"cnn this morning" continues right now. every one else who sees russia's war on ukraine as his personal lecture. the so-called university of aggression gets the message loud and clear. putin must lose. >> good morning, everyone. the next hour, ukrainian president volodymr zelenskyy will meet with senators pleading for more war funding. why he says doing nothing is a win for putin. and house republicans are set to meet as they plan to formalize their impeachment inquiry into president biden with a house vote this week. this despite any direct evidence at least at this point of wrongdoing by the president. also in 30 minutes we will get a key inflation reading for the month of november. how those numbers could factor into what the fed does with rates tomorrow. this hour of "cnn this morning" starts now.

♪ here is where we begin with a live look at capitol hill where ukrainian president zelenskyy will arrive any moment. he will be making a last-ditch plea to congress to stop stalling and approve billions in additional aid in their fight against russia. lawmakers are deadlocked and time is running out quickly to reach a deal before they go home for the holidays. >> in an hour zelenskyy will enter the united states capitol speak to the entire senate. later he has meetings with president biden at the white house, house speaker, republican speaker mike johnson. zelenskyy will be facing a much colder reception from republicans compared to less than one year ago when he received this hero's welcome. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> that was december of last year when a joint session of

congress gave zelenskyy a standing ovation during his first visit of the war. he received an american flag from then-speaker nancy pelosi. lauren fox is live on capitol hill. lauren, it is such a different moment. some republicans are saying zelenskyy's visit won't change anything at all in terms of their opposition to additional aid. >> reporter: yeah, this is an impassioned plea, obviously, from ukraine's president as he arrives on capitol hill this morning, and lawmakers are staring down what may be their last week in washington before they depart for the holiday recess, and they are, at this point, phil, no closer to getting more aid approved. and that is because of a domestic policy quagmire over the southern border as they remain deeply divided between what both sides would be willing to accept when it comes to strengthening u.s. border patrol on the southern border. right now zelenskyy is unlikely to change those dynamics despite

what he might tell lawmakers behind closed doors, republicans telling us last night that they are going to be unmoved by their pledge that they are going to require bored security changes in order to give ukraine additional funding. one of the most high stakes meetings zelenskyy will have is with the new speaker mike johnson. it will be johnson's decision if a deal could be brokered in the senate as to whether or not that deal is strong enough to put on the floor of the house of representatives. there is a lot more pushback from house conservatives when it comes to giving additional aid to ukraine. some of those maerjs, like marjorie taylor greene, arguing that bored security is not going to change her calculation or her believe ukraine shouldn't get a single penny more. that's the dynamic johnson is up against and that's why zelenskyy's message will be critically important today. phil, poppy. >> thank you very much. >> joining us to discuss, john

kirby, national security council coordinator for strategic communications at the white house. i am struck by the fact that president biden has used five words repeatedly over the course of the last two years when asked how long u.s. support for ukraine will continue, he says as long as it takes, over and over and over again. was he wrong? >> no. in fact, that's still his intention, phil. we want to support ukraine for as long as it takes. obviously, we would love this war to be over tomorrow if it could be in terms acceptable to the ukrainian people but mr. putin shows no desire in sitting down and negotiating at all. quite the contrary. he is attacking energy infrastructure with missiles and drones trying to weaponize winter and forces on the ground are trying to go on on offensive in the east. there is no indication he is slowing down. if ukraine stops fighting that's the end of ukraine and none of us should be willing to accept that outcome. >> is there is plan b? is there some executive plan he can end run congress here?

>> we will do what we can to continue to support ukraine if we run out of funds. but it won't be much we can do, phil. we have got to have this additional supplemental funding. we have a couple more weeks to go here and i think you will see us announce some additional security assistance in coming you days or weeks before the end of the year. then that's it. there is nothing left in the pot if we don't get additional funding for ukraine. he is already weaponizing weather, mr. putin, already going on the offense. when the ground freeze nz january and february, he will be even more able to take the offense against russian -- sorry, ukrainian forces that are trying to defend themselves against those on slauts and they won't have the capabilities, the weapons, the tools to fight back. it's a dire situation not just on capitol hill, but in the east and south of ukraine very, very soon. >> so striking how different this moment is from the moment a year ago with the surprise visit to the white house, to capitol

