Who Owns the Drones?
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It's Friday, December 13th, right now on CNN This Morning. We're not being told the truth. Who owns the drones? They're still swarming the skies over New Jersey and no one is saying who's behind them. And... I'm going to be acting very quickly. Donald Trump, day one, the president-elect's top priorities including pardons for January 6th rioters. Plus... We have no indication that he was ever a client of UnitedHealthcare.

The CEO assassination twist. Why would the chief suspect commit murder when he wasn't even a customer? And whose prices are going to start coming down? Price tag promise. Why Donald Trump now warns that slashing grocery prices might be easier said than done. All right. 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at Las Vegas, Nevada. I mean, you know, it's Friday. Why not take a look at the strip? It's 3 a.m. Pacific time there. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

The truth is out there? Americans in New Jersey would really like to know who is flying sometimes massive drones over their homes and infrastructure. I think the creepy part is not that it's just a drone, that they're so large.

Now, some of the things that people are seeing on social media, posting on social media, they have been identified as normal things in the skies. Planes, helicopters. But not all of them. One New Jersey mayor says the drones have been flying over the state's critical infrastructure. The drones have also been spotted near a U.S. military research facility and over President-elect Donald Trump's golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. And those sightings have prompted the FAA to issue temporary flight restrictions.

And according to the Associated Press, the Coast Guard says multiple low-altitude aircrafts were spotted near one of their vessels. Still, they weren't seen as an immediate threat and they didn't interfere with any operations. So, what has the White House been saying about all this? I don't have anything beyond that we're tracking this very closely. Needless to say, New Jersey lawmakers who are hearing from their constituents have found the non-explanations to be lacking.

I'm concerned. I issued a letter to ask for more information, and I think there should be a lot more transparency about them. Are you hearing from constituents? Yes, I am. I've been a little frustrated. There hasn't been enough transparency letting people know what's happening. It's allowing a lot of potentially misinformation to spread or at least fear. So yesterday, the White House sent out John Kirby. He is, of course, a retired Navy admiral and national security communications advisor to clear things up.

"We have not been able to, and neither have state or local law enforcement authorities, corroborate any of the reported visual sightings. To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully." Uh-huh. So, basically he says, don't believe your own eyes?

That is ridiculous. I would invite Mr. Kirby to Mine Hill. Come on out, Mr. Kirby, and let's go on out one night about 9:30, 10 o'clock. I'll go out behind my town hall, and you can count them with me all night. So of course, the question everyone has is, who is doing this? Some New Jersey lawmakers have been speculating that it's Iran or China. Those of us who don't live in New Jersey are just wondering, why New Jersey?

I can't claim to know the motives of aliens, just being an earthling, but of all the places to show up on Earth, they picked New Jersey? That would be odd for me to wonder what the aliens are looking for. No offense to New Jersey, I'm just saying, this is the whole Earth they could have visited.

Right. Joining us now is our panel, staff writer at The Atlantic, David Frum, former federal prosecutor, CNN legal analyst, Elliott Williams, former senior advisor to Senators Manchin and Coons, Jonathan Cott, and Republican strategist, CNN political commentator, Brad Todd. Welcome to all of you on this Friday. What better thing to talk about Friday than unidentified flying objects?

But David Frum, I mean, on its face, what the White House is saying feels implausible to so many people. It's like, we can see this. You know, we're not, there's a contradiction between the state police have been telling people that these drones, have been telling lawmakers up there that these drones are shutting off their lights when they're approached and that it's dangerous. And yet the White House says, nothing to see here. Well, you can go to the store and buy a drone kit. Anybody can. And it's sort of remarkable to me that we haven't had this

and these problems before, of nuisance and worse, invasion of privacy. One lawmaker speculated they might be Iranian, and that seems to be untrue. It's worth remembering that even if the drones turn out not to be Iranian, there are actually teams of Iranian assassins operating on the United States soil, and dissidents and human rights activists have been threatened and have been taken to safe houses because of it. So we don't have to have the high-tech threat

to remember that they're old-fashioned threats of men with guns. So Senator Blumenthal, Elliot, weighed in on this as well as to, like, what should be done about this. Let's watch what he said. They should be shot down if necessary because they're flying over sensitive areas, whether it's planes that may be jeopardized or security at military bases. We ought to do a much better job. The Biden administration ought to be acting more aggressively against these drones.

