Concern and Confusion
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It's Monday, December 16th, right now on CNN This Morning. The answer we don't know is not a good enough answer. Concern and confusion, more mysterious drone sightings over the East Coast. The public wants answers, plus. These allegations are disturbing, but they're anonymous.

Anonymous allegations, could they soon be revealed? Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary may release his accuser from a confidentiality agreement. And... What you have seen rising up is people's anger at a health insurance industry. Widespread fear. America's CEOs on high alert after the daytime assassination of one of their own. And... We remain committed to returning him to his family.

Bringing Austin home, the family of Austin Tice hopeful after another missing American was found in Syria. His brother joins me live later this morning.

All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast, where it is raining in Baltimore, Maryland, which is what you're looking at right now, the Inner Harbor, on this Monday. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Strange lights in the skies, confusion on the ground. After numerous sightings of what appear to be unidentified drones or aircraft in at least six states along the East Coast, the federal government is under bipartisan pressure to explain just what the heck is going on.

The answer we don't know is not a good enough answer. When people are anxious, when they're nervous, and this has been true since we've been a species on this planet, people will fill a vacuum with their fears and anxieties and conspiracy theories. To say this is not unusual activity, it's just wrong. I lived in New Jersey my whole life. This is the first time that I've noticed drones over my house. If you see a drone in your air over your home,

You should not have to shake an eight ball to see what it is. New this morning, we are learning that drone activity caused the Air Force to close the airspace over one of the United States' most critical air bases late last week. And we've just received the audio recording of air traffic control informing a flight in the area. This was obtained by The War Room, a military news website.

Med Flight 8, Patterson Tower, use extreme caution for heavy UAS movement on the base. Security forces is handling the situation. All aircraft use extreme caution. Patterson Class Delta is now closed for heavy UAS activity.

So UAS unmanned aerial system officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio saying the drones had no impact on the base's facilities. Unmanned aircraft have recently been sighted near other military installations, airports and critical infrastructure sites, leading some to call for an armed response. On Friday, President-elect Donald Trump suggested the military should shoot the objects out of the sky. Sentiment echoed by New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith.

Bring them down over the ocean, over an area where there's no population. Bring them down and find out who's doing it. Federal officials say that at this time, there's no evidence that the sightings pose a threat to national security and that many of them may not even be drones.

Some of those drone sightings are in fact drones. Some are manned aircraft that are commonly mistaken for drones. We have not seen any foreign, we know of no foreign involvement with respect to the sightings in the Northeast. It is our job to be vigilant in the federal government with our state and local partners on behalf of the American public. And we can assure their safety by reason of that vigilance.

All right. Joining us now, Mark Preston, senior political analyst, Megan Hayes, former director of message planning for the Biden White House, and Matt Gorman, former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Good morning. Megan, I'm going to ask you in a second, like, what is like what is the administration doing here?

I don't know. It's very bizarre that there's no answer and that they can't give a dedicated answer of what's happening. I mean, there are over a million drones that are registered with the FAA. Over 8,000 fly on any given day. So there is very well that they could just be people flying drones in more concentrated areas. But it is a little bit concerning that there doesn't seem to be a great message or a great answer for what these are and why it's happening now. It does seem just...

a little bit like the messages, you're not seeing what your eyes tell you you're seeing. Now obviously some people, as this phenomenon has spread, there are plenty of videos on social media that are of actual airplanes that are supposed to be there, of helicopters, of other things.

But like as Chris Christie said, like the idea that this is normal is just patently on its face, not plausible. Right. And you also don't want to dissuade people from reporting sightings because there are concerns. And obviously there are drones or they wouldn't even be acknowledging that these are drones. In fact, drones are probably not all drones, but some of them are. And it would be nice to have some more credible answers coming from the administration or coming from state and local officials. So I don't know how much longer they have to wait.

keep dancing around what this is. Yeah. Mark Preston, Jim Himes, I think, was one of the interesting ones to me because he's the, you know, ranking member on the intelligence community. Let's listen to a little bit more of what he said about who this is or isn't. Take a look.

