right now, donald trump is in court. he is preparing to take the stand to be the star witness for the defense next week, but going in to be an observer today, not

staying quiet. >> yes, what can we tell this morning from the fallout of the republican debate last night? and what did trump have to say about it in court today? and a gunman kills three people on the unlv campus, and new details of the suspect who we have learned is a former processor. with john berman and kate bolduan, i'm sara sidner, and this is cnn "news central." >> right now, donald trump is sitting in on his civil trial in new york, and an observer today, and preparing to take the stand again, himself, on monday, but he is not staying quiet. attacking the case, the attorney general and declaring victory before he entered the courtroom today. on the line, donald trump's brand, and the penalty of $250

million, and we go to brynn gingras who is outside of the courtroom, and what has been happening today? >> yeah, kate. remember, it is the judge who is going to decide what those penalties will be at the very end of this, and we are at the end of this, and this new york civil fraud trial going on for two months, and the last full week of testimony, and as you laid out there, the former president is going to be expected to take the stand monday, but right now, he is seated at the defense table, and the defendant in this lawsuit, and he is listening in on testimony from an nyu accounting professor who is expected to really just back up these claims from the defense that trump and the co-defendants did not violate any accounting principles or rules when filling out the financial statement of condition. remember, the new york attorney general has said that trump, and his sons and trump org they intentionally inflated the value of the assets in order to get better bank loans and interest rates, and they are trying to

counter that central argument to the case. we did hear from the former president, as we often do, as he headed into the courtroom, and i wanted you hear a little bit of what he had to say. >> this is a witch hunt. it is a very corrupt trial. if you look at the case, we did nothing wrong. there were no victims. the bank loves us. the bank testified. they love us. we did absolutely nothing wrong. >> and trump making some of the claims that we have heard from him before that there is no merit to the case, and it is important to note, guys, that the new york attorney general letitia jame not the courtroom, and she is usually when the former president is, and she did tweet out after he made those remarks, that donald trump engage 234d years of fraud, and enriched himself and his family, and we have proven the massive scale of his fraud no matter how much he lies, the

facts don't. as i said, this case is wrapping up with trump taking stand monday and we will wait to see if he has anything more to say when he leaves courtroom before the breaks, but guys, he has to be careful what he says to the cameras, because that gag order which he has violated twice which says that he cannot speak ill of anyone on the judge's staff is still in effect. >> thank you, brynn gingras. sara? did donald trump's political rivals do enough in last night's debate to put a dent in the dominating lead over them, and is there enough time for any real change or chance for that to happen before the iowa caucus which is by the way in 39 days. today, while trump is in court, two of his rivals are in iowa and nikki haley will arrive there tomorrow, and chris christie is spending time in new

hampshire after he lodged the loudest attacks against donald trump at the debate. bottom line he said, trump is unfit, and this is something that he pressed governor desantis to do himself. listen. >> is he unfit? >> you have your thing -- >> no, i don't have my thing, and he is the thing. we not want -- you are talking about -- >> he is 80 years old, ron. >> is he -- to get elected. >> and ron, is he fit or -- >> we should not nominate somebody -- >> he won't answer. >> and we should not nominate someone who is almost 80 years old. >> you are afraid to answer. you have to either afraid or not listening, and there is a simple question. >> i am not. >> is he fit! >> there is a lot of yelling there. and so, jeff zeleny you were in tuscaloosa where that debate took play, and fiery debate there where they were screaming over each other, and a lot of

jabs and most of them at nikki haley. walk us through them all. >> well, sara, it is a lot quiet here a day after the debate, but certainly all of the exchanges and what they may mean or not mean are still resonating as the candidates are heading back to the campaign trail, and ron desantis is making a beeline to iowa and this is why. he was trying to, when he is not in a back and forth with chris christie trying to remind the voters of the conservative voting record in florida, and seen as the leading alternative of donald trump, and of course, he struggled throughout the year, but as the year ends here, he was in a little bit of the upswing here, and one of the strongest debate performances he had, but it was nikki haley in center stage taking incoming, and she has capitalized on her climb throughout the course of these debates here. so last night, she was standing and taking a lot of criticism from her newfound support in donor, and her position on china and much more.