I mean, it raises the question, why not shoot them down? Right. We shouldn't have a practice of willy-nilly shooting down unidentified flying objects over the domestic soil. However, in the event that they are flying over sensitive places, absolutely, you know, they can be engaged. You know, I think the issue here far more...

than any actual threat that's posed is the inconsistent messaging that seems to be coming out of government. I think what people are frustrated by is that they don't seem to be getting a consistent or plausible answer as to what these things are. And I think the longer it's going on, the worse it's getting. And that seems to be the

Yeah, and this was Congressman Van Drew, this one to our messengers over here on this side of the table. He was the one, Congressman Van Drew is the one who floated the Iranian theory, which was quickly, no pun intended, shot down by the Pentagon. But here's what he said more recently. Watch.

We're not being told the truth. They are dealing with the American public like we're stupid. They don't know what it is. They don't know what it's about. They haven't taken one down to analyze it. They have no idea where it comes from, but they know that it's not that. I mean, that's nonsense. They do not know what they're doing. Why don't they take one of them down, analyze it, and let us know what's really happening?

So, like, I have to say, I mean, you know, that there's, like, a laughing element to this in some instances, but it's actually very serious, right? Like, that the American government doesn't know what this is, Brad, and the fact that... Is the Biden administration building confidence with the way that they're talking about this? Nobody believes that the government doesn't know what it is. That's the thing. Only the government's trying to convince us that. But I will note you have a Republican congressman and a Democratic senator from New Jersey...

Right, partisanship may break out everywhere. At a divided time in Washington, perhaps we need drones to unite us. UFOs are the one thing that can bring America together. And nothing unites the people of Earth like an invasion from Mars. So maybe that's what we're dealing with. Jonathan? It doesn't help when...

the Defense Department, the FBI, and the White House say, don't worry about it, but we won't tell you what it is. And we don't know what it is. That is what is troubling. And that's why you get people like the congressman going out there and saying, oh, I have this super secret source that I can't tell you about who tells me it's Iranians and trusts me on that, but don't trust anybody else. And when there's a void of information, stuff like that gets out there. So somebody at

The Defense Department or the White House needs to say what these are very quickly, or the people of New Jersey are gonna start shooting them down. That is not the state you want to fly over for a calm group of people who will casually just let them fly past you and not do anything.

I say that as a New Yorker. Well, did you see, there's a guy in Florida who was just, he resolved the case that he had because there was Walmart was testing a drone next door. He took out a shotgun and took out the drone. This is true. Now, you know, Daniel Grass Tyson's question of why New Jersey? Well, it is the Garden State.

rolling hills for miles and miles. - Elliott's from New Jersey, okay? They're not paying him the same as-- - Beautiful sandy beaches. - The New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen. - Dana Bash is gonna be so mad at us. - Excuse me? - Dana is gonna be mad at us. She's like the proudest daughter of New Jersey. - But all of this hate for America's most densely populated state, because people want to live there so badly, it's really just hard to listen to and hear. - No, they wanna live in Philadelphia, actually. Like, I'm sorry, you do. - Oh my God, oh my God. - Pennsylvania.

In the early days of Facebook, there was a group member, there were Facebook groups. One was, we're from New Jersey, don't worry, we hate you too. Coming up here on CNN This Morning, new search warrants targeting the alleged CEO killer. Later, Michael Smirconish will be here to talk about the internet's obsession with the suspect, Luigi Mangione. Plus, fresh allegations Sean Diddy Combs hit with a new wave of lawsuits. And top priority, Trump's plans for the first nine minutes of his second term.

They ought to release the J6 hostages. They've suffered enough. They ought to release them.

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. We have no indication that he was ever a client of UnitedHealthcare, but he does make mention that it is the fifth largest corporation in America, which would make it the largest healthcare organization in America. So that's possibly why he targeted that company.

