Trump's Territorial Expansion?
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It's Thursday, December 26th, and right now on CNN This Morning, territorial expansion. Donald Trump using his Christmas greeting to take aim at Panama, Greenland, and Canada. Plus, a deadly plane crash. New video showing the aircraft flying erratically before crashing in Kazakhstan. Plus, later. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. The switch-up. The major companies donating to Donald Trump's inauguration after pledging to suspend funding following January 6th. And then later, this.

Cowboy Carter Christmas! Beyonce spreading holiday cheer with an epic Netflix halftime show with a full lineup of special guests.

Good morning to all of our viewers. It is just after 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. You've got a live look right now at Cincinnati, Ohio. Good morning, everyone. I'm Danny Freeman, in for Casey Hunt. It is so wonderful to have you with us this morning. Let's talk politics. Donald Trump is adding to his wish list for Christmas with the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada apparently on the top of his mind.

In a Christmas Day post announcing his choice for U.S. ambassador to Panama, Trump once again claimed Panama is, quote, ripping us off on the Panama Canal. In recent days, the president-elect has fixated on the canal, arguing the U.S. should reclaim control of the waterway. Panama's president has called such talks non-negotiable.

And President-elect Trump's annual Christmas message also posted musings about expanding the U.S. territory at the expense of Western Hemisphere neighbors. In his post, he once again called Canada's prime minister governor and imagined if, quote, Canada was to become our 51st state. And once again, he eyed Greenland, saying the Danish-controlled territory is, quote, needed by the United States for national security purposes.

Now, the idea of buying Greenland isn't really a new one for Donald Trump. He first floated it as a possibility back in 2019. Leaders in Denmark and Greenland have dismissed the proposal. And this week, Greenland's prime minister responded by saying, Greenland, not for sale. In 2019, Denmark's prime minister called it absurd, a critique which the then president did not appreciate.

Denmark, I looked forward to going, but I thought that the Prime Minister's statement that it was absurd, that it was an absurd idea, was nasty. I thought it was an inappropriate statement. All she had to do is say, no, we wouldn't be interested.

Joining me now to talk about all of this is Isaac Dover, CNN senior reporter, and Leah Wright-Regor, CNN political analyst and historian, kicking off our wonderful panel on this post-Christmas morning. Thank you both for being here. Isaac, I want to start with you. Five years ago, Trump said all Denmark had to say was they weren't interested. And yet here we are, what is old is new again in 2024. He's again talking about how Greenland is needed. Isaac, what's going on here? Is this real?

Well, look, Donald Trump has been reelected president. He had ideas of what he wanted to do in his first term. He wants to bring them back in a second term. So it's not surprising to see that kind of continuity here. I think what's different potentially here is that in Trump's first term, a lot of leaders around the world saw Trump.

that presidency as sort of an aberration, as something that they hoped and believed many of them would pass in America, that it wouldn't, that just get through four years of Donald Trump and then things will go back to the way they were. That is not the way that the response has been to Trump being reelected now. And so this will be, not just Greenland, but this talk about Canada, this talk about the Panama Canal, all of it will,

will be processed likely in a different way by world leaders who, from the people that I've spoken to who've been in touch with world leaders, they think that this will maybe lead to a different kind of response than that kind of waving away of a lot of things that he was saying internationally in the first term. Of course, it's going to factor in things like whether we're going to remain members of NATO,

what kind of aid will be going to Ukraine and how the relationship with Russia and China will be managed. Those sorts of things which definitely are part of the way American foreign policy has been for a lot of the post-World War II era, which Trump is now challenging, are what we are going to see play out over these next four years.

Leah, can you give me a bit of a historical perspective here on what precedent there may be for, I mean, buying a huge swath of land, say, like Greenland? So it's actually larger than that. There are historical precedents for the kind of, you know...

essentially, saber rattling that we've seen on these, that we're seeing on these issues right now. You know, the Panama Canal, Greenland, several other countries have been points of contention for the United States, in particular conservatives, for many years. It's also part of, I think, a much larger history of U.S. empire or U.S. imperialist notions. But

By and large, there are two things I think that are worth pointing out. One, the U.S. has often withdrawn from these attempts at empire and imperialism because they haven't gone very well. This also includes the Panama Canal. It has been a point of contention for many, many years. The reason the Carter administration, in part, signed the two treaties that established the Panama Canal is because the United States was not doing well in Panama.

