here as well, because most of them don't want to tell them. most of them do not want to do anything with obamacare. the affordable care act, as you said , it's actually a very well favored program here in the country. and they remember what happened in 2017 when donald trump basically his biggest campaign promise, was unable to fulfill, even though he had a republican majority in washington, they could not repeal and replace obamacare. now, this is all because donald trump read an op ed in the wall street journal that said that elizabeth warren had some question as well as republicans, and he thought that if there was bipartisan dislike for obamacare, it might be time to bring it back up. but again, if you look at the polling, obamacare, the affordable care

act, is actually much more popular now. people rely on it. millions of americans and republicans really don't want to go down this path. they would rather focus on the border and immigration and inflation, not take this turn back to health care. >> you have an argument that, for instance, ron desantis is making that donald trump has too much baggage. he can't win a general election, even if that is true, it doesn't seem that a desantis or even a nikki haley is someone positioned to even close to outperform donald trump in a primary. yeah, i mean, as we've seen this inner turmoil with the desantis camp, we've also seen the surge of nikki haley. >> but when you look at the polling, she's. still trailing. n

stonewalling them. >> but the white house has forcefully pushed back on those claims. so these next two weeks are going to be critical. like i said, speaker mike johnson also,

i'm told, talked at a new york fundraiser over the weekend in front of donors about impeachment. clearly, they are not shying away from this. he vowed to hold a vote before the end of this year, but they're going to have to have the votes before they ultimately get there. and in the meantime, the speaker, mike johnson, has really been trying to wrangle the hardliners in his conference. of course, impeachment is something they have been pushing for. so this could be a way to placate some of those members. but marjorie taylor greene has been one on board with some other impeachment efforts, including to impeach alejandro mayorkas, the homeland security secretary. our manu raju caught up with her just last weekend. let's hear what she had to say. >> and i'll remind everyone that i didn't come here to make friends. i came here to do a job. and i represent my district. and i unopposed, energetically represent the american people. as far as other members of congress, if they're upset with me, they can come talk to me any time they like. but my position will be that we need to be doing the jobs that we promise our voters and that we tell people we're going to do

instead of just talking tough on the campaign trail and then coming up here and falling apart at. >> so we'll see if these latest moves from johnson and the leadership are enough to tame. greene last week, she tried to force a floor vote on impeaching mayorkas. she ultimately backed off after she received private assurances from johnson that a mayorkas impeachment would also move through committee and on to the floor. but again, they have a razor thin majority that just got smaller after they expelled jorge santos. so we'll see whether they have the votes in the end there, guys. >> yeah, a lot to watch out for. melanie zanona from capitol hill, thank you so much. let's dig deeper now with congressional reporter for politico, olivia beavers. olivia, thank you so much for being with us. when former speaker kevin mccarthy first pushed forward this impeachment inquiry of joe biden, he did it unilaterally without out a formal vote on the house floor because there were questions as to whether he has the votes.

>> there has been a tie that changed and i think it's the argument. you are singing congressman don bacon and some of the other fighting district republicans who want a stronger hand in getting depositions and hearing from witnesses and hearing records but what i think you are just talking about is we can see a huge evolution from one kevin mccarthy was speaking and this huge low back against the idea of them having about and now that is exactly what they are marching towards either the end of this week or next week. >> when it comes to the criteria for an impeachment of a speaker, he has said repeatedly that in comparison to donald trump's to impeachments, this is not political, this is evidence that joe biden had something to do with wrongdoing, very nebulous when it comes to the evidence. do you think republicans have put forward enough of it so far to merit this process, have they made a compelling case to the own party but to their own

people? >> there is always an element of politics but i think republicans argue that the last impeachments of donald trump are political and you will see democrats argue the same here. the difference is we are probably going to see a split vote, it is going to rely and that's why you have to have almost all republicans vote to start impeachment inquiry because we can't expect house democrats to vote for it. it is a formal step and there are some republicans were already sort of dismissing the ideas of taking the next step of formal impeachment. if you talk with some of the other republican colleagues who want to impeach joe biden they say where we taking this step in the first place? we are seeing a divided republican party on this subject matter. >> there was also disagreement between republicans on one key figure in this inquiry and that is the president's son hunter biden. his attorneys argued for an open hearing before congress, they are arguing for a deposition, a private one. any indication as to where things are headed in that

dispute? >> my understanding is they recently sent a letter asking for confirmation he will testify on december 13th. james kohler had an oversight, jim jordan head of judiciaries that we will record and release it with the transcript eventually, but hunter biden's lawyers pointed out we don't want you selectively leaking so we wanted public. >> olivia beavers, thank you so much. still more to come including israel's military saying the operation in northern gaza is nearly complete as airstrikes continue to pound the southern part of the enclave. we have a report on the latest of the fighting and where negotiations and in just moments. we are >> charleses,