hill, in terms of how the u.s. how washington seems to feel about this, at least the direction of it. what is the message that the president plans to give president zelenskyy behind closed doors with no deal in hand and no sense one is coming anytime soon? >> that he is going to keep working very, very hard. inside this administration on capitol hill, to get that supplemental funding passed, that he and our team are going to be working with senate democrats to see if there is some sort of compromise to be had to get that supplemental funding supported and, of course, to work with the other side on border security issues. the president believes that's important too. he will make it clear to president zelenskyy he is not giving up on this and he wants to get that supplemental funding passed. >> david singer at the new york titles says u.s. officials have been pushing a conservative strategy, holding territory that ukraine has, digging in, building up supplies and courses

over the year. has ukraine been acceceptive? >> i won't talk about your consideration was the ukrainian military. we know that the ukrainians are facing a tough force across that battlefront with the russians, a force that wants to go on the offense. they want to claw back territory. they have gotten 50% of their territory back since they conducted it this counteroffensive. whatever they decide to do is their decision. president zelenskyy is the commander and chief of his armed forces. he gets to decide what they do and how they are going to do it. we want to make sure we are in a position to give them as much capability as possible to get that done. >> i want to move to the israel/hamas war. a central issue for the white house and president right. listen to what the president said tat the hanukkah reception last night. >> we continue to provide military assistance until they get rid of hamas. [ cheers and applause ]

>> but, but we have to be careful of. they have to be careful. the whole world public opinion can shift overnight. we can't let that happen. >> admiral, you made this point. top officials have made this point repeatedly, particular lit the last several weeks. can you point to specific evidence your counterparts in the israeli government have been listening to the concern? >> they have been, phil, receptive to the message about civilian casualties and reducing damage to civilian infrastructure. here are a couple of examples. we know there is more that needs to be done and the president talked about that last night. something we constantly urge our israeli counterparts to do to be as careful and deliberate as possible, but, for instance, when they went into north gaza we sent over a couple of military generals with ground experience to talk about their plans. they had a much larger force planned. they went in with a smaller force and targeted way. i am not suggesting they didn't cause civilian casualties.

they limited their operations. and in recent days dropping leaflets, publishing maps online to explain where the people of gauze can go in the south to be more safe from combat operations. that's telegraphing your punches. there is not a lot of militaries that do that, lay out a map for the world to see about where it's safe and not safe to if. we know there is too many civilian casualties. wit we want them to do more to limit those. we want the number to be zero and tell continue to do that. >> with kind of the message that you and others were sending before and in very early stages of the operations in the south. >> we have said publicly we don't want to see them move to the south unless or until they account to for that additional civilian population. we continue to work as secretary austin said with the israeli counterparts to be as careful and precise and deliberate in

their targeting as possible. they are trying to make an effort to be more precise and caution and something we have been urging them to do literally from the beginning of the conflict. >> admiral, i play that because to your point, the maps, the telegraphing has been a shift. different than in the north. however, precision, more ct kind of focused operations isn't what we have been seeing. this has been a wide skael offensive in the south. do you believe that they are doing -- they are making mistakes in terms of how they are operating? >> we believe they could certainly do more. they have been receptive to the messages. publishing the maps, not an insignificant step on their part. they are doing a little bit of both. you are seeing airstrikes and in airstrikes you can cause your chances of causing civilian casualties are hire. they are conducting ct operations, going after specific leadership targets. it's a little bit of a blend on their part. again we are going to continue to work with them, a, to make

sure they have the tools to do it and do it effectively, because hamas still represents a viable threat to the israeli people, and do it carefully, cautiously, deliberately, and we will keep encouraging them to do that. >> thank you. >> yes, sir. with five weeks until the iowa caucuses florida governor and republican presidential hopeful are ron desantis joins jake tapper live from iowa tonight to take questions straight from the voters. we have a preview of the presidential town hall. a texas court rules against a woman. what the case means in a post-roe america.

