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the new warnings are coming from the republicans this morning of what a second donald trump presidency could look like. and big pharma is colliding with the supreme court and happening is billions of dollars of stake as victims of the opioid crisis weigh in. and a stunning and controversial decision of the body that governs college football playoffs leaves florida state out in the cold. they will not be playing in the college football playoffs. with kate bolduan and john berman, i'm sara sidner and this is cnn "news central." >> 42 days and that is how close we are to the real test of the 2024 election, and the iowa caucus is kicking off january 15th, and this is a new warning from the republicans themselves about the republican frontrunner and what a second donald trump presidency could mean. former reagan official robert

kagan calls a possible trump second term a possible path to a dictatorship. and another quote says it could plunge the country into a constitutional crisis. and this weekend, donald trump heard this and tried to flip the script on all of this, and what do you say? >> well, that is right, kate. one of joe biden's biggest arguments against donald trump is that a second trump term would be bad for democracy as we have heard, and trump is being charged for trying to overturn the democratic processes, and he is constantly questioning the legitimacy of elections which are democratic institution, and at one point he called for the termination of the constitution, but now he is trying to flip the script saying that it is joe biden who is bad for the democracy and using an argument that we have heard him say before saying that before the indictments before him are joe

biden's way of using department of justice essentially to attack a political opponent, and that opponent being donald trump. take a listen to what he said. >> joe biden is the destroyer of american democracy, and it is -- it is him and his people. so if joe biden wants to make this race a question of which candidate will defend our democracy and protect our freedom, and i say to crooked joe and he is the most corrupt president that we have ever had, we will win that fight, and we will win it very big. >> and kate, two things to note here, and one is that the audience really takes him seriously, and they believe the arguments that trump is making, and it is something to pay attention to, even if it seems as though as he is trying to say as john said at the top, it is not me that is the problem, and so what a 2025 term would look

like with the checks and balances and most of the articles that you talked about said that donald trump is looking for the ways around the normal checks and balances system. and many of them have grown weaker since he was in office and something that he is trying to do if he were to win a second term. >> and donald trump is also trying to attack obama care once again, and the biden administration is happy to see this development in the campaign, and what are you hear about this? >> yes, that i have launched an ad on this, and this is a fight the democrats want to take on and they want to fight on obama care, because many of them are scarred after trump promised to overturn obama care even though they had a full monopoly on washington, and that we were unable to do so, and the democrats know that the program is increasingly popular than it is in previous years and now

running the ads saying that trump is a threat to your health care, and again, something they want to focus on, but when i am talking to the republicans they have no idea that donald trump is doubling down on this, and he mentioned it this weekend and continuing to post on the social media on it, and he has yet to offer a plan, and when he was in office he continually said that he would come up with a plan that would replace obamacare and left in 2020 having never done so. kate. >> thank you, kristen with the reporting. sara? >> yes, and you hear all of this and he has a commanding lead. now, what on of the strong gop challengers says about nikki haley, and the man, the myth and the legend harry enten is joining me. how far is nikki haley, and what is the historical path for her to have a win.

>> and now, donald trump is well ahead of nikki haley and though she does have momentum. this is the prior poll and the latest, and iowa/ohio nationally, and last poll, donald trump was up 45 point, but still smaller than he was before. and this is a key nugget. looking at iowa and new hampshire, and looking at iowa, the first in the nation, and donald trump has a commanding lead, but it is 45 compared to 27 nationally. and then it was 27 and now 22. so the idea is that you win and do better in iowa than expected, and win new hampshire and then take off nationally, and one historical analogy that i would point to. and the 1984 democrat, and walter mondale led here and he went on to win the national nomination, but it was a smaller popular vote, and only won by

two, and how did gary hart do? he finished stronger in iowa and mondale was smaller in the poll that you can see and that catapulted him in the state of new hampshire, and down by 42 and he won the state by nine. so, look, it is -- >> it is a possibility. >> it is a possibility, and there's a chance. >> so, you're saying that there's a chance? >> yes. >> and now, what could she look like and continue to build this momentum as gary hart did in places like iowa and new hampshire, and what are we looking like? >> well, a key thing to look like non-haley voters, the mind is made up in the gop primary, and just 29%, but in new hampshire, 57%, so a lot of the voters out there swimming around saying, hmm, who should i support, and this a potential pool for nikki haley and this is another thing, what comes after new hampshire, south carolina, the third in the nation contest where she was the governor. and she is down significantly,

