot of civil servants, the police and all of those that manage the streets to keep things calm. all of those individuals were disintegrated. now the question is, what is going to happen here? and i think it's going to be the united states will be a part of that. but, you know, there's other countries, our allies, turkey is going to be interested in what's taking place in that region. israel is going to be interested. saudi arabia, the uae, the gulf countries, everybody is interested and hoping and trying to make sure that we have a different type of regime that's there, as well as making sure that there's a transition that is peaceful and that can keep the peace and have some structure and create some institutions that will be

safe for the individuals, for the syrians, because the syrians have been crying to be free from the assad regime for years, for decades already. and so for the syrian people to be able to put them in a place where they can be able to stabilize and govern themselves is important. and i think that the contributions of all of the countries in the area, our allies in particular, is very important. >> i do want to ask you about blinken, who was on the hill before taking this trip, being grilled by republicans for the chaotic withdrawal from afghanistan, where he said to the extent that president joe biden faced a choice, it was between ending the war or escalating. but he also addressed the 13 families whose soldiers were killed during that withdrawal. and i want people to hear that. take a listen. >> and i think today, especially of the 13 heroes that we lost at abbey gate, and i deeply regret that we did not do more and could not do more to protect them

the question a lot of the families have is, couldn't the united states have done more to protect those soldiers and make it a less chaotic withdrawal? >> look, as was said yesterday by the secretary, i know i asked a series of questions. look, it was chaotic because of the afghan president ghani dissembling themselves when they had said they would not. i had met with ghani myself a week before he decided to up and leave, and there was no one left there. and yes, the the visions that we saw of people on the planes, et cetera. it was horrible. but the state department did a great job in getting 124,000 people out after that. you know, after he left. and so that's not talked about enough. and yes, we mourn

and pray for the families that lost their loved ones, as we do for all 2400 over the 20 year period. and the key to yesterday, because no one says the evacuation was perfect. we wish that we could have done more. and the key to figure out how do we how do we prevent this from ever happening again is to look at the 20 year, make a 20 year assessment from four presidential, presidential administrations to see what went wrong, what led up to this? because it's just not the tail end is the result of what took place. it is all that led up to it, including the tail end. and so i think that if we're going to do right for the families, we need to do a complete and thorough investigation as to what led up to it, why this took place and why that didn't take place. and, and make sure we're dealing with the facts, because at one time, the republicans were saying that a sniper had the the the bomber in sights

and they told the families that and the families felt that something should have been done to give the order to shoot the sniper, to shoot the bomber. but it wasn't true. you know, and the republicans never talked about that, that it was two different people that so they kept perpetuating a situation that gave the families, you know, made them feel that something else could have been done to save their loved ones, when in fact, that was not a fact, as it had been told to them by my republican colleagues. >> all right. representative gregory meeks, thank you so much for joining us this morning, bright and early. we appreciate it. john. >> all right. just moments from now, we're looking at live pictures right there. president elect trump will ring the opening bell at the new york stock exchange. and this morning, a new cnn kfile report reveals that trump nominee pete hegseth says that allowing gay troops to serve openly is a gateway to marxism.

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times. i don't know who has the record, but i can only probably talk. well, about 25% of the covers. 25% are great. the others i just sort of hide. but it's been an honor. and every time it's an honor, i will tell you. and thank you very much for doing it. >> thank you very much for doing this. robert kennedy in the background there with us now in studio. the pride of florida. steve contorno up here. so as i said, i mean, trump must love this. i mean, trump put up signs himself being man of the year before he even was time magazine's person of the year. now he's been awarded it for the second time and did an interesting interview. >> he did a very interesting interview. and you mentioned rfk jr.. standing behind him and one of the more controversial elements of this interview was what he had to say about vaccines and the fact that rfk jr.. is now leading his health department. and he was asked specifically if rfk jr. moves to end childhood vaccination programs. would you sign off on that? and trump said, we're going to have a big discussion. the autism rate

is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. if you look at things that are happening, there's something causing it. and then the interviewer went on to ask, so that could include getting rid of some vaccines. and trump said it could if i think it's dangerous, if i think it's not beneficial, but i don't think it's going to be very controversial in the end. obviously, this would be incredibly controversial if he did take those steps. there are seven nobel laureates who have asked donald trump and the senate not to confirm rfk jr. because of what he has had to say about vaccines in the past. >> you're looking at live pictures now from the new york stock exchange. you can see i'm trying i'm looking over here because it's the only screen i can see, guys. but the donald trump is there up there getting ready to ring the opening bell. you can see the first lady is with with him. is that ivanka standing there as well? which is a little unusual. jd vance there. he's got a lot of people very close to him. i say tiffany trump there as well. this is obviously something very important to the president