Piecing together a motive, a spokesperson for UnitedHealthcare says the man accused of gunning down the company's CEO is not a member and neither is his mother. Sources tell CNN authorities in New York have executed at least three search warrants in the case against Luigi Mangione. At least two of the warrants include the backpack found in Central Park and the burner phone found near the crime scene.

ABC News reports that prosecutors in New York have begun presenting evidence against Mangione to a grand jury. David Frum, how are you thinking about this as we learn more about this detail that he was not a member of UnitedHealthcare? Seems to make it, honestly, more political and less personal to him specifically?

I think everybody in America, everybody in the world needs to have a screensaver on their computer or a message on their phone that would say, today would be a good day not to say something sociopathic on social media. And tomorrow, also a good day not to say something sociopathic on social media. Now, I don't know that we've had any real social trend. It's just...

It becomes, we have created this fantastic technology for the diffusion of sociopathic messages. And maybe there's a constant number of sociopaths in society at any given time. It's just easier now for them to find each other. But really, there's a murder by...

The motives for murder are never that interesting because murderers are just murderers. And the message, some in Congress have defended the message you can only push people so far. That is the thing that every estranged husband says before murdering his wife and children. The alimony pushed me so far and I killed. Killers kill because they're killers. Yeah. I mean, one thing I will say, though, and I was talking with Jonah Goldberg about this on the show earlier this week,

Because I was raising this question. Actually, Brad, let me ask you what you think about this because

You're referring to what Elizabeth Warren said, which we did play yesterday. There was also an interesting moment on Joe Rogan's podcast where a guest that he had basically disparaged the insurance companies and Rogan functionally agreed with him and said, like, this is a dirty business. This is terrible. And there have been some on the right who have portrayed what has happened on the left in a negative way, saying don't do it.

But there have been some right-wing commentators who have seen their own comments filled with people who are writing to them and saying that, you know what? You're elite too. You don't get it. It sounds like we have those. Can we play the Warren bite, what she had to say? And then let's play Joe Rogan and what happened on that podcast. It's kind of two very distinct sides of American politics, but not, you know, they sound almost the same. Watch.

And what happens when you turn this into the billionaires run it all is they get the opportunity to squeeze every last penny. And look, we'll say it over and over, violence is never the answer. This guy gets a trial who's allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth. But you can only push people so far.

I don't think anybody's gonna like be crying too hard over that guy. Maybe his family, but that's about it. Yeah, it's a dirty dirty business. The business of insurance is f***ing gross. It's gross and especially health care insurance. Just f***ing gross.

In some ways, I'm reminded, Brad, of, you know, I attended dozens of Bernie Sanders rallies, many voters there in places like Michigan who said that if they don't get a chance to vote for Bernie Sanders, they're going to vote for Donald Trump. What's going on here? Well, populism exists on both sides of the American political spectrum. It's not an ideology. It's an animating spirit. And they certainly see that most expressed against health insurance companies. They're right at the top of that. But

But I think once this all settles out, I think Republicans would welcome a discussion of how the federal government's own incentives have created behemoths in the health care industry. The Affordable Care Act paved the way for really, really large health care companies, insurance companies without much competition. I think that'd be a great subject for Congress to take up.

I think in politics, raging against something and having an enemy is healthy, and that's how you get people out, and that's what campaigns do. And I think you're seeing it from both sides. Like, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have that argument. Donald Trump tapped into that. People are angry at rich elites who they think have...

done them wrong, taken their jobs, they're the reasons they're not successful. If only I had been able to do this, and that is what you're seeing. That's why this Venn diagram of so far left and so far right are actually coming back around. But I think everybody needs to say killing somebody in violence is the wrong way to do it. We can be mad at the system and mad at how it's being done without going that far. Yeah, no, and...

for the justice he will face ultimately, why he did it ultimately doesn't matter. Merely, and this is your point, David, it's merely the fact in the state of New York that he killed someone intending to do so will get him convicted of second degree murder. The fact that he seemed to have been targeting, or the suspect seemed to have been targeting a healthcare CEO, certainly that's animating for the public, but doesn't matter in the eyes of the law. Killing is killing.