It is not the Iranians. It is not the Chinese. They aren't Martians. I know that's very unsatisfying for people who want a Hollywood movie out of this. I can say that because I spent all my time as the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee watching what the Iranians and the Chinese do. And you know what they don't do is put a bunch of drones that we could easily recover over the continental United States.

So there you have that. Now, that said, he still says this isn't enough. We don't know enough. They're not saying enough. I mean, I don't know what to say. I mean, I thought it was the Chinese, the Russians, and I certainly thought it was Martians as well. I will say this. He the way that he he addressed it.

is in like very clear terms, right? Up to this point, even earlier, like an hour ago, you had a great interview, you know, with the former head of NORAD who kind of put it in plain terms about what it is. And it's probably a little bit of everything, right? It is recreational folks up there with drones. It is commercial drones up there. It is copycats because guess what? I want to be famous too. So I'm going to throw a drone up. There were drones over a

over where I live, and I live within, you know, between three military installations, so wouldn't be surprising if they were to put up drones there. But on its face, let's just say this is absurd. It is absurd that all of a sudden,

Where are these drones coming from? And the federal government can't tell us. It's a word salad, right? As you said, you have Mayorkas. What he said, and Heim, so he said, one was plain English. The other one was just evading the question, not having really any answers. And again, that's completely ridiculous on its face. And you're absolutely right. It's a mix of people trying to also find the drones with other drones, adding to the thing.

Right. So I think this is certainly like you step back a little bit and you wonder why people lose trust in institutions. Right. Lose trust in what the government is telling us from COVID to now is they don't feel like they're getting straight answer from the government. I think you put it very well. They're being told what is in front of them isn't really real. Casey, can I say this to you? We are very lucky, by the way, that we haven't seen like vigilantes out there. So let's play what Chris Christie had to say over the weekend because he made this very point. Watch.

You're going to have individuals acting as drone vigilantes, and they're going to start taking them down. That's not what we want, because they're now an important part of commerce, and law enforcement uses them frequently for surveillance and other things. We need to be able to operate in a safe way, and we're not doing that. And we've seen some of this, actually. There's a guy in Florida who resolved a case recently where he saw a drone that turned out to be from Walmart kind of over his side fence, and he-

shot it out of the air. Again, I'm still surprised. We haven't seen packs of good old boys. And trust me, I'm from Massachusetts. We have good old boys up there as well. We just talk a little bit differently who are out there who are trying to take these things out with shotguns. I mean, seriously, I'm surprised it hasn't happened. That's why the federal government needs to be more forthcoming about what's happening. Yeah. And then, of course, you have Marjorie Taylor Greene. The government is in control of the drones and refuses to tell the American people what is going on.

it is really bad. I mean, half of that could actually be true. We don't know what the government know, right? And what are they willing to tell us? I think that is, again, we talked about this in a vacuum, what, like, they need to be far more forthcoming. They need to speak in plain English, not bureaucratic ease. And again, like,

If NORAC attracts Santa down to the city, how can they not find these damn drones? Santa's got to get in touch with the Chinese or the Russians or something. Where the hell are these drones? Over in New Jersey. That's a very good point.

Very good point. Thank you. All right, it's Trina Eddier on CNN This Morning. Donald Trump once endorsed him for president. Now Mitt Romney is leaving office with some parting words for the president-elect in the Republican Party. Mark McKinnon will be here to talk about that. Plus, Austin Tice missing for 12 years in Syria. His brother joins us to discuss why the family has new hope of finding him alive. And will Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth release his sexual misconduct accuser from their confidentiality agreement?

We'll decide whether or not it's credible. Right now, he's being tried by anonymous sources. That will not stand.

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast, Terms of Service, 238 U.S. airports are now using facial recognition. Should we be worried about it? The face is the final frontier of privacy. Dr. Joy's nonprofit, the Algorithmic Justice League, calls attention to the potential harms of this technology. Why is airport security collecting our biometric data? And should we say no?

Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts. That's what Donald Trump asked me to do. Your job is to bring a warfighting ethos back to the Pentagon. Your job is to make sure that it's lethality, lethality, lethality. Everything else is gone. Everything else that distracts from that shouldn't be happening. That's the message I'm hearing from senators.

A defiant Pete Hegseth looking to overcome accusations of sexual assault as he meets with Republican senators in the weeks since Trump chose him to be the next Secretary of Defense. Now, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says that Hegseth has promised to release the woman who accused him of sexual assault from their confidentiality agreement.

He told me he would release her from that agreement. I'd want to know if anybody nominated for a high level job in Washington legitimately assaulted somebody. People have an allegation to make, come forward and make it like they did in Kavanaugh. We'll decide whether or not it's credible. Right now he's being tried by anonymous sources. That will not stand.

Hegseth enjoying a very public display of support from Trump and some of his key allies, showing off a united party front at the 125th playing the Army-Navy football game this weekend in Landover, Maryland. A remarkable public show of support, Mark, for Hegseth in this way.

And a lot of questions now, I mean, Republicans are out there basically openly, and Lindsey Graham did this in this interview, comparing Pete Hagseth to Brett Kavanaugh and saying we don't want to allow what happened to Kavanaugh to happen here. Essentially saying, OK, this person has to come forward or we're going to move forward. Yeah, but I'm confused by that because if the person comes forward, hasn't his attorney said that they would in fact then sue him?

I mean, it's a little confusing. Well, I think that's why we're finding this noteworthy, right? That if he's going to, if Lindsey Graham says, okay, he's going to release her from this confidentiality agreement, then obviously the implication would be there would be no lawsuit or repercussions. The implication would be that there would not be, but who knows? I mean, look, a lot has changed in the last three weeks and

Look, politics has turned on its head. I mean, the fact that Pete Hegseth only really needs the support of three senators who may be wavering on him right now, because that's the magic number in the United States Senate. He doesn't need any Democrats. He needs a bulk of Republicans. And we've seen Lindsey Graham, who kind of wavered on him last week, coming to his side. Good movement for Pete Hegseth. And the last week was big for him. I think he has momentum behind him. Joni Ernst,

Really clarifying number one carving order issue was with him first, right? She had a dis nebulous Concern never really spelled it out but then in a meeting with him both spelled it out in remedied it in that same meeting and intensively got behind the nomination which I think there is Some momentum around it. Then it just comes down to Collins Murkowski and then one other person is it McConnell? Is it somebody else? but you know if you're not Murkowski and you're not Collins of their own incentives and

Are you really going to be that third person who doesn't even defeat him, per se, but is the person just kind of sticking their neck out voting? No. And you're right. Like, he obviously, there was a show of support there. And I think he's on track as of today. Everything that we know, Noel is coming forward. Everything we know today, on track to be confirmed. Well, and Megan, I mean...

If Republican senators are looking at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh and comparing the situation to that, surely the accuser in question or this woman with whom he settled, right, he paid a settlement to this woman for what happened, right?

probably is learning lessons from Christine Blasey Ford and wondering, do I want to be in that position? I was going to say that. Why do we need to have her come forward and ruin her life too and make this be victimized again, right? Like the media is not going to be kind to her. The Republican Party is not going to be kind to her. She's going to have to go up to the Hill and testify.

in public. Why would she want to do that? This has been settled. He paid her, which to me shows that there was some sort of fault there. So why make her do that and victimize her again? I think it's disgusting that Lindsey Graham would say this and even bring this out into the sphere to talk about because you are now putting a target on this woman's back that she did not ask for the first time and she definitely did not ask for it now.

All right, coming up next, as Mitt Romney prepares to make his exit from politics, the former leader of the GOP provides CNN with new assessment what the Republican Party will look like going forward. And an SUV plows into a Houston barbershop? That's one of the five things you have to see this morning.