but it is a smaller lead for trump than nationally and 29 points, and this is key to keep in mind. and viewed favorably, and this is tending to be correlated with the votes in the primary, and you can see trump's lead in the metric, and he is holding the lead, but it is smaller, smaller than the lead in the primary race, and if she does something to catapult herself, i would not be surprised to see that is rink more. tough path, but there is a path to look at the 1984 dem, and if things went slightly, maybe gary hart would be the nominee, and you never know in this era. >> and it is going to tell you something that could be coming forth. thank you, harry. john? >> and with us is political director david chalian and i want to go back to where we began this hour with all of the new warnings of the second trump presidency, and robert kagan writes that the country is on the clear path to dictatorship, and david frum says we could go

into a crisis worth than the civil war, and authoritarian impulses, and so trump sees this and he plays out the response which is basically to say joe biden is the destroyer of democracy, and what do you see in that defense? >> well, add one more to the list that you went through, and it is not just observers, but donald trump himself has said that if he is elected to be the president, he is going to be using the justice department to go after his political enemies and this is a point of fact that he is going to be using a destable idzing agenda for american democracy and yet as what you know, he is going to be doing a political jujitsu to be taking the perceived weakness of his and trying to thrust it upon his opponents. we have seen it time and again, and we saw it in the business career, and we saw it throughout the last eight years of the political career and convince

people that joe biden is the threat to democracy, and this is why donald trump is being charged with these crimes, because joe biden's justice department is coming after joe biden's political enemy. there is no ed, zero that joe biden's justice department is doing this to achieve political goals for joe biden. that is not stopping donald trump, and significantly, john, it is not going to stop tens of millions of supporters of donald trump who believe wholeheartedly what he is describing here. >> is there a sense in the biden campaign, because all of these calls, first of all, yes, you are correct point out that he is saying it himself, but the warnings are coming from outside right now, but how much of the biden re-election campaign do you think is going to be focused on this, the trump threat to democracy as they see it or trump wants to get rid of ob obamacare which they are leaning on now? >> well, it is not either/or proposition, but both arguments from the biden team, but they are eager to have the obamacare

fight, because that is something that is very tangible for tens of millions of americans, and a kitchen table issue, and one that is proving successful for democrats in the years that the republicans have been trying to upend it as recently as the 2018 midterms when the democrats have won control of the house. i would just note, john, you have seen an uptick in the sort of the democracy arguments from the biden/harris campaign team since the summer, and there is a lot of caution to not want to mettle in some of the cases ongoing, but they have put that to the side to really talk about the issue directly, especially as donald trump making it front and center, but the economic health care bread and butter issues are the centerpiece of the biden campaign. >> let's talk about ron desantis who on paper should have had a positive week, and he debated gavin newsom, and a lot of people saw that positive and he went to iowa and completed the

full 99 grassley campaign there in iowa, and yet, chaos in the campaign apparatus, and the super pac that is backing him, and what is going on here? >> yeah, it is just an interesting example, john. we have never seen a campaign do what we have seen the desantis campaign do in terms of turning so much of the campaigning infrastructure over to the super pac. it was that the super pacs would go on television and raise money, but the entire organization was built by the super pac, and legally, the desantis campaign and desantis himself can't coordinate on strategy with the superpac, and it should have been a sky high weekend of accolades for ron desantis six weeks before the caucuses, and yet, it is three staffers getting fired or departing super pac, aped more chaos in the super pac where the desantis team has put so much

responsibility to get him across the finish line. >> i want to play something that ron desantis said about the impeachment inquiry about president biden and how that might be for mallized in the next few days. this is what governor desantis said about it. >> i think they run the risk of doing an inquiry that does not necessarily 4r50ed anywhere while they are aiding the problems that the voters are talking about. and make sure that you are not ignoring issues and using that inquiry as a trojan horse to not meet your responsibilities on the other things. >> unexpected, david? >> my ears perked up when i heard that, because i would think that desantis would want to sidestep the issue as much as he can, and leave it to the congressional republicans to deal with, but to caution against going down the road here sounds like he believes that this would sort of rebound negatively on the republicans going full bore into the impeachment inquiry and putting

