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Pope Delivers Annual Christmas Meeting; Taliban Deny Russia Claims of Sharing Intel; Liberation of Ramadi Expected within Days; Surviving Tense Christmas Political Talk; Top 10 Scandals and Controversies of 2015; 10:30-11a ET

Aired December 23, 2015 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[10:29:50] JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: And in the context of a special jubilee year of mercy that he has decreed for 2016, he also issued a strong plea, a special dose of mercy, for prisoners. Visiting prisoners has been one of the hallmarks of his papacy.

So essentially what you saw today was a pontiff who very much aspires to be a peace pope. Using the visibility afforded by one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar to try to raise his voice around the world in defense of peace and of human dignity, and that was very much the story from Rome here on Christmas Day 2015.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: John Allen reporting. Thank you.

Here I am again. Good morning, everyone and Merry Christmas. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

An unusual twist in an already bizarre story about strength, geopolitical bed fellows. The Taliban are now crying foul about a claim made by the Kremlin that the two are working together and sharing intelligence in the fight against a common enemy ISIS. Let's sort this out. I'm joined by CNN military analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona. Welcome.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So it was just a day ago we heard that Russia said it was kind of sharing intelligence with the Taliban, and then the Taliban puts out this press release and says, hold on a minute, that's not exactly true. What's up with that?

FRANCONA: Well, I don't find it bizarre at all that the Russians would try to engage in some intelligence sharing relationship with the Taliban. The Russians do not regard the Taliban as a threat to the Russian federation. However, they do regard ISIS as a threat. They would like to get information on ISIS wherever they can.

If you remember when the Russians went to Syria, they said it was about terrorism, about ISIS, but it really was about propping up Bashar al Assad.

Here now, we see the Russians really going after ISIS since they knocked down that airliner. The Russians really have shifted a lot of their focus. And they're very concerned that ISIS is spreading into the Caucasus area.

Hundreds of the fighters we see in Syria are Chechnyans (ph). And when they go back home, they're going to pose a real threat to the Russians. So the Russians have a vested interest in gathering information anywhere they can on ISIS. It wouldn't surprise me.

Why is the Taliban denying it? Well, these relationships are generally considered to be quite sensitive, quite secret, and I'm sure the Taliban doesn't want to see themselves cooperating with the Russians.

Why not? Why wouldn't the Taliban want to cooperate with the Russians?

FRANCONA: Because -- well, the Taliban, as they said, they don't want to portrait themselves as needing anybody's help and taking on ISIS in their own country. The Russians have more to gain in this from the Taliban so I think the Taliban is trying to downplay anything they're getting from the Russians.

COSTELLO: All right. Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, thank you. And Merry Christmas, and thank you for being here with me this day.

FRANCONA: Same to you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Iraqi forces say they're just days away from liberating Ramadi. Video from the Iraqi defense ministry shows blistering fire unleashed against ISIS targets on the ground. Troops on the streets must battle against IEDs, booby traps and suicide bombers.

The Iraqi forces reportedly have set their sights on liberating Mosul next. That's a much larger city. This is according to Reuters. Iraqi soldiers in Ramadi say they expect to eliminate all ISIS fighters in the city within a couple of days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Translator: The corpses are still under the rubble, and none of them are still in this district. That's it. We retook it, and it's over for them. A couple more days, and all Ramadi will be clear, and there will be not one of them left in this city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has more for us. Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning -- Carol.

Not one left in the city. Well, we will see about that. ISIS doesn't -- is not known to give up very easily, but it does look absolutely like the Iraqis have made significant progress potentially taking back upwards of 70 percent of Ramadi. They are taking those IEDs, those bombs. U.S.-led airstrikes just destroyed seven houses in the Ramadi area

that were laced with bombs. This is an effort to clear the way for the Iraq forces to go in.

It will be a challenge still. They will have to take back the entire city. They will have to be able to hold on to it. They will have to be able to defeat any sort of running guerilla attacks by whatever ISIS fighters may be left.

As for Mosul, that is a much larger city. Certainly it is the next big goal to get Mosul back from the grip of ISIS. If you can -- if the Iraqis can achieve getting Ramadi back, holding on to it, getting Mosul back, that is a major strategic victory for them. They can't afford to lose this time.