But the other thing that I think is important is that even as the United States has made these claims, has made these attempts over the years,

It's actually been Republican administrations that have not acted on the sale or the purchase or going after these various countries, in particular because the administrative state and the amount of effort and the amount of money it takes to maintain or the military efforts that it takes to invest in these countries, in these areas, is just far too expensive and far too difficult. And I think for somebody like Donald Trump, who claims to be an isolationist, the things that he's proposing,

proposing are actually anti-isolationists. They're very much imperialist of empire. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's actually something else underneath what Donald Trump is proposing, because ultimately Greenland, which is interesting, the Kingdom of Denmark just invested more money into defense spending around protecting Greenland, but also Panama in particular, the only way that the United States can actually invest in those spaces

is through military intervention. So I actually think something else is going on with Donald Trump, that there is something else that he wants to negotiate, and he's just using these kind of bombastic claims in order to make a much larger point.

Well, as with many things with the president-elect, I think we will hear more about this in the coming weeks and months. Stick with us, both of you. Thank you for starting off the morning. But we have more to talk about coming up on CNN This Morning. Committing millions, billionaires, Fortune 500 companies, and crypto firms backing Donald Trump, pledging donations to support his inauguration. Plus, just terrifying video here showing the aftermath of a deadly plane crash in Asia. Remarkably, dozens of people actually survived.

And this, shocking celebrity deaths, sprawling lawsuits, and the end of an era. 2024 was full of entertainment stories. We have the top 10 coming up in just a moment. You only come across an artist like Luther Vandross once in a lifetime. It was the most exciting time in the world. The CNN film Luther, Never Too Much, New Year's Day at 8 on CNN. One of the big differences between the first term, the first term everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.

It's going to be one of the bites we're going to hear quite a bit. Apparently everyone wants to be Donald Trump's friend in his second term, but they're bringing their checks to prove it now. A flurry of Fortune 500 companies, crypto firms, and individual billionaires all racing to help underwrite Trump's inauguration on January 20th, pledging seven-figure donations. In return, they'll get an intimate candlelit dinner with the president-elect and First Lady Melania.

Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Trump's inaugural fund is on track to break records. And also, they identified at least 11 companies and trade associations who are backing the inauguration, despite once saying they would not donate to him after the January 6th attack on the Capitol. The president-elect finding himself in clearly a very different position than he did just four years ago.

- Some of America's biggest companies say they do not want their political donations in the war chest of lawmakers who wouldn't accept the free and fair election. American Express, AT&T, UPS, they're joining Marriott, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Commerce Bank in suspending political donations. - Add JP Morgan and Facebook to the growing list of companies that are pulling their political donations following last week's Capitol riots. - Hallmark called out two by name and asked for the return of previous donations. - Never seen Hallmark pissed off

before.

- My panel is back and we're joined by Max Rose, former Democratic Congressman from New York and Senior Advisor at VoteVets. Thank you all for joining us to talk about this inaugural donation frenzy that we're seeing right now. Max, I'll start with you. When the Wall Street Journal asked the companies why they're donating now despite some of them swearing it off after January 6th, one company representative responded with this. "People just really want to move forward and move on. "The election results were very clear.

Former Congressman, what's your reaction to that? Look, God bless them. They're full of it, right? I mean, two years ago, you care about one thing, and now you obviously don't. It's clear that what they are in it for is their shareholder interest. And maybe that had always been the case, but certainly that should be a message to Democrats, right? That none of these groups, corporate or otherwise, are...

are in your camp permanently. Rather, the people that should be in your camp permanently and you in their camp are working people. Now, what is shocking, though, about all this is that Donald Trump, during his campaign, ran, in many ways, a quintessentially populist campaign. He did not talk about

about being there for corporate interests. He did not talk about taking million dollar checks. And he certainly didn't talk about this kind of escalator of the billionaire class being appointed by him and sitting at his knee at Mar-a-Lago. But that is how he is governing. And that as well as the lane for Democrats to win elections in the future. This is what they should be talking about nonstop.

