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sandra day trying out a new strategy with less than a month to the iowa caucuses and how the trump campaign may be using this as a test run for the general election. the stronger and stricter border policies -- could congress get their act together this week? the simple answer from one top republican, "no way." in my hope for the holidays here? and remembering a trailblazer, sandra day o'connor, the first woman who served on the supreme court starts in an hour. we will go to the washington national cathedral for the service. i'm sara sidner alongside kate bolduan. john berman is off today. this is cnn "news central." today, nearly every 2024 republican presidential candidate is in one place, iowa, and maybe not surprisingly for some final and truly critical

prechristmas campaigning. they are right up against it, folks. january 15th is caucus day, and this morning we are learning more about the donald trump campaign test case. the strategy they are trying to deploy in iowa and why they are hoping it sets a model for the general. cnn's alalaiyna treene has thisr us. >> well, what they are trying to do is to go after the not only caucusgoers, but to try to create and go after first-time caucusgoers, and expand the electorate in donald trump's favor and they think by doing this, they can turn out a lot more people on caucus day for donald trump than anyone was anticipating, and if that strategy is successful in iowa and the campaign of course thinks it will, then they will

use it in the other early nominating states in a potential strategy to get that nomination as well. and what i am also told is this program called 10 for trump which they have picked hundreds of caucusgoers in the state calling them caucus captains, and they assign them to target ten specific people going after, and calling them up to ask them to come after them, and asking them one way to implement the strategy, and asking them an extensive amount of data to ask them to reach out, and also told to personally make calls to these caucusgoers to these voters trying to ensure to come out for him on january 15th, and also to ensure that first-time caucusgoers are aware that they will be coming out, and teaching them how to caucus, and what is recently attending is to attend

hundreds of donald trump rallies in the state of iowa in the last several months is to have them focused to caucus, and how to go and where to go on caucus day and helping them with transportation to get to the polls all in the goal to set a new record in iowa on january 15th, kate. >> that bit of reporting that donald trump is personally calling these potential maybe, sort of first-time caucusgoers is a fascinating bit of donald trump getting into the weeds. that is interesting reporting, alaina, thank you. and now, meg kinnard is joining us, and what is your reaction to what is being set up as a ground game of something that we did not see in 2016, and something that is toing to be important in the success? >> yes, it is going to be interesting and yes, this is a

different tact than we have seen in the trump campaign. in 2016, it was admittedly a more scatter shot effort in iowa and the the early states, but the intentionality from the trump campaign, and the acknowledgment of the we are going to expand the footprint and draw in new caucusgoers and people who have never been this process before and people who are energized by what they saw in 2016 from the trump campaign and expanding the footprint could make a splash in iowa or any other effort that is aiming to do something similar to get it off of the ground on january 15th, which is going be here before we know it. >> and speaking of new ads, nikki haley is releasing an ad saying trump getting scared in new hampshire, and could these ads sway voters' minds or in a situation to make up their minds

and numbers are polling wise that they are going go for trump? >> certainly, polls are in donald trump's favor in iowa and new hampshire and a lot of the early places that we are looking at, but it is interesting to see if the closing weeks before any of the votes are cast by any of the places to see the candidates directly talking about trump, and it is something that chris christie who is competing heavily in new hampshire had tak taken nikki haley and ron desantis over and i am the only one talking about the guy in the top of the polls, but it is starting to happen. and nikki haley said, bring it if he is criticizing her, and she will do the same. and it is interesting if he are be swayed by it, but having not participated in the debates so far, it is the only opportunity that these candidates are seeing

them respond directly in these ads. >> we have heard from kim reynolds who has backed desantis, and i want to get the thoughts on what she has said about these battles, if you will, that are going ount television. take a listen. >> now, he is using me to mislead iowans as if i am endorsing him. i want to be clear. i supported president trump in 2016 and i voted for him and i supported him and i agreed with him in 2020, and his policies, and it is a different time, and we need a leader who is not distracted and that person is ron desantis. >> the numbers are showing in iowa in particular that donald trump is the clear frontrunner, and someone almost impossible to catch, and do her words make a difference here? >> it is very interesting to see these gop politicians in a variety of different offices who