>> the only person more fascist than the biden r eseme is you. you are just upset because all of those donors that you had are now my donors. >> and she was trying to push back at some of the criticism, but it was a lot, sara, and again, it is important how the voters viewed this debate, and more importantly than ever. >> and i wanted to ask you how you see this as the caucuses are coming up in a mere 39 days. iowa is going to be making some

decision, and how do you think they are taking all of this? >> look, we have a glimpse of it last night, and certainly not scientific, because sample. our colleague gary tuchman has been in narveda, iowa, for all of the debates and talking to them about how they viewed the performances on stage, and this is instructive of course to what the next five and a half weeks of the campaign could be like. let's watch. >> well, clearly, lately, she has been the one with the momentum, and so, i expected her to take the hits, and they started coming after her, and she handled it well. she is strong in the policy and strong in debates, and that is part of the momentum she is a strong debater. >> judy? >> i agree with brett, she had to dodge a lot of bullet, and she stood up to each one of them. >> why do you think that desantis won? >> he has executive experience and a record of winning.

that is going to be the most important thing in a primary and then in the general election. >> reporter: and what that clearly shows is fans for desantis, and fans for haley, but they are competing perhaps for a bigger point perhaps with the fans of donald trump, and that is the conundrum for them, is there space for all of them? and if donald trump has a big victory in iowa, is there a rational for them to go forward, but let's not get ahead of ourself, because the voters have not voted, and they will on january 15th in iowa, and this is the sentiment of what is almost the final stretch here of the campaign. >> absolutely. jeff zeleny, thank you. appreciate it. sarah matthews the former press secretary of the white house, and matt lewis, the writer and columnist for "daily

beast." and so, asking to comment on the debate, and of course, he did not attend, and when asked about the debate, he chose not to answer at all, and what does that tell you? >> well, he has made a strategic decision to not participate in any of the debates, and i think that him not commenting today is a strategic decision, and it is showing that he thinks that the other candidates are the j.v. squad, and he is still dominant this the polls, and no reason for him to engage or give any oxygen to them. i think that he is probably right. obviously right now, the polling is showing that he is way ahead of them in all of the early states, and i think that in order for anyone to effectively challenge him, the field needs to narrow considerably, and we need to have one alternative to him, but right now, it seems that none of the folks on the stage last night are going to be dropping out and rally around one alternative, and so it made sinc

sense for him to not engage or take the bait today. >> you wrote that chris christie had the best debate, but dot, dot, dot, and tell me what you thought. >> well, right. look, christie is a talented politician, and sadly, he probably missed his window for the presidency which i think that was 2012, but he played a major role possibly in this race. i think that we would all concede this is donald trump's race to lose. he is by far the frontrunner, but the way that someone could win is to win iowa and win new hampshire and get some momentum going, and then eventually the national polls would follow, and so it is a long shot, but that is the way that someone could wrest the nomination away from trump. nikki haley is the most likely person to be able to pull that off, partly because she is ahead, and well, not ahead of trump, but ahead of the field in new hampshire, and coming out of that is going to her home state

of south carolina, but she had a rough night last night. she was obviously targeted. she was fending off a lot of attacks, and it was chris christie who not only had a strong debate performance in his own right, but chris christie bailed out nikki haley, and served as vivek ramaswamy has been running sort of helping donald trump this whole time, i think that chris christie filledfilled ed that role for nikki haley last night. >> and sarah, what about this litany of conspiracy theories that i will not bother to repeat that to which nooeter of the moderators or the opponents on the stage bothered to say anything about at allment. >> yes, the conspiracy theories that he was promoting was january 6th being an inside job, and the 2020 election being

stolen, and the great replacement theory, and something that multiple mass shooters have cited in the manifestos and pathetic and disgusting, and i was disappointed that the mod rays or the did not call him out on those things, and it is a clear attempt by vivek to pander to the far right. he has done it throughout the whole campaign, and i think that it just proves that he is very unserious candidate, and not fit to be anywhere near the oval office. >> matt lieu, which you said that nikki haley had maybe the toughest night on the debate stage, and so what does she need to do between now and january 15th, which is iowa? >> well, i think that she has to between now and then, she has to get out therein the huskings and be in iowa and new hampshire and do what she is doing which is raising a lot of money, and i think that she did enough in the debate to -- she did what she had to do. and what did she have to do?