Leah, what struck me interesting from this reporting is that it's not only different from four years ago, but also from President-elect Trump's first inauguration as well, right?

Absolutely. So I think part of what we saw during the first inauguration is that there was a real reluctance to associate with Donald Trump. There was really no interest from many corporate backers in taking him seriously. He was an unknown quantity for a large group of people, but also for many business people, it was important to be associated with his campaign. I do think, and I would agree with Max on this here, I think one of the things, the lessons that a lot of these corporations have learned over the last four years

is that it is about money, that there are no permanent friends, that there are no permanent affiliations or alliances. And so when it became clear to them that Donald Trump was going to suffer very few, if any, repercussions for the behavior on January 6th, as well as other legal problems and attacks,

allegations, it became very clear that this was going to be an opportunity for them to ply their case and make their trade with Donald Trump. We all know that he is transactional. And so what we're seeing is an increase in that kind of transactional action. So we're seeing corporate giants like Amazon, like Facebook Meta,

all these organizations, and they want something in return. I would point, for example, to cryptocurrency. Several cryptocurrency organizations and institutions have donated millions to Donald Trump because they want deregulation of the industry in a way that benefits them, and this is how they get it. So this is, I think, a dawning of a new day, but it's one that is very much about corporate interests and corporate payouts.

- But just quickly, Isaac, I just want your quick take on this. I mean, this is not, it's not like Democrats also don't receive inaugural contributions when they take the White House, but can you give us some context? Joe Biden, for example? - We have a lot of money in politics, and people tend to write big checks when they want something in return for it. I think what we see here, and not just as a reflection of the change from the way things were, but going forward, there is this expectation that Trump

as was just being said, will be a transactional president. He was a transactional president. And we'll be picking favorites, and we'll be picking companies that he benefits maybe in terms of regulations and other things like that, but also those that maybe are exempt from tariffs or don't get hit with the same kind of deportation raids on their workers.

That is the sense that exists in the business world when it comes to Donald Trump. And there is a reason why people are writing these checks now. They are assuming that Trump is paying attention to them now and will be going forward over the next four years.

Panel, stick with us. We still have more to talk about. Thank you for those responses. But after the break on CNN This Morning, we're going to talk about a deadly Christmas Day plane crash. We'll tell you what preliminary reports show may have been the cause. Plus, you won't believe how a drone operator lured this dog off of a frozen lake after it was stuck for over a day. That's one of the five things you have to see this morning. Stay with us.

Investigators in Kazakhstan are working to determine what caused the plane crash that killed at least 38 people on Wednesday. 29 survivors, though, were pulled from the Azerbaijan Airlines flight wreckage, and the black box was recovered. Russia's aviation watchdog reports the pilot tried to make an emergency landing after a bird strike. CNN's Nada Bashir has more details.

Well, the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was traveling from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny in the Russian region of Chechnya. But it was forced to make an emergency landing around two miles from the Kazakh city of Akhtar. Now, video circulating from eyewitnesses and those nearby the crash site shows that the plane was circling the airfield somewhat erratically before the crash, then bursting into flames as it hit the ground.

Now, emergency response teams were quickly at the scene and remarkably, there were a number of survivors, including at least two children, according to authorities, with videos showing some of those injured emerging from the wreckage.

But this is a moment of huge tragedy for those that did not survive. According to authorities, there were 67 people on board the flight, including five crew members. Preliminary reports, according to Russian aviation authorities, suggest that the pilot was forced to attempt an emergency landing following a bird strike. However, investigations are still ongoing. Neda Bashir, CNN, in London.

