learned is statistically, 9% of all rapes in this country involve men that are reported. i think it's no different for men than women to come forward. i think any time somebody is a victim of sex abuse, it's difficult. it doesn't matter the gender. >> did he have difficulty speaking about. well, the sexual abuse they did. >> and thankfully i've done it a long enough time and i know how to speak to people. and i try to show the empathy and listen to the story and try to make them feel safe, because it's really they've lost all the power. that's the whole thing about sexual abuse. they take power away from these people and to get them to kind of communicate can be challenging at times because it's difficult. >> yeah. thomas gifford, thank you so much. >> thank you so much for having me. all right. appreciate it. >> a new hour of cnn news central starts right now a turbulent home life. >> there is new reporting about

the 15 year old school shooter. what investigators are now looking into as they continue to search for a motive. why a young girl would murder a teacher and a fellow student, and who could have stopped her? luigi mangione has now been hit with a new indictment and charges out of new york prosecutors, saying the murder of the unitedhealthcare ceo was also an act of terrorism and this term, brain rot is the term given for the minutes and hours that seem to just evaporate. once you start mindlessly scrolling through your phone. this morning, doctor sanjay gupta is here to answer your questions about it all. i'm kate baldwin with sara sidner and john berman. this is cnn news central this morning, police revealing very few details on what they might be learning about the wisconsin school shooter. >> but we are learning the teen

had an apparent turbulent home life. new reporting in the washington post that court documents now reveal the teen's parents were divorced and remarried multiple times, and that a custody agreement sometimes, quote, forced her to move between their homes every 2 to 3 days. also, an alarming photo of the shooter posted in august by her father has now surfaced. it shows her at a shooting range, but she's wearing a t-shirt of a band whose lyrics were cited by the columbine killers in 1999. those two killers also wore the shirts with the band's name on them as well. and moments ago, john spoke with lawmakers about what his grand niece and nephew saw and heard during the school shooting my nephew could hear bodies hitting the floor. >> my great niece across the hall could hear gunshots. and as i understand it, there were nine people in the room and the shooter shot eight of them. and

the final shot was to her own head. so it's a terribly sad situation those students will never get over that. >> it's horrible. whitney wild is live for us in madison. what are you learning this morning? >> well, again, according to the washington post, there was this very chaotic childhood. and as part of one of the custody agreements, natalie rupnow that 15 year old who police have identified as the shooter here was required to go to therapy. and again, sarah, according to the washington post, that was in an effort to try to give the court better understanding of which parent she would live with. but what we know is that the custody agreement had her shuttling, as you said, between her parents houses every 2 to 3 days. cnn has also spoken with one of the students, whose locker was right next to natalie rupnow. police had said she'd gone by samantha. this child we spoke with said that she knew her as sam and that she didn't really have a friend group, that she

was new at the school and this child that cnn spoke with didn't even know that her real name was natalee sarah. and so what is coming into clear focus here is that this child had a chaotic, at best, home life and was at a new school and had not yet really blossomed socially. and, you know, typically when we see cases like this, some of these patterns are replicated across other school shootings and what law enforcement has said over and over without giving any specifics, just more generally, though, and other officials here in wisconsin have made very clear, is that there are points along the timeline in which you can intervene before a mass shooting. that is certainly the case in other cases. and the question here is where along this timeline, could an intervention have occurred? law enforcement at this point is still not revealing who owned the gun, how she got the gun. there are many more questions to answer here, sarah. and of course, chief among them is the

motive. law enforcement has said that that was a mix of factors. and then finally, sarah, there's a big question about whether or not this child targeted specific people in that classroom. police have said as far as they're concerned, everybody was a target. everybody was an equal danger that day. here's what one parent told cnn about his son and his own experience that day he was really sad to see many, many kids crying, not knowing what's going to happen and shaking so i stopped. >> i started helping them the way through the chapel and as i see more police coming in and helping, i decided to go inside and help the staff of the of the school be organized with the kids and and comfort them. i found i found angel right there. i looked for him and when i saw him, he was like a