she had to have a good enough debate to be seen as the runner-up to donald trump, and desantis could have supplanted her if he had a great night, and if christie had not bailed out nikki haley, and there because point when vivek ramaswamy was trying to get her to name the three provinces in ukraine, and she was sort of like blanking at the camera, and i think that it was a bogus kind of the gotcha question to begin with, but it was chris christie who interrupted what could have been an embarrassing moment for nikki haley, and she did enough to stay the runner-up to donald trump, and a distnant second place to springboard into south carolina. >> thank you, both. sara? in the last half hour or so,

we have learned that the university of pennsylvania is holding an emergency trustee meeting that the president is facing calls to resign after her disastrous testimony on capitol hill on anti-semitism. we will talk about it with the president of the anti-defamation league. and now, traumatized after a mass shooting with three people killed and one in the hospital after a gunman opened fire on the unlv campus, and the latest on the investigation into that shooting is coming up.

happening now, the board of trustees at the university of pennsylvania is holding an emergency meeting at the school's president liz mcgill is facing growing backlash of her testimony on antisen-semitisman now there is a meeting, and what do we know that this is going to be focusing on? >> i am told, sara, that this is a meeting of the board of

trustees that was held virtually a little over two hours ago, and we don't know for sure whether or not the fate of penn president liz mcgill is going to be discussed during this meeting, but that is going to be the elephant in the room, because this is after the governor josh shapiro called for just this, the meeting of the board of trustees to try to decide whether or not that testimony lives up to the values of the school and the board. now, we have heard intense criticism not just towards mcgill, but the presidents of m.i.t. and harvard after tuesday's hearing. we heard from the billionaire, hedge fund billionaire bill ackman for all three to resign, and private equity billionaire and penn alum mark rowan similarly stepping up his campaign, and the ceo of pfizer

went on x yesterday and he called it one of the quote most despicable history in u.s. academia and the press secretary weighed in from the podium making it clear that there is no room for genocide. so sara, we will continue the follow the fallout of the hearing and the ongoing meeting of penn and the board of trustees. >> literally everyone else was able to make it clear that you cannot use those words genocide against jews without consequences except for these three university presidents. thank you, matt egan, for your report on this. kate? >> let's talk more about the fallout, and the reactions like they should resign in disgrace and reflecting moral bankruptcy. absolutely shameful is from the governor of pennsylvania josh shapiro, and this is an example

that has led up to this. when the university presidents were asked in the hearing about genocide. >> it is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman. >> that is your answer, the genocide of jews is dependents upon the context and this is not bullying or harassment, and this is the easiest question to answer yes to, ms. mcgill. yes nor. >> it can be depending upon the context? >> what is the context? >> targeted as an individual. >> it is targeted as jewish students and jewish individuals, and do you understand that your testimony is dehumanizing them, and do you understand that dehumanization is part of anti-semitism. >> joining us is director of the anti-defamation league jonathan

green greenblatt and when you saw that moment, what did you think? >> it was catastrophic and clarifying, because i have heard from dozens and dozens of jewish students in the last few weeks and let alone the last few months of feeling literally unsafe on campus, and considering moving out of the dorms altogether, and considering leaving and transferring out of the universities all together, because they have told me that at ivy league schools they are not feeling safe. guess what, now we know why, because they are not. because their college presidents with the ph.d.s and the fancy degrees failed to do if basics that a third grade teacher understands which is you keep all of your students safe. so, i must say, that just this week, we had an incident at clom clomby -- columbia, where a

teacher who had been previously banned by the administration celebrating the joctober 7th counter offensive of the beheading of jews, and then she testified yesterday for the second day in a row while the students were in the hillel that another student outside pounded on the windows to get their attention and made the obscene gesture and urinated on the building in plain sight, and why is this student not expelled? when i looked at the liz mcgill video, it looked like a hostage speaking under duress. i understand why the governor of pennsylvania and so many of the trustees don't have confidence in her. i don't have confidence anymore that penn is capable under this leadership of getting it right.