some vulnerable republicans on the line here to make a tough vote. i just had not heard that from desantis before, and it is intriguing to hear politically where he was trying to advise the republicans in congress to go. >> very revealing. david chalian, great to have you on. >> thank you, john. and now, coming up, new ground forces are operating in southern gaza, and the first apparent confirmation of the war between israel and hamas. and now, the court is getting ready to take on the $6 billion lawsuit of big pharma and the family behind the protection related to the public health crisis that came with oxycontin. and now the big controversy in college football. should florida state have been

denied a spot in the playoffs. all of t that come ukcomingng u

all right. just into cnn, the israeli ground troops are now operating in southern gaza. cnn has geolocated a israeli tank near the southern city of khan younis, this is one day after the idf said it is ready to expand the combat operations. the idf then ordered the palestinian to clear out. the u.n. estimates 90% of the people in gaza have been displaced. alex marquardt is there in tel aviv with the very latest.

what are you hearing, alex? >> yes, john. we are north of tel aviv and the number displaced is 1.8 million according to the united nations. israel is making it clear that it is expanding the operations, and expanding the ground operations across the entire gaza strip, and we are told that the israeli officials have told that the soldiers have come face-to-face in fighting with hamas operatives, and at the same time they are continuing to pummel the gaza strip from the sky, and at least 200 strikes overnight according to the israeli air force and telling gaza residents to flee further south. now, remember they had told the gazans from the strip to head south. many of them going to khan younis where there is heavy fighting, and now israel telling the people in khan younis to go farther south, and the israeli and american officials believe that the hamas leadership is in that city, and the way they are telling gazans to evacuate is

through social media, through leaflets being dropped from the air with the qr codes on them that take the people to the web sites with the complicated maps of the different grids to explain where to move into different sectors if the strikes are coming. john, it is extraordinarily difficult for the gazans to even get online, and we heard from the palestinian cell phone company, that all of the communications are out in gaza and northern part of the strip, so it is not a given that the palestinians can even get the message from the israelis, and at the same time we are getting increasingly alarm from the american officials that they are concerned about the way that the deaths are prosecuted, and we heard from secretary of the military over the weekend, they could support this, but still lose because of all of the

civilian casualties. >> you see the central fight is the civilian casualtcasualties. if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you will have a strategic fight. so i have made it clear that fighting the civilians and hamas is a moral stratimperative and strategic imperative. >> reporter: after that cease-fire fell apart, hundreds more have been killed in palestinian, and the death toll now in gaza is almost 16,000. >> thank you, alex marquardt near tel aviv. sara? >> the need for humanitarian aid in gaza is becoming more dire and more difficult to deliver. on sunday, 100 aid trucks drove into gaza according to the red

crescent including food, water, medical supplies. ben wedeman is joining us from jerusalem, and ben, a big effort to get the people out of gaza as well. how is this all coming together? what are you learning? >> well, some people, some of the injured are getting out, and those with the second citizens are slowly getting out. but really, main concern are the people stuck inside of gaza, and despite the israelis putting out a grid of where people should and shouldn't go, the fact is that there is nowhere in gaza that is safe. >> reporter: look around, this is the baptist hospital where

people are treated in the open on wooden pallets, and the emergency ward is already jammed. the courtyard is full of body bags where dozens were killed in a series of strikes saturday and many more are still under the rubble. israel claims that one of the strikes killed a senior hamas commander who planned the attacks and he is one among many in attack. this woman says the attack killed her granddaughter and family members and named them all. and may god judge all of you are watching them die, she says. it is a similar scene in the hospital in central gaza, more

wounded. many of them children. many of them dead, and many of them children. they bombed an entire street, says s says saad, and his brother muhammad is dead. says saad, let me say good-bye to him. my father has been killed, says this boy, on the refugee camp he says, and the seven-day truce seem like the distant past. this afternoon, we were able to get through to the head of the pediatric unit at the pediatric hospital which is the only functions hospital in gaza, and they explained that there is an

israeli hospital killing or injuring at least ten people, and where there is 5,000 to 6,000 people takeing shelter, bt we have sad news that our producer in gaza ibrahim who has been able to get out of gaza has been informed that nine people of his extended family, an aunt and uncle were killed in an air strike in northern gaza, and we want to extend our condolences to ibrahim and his family. >> ibrahim has been doing an incredible job to show us what they are going through in gaza, and our heart goes out to his family for that loss. kate? >> a life-long get out of jail free pass, and why a federal

judge says that is exactly what donald trump does not have in the federal elections case against him and what the ruling now says that is and what it means for the former president's case. and the bankruptcy case, and not just how far federal bankruptcies can extend, but getting to the heart of the multi billion dollar settlement that goes behind the family who is behind the oxycontitin case ththat fueled d the crisis in t country kikilling millllions of peopople.

