getting mortgage rates down and now they are reaping benefits from that. we have to be careful about drawing too many strong conclusions here. a lot goes to the circumstances that we're in. >> mark, for all the reasons that the economic data never seemed to tell, a story any of us were familiar with the last two years, are you confident what we're seeing going forward will make a little bit more sense based on precedent? >> well, you know, phil, you've got to be humble, right? it's a very complex world we live in. lots of moving parts. things are gonna happen, obviously, you know, that we are not anticipating at this point in time. but having said all of that, you know, i'd say i feel pretty good about things. and for the last couple three, four years all the risks felt to me to be on the downside. if i'm wrong, it will be worse than i expect. now the risks feel who are two-sided and that feels really

good. >> i will take that into my new year. mark, appreciate it, my friend. thank you. >> take care. and "cnn this morning" continues right now. good morning. welcome to "cnn this morning." 8:00 a.m. on the east coast. republican candidates crisscrossing iowa. nikki haley, ron desantis and donald trump all holding events in the hawkeye state today and they aren't holding back against each other. defense secretary lloyd austin condemning recent attacks on commercial ships in the red sea by iranian backed u.s. forces. we will dig into what the plans look like ahead. a woman in iowa enduring a heartbreaking miscarriage 22 weeks into her pregnancy. she is facing a criminal probe. she says she was misled by police.

and new this morning, donald trump's super pac launching its first attack ad against nikki haley after a recent polling showed her chipping away at his big lead in new hampshire. that's a crucial early voting state. and this -- >> that's right. high-tech haley broke her promise. >> let's increase the gas tax. >> repeatedly backing higher taxes hurts families. new hampshire can't afford nikki high tax haley. >> there is a new cbs poll showing nikki haley closing the gap a bit with trump who is now just 15 points ahead in new hampshire. the big focus though today is iowa. that's where trump is, haley is, where ron desantis is they are all hitting the campaign trail. this push comes less than a week, four weeks before the iowa caucuses. haley and desantis crossing the state ahead of trump's rally tonight. they have mostly been attacking one another instead of the frontrunner. >> i mean, i think that there is a real risk she would send

american troops to ukraine to fight. >> and if you punch me, i punch back. ron desantis has lied in every one of his commercials. ♪ >> desantis did have mild criticism for trump in a rally over the weekend when he said trump saying immigrants were poisoning the blood of our country was a remark that he didn't think was a good idea, kind of a mistake. listen. >> give them an ability the opposition an ability to make it about something else with those comments is a tactical mistake. >> joining us to discuss cnn political commentator alyssa farah griffin and josh. bring us together now. we are trying to figure out the top of the a block. the idea of the criticism, who

is criticizing who, who is spending on ads. attacking each individual person, can we take a step back on the trump rhetoric because i was struck -- stephen collins, our digital writer who captures everything big picture every day for cnn has a great piece out are he talks about the most profound question is this. what does it say about america, political culture, a mood in a critical moment in history, millions of voters appear to embrace donald trump's extremism. >> that line about immigrants poisoning the blood of america is appearing in his speeches. that's in teleprompter. this is by design. this is not trump rattling off something and saying something offensive. he is trying to tap into an anti-immigrant sentiment in the republican party. i think he is wrong. the vast majority of us are either daughters or granddaughters or grandsons of immigrants in this country. i think it's beyond even if you want make the comparisons that it is hitler-like language and

doesn't resonate with most americans. there is a deep sense we are a nation of immigrants and i think it will hurt him. if the push back is what desantis said, basically a strategic error -- >> tactical mistake. >> that's no pushback. i would love to see nikki haley or someone truly push back on this. >> do you think we will see that? >> no, i don't. i think the trend in public opinion on immigration the last few years, some of the best advocates was donald trump and you had a huge shift towards pro immigration sentiment especially among democrats during his administration. he is not president anymore and that shifted back. also huge changes on the ground at the southern border. you put up a graphic a few minutes ago, 20% of voters saying immigration is the most serious problem facing the country now. when we get into a general election and people are arguing over immigration, i don't think the key question is donald trump's rhetoric. i think the electorate is much