previously may have supported donald trump now picking another candidate in horse race against him asked about the prior statements about him, because there a lot out there since he has been in the political sphere, and it is something that someone like kim reynolds or maybe like chris sununu and not that he has been in the pro-trump camp, but he is endorsing another candidate in 2024 and so really looking back at some of the issues and knowing that the trump campaign being more organized than perhaps it was the first time is compiling all of the evidence that it would say, that could be used to try to take some of these surrogates and endorsers and at least flick out pieces of the past that were in support of their guys as opposed to who they are with now. >> meg kinnard, thank you so much. >> right now, the nation's top leaders are gathering in washington to say good-bye to an

icon. the funeral for the late justice sandra day o'connor is going to begin in less than an hour, and justice o'connor, and you can see the live pictures inside of the national cathedral there, and she passed away earlier in the month at age 93. she served on the high court for two decades and in the center of some the most consequential decisions impacting lives of all americans. cnn's joan biskupic is joining us now. joan, o'connor is someone who played such an important role -- i think that we have an audio issue. we will work on reconnecting with joan. we will promise you stay with us, because we will have the special coverage of the funeral service honoring the late sandra day o'connor, and that is going to begin shortly, a little later in the hour. and in the meantime, we have

reconnected with joan biskupic, and can you hear me? >> how are you? >> i'm doing great. talk to me about what today is going to look like. all of washington and far beyond washington gathering at the iconic cathedral to remember an i icon. >> yes, and plenty of arizona will be there where sandra day o'connor was born, reared and really established most of her professional life as a state senator there. kate, it is going to be like a state funeral like we saw in 2018 when former george h.w. bush was celebrated for his life at national cathedral and this is the kind of thing that we will see this morning. we will see president joe biden is going to speak, and chief justice john roberts will speak, and all nine justices in attendance and retired justice kennedy will be there, and

family, friends will be there to celebrate, and the music is going to reflect the joy she inspired in people, because this is where she worshipped. when she was in washington, she worshipped at the national cathedral there, and so it was her home as well as a place that today is very fitting for someone who was the first woman on the supreme court. i remember back in 1993, kate, when thurgood marshall was the last supreme court justice to get a national cathedral funeral and i remember being there for that, and how, you know, his life was celebrated, but it was elevated because of the national setting which i say is normally a place of state funerals. >> absolutely. it is a beautiful cathedral, and just, it is going to be as you said, just knowing how important this day is going to be, and how special it is going to honor

her, and president biden is going to be there as well as the chief justice. and joan is going to help us walk through it as the minutes go by, and the cnn special coverage of sandra day o'connor's funeral will begin in about 30 minutes. and coming up in the next few minutes, can the lawmakers secure critical funding for ukraine and israel and continue to run the u.s. government by the end of the year? we will ask u.s. senator jeff merkley about where those negotiations stand now. and now, nearly 22 weeks into her pregnancy, an ohio woman suffered a miscarriage at home, and now she is being charged with a felony. we will discuss ththat in a moment.

ukraine needs military aid to bolster the defenses against russia. israel needs more u.s. support, and the southern border is in crisis as the broken immigration system has left tens of thousands of migrants in custody with border facilities overwhelmed and all major issues and all stuck as congress can't seem to make a deal. this is the blunt take of one top republican john thune. listen to this. >> it seems no deal that an immigration deal can be voted on in the senate this week? tha tha >> that is a fact. yes. there is no way. >> there is no way. so now, joining us is a democratic senator jeff merkley serving on the foreign relations committee. do you agree with john thune on this, no way of a border

agreement this week? >> it does take two sides, and if republican side says there is not going to be a dance, there is no dance. >> i am not sure that is what thune was saying, but he is saying that practically speaking, there is not going to be a vote this week. do you agree? >> well, that is fair. you are talk about whilst three major world issues in the middle east, ukraine and the border, and it is not just funding the programs on the border, but it is about more security on the border or more case managers, more folks who are holding the asylum hearings to get rid of this backlog, that is fairly straight forward, but the republicans are getting a lot of the messages from steve miller faction, which is a faction that says that use this as leverage for every diabolical strategy to throw people out of the country. so, we are really hung up on the

