a team spokesperson told cnn t that hayden hurst returned in a limited capacity. post amnesia is forgetting something that happened before and after. so scary situation there. >> very scary indeed. here is hoping that he can recover there. briefly, juan soto, i miss him here in washington. what do you make of this? >> well, the yankees offense was dreadful last season, so you knew they would do something. they got trent grisham in that deal as well. and so yankees might be looking more like the yankees next season unfortunately for your orioles. >> i was going to say, let's go os. thanks to everyone for joining us. "cnn this morning" starts right now.

she caves any time the left comes after. nikki is corrupt. >> i love the attention, fellas, thank you for that. it was knives out for nikki haley at last night's republican debate. will it stop her momentum? >> the republican front-runner not on the debate stage, instead hitting the campaign trail today, donald trump is expected to be in new york city courtroom. block critical aid to ukraine demanding tougher border policies, in return what president biden said he's now willing to do. "cnn this morning" starts right now. ♪ good morning. so glad you're with us on this thursday. you're probably late up watching the final republican

presidential debate of the year, four candidates on that stage, clashing on policy, trading some personal insults as well. >> nikki haley took the brunt of the attacks from ron desantis and vivek ramaswamy over her big-ticket donations and her foreign policy positions. at one point vivek ramaswamy even holding up a handwritten sign saying nikki equals corrupt. >> in terms of these donors who are supporting me they're just jealous, they wish they were supporting them. >> donald trump not on the debate stage, he came out unscathed. let's begin our coverage with jeff zeleny, he joins us from tuscaloosa, alabama, did the debate do you think move the needle? >> reporter: good morning, poppy. look that needle has been very stubborn and slow to move, several moments of conflict and

confrontation particularly for voters who are just tuning into this race they can chew over for the next six weeks before the voting begins, nikki haley of course and ron desantis continued their feud over who's the most conservative, the strongest on china. vivek ramaswamy weighed in. chris christie said donald trump unfit for office. the man not on stage may have been the biggest winner. nikki haley at the center of fire storm as republican rivals sought to slow her rise wednesday night during a heated final debate of the year. >> her donors, these wall street liberal donors they make money in china, they won't let her be tough on china and they'll cave to the donors. >> he's mad because those wall street donors used to support him and now they support him. >> her newfound support from big-name donors to become the leading alternative to donald

trump. the former president continues to dominate the campaign despite thumbing his nose at another debate. >> you can't defeat democrat chaos with republican chaos. >> reporter: 40 days before the first votes of the 2024 race are cast in iowa caucuses, the sparring among contenders reached a new level of urgency and incivility. particularly between chris christie and vivek ramaswamy. >> this is the fourth debate, the fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in america. >> chris, your version of foreign policy experience was closing a bridge from new jersey to new york, so do everybody a favor, just walk yourself off stage and enjoy meal. >> chris christie stood alone about issuing a warning about donald trump. >> look at the history and

that's why failing to speak out against him, making excuses for him, pretending that somehow he's a victim empowers him, you know why those poll numbers are, folks like these three guys make seem like his conduct is acceptable. let me make it clear, it's r: desantis and haley exchanges may have amplified. >> i'm sick of republicans who are not willing to stand up and fight back against what the left is doing to this country. you have other candidates up here like nikki haley she caves any time the left comes after her. >> i actually said his don't say gay bill didn't go far enough. it only talked about gender until third grade.

>> for much of the debate, haley receded into the background. standing silent as her rivals piled on and her long-running feud with vivek ramaswamy bubbled over again. >> i don't have a woman problem, you have a corruption problem. >> it's not worth my time to respond to him. >> reporter: a night of revealing alliances with christie coming to haley's defense. >> i've known her for 12 years, longer than he's started to vote in the republican primary. and while we disagree about some issues and we disagree about who should be president of the united states what we don't disagree on is this smart accomplished woman. >> reporter: yet christie and haley on a collision course of their own, with moderate republicans and independent voters in new hampshire a centerpiece of their respective strategies. the first stop in the republican contest comes in iowa, where

desantis is staking his >> caller: claim on slowing trump's march. >> it's not a job for somebody who's pushing 80. we need somebody who's younger and is going to be able to go in there and clean house on day one and do it for two terms. >> reporter: so perhaps one of most notable factors of the debate last evening was the fact that nikki haley was standing there and taking so many arrows coming her way. and making the decision that she was going to appear presidential and perhaps not respond to all of these attacks. that's a sign of a candidate on the rise, no doubt desantis got many of his conservative record across, key to iowa, evangelical voters and other conservatives. at the end of all of this, it's divot to say this may have changed many minds, except perhaps the open ones and as we talked to voters there are still

