CNN Special Report - Season 12 / Year 2021

Wolf Blitzer anchors a special look exploring the origins and execution of the coup attempt Donald Trump inspired on January 6, 2021, to prevent his successor from taking office.

Anderson Cooper looks back at the rioters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021: who they were, what spurred them on, and what consequences do they face. Interview subjects include former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and white supremacy expert Kathleen Belew.

Senior Political Correspondent Abby Phillip closely looks at the historic career of Kamala Harris, the first woman and the first Black American and South Asian American to be elected Vice President. Phillip examines Harris' path to the Vice Presidency, including her barrier-breaking roles as U.S. Senator from California and California Attorney General. It reports untold details of her childhood, her upbringing in Berkeley, and the defining role her parents' activism played in her life. Phillip speaks with Harris herself and conducts a rare joint interview with Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, about what the next four years will mean for their family. Phillip also talks with close friends and colleagues, including U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Catherine Cortez Masto and her sister Maya Harris.

Honoring the legacy of broadcasting giant Larry King: The longtime host of CNN's Larry King Live became an icon through his interviews with countless newsmakers and his sartorial sensibilities. He died at age 87 in a career spanning 60 years. With his trademark suspenders and his deep baritone voice tinged with a Brooklyn accent, he interviewed just about everybody.

Anderson Cooper, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Ken Burns discuss United States President Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20, 2021, the legacy of President Donald Trump, and how the U.S. can meet its challenges moving forward. 

Anderson Cooper takes a deep look into the origins and beliefs of the conspiracy group that is called Qanon. He investigates how they operate, how they reel people in, and the dangers they pose.

Fareed Zakaria investigates how the divide between Republicans and Democrats in America has become a national crisis. Why did political hatred in America get so bad? 

In the wake of the violent attack upon the U.S. Capitol during the Congressional certification of the 2020 national election, Zakaria and others offer analysis and historical context. They include: three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author Thomas Friedman (The New York Times; Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations, 2017); CNN commentator and former Obama Administration official, Van Jones; author and columnist Ezra Klein (The New York Times; Why We're Polarized, 2020); author Jane Mayer (Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, 2017); historian Jon Meacham (The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, 2019); writer and author, George Packer (The Atlantic; The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, 2014); law professor and author, Joan Williams (the University of California, Hastings College of the Law; White Working Class, 2019); and CNN political analyst, professor, and author, Julian Zelizer (professor, Princeton University; Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker and the Rise of the New Republican Party, 2020). 

An updated look into the origins and beliefs of the conspiracy group called QAnon; an interview with a QAnon believer and the backstory of what QAnon is and how it rose quickly; Anderson Cooper hosts.

Jake Tapper investigates how America can safely reopen our schools as parents and teachers struggle to stay healthy throughout the covid pandemic. This report will include video diaries from parents, students, and teachers that show the real-life, day-to-day challenges of education in the Covid era. CNN's Chief Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be one of the many voices to clarify some of the pandemic's most critical questions: are schools fully prepared to allow students, teachers, faculty, and staff to return to in-person classes safely? What is the science telling us, and what are the risks associated with keeping kids from returning to school as soon as possible? Guests will include U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and National Education Association president Becky Pringle.

In the year since the COVID-19 pandemic swept the country, close to 30 million Americans have contracted Coronavirus, many of whom have struggled, and more than 530,000 have died as a result. And those are just the numbers. CNN correspondent Miguel Marquez reports on the impact of those who have been affected by the pandemic. 

Among the millions of stories across the U.S., Marquez highlights a son who left behind his wife and life in New Jersey to care for his ailing, now widowed mother. He also talks to a long-married, once healthy couple who had to adjust to life where one of them might be permanently disabled due to COVID. And a sister haunted by the possibility that she may have been the one who transmitted the virus that killed her younger brother. Dalton, Georgia, is like many other American towns affected by COVID-19, as nearly one in seven have been infected by the virus. These accounts are from one area of America, but they repeat in town-after-town, state-after-state, and coast to coast.