israeli defense forces are describing their mission in northern gaza has nearly completed right now. the ground operations are expanding throughout the enclave and the idea says they are moving units into southern

gaza, areas that have become a sanctuary to one million palestinians who have fled from the north since the start of the war. as the threat for those refugees rises so does the threat for the communitarian crisis on the ground. the u.n. said more than 80% of causes nearly 2 million residents are now displaced. listen. >> if you look, it used to have a publishing of 280,000 people. we know there are over 700,000 people in the city now and more people are coming so in rafa we were struggling to provide two liters of drinking water per person every day. that issue is just going to be compounded for sanitation. expected death toll is rising on 16,000 a closing according to the hamas ministry of health. pressure is on israel from the united dates and rubble to do more to protect gaza's

honorable citizens. live in jerusalem, what is the idf say about the push south? >> they have been very vague about the details of their push but we understand there are israeli tanks that are moving south on the main north-south road in gaza. they haven't really gone into the population centers yet but we have heard from is really defense minister who has said it is the fate of hamas fighters in the south is going to be the same as hamas fighters in the north where they say they have almost completed achieving their objective. there are so many people in the south crammed into that area and within the last area, we got a statement from philippe nazarene a which is felt with

posting in refugees and he said the results of the military operations and expansion in southern gaza is repeating horrors from the past weeks and news of israeli operation in southern gaza has red panic, fear, and anxiety. given that this area is so crammed with people, any sort of ground operation by the israeli, will inevitably result in a significant number of civilian casualties. >> with so many people now displaced, do we have any indication from the idf about when they might allow more aid into gaza? >> eight has been coming in. saturday, 100 trucks came in from egypt. sunday, 185 trucks entered from egypt but that's really just a drop in the bucket considering that before the war, 500 trucks

were coming in, and the needs that are presently in southern gaza in terms of fuel, food, medicine, the basics, there is just not enough. the capacity for the infrastructure really isn't there. the u.n. had to put out a statement telling you in gaza, we don't have enough tents to build a tent city for all the people who are being this waste. the worry is that more and more people are going to be concentrated in an ever smaller area without adequate medicine, food, water, and shelter. and of course, a complete lack of safety. the situation is getting dramatically worse and there doesn't seem to be any indication that there is going to be somehow a greater influx of aid into gaza. >> been life for us in jerusalem press. relatives of families are

speaking up after being told last week by hamas that three of the four family members have been killed. they were taken hostage on october 7th. he is the youngest israeli in captivity. you have seen these children's faces in photos. hamas said he, his mother and brother all killed in an israeli airstrike. cnn has not been able to confirm that claim nor their alleged death but they are saying they are investigating the death. joining me now is the cousin. thank you so much for being with us. we are so incredibly sorry for what your family is going through and all of this uncertainty. what do you understand at this point in time, what can you tell us? >> we know is much as you do.

we have no information about their well-being. we believe in our hearts that they are still alive and we must fight to bring them back home. >> what is the israeli government telling you as the idf says they are investigating this claim, are they giving you any sense of how they are able to go about doing that? >> not really because this is mostly classified for the safety of the operations. >> is there any reason to believe that hamas is making this up? >> i don't know how they operate and how they think. it's clearly not have you and i would think. i would not dive into the psychology and what they are thinking.

but me as a family member, i must think that my family is alive and i must do everything i can to get help, international health, resident bidens help to get them back home. >> what is the israeli governments obligation for getting your family members back? should they delay bombardment of gaza in order to get male hostages like your cousin out? >> i don't know the best way to get them out because i know it's strategic. i don't know if the best way is through military action, if they know anything about their location and want to pull them out or whether a cease-fire would be the better way. i do think that they must have the first priority and everything else will be second

priority. because time is running out and generally we know they are kept in poor conditions. for a baby like this, it is a death sentence. every day that goes by, they might die. then of course there are claims of his mental state, he could also die of heartbreak and very poor health. that's what we know. >> what is the responsibility of the israeli government? what do you say to the israeli government because right now they pulled negotiators out of qatar. they are proceeding with the bombardment moving towards southern gaza. but what we keep telling them each and every day is that it has been too long since the seventh of october.

it is approaching 60 days. personally i know for us it is really really hard. they really need to understand that there are lives at stake and it's taking way too long. 58 days, it is 58 days too long since they have been kidnapped and they lost so much, they lost their home, they lost the dog, their grandparents, so we remind them each and every day that this is what matters and this is what they should be doing every day and every day when they start their day they need to look them in the eyes and understand that they have to get them back home. >> we do knew that some of these hostages who were later released said they did hear some news while they were there. what do you want his him and

his family to know? what do you say to them? >> i was not prepared for this question and it hit me like a truck. we love you. we love you. and we miss you so much. we think of you every day and we are fighting each day for your return and we dream to hug you again and to support you and to help you be able to smile again because we know this is a nightmare for you as well is us. if you can hear it, we want you back home and we want you back in one piece. >> thank you so much for being with us and we certainly hope for they hear your message.