elect. i can count on one hand the number of times that melania has been with him the last several months, being named time person of the year, obviously, something that he considers a very, very special honor. and probably being at the new york stock exchange as well as a one time resident, a longtime resident of new york city, he is no longer the stock exchange, i'm sure, holds a very, very special place in his heart. any word? stephen, we have about 30s before they will ring the bell itself, how he feels about being here today. >> look, this is something that has preoccupied his mind for a long time. you mentioned the covers that he held or posted in his club before he was even time man of the year. he has repeatedly posted on social media commentating on the winners, saying that because it wasn't him, it wasn't valid. so this is clearly a big moment for him. he also has not been to new york much in recent months, really only for his legal troubles. so this is quite a moment for him as well. and there it goes. >> the ringing of the opening

bell. i think it all happens by just pressing a button. now or. but it has happened. it is happening. and again, i think if one thing is clear here is how important this is to him. jd vance, ivanka, melania, tiffany, all there to share in this moment. all right. steve contorno, thank you so much for being here. turn it over to kate. >> we can keep an eye on that at the very same time, let's talk much more about this time magazine cover that we were just talking about. time magazine correspondent eric eric, he is joining us now. he wrote this cover piece. he sat down with the president elect for this lengthy interview and in going through it during the show, quickly in commercial breaks, i have to say, eric, very interesting and some important parts to get to. but first and foremost, i think i saw that it was like a 65 minute sit down. your what was your overall impression from your interview with the president elect? >> well, you know, he's less defensive than he was in recent

years. i met with him last in april. and, you know, you could sort of sense that the volume was turned down. he has felt that sense of vindication. and there was almost a kind of wistfulness on the part of trump that his last campaign was over. he actually said, it's sad in a way. this will never happen again. so he was much more calmed down than i think i and others expected of him. >> let's talk about some of the highlights and important pieces to discuss from your sit down. on vaccines, you all asked him about rfk jr.. who he's picked to head up the department of health and human services. rfk joining him this morning at the stock exchange, just to show how important he is to him. rfk is a known cynic of vaccines. and the question that you all posed to him was this if he rfk moves to end childhood vaccination programs, would you sign off on that? and donald trump's response is, we're going to have a big discussion. the autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. if you look at, if you look at things that

are happening, there's something causing it. you all did not even ask about autism as it was linked. as i see in this, in this transcript and the false link to vaccines. and that's exactly where he directly went. >> no, i mean, trump brought it up himself. i mean, he suggested there was a connection between autism and vaccine. i followed up and said, you know, president trump, do you think there's a connection? and he says, i want to see the numbers. he's going to look into it. but i think that is one of the major takeaways from this interview is that donald trump is preparing to listen to robert kennedy jr.. who he has nominated to head the department of health and human services to potentially remove childhood vaccination programs, routine vaccinations that have been in place for generations. and of course, this would be very controversial. it's also noteworthy that one of donald trump's historic achievements from the first term was operation warp speed, and there is a bit of a discrepancy between what he thinks on that issue and what robert kennedy jr. thinks on that issue, which is that they should not have released those vaccines until

further testing. so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out once he takes office and time doing a great job linking directly in that portion of the interview to an entire pullout article. >> just reminding everyone. once again, there is no link between vaccines and autism. it has been disproven since that fake study came out in the 90s, but it has fueled the anti-vax movement, which is why it's dangerous when people continue to perpetuate what is completely not based in reality or science. let's talk about january 6th pardons. you guys asked him. you said you said j six pardons. do you have do you have in mind? what do you have in mind for the first 2440 eight hours? what do you have in mind? what the first 24 to 48 hours will look like? his response was, i'm going to be looking at j six early on, maybe the first nine minutes. and then eric, he jumps to talking about he's also going to look at oil prices and bringing those down. did you did he seem serious about going