And we are about 25 minutes past the hour. We have five things you have to see this morning. Two people saved from a burning truck in Washington just moments before it fully burst into flames. Police say two good Samaritans helped pull the victims from a crash right before the fire grew. Thankful for them. And a dog stranded on a frozen New Jersey lake rescued after a chicken cutlet tied to a drone helped convince the pup to return to land. The dog had been stranded for over a day. Hope he got to eat that cutlet.

And first responders treating patients and workers at a Chicago-area hospital to a parade, spreading some holiday cheer for those who can't go home for the holidays. And Santas in Florida ditching the sleigh for, yep, a surfboard. 800 Santas hit the waves in Cocoa Beach, setting a new record for the most surfing St. Nicks in one place. Love it.

And Christmas and the first night of Hanukkah landed on the same day this year and yesterday. To mark the Jewish holiday, a giant menorah was lit in front of the White House. Absolutely beautiful day. Storms in the west and the south could, though, put a damper on travel plans after the holiday. For more on this, we have meteorologist Alyssa Raffa tracking it all. Good morning. Good to see you.

Good morning, Danny. We've got two storms that we're watching. Here's a look at where you could have some delays from the storm system in the south that creates some heavy rain and severe weather from Dallas down towards Houston and New Orleans. And then we have this atmospheric river that just keeps this series of storms in the Pacific Northwest problems from Seattle to Portland down towards San Francisco. We've got lightning with some of these showers coming on shore Oregon this morning. You've already got some of that rain and snow.

lot of winter alerts especially in some of those higher elevations where we could get up to a foot of snow in some of these spots plus the wind will whip we're talking winds up to 60 miles per hour possible especially at the highest mountain peaks so all of this will create some messy travel conditions along the west coast as we go through the day today and then watch as we have more that comes in as we go into friday so we're looking at some two to four inches of rain possible

And again, we could be measuring some of that snow in feet, again, adding to that snow doubt.

Right now, not doing too much across the south, but we'll find these showers and storms really ignite as we go into the afternoon with some of that daytime heat and humidity. We have a level two out of five risk for severe weather, damaging winds, large hail and even some tornadoes from Shreveport down towards Houston. So we'll have to watch that today. And again, it could cause some travel headaches. Danny. Lisa Rafa, thank you as always very much for that report.

And straight ahead on CNN This Morning, big stars and even bigger legal trouble in 2024, from the downfall of a music mogul to a Netflix documentary that could lead to the release of the Menendez brothers. We have the biggest entertainment stories ahead, plus one of Donald Trump's biggest campaign promises, lowering energy costs. But is that actually doable? My panel will be back to discuss.

The United States will commit to the ambitious goal of slashing energy and electricity prices by half, at least half. The epic story. She was going to kill everybody. Do I look like a monster to you? Concludes. The man's are a cult. We need to get her out of there. With one. Look, there she is. Blast. I hear like moaning. Like a porno. Twist. What are you hiding? Can we cut?

The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, the final chapter. An I.D. documentary event. Starts Monday, January 6th at 9. Lowering energy costs. That's a promise President-elect Trump made during his campaign. But as he prepares for a second term, experts say that may prove incredibly challenging. CNN's Bill Weir has more.

Frack, frack, frack and drill, drill, drill, drill, baby, drill. On the trail. We're gonna frack, frack, frack. Donald Trump made some big energy promises. Your energy bill within 12 months will be cut in half and that's my pledge all over the country. What's the reality of that as he gets ready to take office? To quote Eminem, it's more, "snip back to reality." But even Republican experts say, yeah, don't count on it. Having worked for a president, President George W. Bush,

and having looked, scoured the White House for a magic wand that can quickly lower oil prices or electricity prices. The truth is it doesn't exist. The reality is that

Consumers' energy bills, producers' production volumes, they depend much more on the whims of the global marketplace than what any single president can do. And the U.S. is already producing more fossil fuel for that market than any nation in history.

So drilling on more federal land, experts say, would not affect gas prices. Private land and shale is really where the action is. Federal land, you can tinker with things on the margin, maybe get a couple additional 100,000 barrels a day. You're not going to double U.S. production or increase it by even 25 percent. And remember when the pandemic and OPEC caused oil prices to crash?