real peace moment sarah, we know that a full time teacher was killed and a teenage student was killed, but law enforcement has not released their names. >> sarah whitney wild, thank you so much for your reporting on all this. john. >> all right. with us now, retired fbi supervisory special agent steve moore and former fbi senior profiler and special agent mary ellen o'toole. mary ellen, you know, based on some of the details that are starting to emerge, the washington post talks about multiple divorces by the parent, a custody agreement that had her moving around every couple of days. some of the statements from schoolmates and whatnot. what kind of a profile can you piece together? >> well, there's really never one. one factor in a child's life, a student's life that that is the primary cause for what we saw the other day. but i'd be looking at both external and internal factors that contributed to her state

of mind. so clearly, having a very contentious home life would have contributed to it. and that's what we know so far. so the details of that home life are going to become really important. was she the victim of some kind of physical abuse? what was what were the factors that were going into that? but also what becomes important is are other things that would have contributed to her state of mind. and that could have been how she felt about being in a new school, her own self-image. it's very likely that she was going through depression. so it's really an accumulation of factors that contributed to what we saw the other day. and that's why i think the chief said, it's not just one thing. it's multiple, multiple issues. and we see that in in almost all of the school shootings. >> so, steve, from the beginning, the police have been very careful to describe or go into any detail about their conversations with the parents. one theory is because they didn't want to blow them up. i

mean, they were getting stuff from the parents, so they wanted to keep those discussions going. but now that it's several days in and based on this new information, anything you can sense about what direction they're headed in with the parents you know, it would be speculation right now, but i think, john, you're absolutely right that when you have parents cooperating and speaking with you and allowing searches, things like that, you don't want to immediately go to the press and say, oh, by the way, these people who have been helping me, they're under investigation for yada, yada, yada. >> so, yeah, you're going to be very careful with that. but if you look in the underlying statements they've made, nobody's nobody's acting like it's a mystery where the gun came from. and we have evidence that circumstantial evidence that the that the samantha was, was involved in shooting sports. so it would surprise me

if she got the gun from anywhere but the home. >> yeah. again, one of the questions that hasn't been answered by police. but as you say, they also haven't said it's a mystery. we don't know where they got the gun. they've just said they keep on analyzing that. you talked about the photo at the gun range that was posted on the father's social media account. that in and of itself not unusual for parents with children. what strikes a lot of people is the t shirt that the girl is wearing, which has the name of a band. a band whose lyrics were cited by the columbine killers in 1999, and mary ellen o'toole. i was on tv with john miller and andrew mccabe when that news broke last night, and the reaction they had almost exactly the same reactions. there's always a tie with columbine, the role that columbine plays among so many would be or, you know, actual school shooters is just enormous. what is that fixation now? i don't know for sure. there's a fixation here. we don't. but it is a coincidence she's wearing a heck of a coincidence. she's wearing that t shirt.

>> um, columbine always comes up and i, i did work on the columbine case. we had not seen anything like that in 1999, when columbine occurred. all the other previous shootings. and my research only found 18 up until the time of columbine, none of which were like columbine. that was a watershed crime, because you had these two young men who walked through their school and seemed to really enjoy the predatory behavior and and had fun shooting and killing other people. and one of the basement tapes for eric harris, he talked about wanting to be iconic, and he talked about wanting to live forever in infamy. and he talked about hatred. and that was absolutely chilling to me because i had not seen an 18 year old have that kind of hatred. but he was prophetic. he did say he would live forever, and he has, and i

think in part because it was such a sensationalized crime. again, we had never seen anything like that prior to columbine. you had to go back to 1966 to the whitman shooting in texas. >> and steve, when you have that piece of information, what will investigators do with that well, they're going to, uh, they're going to have to go through all the writings, all of the social media, anybody she communicated with, and find out if there's a pattern. >> uh, and really, i've worked with mary ellen on cases in the bureau and what we would do is collect this type of information for them. and, you know, ask them, what does this mean? you know, uh, certainly fbi agents, we are in the field working on the crime itself. but when it comes down to what do these factors mean? um, we defer to uh, ncavc or the profiling group, but, yeah, you are trying to get as much

information about what was going on in their life to be valuable to the profilers, and we will wait to hear more from police and maybe as soon as today. >> steve moore, mary ellen o'toole, thank you so much for being with us this morning. appreciate it. kate. >> indicted and the new rare first degree murder charge just slapped on the man suspected of murdering the ceo of unitedhealthcare this was a killing that was intended to evoke terror. also, a new report about elon musk and spacex facing a federal review. why protecting state secrets is now in the spotlight. >> andy, take a seat. anderson, look at this. you're wet. disheveled. there's debris hitting you. we need to be ready for new year's eve maybe you are ready. >> new year's eve live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn. hello, hunter. >> oh, no. good boy oh