They have run away in the past. Now after months of U.S. training they appear very ready to take on ISIS. If they get Ramadi back, if they get Mosul back, Iraq gets a big chunk of its territory back -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon. Thank you.

[10:35:02] Still to come in the NEWSROOM, time for tense and awkward political discussions around the Christmas dinner table -- some tips on getting you through it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you at 38 minutes past.

A feud leads to a deadly shoot out at a North Carolina mall. Authorities say a man went to the mall yesterday when he ran into someone he didn't like. He started arguing with the man and then shot at him multiple times. Witnesses say the gunman turned his weapon on a responding off duty officer. That officer pulled his own gun and shot and killed him. No one else was hurt.

Demonstrators blocked entrances to several Chicago stores along the city's Magnificent Mile chanting "16 shots and cover up". They spent Christmas Eve protesting the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Authorities released video a year after his death showing an officer shooting the teenager 16 times in just 15 seconds. The protesters are demanding Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Cook County state attorney resign.

Iron-Man actor Robert Downey Jr. is off the naughty list. Downey was one of 91 people who received a Christmas Eve pardon from California Governor Jerry Brown. Downey spent time in prison after a 1996 drug- related conviction. The governor says Downey has paid his debt to society.

All right. It is Christmas. In just a few hours you'll probably sit down to dinner with your extended family. There will be eggnog and maybe too much eggnog. Talk will turn to politics, and that can get ugly really, really fast. No different than from how it went down on thanksgiving as "SNL" captured so poignantly earlier this year. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:39:57] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm thankful that our governor is not going to let those refugees in here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I actually saw an ISIS in the A&P today when I was picking up the yams.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, you didn't, Aunt Cathy. That was an Asian woman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is it that your friends keep antagonizing the police?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why would you ask my boyfriend that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's a guest in our house.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, it's me. I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet to go over everything. They say the time is supposed to heal you, but I ain't done much --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, your grandparents are here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So what if you don't have the new Adele CD, or whatever you call those musical things these days? Dr. Jeff Gardere is here to help. Welcome.

DR. JEFF GARDERE, PSYCHOLOGIST: It's a pleasure -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I always enjoy having these kinds of conversation with you.

GARDERE: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure.

COSTELLO: Ok. My first question --

GARDERE: Yes.

COSTELLO: So what do you do if Uncle Larry arrives wearing his Donald Trump "Make America great" hat? Nobody else at the dinner table is supporting Donald Trump.

GARDERE: More than anything else we need to have the idea of respect. He happens to wear that cap. That's his cap. Let him enjoy it. Perhaps he will wear something a little different or nothing at all in that particular case. But the more important thing is not to put him down.

And we call those things rules of engagement. Be kind. Have manners. But more than anything else, it is about that respect.

COSTELLO: You mean just ignore the hat? GARDERE: Well, you can then bring it up. Why are you wearing it?

And you know what? Here's the thing now. He may say, well, I'm wearing it because I'm all for Donald Trump, and you could say, well, I don't happen to be for Donald Trump, but let's talk about what it is that America needs right now in a leader.

So in other words, it becomes the starter for a conversation that is much more positive instead of going down the path of negativity.

COSTELLO: That's a tough task, Dr. Jeff. Because what if you have Uncle Larry wearing his Donald Trump "Make America Great" hat and somebody else is wearing this t-shirt featuring Hillary Clinton. You see that? Hillary Clinton -- nope. Two polarizing political figures -- how do you handle that at the Christmas dinner table?

GARDERE: Well, this is where we bring in humor, because it is funny. As we saw with the "SNL" skit, if we're able to laugh about our differences, accept our differences but laugh about them, then it makes it much, much more tolerable because at the end of the day who really cares that he is wearing the hat or she's wearing the t-shirt? It's really kind of cute that you are wearing it around the holiday table.

COSTELLO: You have such a -- doesn't he have a sunny outlook? It's amazing. Because truly in my family you cannot talk about politics.