It was good for consumers, but horrible for U.S. oil companies. So Trump asked Russia and Saudi Arabia to stop drilling so prices would go up. Making it so that our industry does well and the oil industry does better than it's doing right now. When does an American president call OPEC to cut production to raise oil prices? Answer, never, except the second quarter of 2020. Let me be very clear.

From the industry's perspective, President Trump can and will implement regulatory and policy changes that will vastly improve the outlook for energy investment. But in terms of lowering oil prices near term, electricity prices, that is very, very difficult for any president to do. Meanwhile, utility scale renewable energy is now cheaper than oil.

China is switching to electric cars with such breathtaking speed and scale it's disrupting energy futures. And around 90% of the projects waiting to get on the Texas grid are solar plus batteries. And batteries, if you look up a battery farm, you just mint money because you charge your batteries when electricity is cheap. You sell it six hours later when electricity is expensive. I mean, it's just a money-making machine. These developers are not Birkenstock wearing hippies.

who get in their VW bus and drive off. These are Texan energy developers who want to make money. And you make money with renewable energy right now. It's the cheapest energy we have. And can Trump politics get in the way of that or claw back that momentum in any way?

I think it's a real open question what is going to happen. Everybody needs to understand that a transition to renewable energy will fatten your wallet. You're going to walk out with a better economy, cleaner air, better national security. I mean, the benefits of the clean energy transition are enormous.

for almost everybody, not if you're a fossil fuel billionaire. They will not be better off than a clean energy. Fossil fuel billionaires will be worse off. And because of that, and because of the enormous political power they have, they have been able to essentially capture the political process to have politicians force us to continue using dirty, expensive fossil fuels. Bill Weir, CNN, New York.

All right, let's bring my panel out to discuss and kind of react to what we saw. I'll get everyone's reaction, but Isaac, I think I'll start with you and I'll give you the top line thought. Just can President-elect Trump really lower energy prices? Remember, he didn't say he would lower energy prices. He said he would lower them by half. That is, as he said, an ambitious promise. It is one that he said multiple times over the course of campaign. He said it was his pledge as he played there in that clip. That promise

It is beyond what anyone serious who's looked at the energy situation believes is possible. And as in Bill Weir's piece there, what he was getting into, it's not like raising energy production in America would be the answer to that.

First of all, because there's not that much more to do. And second of all, because we are already producing so much fossil fuels at this point. So the question that is in front of President Trump and is in front of the country as they evaluate what he does on this promise is not,

what benefits energy companies, but what is actually going to be in the lives of people, consumers, everyday Americans who voted, thinking that they were voting about pricing and what it would do to their own personal economy. What happens for them and whether they believe that

getting to any kind of energy savings matters, ultimately. It's a big cost. Everybody who owns a home or a business knows energy is a big part of what those costs are. And we will see now how much President Trump can get to

cutting things by half if he gets to half. I think he will, as I said, surprise a lot of people. And then what sort of accountability there is for that very central promise of his campaign being there if it's not fulfilled. Yeah. What do you think, Max? I mean, is the risk if this does not come to fruition in any sense, let alone certainly to the level of half that Isaac was noting there?

Sure, look, you can campaign in contradiction, but you certainly can't govern in contradiction. The difficult situation that Trump is in right now is, let's say he actually did fulfill his promise of lowering energy costs by 50%. He would actually catalyze a depression amongst the U.S. energy business at the same time, which relies on high energy costs, causing massive unemployment amongst his very base political supporters.

So this is illustrative of the fact that very quickly the Trump administration is going to come head on into the difficulty of obtaining their campaign promises. And in fact, in many instances, such as this energy promise, it's utterly impossible.

Leah, do you think... Oh, yeah, yeah, please, Isaac, yeah. One of the things to point out over the last couple of years is that this is something that Joe Biden never really figured out how to do. He would talk about dropping costs, but at the same time that energy prices were going up for Americans, profits for these energy companies were also going way up. So they have made a lot of money, and that's one of the things that President Trump is going to run up against, too, as Max is saying.