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gift at cnn, underscored. from the latest fashion to expert approved tech to the best beauty finds. discover it all at underscore. com prosecutors in new york now say the murder of brian thompson, the unitedhealthcare ceo, was an act of terrorism in an 11 count indictment just handed up by a grand jury. >> prosecutors now charged luigi mangione with first degree murder with an intent to commit terrorism, a rare charge in new york. now, tomorrow, mangione is set to return to a courtroom in pennsylvania to face a judge there once again. and that is where cnn's danny freeman is outside that court in pennsylvania for us. danny, talk me through these charges first and foremost. and also importantly, what's going to happen behind where you are today sure thing. >> kate. well, first of all, do these charges, these new charges in that indictment really escalated the case against luigi mangione? of course, the manhattan da officially announcing that 11 count indictment, which

included, as you noted, that very rare first degree murder charge. and it's rare in part because it requires special elements related to the crime and really can only come from a narrow list of aggravating factors. furthermore, mangione, also indicted by a grand jury for murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism. the da alvin bragg saying clearly yesterday this was a killing intended to invoke terror. meanwhile, kate, we're learning more information about mangione interactions with the outside world since he's been behind bars here in pennsylvania. or better said, perhaps the outside world's attempts to interact with him since he's been in prison. per a spokesperson for the pennsylvania department of corrections, as of yesterday, mangione has received 157 deposits into his prison commissary account. also, as of yesterday morning, he'd received 33 emails, six pieces of mail. and that was up from the two pieces of hard mail that we reported that he received back on monday evening, though still the only visitors that he's had in jail has been as of now. his

attorneys. but, kate, i want to play some sound from that press conference yesterday that happened in new york. you'll hear a little bit from da bragg about the severity of this crime, and also from the nypd commissioner about why luigi mangione, in their eyes, should not be lionized. take a listen this was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation. >> there is no heroism in what mangione did. this was a senseless act of violence. it was a cold and calculated crime that stole a life and put new yorkers at risk and you can hear neither of these officials mincing words when referring to the crime that mangione is accused to have committed. >> now, tomorrow morning, we're going to see a lot of action here at this courthouse right behind me. kate mangione is scheduled to have two court

proceedings. the first one is going to be on those lesser pennsylvania charges, and then the second one is going to be on the issue of extradition, though, cnn's kara scannell reported yesterday that mangione is expected to not fight extradition any longer. that's according to his new new york attorney. and a prison spokesperson told me, kate, that that means that essentially, after his time in court here tomorrow morning, mangione could be on his way back to new york. kate. >> all right. danny, thank you so much for that. sara. thank you. >> all right. he is the richest man on the planet and may soon be the most powerful unelected person in the country. but is elon musk a national security risk? the new york times is reporting that the feds are reviewing elon musk and his rocket company. spacex, for possibly violating national security reporting rules. spacex is a major government contractor, winning contracts worth at least $10 billion since 2019. as its ceo, elon

musk has some top secret security clearance. joining me now from the washington new york times investigative reporter eric lipton. you and your colleagues. kristen grind and sheera frenkel wrote this very in-depth and interesting piece. you wrote that musk's own employees have complained to the defense department's office of inspector general and other agencies about failing to report information that is required. what are the details of the information that they say was not reported? and what are they concerned about? >> if you get top secret security clearance from the federal government, you have been given the privilege to have classified information that is potentially a national security threat if it's shared with, you know, rivals or enemies of the united states. so once you have that status, there's this process that's called continuous vetting. and so while you have the clearance, you're supposed to be reporting engagements with

foreign leaders or business meetings with foreign leaders or even prescription drug use or any illegal drug use. you're not supposed to be using illegal drugs. but there's this process that's called continuous vetting, in which you're supposed to notify the federal government of any potential reason that they should be reconsidering that security clearance. and that's that's a requirement once you have it. and so the concern by some of these folks that are close to spacex is that elon musk and others around him were not necessarily complying with those requirements. >> what happened to some of the workers who who brought this to light, who complained about this? >> what we know is that in particular, there was one employee who was raising concerns about the the willingness of spacex to really follow the rules and that that it was willing to kind of like push the limits of the law. and, you know, we've seen this same approach with respect to environmental rules at its launch site in texas, in south texas, near the mexican border, that it really was kind of just, you know, going slightly