more sympathetic towards ideas of a border wall than they were circa 2017, fed up with the government's inability to control immigration. in new york we are fighting over city budget. the city spending billions of dollars housing immigrants who entered the country through this process they have to wait a long time for a court date, they can't work, the city is spoerg them and cutting the budget in other areas. if you want to stand up to donald trump on this you can object to his rhetoric but you need an answer about what you are going to do about this very real problem that voters are taking more seriously eight years ago. >> one of the questions for the biden administration, can you give that answer and make concessions to get a border deal? >> that becomes the issue. you make a great point that border security has been one of the most animating forces within republican politics. even across the board the biden administration is frankly not

doing enough. it will likely hurt them in border states. can you separate the rhetoric? the quickness to call out the offensive rhetoric by donald trump seems to outpace the biden administration actually trying to act and come up with a solution on the border and that's something republicans will highlight going into the general election. >> to that point, they had a comprehensive immigration bill the first day of immigration. they knew that wouldn't go anywhere. now they want a deal, an agreement not just because of ukraine funding but also if they were being candid officials would say they understand what an issue this is politically. will this hurt them with democrats if they strike a deal. i am not sold it will. >> i think the base for support for loose border policies is very thin on the democratic side. this is a different matter. you have a lot of immigration policy issues with people in the united states for a long time who have lots of u.s. citizen relatives who vote. i think an issue of the

migration today plays differently politically. your typical hispanic voter in the united states mostly mexican american des sent is different than the 1990s. i don't think there is a big political penalty for reaching a deal. i think the bigger problem is two things. one is it's not clear that the policy deal will do anything that people will see right away as affecting this problem. and that's the big dispute that republicans are having with democrats. they want to restrict so-called parole authority where the administration says we can't handle these people we need to release them into the country. >> some of that during the trump administration, by the way. >> of course, because all of the other options are very impractical. it's a difficult problem. if it was easy to solve, it would have been solved already. the white house is saying the things they have to do finding ways to keep more people in mexico or doing a lot of family detention, which, obviously, people look at pictures and have

negative reactions to, the options are sort of bad. republicans' view is basically if we don't change parole, we will have the system where people are drawn to come to the border they know if they arrive they are likely to be released into the united states for a time and who knows if the claim will be adjudicated. when the white house reaches these deals they don't brag about them at all. they approved drilling in this area in alaska, willow, and currently u.s. oil production is at record levels, biden almost apologizes for that. he talks about my hands were tied -- >> so if he signs a bipartisan immigration deal and trash talks his own provisions in the deal he is agreeing to and saying this is what i had to give republicans to get aid for ukraine but he won't get credit politically and people will be upset. >> you are a communications expert who led the team in the trump white house. how should they be communicating these things?

>> they have to be willing to express there is a crisis at the border and it's a humanitarian crisis first. i think on the republican side we lead with the security sigh, fentanyl is coming into the country, terrorists could come across the border. but communicate to the bleeding heart left this is a humanitarian crisis. i have been to el paso. i toured these facilities. people are living in squaller. how we are having undocumented immigrants live in the country is very much against our values and i think if biden can communicate there is a way we can humanely remain in mexico, come up with a path that deals with this problem long term. we haven't done real immigration reform in more than 20 years. there is a way to communicate. we are not seeing it. it's more avoiding the issue all together. >> it's an important point. the policy matters here. we shouldn't minimize that. i think your point about how they communicate and how they -- there is something there. >> yeah. >> should listen -- very

serious:alyssa, josh, thank you. defense secretary lloyd austin continuing meetings in the middle east condemning recent attacks on commercial vessels in the red sea. we will talk to a former commanding officer of the "uss cole" a ship bombed off the coast of yemen two decades ago. take a look at this video. do we have it? for weeks officials in iceland were anticipating -- there you go -- a volcanic eruption. it happened hoochlt look at that. we are tracking it all ahead.