Leah, along these lines, I mean, do you, you know, we hear it, Trump says it all the time, drill baby drill, that's the whole policy. Is there a genuine concern that in this, if he does try to tackle this, that, I mean, any progress made on climate could be rolled back?

- Yeah, so I think that to Isaac's point earlier in our conversation, the United States has never been drilling at a higher production than we are right now. So the irony of suggesting that, oh, we'll bring drilling back when we're already at the top peak of drilling is one that- - He said that piece, he was like, we're already at that point. There's no, yeah, yeah, go on. - We're already at that point.

And I think, you know, the Secretary of the Interior, I think the Secretary of Energy both understand that, or the newly appointed, the nominated secretaries understand that. What is more interesting, I think, right now is the fact that under Biden, these kind of energy policies, particularly under the Inflation Reduction Act, have actually been deeply beneficial to red states and blue states, but particularly

in particular red states, in some cases rescuing manufacturing, rescuing energy production, rescuing all kinds of industry. And so there is a push amongst Republicans, particularly Republican congressmen, to keep those acts and to keep those things in place. So I actually wouldn't be surprised

if the Trump administration tries to take advantage of the benefits that are coming as a direct result of Joe Biden's energy production and energy laws and infrastructure that he has been put in place, but that Democrats actually have not taken advantage of over the past several years, at least in terms of messaging. So I wouldn't actually be surprised to see that because there's very little that Donald Trump can actually do to increase that won't actually offset or create a

oppression or create a recession, will cause the loss of jobs, and will hurt actually those red states that he claims that he wants to protect. I actually think that this is far more of a PR campaign and messaging on the part of Donald Trump and really taking advantage

of the work that the Biden administration has been putting in place. The last thing that I'll say here too, is that it also matters that Elon Musk is a huge proponent of clean energy and of these infrastructure because he takes advantage of it with Tesla and his other clean energy projects. So I would pay attention to that too. What does Elon Musk think on these issues? Because that's probably the direction that the Trump administration will be going in during these first couple of months.

- A fascinating conversation. Again, another area we're gonna talk about quite more. Panel, stick with me. But coming up next on CNN This Morning, an overdue honor if you ask me after nearly 250 years, America officially has a national bird. Plus Beyonce, just the gift that keeps on giving, her holiday halftime show rivaling a Super Bowl performance. Take a look.

- Hello girls. - Hello Beyonce. - Hello fellas. - You'll be swell. - Those petty ones can't touch me. - Why? - Blockbuster movies, court cases, and of course, the Heiress Tour, all making headlines this year, and CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister counts down the top 10 entertainment stories of 2024.

from big stars in big legal trouble to big movies, concerts, and a brat summer. Our top 10 entertainment stories start with the Wicked boost at the box office. Number 10, the glick and pairing of Wicked and Gladiator 2 form this year's Barbenheimer. With over $150 million in opening weekend ticket sales, the two films energize the typically slow post-summer box office.

Wicked, starring Golden Globe nominees Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, stayed strong through the holiday season, while Gladiator 2 excelled overseas. The pair set the table for the Thanksgiving box office, with Moana 2 joining to set an all-time record for the holiday weekend.

Number nine. Maybe now people can understand. Television takes on the Menendez brothers case, pushing prosecutors to take action. I believe that they have paid their debt to society. Then Los Angeles district attorney said public attention factored into his decision to reexamine the case.

and recommend a reduced sentence that would allow the brothers to walk free. Nearly three decades after they were sentenced for murdering their parents in Beverly Hills. The Hollywood production spotlighted abuse the brothers say they endured at the hands of their father, with even some of the victim's family members calling for them to be released. 35 years is a long time. Ultimately, the judge delayed a decision while a newly elected district attorney reviews the case.

Number eight, the hip-hop feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. This may be the hip-hop equivalent of asking to speak with the manager. In November, Drake filed a court petition accusing a record company of using bots to artificially inflate Lamar's song, Not Like Us, on Spotify.