voters with open minds, this of course will continue the debate. but perhaps the biggest contest of all, at least for iowa, was the university of iowa, women's basketball game, the question, how many people were actually watching this debate? phil and poppy. >> shout-out to caitlin clark. joining us now is karen f finneas at the table and john avlon. so, some people this morning saying, haley didn't say a lot, she got attacked all the time, a weak or strong debate for her. >> i think it was a very strong debate for her, at the end of the day she needed to do no harm, she held her own, she did a good job of responding to the attacks, she didn't get flustered. she did a great job of handling vivek ramaswamy in the one attack where she said, treated

him a like a fleck of dirt. but several moments where she had clear, concise answers. i may not agree with what she said, like on immigration, and she did something what woman candidates have to do, show toughness and strength and compassion in different ways men do. >> she also got a pretty strong defense from chris christie who i expected go after her. she's ascending in new hampshire. can we listen to it real quick? >> he has insulted nikki haley's basic intelligence, not her positions, her basic intelligence. if you want to disagree on issues, that's fine. we disagree on some issues. i'll tell you this, i've known her for 12 years, longer than he's started to vote in a republican primary, and while we disagree about some issues and

disagree about who should be president of the united states, what we don't disagree on is this is smart, accomplished woman. >> if she's primary problem in new hampshire, second tier in the race, why defend her like that. >> one, it's signal. he's running a narrow campaign, independents, maybe even some democrats, defending her against someone those people would loathe vivek ramaswamy is good tactic. two and more broadly i started to see the outline of some alliances. pre-trump republicans and post-trump republicans. vivek ramaswamy and desantis are post. christie disavowed that with dana bash. he fore shadowed several weeks of attacks that, clashes with her that's coming in the granite

state. he sounded like who was going to stay in. >> i disagree with you both on this. a sense b, this strategic surprising that christie wouldn't have gone after haley, jousting for the same vote. this was sincere, decency, this is a ridiculous attack. we're not used to seeing that on the stage. >> i assure you that chris christie knows one of the common attacks on women is their intelligence, you know we see a lot of that against a number of women and he intentionally said, you keep going after her intellect, i think that was a play for woman voters, he knew women watching that didn't like that. >> god bless new hampshire in the primaries. >> guess what, chris christie is

coming on the program. we'll ask him. >> vivek ramaswamy, he 's -- attacks on haley from trump. trump's never materialized for christie to attack. so vivek ramaswamy has been a stand-in for it. >> stay with us. lot more to get through from the debate last night. we'll be back with that for a moment vivek ramaswamy unleashing conspiracy theories as well on the stage, they were very out there. he called the january 6th attacks an inside job. democrats support the great replacement theory. and family shed tears of relief after a shooting killed three on the campus of unlv. that's next.

subsidiaries. why am the only person on this stage at least who can say that january 6th now does look like an inside job. that the government lied to us for 20 years. about saudi arabia's involvement in 9/11. that the great replacement theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory but a basic statement of the democrat party's platform.

>> why? because you sound like an idiot. that was one of the conspiracy theorys that vivek ramaswamy shared on the republican debate stage last night. here's what he told dana bash after the debate in the spin room. >> three years ago is there a chance that january 6th was an inside job, i would say that's crazy talk. it's shocking that you still haven't gotten a clear answer of how many federal agents -- >> when you use the term great replacement theory -- >> that's exactly -- >> you understand that term is something that e vehicles antisemitism, it's dangerous. >> back with us, scott jennings, karen finney. karen, to you on this, why did he list all of those off, was that politically strategic at

all. dana is right, it's dangerous, not only the great replacement theory but all of those. >> full-on q last night, qanon. he may not get another shot on a debattle stage, let me put it out there and try to whip up the people who actually believe some of those awful things. it was a pretty shocking, i think even scott would agree, it was a pretty shocking litany particularly when it comes to the great replacement theory which was quite disgusting, actually. >> it is. it's worse than idiotic, that was the worst answer that i've heard in any debate because it was pandering and disqualifying. >> pandering to a certain segment of the republican base. if you look up what he stitched together, every major conspiracy theory of this century from 9/11

to january 6th being an inside job, invoked the great replacement theory that's dog whistle to a certain segment of the republican electorate that loves that legitization they just heard from the stage. >> i'm disappointed dana didn't ask him about the moon landing. i mean, there's a segment of very, very, very, very online alt-right types that he's planning for, i don't think it's an electoral coalition, it's obviously post-campaign branding coalition, these debates have been terrible for him. he was at 7% nationally, he's in the 4% now. he's plummeted after each one of these increasingly obnoxious,

ridiculous performances. to stand on the debate stage and say it's an inside job, he's not playing for the nomination. >> on the great replacement theory, specifically invoke great replacement theory, when you're doing that from a presidential stage, there's a body count behind that conspiracy theory. >> you got sucked into 17 responses. you look up, oh, no, this isn't where i want to be. he attacked transgenderism as a mental health disorder. this is frontline republican issue or has been. listen to how chris responded compared to ron desantis. >> i agree. we should empower parents to be teaching the values that they believe in their homes without the government telling them what those values should be.