just a few hours ago defense

secretary lloyd austin addressed the ongoing attacks by houthi forces by commercial vessels in the red sea after he announced a new u.s.-led operation focused on protecting critical waterways amid those attacks. >> all countries have the right to move freely and lawfully in international waters. but that foundational global right is under new threat today from the totally unacceptable attacks on merchant vessels by the houthis in yemen. that's endangering our common prosperity and the lives of innocent mariners. and these reckless houthi attacks are a serious international problem and they demand a firm international response. >> iranian backed houthi forces in yemen have been targeting

commercial ships claiming revenge against israel. it's prompted several companies to pause operations in the red sea. bp is one of them citing the deteriorating security situation. the waterway is critical for international trade. roughly 12% of global commerce flows through the waters. former commanding officer of the "uss cole" is here. the "uss cole" was attacked by suicide bombers while refueling. the explosion killed 17 sailors. appreciate your time this morning. i want to start with your impression of the task force that was announced by the secretary. days of effort behind the scenes trying to pull it together. do you think it's enough? >> good morning, phil. thank you for having me on. and i think it is a very good start. i think secretary austin is absolutely correct in his analysis that this is international waters and that the houthi rebels by attacking both with missiles and drones is interfering with that free trade.

nations throughout the world rely on the ability to ship goods in peace across the world and the fact that they are interdicting in the red sea and international strait is indicative that that interference is causing a disruption to international maritime traffic. >> i was interested in -- one of the international corporations that paused, rerouted their shipping. they called it -- they said it was positive, that international coalition was positive, but they didn't immediately say they were going to go back through red sea routes. what is it going to take for the companies, what are they gonna have to see to move back in? >> i think what you will have to see is not just a reaction to be able to put an international force there that secretary austin has put together, operation prosperity guardian. i think that you are also going to have to see that we are going to need to begin to look at how we are going to address the root cause of the threat, which is

where the houthis are shooting from, how are they getting technical information, where they are getting their weapons from and finding a way to interdict those. at some point you have to solve the problem, not the symptom. being out there like the "uss mason" and other ships and shooting down drones, that merely responding to attacks. at some point we need to find the cause and solve the problem on a more permanent basis because, if we do not do that, then the problem is going to remain and these international shipping companies are going to be reluctant, if not outright refuse, to put their vessels and their crews in harm's way. >> so basically direct strikes on houthi targets in yemen? >> i think at some point it may come to that. hopefully, we can convince them to stop doing it. obviously, iran is taking advantage and further destabilizing action in the region to arm the houthi rebels, thaning them how to conduct these attacks and giving them

intelligence to know where the ships are to send the drones out in an attack mode to be able to conduct these attacks. so iran is the root cause. houthis are merely a symptom of it. but at some point we could start small by eliminating the threat, coming from yemen, being driven by houthi rebels. but eventually the united states along with international partners need to look at iran and what they are doing throughout the region. >> in terms of strikes against houthis in yemen, i know this is part of the debate inside the administration, where is there a reticence there? >> i think there is a ret since because right now with the israel/hamas war going on and we are trying to ensure that the united states is giving israel as much of a free hand as possible to prosecute that, eliminate the threat of hamas to feel safe and cure had their own country, we want to see an expansion to include iran. at some point, once israel

eliminates hamas as a threat, then i think as in coordination with the regional allies, the united states as well as international partners are going to have to look at what we need to do to address the root cause of the stability in the region which is iran and what they are doing to destabilize it. it doesn't necessarily need to be kinetic it nature. we can immediately impose sanctions in iran to make their economy begin to feel things. i think we should go back to prior to the jcpoa or iran nuclear agreement because there are a number of options available to the united states and others that can bring iran to heel before anything, before one shot needs to be fired. >> i was struck this morning the defense department in a briefing where that was given to -- in a meeting that occurred earlier, the houthis conducted over 100 ballistic missile attacks starting -- ten merrer chant vessels, representing 35 countries. the scale is difficult to get