five weeks to iowa caucuses. florida governor and presidential hopeful ron desantis will be live on cnn 9:00 p.m. eastern time from the stage at the grandview university in des moines, iowa. it will be moderated by jake tapper. desantis is trying to mitigate his diminishing poll numbers by attacking two of his biggest opponents, donald trump and nikki haley. >> he is his own worst enemy by not being able to control his mouth. that has consequences for governance and us being able to get things down. you can't have hawkeye haley here saying she is conservative and more nuanced nikki appealing to independents and liberals in new hampshire. you have to have the same message everywhere. >> jessica dean live from iowa. nuance in life, does matter a

lot. but nuance nikki and tricky nikki. a lot of nicknames for nikki haley. what are you expecting tonight? >> yeah. he sure does, poppy. as we would imagine as we get closer to the january 15th caucuses here in iowa the attacks do get sharper and desantis now kind of fighting a fight on two fronts against the frontrunner, former president donald trump, and then also nikki haley, seeing a surge heading into the late stage of this primary before the voting. so we are seeing those attacks sharpen. we got a new poll out of the des moines register yesterday that really gives us a snapshot of where things stand in iowa. if you look at the numbers you see that the former president continues to have a commanding lead here with 51% saying they would support him. desantis there at 19% and haley 16%. so that is -- you can see kind of a race for second place. if you talk to desantis and his team, they will say that is not

what they are here to do. they have gone all in on iowa. he visited all 99 counties. they are making a big play for the evangelical voters. one more thing before you let you go, in terms of that sharper attack, we saw a post on x from desantis yesterday going after trump who claimed it was braver to debate hillary clinton than to go to the battlefield and he said debating isn't brave, it's the bare minimum a candidate should do. he called him a coward there. trump has not participated in any of the debates leading up to voting on january fi15th. >> jessica dean, thank you. watch the town hall tonight at 9:00 p.m. right here on cnn. in washington, rudy giuliani is facing a trial where a jury will determine how much he owes to former georgia election workers for defamation. here's what giuliani had to say on monday. >> everything i said about them is true.

>> do you regret what you did to -- >> of course i don't regret it. i told the truth. they were engaged in changing votes. >> there is no proof of that. >> damn right there is. stay tuned. >> to be crystal clear, there is no proof of that. none of giuliani's claims are true. zero. giuliani's own lawyer acknowledged in court yesterday, quote, there is no question ruby freeman and shaye moss were harmed and they, quote, didn't deserve what happened to them. they faced a deluge of racial slurs, insults, death threats. giuliani has already been found liable for defamation. nothing he said is true or accurate. he is lying. and it's hurting people. want to reiterate that. every day of this trial. let's bring in cnn political c commentator alyssa farah grinch and josh barro. josh, i feel like we have -- what happened to rudy?

everything is a lie. >> yeah. >> and he is coming out at the moment he might have to pay tens of millions of dollars. what's the deal here? >> i mean, i don't know exactly what's going on inside his head. you know, through the process in this trial where he has been ruined financially by the immense legal costs from so many simultaneous legal proceedings. he did filings, he tried to admit to certain things for certain purposes and not other things and the judge wasn't having it. he claimed in writing he is admitting certain things he said were not true. he is saying now they were true. so i don't know whether this is -- at some point the size of the judgments that giuliani is going to face are so large compared to his ability to pay them sort of a question of what's another million dollars kind of thing. but i am sort of -- at this point the people who got so deep in these efforts spreading the lies around the 2020 election, trying to justify the legal and

extra legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election, i am not sure about the extent of the clarity rudy giuliani has in his head about what's true or not. it's not good legal strategy to reiterate the claims you already said were false. >> beyond the money, when rudy giuliani continues to lie like this, these women endure pain again. the question is, how many people believe rudy giuliani despite the fact and what that does to these women. >> that's the point. these are two of the most tragic bystander events leading up to january 6th who were doing their jobs, they were maligned, faced all number of threats simply doing their jobs. rudy is engaging in trumpian like behavior. there is no path to not have to pay out the settlements so he is going to fight, fight, fight. reminds mean after of the e. jean carroll settlement trump