Right, of course. And we're, again, very clear on that, trying here to just explain and understand what it is that's motivating and animating people. All right, panel will be back in a few minutes, still to come here on CNN This Morning. Vaccines and Trump's second term. The president-elect now says he's open to getting rid of child vaccine programs. Plus, ho, ho, no, a man who was not Santa stuck in a chimney. 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. First up, a man stuck in a chimney. Oh my God. As you can see, no beard, no red suit, definitely not jolly. Massachusetts police say he was running from them and they arrested him after they rescued him. And this.

Whoa, terrifying dash cam video shows a box truck slamming into three fire trucks in Michigan. First responders ran into a ditch to take cover as they worked a separate crash scene. They are all thankfully okay. The truck driver was taken to the hospital.

Call this smoke on the water. With a nod to Deep Purple, negative 20 degree temperatures producing sea smoke along Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota. Scientists say that this happens when cold air drifts across warmer water. That water in Lake Superior is very cold. Racing down there after it is Kadri. With this one fell down, Kadri scores. It's Mozart.

Goal of the night for the Calgary Flames, an outrageous leap and spinorama goal last night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, one of the only highlights for the Flames in an 8-3 loss. And what do you get for a coach who has everything? If it's Bill Belichick, you get him a signature cutoff hoodie. UNC's Chancellor presenting the new head football coach with the gift before his introductory press conference.

Still not over the strangeness of all of this, but anyway. Straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, Donald Trump and his allies accusing the FBI of playing a role in the January 6th riot. A new independent report shoots that down. Plus, Trump backing away from a key campaign promise around bringing down prices. People can't afford their groceries, and they're going to be affording their groceries very soon.

It's what dreams are made of. We just won a million dollars. David Bromstad is turning these winners' fantasies into reality by taking them on a thrilling house hunt for homes that fit their new lottery budget. You won $2 million. Let's spend all of it. If you can dream it... We love the drama. ...David will find it. This is insane. You are a bad, bad boy. I know. My Lottery Dream Home. All new Friday night at 9 on HGTV.

Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages. You see the spirit from the hostages and that's what they are, is hostages.

President-elect Donald Trump making clear that pardoning January 6th convicts is a top priority for his new administration. He told Time magazine in an interview released Thursday, quote, I'll be looking at J6 early on, maybe the first nine minutes. I'm going to do case by case. And if they were nonviolent, I think they've been greatly punished.

Trump and his allies have been making false claims for years about the Capitol riot, arguing that law enforcement officials purposefully bungled their intelligence, even using paid informants to rile up an otherwise peaceful rally to create a violent insurrection. FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol.

on January 6th. Three police officers were caught instigating the crowd, chanting and urging them to go into the Capitol. An FBI informant who is reported to have, quote, this quote, under oath, marched to the U.S. Capitol. There was Antifa and there was FBI. There were a lot of other people there, too, leading the charge.

So a brand new report from an independent Justice Department watchdog concludes this, quote, we found no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds or at the Capitol on January 6th. Let's bring in former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to discuss. Sir, always grateful to have you on the program. Thanks for being here.

Thanks, Casey. It's good to be here. What is your takeaway from this report? And I mean, what can you tell us about these theories, about whether there were informants, etc.? Yeah, well, I guess my top line takeaway, Casey, is that I'm not surprised at all. This is exactly what we expected. This is what the FBI has been telling us since January 6th about their own activities with informants.

And to be clear, what the IG determined was there were no FBI undercover employees, not a single one at the rally or on the Capitol that day. There were three informants. These are private citizens who provide information to the FBI under their own, you know, for their own reasons. Three who were actually sent informants.

asked to attend the rally and went and reported back on the domestic terrorism subjects that were under investigation and who we knew would be there. And there were an additional 23 informants who just went because that's what they do. They are people in these communities, in these extremist groups who also report and provide information to the FBI, and they spend time with these people. So about 26 in total.

Many of them provided positive reporting back to the FBI. I think only four actually entered the Capitol on that day, and none have been accused by prosecutors of doing anything violent or committing crimes. So it is the truth, once again, very different from what people have been hearing on right-wing television and from Republican politicians.