policy issues being tied into this funding bill, and there is no big overlap of agreement here, and if there was, it is drafted and complicated, and so it is inaccurate assessment, and the exclamation mark is that republicans have not bothered to come back to washington, d.c., and we were missing 20 last night. >> this is a statement on anybody's confidence if anything is going to be done on these negotiations, but you said it is a mistake for president biden to tie border money to ukraine money in the original ask, the original proposal and now seeing where this is going nowhere fast, would you have started there, and tying the border money to ukraine aid from to get-go? >> well, biden did not do this in a vacuum. he did it because the republicans were saying that the border has to be part of the deal, so he put forward $14 billion to address many of the

key functions where we are so short. we have ever acknowledges that we have a significant challenge on the border. what we have right now is such a huge flow of some 10,000-plus a day, and it has overwhelmed the initial interviews of which only about 700 can be conducted, and people know how to get through the credible fear interview, and those who know how to get through and pass it will get a ticket to stay in the country for four years, and we will fix it, and so this is a massive increase in asylum hearings, and that is where the partnership will occur, and throwing in the complicated policies of how you define the credible fear or the asylum, and round up people in this country and throw them out,

now you have a very complex tangled web. you have a significant part of the republican party, and they do not want to get to an agreement on this. they do not want to fund -- >> but that is the reality of the divided government, and joe biden knows that as well as everyone knows that is the reality of the divided government. this is not a surprise of how the republicans and the democrats feel differently on the border policy, which is why it is a surprise to some when the opening salvo came to adding border aid to the ukraine border money into the ukraine aid when it is stated that ukraine funding is so critical to help ukraine survive this assault from russia. i wanted to also ask you about the left and the progressive's reaction to biden, and the openness to a series of changes

cracking down on the border to get to the yes, and it is angering progressive democrats, and they are speaking out about it, and you, yourself, signed out to letter, and it is as that any permanent changes to the asylum or immigration has to lead to a long-standing path of status for immigration status, and is that a hardline for you, because could you find yourself voting for a bill for ukraine without this in it? >> the piece that you are referring to is the dreamers who have grown up in this country,ed and they know no other country, and we have had bipartisan support for it in the past, and a lot more work visas, because we have a big labor shortage in this country, and if you have legal controlled immigration and a framework that has accoun

accountability, it is much better place to be that has bipartisan support, and there are pieces that democrats have said that we have support for these issues, and we will include these in the conversation, but kate, i will go back to the moment for the underlying point that you said that biden made a big error of putting the immigration in, and our border along with the ukrainian and middle eastern issues, and this is quite frankly the republican demand responding to find the middle ground and we can look at it and say, well, he should have held out to throw it into the negotiation later, but i don't know where that gets us, because biden is willing to restore the structure of law, and a lot of the republicans don't want this resolved because they want it opened for next year's november elections. >> i do hear you on that front, and i have seen some reporting on how the republicans have kind of even evolved on why they won't support the ukraine aid and pointing to donald trump is

the motivation. trying to get to the core of this that is coming political calculationi ing calculation, and you have said that in a hearing, "it is one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes that we have made in generations if we bail on ukraine." and why not cut a deal on the border with the republicans if it is that important? >> well, certainly, intense negotiations going on for several weeks and through the weekend and negotiators who came back from events and one that went to 3:00 a.m. in the morning. let me emphasize that point in ukraine, in 1938, chamberlain went to munich and he told hitler, you no wh-- you know wh, you take that slice of

czechoslovakia, and that is the equivalent by telling putin by not funding ukraine, we are telling him to take ukraine and who has been fighting against everything they can against a super power next door and doing everything possible because of the conviction and the cause, and the u.s. is saying, hey, dictators of the world, you can outlast our attention, and if you want to take over a democracy next door, go ahead, and it is sending a message to china about taiwan, and the rest of cracks to nato about what our commitment is going to be if russia tries to take a piece of nato territory. and so it is why i am saying it could be the start of a much bigger war in which essentially dictators take pieces of other

countries and do we respond? should we respond? and we need to stand with ukraine and it is that important, and republicans realize it is that important, and this is why it is the place to add the trumpian stop on it. >> and that is why it can't get done when you are laying out the stakes. >> thank you, kate. >> thank you, senator. an iowa woman who suffered a miscarriage in her bathroom at home could face felony abuse charges and also murder charges. and now, we will look at disparities in mortgage lending following a cnn report.

that is ahead.