directly to looking into pardoning j. january people convicted in connection to january 6th as part of when you were listening and speaking with him? >> yeah, he's planning to do that very early on. on his first day in office, he said it could be in the first hour. he even said maybe even in the first nine minutes. i think, you know, the nation should be prepared for many, many pardons of defendants who have been either prosecuted, who have pled guilty, who are going through the process. there's more than a thousand cases that have gone through our court system. you know, i specifically asked president trump whether that would include those who committed violent acts, and he did not rule it out. he said he would take a case by case approach to evaluating which people he would pardon or not. but i think he is most certainly prepared to pardon many january 6th defendants within his first hours in office. >> and what was your impression then on ukraine? because he said he disagrees vehemently with ukraine launching missiles into russia, deep into russia, did you get the impression that

he is preparing to change the biden administration policy, allowing ukraine to use u.s. weapons in order to conduct those strikes? >> well, that was certainly the impression he made at that portion of the interview, which is that he doesn't want to see actions like that taken, which he thinks risks escalation. but the most striking part of that segment of the interview, to me, was when, you know, sort of pressed trump on how he was going to approach this issue, whether he was going to continue military, humanitarian and intelligence assistance to ukraine. and i specifically said mr. president, would you abandon ukraine? and his answer really struck me. he says, well, part of getting to a deal means you don't abandon. so i think that president trump signaled in that moment that in his efforts to sort of reach an agreement between russia and ukraine to end the war, which is really what he wants. i think he wants the, the, the ability to tout that as an accomplishment. that means he would not pull the plug on ukraine as many of his supporters, many members of his base, would like him to. obviously, his choice for vice president is a vociferous

critic of continued u.s. aid to ukraine. we'll have to see how things play out. trump is an unpredictable person, but in that instance, he signaled he's not getting ready to just remove u.s. assistance to ukraine because he thinks that's leverage he can use against russia to strike an accord. >> really interesting. and a lengthy interview. really worth taking a look through. eric, thanks for jumping on to talk about it this morning. really appreciate it. great reporting, sarah. >> all right. ahead, southern california residents still facing the threat of new evacuations as firefighters work to contain the explosive, fast moving franklin fire. the mayor of malibu joins us next that moment you walk in the office and people are wearing the same gear, you feel a sense of connectedness and belonging right away, and our shirts from customink help bring us together. >> we make it easy to wow all your groups with high quality custom apparel and promo products, all backed by our guarantee at customink dot, you

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blitzer. >> tonight at six. on cnn the weather may be improving a bit in malibu, california, but firefighters still say it will take time to contain the explosive franklin fire. >> the fire spread at a devastating pace, devouring more than 4000 acres. we are joined now by the mayor of malibu, doug stewart. thank you so much, sir. i know you have lots to do in your community and lots of people relying on you. you know, at first, mayor, this fire at one point was burning so fast and so furiously it was consuming an area larger than five football fields. every single minute. can you give us a sense of just how extensive the damage is, and what conditions are at the moment? now, there. yossi sariel. >> well, first off, thank you for having me. this was a very traumatic event, as you can imagine. but wildfires are not anything new to southern california, and especially to

malibu. it you're correct. the wind was howling. we probably had somewhere between 30 to 50 knot winds going through the canyons and where that fire started is like a chimney. and it was as though a fan was blowing that fire straight down the canyon, straight to the heart of the city. uh, as far as doing that many football fields in a minute, you're absolutely correct. that fire. when i got the first notice, i was actually on the phone with the assistant city manager. we were talking about how to deal with power shutoffs that the edison company had done. and within a matter of moments, it went from ten acres to 30 to 100. and it was it was ripping. so it was a it was a fire to fight. and thankfully, our first responders were ready for the attack. and they did all they could. when you ask about what the conditions are, we had major fire burn, but we didn't have major fire damage. uh, we

we lost a few homes, but when i was looking at the aerial shots from the tv news stations as the fire was burning, i thought we were going to lose major, major areas of very, uh, critical infrastructure and homes right in the heart of our city. so we were lucky and very thankful that we're where we are today. >> i've been in malibu and actually during fires when i lived in southern california and sort of seen just the difficult terrain because of the canyons and the and the ridges there to try and get to those fires to, to save property and save lives. the fire did catch a lot of people off guard with just how fast and furious it was. many telling us that they literally left with the clothes on their backs, but so far we've not seen any reports of fatalities or injuries reported. why do you think that is? what was the key to saving lives in this this really fast moving fire

