Reporter Catherine Herridge Frets Over Prospect Of ‘Black Swan Event’ In 2024

 Catherine Herridge, senior investigative correspondent for CBS News, is raising concerns about a “black swan event” happening in 2024.

The ominous statement aired Sunday on “Face the Nation” after moderator Margaret Brennan asked members of her panel to share their “big prediction” for the coming year.

“Well, mine’s a little dark. I just feel a lot of concern that 2024 may be the year of a black swan event,” Herridge said.

The reporter explained that such a “national security event with high impact” is “very hard to predict” given there are a number of global conflicts as well as issues within the United States.

“Not only this sort of enduring, heightened threat level, that we’re facing, the wars in Israel, also Ukraine,” Herridge said.

“And we’re so divided in this country in ways that we haven’t seen before,” she added. “And I think that just creates fertile ground for our adversaries like North Korea, China, and Iran. And that’s what concerns me most.”

Brennan said, “A lot of people up at night with that concern, Catherine. At least in this town,” alluding to Washington, D.C.

Other panelists also gave their predictions for 2024.

CBS News chief national affairs and justice correspondent Jeff Pegues said that he expects crime across the country, in particular violent crime, will stick to a downward trend next year.

 

Robert Costa, chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News, predicted a “crisis” might happen within the GOP if former President Donald Trump becomes a convicted felon and the party has no “real plan” for a general election in which he is the presidential nominee. Costa’s colleague, chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford, surmised that the Supreme Court will not “save” Trump from criminal prosecution.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin joked that he would have to predict the discovery of alien life to compete with the other “shockers,” but settled on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reaping the “rewards” of sending munitions to Russia — as was reported by the White House in October — such as technical aid for his country’s nuclear weapons program.

Brennan concluded that “the only certainty is uncertainty.”

She added, “And anyone who tells you what is going to happen with this election, and how it’s going to play out over the next year is selling you something because there are just so many different variables that all of us are tracking, and all of us are weighing … But it’s also why none of us will sleep very much in the next few months.”