GARDERE: Well, we talk about -- we do talk about it in my family, and let me tell you why. There's this whole intergenerational thing going on because we have granddad, and then we have the younger folks. So what we look for in granddad is that his strength is history and experience. For the younger folks their experience may be perhaps technology, the information highway.

So how do we take those two differences to look for common ground and come up with a discussion that is dynamic? Let's not talk about who is right or who is wrong, but what our differences are, how they make us who we are and how we can bring that together for a hybrid of good dynamic conversation at the dinner table?

COSTELLO: Wow. I would love that. I would love that, although I think the better solution is just to have that Adele song handy.

GARDERE: And if we can sing to it at the same time, I think that's even better.

COSTELLO: That is better. Dr. Jeff -- thanks for stopping by. Merry Christmas.

GARDERE: My pleasure. Happy holidays.

COSTELLO: Happy holidays.

Ok. Santa has arrived safely back at the North Pole. That is according to NORAD. Just a few hours ago, he dropped off his very last gift and headed home with the reindeer. The first Lady Michelle Obama continued her tradition of answering calls at the NORAD tracking center, telling children where exactly Santa was at any point of the day or night.

Here's a little trivia for you. NORAD has been tracking Santa since 1955. That's when a child tried to figure out where the heck Santa was, dialed the wrong number, and ended up talking to a U.S. Defense official. And thus, a tradition was born.

As we open gifts and spend time with our loved ones today, I want to remember those ensuring that we have a safe and happy holiday.

So sending a very, very merry Christmas to all of our troops serving abroad, thank you so much for your sacrifice, for being willing to spend this day away from your family, so we can be with ours. Your service is so appreciated.

[10:45:00] I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: They were the people and events that made jaws dropped and forced some very public apologies and resignations. CNN's Joe Johns counts down the top ten scandals and controversies of the year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Number ten, most hated. Pharmaceutical company CEO Martin Shkreli makes our list. Not just because he jacked up the price of a drug to treat AIDS and cancer patients over 5,000 percent; also because he took too long to stop talking.

MARTIN SHKRELI, FORMER TURING CEO: Yes, I could see how it looks greedy, but I think there's a lot of altruistic properties to it.

JOHNS: Or tweeting, trying to make his case to people like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton who did not want to hear it. Shkreli was indicted for unrelated fraud and resigned before the end of the year.

Number nine, state of denial. 2015 was yet another banner year for Illinois politicians in big trouble. Former house speaker Dennis Hastert got caught up in sexual misconduct and hush money allegations. Former congressman Aaron Shock resigned after misusing taxpayer money including to redecorate his office in the style of the Downton Abbey TV show. And Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel was on the ropes for his city's handling of police shooting video that somehow didn't go public until after the mayor got re-elected.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL (D), CHICAGO: I'm responsible. I don't want to shirk that responsibility.

JOHNS: Number eight: the year of family values.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a story of my family. We're the Duggars.

JOHNS: Conservative family man and reality TV star Josh Duggar quit the Family Research Council after admitting that while in his teens he molested four of his sisters. And then Duggar popped up when the Ashley Madison hacker started naming names, though he wasn't the only one. 32 million people buying into the Web site slogan "Life is short, have an affair".

[10:50:07] Number seven, black like me.

The story of Rachel Dolezal was hard to watch, but impossible to turn away. President of Spokane's NAACP outed as white by her parents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you African-American?

RACHEL DOLEZAL, FORMER SPOKANE NAACP PRESIDENT: I don't understand the question.

JOHNS: No crime, of course. In a color-blind society, it wouldn't matter. But this is not that America. The telling part was the overheated reaction to Rachel's story that said more about our times than she ever could.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she's out of her mind, to be quite honest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At first I thought, you know, maybe this is a psychological disorder, but now I'm convinced that she's a con artist.

JOHNS: Number six, at least they're consistent. The U.S. Secret Service, the guys who protect the First Family seem to stay in the spotlight and not always for their heroics. Sometimes it's not even their fault.

This year some rocket scientists flew a drone over the White House that crashed on the lawn. What are you supposed to do about that? But then in March two senior agents who had been drinking crashed a car into the White House barricade. So there's that.