over the limits or testing the limits of the law. and this employee in this case, after raising concerns about whether or not spacex was serious about complying with the law, was was essentially asked to leave, and that individual resigned from the company. >> you have also reported that some u.s. allies have expressed some real concerns about elon musk having access to sensitive information, which countries have expressed concerns and what are they? what are they essentially saying? >> i mean, there's a number of countries that my colleagues have heard from, both people in the intelligence community and from foreign governments about this. and israel in particular, is among the countries that has raised this concern. i mean, there's a lot of information sharing among different countries that have, you know, sensitive intelligence that they don't want shared with rivals or enemies. and there's a perception that, you know, how willing is elon musk to follow the rules? i mean, we don't have, you know, we

don't have explicit evidence that he, you know, completely disregarded the rules. what we have is assertions from people that are close to him that they did not think that there was sufficient compliance. and there was reports of that to the department of defense. and it's our understanding that, you know, the inspector general at the department of defense is reviewing this matter. >> i am curious, something that stuck out in this article as well is how the leadership of the pentagon has been sort of dealing with musk and these issues of concern. what is your reporting on that? what did you learn about how the pentagon is dealing with this? >> i mean, i sort of saw two things. one is a desire to try to get to the bottom of it and try to be able to answer questions from members of congress that have asked about this. you know, some information gathering and a review of these questions and, you know, trying to get to some ground truth as to what the situation is. but on the other hand, i also heard and this was quite surprising to me, i heard a fair amount of like of of

worry that if we spoke about this publicly that we were going to become targeted by elon musk and his doge committee, and that it was best to to let to lie low and to not, you know, acknowledge that we were investigating or reviewing this because that could draw attention to our office and we might be doged we could be sliced out by his committee because, you know, if we were raising questions about him and i was quite surprised that there was that kind of concern within the department of defense. >> yeah, it sounds like some fear in the pentagon over this. it was a fascinating report. thank you so much for joining us and talking us through it. eric lipton of the new york times appreciate it. >> thank you. >> all right. new reporting that watching videos on social media can literally kill your brain cells. but according to medical experts, only if the videos are stupid. can fool myself. >> it was the most exciting time in the world.

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powering five years of savings. powering possibilities™. planet earth and we bring them here. >> agw is the only place where this revolution can be global. i love agw, wednesday night dynamite live tonight at eight on tbs. >> all right, we do have some breaking news. an interesting development from capitol hill. cnn has confirmed that a house panel took a secret vote to release the ethics report on former congressman matt gaetz. you'll remember that investigation looked into allegations of sexual misconduct, drug use and possible bribes. it is now set to be made public. this investigation soon. cnn's alayna treene and manu raju are joining me. as i said, this is a reversal of what we thought this was going towards. elena, you broke it. what are your sources telling you that's right. >> so we have learned, john,

that the house ethics committee secretly voted earlier this month to release the report into matt gaetz's conduct. and as you mentioned, this is a reversal from where they were. they voted last month not to release it. and the decision now to release it. this change does suggest that some republicans ultimately voted with democrats to make this report public when they voted last month not to release it, i would note that it was a the vote was along party lines, so keep that in mind. now we are told that this report is expected to be made public once this session of congress ends and lawmakers leave washington to return home for the holidays. but i think the timing of this is very notable. we know that when the committee first voted last month not to release this report, matt gaetz was still donald trump's pick to be his attorney general. since then, he has withdrawn his name from consideration. he has also made clear that he has no plans to return to congress next year, and has also said

that he is planning to join one america news network to be an anchor for them in january. now, just to get a little bit into this report, the ethics committee has been working on this report and investigating gaetz's alleged conduct for about a year now. here is some of what they've been investigating. whether he engaged in sexual misconduct, whether he used illicit drugs, and also whether he shared inappropriate images or videos on the house floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, accepted a bribe you had improper gratuity or impermissible gifts. and that is according to an announcement from the panel while they were investigating this. so again, this is a reversal for them. uh, we had no idea after they had initially voted whether they were ultimately going to vote on whether to release this report. we now know that they voted secretly to do so. >> so, manu, it's rare. it's not unheard of, but it's rare for a report on a lawmaker by the ethics committee to come out after the lawmakers no longer in the house. even more