expressed more lying points that led to him having to pay more money. it's a similar case. it's horrible. it resonates with people who still look to rudy giuliani as somebody who is telling them the truth and telling them facts and it's why as much as 60% of the gop has questions about the election. >> if you are one of those people or you know one of them, just symptom. he is lying. i want to talk about desantis tonight. he is taking a sharper tone. over the weekend, in iowa. we used the post on x. but with words, actually. and it's rarity. do you think he is started to pivot into attack mode on the guy win big 30 points? >> sort of. why won't he debate me stuff comes off as whiny. if you are looking at areas of concern for voters, the things that -- like donald trump isn't going to do what i need him to do. the voters' concern not what debates he shows up to. his opponents, that's the number one problem. donald trump won't participate in the campaign in a way that helps me but you are not

speaking to voters' individual complaints. he is not showing up to the debates. i have been struck by how correct the trump camp's analysis was of desantis before he announced his campaign. when desantis raised all this money, his polls looked better before he got in the race, he had a crushing re-election victory as governor of florida and the press reporting about the trump take on desantis was he just doesn't have it, he doesn't have the personality, he is too short, he, you know, and he comes off in -- >> verbally? physically? >> no, physically too short. you know -- >> brutal. >> this is why you have the stuff about is he wearing heels. in the debates when he -- you know -- >> get away from the who is wearing heels on the debate stage. >> he is trying to get feisty. it's like he is about to explode or something. it's kind of cute but, like, not in, like, a presidential way. he looks like he is playing presidential candidate. >> and the desantis team will keep telling you they expect him to overperform in iowa, do better than the polls say, they have a strong ground game, it's

a caucus state, knocking on doors matters than most over things, but the realty is directed too much ire at nikki haley. when you are losing by 30 points to donald trump, some states more, it's too little, too late. again, it is a process complaint. if he said this a year ago, he might be in a different place, if he rode the victory of the 2022 midterms and said i am the guy to take him on, this is what donald trump can't show up to do and i can do it. it feels too late. high stakes in iowa, make or break. >> what is the impact on the texas supreme court banning a woman from getting an abortion through a medical exemption? what is the impact on that more broadly for republicans, any of those candidates, trying to take the white house in '24? >> monumentally impactful. i don't know how you can call yourself pro-life and say a a woman should j jeopardize her health, fertility and child to carry a baby to term she likely may lose. this is where the nuance.

abortion issue comes into play. my party it's like we are the dog that caught the car and now, shoot, there are real life cases when women medically recommended by her daughter should have the exception. i am curious. jake will ask him. iowa a conservative state. this has real impacts. i know women in similar -- i think most people do. i am curious to see if he can poll from nuanced nikki haley and show this is not black and white issue. >> thank you. george santos expected to appear in a courthouse this morning, is a plea deal on the horizon? live in long island. also, the harvard crimson reported the president will keep her job. we are expecting an official announced from harvard this morning. the latest ahead.

breaking news into cnn. harvard's board released a statement writing that the school's president claudine gay has their support and she will keep her job. the university is putting support behind gay after she appeared before that congressional committee last week in that appearance widely

criticized in terms of her testimony on antisemitism on america's universities. matt egan has been following these developments, breaking news left and right. this went a different way than the university of pennsylvania where liz magill resigned. >> we are just getting this in. this was a huge decision that harvard had to make sheer. they were facing so many calls to separate themselves from claudine gay. they are deciding not to do this. the harvard corporation, the top governing body at harvard. put out this statement. they say they stand unanimously in support of gay. they called her the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues that we face. the statement goes on to say that calls for genocide are despicable and contrary. this is going to come as a huge relief to the harvard faculty who really came to gay's rescue. the last 36 hours or so, we heard from hundreds of professors come out in support,

and we really get the sense that a lot of the people in harvard, they did not want politicians and donors and other people on the outside to meddle in their affairs. of course, this is going to upset those same politicians and donors, note mostly billionaire bill ackman who already tweeted his displeasure about this last night. but she had enough support. more so than the pennsylvania president liz magill who didn't have that outpouring of support internally that gay does. >> by the way, claudine gay apologized in that interview with the harvard crimson a couple days ago. you have to wonder what role that played. thank you. great reporting on this topic. keep u.s. posted. this morning, george santos is said to be in talks with federal prosecutors in the hopes of striking a plea deal. he is facing a laundry list of charges from wire fraud, money-laundering, allegations he