aur head around given how fast it happened the last couple of weeks. is this the extent of the capacity or could this he is complaint from the houthis themselves? >> i feel that this is merely an escalatory measure. i think it will see continued expansion because there is not a response. the one thing we have heard continually from the biden administration is the need to exercise deterrence. deterrence only works when you have the capacity and the capability and the will to be able to hold people who do these things accountable. if houthis are going to continue to engage and shoot at shipping, we are going to have to hold them accountable. one of the greatest fears i have, and this came out of my experience on "uss cole" is there was no response to the attack on my ship by two presidents, clinton and bush, and two administrations and 11 months later we suffered from 9/11. there will have to be a response at some point, hold these malign

actors accountable. it means we need to take down the missile shooting sites, drone locations and their ability to command and control getting them out there to shoot at these vessels, we are going to have to consider that and put the pieces in place to execute that type of operation as well. >> certainly part of the debate inside the administration. appreciate your time and expertise. thank you. >> thank you, phil. ahead for us, reporting out of ohio where a woman who miscarried 22 weeks into her pregnancy facing criminal charges. we'll explain why ahead. s carri.

miscarries. miscarriage. a woman in ohio criminally charged before a grand jury over how she handled the remains from her pregnancy after a late-term miscarriage. a grand jury in ohio is investigating britney watts for felony abuse of a corpse for allegedly wrong play disposing of the fetus. brynn gingras joins us mwith more. >> it is shocking. and let's keep in mind this was happening in ohio where they were debating reproductive rights. she was charged a month ago.

we learned much about britney watts from "the washington post." a 33-year-old black woman from just outside cleveland, ohio, and what we have learned is that she was nearly 22 peeks pregnant when she spatarted feeling painn her stomach. the doctor said that her water broke, the fetus was not going to be viable and she had to immediately get to the er because she was at risk of losing her life as well. she went to the er. according to "the post," doctors debated while she waited in pain to essentially see if they could induce her which basically would be the equivalent of having an abortion because she was at that cu cusp when abortion is illegal in oyster. she goes home, has a miscarriage in her bathroom and this is where prosecutors say she committed a crime. she flushes this fetus down the toilet and actually tries to pump it back out according to "the post" and discarded some of the material into a bucket outside the house.

she goes to the hospital again and a nurse calls the cops on her. the cops find this fetus in the pipes of this toilet and charge her with a felony abuse of a corpse. >> can you explain the law here? >> yeah. so basically it's very unclear. the law essentially says that there is really a fetal remains and the handling of them if they cause outreach to a reasonable family or community sensibilities that's breaking the law. it's determining really what medical practice should do with fetuses that are not viable. not really what to do at home. most miskarjs happen in the first trimester, not the second try terrorister. it's unclear. i want to say a statement that her -- excuse me. there is no law in ohio that requires a mother suffering a miscarriage to bury or cremated the remains. the prosecution is tragic and unjust and we will continue to fight. >> thank you for bringing us the story very much. republicans making border security a focal point in the

2024 race. how important this issue is to voters? we will ask harry enten. he's got the numbers. in texas it is a crime to enter the state illegally. former republican texas congressman, former presidential candidate will hurd used to represent a huge swath of the e border.. his reacaction to ththat and mo.

donald trump is back on the stump in iowa tonight for a rally after several rallies where he has leaned on extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric. will that language affect his standing with voters, particularly about the need for increased border security.

harry enten joins us now. how do americans feel will illegal immigration and border security? >> i think we have this idea this is just a play from the base. yes, maybe. but it's more than that. take a look at the poll from marquette university law school. stop illegal immigration at the southern border, 96% of republican voters want that. 78% of all voters. among hispanic voters 71%. take a look more broadly. do a better on border security and immigration. in 2020, we saw a dead heat between joe biden and donald trump, biden up by a point. look at the change that we have seen over the past three years. donald trump has opened up a 23 point lead on this issue. whatever he has been doing or whatever folks have been seeing along the border has definitely impacted their views. at this particular point this is an issue that donald trump wants to plan not just in the republican primary but the general election as well. >> hispanic voters? >> yeah, so i think there is