>> i would like to say one last thing. for the american citizens at home and for president biden as well as yourself, please, help us bring them back. put international pressure on hamas to release them because they can be used as a bargaining chip for any reason whatsoever. this is their lives. these are real people's lives and they need to remember that these are all children and innocent people. it is inhumane and it is evil and please, everyone of you please, help us. take everyone. >> thank you so much for being with us here today.

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the leader of the world's biggest and most high profile climate conference was heard undermining climate science just as the event was getting underway. the president of the climate summit and he came had his commitment to science regarding his comments in november that came to light yesterday. he told the panel that there was no science out there or scenario out there that says phasing out fossil fuels will achieve one .5 degrees, he was referring to a temperature

threshold aimed at curbing global warming. he said it is coming for being misrepresented. let's listen. >> we did not, and anyway, underestimate or undermine the task at hand. we understand the urgency and we understand the responsibility that we have taken on board. >> as the world faces a warming planet, some hard-hit communities are benefiting from the need to go green. cnn's david mckenzie tells us about the urban surfers taking recycling to a new level. >> they are on the move. his job goes by many names here. proclaimer, hustler. even urban surfer. it is dangerous work in a dangerous city. there are thousands fanning out

well before dawn. after an hour on the road he is in a neighborhood south of the city. >> i am looking for plastics, cardboard boxes, metals and cans he says. >> it is a dirty job, do you mind? >> i don't mind. >> what they discard they recycle. it's steadier than his old construction job and he likes being his own boss. there aren't any jobs here he says so we have made our own work. making their own work with the scale and impact that is hard to overstate. just look at the sorting zone by thousands live. it is informal but hardly simple. everything is carefully separated, everything has value. toward the top of the pecking order, a bag of these will get

will almost us$40 as they say one man's trash is another man's treasure. >> i am always surprised at how rich people throw away so much rubbish but i'm happy they do. this collection took them weeks. they know much about climate change he says. of course i know we can help but what matters is to survive. today's payday and every bag is carefully weighted. >> there is always trust amongst us. though he seems a little skeptical. as a double check, they didn't put any water in the bottle to make it heavier. must just be the plastic bottles. but reclaim us don't find ending up in a nearby landfill. here the desperate salvage what

they can. back in the neighborhood, he is in a race against the dump trucks. >> just in time. >> today they arrived a bit late. >> i have more stuff. spent more stuff than other days. >> he is proud of his work, proud of his effort. >> i feel so happy, i feel so happy he says, because i'm going to put bread on the table. david mckenzie, johannesburg, south africa. >> when we come back, a former u.s. ambassador accused of spying on the cuban government for four decades. you will speak to a former fbi counterintelligence officer known for tracking down spies in the united states. see you in a few minutes.

we have an update on last week's deadly air force crash that occurred off the coast of the japanese island. five u.s. airmen were found during a search and rescue dive. >> air force special operations command says their identities have yet to be returned. these are airmen that were aboard the osprey that track crashed during a routine training flight on november 29th. the cause of the crash is under investigation. now to a developing story we are following, a former u.s. ambassador accused of spying for cuba for four decades. >> merrick garland says the case exposes one of the highest reaching and longest lasting infiltrations of the u.s. government foreign agent.

>> as detailed in the complaint, he referred to the united states as quote, the enemy. during the undercover, he told the undercover that his efforts to infiltrate the united states were meticulous and disciplined. he can repeatedly brag about the significance of his efforts, saying that, quote, what has been done has strengthened the revolution immensely. >> evan perez is here with more details. evan appearing in federal court in miami, what are we anticipating? >> the hearing just wrapped up in miami a few moments ago and prosecutors asked for his detention pending trial. to keep him in jail until trial. his attorney is asking for bond to be sent and they will have

another hearing later this week. one of the interesting things that the prosecutors said in the hearing is that they anticipate bringing additional charges and look, the facts as laid out by prosecutors, they are backed up by recording that he made with an undercover agent, the fbi essentially getting tipped off that he had been acting as an agent since 1981 and one of the recordings is going back to 1973 when he lived in chile. during this time according to prosecutors, he was working in various capacities in the u.s. government including working at the u.s. intersection which was de facto embassy of the united states in 1986, you remember

from the shoot down on the unarmed planes for the rescue happened in international waters. four people were killed, he was essentially one of the top diplomats of the united states in havana. according to prosecutors, here's what he said in a number of meetings with his undercover agent. i will redo a part of what they are saying he said here. i want you to tell my compatriots that i appreciate and i am thankful for this alert. talking to an undercover agent that he thought was working for the cuban intelligce service. he said my number one concern and my number one priority was any action on the part of washington that would endanger the life of the leadership or the revolution itself. you heard the attorney general referred to another of these payments made for me, what had done has strengthened the revolution. according to prosecutors he was doing this over 40 years, while he was serving in havana, and