conspired with his former cammane treasurer to falsify donation totals. he is expected to appear for a status conference. brynn, what are prosecutors looking to see happen today? do we know how this is all gonna end? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, phil, listen, 23 federal charges is what george santos is facing. now, today is a status conference hearing. past status conference hearings we have seen prosecutors turn over pages and pages of evidence, some of which have been text messages and emails that prosecutors say implicate the former congressman in these charges. so we expect more of those documents to sort of be exchanged in court today. however, we learned in court paperwork filed yesterday that prosecutors are asking for another status conference hearing in about 30 days, and they say that's because the two sides are in talks to describe some sort of plea deal, saying the goal of resolving this matter without the need for a trial. now, listen, george santos actually sat down with our local

affiliate wcbs and discussed and hinted at the fact that he might strike a deal. take a listen. >> the plea is not off the table. so there is, obviously, conversations taking place, especially after what happened in congress. i think everybody should be afraid of going to jail. it's not a pretty place. and i definitely want to work very hard to avoid that as best as possible. >> reporter: now, keep in mind, santos former campaign treasurer, fundraiser have already struck deals with prosecutors on charges related to all of this. so it could be very imminent, not clear if we are going to see any deal today, though it could be very near. of course, george santos will arrive here later it this morning for court. phil and poppy, we will see if he gives a free cameo and talks to the cameras out here. we will keep you posted. >> well, done. thank you. special counsel january 6th's extraordinary decision to go to the supreme court on

weather former president trump is immune from prosecution is raising questions this morning. joan writes a piece in her piece this morning as this case tests smith's federal prosecution of donald trump for election subversion it will also test america's highest court. this points out three of the seven justices are trump appointees with a fourth dlarens thomas tied to the former president through his wife's involvement in the plot to overturn the 2020 election. it's leaving many to wonder if this court can rule on this case impartially. the nine justices. joining us is cnn senior supreme court analyst joan, the nine are no the spotlight this morning. put it so well in this piece. this will test america's highest court in a highly charged situation with a former president who has repeatedly tried to politicize the federal judiciary. to use for hir ends. this couldn't get more complex

or important. >> it brings us back to the four years of having his administration policies challenged before the supreme court and his personal business dealings before the court. all of these cases continue to roil the justice. they always came down to narrow votes. here is something that offers the court an unprecedented question. are this question of a former president's immunity has never opinion tested up there and jack smith is asking two things, that will make this a really critical challenge for the justices. one, to say scthat donald trumpd go to trial, he doesn't have immunity from the criminal prosecution and jack smith is a asking that the justices do something different to essentially let him skippane appellate court and come to him and say, you know, you, supreme court, which will be one way or another the ultimate eventual arbiter of whether a former

president has immunity in this kind of case to decide it right now. don't wait for the intermediate court. decide it right now. as you know, poppy and phil, the special counsel is invoking the watergate precedent back to 1974 when the supreme court heard the case after district judge ruled and ruled against richard nixon in his effort to keep the watergate tapes saying he was not immune from prosecution, he could not assert executive privilege there. >> joan, it took maybe an hour, two hours before some democrats started calling for justice clarence thomas to recuse himself given his wife's involvement. so 2020 issues. do we have a sense of whether he is willing to do that? >> reporter: i think, phil, you know, you hate to predict these things before any kind of official request may be made to justice thomas. jong jack smith will ask for a recusal. i would bet money that the special counsel is not going to ask justice thomas to recuse himself. but senators durbin and

blumenthal have already raised that. in the past, justice thomas has not recused himself from cases related to the election fallout and these justices are the judges of their own selves in this. so it will be up to him and he will probably stay on the case. >> in other words, don't count on it. i urge everyone, go ahead, joan. >> reporter: no. you're right. it's early to tell. but i wouldn't count on it, right. >> read joan's analysis. really interesting. thank you for getting up early for us. in 30 minutes, ukrainian president volodymr zelenskyy is back in washington. he is set to meet with lawmakers and president biden at the white house as he fights for continued u.s. support of his country's battle against russia. also, the november inflatitn report. we will brbring that t to you ststraight ahehead.