well, uh, i think the the best thing i can tell you is we had a woolsey fire in 2018. >> this was called the woolsey fire. major fire burned for several days. and in our town, we have about 8000 homes. and we lost almost 500 of those in that fire. the after action reports from that were taken very seriously. there were three of them. i read every page. so did everybody else that was in charge. and we took that to heart and said, this is what we need to do to fix this. we should not be in this kind of a position again. so in the five years, six years since then, we've made major changes, especially the fire department has and the sheriff's department, as well as our city to be ready. and i can tell you, one of the big changes that happened in that is instead of escalating fire response based upon as the fire develops, everything is turned over now, it's now everybody roles. we'll back them off if we don't need them. and they were pre-positioned on monday

night because of the red flag warnings that the weather service had given us, and they were able to respond quickly and in force. i would characterize it as a three alarm alarm. three alarm fire response in a matter of minutes. it didn't take long to get everybody there. still more people were rolling in, but we didn't have to wait 30 minutes or so to get a fire truck to arrive on scene. they were already here. >> wow. i do want to ask you about one issue that has really, you know, captured people's worry because these fires are coming more frequently and they are much larger often, and causing a lot more damage. the issue of insurance, and i know from that woolsey fire that we've spoken to people who are having issues trying to get insurance after that, because the insurance companies are either pulling out or they're making their their costs much higher. what is your concern that you're hearing from residents when it comes to that? as climate change and the fires just continue to burn in a really big way, there?

>> well, i think you're absolutely correct about the insurance issue as far as climate change being directed to it. that's probably a factor. there's no question about it. but i think we've also got an insurance system here, at least in southern california and california, that is not up to match the kind of risk that has been assigned to them or their undertaking. uh, in malibu, myself included. we all have had trouble getting insurance or there's no insurance available. or if you get insurance, it's so priced up you can't afford it. and i have to tell you, my biggest concern in this fire and this fire season is that people that are underinsured and, you know, malibu is viewed as being a millionaire city. but there's a lot of people that i assure you that don't have $1 million, uh, that live here. we're just a typical suburban area, although in a beautiful area. but we don't have insurance necessarily. and some of these people are going to sit there and see that fire coming and

say, send the wife and children away. i'm going to stay and fight the fire and at great risk. and we can't let that happen. insurance is hard to come by. it's very expensive. i think this is a state issue that's going to have to be addressed in a better manner. and right now we're probably as a city and as a state underinsured. underprotected. >> mayor doug stewart, i'm so glad that you're okay that the residents there and there has been no loss of life. thank you very much for coming on and sharing the story with us this morning about what is happening in malibu due to the franklin fire. appreciate you. >> kate. this morning, confusion and frustration still over dozens of mysterious drone sightings in new jersey. it's been going on for weeks, and some state officials now have gone from asking questions to now demanding answers. >> now i'm legitimately concerned for what the hell is going on because that nobody knows we are literally being invaded by drones and we have no idea who's doing it and where they're coming from.

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backwards. >> mark taylor is the mayor of florham park, new jersey. >> they look like a small car to me there. >> their wingspans are probably six feet across. >> what they appear to be are drones, clusters of unidentified drones flying much lower than a plane would. >> i think the creepy part is not that it's just a drone that they're so large. >> in new jersey's ocean county, sheriff's deputies took their own video of the drones. >> we saw something flying a little low, so we took some video of it, you know, and not really sure what it was definitely something flying low and fast, lower, faster and larger than a recreational drone, says the deputy. >> it was coming in our direction. it spun around 180 degrees, went back out the other way. then it kind of looped around and then took off past us. >> planes, they have, you know, a white tail light coming from them. >> and each each wing has a different color, whether it be red or green, whatever it is, it's it's different. >> understandably, there is concern the drones are occasionally flying near military facilities. but the

pentagon knocked down this social media post. new jersey republican congressman jeff van drew, who claimed an x, that the drones are, quote, possibly linked to a missing iranian mothership. >> there is not any truth to that. >> there is no iranian ship off the coast of the united states, and there's no so-called mothership launching drones towards the united states. >> but it's all still a mystery. homeland security and fbi officials in new jersey have just met with state and local lawmakers. they and the state's governor have stressed the drones do not appear to threaten public safety. nevertheless, people are calling myself my home. >> you know, it's just it's one of those things where they are alarmed. it's definitely something and we're just going to be looking into it a little bit more to see if we can figure it out. >> gary tuchman, cnn, new york. >> all right. you all know this. it is the holiday season, which means it's the season to eat a lot. but a vegan diet for many of us doesn't sound so appetizing. there is, however, an entrepreneur and

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