CNN Correspondent Ed Lavandera investigates the nation's unemployment insurance program when Americans need it the most. The financial trauma caused by the Great Depression moved the United States to action in 1935. No tax-abiding American would suffer such destitution under the nation's new unemployment insurance program. Through personal stories, Lavandera explores the reliability of America's most important economic safety net. 

CNN travels to Kentucky to explore this governmental service's systemic issues through conversations with politicians across the aisle, local reporters, the state auditor, and former state workers. More importantly, Lavandera meets with Americans who have lost nearly everything. At the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, almost 22 million Americans lost their job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Was America's financial lifeline, the unemployment insurance program, there when its citizens needed it the most?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Stephen Hahn, and Dr. Robert Redfield discuss what went right and what went wrong with the nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes an in-depth look at the proven science of vaccines and the backlash against them amidst the backdrop of COVID-19 with increasing numbers of parents choosing not to vaccinate their children pre-COVID. More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic and after over half a million American lives lost, there is now finally hope.  Currently, there are three vaccines available in the United States, and scientists say if enough people get vaccinated, this pandemic will come to an end, and life can return to normal. Yet polls show that one-third of Americans are still hesitant or downright unwilling to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Anti-vaccine sentiment is not new — the movement has a long history. A history that Dr. Sanjay Gupta was investigating and filming before the COVID-19 pandemic began.  

CNN's Don Lemon explores the impact and genius of Marvin Gaye, his unprecedented "What's Going On" album, and the anatomy of several of the 1971 record's iconic hits that reflect significant challenges and divisions in the nation today. 

Britney Spears' legal battle over a contentious conservatorship has garnered attention worldwide, from the diehard fans leading the #FreeBritney movement to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. CNN's Alisyn Camerota and Chloe Melas explore the explosive revelations that emerged from the pop icon's tireless fight to end her 13-year conservatorship. The report also examines critical conversations around tabloid culture, mental health, and the treatment of women in media sparked by Spears' battle.

Airing days before the court hearing that will decide the fate of Spears' conservatorship, this report features an array of voices, from lawmakers proposing protections for those under conservatorships and actors familiar with the scrutiny of Hollywood to expert attorneys and the staff closest to Spears over the years. The special includes interviews with actors Mischa Barton and Rosie O'Donnell; House Representatives Charlie Crist (D-FL) and Nancy Mace (R-SC); the founders of the #FreeBritney movement; conservator expert attorney Lisa MacCarley; award-winning journalists Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino; and several team members who were close to Spears from the beginning of her career through the start of her conservatorship.

CNN provides a closer look at the nationwide quest for answers in the Gabby Petito homicide case and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. Randi Kaye investigates.

CNN anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash hosts this report on the fight for voting rights currently playing out across America. Despite having no evidence, former President Donald Trump, his allies, and numerous Republican politicians continue to push baseless conspiracy theories claiming widespread fraud during the 2020 election. As a result, Republican state legislators and governors are passing new restrictive election laws making it harder to vote, changing who oversees election processes, and tearing down guardrails in key states that kept Donald Trump's big lie from succeeding in 2020. With the 2022 midterm election fast approaching, Bash travels to some of the crucial states that passed election laws this year, talking to voters, key legislators, and experts to explore how these new laws might impact voters and the outcomes of future elections.

The January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol was the most visible piece of Donald Trump's push to overthrow the results of a free and fair U.S. election endangering our American democracy. Before election day itself even began, Trump led a disinformation campaign attacking the 2020 election's credibility. As votes were still being counted, he pressured local, state, and federal legislators to disenfranchise millions of voters, even twisting the arms of leaders in the Justice Department to help orchestrate a second term. CNN Anchor and Chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper interviews key Republican officials about details never before heard on just how close the nation came to losing the democracy many of us hold so precious – and what Trump and his team are planning for 2024.