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a woman in ohio is being criminally charged for how she handled the remains from a miscarriage she suffered at her home. a detailed report from the washington post says that brittany watts is being investigated for felony abuse of a corpse for wrongly disposing of the fetus. watts was in and out of the hospital days prior to her miscarriage at nearly 22 weeks.

according to the "post," the doctors confirmed that the pregnancy was not viable. when she woke up, she felt intense pain in her abdomen and miscarried in the bathroom. when she was at the hospital she told them she left the fetus outside of her home, and then police came to arrest her. there is no law in ohio that requires a mother suffering a miscarriage to bury or cremate those remains. the defense and trial attorney says we will defend her. and so, how is this charged in the first place when you have the doctor saying that the fetus was not viable, and you also have a medical examiner saying there was no abuse or anything to the fetus afterwards after.

>> this is case near and dear to this, because many people have experienced this horrible, horrible situation of a miscarriage. so the statute that she is being charged under is abuse of a corpse. we had a lot of the insight as to what the prosecution was looking at when bringing these charges because there was a preliminary hearing. at the preliminary hearing, prosecutors essentially said it was irrelevant whether or not there was a live birth, whether or not the fetus died in utero which was confirmed by the very medical reports that you spoke of. but focused on everything that happened after and what happened with that fetus after the fact. now the defense on the other hand focused on everything that happened the totality of the circumstances that this woman had gone for medical treatment, and she did not get medical treatment for three days and waited eight hours and ended up going home and had a miscarriage like many others had experienced

and now charged with abuse of a corpse which seems to be something that this would not be the legislative intent of that statute, and this is what we are going to see as this case moves forward and those are the primary legal arguments of the defense perspectives. >> she is going through a woman's life having to mourn a baby and going through this pain, and so has this statute been used before in a case like this or another case? >> there is actually a case in ohio back in 2019, and that resulted in probation. keep in mind, this is a felony charge that can result up to one year in prison. so it has been used previously in this way, however, we are in a whole new world here, because now we are post the supreme court decision "dobbs" and uncertainty about the way that the statutes are going to be used and less constitutional barriers in place under roe.

so this is a kicase to watch, a again, the look is all of the way back to grave robbing and the mistreatment of a corpse, and people will say no, it does not meet that, and the other is definition of corpse. and under that, is this a corpse in the legal perspective, and that is a hot buttop issue that loops us back into dobbs and politics. >> and this woman's life is ruined at this point in life. thank you for joining us. appreciate it. and now, a lawsuit filed against the largest u.s. credit union following a cnn exclusive report.

the largest credit union in the country, navy federal credit union, is facing a class action lawsuit that was filed last week after a cnn investigation. it is claiming that the militaries who use the credit union discriminated against black and latino applicants. it approved white mortgage applicants 75% of the time, and only 50% of black applicants were approved. so there was a largest disparity

approvals between plaque and white borrowers of any lender last year, but it did not prove discrimination. rene marsh and her team is behind the reporting. what is behind this lawsuit? >> good morning, kate. it is filed by three law firms, including civil rights law firm attorney ben crump who is saying it is seeking broad range of plaintiffs including minority applicants who applied for federal navy residential loans from 2018 to present and had their applications denied, and proved at higher interest rates or subject to less favorable terms compared to non-minority applicants as well as those who had the application process drag on and take unusually long. one of the attorneys behind the suit says that the goal is to

obtain justice for black and latino borrowers who were denied their piece of the american dream. since our report, we have learned that navy federal has hired a civil rights attorney to review the mortgage practices, and coming out of washington, d.c., here, congresswoman maxine waters who is the ranking democratic member of the housing services committee called on navy federal to explain both to congress and the members how such practices took place, and she is also calling on federal regulators to investigate. kate. >> rene, what is navy federal saying about this? >> we reached out to them regarding this lawsuit, and they did not comment directly to cnn on this, and they did put out a press release generally speaking about their commitment to equal and equitable lending practices, and they deny the findings as

far as cnn findings of the wide disparity of who they approved and why. and again, the latest from navy federal is that they have acquired this civil rights attorney to review their practices. kate. >> thank you, rene. >> thank you for joining us. this is cnn "news central," and wolf blitzer, we love him. he is anchoring the special coverage of the funeral of trail blazer and first woman of the supreme court sandra day o'connor.