first time i connected with kim, she told me that her husband had passed. and that he took care of all of the internet connected devices in the home. i told her, “i'm here to take care of you.” connecting with kim... made me reconnect with my mom. it's very important to keep loved ones close. we know that creating memories with loved ones brings so much joy to your life. a family trip to the team usa training facility. i don't know how to thank you. i'm here to thank you.

all right. this morning a controversial settlement deal to give money to the victims of the opioid crisis. this involves big pharma and a billion dollar bankruptcy plan and the sackler family. paula reid is with us. what is at stake, paula? >> it is a historic case dealing with one of of the biggest scandals in american history, opioid crisis. nearly 640,000 americans have lost their lives to opioids in the past two decades, and right now as we speak, the justices are reviewing a settlement related to purdue pharmacy which is owned by the sackler family. as part of the sackler family,

they were granted protection from future lawsuits as part of the settlement. but as part of it there is a bankruptcy restructuring of the purdue pharmaceutical, but it is not the ordinary bankruptcy case, because it is looking at the role that this company played in the nationwide crisis and extends to liability for the family. but the trustee oversees the bankruptcy has asked the supreme court to review this, because saying, that this is raising the constitutional concerns about the rights of victims to then potentially file their own lawsuits. as part of this suit, they have agreed to pay $8 million through the next eight years ark and they say the whole thing is

going to fall apart if they are not granted payments from other justices. they seemed okay whether the bankruptcy court settlements can extend type of argh yoormts that is ongoing for families who want to sue. we will be watching this for the next few months. thank you, paula. >> and now joining us is attorney general tristan snell, and he led the prosecution against trump university and he also wrote the book "taking down trump." let's talk about the ruling that happened late friday against trump, but we wanted to talk about the arguments paula reid laid out against the sackler family and the settlement. this case is described as one of the most important bankruptcy

cases in 40 years, and what is significant about this? >> this case is probing tof wha they can do. they are bringing in the sacklers that are not a party to the case, and determine their ability or lack thereof of the parties go after the sacklers. >> it is coming down to, and i don't know if it is an either/or, and consider what the families are of the 600,000-plus people who are killed from the opioids, it is kind of, i wonder if it is coming down to the what is better for, and what is better, and right and most legal accepting selt element if provides protections if they

continue it, but the families will continue to battle it out in court with years of in-court fighting, and what do you see as the right balance? >> well, what scotus has to figure out here is less about what is good for the victims. >> right, of course. >> they have to figure out if this is beyond the limits of what a bankruptcy court is able to do. they will have to see if this sets a bad precedent going into the future, and if this were going to allow folks involved in the litigation or next to it to get this sort of the get out of court free card. i feel sympathetic for the families who want to see it end, but one thing, the sacklers are saying that if we can't get this and there is no deal, that is a bluff. at the end of the day, the reason they are even thinking of doing this deal is because they know they face massive amounts of liability. if this deal is not working out, because it is beyond the bounds

of the laugh, and some ability to allow them to pay, but it is not they can fix. >> i wanted to lie on your expertise of dr.'s election case in d. handing down donald trump's attention to dis. the judge wrote a lot, and in part wrote this in part, the court cannot ip be held responsible for any liability that was held in office. what does this mean? >> this is a big case that trump is throwing out all of the arguments there, and that he is not able to be brought to justice because he is a former president. it is one that would succeed, but he is banking as one that

could have traction. the fact that it is shutdown so much, it is not honestly a lot to it which is related to the sackler sig year which is a get out of court free trump says as a former president he is immune of any liability. so it is key as i wrote in my book, it is the office that has immunity, and it does, but it should not. certainly, the former president should and it belongs to the office and not the person eld held in this office. i want to go to that for a long time.

this has to be one of the biggest snubs in college football playoff history. they did not lose a game this season, and how are they not going college football playoff games? we will have that next.

