morning, harvard telling them that they essentially the accusations here are totally false, that funders, donors, don't have a say essentially in these academic research pursuits. just pulling back for a second, i will just say joan when she left harvard or as she says she was pushed out of harvard last year, that raised a lot of concerns in the community that monitors this sort of stuff, disinformation, because in their view they're getting attacked on all sides. they are getting pushed from a republican house of representatives, researchers in this space are getting sued, it's all kind of setting up a space as we go into 2024 where people who are calling out disinformation in these campaigns in the past could be muzzled. >> by the way, some of these platforms are allowing more of that disinformation. >> a lot more of it. >> back on their platforms. thank you, donie. and thanks for joining us this morning. >> "cnn news central" starts right now. >> thank you, guys. ♪

there is a clear path to dictatorship in the united states and it is getting shorter every day. new warnings including from former republican officials about the risks of a second donald trump presidency. in gaza the death toll is surging as israel expands its military operations against hamas. palestinian civilians and more than 130 hostages caught in the middle. an urgent push is under way to get israel and hamas back to the bargaining table. exhausted and demoralized. the new report on the stress air traffic controllers are under and the risk that it carries for air travel. i'm kate bolduan with sara sidner and john berman. this is "cnn news central." ♪ new this morning with donald trump surging in the polls, fresh sounds of alarm about what a second trump presidency might

mean. and some of the warnings are coming from one-time republicans. quote, let's stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality there is a clear path to dictatorship in the united states and it's getting shorter every day. that's robert kagan, a former reagan official writing in the "washington post." a second trump term would instantly plunge the country into a constitutional crisis, more terrible than anything seen since the civil war. that's david from, a speech writer for george w. bush writing in the atlantic. "the new york times" writes this morning, quote, donald trump has long exhibited authoritarian impulses, but his policy operation is now more sophisticated the buffers to check him are weaker. so sometimes you can tell what donald trump views as political vulnerabilities because he simply tries to flip the script. this is what he said about president biden this weekend. >> joe biden is not the defender of american democracy.

joe biden is the destroyer of american democracy. >> cnn's kristen holmes is in washington this morning. there seems to be this growing rumbling from around the political spectrum paying very close attention to donald trump and the possibility that there could be a second trump presidency. >> reporter: that's right, john. there is a lot here. we can start with this weekend and then we can move on to trump's long admiration for authoritarian rule. starting with this weekend the big argument that president biden had made against a second trump term is that it would be bad for democracy, as we have noted, he is now facing charges for trying to overturn the 2020 election, the democratic process. he has constantly criticized and tried to undermine the election system as a whole, which is our democratic constiinstitutions. he has called for the termination of the constitution and that doesn't even go into what he has said about free press. now he is saying that president biden is the real threat to democracy. and the argument is one that we

have heard before. he is essentially saying that the four indictments that he, trump, is facing are joe biden weaponizing the department of justice to go against a political opponent in donald trump. thing to note here is that a lot of her supporters do believe this. they do believe that there is a two-tiered justice system. this really goes into what we talk about when we talk about an agenda in 2025, particularly given the fact that trump himself has said he would use the justice department to essentially weaponize it and go against his enemies. and one of the lines you read were that his impulses have remained the same, but the buffers to check him are weaker. and it's not just that the buffers are weaker, it's that he is aware of what they are and he and his team are looking at ways to go around them. the other part of this is that the buffers we've had in place for decades, if not centuries, seem to be immune to donald trump. i mean, he has been impeached twice, the only former president to have been so, and yet he is

still leading in the republican field. but when you talk about a trump 2025 agenda and what those buffers are, one of them, one of the things that donald trump talked about a lot when he was in office and since has been that he felt that these civil servants in the government, those serving as kind of a check on the executive, were standing in his way of getting what he needs to get done and that is why one of the big proposals is to essentially wipe out people who are civil servants in the government to take away their restrictions that keep them in office and keep them in their jobs to make it easier to replace them with loyalists. this is just one of the steps. we talked about immigration, for example. john, one of the things we are looking at is how do we work around congress? if they are not going to give us the funding how do we go around them to still get this giant mass deportation done? that's what we are talking about when we talk about these buffers, him understanding what they are and trying to work around them already before he's even run against joe biden. >> and he's got people planning

for him already. kristen holmes, thank you very much for that. sara? >> let's discuss this and much more now with molly ball, national political correspondent for "time." all right. let's get straight to these headlines about donald trump. when you see these headlines in several different publications including from republicans speaking out and you hear life-long conservative republican liz cheney saying we are sleep walking into a dictatorship, trump is still far and away the leading gop candidate right now. will any of these warnings make a difference to voters? >> well, for republican base voters and just a little update to my title there, i'm with the "wall street journal" now, but, you know, republican voters i think have been hearing these warnings for a long time. to me it all feels very much like 2016 when we saw the same rhetoric coming from the republican establishment saying to republican voters, look, we are not liberals, we are not democrats making this critique, but we really think this guy is dangerous.