It's the latest chapter in the ongoing feud between two of the industry's biggest names, who once toured together as rising stars. Each claims the other dissed them in song lyrics, with one question at the heart of the feud. Who is hip-hop's biggest star? Who would have thought it would potentially end in a courtroom?

Number seven, a pop star ignites a brat summer.

Charlie XCX's album, "Brat," not only storms the charts, it propels an online political movement. - Very honest, very blunt, a little bit volatile. - With that description, the singer declared, "Kamala is brat," on social media, spotting a torrent of memes that kicked off Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential run. And a lot of questions amongst a certain generation.

So it's the idea that we're all kind of brat and Vice President Harris is brat? I don't know if you're brat. I think you aspire to be brat. You don't just become brat. I will aspire to be brat.

Number six, Alec Baldwin's courtroom shocker. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted. A judge dismissed the case against the actor accused of involuntary manslaughter when the gun he was holding on the Russ movie set fired, killing cinematographer Helena Hutchins and wounding the film's director. The judge's decision came less than a week into the trial, citing the prosecution's improper handling of new evidence in the case.

The ruling paved the way for Baldwin to return to the limelight, appearing on Saturday Night Live as former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Number five, charges filed in the death of Matthew Perry. Two doctors and Perry's assistant are among five people charged in connection with his overdose death. One of the doctors allegedly said, quote, I wonder how much this moron will pay for ketamine prescriptions.

Three people have pleaded guilty. One of the doctors is awaiting trial, along with an alleged dealer prosecutors say is known as the Ketamine Queen. The Perry family, relieved that charges were filed nearly a year after the beloved actor died in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home. People who have put themselves in the business of supplying people with the drugs that'll kill them, they are now on notice.

It doesn't matter what your professional credentials are. You're going down, baby. Number four, Beyonce goes country. The superstar bends genres with the release of Cowboy Carter, which debuted at number one, including on the Billboard country chart, making Beyonce the first black woman to do so in the chart's 60-year history.

♪ Let me make myself clear ♪ - Beyonce's mega year wraps with what some call the second Super Bowl, a halftime performance on Christmas day during the NFL's first ever games to stream worldwide on Netflix. Number three, the death of pop star Liam Payne. Fans held vigils for days in Argentina where Payne fell three stories from his hotel balcony. ♪ You're insecure ♪

The 31-year-old British pop star rose to fame in the boy band One Direction. He went on to have a solo career and spoke openly about his struggles dealing with fame and substance abuse. I was like, "Right, I need to fix myself." Toxicology reports found cocaine, alcohol, and prescription antidepressants in Payne's system. With more than 70 million One Direction albums sold,

Payne's impact on fans was undeniable. So for me, it feels like, I guess, like the end of us growing up together, which is really, that's what makes it so hard. Number two, the end of the era's tour for Taylor Swift.

The nearly two-year tour wrapped in Vancouver on December 8th. Estimated to have made over $2 billion, it's by far the most successful concert tour of all time. Not only that, she released a new hit album, The Tortured Poets Department. All this, and she's still the darling of the NFL, cheering on boyfriend Travis Kelsey in February to yet another Super Bowl victory for the Kansas City Chiefs.

And the number one entertainment story of 2024, the fall of music mogul Sean Diddy Combs. After a flood of civil lawsuits alleging Combs sexually assaulted dozens of people, federal investigators raided the hip-hop star's homes.

signaling a federal indictment was imminent. Then CNN released this video of Combs assaulting his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, at a hotel in 2016. The shocking video prompted Combs to speak out for the first time since he came under fire. I mean, I hit rock bottom, but I make no excuses. My

My behavior on that video is inexcusable, but it only got worse for Combs with a September federal indictment charging him with racketeering, conspiracy and sex trafficking. The case is sending shockwaves through the music industry. The names that we're going to name are names that will shock you.

Jay-Z was named in a civil suit alleging he assaulted a 13-year-old girl with combs in 2000, charges he vigorously denies, questioning why there was never a criminal charge.

Combs has also denied all of the allegations against him, saying he never sexually assaulted anyone. His criminal trial is set for May of 2025, and he faces at least 30 civil suits, ensuring that Combs' legal troubles could be big news for years to come.