this idea this rhetoric will hurt among hispanic voters. take a look here of the hispanic voters biden versus trump in a general election matchup. biden won the voters in 2020 by a large margin, 26 points. look where we are now. biden still leads, but that margin has shrunk to just six percentage points. >> in 2020, one of the best performances for a republican candidate since george w. bush in 2004. we have seen an increasing trend towards trump. you may be asking, what about this rhetoric from donald trump? will this hurt him among hispanic voters? take a look. better job on border security and immigration on hispanic voters, the plurality for hispanic voters for donald trump on this issue 42% to 30%. so, look, this rhetoric, i think a lot of people don't like it, but the fact is when it comes to border security and immigration a lot of folks are liking what donald trump is saying, especially compared to joe

biden. >> hispanic voters aren't single issue, they aren't monolithic. important to remember. thank you. joining us is will hurd, a former republican congressman from texas. for six years represented a district that spanned one-third of the u.s. merry /mexico borde. great to have you. some of what trump has said, the rhetoric that harry was talking about. >> they are poisoning the blood of our country. that's what they have done. we will root out the communists, marxists, fascists and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. >> governor desantis, your fellow republican, who is running for president, calls trump's rhetoric on this stuff, a, quote, tactical mistake. what do you call it? >> i call it wrong and terrible and a dog whistle to racists and bad people. but here's the reality.

joe biden's positions on border security are so bad that a lot of voters are going to ignore this rhetoric because they want something to be done. your man harry's numbers should make people sober up, especially on the democratic side. we saw this whole open border push in 2022 when -- in 2020 and in 2022 where dems were were not able to make the inroads into the electorate that they thought they would be able to do. so this, like i said, i would never advise someone to speak this way. ultimately, this crisis that we're having at the border is so bad that everybody says something new and something different has a to happen. >> is greg abbott in texas, the state legislature in texas took matters into their own hands, passed sb 4 this week. it makes it illegal to do enter

the state of texas illegally. basically, subverting what the supreme court has said, which is no, the jurisdiction of the federal government, the federal government, not the states, to create their own immigration laws. do you support sb 4? is it a good idea for your state? >> well, ultimately, it's illegal to come to the united states, right, illegally. that's federal law. and what sb 4 did was try to make state law. obviously, this will be challenged in the supreme court. governor abbott is trying to see whether a conservative leading court is going to go back on precedent we have seen in the past. you know, most people that follow the supreme court think that they won't and that sb 4 is going to fail. ultimately, it was the governor trying to say, hey, the state is going to do what the federal can't do, and that's stop and curb the amount of illegal

immigration. a lot of people are focused on sb 4. i understand that. last week we had 10,000 people come through the border illegally in one place. that's a crazy number. >> the numbers are a crisis to say the least for sure. but i just wonder if you agree with granola bar's position here where he said that he thinks this will lead to a dramatic drop in those cross nothing texas. he said up to 75% will stop cross the border illegally, making the argument they will go to other states do you think so? >> well, if it was able to continue, i think it will be challenged pretty quickly. if tu deported more people that came into the country illegally you will see a decrease the amount of people coming. i agree with that logic. weather governor abbott and dps or department of public safety in texas is going to have the time to prove those numbers, i don't know because, like i said,

this is going to be a challenge legally. >> i wonder -- >> the bottom line is this. and these are neumbers that democrats are talking about. 90% of the people that go through an immigration court on asylum are losing the case. okay? that means 90% of the people applying for asylum are not being granted it because they are basically lying about their -- the underlying laws -- or the reasons for applying for asylum. so that means nine out of ten people that are being grabbed by border patrol saying that they have an asylum claim are being denied. these are crazy numbers that -- >> just to be clear, a lot of the folks, especially in the last year, haven't even been before an asylum judge because the system is literally backed up for years. i want to ask you two questions on this. any concerns about racial profiling, and do you share the concerns of some border sheriffs in texas who said they are worry this means of overcrowding of