All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. At least three people injured Saturday when an SUV crashed through a Houston barber shop. 61-year-old driver telling police he was backing up when he inadvertently hit the gas.

Thanks. Thieves in Washington state ram a pickup truck into a Walgreens. They're attempting to steal an ATM. This video posted by the Pierce County Sheriff's Department. The suspects wrapped a rope around the ATM and then tried to drive away with it. Apparently it snapped and they didn't have any luck.

Take a look at the devastation from a cyclone that made landfall in the French territory of Mayotte off the course coast of Mozambique. A government official says the death toll is already several hundred and could run into the thousands. Stunning video of a large cargo ship that appears to have snapped in two near Crimea.

You can see the bow in the background just over the waterline. Russian officials say it was caused by bad weather. One person died. And this. If you're a Colts fan, I hope you're sitting down. The Jonathan Taylor touchdown run overturned

Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor. Yeah, he thought he was home free with a 41 yard touchdown run yesterday, but a replay review found he dropped the ball short of the goal line, turning it over to Denver. The Colts never found the end zone again. They lost 31-13.

All right, still ahead on CNN this morning, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria giving one American family hope. Up next, we're going to speak with the brother of missing American journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive by Syria's government more than a decade ago. Plus, the latest steps government officials are taking in New York to ease the fears of business leaders following the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO.

I have real condolences for, you know, the health care CEO. I mean, this is a real person, you know. But you also got to go, you know, sometimes drug dealers get shot. We are mindful that there are Americans in Syria, including those who reside there, as well as Austin Tice, who was taken captive more than 12 years ago. We remain committed to returning him to his families.

All right. With the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria just over a week ago, there is renewed hope that after 12 long years, missing American journalist Austin Tice will soon be reunited with his family.

Tice was one of the first American journalists on the ground as Syria's civil war grew in intensity. But he was abducted and jailed by Syria's government in late 2012. Now, over a decade later, the doors of Assad's prisons have been opened, and hundreds of Syrian families are searching for long-lost loved ones. One U.S. official tells CNN there's a full-court press to find Tice, and Austin's mother says the images coming out of Syria give her family hope for their son.

For us, you know, this kind of chaos, for us it represented a huge opening, a huge opportunity. And especially when people started going into the prison, finding their families. You know, there was a man that had been held in silence for 34 years, and he was reunited with his family. And so, you know, we're just really excited about being a reunited family.

All right, joining us now to discuss the search for Austin is one of his brothers, Simon Robert Tice. Simon, thank you so much for being here. Good morning. Thank you for having me, Kasey. You told me something remarkable as we were just chatting in the break, which is that you are now, Austin has been missing for so long, you're 12 years apart in age, that you are the same age now as he was when he went missing. Yep.

What has that time been like for you? And how have you sustained hope for all these years? Yeah, thanks for asking. It's been...

well to say a challenge would be an understatement um austin is someone that was such a strong presence in all of us siblings lives and especially in kind of guiding us and protecting us and carving a path for us and so not having him there especially making big decisions you know career-wise or you know even what i graduated with in my degree those would have been conversations i would have had with austin um and so every time that those

thoughts, the big decisions happen. I miss him especially. And then, you know, during the times when our whole family is together, I miss him. So it's just been every day missing him and the hope of having him home again.

Explain a little bit about why your family is so confident that Austin is still alive and could be reunited with you. Yeah, I would say that there's two sources for that kind of hope. One is that everyone in the United States government, even all the way up to President Biden, has said that they know that Austin is alive.

And then also we have our own independent vetted source that has told us the same information. And so we know that Austin has been alive this entire time in his captivity and we know that he can be brought home and we're just hoping that that happens soon.

There was some remarkable footage of the prison cell where he was apparently held near the end of his captivity that was broadcast on another network because the reporter there had managed to connect with someone who was in a cell across the way. What did your family feel like they learned from that? And where do you think he might have been if it wasn't there when the regime fell?