It is 55 minutes past the hour and here's your morning roundup. New overnight, three people shot at the Phoenix airport. Police say it started as a family dispute at a restaurant outside the security perimeter. The argument then spilled into the parking garage where one person was stabbed. One female juvenile was detained.

And a gruesome discovery after a nine-hour flight to Hawaii. A dead body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane when it landed in Maui. The plane was coming from Chicago. United says it's working with officials to figure out how that body ended up there. And the bald eagle, now officially the national bird of the United States. About time. President Biden made it official while signing a flurry of bills into law on Christmas Eve. The bald eagle has been featured on the Great Seal of the United States since 1782.

Netflix, they made its NFL debut with the coveted Christmas Day games. Take a look. Rifles, touchdown. Boom. He hits Watson for the score. Good play, boy. The Kansas City Chiefs are clicking. Two very strong drives.

Both the Chiefs, Steelers, and Ravens-Texans games airing on the platform as part of its recent three-year deal to broadcast the league's Christmas Day matchups. It's the company's latest venture into live events. The broadcast starting off a little bumpy with some technical glitches, but what was really the main event went off without a hitch. Beyonce's halftime performance featuring her daughter, 12-year-old Blue Ivy, and a few other surprise cameos. To the left, it's a real-life hooky and a real-life holdout.

So, freaking good, my panel is back. All right, raise of hands here, everyone on the panel. Who watched any of the Netflix games yesterday? We have people who watched? All right, Lee, I'll start with you. What'd you think? What'd you think? How did Netflix do in its debut?

So I think Beyonce Bowl was fantastic. It was great. And Netflix did an exceptional job. But it's noteworthy that Netflix kind of had to do an exceptional job, given how poorly they did with the Mike Tyson, Jake Paul fight from about a month ago, right? Which was marred by glitches, by problems. And people were saying, I didn't pay all this money just to sit around and watch a bunch of, you know, watch a computer crash.

And so when you have your biggest challenge, which is not actually football, it's actually Beyonce coming out and putting on a 13 minute concert, they proved that they are up to the task. And so I wouldn't be surprised to see not only this kind of partnership, which runs through 2026 with the NFL, but also to see similar kinds of concert events broadcast on Netflix because they've just proved that they can handle it. - Yeah, and I'll be honest,

I was white knuckling it. Like I was worried that there was going to be more glitches throughout, but I mean, everything seemed pretty smooth. The former Congressman, what was your take on it?

Yeah, look, media is changing. Everything's changing. We're not going back. So I found the concert awesome, the games awesome. But what was intriguing to me were the commercials, right? It was a fantastic media presentation. And then you see the commercials, and it looks like there was one commercial where it looked like a couple of guys from Queens made an underwear company two days ago, and they filmed it on their iPhone. So it's...

I think that we're seeing the production level rival that of network news now at this point, or networks writ large. But we're not seeing the media buying and the commercials move that way. But certainly considering the audience levels, we will soon.

All right, I'm going to ask the control room to actually play the second shot here. I'm going to skip Mariah Carey for the moment. I apologize to Mariah Carey, because Netflix used the opportunity to also tease some promotional material. Can we cue that up? Is that all right? It's great to see you back, Mr. Gilmore. Isaac, you get the last word on this. Just a few more seconds left. Happy Gilmore 2. Good thing?

For a lot of the Happy Gilmore fans, certainly. Netflix has had this deal with Adam Sandler for years, and it's done well for both of them. And obviously, we're seeing Netflix continue to expand in what it's doing. And Sandler was part of that even before they got their glitches worked out for the live event. Exactly.

All right. Well, thank you all to our panel so much. Really appreciate it. And thank you at home for joining us today. I'm Danny Freeman. CNN News Central will start right now. Welcome to Times Square. Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen are back together to ring in the New Year. That's not in my life! And anything could happen. Oh, my gosh. So embarrassing. That's perfect TV. New Year's Eve Live starts at 8 on CNN.