So, yeah, just to clarify here, I think it's important. You said these informants are not Bureau employees. They are people who give information to the Bureau. And then can I just ask for those of us who don't work in the field that you work in, what could you expect an FBI informant to be doing in a situation like this, right? If you have an informant that's inside one of these groups that's actually working with the U.S. government, what would their observed actions look like on that day?

Yeah, sure. That's a great question. So first of all, the FBI has many informants in extremist communities around the country and around the globe. That's what we do as an intelligence organization. You have to recruit sources of information. You have to convince people who are members of these groups to report back information to the FBI. And they do it for all sorts of different reasons.

Once someone is an informant for the FBI, they are admonished that they have no authority to engage in any criminal activity and that if we find them committing crimes or participating in criminal activity, they will be arrested just like anyone else.

So people on that day who might have been asked, hey, you are helping us in the investigation of a particular domestic terrorism subject. We know that that person is traveling to the Capitol to attend this rally. Why don't you go with that person and let us know what they're doing? It's a way of keeping track of people who you think are –

potentially engaging in violence. It's a way of understanding what they're doing and giving you the opportunity to prevent acts of violence and terrorism from taking place. So they'll, you know, under those circumstances, that person would travel with

the subject of the investigation and make phone calls or send texts back to a handling agent saying, "Here's where we're gonna go tomorrow. We're gonna stop here for breakfast and then we're gonna walk to the rally. Here's what I'll be wearing so you can identify me. Here's what the other person looks like."

basic information that allows agents to keep some understanding, maintain an understanding of what a subject of an investigation is doing and to potentially collect evidence of that person's wrongdoing that might be necessary later in a criminal prosecution.

So, Andy, the vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, he reposted someone else that excerpted details on this report. And what that said was this, quote, for those keeping score at home, this was labeled as a dangerous conspiracy theory months ago, this idea that there were human sources at the Capitol. What is your... I mean, I think we've dug into this a little bit, but do you have a response to the vice president-elect specifically? You know, this wasn't ever...

labeled as a dangerous conspiracy. The fact that informants were involved in this activity, the fact that informants might have been reporting on subjects of investigation, as is their job, that's their role with the FBI. That's not a dangerous conspiracy theory. That's the truth. That's how intelligence agencies collect information on people who might be ready to hurt us.

The dangerous conspiracy theory was propagated by people like the vice president who've been saying for years that the FBI incited this riot, that the FBI sent informants or undercover employees onto the Capitol or into the rally that day for the purpose of fomenting the riot, getting people fired up, starting the violence.

And that absolutely did not happen. And now you have the inspector general who absolutely would have reported that if they found it in their investigation that included hundreds of interviews and many, many years to complete, which is a separate problem.

So, yeah, the dangerous conspiracy theory here is what you've been hearing from right-wing commentators, that the FBI somehow had an interest in creating the riot on the Capitol and starting an insurrection. That absolutely did not happen. All right. Andrew McCabe, very grateful to have you on the show today. Thanks very much. Thank you.

All right, let's turn now to Donald Trump at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, where he rang the opening bell after being named Times Person of the Year. The president-elect also sitting down for an interview with the magazine. He was asked about one of his biggest campaign promises, lowering grocery prices. He was asked, quote, if the prices of groceries don't come down, will your presidency be a failure? He answered it this way, quote, I don't think so.

Look, they got them up. I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they're up, you know? It's very hard. But I think that they will. I think that the energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down. But while at the New York Stock Exchange, he seemed adamant that prices will come down once he's in office. I tell the story about a woman who...

An old woman, an old woman, no money, went to a grocery store, had three apples. She put them down on the counter, and she looked, and she saw the price, and she said, "Would you excuse me?" And she walked one of the apples back to the refrigerator and came back to pay for the two apples, and she left with two apples. And the woman at the counter said that was so sad. And when I heard about the story, I said, "That should never happen in America, and it's not going to happen in America. We're going to do it right."