rare to do it over the objections of the speaker of the house, mike johnson. didn't want this. so what happened here? >> yeah. >> that's right. >> in fact, that's what mike johnson cited. he said that yes, there is precedent for releasing this ethics report, but he said it was bad precedent. that was his argument in trying to shelve this report. while matt gaetz was considered as the attorney general nominee, there have been a couple of instances. there's one in the house back in 1987 where that occurred. also one of the senate ethics committee back in 2011, then senator john ensign had resigned. it was released after the fact, but the argument was that a lot of members believe that matt gaetz ultimately decided to resign really abruptly resign to try to bury this report altogether. and some republicans believe that they sided with mike johnson's belief that they should not move ahead with this report because of that fact. now, it's also important to note that gaetz is someone who has maintained frosty relations with republicans and democrats

alike on capitol hill. we don't know if that's the precise reason for this reversal, but that's one of the things that can't be ignored here. he, of course, led the charge to oust kevin mccarthy as speaker of the house last year. that angered many republicans. he is someone who has often attacked very directly, aggressively, republicans and democrats alike. his relationships are one reason why he didn't appear. he had the votes to get confirmed as attorney general. amid these all these allegations that questions about whether they would come out drip by drip or the entire report. but now we can potentially see this whole report as soon as this week. the house is voting this today. we don't know the exact final day of the session, but the sources are telling us that they expect it to be released after the final votes of this year. that could be today, that could be tomorrow. that could also potentially be friday or even afterwards. but no doubt about it, this is going to be an explosive report. and gaetz is someone who's still active in republican politics, has an eye on other offices as well, potentially down the line. so

we'll see how he reacts. but he has denied these allegations for months, called this a witch hunt of sorts of an investigation. but this will get a lot of reaction when it ultimately comes out. >> yeah. as for the timing, look, it has the whiff. i don't want to make predictions. it has the whiff of a christmas eve release. i mean, we're backing up until the holidays here, so maybe that's part of it. but, elena, i know that matt gaetz is no longer up for any kind of job. at least right now in the incoming trump administration. but any sense how trump world will react or is reacting to one of its true foot soldiers that's going to be in a bit of a situation in a few days well, i think we have to wait and see exactly what this report says. >> but i can tell you, i mean, look, part of the reason matt gaetz withdrew his name for consideration as donald trump's attorney general is because it was made very clear. and this is to manu's point, about the frosty relationship that gaetz has with many of these members. it was made clear very early on when he was meeting behind closed doors with republican senators, that matt gaetz was not going to have the votes to be confirmed.

that's ultimately what led donald trump to calling gaetz up the morning before he withdrew and telling him, look, the math isn't there. the writing is on the wall. it does not appear like you're going to be able to get through. so that's where things stand now. again, matt gaetz remains, though, even though he's no longer donald trump's pick to be his attorney general, he is still very close with donald trump and many in his orbit. and donald trump still believes that he is someone who will continue to be a strong ally for him. unclear whether or not what that will look like moving forward, but they will definitely have a reaction to this. i just think we have to wait and see exactly what comes out in this report. >> yeah, john, a little something under the stocking that i'm not sure that they wanted. alayna treene manu raju. thank you both for being with us this. again, cnn exclusive reporting the house ethics committee has voted to release the investigation. the report on former congressman matt gaetz. sara. >> all right. >> ahead, the desperate search for family members in syria. now syrians are beginning the unthinkable task of digging up

the dead in the regime's mass graves. what one advocacy group is saying about just how many people the former regime tortured and buried in those graves i want to be the greatest player that i could possibly become. >> haqqani halie torrrel. >> from creating memories to finding the perfect gift. let us make this holiday season a little easier. right now. save up to $60 on select as battery sets. happy holidays from steel like a

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to shed light on the sheer magnitude of the atrocities committed by the now former dictator, bashar al assad, and his brutal regime. more than two weeks after assad fled syria. syrian families are still searching for answers about so many of their loved ones taken by assad's secret police over the years. some perspective here, some 150,000 people in syria are unaccounted for, most of whom were kidnaped or detained by the assad regime. and this is according to the international commission of missing persons. cnn cannot independently verify this number. but let's get to it. and what this means for this new day in syria. joining me right now is one of the top advocacy groups helping to find some of these answers, a group that has long supported the syrian people in the face of assad's brutality, the executive director of the syrian emergency task force, mouaz moustafa moaz, thank you for coming in today. you were just in syria. you just returned to the states. and i heard you say that you're aware of at least eight mass grave sites in syria. talk to me about what is being uncovered and what you're hearing from syrians now that