so there is a fair amount of deja vu, i think, as kristen was saying, there is a feeling on the part of a lot of the republican base that is most devoted to donald trump that he was not able to go far enough in his one term as president and that it was because of the so-called deep state. you know, we have a story over the weekend about the fact that this is sort of ironic considering the republican party's long time emphasis on limited government, on reigning in executive power and limiting federal control over local policy, you know, a lot of the policy promises that donald trump is making in addition to being rather alarming for those who are concerned about democratic institutions, they also would sort of bulldoze local control over a variety of areas of life and policy. >> i do want to ask you about this because there is a flipping of the script here where donald trump has gone after joe biden saying he's the one that's destroying democracy, something that you see a lot. something that donald trump is accused of he will then turn and

put that on his opponents. look, you talk about his republican base and that's one thing, but what about the overall, the general election, the independents that everyone focuses so much on? is any of this going to make a difference in the general if he indeed goes up against joe biden? >> it's too soon to say, but i do think we saw in 2022 during those midterm elections there was some criticism from sort of, i don't know, centrists that president biden put a lot of emphasis on the democracy issue, gave a sort of fiery speech on the eve of the midterms warning about the threat of the so-called maga republicans, and that ended up being somewhat persuasive to people. we did see, you know, those election denying candidates like kari lake in arizona really paying a price for subscribing to the attacks that donald trump has made on the election

process, on democratic institutions, on the peaceful transfer of power. so this attempt to reframe january 6th and the attempt to overthrow the government and turn that into something that his supporters see as pro democracy, that was not persuasive to general election voters in 2022 and it's something that i think, you know, democrats see as a potentially winning issue again in 2024, as long as trump is not successful, you know, in, as you say, flipping that script. >> molly, there is another issue that has come up, something that we saw very much in 2016. i feel like we are on some sort of repeat here. health care. we have now heard from donald trump who was the first to start it talking about getting rid of obamacare and then desantis has also jumped in saying he's promising a new health care plan to supersede, as he put t although he didn't pell spell out any plan, obamacare. biden also jumping in. is this going to be a big issue

now that you see all of these candidates jumping on this idea that americans are unhappy with their health care in general? >> it's interesting because, you know, you don't see health care as a top issue in polls as it has been as i can certainly remember it being, say, a decade ago, you know, when obamacare was still -- was still new and the republican party was very much energized by opposition to t we've seen that fade quite a bit. most republicans privately will admit that they don't see the affordable care act going anywhere or even being significantly modified. and voters seem much more concerned with other pocketbook issues, particularly inflation, high prices, the state of the economy in that sense. so, you know, i think democrats are happy to see this issue come up again. they feel like it's a winning issue for them. but in terms of the republican primary, it's part of this theme that we have seen of governor desantis trying to attack trump as both not being sufficiently

conservative and not having executed on his promises when he was president. he of course did try to repeal the affordable care act and notably failed, so desantis is saying to republican-base voters if that's something you care about here is a guy who didn't get it done. >> all very interesting and all something we will be watching for at least the next year. molly ball, senior national correspondent for the "wall street journal." appreciate your time. kate? and new this morning, the israeli military has announced that it is expanding its combat operations to the whole of gaza. this includes the south where many people have fled to take shelter as we have been covering. the idf has ordered people south of the city of of kahn han yuni clear out. in the west bank israel says two suspected militants were killed after they fired on israeli troops.