So this, of course, always a difficult challenge for any president on the economy, David Frum. This, of course, took place while he was at the New York Stock Exchange ringing the bell.

and was basically greeted like as a hero by many people that were on the floor of the exchange. You know, there is a way for him to keep his promise to bring down grocery prices, and that is to bring modernization to America's ports, some of the least efficient ports in the world, made inefficient by terrible backward unionized practices that defeat modern technology. But unfortunately, just yesterday, President-elect Trump said he's not going to do that, that he's going to defend the longshoremen's union and keep America's ports the least effective in some of the

some parts of the developed world. So it's not like some unfortunate thing is happening to him that is going to make him break his promise on growth through prices. He has embraced technological backwardness, opposing medical technologies like vaccines, trade protection. Every element of the Donald Trump program is designed to make sure that people

pay more. And when prices stay high, as they do, people need to remember it's not some terrible misfortune he inherited. He's the one who's preventing imports from becoming more efficient. He's the one who's going to impose duties on foreign goods, destroy American supply chains. That's his choice. Brad, I do say, I will say, I am, I

I don't understand how grocery prices are going to go down if we put massive tariffs on Mexico, for example. Well, wait a minute. I want to correct something David said there. Donald Trump's agenda is, first and foremost, the first thing is to bring the price of energy down. Energy is one of the biggest drivers of all costs for companies that bring consumer goods.

Joe Biden on his very first day issued executive orders that on purpose pushed energy prices up. If you bring energy prices down, you can bring the price of goods down. That's number one. Number two, regulations are strangling the American economy. Donald Trump is going to embark on a big deregulatory campaign that also can help bring prices down. So I take issue that his agenda is to bring prices up. It's just not correct. A lot of the port problems in California due to Gavin Newsom's regulations on who can back their truck up to that port. Like there are things you can do. And worse now by Donald Trump.

What? Pardon? Regulations endorsed now by Donald Trump. No, they're environmental regulations driven by the state of California. It makes California's ports less efficient than the others on the East Coast.

But the tariffs, no? I mean, at the end of the day, is that all not counteracted by the tariffs? I think certainly Mexico's a valued trade partner on agriculture and food products. Donald Trump has said he doesn't want to put tariffs on Mexico. He wants to put tariffs on Mexico if they won't control the border. This is a negotiating strategy. All right. Coming up next here on CNN This Morning, the internet rallying behind the man accused of assassinating a CEO raising thousands of dollars for his legal defense. Michael

Michael Smirconish is here to discuss that after the break. Plus, unexplained phenomenon drone sightings ticking up in New Jersey. Sam Morris, the mayor of Mine Hill, New Jersey, joins us next. It would be odd for me to wonder what the aliens are looking for. No offense to New Jersey, I'm just saying this is the whole earth they could have visited. Went outside to prove my point and this is over my house right now. What is that?

Floating white spots on a black background. A chilling image that cannot be faked unless you close your eyes and push on your eyelids a little bit. Oh, God, they're back. Yeah, and they're gone, and they're gone, and they're back.

New Jersey residents and officials continuing to scratch their heads and demand answers as the drone sightings across the northern part of the state remain unanswered. Our next guest has been meeting with law enforcement this week about the sightings and has captured some of these drones on video himself. There's a pair of drones right here in front of me. One's hovering. This one you can see is of course getting a little gray in it. And this one keeps moving to the north.

And there was another one that just went off to the north. You can see this red blinking light. It's a little hard to see, but the drone is right by the light. All right. Joining us now is the mayor of Mine Hill, New Jersey, Sam Morris. Sir, welcome to the program. Thanks for being here. Good morning. Thanks for having me. So I want to play for you a little bit of what John Kirby, the White House communications director for national security, said about these drones yesterday and ask you about it on the other side. Let's watch what he said.

We have not been able to, and neither have state or local law enforcement authorities, corroborate any of the reported visual sightings. To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully. Sir, is that true? No.