facilities and jails and fear a distrust in law enforcement there? >> look, i'm always looking at the side of the sheriffs on the border. i worked with them closely. yes. you know, our sheriffs are local law enforcement do not have enough resources to go after the bad guys that they are dealing with now, right. and so i think this is going to impact their ability to go after the -- i think what you would see if this was able to continue is that dps would be taking more of a role in that area. look, i want to make sure that our cities and a-- are going after people that are committing crimes against their wives and spousal abuse that's happening in this part of the world is pretty significant. that needs to be focused on. but, yes, it's going to have an impact on local law enforcement. >> quickly before you go, i wonder if you agree with

republican brian bird well, in texas state senate, a republican in the state legislature, says we are setting a terrible precedent by invalidating our obedience and faithfulness to our constitution. >> look, i think immigration is very clearly demarcated as a federal responsibility. and ultimately the federal government needs to pass policies that stop this crisis and it's within joe biden's hands in order to do that. >> will hurd, thank you very much. good to have you. >> always a pressure, poppy. a volcano erupting in iceland after weeks of seismic activity. the concerns on the ground, we will have those next. a class-action lawsuit just filed after a cnn investigation found dramatic racial disparity in its mortgage lending unit at the largest credit union in the country. we have those details ahead. the black white homeownership gap and the latino white homeownership gap today

are wider than they were in 1968 when we passed the federal affair housing act.

right now a volcano is erupting in iceland. shooting bubbling lava and molten rock into the sky. new pictures we are getting this morning show what looks like a river of fire. melissa bell is live in paris, monitoring the conditions in iceland. melissa, as we watch the extraordinary pictures, what are the concerns from people on the ground? >> reporter: well, after this volcano erupted after 10:00 p.m. last night local time, phil, the immediate fear had been for the small town of grammy nindavik, three kilometers from where that crack appeared, after 10:00 p.m.

it got wider as the lava pushed through. it's now four kilometers wide. it's been growing. but what we've seen over the last couple of hours is that lava redirect itself towards the north and east. so the immediate fear for the town, entirely evacuated of 4,000 people, the immediate fears it might be damaged by the lava have been allayed now. the fear now as we watch these extraordinary pictures come in to us, some of them live over the course of the day taken from above that volcano, are for the toxic fumes that continue to emerge from it. this is a huge amount of lava that has poured through that fissure over the course of the night. you are talking about a couple of hundred cubic meters at some points every second even though we understand that apparently the ferocity of the explosion has subsided somewhat. the fear is those toxic fumes could head towards the capone reykjavik and people are urged of course not to make their way close to the volcano specifically because of that toxicity.

>> melissa bell, stunning pictures all morning. thank you. now to this. the navy federal credit union is now facing a class-action lawsuit over its mortgage lending practices. this follows a cnn investigation just published last week. it alleges the large e credit union in the country discriminated against black and latino applicants. cnn found the credit union had the widest racial disparity in mortgage approval for any major lender in 2020 to 2022. it approved less than half of its black applicants for conventional home mortgages. >> meanwhile, white applicants were approved more than 75% of the time. the data also showed that the credit union was more than twice asl as likely it deny black applicants when income debt, property value and down payment were the same. cnn's rene marsh and her team's reporting led to this. what do we know about the

class-action suit? >> phil and poppy, these three law firms, including civil rights attorney ben crump's firm filed this suit in federal court in virginia this weekend. the lawsuit accuses navy federal of violating federal housing discrimination laws and the class-action suit is seeking to represent a broad range of potential plaintiffs, including minority applicants who applied for navy federal residential loans from 2018 to present and had their applications denied, approved at a higher interest rate or subject to less favorable terms compared to similar non-minority applicants as well as those whose applications were maybe processed at a much slower rate. one of the attorneys behind this suit says that the goal here is to simply obtain economic justice for black and latino borrowers who, in his words, says -- he says were denied their piece of the american cream. >> drum /* dream. >> how are he they responding?