they can start speaking freely. >> well, first of all, the amount of jubilation of syrians is this terror that has been lifted off their chests is palpable. >> people are waving flags in the streets, dancing, singing, decorating for christmas. it's really amazing. and they're able to finally tell the world because media is able to come in safely. now, what assad has been doing now, back in 2021, we had uncovered we're talking to some of those mass grave diggers that escaped the assad regime and one that we helped bring out, that there were these mass graves. and then we used to only be able to see them on open source google earth, where you go back and you see these massive trenches being dug. today we were able to go to these locations and what you know, and what we're identifying is multiple mass graves for naja north south of damascus on the airport road. in all these places where hundreds of thousands of bodies men, women, children and elderly had been not just shot in the head but mostly tortured to death, really a sadistic

regime. and now is the time to secure these places. and we need the world's help to to help preserve the evidence, to help understand how, you know, to exhume bodies and to help identify for their loved ones. you know who has passed. families need closure. >> and to that point, this is important right now, and it is immediate, an immediate need. the state department yesterday said this about the mass graves. they said that the u.s. is engaged with un bodies, so evidence can be gathered and collected and properly examined to ensure that the world and the syrian people do get both answers and accountability. what is needed? how could the united states government, for example, help to ensure that happens? >> well, first of all, the united states must send a high level government delegation to damascus, as other countries have been doing. and i'm, you know, whether it's the united kingdom, france, other countries we need, you know, if there was an earthquake somewhere, it is rescue teams that go out and help pull people from under the rubble, et cetera.. well, we need the united states government and

international organizations like those that worked on srebrenica, those that worked at other never again moments, horrible mass graves to come in in coordination with a government that is safe, that is opening their doors to them and help us secure these mass graves and begin that process because setf. org, that's not our work. all our work is to raise awareness and to work with the government to secure these things until help comes. the syrian people went through the worst crimes of the 21st century, and frankly, the world did nothing about it, at least out of shame. there should be delegations of governments and international organizations to at least help us achieve justice and closure for families. >> all of this has me and we were talking about in the break has me thinking of caesar, the code name for the man you helped bring to the united states years ago. the man i had the pleasure and honor, really, of sitting with for an exclusive interview. i think it was five years ago now for everyone to to remind you, he smuggled almost 55,000 images out of syria while assad was still ruling, and in doing so, brought to light documented torture by the assad regime.

images that showed scenes compared to the depravity of the nazis. and caesar has lived in hiding ever since. understandably so, given what assad is known to do. how is he reacting to all of this, the fall of assad and what you've seen since it's you know, i called him on the day that damascus was liberated and assad had, you know, ran away from the country and iran and russia got out. >> and i think the first 20 minutes was just both of us crying. i couldn't make out any words. i don't think he could understand me, but he has been jubilant, so excited. and he has committed to the new government and to help the international experts to bring these criminals to justice. as a matter of fact, you know, those mass graves were the answer to the caesar photos. we never knew these thousands of people where they ended up. and i went to the exact place where caesar took the photos, and it was just surreal to be there as he guided me to that exact location. these places need to be preserved, memorialized, and the world needs to now help us build our democracy. since they didn't help us rid ourselves of our tyrant.

>> yeah, his courage, his work, his bravery is the reason was the source of legislation, passed legislation by congress to slap more sanctions on assad. what caesar has done is truly amazing. so hope he has now asked for. >> he has now asked. i'm sorry to interrupt to for his sanctions and other sanctions to be lifted. he said these were against the war criminals keep, you know, those named by war criminals. but all sanctions on syria should be lifted so our economy can now grow. >> let's talk about the future for syria. so much hope exists. also, concern about what could fill the vacuum in the void. just this morning, the president's national security adviser, jake sullivan, was on nbc, on msnbc. i want to play what he said. listen to this. >> sure. >> there is an enormous opportunity now that the butcher assad is gone, for syria to build a better future. but as you said, there are huge risks. and the single biggest risk i see is that isis comes back because isis wants to take