and yet we want to take other parental rights away >> as a parent you don't have the right to abuse your kids. this is cutting off their genitals. this is nmutilating these minor and i think the question here is, one, this is such a small segment of society, but there are real effects here, this care is backed by medical associations. why is it such an issue? ron desantis attacked nikki haley on it repeatedly. >> a perception in the republican party, we've seen bills attacking lgbtq youth throughout the country in republican states with republican governors, so clearly there's a segment that believes this is mobilizing to parts of

the base. personally, i thought it was disgusting. . the other thing we're seeing, as this conversation has risen we're seeing higher rates of depression and suicide among lgbtq youths. i think deem nicing children is disgusting. there's a perception that it would mobilize parts of the base. >> the facts are that most medical, almost all medical associations consider the question was about gender-affirming care and who should have control of the state, federal government or parents, christie said parents. and you heard what desantis said. some say it's medically necessary for some youths to prevent suicide. are you surprised to hear answers like desantis and vivek ramaswamy calling transgenderism a mental health disorder.

>> desantis' answer is squarely within the main stream of opinion of the republican party. vivek ramaswamy's answer probably is closer to the center of it as well. christie, i understand his argument on it. if you were desantis trying to attract evangelical caucus-goers in iowa, in that whole exchange no doubt that he won that exchange -- >> really? chris christie's argument about big government, flat? parents should have rights in school but not on this. >> desantis said, you don't give the parents the right to commit child abuse. if you play that exchange for caucus-goers on caucus night, i'd guarantee who would come out on top in the straw poll. >> primary election answer and general election answer.

christ -- >> if you're for parental rights. room for nuanced debate around some of these issues with regard to minors. the problem is the deemization of the small group of people who are defenseless and the evaluation of this, civilization defining issue itself is designedesign ed to demonize. >> all right, guys, stick around. lot more to get to later in the hour. this morning, new information about the shooter who killed three people on unlv's campus and the emotional message from lebron james about guns in the america. presidents from elite universities trying to do damage control under pressure from their responses. what they're saying this morning, that's next.

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(loose gravel clanking) 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. welcome back. this morning, we do have new information on the shooter who

police killed at least three people at the university of las vegas yesterday. marquees along the las vegas strip, saying las vegas strong. held a vigil gathering to mourn the lives lost. lucy, tragic, again, another mass shooting in america. do we know anything more about the shooter this morning? >> reporter: well, poppy, police haven't formally identified the shooter because of last night notifying next of kin. according to law enforcement officials who spoke to cnn, 67-year-old career college professor who has connections to schools in both georgia and north carolina. in terms of his connection to this university according to awe enforcement source who spoke to the associated press, he unsuccessfully sought to get a job at this particular school. all of this unfolded early

yesterday, shots rang out at around 11:45 in the morning near beem hall, police say that the shooting started on the fourth floor of the building and went on to multiple floors, the sheriff saying police neutralized and engaged and neutralized the suspect outside but not before he killed three people, injured one individual who was sent to the hospital with a gunshot wound, now in stable condition. two police officers, law enforcement officers treated for minor injuries and four students suffering panic attacks. this was an incredibly busy time at the university. this was study week. finals week coming up. students were playing lego games and eating. the university's president telling students know that it is okay not to be okay.

poppy. >> that's a really important message. this coming in "live from," just years after the most deadly mass shooting in modern american history in las vegas. >> reporter: yes, and that's not lost on anyone here, we're just few miles from the mandalay bay hotel, where a gunman opened fire on that concert music festival. lebron james speaking out about gun violence in america. take a listen. >> the ability to get a gun, the ability to, you know, do these things over and over and over and there has been no change, it is literally ridiculous. it makes no sense that we continue to lose innocent lives on campuses, on schools, at shopping markets. it is ridiculous. it is ridiculous. changed anything, it is stupid.