Yeah, I really wish that we knew exactly where Austin was now. That information is still eluding us. But that being said, seeing the footage from inside of the prison, I mean, it's incredibly hard for my family because that's just something that we try not to focus on as much as we can. And we really try to focus on what it's going to look like when he is freed and when he comes home to us and focusing on that part of the story.

Reuters recently reported on, I mean, obviously your brother had a military background, former Marine. He had managed at one point apparently to escape. What was it like to hear that story? Yeah, it's definitely challenging to hear about details from Austin's captivity, mostly because those details come so late after the fact. And we really wish...

that that information would have been acted upon. We've been asking the government for the last 12 years and four months to act on information about Austin. So that's always just been a challenge and we're really just pushing and urging for the US government to do everything that they can with the information that they have to get him free and get him back to us.

How do you feel right now at this moment about whether the U.S. government is giving what you would believe to be their all to find him, especially as we're looking at a change in presidential administration? Yeah, well, we have had a commitment from the Biden administration to bring Austin home. I would just encourage anyone in the press to continue pushing on the White House about what they are doing to bring Austin home.

And then we have had a firm commitment from President-elect Trump that he is very interested in bringing Austin home. And so we just continue to push for that to be the case and to stay front of mind even during this transition period. Yeah, well, we're always happy to have you come back to talk some more about your brother. He clearly is a really remarkable man. And we wish you all the best in your search, Simon. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

All right, coming up next here on CNN This Morning, a public show of support. Donald Trump brings his key allies along to watch the Army-Navy game in the presidential box, plus Mitt Romney on the MAGA movement and what he expects will happen next for the Republican Party. Mark McKinnon, here to discuss. The Republican Party has become the party of the working class, middle class voter. And you've got to give Donald Trump credit for having done that, taking that away from the Democrats.

Have you noticed? Ted Kennedy apparently wants this election to be decided on anything but our differences on the real issues. Kennedy won't talk about government spending because I'll work to cut it and he can't. The biggest difference? Those fundamental values. If you agree with me, I'd appreciate your vote. Since launching his first political campaign in 1994, Utah Republican Mitt Romney...

still basically looks the same. He's also won the titles of governor, senator, and of course, he earned the 2012 GOP nomination for president with the help of endorsements from some key people. Mitt is tough. He's smart. He's sharp. He's not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country that we all love. So, Governor Romney, go out and get him.

In the years since his failed presidential bid, Romney, a pragmatic conservative known for reaching across the aisle, has found himself increasingly isolated in a party that has embraced Donald Trump. What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States. He was the only Republican senator to vote twice to impeach Trump. And now, at 77, Romney is retiring from the Senate and departs Washington next month with this prediction about his party's future.

MAGA is the Republican Party and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today. And if you were to ask me who the nominee will be in 2028, I think it'll be J.D. Vance. All right. He's smart. Well-spoken. Part of the MAGA movement. All right. Joining me now, former adviser to George W. Bush and John McCain, Mark McKinnon. He is also the creator of Paramount Circus. Mark, thank you so much for being here. Good morning. Good morning. I'm going to miss Mitt.

Look, this is of course a campaign I covered beginning to end. I was the AP writer on the plane, traveled in the pools, all the motorcades. I was there for, we played earlier in the show, his concession speech, that announcement, that endorsement that he fought hard for from Donald Trump in the 2012 Republican primary. They all did.

There really is something about the arc of his career that helps us explain and understand what has happened to the Republican Party in the last decade.

It really does. I mean, this really feels like the end of an era. He's sort of the last of the compassionate conservatives or pragmatic conservatives, as you mentioned it. So he's out, Trump's in. And it's a new era. And, you know, I'm struck by the last time I saw him, I was doing interviewing in his office. And he has this map in his office. It's about five feet, a narrow, long, five feet long. I've seen it. Yeah. He's obsessed with it.

Oh, it's so cool. And the key to it is that there's a little, it's the history of civilization. And at the bottom, like a quarter inch of this five foot map is American democracy. And it just is an illustration of what a brief experiment this is so far. And Romney's been a big part of it, but it's just, it just reminds us.

