maybe you want to keep those seat belts fastened. the lead starts right now. major questions raised today about your safety in the air as senators grill the faa why the agency cannot be so sure there will not be more runway near misses and grounded flights. plus, nikki haley officially kicks off her 2024 campaign, bringing a pledge to bring in a new generation of leadership. but how long can she maintain this delicate dance, throwing subtle shade at trump while not alienating his supporters? and hayashi, you know, that first flying object shot down, the one that was deemed a chinese spy balloon. u.s. intel says maybe it wasn t supposed to be over the continental u.s. after all. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. we start with our politics lead and the airport chaos taking over capitol hill after the series of near collisions and the nationwide ground stop that led to thousands of delayed and canceled flights. the acting head of the federal aviation administration
staff burned documents. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. tonight, transportation secretary pete buttigieg tells me the biden administration will hold southwest airlines accountable for the meltdown in its operations that has left thousands of flights canceled and thousands of passengers stranded. gabe, what is the situation there right now? reporter: wolf, thousands of travelers are still stranded. the lines to rebook here in baltimore have been more than three hours long at times today. the wait to reach customer service has been longer for many customers. some are literally sleeping here at the airport, just trying to get home. the meltdown at southwest airlines just gets worse. it s a total you know what show here. reporter: southwest canceling more than 2500 flights on tuesday. more than 85% of all u.s. cancellations. and they have already canceled nearly the same total for
ahead on cnn newsroom. hundreds if not thousands of americans who are stranded all across the nation are unable to get home. i have no clothes. i have nothing. i have no way to get home. i m beyond frustrated. it hurt because i can t see my dad. i ve lived here my entire life. i remember the blizzard of 77. it was worse. anyone who declares victory and says it s over, it s still a dangerous situation to be out. announcer: live there loren done, this is cnn newsroom with max foster and bianca nobilo. it is tuesday, december 27th. 9 a.m. here in london. 4 a.m. here on the u.s. east coast where thousands of people are stranded at airports after months of arctic storms that pummelled much of the country over the holiday weekend. if you re planning to travel into the new year holiday you could be impacted. the flight tracking website flight aware shows more than 2700 total cancellations occurred in the u.s. today and of those 90% are southwest airlines flights.
southwest. of. 2800 u.s. flights already canceled today, 2500, about 90% are southwest. challenge for our flight crews being stuck in locations not where they need to be along with the aircraft. at this point we re working to accommodate our customers as best we can and offer the most options we can. cnn s lucy kafnov is in denver. i wasn t anticipating a nightmare but it is. reporter: christmas is over but for thousands of customers the travel nightmare goes on. they canceled our flight. they said they can t help us so we don t know what to do. reporter: southwest airlines at the top of the list for cancellations. the airlines ticketing counter at baltimore s bwi airport a zoo. denver s lines for the southwest ticket counter even longer. we had to wait in a line that was four hours and it was horrible. nobody is giving us a direction on what line to get in. it s a total you know what show here. reporter: for those tlieg to call to get through, good luck get
they by potentially reinforcing this image of extremism that hurt republicans so much through purple states. there are others, but for me those are the biggest known unknowns for 2024. and that last one is a great question because you have heard republicans, you know, they have been basically chomping at the bit to take over the majority for obvious reasons. but with such a small majority, you negotiation i heard from republicans who say, we re concerned about what these investigations look like and what path this goes down and do we look like we have a strategy that we have it together or we don t know who is going to be the house speaker next week when the new congress takes over. good point. ron, thank you very, very much. thank you, guys. happy holidays. thank you. cnn this morning continues right now. good morning. it is 8:00 a.m. eastern. we re so glad you re with us. it is december 27th. welcome to cnn this morning. all right, so we will begin with