and in gaza israel believes there are still 137 hostages being held. the united states continues to push to get israel and hamas back to the negotiating table after things clearly fell apart this weekend. cnn's alex marquardt joins us now from tel aviv. where do things look at this moment? >> reporter: kate, since those talks fell apart, since that fragile pause ended on friday and those hostage releases stopped, we are now in the fourth day of renewed fighting, the fourth day of israeli bombardment of the gaza strip. the israeli military saying that overnight there were some 200 air strikes across the gaza strip and israel announcing that it is now expanding its campaign to all of gaza. remember, the first five, six weeks of this initial phase of the campaign was in the northern gaza strip, now they are moving south, which raises major concerns about where these civilians are going to go. of course, northern gazans had been told to move south and many of them had gone to this city of

khan yunis where israeli and american officials now believe many -- or much of the hamas leadership has gone to, and so now israel is calling on civilians in khan yunis to move either farther south. the u.n. estimates there are 1.8 million gazans who have been displaced, that is the vast majority of the 2.2 million person population. kate, the big question is whether gazans are getting this message. how easy is it for them to get that? israel is relaying evacuation orders via social media, via leaf let's dropped with qr codes that take you to a complicated grid map with different numbers in different areas. not only is it complicated to understand but it is -- you cannot assume that gazans are actually getting this message because of how weak the internet connection has been, because of the numerous blackouts in communication over the last few weeks. at the same time we are starting to see and hear more of an alarm from the highest levels of the biden administration, top biden

administration officials talking about the imperative of keeping civilians safe. over the weekend we heard the secretary of defense, lloyd austin, who was talking about his experience in urban warfare. he said you can only win in urban warfare if you keep the civilian population protected. here is a little bit more of what he had to say. >> you see in this kind of a fight the center of gravity is the civilian population. and if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat. so i have repeatedly made clear to israel's leaders that protecting palestinian civilians in gaza is both a moral responsibility and a strategic imperative. >> reporter: and, kate n just these past four days there have been hundreds more palestinians killed in gaza. the death toll now quickly approaches 16,000. that is according to the hamas-controlled health ministry in gaza.

kate? >> alex marquardt in tel aviv. thank you. so in the red sea off the coast of yemen a u.s. navy destroyer shot down at least three houthi drones as it came to the rescue of three separate commercial ships under fire. iranian-backed houthi rebels in yemen are claiming responsibility for the attacks on what they say are israeli ships the houthis do. natasha bertrand is at the pentagon with the latest on this. what are you learning? >> reporter: john, this was a really significant series of attacks that occurred yesterday in the red sea and the houthis, which are an iran-backed militant group in yemen, they have claimed responsibility for those attacks. but just to put this in perspective, the "u.s.s. carney" which is a destroyer currently in the red sea responded to a number of attacks carried out by missiles by this houthi -- by these houthi rebels, including one ballistic missile that targeted a commercial vessel. in total three commercial vessels were attacked by these missiles and a few of them were actually struck directly and

suffered damage. now, throughout all of this the houthi rebels were also launching drones and the "u.s.s. carney" shot down three of those drones according to u.s. central command and there were no injuries or damage to the u.s. destroyer during this series of attacks. look, none of this is coming in a vacuum. this all comes as these iran-backed proxy groups have ramped up their attacks on the u.s. and its allies over the last several months in response to the u.s.'s support for israel as part of the israel-hamas war. and the houthi militants have said that they will not stop these attacks because they say they're standing in solidarity with the palestinians. but in the meantime the u.s. says that it is considering all possible options for a response. the u.s. has responded in the past to these attacks by these iran-backed groups in iraq and syria, they have launched air strikes on weapons depose and storage facilities used by iran's revolutionary guard corps and iranian proxy groups, however, those have not deterred

these attacks and the attacks have really only escalated over the last several months to the point where we are over 70 of these attacked being carried out by iran-backed groups versus the u.s. and coalition forces in the region. what is going to stop the attacks? the u.s. says they are weighing all of their options. >> an enormous amount of activity in that region. keep us posted. coming up, as soon as today the senate majority leader could put a bill on the floor for billions in aid to israel and ukraine, but republicans are threatening to block it over border security. we're live on capitol hill. plus, a special election is coming after george santos was kicked out of congress. we will speak to one of the democratic candidates hoping to flip the seat back to blue. and the former minneapolis police officer convicted of killing george floyd is back in prison after recovering from 22 stab wounds. what we're learning about the inmate accused of attacking derek chauvin. all of that ahead.