And as he says so eloquently and graciously, you know, democracy means accepting what the American people do. And the American people have said it's time for a change. And the Republican Party that he knew and that I was part of is no longer. It's now Trump's Republican Party. And so, you know, you have to sort of salute democracy and say, OK, it's your turn.

One of the other things that he spoke about with Jake Tapper was the differences in how Donald Trump and his campaigns are judged versus how he was judged on the trail and how some of what happened to him was a little bit quaint when we look at it. Let's watch that portion of the interview. We'll talk about it.

I look back at campaigns and think about the angst that surrounded any mistake that I or a campaign member made. Some small thing occurred. What about your gaffes? I remember somebody yelling at you. Right, right. And so these things were blown at a huge proportion. And in this campaign...

And in the prior campaign that President Trump ran, I mean, they talked about flooding the zone with various excrement. It's like, hey, if you make a mistake, just make a bunch more. And people will forget the first one. And so we look today, it's like that's kind of amusing to see the kinds of things that looking back look quaint.

And I have to say, a lot of it does look really quaint, feels really quaint. You know, I covered both 2012 and 2016. And the things, there were a couple, you know, that were relatively significant.

And, you know, I was there for the what about your gaps was Philip Rucker, by the way, who yelled what about your gaps on at a site in Poland, a holy site for the Polish people. I think the the aid that was traveling with us called it. But a lot of what played out on that campaign were politics by a different set of rules than the ones that were following in the Trump era.

Yeah, you're right, Casey. I mean, they're really sort of time capsules of how different things are and how different we practice politics. But I'll also say about Romney is the thing I always loved about him is that he was like the ultimate public servant, but he was a terrible candidate. He would turn himself into pretzels just because he hated the process so much. You know, he didn't like having to become what you have to do to be a candidate. Trump has no problem with any of that.

And that's part of what's different today. And you know, I just, I mean, Mitt was just so honorable that he just didn't want to like bend to the process and Trump's like, "Ah, do whatever." - Yeah, you know, it's interesting you say that because I also remember when that Netflix documentary came out about, you know, behind the scenes of the Romney campaign, I had so many people come up to me and say, "I don't understand this guy in this documentary. He's so accessible and normal and relatable." And I think those of us who saw him day in and day out on the campaign,

We didn't find the documentary to be terribly remarkable. We're like, this is the guy that we see all the time. But if you only consumed what he was selling on the campaign trail through TV, it didn't line up.

100 percent, Casey. And that documentary was the inspiration for the show that we produced called The Circus on Showtime, which was a documentary effort to show people these candidates behind the scenes and who they really were, because I had the same reaction to that documentary on Mitt. You see that and you go, where was that guy during the campaign? If I'd seen that, the outcome might have been different. And I think they made a big mistake when they made a deal to do the documentary and said you can't show it till after the election. I think if they'd showed it beforehand, it would have had a

you know, maybe it made a difference, but it just showed the human side of Mitt, and it just showed an authentic side that he was, you know, too buttoned up and didn't want to show, you know, talking about his Mormonism and all that, which, as it turns out, was really interesting and really showed his humanity. So, yes, I'm glad you brought that up because I thought it was a real...

in a great documentary that showed the human side of men. He was more willing to be human when he wasn't actually running for office after he lost a couple years later. I'm just going to show you this because it was one of the highlights. It's been one of the highlights of my journalism career. He was willing to do this with me at a chair. It was for charity, right? Maybe that was why. Watch this. Yeah.

Now, Anne was out of frame basically saying, you know what, maybe I should take a chance to box with you. She did not like the trail. But that was the kind of thing he was willing to do, that he wouldn't do that on the campaign trail. But, you know, I think he wasn't sure he was ever going to run for office again when he did this. Fair to him.

Yeah, listen, I mean, he's just a pretty buttoned up formal guy, but he's also just a super decent, super compassionate, genuine human being and just impossible not to like. And like I said, I think we owe him a great debt for his public service, and I think we're really going to miss him. All right. Mark McKinnon for us this morning. Thank you for taking a walk down memory lane with me. I appreciate it.