Xi Jinping's remarkable ascendance to becoming China's paramount leader is as extraordinary as are his aspirations for China's global dominance. Born into privilege, then condemned to labor on a rural farm during the Cultural Revolution, Xi's life and China's rise are explored by CNN's Fareed Zakaria in a new, global primetime special.  

For decades, Zakaria points out, Chinese leaders sought rapid modernization through economic initiatives, massive infrastructure projects, and social engineering programs to transform a poor, largely agrarian nation into a global superpower that now demands a reckoning with the world. China, now a nation with the world's second-largest economy, has been led by an increasingly ruthless and authoritarian Xi Jinping for the last decade. Under Xi, China has taken an aggressive global stance, brutally restricting freedoms in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, saber-rattling at Taiwan, and adopting an increasingly hostile anti-American posture.

Through discerning interviews with experts including Ian Bremmer (president/founder, Eurasia Group); Elizabeth Economy (author, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, 2018); Thomas L. Friedman(author, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations, 2017; columnist, The New York Times); Victor Gao (vice president, Center for China and Globalization); Evan Osnos (author, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, 2014; New Yorker staff writer); David Shambaugh (professor, The George Washington University); and Lingling Wei (chief China correspondent, The Wall Street Journal); Zakaria warns that China may be entering a new, antagonistic phase as Xi seeks to shape his nation around his philosophy of brutal nationalism. 

The violent insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, DC, has reinforced Xi's notions that democracy is both dangerous and incompatible with China's goals for stability, progress, and global supremacy in an orderly world. Ultimately, Zakaria asks: as Xi consolidates power in – and for – China, what are the stakes for America?

CNN correspondent Elle Reeve returns to the scene of the deadly and violent "Unite the Right" white supremacist rally where – four years later – a hallmark federal civil suit, Sines v. Kessler, went to court. The documentary retraces the events in Charlottesville that led nine plaintiffs to sue 25 defendants, including high-profile white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and organizations designated as hate groups, who they say planned, carried out, and celebrated a weekend of violence and intimidation. Reeve – whose reporting on the "Unite the Right" rally in the documentary Charlottesville: Race and Terror with Vice News Tonight won numerous awards – has unprecedented access to the major players in the case, including some of the white supremacists on trial.

During the hour, Reeve speaks to the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in Sines v. Kessler and the plaintiffs themselves who were harmed by the "Unite the Right" rally about its lingering impact and what's next for their community. She also talks to defendants Richard Spencer, Matthew Heimbach, Jeff Schoep, and Matt Parrott about their roles that weekend, the current state and downfall of the alt-right, and the future of white supremacy.

In August 2017, white nationalists descended upon Charlottesville in a planned demonstration against the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee, but soon it was engulfed in violence prompting the Virginia governor to declare a state of emergency. Less than two hours after that declaration, a white nationalist plowed his car into a crowd of protestors injuring dozens and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Infamously, President Trump addressed the nation, condemning hate and violence on "many sides."

Nearly ten years ago, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta set out on a journey and traveled the globe to investigate the medical benefits of medical marijuana.  Weed, the original award-winning documentary in the series that premiered in 2015, highlighted the remarkable benefits of CBD in treating seizure disorders in kids. The documentary led to dozens of state legislatures changing laws granting parents and doctors the ability to use CBD in treating children.

In Weed 6: Marijuana and Autism, Dr. Gupta takes viewers on a similar journey. Medical marijuana is known to treat dozens of disorders. In this documentary, Gupta follows several families who have seen the miraculous benefits of the plant on their children struggling with autism.

Autism, ASD for Autism Spectrum Disorder, is by definition a wide array of behaviors. Whether mild or severe, two core symptoms are social communication challenges and restrictive or repetitive behaviors. Viewers will meet researchers, doctors, and families, some of whom are coming out publicly for the first time, and will see in real-time how life-changing the plant can be for them.

CNN hosts examine extraordinary individuals and unexpected events through interviews, stories, images, and video.