It's blatantly not true. Mr. Kirby has given us the swamp gas scenario, I guess. In a briefing on Tuesday with the state police, they told us they had engaged with drones. They told us that the drones react to their engagement, which is when they get close to them, they turn off their safety lights and they...

pretty much start scurrying away or taking off. That was directly from the state police in a briefing with 250 mayors. So I have witnesses. And for Mr. Kirby to say that no state officials can corroborate this just means he hasn't talked to the New Jersey State Police, which is kind of ridiculous considering this is where it's all occurring. So what do you see at night? We played a little bit of your video there.

Last night, for example, so the governor and also Mr. Kirby have said that people are mistaking, they say manned aircraft. They mean small planes or even big planes for drones. There is some of that. There's probably 50% of that because people aren't getting any answers. They may be confusing things.

But when you go out, and then last night, for example, went out in the parking lot here at Town Hall, and you can see there are airplane routes that go into Newark, Teterboro, Morristown. We all know them, right? But then there are anomalies that go in other directions.

And last night there was a something went through here that had eight or 10 lights on it. The lights flash red and green and white. Planes have a blue light, I think, on the right wing, what we would call the right wing. And these drones do not have those those colors. So that's what you see when you go out there. It's something that just it doesn't make sense. And it stands out and, you know, it's not a plane.

Sir, is there any suggestion or what have you heard from your state officials about what they think that it could be and whether they think the federal government knows more than what they're telling people? I think the federal government knows more than they're telling people. I certainly wouldn't speak for the New Jersey State Police or the governor's office or anyone like that. They have not speculated. Any meetings and conversations we have, they just they won't speculate.

But I think that Mr. Kirby knows more than he's telling. And I'm pretty offended, and I can tell you a lot of my constituents are offended, that they basically made light of this, that, well, this really isn't real. And when he says it's not corroborated, that's just a falsehood. So I think they need to consider walking that back and being a little more honest about this.

All right, Mayor Sam Morris, keep us posted. Come back if you need to. Appreciate your information. Thanks for being here. All right.

All right, let's turn back now to this story. It's really captivated the country. The Manhattan DA presenting evidence to a grand jury in the case against Luigi Mangione, according to ABC News. ABC News also reporting that, quote, law enforcement officials are worried that Mangione is being turned into a martyr as a wave of Internet supporters donate to defense funds for the 26-year-old suspected killer, including one online defense fund that has raised more than $50,000.

News Nation cameras even capturing this expression of support from inmates at the Pennsylvania prison where Mangione is being held. - This is shocking! Free Luigi!

Free Luigi. It's Friday, which means it's time for Michael Smirconish, CNN political commentator, host of CNN's Smirconish. Michael, welcome. Always wonderful to see you. Happy Friday. Let's start with what we saw there. The News Nation cameras outside that prison, people yelling, free Luigi. That makes a real statement.

So on Wednesday, I was in New York City to do my radio program at Sirius XM. And in the 6 a.m. hour, I walked on 54th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue, not because of some morbid curiosity, but because that's where I stay when I'm in New York City. That's my route. And what I found jarring was the lack of any kind of a memorial.

Where this assassination took place. In other words, I'm walking on the sidewalk where one week prior in the exact same hour, the 6 a.m. hour.

This health care CEO, father of two, was gunned down in cold blood. And there's no remembrance. There's no recollection. There's like nothing. People are just going about their business and leading their lives. And I thought this is so telling of the reversal of sympathies that I find appalling. And by the way, we can do two things at once. We can we can mourn the decedent.

The man who paid with his life unnecessarily. And we can recognize the errors in our health care system and try and work to bring about change. I've never seen Casey in the three decades that I've been behind this microphone taking telephone calls from across the country. I've never seen the visceral reaction as I have in this case. My callers appropriately mourn the loss of life.

And at the same time say, but you know, I've got a relative who can't get coverage or I've had this issue of my own. We can do both things. I would like to think that change comes from it. But for goodness sakes, can we please be appropriate in how we recall what happened a week ago Wednesday? Because it was God awful.

Yeah, of course. It was absolutely god-awful. One kind of question I've sort of wrestled with a little bit is whether this may, because it's exposed all this anger,

ultimately lead to some change, some political change, because obviously that would suggest that violence in this case affects political change, which is not a place we want to go in American politics. But that said, clearly there are millions of Americans, and honestly, I can't find anybody. I'm pretty sure everybody's sitting at this table. I have my own story about dealing with these health care companies, right, and how hard it is.