All right. See you soon. Okay. All right. Let's go now to the latest in the fallout from the murder investigation of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The office of New York Governor Kathy Hochul is convening a safety summit tomorrow between nervous business leaders and law enforcement. CNN has learned the safety concerns among executives are so widespread, New York State may create a special hotline just for CEOs to call in threats.

Bernie Sanders, the senator, says he could see this coming. What you have seen rising up is people's anger at a health insurance industry which denies people the health care that they desperately need while they make billions and billions of dollars in profit. All right, the panel is back. This has made the cover of the New York Post, which is showing a game play

of whacked deck, most wanted CEOs. This is definitely something that obviously has a lot of business community talking, but clearly the sympathy level from the American public is not terribly high. Clearly not. And you're seeing a little bit, I think, Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders, listening way too much to the online left and stacking these answers as we've seen, especially over the weekend with, yes, this was bad. And then, but...

And then positioning into some healthcare policy debate. Chris Murphy was the one who did it last night in this kind of weird homemade video. He's trying to, I think the Senator from Connecticut is trying to start a populist revolution, which is very interesting. But you're right. They are just very lost on this right now, Democrats. And they are just trying to shoehorn a policy argument into a cold-blooded murder. And it's

It boggles my mind. Anytime you have to have buts after a statement that's about a cold-blooded murder in broad daylight, there is a problem. And these statements are gross and abhorrent, and they should...

should not be out there. Two things can be true, right? This is a murder that is horrible and awful. And there also could be a need for a policy debate. Do not use a cold-blooded murder to have that policy debate. It is gross that they are doing that. And you know what the tell is really quick also? Like, Chris Murphy's career-defining issue is gun violence and gun control. Not once in this video did he talk about gun control at all. And he has ghost guns. Exactly. Which there's been policies made about ghost guns in this administration. Exactly, right? That's the biggest tell. Yeah.

Mark Preston, I mean, I do think that this is the root of this, right? The idea that we as a political, we as a nation should not be having our political debates through violence. And while clearly Americans are very upset about the health care system, to the extent that members of Congress are going to say, well, we've got to change this because of violence,

It's kind of a dangerous place to be. Dangerous place to be. And I'm just going to overuse this word, so forgive me, but it's absurd. It's absurd that we're at this point where there's so much anger right now that people are just directing it and supporting it without really knowing quite...

what the consequences are. You know what else is absurd too, is the governor, God bless her for having a hotline for CEOs, but I gotta tell you what, what about all the other folks in New York City who are facing like awful crime every single day, you know, and they can't get any help and the police don't have enough money to police the streets. Let's make sure those CEOs are taken care of.

CEOs in these corporations can hire security. I traveled with a CEO all over the world. We had private security. So the fact that he didn't have security is also worrisome on a lot of levels. I'm not by any way saying this is justified, but they do not need a hotline to the police. They can hire their own security and work with their different protective units in the police department. Yeah, I mean, in some ways it is this

that privileging of elite problem is a lot of what is driving the populism in our politics today. Oh, a thousand percent. A thousand percent. And even now we're just seeing this, like the backpack maker is getting threats. The CEO of Peak Design, because they helped identify

the shooter. Why do the McDonald's workers, why are people threatening them? I mean, they did something that was right, but yet we want to like castigate them for it and threaten them for doing the right thing. It's crazy. On that note, 53 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. If there is any reason for concern, if we identify any foreign involvement or criminal activity, we will communicate with the American public accordingly.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas shedding no light on who might be behind all those drones sighted over New Jersey and several other Northeast states. Late Saturday night, drone sightings temporarily shut down the airspace over Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. President Biden and Vice President Harris thanking campaign donors Sunday night, urging them not to lose hope after their election loss. Our spirit is not defeated. We are not defeated.