♪ this just in. new numbers from the labor department showing inflation hit 3.1% in november. cnn business and politics correspondent vanessa yurkevich joins us to break down -- we get a lot of reports. what does this mean? >> in the grand scheme, this is a good report. year over year you inflation is at expectations, ticking up slightly from october to november. nobody likes to see higher prices. only up 0.1%. the year over year number to 3.1%. but what we saw in this report is that energy prices fell significantly, and that's because gas prices have fallen in recent months. so you have gas prices falling month-over-month by 6% year over year, falling by almost 9%, but

the reason why we didn't see a more significant decline in this report is because shelters is still expensive. rents, housing, what people are paying, up 0.4% month-over-month and up 6.5% year over year. some slightly good news at the grocery store. prices are still up, but cooling. so month-over-month, up 0.2%. year over year, 2.9%. that is cooling from the month prior and the year over year number that we saw in october. but if you take this big report and look at it sort of step back and look at it, it's important because the federal reserve is meeting today and they are going to be talking about all of the data that they have seen over the last couple of months. this report will signal to them that they could, tomorrow, the announcement will come, they could pause interest rate hikes. that is such good news for the u.s. consumer as they look to next year because ultimately it paves the way for potentially cutting of interest rates and

for everyone who wants to buy a new home, mortgage rates, who is pig a lot on their credit cards, student loans, auto loans, it's important to see this trending in the right direction with interest rates so people feel like they don't have to spend a lot on interest to pay for everything else. so a really nice report that we're seeing today, and i think consumers, hopefully, will start to feel this, because consumer sentiment the last couple month has been declining. the beginning of this month we saw consumers feeling a little bit better about the economy, even our cnn polling showed that many americans just feel like despite these good economic reports, the economy is not in great shape. maybe this will help people feel like prices are cooling still little bit and they will feel a little bit better about the economy. >> thank you. house republicans are set to meet as they prepare to formalize their impeachment inquiry into president biden with a house vote this week. speaker mike johnson and the leadership team are working to lock down support for the vote

and overcome their razor-thin majority. the investigation failed to come up with any direct evidence. republicans can only afford three defectiones in their ranks. congressman ken buck of colorado seen as the only republican hard no vote. last night he said he is considering backing the impeachment inquiry citing the white house's response to record requests. >> the white house recently sent a letter after these committees issued subpoenas to the white house. the white house sent a letter back and said, you haven't held an impeachment inquiry vote yet and we are not going to give you any records until you pass an impeachment inquiry. i think that is an absolutely wrong position and it's a delay tactic. >> joining sus democratic congressman dan yiel goldman. i appreciate your time. what do you think is the rationale for the congressman's reversal given the fact that in september he wrote a very

prominent "washington post" opinion piece about why pursuing impeachment was a bad idea for house republicans? >> yeah, i mean, i think the aboutface has to do with a technical process argument that the white house has somehow stonewalled this investigation, which is patently untrue. the letter that they requested information about from the white house related to classified documents which has never been the subject of the impeachment inquiry. and the white house continues to discuss with the committee ways of cooperating. they have provided 75,000 documents from the national archives. 2,000 pages of documents from the treasury department. documents from the irs, confidential information. more than ten government witnesses have testified. and over 37,000 pages of bank records. the problem here is not the white house, which has been unbelievably cooperative, especially compared to donald trump in 2019 who turned over

zero documents. the problem here is that they have no evidence to connect joe biden to any wrongdoing. and so they are just flailing around trying to come up with some reason to justify impeachment when there really is none because they can't get anything done legislatively, so the idea is to distract the american people with an impeachment investigation that is completely baseless u. congressman, what's interesting is you listen to congressman buck, a lot of moderate republicans saying in terms of their willingness to get behind the formalized vote. i went back and read speaker pelosi's 2019 letter to the caucus and her decision to formalize the vote and the rationale was the same in terms of facing obstruction, needed more legal tools to get documents. i understand the difference between what the trump counsel's office was doing versus the biden counsel's office in practice on the documents, but i think my question is didn't you lay the groundwork for everything the republicans are

doing right now? >> if it were the case that the biden administration was completely stonewalling and that president biden said i will defy all subpoenas and that the biden administration has turned over no documents and provided no witnesses, then, yes, the same logic would apply. but, of course, that is not the case. the white house and the administration has been unbelievably cooperative with a fishing expedition of an investigation. they have given essentially the republicans every single thing they have asked for. you don't have to take my word for it. james comer said it several months ago when he said he had 100% cooperation from the administration. this is an investigation in search of facts. there are allegations that are completely unfounded, and every single time a republican is asked to point to specific direct evidence linking joe biden to any misconduct they are unable to. it does not exist.