I think that you've really put your finger on the conundrum for politicians. And that is, how do you take action now?

but not be perceived as responding to the violence and therefore rewarding it. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that there are wanted posters being placed in Midtown Manhattan as we speak that are identifying corporate CEOs and healthcare individuals. I mean, it's horrific and we don't want to condone and encourage that sort of behavior. So how you strike the balance...

and say this man's murder was horrible and we're going to deal with it legally and through the law enforcement system and at the same time be responsive to the concerns that so many have. There's nothing more important, right? If you don't have your health, what's the old adage? You have nothing if not your health. So I get it, but we've got to be able to do both. All right. Michael Smirconish for us, sir. Always grateful to have you in the program. See you next Friday.

Thank you. Nice to see you. Thank you. Our viewers, don't forget, tune in to Smirconish. It's tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

All right, let's turn to this story. President-elect Donald Trump signaling that he is open to changing childhood vaccination programs once he receives a safety review from RFK Jr., his pick for Health and Human Services Secretary. Trump telling Time Magazine in an interview released Thursday, quote, 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 is something causing it.

I sat down with RFK Jr. last year. I asked him to clarify his position on vaccine mandates. So do you think school children should not be required to be vaccinated in public schools? No, I would be against mandates at all. For any vaccines? For any vaccine. It's important to note that multiple health agencies have found vaccinations are not

associated with autism spectrum disorder. Our panel has returned. There's also a noteworthy story that just came out in the New York Times an hour or so ago, looking at the lawyer that RFK Jr. works with, apparently very involved with the transition and hiring,

And they say that this lawyer has asked the FDA to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. Now, this happened a couple of years ago. This was back in 2022.

But he has petitioned the government to revoke the approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death. That campaign is just one front in a war that the lawyer Aaron Seary is waging against vaccines of all kinds. Much of Mr. Seary's work, including the polio petition, has been on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network. It's a nonprofit whose founder is an ally of Mr. Kennedy. And this is also the lawyer that represented Kennedy during his presidential campaign. This is...

significant stuff. Donald Trump has always been an autism hoaxer. He tried in his first administration in 2017 to bring RFK Jr. in then. Trump has often said things that imply completely falsely that saving children from measles and other deadly diseases is the reason that autism...

occurs, which is, by the way, a slur on autistic people. It's not a tragedy that there are autistic people. Measles is a tragedy. It's ignorant. It's emotive. It's something, it's point, it's anti-science. But that's been Donald Trump's position on this all along. And R.K. Jr. Trump did undertake Operation Warp Speed. He certainly, that certainly happened during his presidency. That's true. And then he did not admit that he took

that he got the shot and the virus and then never talked about it because his supporters hated it and he got booed off the stage when he admitted he got the booster. If you do the searches, you will find many more anti-vax statements by Donald Trump. Going back before he was president, going back to his first term, we're going back to barbaric ignorance and that's sort of the price we pay.

Well, I mean, Kamala Harris said she was not going to take the COVID vaccine. She's the original anti-COVID vaxxer. So, I mean, we have a lot of there's and there's anti-vax sentiment on the left as well. Of course, we don't need to get rid of the polio vaccine. And also, of course, we do need to look into autism more. The diagnosis of autism is

radically on the rise, it'd be the best thing ever if their Department of Health and Human Services could spend more resources on diagnosing that problem. I think we lost our minds during the pandemic as a country, and the fight over vaccines has now led to people seriously talking about ending the polio vaccine, and it's sickening.

Yeah, I'll just say that I would like my children to be able to receive the polio vaccine. And I've actually already tried to call Mitch McConnell's office about this. Your children will, but you'd like the other children in the class also not to be spreaders of polio. Well, and that's why I asked RFK Jr. about mandates, because that is what enables public schools to say to people, hey, you've got to protect your kids to be here. Guys, thank you for being here on a Friday. I appreciate it. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. Have a wonderful weekend. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

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