>> reporter: staggering 631 mass shootings in america so far this year alone. yesterday's violence, poppy, marks the 80th school shooting. poppy. >> wow, wow. thank you very much for your reporting. on the battlefield israel claims it has surrounded the leader of hamas. voters weighing in on who they think won last nighght's s republblican primamary debate. onone candndidate stood out. who tell youou who, nenext.

today marks two months since the unprecedented terror attack on israel and it launched the start of the war against hamas. it's also the first night of hannukah this morning. egyptian authorities are opening the rafah border crossings so dual citizens can leave gaza. meanwhile israeli forces say have the home of hamas leader surrounded. israel is touting it as a symbolic victory. it comes as the united states expresses new concern over the number of civilian casualties. >> back here if the u.s., university presidents from harvard, penn and m.i.t. are under fire following their testimony at a house hearing looking at antisemitism on college campuses. u penn president said she was focused on university policy when she testified before the committee.

>> a call for genocide of jewish people is threatening, deeply so, it's intentionally meant to terrify a people who have been subjected to hatred for centuries. and were the victims of mass genocide in the holocaust. policies need to be clarified. and evaluated. >> that explanation was in response to what happened on tuesday. >> a context dependent decision. >> it's a context dependent decision, that's your testimony now, genocide of jews is based on context. this is the easiest question to answer yes or no. >> it can be depending on the context. >> what's the context. >> targeted as an individual, targeted at an individual. >> it's targeted at jewish students, jewish individuals, do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them?

do you understand that dehumanization is part of antisemitism. >> the blowback has been fierce, the blowback has been bipartisan and almost unequivocal it was a mess. >> lot of blowback from current students, alumni against all three college presidents. new york congressman dan goldman had this to say on twitter. there's nothing context yal for calls for all jews to be killed. the universities need either need a new code of conduct or new presidents. we also heard from the governor of pennsylvania josh shapiro speaking forcefully outside a

falafel shop targeted by protesters. he said this was an unacceptable statement from the president of penn. frankly i thought her comments were shameful. it should not be hard to condemn genocide against jews, genocide against anyone else. and hedge fund billionaire bill ackman who went to harvard. he said, they must all resign in disgrace throughout the hearing the three behaved like hostile witnesses. their outright refusal to answer questions with a yes or no answer. it didn't go over all with this audience. you had to be much more forceful calling for yen side against jewish people is hear rasment. it goes against code of country.

donald trump went pretty much unscathed last night at the republican presidential debate despite be the front-runner by a lot. warning of a second trump presidency continues, next. what it can mean for blue states in his new piece, ahead.

all that really smaerts the voters in the end. they're weighing in after every debate our gary the tuchman assembles a group of voters to see how the candidates did. call this one a tiebreaker with a decisive victor. here's gary tuchman. >> reporter: the fourth debate is over. but our fourth debate watch

party with republicans in iowa isn't finished yet. in the first three debates the majority thought a different candidate won each time. this time, i'm going to ask in order who thinks christie won the debate. zero of the eight. who thinks desantis won the debate. 1 of the 8. who thinks haley won the debate. 6. who thinks vivek ramaswamy won the debate. zero. one person didn't vote. that's jim in the upper left. how come you didn't vote in. >> i think trump won. >> my guess you think trump won because he wasn't here. >> that's right. >> reporter: nikki haley had a decisive victory among this group. why do you think haley won. >> she's been the one with momentum. i expected her to take a lot of hits. the debate started with them coming after her, i think she handled it really well.

she's strong in these debates, a consistent part of her momentum she's been a strong debater. >> i agree with brett that she had to dodge a lot of bullets tonight and she stood up to each one of them. >> what do you think? >> i think people shoot arrows at the people who are winning. i think she's winning. >> trey? >> yeah, i think that every hit that she took she had a response back. >> megan what do you think. >> i agree with everyone else. i think she handled it with grace and charisma. >> jeff, what's your opinion in. >> look, like everybody else, she weathered the storm, it was obvious they were coming after her because she's got an edge in the polls at least of that group. her foreign policy experience really shown through tonight. >> reporter: debbie had a different take. why do you think desantis won? >> i think he has executive

experience and a record of winning and that's going to be the most important thing in a primary and then in a general election. we have to beat joe biden. >> reporter: most of you were undecided. out of the eight of you, how many of you have made a decision about who you will caucus for. raise your hand if you have. four of you have decided. they'll caucus for haley, desantis and haley. the men in the upper left is expected, says it will be trump. >> he's done it. he's been the president. he's made the tough decisions. >> poppy, phil, only one person on our panel who at this point is positive he'll caucus for donald trump. but notably i asked who do you predict the iowa caucuses and the consensus among the eight people in our group, trump. poppy, phil. >> that was gary tuchman. avlon, what's your take when