advantage of any vacuum or instability in syria following a civil war. and so the u.s. has to be laser focused on suppressing the threat of isis. >> if syrians, with the help of the united states and the region are successful in pushing back against that threat that jake is talking about there, what could syria mean for u.s. foreign policy for the united states in the future? >> well, first of all, what's amazing is now is an opportunity to go after isis in the russian deconfliction areas, in the assad regime areas, the united states, with its partner forces, cleared isis of northwest syria and the rebels who liberated the country, cleared isis from the northwest. and now there is no deconfliction where our planes can go, hit isis targets in the middle of the desert. and that's what we've seen. so that's a positive thing. but in terms of what syria could be, if we help, you know, clean up the last bits of isis and give it its democracy and allow them to to build their democracy is a valuable and important ally to the united states. and now it's a whole new middle east. by the way,

millions of refugees i saw when i'm going to damascus, not millions, but i saw, you know, tens, hundreds that are coming back. and i know millions now are planning to go back. so syria could be an important ally for the united states, an important ally. >> such an amazing moment for everyone, for you especially. and all of your work. moaz, thank you so much. >> thank you kate. thanks for having me. >> of course. we'll be right back a stop luther. >> never too much. new year's day at eight on cnn. and dug. well, we move. >> we're in a parade everyone customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. >> customize and save. >> and then i wake up and you have this dream every night. yeah. every night i see. >> only pay for what you need. >> liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. if you have

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to submit some questions about what consumption of online content can do to our bodies. and now cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta is on call and back to answer your questions. good morning. all right. let's start with a question from ann. she is asking what to do if you think that you or your child is is addicted to, you know scrolling. >> yeah. >> we got a lot of questions like this. one of the most common questions, and i'll tell you that i answer this in part as a journalist and part as a doctor who's very interested in the brain, but mostly as a father of three teenage girls. so we're all in this together, is my point. just the term addiction. i think we have to be a little bit careful here, in part because when you think about addiction, you think abstinence would be a strategy to try and combat that addiction. you can't do that with these devices. i mean, they're ubiquitous. everybody has these devices and kids, adults, everyone is dependent on these devices as well. so

just keep that in mind. but when does it become problematic? is it interfering with your your activities of daily life? is it interfering with your sleep? is it interfering with grades? those are sort of the things. and then to sort of figure out like why? why is your child using it so much? for a lot of kids, according to mike rich, who is this pediatrician has written a lot about this, a lot of lot of kids, teenagers are using this to self-soothe to self-care and to try and find social connections at a time when they're not interacting as much with real life people. so just sort of keep that in the back of the mind as well. i'll just tell you two, two things that really struck me from a practical sense. we did a whole season of the podcast on this. catherine price wrote a book about this, but basically, she says, every time you're about to pick up your phone, ask yourself three questions. and by the way, this goes for adults and kids alike. and those three questions are what? for why did i just pick this up? why now? and what else? what else could i be doing

instead? it kind of just stops your brain from maybe proceeding down the rabbit hole of scrolling. and you can also set time limits on your on your kids devices as well. that, again, they can get around the time limits. but again, it throws up another barrier towards them using it too much. >> at least it makes you stop and think, okay, i want to get to this question because i think it's an interesting one. stan from korea says he's 63 years old and has heard that playing games like sudoku or scrabble and solitaire are good for keeping the brain sharp. he asks whether playing these games online is can attribute to this brain rot that that you're addressing. >> yeah. first of all, can i just say we get questions from all over the world, and i and i just i just love that. i love that about this. um, so excessive amounts of low quality content, that's how they defined it. excessive amounts, low quality content. so some of the content is not bad. some of the content is pretty good. so i think to stan's point, you could be doing things that could actually be helpful to your

brain in some way. having said that, i will say that most of those brain training games may not be accomplishing stan, what you hope they would be doing for your brain? doing lots of crossword puzzles, for example, can make you really good at doing crossword puzzles. but if you're really trying to improve your brain overall, um, there's there's a lot of other things that you should be doing. movement probably has the most evidence behind it in terms of actually improving brain function overall. but look at the list of things there. focus on those things instead of being in the digital world, probably going to get a lot more benefit, i guess. >> no more cat videos. all right. doctor sanjay gupta, thank you so much. appreciate you. you got it. >> and thank you all for being here for only the highest quality content. >> yes, exactly. i was like, which category are we going to fit in, guys? >> this is betsy. cnn news central newsroom. up next. >> your parents have given you some amazing gifts. but what about the inherited ones? celebrate them with ancestry

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