four teams are celebrate making it into the ncaa football playoffs and you know who isn't? the undefeated team the acc

champion florida state left out in the cold. the coach is disgusted and infuriated by the decision. it is the first time an unbeaten power 5 conference winner will miss out on the college football playoffs. the champion team will instead play the georgia bulldogs in the capital one orange bowl on december 30th. sports analyst christine brennen is joining us on this, and i am a gator fan, but i feel bad for fsu, and why on god's earth did the cfp committee decide to choose alabama over fsu when fsu was undefeated and didn't lose a single game? >> yeah, sara, this is a tough one, and the florida state fans deserve to be outrage and the hearts break for the player, because they did everything they were pointed out, and 18 to 22, 23-year-old young men and won every game, an unprecedented and the first time ever that a conference champion in the power 5 who is undefeated is snubbed

like this. the answer is that you are not s.e.c. and alabama beat georgia, the two-time national champs, and this is the s.e.c. championship saturday, and so the s.e.c. is the big cheese, right? they are the kings of college football, and they have won 6 of 9 and the last four of the college football playoffs, national championships, and the s.e.c. seems to be on the rise, and alabama seems to be getting better, although they lost earlier in the season to texas, and florida state, concern about the quarterback who was injured, but all of that being said, it is extraordinary, and you do wonder why on earth, if you are looking at the record then you can't make sense of this, but the committee tried to make sense of it with the power offal

-- of alabama in the s.e.c. >> when you look at the undercurrent, the power, the money, and the s.e.c. is huge, and everybody wants see an s.e.c. team playing, but the guys did the job, and they did the work. is this really about something other than what happened on the fi field? >> it is about something other than what happened on the field, and you are right, sara, it is about more than the game on the field itself, because if you do that, you are going to pick the undefeated team, and that said, it is the committee doing selection and deciding, and it is not a computer. they are human beings. and the anecdote leading up to the championship, the southeast conference, and the s.e.c., and the big broad-shouldered s.e.c., and all powerful, they did a good job to getting out there in the media to talk about what would happen if alabama did beat georgia. and that alabama, they were

pushing the cause so to speak, and lobbying for alabama. the acc, also a very strong conference did not do as much of that lobbying, and you and i are journalists, and we get the people, the public relations people pushing this or that agenda, and the s.e.c. did a good job of playing the game as the rules would allow it, with the human beings making decisions and that could have had an impact. >> this is not going to happen again next year, right? because there is going to be change, right, thank goodness? >> yes, it is. it is going to the 12-team playoff, and ironically enough if they had the 12 teams this year, we would not be discussing this, but there are going to be many controversies that should have made it on the bubble there, too, but nowhere near as big of a deal. and this is going out with a bang, no doubt about the four

team, because this is the controversy to be end all controversies. >> i want to say congratulations to fsu, florida state. >> and now, in hunter biden, and why one researcher said she was put out of a job to protect a relationship with mega donor mark zuckerberg. we wilill be rightht back.

new this morning. big accusations of academic meddling against harvard

university, and researcher whose work focused on online misinformation was pushed out of a job to protect a relationship with facebook founder mark zuckerberg. we have more on this from claire and what is this about? >> this student says she was looking at social change and misinformation and this is donovan saying that she was pushed out because it followed a $500 million donation to mark zuckerberg to follow a new research center on artificial intelligence. and her research has been shutdown and she has taken a role at boston university. and this is detailing the close

relationship of the harvard leaders at harvard's kennedy school, and executives at the company, and this is raising questions of the academic freedoms in this information space as we go into the 2024 election season. she is well known about her research, and she has been critical of many platforms, and harvard is strongly denying the allegation, and in a statement, the harvard kennedy school spokesman said that the allegations of unfair treatment is false, and the narrative is full of inaccuracies and baseless insinuations that kennedy school allowed zuckerberg to dictate what was happening. they said that the project was shutdown, because she is not a faculty member, and they have no

control over this type of research. and i also reached out to meta and they declined to comment. >> okay. we will see where this goes. and now, fresh sounds of alarm of what a second trump presidency may look like, and a fresh warning that if he is elected again, he wouldner leave office.

(car engine revs) (engine accelerating) (texting clicks) (tires squeal) (glass shattering) (loose gravel clanking)

a vote for donald trump

quote, quote, may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in. the warning just this morning from the former republican member of congress about a second trump presidency. >> new reporting that the israeli army has ground troops operating in southern gaza. and new stress that the air traffic controllers are facing and the serious stress on staff and the effect on air travelers. with kate bolduan and john berman, i'm sara sidner, and this is cnn "news central." the alarm bells are going off this morning in a new way. new urgency in the chorus of concern now for what a second trump presidency could, would mean. including from more and more members of the republican party about the republican frontrunner. foer