olivia where he was the u.s. ambassador but also when he was working in various other diplomatic posts in argentina and the dominican republic and taking trips to cuba to meet with the dgi, to meet his handlers according to prosecutors. >> fascinating and he wasn't the only cuban spy that infiltrated u.s. intelligence, there was many and we know, were they aware? but how much interaction he had for example, some of these others that have come to light during the intervening years, we do not know from these court documents how integral he was the clearly he remarks about 1986, he clearly believes that he was outside of the cuban government, not on the u.s. government site during that

episode. >> so clear in his own words. and then, thank you so much for the reporting period is former fbi counterintelligence eric o'neill is a national security strategist and eric should mention you hope to u.s. 504, as you are listening to this and hearing details about the case of 73-year-old manwell rocha, tell us how much damage someone like this could have done over the decades. >> certainly and it is great to be here with you breanna and boris. spies can do immense damage. there is no more damage that can be done then the spy who is on the inside and here we have someone who not only worked for the state department until about 2002, from 2006 to 2012, he was an advisor which is responsible for those territories. so he had access to that

information that can do incredible amounts of damage and he also, have the knowledge and the wherewithal to get into the hands of cuban intelligence so they could target that information and do immense damage potentially to the united states. >> it is notable that he was not alone. evan mentioned there is kendall, there is a cuban five that were caught in the late 90s. it seems like the cuban intelligence service had some success infiltrating u.s. intelligence, why is that? >> they do an amazing job and i have been going back to those cases, i know a lot about the cases, now, this new case has made me take a look at it's amazing. cuba is very capable of recruiting people, u.s. citizens who have access to information through what we call ideology it so you believe in cuba, the revolution, the struggle, and you're going to

help us. it is less about other spies who are doing it for money or because they are playing blackmailed. they believe in cuba so they are helping this small country that feels very differently as far as the united states in order to help them achieve their goals. >> are you surprised that he fell for this? he get a message on what type from someone and he responds to them not in a particularly secretive way and uses some tradecraft before the meeting but he says this person tells him they are his new handler and he goes on to be very open with them. >> the fbi is very adept at what we call a false flag operation. it's an undercover asset, the

undercover asset were trained to gain the person's trust. here clearly reading between the lines, they knew enough information to hook him to take the meeting with the undercover asset. they pretend that the undercover fbi agent is part of cuban intelligence is meeting with him. this is another thing i have seen especially with long career spies. they get into it. they feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves and it seems from the conversation that he felt very comfortable being back active and back in that very exciting life that perhaps he had gone dormant from. he does mention, one of the weirdest things he mentioned as he created a legend for himself as someone was right-wing so he would not be found. it seems like he wanted to get back into the game and the undercover asset is playing on

that to gain the target's trust. >> certainly very proud of himself and exploited very clearly in your point. eric o'neill, so great to have your perspective on this, we apprpreciate it.t. >> thahank you so much. . >> w we will be right t back.

commissioners of the ncaa's most powerful conferences are calling on congress to set national standards on how student athletes can be compensated for use for use of their name image or likeness. the supreme court if you is a go pave the way for students to get paid but that led to the creation of a password of state laws governing those profits. let's discuss with core wire.

walk us through how the in il change has impacted college football. >> i will and after the show you better promise to call me and apologize for making it a second best -- cnn now. listen before this no collegiate athlete could make money for the name image likeness. if you are an artist you cannot sell your art. couldn't make money signing autographs. but now you have these well- known names like iowa who stars caitlin clark. they are appearing in national commercials. major national brands like state farm's and high-profile universities are ruling the star athletes with perceived bigger better more lucrative commercial opportunities. recently nebraska head coach matt ruehl revealed if you want a top-tier quarterback for example that is a big price tag. this into this. >> make no mistake a good quarterback in the portal cost $1 million-$2 million right now. just wanted on the same page. make sure we all understand

what is happening. there is some things that have six or seven million-dollar players playing for them. >> you've had a lot of coaches out there have said it feels like the wild west. hardly any limit on what is school could promise a high school recruit or in the portal the transfer portal you heard him talking about where a player now they can potentially transfer without a penalty so a school can lure players from other teams. if you have more money to offer you might be losing your star players if you're one of those smaller schools. >> when i first read the headline i felt these commissioners were going to talk about the fsu's note to congress. that is not as high a priority. thank you. appreciate the praise by the way. by the way tonight eight teams remain. which teams were survived? the nba in season term and meant knockout round against tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern. don't miss it.