>> that is why i wanted to ask you, you have the emergency meeting of the board of trustees happening at penn, and does the adl have a position on the calls for resignation? >> well, before tuesday, we didn't. but when i watched these presidents flail and feebly with legalish answer the questions, we have lost confidence with them. and let me be honest, that i have spoken to president mcgill, and i have spoken to president gay, and we are ready to help the institutions to get it right, but it is not clear to me that these leaders are actually deeply committed to doing so. and again, i don't care what you say -- >> how are they getting it so wrong? why are they getting it so

wrong? how and why? >> well, we have to understand the poison of anti-zionism have so infected institutions, anded they believe it is a political speech to call for the murder of students on their campus. they think it is actually protected expression to incite violence against others. i mean, kate, you know, we can ask ourselves, how many students at penn have been suspended for chanting "from the river to the sea" and from intifada, and then gone on to vandalize businesses, and i am concerned about violence, and real mass casualty incident if they cannot find the moral core, and if they can not find it, kate, we need new leaders including at penn. >> look, these are two top academic institutions, and they are not the only colleges and

universities in the country, and every one needs to clearly learn from this moment. have the universities been reaching out the the adl? what does the leadership look like if what you saw in congressional hearing is not? >> i mean, look, in some ways this is pretty basic. it is not just about reading, writing and arithmetic, it is right and wrong. calls to genocide are never context dependent. they are always contemptible, and always violation of a code of conduct, and if they are not, kate, then you better rewrite the code of conduct, okay. it is a world in which as director wray said earlier in the week, hate crimes up 60% in the last two months and mostly against the jewish people, and by the way, this is not just isr israelis, and these are americans who are raped and

torture and sexually brutalized and held hostage right now, and this is an american problem. so again, when the university presidents cannot call out the murder of americans, they dither and equivocate, i mean, look, there are steps they could take that could adopt the definition of anti-semitism, and they could suspend the members and suspend members like students of palestinian, and they could hold the professors accountable. we should not let the professors accountable, and i understand -- >> jonathan, thank you so much, and we will continue that discussion. thank you so much, and listening in to donald trump speaking right now outside of the courtroom. >> and at nyu, the top professor beautifully reviewed the documents at this horrendous attorney general put forth, and he found absolutely no fraud,

accounting fraud of any kind. this is a highly respected man. i don't know him. but he is a expert witness, and he found no fraud, whatsoever. he found no accounting fraud whatsoever. and like everyone else he said, what are we doing here? what are we doing here? this is a political witch hunt, and it is meant to influence an inlek election, and this is coming from the white house, and the white house is controlling the district attorney, and in fact, the district attorney's office they put one of the top people, and the doj put one of the top people here into the district attorney's office, and also put a man into the state attorney general's office, letitia james' office, and happened to be the same man, and coming right from the white house.

this is a disgraceful situation, and and the country has never seen anything like this, but the highly respected witness, and highly respected by everybody with a resume that -- and listening to the donald trump who is applauding the expert witness who is called by his legal team, and themes that he has said before, accusing the white house of installing people to prosecute him which is unfounded accusation, but the former president continues to speak outside of the courtroom, and then he is going to be taking stand monday. john? >> this is a state charge, and the white house has nothing to do with it. and just into cnn, the texas judge has sided with a woman who has sued to get an abortion for the high-risk pregnancy and what this means for the state's strict abortion ban.

this is just in to cnn, a significant argument on the ban to abortion. a judge has granted an exception for a woman to get an abortion, because the woman has a condition to not allow her fetus

to continue and putting her life at risk. what are we hearing here? >> this is no abortion unless the life of the mother is in jeopardy, and this is the most significant development that we have seen since the u.s. supreme court overturned roe v. wade last year, and in the hearing that ended a short while ago, kate cox was granted permission by a judge to have an abortion. and this is coming after she learned that the end of november that her baby, and she is 20 weeks along in this pregnancy was diagnosed with what is edward's syndrome which is a genetic syndrome which is fatal in nearly all case, and the doctor said at best, if the child were to be born, it would live a few hours and perhaps a couple of day at best. because of that, cox and the lawyers argued that her future health and the future ability to get pregnant again would be in jeopardy if she were forced to continue on with this pregnancy.