this morning the white house issuing a stern warning to congress, pass foreign funding or risk knee capping ukraine on the battlefield. the letter from the office of management and budget director comes as congress returns to work this morning with a critical agenda on the table, border talks have stalled, complicating the passage of president biden's $106 billion supplemental aid package that includes money for the u.s.-mexican border, ukraine and israel. cnn's lauren fox is joining us now from capitol hill this morning. lauren, where are we? what's the latest? >> reporter: yeah, sara, this was always going to be a very heavy lift for republicans and democrats to come together on an issue as vexing as immigration, especially given the fact that

the white house is giving those stern warnings that they need money for ukraine as soon as possible. i'm told from three sources familiar that border talks stalled over the weekend, negotiators had a conversation on friday evening, but after that they did not continue to talk throughout the weekend. that is because democrats in their view think that republicans are pushing these talks too far and too close to what the house passed immigration bill included earlier this year. that is a nonstarter, democrats say, and part of the reason that there is a pause in these talks. now, i've covered a lot of these negotiations up here on capitol hill, it's very common that negotiations fall apart before they come back together, but things are not in a good place right now and multiple sources that i'm talking to believe that it's possible that the senate could move forward with this money for ukraine and israel without additional border

funding. the problem -- not additional border funding, but changes to border policy. the problem with that approach is that it's dead on arrival in the house of representatives. speaker mike johnson has made extremely clear that he is going to need robust policy changes from the senate in order to move forward in his chamber. democrats also need republican votes in the senate and minority leader mitch mcconnell has made clear that he also wants robust policy changes to the southern border. so things not in a good place right now this morning. things can always change, sara, but right now it looks like those border talks are stalled into i think the headline here, border talks stalled, not in a good place when it comes to trying to put this through congress. thank you so much, lauren, for your reporting. kate? >> and joining us now for more on all of this is washington correspondent tia mitchell. help me out with this because with sara and lauren talking, it's very important and it's all coming to a head right now,

specifically the fight over aid to ukraine. it's really been churning up for weeks and the argument from republicans that are balking is that essentially when it comes specifically to ukraine is that they want to hear more clearly from joe biden where the money is going, what the goal is for the united states. but that letter from the white house this morning really seems to be trying to address it, but very clearly offering if we don't give them the money we're knee capping ukraine on the battlefield. what really is at the core of this disagreement, then? >> well, also one of the problems with the ukraine funding is that there are some house republicans that really won't support it no matter what. the white house can provide all the justification, all the accountability measures and there are just some republicans who just on principle don't want to spend more u.s. dollars to aid ukraine. so, therefore, speaker mike johnson has to figure out what

can he get enough republicans to support some type of funding with ukraine, either by packaging it with border security funding, for example, packaging it with that support for israel. and it's hard, again, his majority is now that much slimmer and that means he has fewer votes he can lose and, quite frankly, just in republicans particularly support for the war in ukraine is waning. >> as you note, the republican majority in the house is slimmer, but it does set up this strange dynamic because you have the republican leaders in both the house and senate who are supportive of more ukraine aid. both mike johnson and mitch mcconnell has very much been talking about their support for making sure that ukraine has what it needs. do you think this could be another situation when you're looking at the more complex situation in the house where the house speaker needs democrats to

approve this and what would that then mean for his speakership, do you think? >> so it's very interesting dynamic as you note kevin mccarthy was removed as speaker because he passed legislation by relying on democrats, and more and more it's looking at nothing can pass in the house, nothing kind of consequence, without the help of democrats. what we're seeing is that the honeymoon is ending for speaker mike johnson. there are more and more conservative hardline republicans saying they're unhappy that, you know, he's looking to democrats to solve some of the issues they're facing on the floor. it's really a no win for any republican leader. this is just more pronounced, but it's been that way for quite a while, quite frankly, in the u.s. house. there are no easy solutions and quite frankly part of it is because our u.s. government was built on kind of this principle of no side should get everything they want.

there should be a level of compromise in coming towards the middle. that's quite frankly what our founding fathers envisioned, but unfortunately, particularly with the hard right that unwillingness to work together, that unwilling to kind of dig in to get your way is kind of what -- what they are prioritizing right now. so it's really causing a lot of breakdowns, particularly among republicans. >> and at the same time, tia, you have the house speaker saying this weekend that he thinks he has the votes to formally launch an impeachment inquiry into president biden. one person who thinks that is a bad idea is republican presidential candidate ron desantis. let me play what he said. >> i think they run the risk of doing an inquiry that doesn't necessarily lead anywhere while they've been ignoring a lot of the problems that our voters are talking about. make sure you're not ignoring all these other issues and don't use that inquiry as kind of a