their own witnesses said that at the original and only public impeachment hearing. so they are just trying to desperately find some rationale to go forward with it. but there is none. >> a lot of the concerns on the democratic side this will have a political impact or they believe this is why this is being pursued, purely political reasons for the democratic incumbent president. but it's not just republicans. it's dean phillips, the democratic presidential candidate, a colleague of yours in the house technically still, suggested in an interview that the impeachment inquiry into biden could make him unelectable. what is your response? >> my response is polling that came out from the 18 biden districts where republicans are sitting in congress. and there was recent polling which almost a two to one margin that more republicans would be unlikely to vote for their incumbent sitting congressperson than they would be more likely

to vote if they went forward with impeachment. so let's talk to the american people, the ones who are going to decide who is in the house majority, and their overwhelmingly against this impeachment investigation because they know that it is completely baseless, that it is completely partisan for political purposes, and that it is moving forward at the direction of their dear leader donald trump, who wants retribution for his own impeachments. >> congressman, before i let you go, i want to ask you have been critical of some of the words of university presidents who are on capitol hill. you have been very critical of a lot of things related to israel and some within your own party and what they said on these issues. the decision by harvard to keep their president that was just announced a few moments ago, what's your response to that? >> well, i am disappointed not just because of what the president testified last week, which was almost unconscionable, but also because of harvard's

reaction and response from the beginning of october 7th. but this is a much larger issue, phil, that we are going to need to take a look at. campuses around the country are unsafe right now for jewish students. and this is not the first amendment. this is a code of conduct within the universities that requires the university to protect their students, all students, under title 6 of the civil rights law, and under their own code of conduct. and if they are unable to do that, and harvard has had multiple incidents of outright harassment and threats and borderline violence. if they are unable to do that, then that is a violation of their code of conduct. if they are unable to enforce their code of conduct, they need to get a new code of conduct or new president. so i hope there is a significant change at harvard if dr. gay is going to stay. >> congressman dan goldman from new york, thu.

thank you. >> thank you. elon musk reinstating conspiracy theorist alex jones on x. what musk is doing to actually grow jones' platform. we'll explain. that's next.

fresh off reinstating alex jones to x elon musk are taking steps to broaden the reach. despite some not following him, the feed was who to follow. >> he engagemd -- engaged him o the platform. cnn has more. harry, let's step back and think how has elon musk changed x, used to be twitter, since he's taken it over? >> just take a look at the number of people or the

percentage of people, regular users of x or twitter, for news. used to be democrats overwhelmingly were the ones whoing withly followed x or -- who regular ly followed x. in 2023 republicans have come back to the platform, while a lot of democrats have been leaving the platform. of course it's not just democrats who have been leaving the platform, it's been a lot of ad revenue, a lot of advertisers have been leaving x. back in 2022, look at that, $4.1 billion in ad revenue. for 2023, it's sliced in half, more than half to $1.8 billion. democrats and advertisers leaving x or twitter. >> how many people are using twitter now? >> yeah, so in terms of the platforms, it's actually really not that powerful. american adults who regularly get their news and x on twitter, it's just 12%. compare that to facebook where it's 30% and more than that, compare it to tiktok which has been rising at 14%, and you see this among teenagers especially,

teenagers who regularly use come or twitter, 33% a decade ago. look at where it is today. it's just at 20%. so adults have been leaving it, advertisers been leaving it, teenagers have been leaving the platform. >> harry, thanks. >> thank you. breaking political news for you. republican new hampshire governor chris sununu will be endorses nikki haley for president at a meeting tonight in new hampshire. they've been competing for endorsement for months. the trump critic does not believe trump can win re-election. a source says, quote, he's all in on nikki haley. welcome news in a state that's crucial. >> big endorsement. >> for her. "cnn news central" is next. see you tomorrow.