Number five, journalism's naughty list is anchored this year by former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams --

BRIAN WILLIAMS, FORMER "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS" ANCHOR: I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire.

JOHNS: -- who somehow managed turn his credibility into a late night comedy routine.

Not to be forgotten, "Rolling Stone Magazine", which this year had to retract a story by Sabrina Ruben Erdely, who managed take a serious issue of national concern and change the focus with her deeply flawed opus on the alleged sexual assault at the University of Virginia.

Number four, no sense of humor. Here's a question. Three top officials of FIFA, the governing body for soccer, are all traveling in a car. Who's driving? Answer: the police. It's almost not a joke considering so many officials who control the world's most popular sport have been implicated by the Justice Department for allegations of bribery, fraud, and money laundering. That joke was so not funny to FIFA that when one of its PR guys told it in public, he quit his job.

Number three. And speaking of sports scandals we can't forget Tom Brady of the NFL's New England Patriots who faced down allegations that made both a joke and a punch line. Grown men accused of playing with deflated balls.

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: Our equipment guys do a great job of breaking the balls in. To me those balls are perfect, and that's what I expect when I show up on the field.

Number two, I'm Alice in Wonderland, and I approve this message.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a place like no place on earth. Some say to survive it you need to be as mad as a hatter.

JOHNS: When Lewis Carol wrote this fantasy classic, he could not have foreseen the unparalleled political Jabberwocky coming from candidates in both parties in the U.S. presidential race.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation.

JOHNS: Where being a leader can mean insulting millions.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're rapists.

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.

JOHNS: Even billions of people.

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

JOHNS: And the great thing is the general election is still more than ten months away.

And finally, number one, policing in the age of candid camera phone. It has dominated the headlines for more than a year separating the vast majority of officers just doing their jobs from those who abuse their power.

Nowadays, if the police report says a guy who got locked up or beat up or worst, was supposedly resisting arrest, pictures sometimes tell the rest of the story.

Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Quite a year -- right. Thanks to Joe Johns.

Checking other top stories for you this morning at 53 minutes past. Some holiday shoppers are fed up with FedEx. Severe storms delaying package deliveries across the country. FedEx now says some delivery staff are volunteering to make deliveries this Christmas morning. They waited 36 years, but now each of the 53 hostages in Iran,

remember that, will receive $10,000 for every day they were held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran back in the 1970s. Their spouses and children are eligible for a one-time pay-out of $600,000. The pay-out is part of a budget bill passed last week.

And an Idaho lunch lady who was fired for giving a free meal to a hungry child is being offered her job back. That's according to the school district. Dalene Bowden made headlines when she posted a picture of her termination letter to Facebook. It triggered tens of thousands of people signing an online petition calling for her to be reinstated. Bowden says she has yet to receive an official offer to return, though.

Children of all ages, remember the classic stop action movie "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Only a couple of those original puppets remain.

[105503] One man on Staten Island though has made it his mission to preserve them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER LUTRARIO: There isn't so much as a Christmas tree left. These are the only two surviving puppets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rudolph with your nose so bright --

LUTRARIO: My name is Peter Lutrario, and I am the owner of the original Rudolph and Santa puppets.

The secretary brought them home and used them for display every Christmas. They were kept in the attic -- a hot, dingy, old, old attic. Over the years they decayed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For crying out loud.

LUTRARIO: The only part that is not original is that nose, which we had to replace, because it wasn't there. I never thought I would get the opportunity to own these dolls. I wish I could get a hold of any kind of a prop, even a twig from "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".

Owning something from the show represented my childhood, and it took me back to a very happy time in my life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Awesome. I want to take you outside one more time to New York Central Park because it is unnaturally warm outside. People are ice skating, though, and it's in the 60s right now. Central Park officially broke a record at midnight, hit 66 degrees.

I checked out the weather in San Diego, California. You know the place that's supposed to have perfect weather? It's 52 degrees there this morning. Sorry, California. New York has it going on this Christmas day. Merry Christmas. And thank you so much for joining me on this special day. I'm Carol Costello.

"@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND BOLDUAN" after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)