trojan horse to not, then, meet your responsibilities on all these other things. >> i thought that was really interesting, hearing that coming from him. what do you do with that? >> i mean, i think in a way he's right because what he's saying is that you guys may be focusing on an impeachment inquiry. put all your time and effort into hearings and investigations and fact-finding, and still not come up with anything truly incriminating against president biden. meanwhile, you're facing government funding shutdowns, facing the expiration of the aviation authority, foreign surveillance, this foreign aid to israel and ukraine and there are so many things that are on the table. the national defense authorization act. there are things on the table that american people would like to see done, plus the bigger issues, the economy and prices

and ai. and he's saying we could be focused on that and not and an impeachment inquiry that could go nowhere. >> as we have heard from members of congress from the beginning of time, we can walk and chew gum at the same time but they really have not proven to be so great at that for sure. tia, thank you so much. good to see you. john? so first hamas fighters raped her, then they shot her in the head. new horrifying accounts of sexual violence in the hamas terror attack. 11 climbers killed in a volcanic eruption, 12 more are still missing and the danger is not over yet.

a graphic new report reveals stories of rape and other atrocities committed during the hamas terror attack on october 7th. the uk-based newspaper "the sunday times" interviewed survivors, medics and investigators recounting what happened that day. investigators say they've1,500 testimonies including gang rape and postmortem mutilation. one such testimony reads, quote, i saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her. she was screaming, stop it, already i'm going to die anyway from what you're doing, just kill me. when they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head. in just a few hours israel's delegation to the u.n. will hold a special session focusing on what they say are sexual-based war crimes. i'm joined by christopher o'leary the senior vice

president for global operations for the sufan group. these accounts are horrifying. to what extent were they part of the terror attack itself, do you think? >> i think it was completely orchestrated. one just has to look back at isis. isis took american hostages but they also took over 6,000 i didn't see i didn't see december as well. there is a term called sabia which is sex slave for the extremists and they think they're justified to hold them. they don't see things the say same way we do. just this last year i had the opportunity to interview one of the beatles, we brought back here -- >> one of the isis terrorists nicknamed beatles. >> correct. they are responsible for taking americans including kayla mueller who they then gave to he will baghdadi. she was systematically raped over time.

i confronted alexander kotey during questioning last year and no remorse whatsoever. he sees no issue with it. this is not something that concerns them, they think it's their right and they're justified. they did not see the israeli citizens and americans and others as equals to them. >> if israel presumably knows this or fears this, what you are describing, how does that color their faj negotiations? there are still some women -- and men can be victims of sexual violence held hostages in gaza. >> i think the focus on hostage negotiations is flawed. you need a multilateral approach. you need to be continuing negotiations, trying to get the other women and children released and the other wounded and the elderly. you should not stop that and i do know that my good friend and colleague roger carstons is in the region right now trying to jump start things again, but they also should be looking to locate and recover the hostages.

the way they're going about it right now through this traditional urban assault, leveling large swaths of gaza, is ineffective at, number one, dismantling hamas, it's creating massive collateral damage as we've all seen, it's eroding their support both internationally and in the united states, but it's also not locating the hostages. to do that you need precision raids that are gathering intelligence, you need to be doing it every night, dismantling the network. you conduct sensitive site exploitation while you are on target. you recover the information there. you exploit that. you do tactical interrogations of the detainees you pull off. you buy met clee enroll them. all of this is being fed into the intelligence picture and layered into the other imagery intelligence that you have, the aerial surveillance that you have. special reconnaissance units on the ground, other technical collection. you're also listening for post operation reflections we call them. after -- if we go in and grab

john berman, you know, out of his house, we're trying to listen to what the network is saying afterwards. what is significant a capture it was. that's going to bring you to where the hostages are. the other part of the mission that israel has which has not been spoken about, they have to bring justice, justice to the hostages, justice to the rape victims and hold the terrorists accountable for what they did. you do that by gathering evidence. so when you conduct sensitive site exploitation it's a crime scene at speed on a tactical target. all that information can be used subsequently in a court in israel or back here in the united states. >> christopher o'leary sheds a lot of light on what the operation maybe needs to be if it continues in southern gaza. thank you for being with us. all right. here we go, the race to replace expelled congressman george santos is on. still ahead, with he speak with one democrat who thinks she can flip his seat. that's ahead.

gone from congress, the race to fill the now vacant seat is heating up quickly. new york's governor kathy hochul will soon be setting the date for a special election and democrats are gearing up already to try and reclaim new york's third congressional district, a seat republicans had flipped with santos' win, a congressional district that joe biden carried in 2020. one of the democrats vying for the nomination is former new york state senator anna kaplan, she joins us now. thank you for coming in. >> thank you for having me.