>> navy federal has not comment odd then lawsuit. when we first reported this story, the credit union did tell cnn that it is committed to equal and equitable lending practices and has strict adherence to all fair lending laws. and one footnote coming out of washington, d.c., here this morning, congresswoman maxine waters, she is the ranking democratic member of the house financial services committee, she said in a statement that she was calling on navy federal to explain both to congress and to their members how such practices took place. she is she's also calling for federal regulators to investigate. >> thank you to you and your team for that reporting. keep us posted. first woman to serve on the supreme court will be laid to rest today and president biden will deliver one of the eulogigies. lifefe and legacacy of sandrdra o'o'connor, ththat is next..

this morning president biden ordered the flags at the white house to flag at half-staff to honor the life of sandra day o'connor. in just a few hours the nation will pause and honor the trailblazing justice at her funeral service at the washington national cathedral. she was confirmed unanimously in the senate in 1981. she was gthe first woman to sere on the 13r50ek. o supreme court. president biden will deliver one

of the eulogies. along with the chief justice of the court, john roberts, and owe coroner's son jay. she died at 93 and she lay in repose yesterday at the supreme court. sotomayor called her a life role model and praised her impact on the high court. >> she understood that personal relationships were critical to working together even and especially in the face of adversity or strenuous disag disagreement. today i know she is smiling knowing that four sisters serve on her court. >> joining us now, supreme court analyst, joan, your piece is so beautiful. you quote that she was called a singular asset. >> i reread the transcript last

night and i noted when he said that, the spectators broke out in applause and chairman had to say no clapping during this hearing. but some inspired the senators back in 1981 and she inspired the country back in 1981. i love the clip you played from justice sotomayor about her personal touch and interest in personal relations. because there was a method behind what she did. she wanted to engage and as justice sotomayor said to take them to movies, to barbecues, sometimes share glass or water. but her idea was -- and you know that her idea was that the more you have those kinds of bonds off the bench, the more it will make the real substance and the difficulty of deciding important cases easier because there will be more respect and good feeling among the colleagues. >> how did that approach replace

her role on the court as she was there? >> well, you know, it was kind of an arc. when she came on in 1981, she was definitely aligned in the more conservative members of the bench. warren berger was chief justice at the time. but as the court became more conservative, she actually moved more to the center. and by the time she left in january 2006, she was the deciding vote and sometimes flipping over to the liberal side for example on abortion rights and racial affirmative action. so she -- you know, advocates used to say they would write their briefs directed to her because that is how powerful she became, phil. >> can we stick on those two things you just said? she was the majority -- she wrote the majority opinion which upheld affirmative action at the time. and of course she joined justice suitor and k er sutter and kennedy in the

opinion that upheld roe. and you look at those cases with this court and they are overturning. >> that is exactly right. just in the last two years, her legacy has really been demolished. no one will ever be able to take away from her the fact that she was the first woman justice or that she decided hundreds and hundreds of cases. but those two big areas that you point to have been rolled back. and just as you say in the last two years, she held everyone together in 1992 to uphold roe v. wade. but last year they eliminated constitutional abortion rights that had existed for nearly 50 years. and this year they reversed her opinion in racial affirmative action and changed everything on campuses nationwide. >> so can we remind people what she said? because it was really about the legitimacy about the court when she upheld roe.

she said both profound and unnecessary damage to a court's legitimacy and the nation's commitment to the rule of law would be done if we overturned roe. >> and that is exactly right. and she even acknowledged that if she had been on the 1973 court, she might not have voted for roe. but she said look at how long our country has lived with it. it is not ours to impose a code of morality on the country. we need to respect precedent. and she was all about, you know -- she was conservative. we have to remind everyone she was a conservative jurist, but centrist conservative and she wanted to move incrementally and she definitely did not want to roll back precedent because she understood the value of precedent to the american people. >> certainly a very different moment on the court now. your piece on cnn.com is excellent. thank you as always. >> thank you. and be sure to join wolf blitzer for special coverage of the funeral of sandra day o'connor this morning at 10:45

eastern. and the death toll is rising in china, at least 126 people have been killed, hundreds more injured after the 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck late monday night. rescue crews are working to reach the survivors. officials say the quake was followed by nine after shocks at magnitude 3 and above. new video overnight shows the earthquake rocking a gas station, it cut off water and electricity supplies in some areas. >> thank you so much for being with us today. obviously we have the live coverage of sandra day ow y owe they're funeral coming up. news. donald trump and his rival