you watch the voters. >> my take this shows that the caucus situation in iowa is still very fluid, the momentum is toward nikki haley. remember, that caucuses are a process of persuasion. some people will say, trump is bad for the country, he doesn't represent our values. we'll see who has the gravitational pull. this isn't over. people haven't started voting. a focus group that we talked about cnn late last night, his group said that christie won that debate. >> and joe biden won the debate last night, you know, when you see chris christie ie being boo that's good night for joe biden. if you happen to have newsnation

on your cable, in that sense, many moments that i felt like if more general election voters were watching that's actually a good thing for the democrats. again, i go back to, you know, these din micks that women candidate tough to deal with, the fact that nikki haley did well showed that her strategy of staying above the fray really work. >> i agree with you there's fluldty in the second tier. not much fluidity in the second and they're very confident in their caucus building operation, you no, they've got lots of confidence with what they start with, desantis has a very, very robust and good operation in iowa, he got the endorsement of the governor, despite the fluidity in that tier they feel like their organization and the strength of the infrastructure is well beyond what haley has

been -- the iowa caucus is somewhat of momentum and there's something to the push and pull of getting people into the gyms and voting for you and i think trump and desantis are still one-two. >> thanks, guys. the republican candidates on the debate stage will join us ahead. chris christie coming up in a couple of minutes. more on funding fight over military assistance for ukraine. david cameron will lay out what's at stake. stay with us.

made it very clear there's no mystery to what he wants to do. he started off his campaign by saying, i am your retribution. eight years ago, he said i am your voice. this she an angry, bitter man. who now wants to be back as president because he wants to exact retribution. >> that was republican presidential candidate chris christie last night raising concerns about a potential second trump presidency. >> another set of essays arguing that a second trump presidency would be even more damaging than the first. one of those new essays that trump will abuse power to go after blue states in his second term. that essay timesed "the war on blue america." >> ron, the crux of your piece, i want to pull out one point --

what i took from your piece, not what happens on a microlevel what it would mean for the country going forward. >> look, i mean, first of all, good morning. look, donald trump as president as i said, as you quoted, did govern as a wartime president for red america, for most of his presidency was through policy, impose on blue states and blue cities. you would see more of that in second term, ideas like banning federal aid to schools that don't follow what republican states have limiting the teaching of race, or his threat to prosecute locally elected d.a.s who he calls marxists and lunatics. but what happened as you mow toward the end of his presidency he went way beyond that, deploying and projecting federal

force into blue cities over the objections of mayors and governors in most cases. and he's being very clear that he intends to ramp that up, door to door deportation the largest ever, unfold mostly inside large cities, sending in the national guard, unspecified mandate to restore law and order, sweepgs the streets of homeless. building internment camps. it begins to look like an possibility of occupying. that takes our current polarization, our sense that red and blue are hurdling away from each other and raises it to a very kinetic new level of conduct. >> your piece comes at a perfect point, ron, days after trump didn't say no, i won't be a

dictator, he talked about day one. then also talked about, you know, retribution and what that looked like, fellow republican, very different republican senator mitt romney has responded to that. let's listen to him. >> donald trump says so many absurd things, i don't know how you respond to them. i sort of laugh and think he's trying to entertain his base, it's a dangerous course to go down of course, but that's what he dozen a regular basis. >> he's saying you got to laugh at it, it's ridiculous. your article, don't laugh at it. look at his last year. >> romney was quoted by promising this kind of l retribution against quote his enemies trump actually is speaking a substantial portion of his base. multiple polls where a majority

of republicans have said the traditional way of life is disappearing so fast we may have to use a force to save it. described the january 6th insurrection in positive terms. donald trump is essentially promising to use national power to use factional ends, to impose the priorities of red america on blue states and blue cities that are resisting it and the new element i think how much he envisions this being done through the projection of federal force. one people i talked for this story, michael nutter the former mayor of philadelphia, said it would be chaos, you can imagine scenarios donald trump is trying to use massive projections of border patrol or immigration forces to do this door to door deportation he's talking about and you can envision the philadelphia police department or local neighbors resisting it, we're talking about potentially if you take him seriously and literally, you know going back

to the old formulation, he's talking about using federal force in a way that could be seen in blue america as an attempt to impose red america's agenda by force. >> ron brownstein, thank you so much. a real fascinating piece out in the atlantic. cnn this morning continues right now. four republican hopefuls not named trump tried to set themselves from each other. >> i love all the attention, fella and she was doing this strategically. >> very difficult to be the only person on the stage who's telling the truth. >> he's laid the ground work of what needs to be the direction of the republican party. >> i'm looking forward to iowa and new hampshire, we're going to earn this nomination. >> he was a different candidate on the debate stage, he had a clear audience in mind. >> your version of foreign policy was closing a bridge from