and the judge ruled in her favor just a short while ago saying that quote, the idea that ms. cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law may cause her to lose this ability is shocking and a genuine miscarriage of justice, and so i will be signing this order. so she has been given a temporary restraining order against the abortion law here in texas to carry out that abortion. and really at the heart of all of, this john, it is this question of the when the life of the mother is at jeopardy. abortion rights activists say here in texas that the law is vague and confusing for doctors who are facing criminal repercussions if they were to carry out the abortion, and the mother is facing a civil legal action in the state because of the abortion law, and the attorneys for the attorney general say that in the filings that kate cox and the lawyers filed, that they did not up port

enough evidence that her life would be in jeopardy down the road if the pregnancy were to continue, but the judge dismissing that and ruling in her favor, and a significant ruling in the abortion battle here in texas, john. >> this is a painful process for that woman. ed lavandera, thank you for being with us. kate? coming up for us, three people are dead today, and one person is still fighting for their life in the hospital, and another college campus is left terrorized and now, what the investigators are saying about a possible motive for the shooter. we will be back.

this just into cnn as the

war rages on in gaza, the son of a current israeli wartime minister has been killed there. g gadi issacson's son has been killed there according to the idf sources. i want to bring in the analyst ba barak ravid, what do you know about this, and where it happened? >> well, this incident happened this morning in the town of jabalya in northern gaza strip in the forth of the reserve brigade 551 operating in the area in search for hamas tunnels. while tries to excavate one of the tunnels, it was bobby trapped, and an ied exploded and killed master sargent gale

isancot and killed some of the soldiers on the spot. one of the interesting or even tragic details of this incident is that while this was happening, his father, the former idf chief of staff was visiting headquarters of the division 162, the same division that his son's unit was part of, and while he was at the war room, and in the war room of the division, he got the update that his son was killed. >> we are looking at the pictures right now, barack, gael, the son and his father out there smiling, and you say that he learned this when he was touring an area that is particularly in danger, and then you have his son actually being killed, and how unusual for

someone of that high profile to have their son on the front lines? >> well, in israel, it is not very unusual thing, and he is not the only one of his sons fighting in gaza. benny ganz, another member of the cabinet has his son in active duty, and many have their sons in active duty or reserves since this war started. in a way, this is very israeli story. >> very israeli story. the hamas says that 17,000 palestinians have been killed and the israeli defense forces are saying that they are also taking quite a bit of fire. can you give us a sense of what is happen on the ground there?

>> i think that we have to divide it to two parts. the first part is northern gaza strip where most of the area is controlled already by the idf and what is going on right now is just dismantling the infrastructure like the tunnels, and that is what led to this incident that killed gael, and some of the cities like khan younis, we are seeing the most fierce fighting since this war started and this is a city that is most untouched since the war began, and is for two months, hamas was preparing for the israeli ground invasion of the city, and this city hosts right now according to area that we are seeing the quite significant fighting there at the moment. >> and israel has said they have killed several members of the leadership in this past

fighting. thank you so much, barak ravid, for that development. and for you, several developing stories are happening as we speak. we will go to a quick break and you that next.

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a possible motive is developing this morning behind the unlv campus shooting. three people were murdered. another person was critically injured and is now in the hospital. law enforcement sources tell cnn that one connection that the shooterer seemed to have with the schools that he he applied for a job at the university did

not get it. lucy cav anaugh is in las vegas for us. what more are investigators saying and are you learning about this working theory? >>. >> reporter: yeah, officials aren't giving us much publicly on the record as of late last night. there was still notifying next of kin, but law enforcement sources told cnn that the suspect is 67-year-old anthony palito, who had been passed over for a job here at the university of nevada. his linkedin profile does list him as a semi retired professor and the last full-time job he has on that profile ended back in 2017. that was at east carolina university. he did die at the scene after a confrontation with police yesterday. the violence kicking off just before noon. this was in the beam hall building, which is home to the business school. police say the shooting began on the fourth floor. it continued through multiple

floors. the confrontation moving outside where authorities engaged with this gunman. they neutralized him in the language they used. three people, as you point out, killed one recovering from a gunshot wound. the sliver of good news there is their condition has been updated from critical to stable overnight. terrified moments for students who had to hide under lockdown in classrooms. one student hiding in the bathroom. take a listen. >> i jumped up on the toilet to make sure my feet weren't showing. i heard the gunmanment coing closer. they ended up going inside of the building. and i have a clip of where i could hear them shooting. i was freaking out and crying. >> they spoke to one faculty member who said she sheltered for hours. she always felt safe.

>> thank you so much for your reporting. >> it's terrifying. thank you so much for joining us. this is "cnn news central." "inside politics" is up next.

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