Let's be clear about that. We are strong. You're not going anywhere, kid, because we're not going to let you go. Top aides and people close to Harris are divided about whether the vice president should run for governor of California in 2026 or if she should take another swing at the Oval in 2028. It all comes down to whether they believe she could win the Democratic nomination in a sure-to-be-competitive primary. Female empowerment!

Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown Jackson can now add Broadway star to her resume. Over the weekend, she made her debut in a special role in the show "And Juliet." Jackson once wrote in her application essay to Harvard Law School that she wanted to become, quote, "the first black female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage." Talk about achieving a goal. All right, let's turn now to one of college football's most unique rivalries, Navy.

army this year in the 125th Army-Navy football game, adding to the pomp and circumstance of the event, President-elect Donald Trump attending the game for his fifth time, greeted by cheers from the crowd when shown on the big screens. Trump using the backdrop as an opportunity to send a message of support for some of his more controversial cabinet nominees, including his defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, and choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

Trump and Vance also inviting former Marine Daniel Penny as a guest. He's the man who was acquitted last week in the controversial New York subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely. But for the thousands in the stands, politics, of course, not the main focus, but rather football and service. Right.

I love the Army-Navy game. It's a great American tradition. It's funny, I actually went to the Army-Navy game to cover Donald Trump at the Army-Navy game in 2016, right after he won. Actually, it's a place where he has been repeatedly. But some interesting signals of support, Matt, from the people he brought with him.

And Joe Manchin was in the box there, mowing around too. It was like a cavalcade of random politicians and things in the back there. I was surprised. Because in 2016, he went up and did the CBS broadcast booth for a quarter. I expected him to do that. So he stayed in the box, whether it was willingly or unwillingly. It wasn't as visible on the broadcast of people at home. I will say this also. For once, it was actually a good game. There were two good teams. Normally, one of the teams has got off. They're both really good teams. It was actually a pretty good game.

Yeah. Let me be Pollyanna about this and put politics aside, right? If we can watch Army and Navy beat the heck out of each other, okay, but yet these young men and women are going to go off and serve as comrades in arms. I mean, doesn't that say something about where we should be taking our direction from? Perhaps it should be from these kids who are out there, you know, who are going to be protecting us, some of them putting their lives on the line than the politicians that are right up the road from us. I mean, I think it's

Your feelings about Donald Trump aside, I think it's always important for the commander in chief, the future commander in chief to go to these. Our military is extremely important to us and extremely does their sacrifice to us is unbearable. And most people don't participate and don't join the service. So I do think it's awesome that they went and all these folks went. Yeah, for sure. All right. We've got a minute left here, but Matt Gorman, we didn't get a chance to talk. I want to circle back to Mitt Romney leaving for just a second, because obviously you and I,

You were working on the Republican side when this was happening. What are your reflections on Mitt Romney, the man, kind of his version of the Republican Party and where we are today? I will say this. Every president leaves your imprint on the party that they lead and win reelection or win election and then certainly reelection by. We were saying this about Bush in '04. So Trump is no different than he's remade the party in his image. And the next president, when they get elected, Republican president and reelected, they will do the same thing.

You know, he's such a good man. I saw him the other week. I will never say a bad word about that guy. He's a good man, truly an incredible, credible guy. And, you know, I think he deserves a nice long retirement, but knowing him probably won't last that long. And I'll want to get him out of the house and doing something else. But, no, he's such a good guy, and it's been such a privilege to be

working on this campaign in 2011, 2012. Well, can I just say, we all age as gracefully as Governor Romney did. I still also, I can't, I covered him in the Senate for a long time as well, but I could never, I was always like, Governor, he went by Governor, so it was the title that everybody really knew him by. Just a remarkable career and time on the public stage. Thank you guys for being with us today. Thanks to all of you for joining us at home. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

Welcome to Times Square. Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen are back together to ring in the new year. Best night of my life. And anything could happen. Oh my gosh. So good. That's perfect TV. New Year's Eve Live starts at 8 on CNN. This holiday 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 Underscored.com.