>> when santos was finally expelled i was looking at your statement, you said this in summary, this has been an embarrassing episode. why do you think this embarrassing episode sets you up to win back the seat? >> so it is really amazing somebody like him, a fraudster to get into office by lying and cheating. i got into this race in mid-may because i truly believe we deserve better. the residents deserve better. i made my announcement through a video, the video has gone viral, we've gotten over 1.6 million views. i'm happy to say up to today my campaign has been able to raise 1. $1.176. it's $25 campaign contribution average from over 26,000 unique donors.

this is a very grassroots campaign, i am very proud of what we've done and i will continue to do what i can to make sure that we gain this seat back. >> do you think that with the mess that was what has happened with george santos and kind of the spotlight that it put on the district, probably not a spotlight anyone wants for the district, do you think that it almost guarantees that democrats win back this seat in the special? >> i think these days we see how divided we are in this country and everybody wants to go to their own corners, nothing is guaranteed and we can't take anything for granted. this is just like you said, it's a biden plus eight district and we lost that with eight points. that's 16 points that we have to make up. that's why i jumped into this race early. and i invite everybody to go to a our website. we could use their help and

support. >> another democrat vying for the seat, because it's a special it means the rules for nomination are different, voters don't decide the nomination it's the county party leaders who decide who gets the nomination on either side. >> correct. >> another democrat vying for the seat is the man who held the congressional seat before santos won it, tom suozzi. why shouldn't democrats just go with the guy who already held the seat? >> i believe he left the seat saying that he didn't want to be part of congress, but i can only advocate for what i believe in. right now in this country we've seen in the midterms and we also just saw last month, choice is a huge deal. we've seen how americans in red, white and blue districts are angry and are coming out and voting. we need someone who can make sure to fight to the last breath for women's reproductive rights. having been someone who left her birth country, coming here, i

always was so excited about being here because i knew i had an opportunity in this country and i could do whatever i can to make my dreams come true. kate, this is very personal for me, as a mother of two young girls, and really thinking and seeing how a country can go so far to the extreme right, taking women's rights, i would hate to see a 49-year-old law that was taken away from us to continue. and i also have a message for all those women who believe they live in safe states like new york, i was part of that party that actually codified roe, to understand that we're never going to be safe. especially when we see a judge in a small county in texas is trying to ban a medication that we all take throughout this

country. so i really would love for your audience to go to anna for ny.com and help us in this endeavor. >> let's see what the big issue eventually becomes for this issue in this special and what it looks like. thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> sara? all right. the faa now responding to a stunning report in the "new york times" that air traffic controllers were drunk and asleep on the job. is it making flying unsafe? we will have that story coming up.

a new report by "the new york times" says there are glaring vulnerabilities in the nation's aviation system and the paper is reporting ongoing staff shortages and working conditions that are stretching the air traffic controllers to the limit physically and mentally and the number of air traffic controllers have turned up under the influence of drugs or alcohol and sleeping on the job. pete muntean, i remember talking about this shortage of the folk

s in the air traffic control and how dangerous it is, and just how truthfully is this story? >> they have done everything to debunk this story and saying it is not truthful of the stories, but it is something that we have been reporting for months that the air traffic controller system is stretched to the limit. the air traffic controllers say they are undersupported and overworked. we are told about a close call in austin in february where the air traffic controller said that in case he was okaying overtime shift on six-day week, and a fedex flight and southwest flight came within 500 feet of colliding, and it was the pilots who saved day and not the air traffic controller. it is understaffing issue that

they are scrambling to fix. they say that the faa is 3,000 workers short, and factoring in retirements and attrition, and the workforce has really only grown by single digits, and net gainf of only six employees according to the union. former air traffic controller union head paul rinaldi tells me no doubt they are stressed right now. take a listen. >> the shortage is a big problem. the fact that the secretary has come out to say that we are 3,000 short and if you are looking at how long it takes to get a certified air traffic controller from the academy to certify in that facility could take two three years and looking at attrition rates that we are looking at, it is going to be many, many years to catch up unless they do something different. >> the brand-new faa administrator mike whitaker says the focus is to get new ones through the program without

having drinking and using and sleeping, and he says that most of the group is professional and take the job seriously, but they do say that the staffing problems need a change yesterday. >> yes, the stress is a real problem. pete muntean, thank you so much for the pass on this and the reporting now. john? >> yes, a clear path to dictatorship in the united states, and the new alarm bells of what a second trump presidency could mean for the country, and the new trump response is basically, i know you are, but what am i.

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