that's most certainly not. >> broaden the portfolio. >> it's like growth for mickey is what you're saying. >> growth for mickey. mickey has been stuck in the singular role it's nice to see him grow. i'm truly interested when goofy becomes somebody who can be in one of these horror films, maybe he can team up with mickey. >> okay. heard it here here, goofy horror film. everyone, have a great morning. "cnn news central" starts right now. ♪ ♪ donald trump goes on a legal filing spree.

appeal a ploos is a. believe alley or politically speaking how much will this work in his favor. a key 2024 issue, immigration, today dozens of gop lawmakers are taking their heated message for biden directly to the southern border. now if you willout after harvard's president resaenz. the protests now planned and will other college leaders be next? sara and kate are away, i'm john berman with rahel solomon. "cnn news central" starts now. so the question this morning, what will donald trump appeal today? it really is a multiple choose question. the most probable answer is his seat right there, colorado's ruling to remove him from his primary ballot. that appeal is expected anytime, only about 24 hours left to file t there is a deadline. he appealed a similar decision

in maine overnight and did not stop there. overnight his lawyers asked a federal appeals court to rehear his immunity argument in the e. jean carroll defamation lawsuit. and a brand-new leelg filing outlines how trump plans to fight special counsel jack smith to get immunity in the federal election subversion case. oral arguments on that scheduled for next week and of course all of this is happening with just days before the iowa caucuses. cnn's zachary cohen here with the flurry of legal developments. zach? >> reporter: john, let's start in may obviously with this appeal by donald trump, he's just trying to stay on the ballot in these battleground states. look, his appeal last night to stay on the ballot in maine really spent a lot of time attacking maine's secretary of state. a democrat who he called biased, his lawyers said she should have recused herself from this decision and she had no authority to make it in the first place. now, the secretary of state in maine the situation is a little bit different there, the secretary of state is the first stop under maine law for questions about who can be on

the ballot and who can be removed from the ballot but it does show how donald trump of trump's politics are part of his legal strategy when it comes to maine and arguing this at the state level. he also argues that he can't be removed under the 14th amendment because the insurrection ban of the 14th amendment because he did not engage in an insurrection. this is something that might have relevance beyond just maine, it's also at the core of the questions raised by colorado's decision to remove trump from the ballot. as you mentioned, that's a decision that we expect to be appealed as soon as today and we're waiting to see how that might impact the broader landscape of these states deciding whether or not trump can be on their primary ballot and potentially on their general election ballot as we go into the 2024 presidential race. >> a lot of lawyers very busy this morning. zach cohen, keep us posted, thank you very much. >> with us now is federal and white collar criminal defense attorney caroline polisi.

zack laid out some of the arguments that trump made in this filing on the maine disqualification case. what do you make of it? it sounds like he gave himself a few different ways to win here. >> yeah, and, you know, trump asking for recusal is nothing new. obviously we've seen him attack, you know, whether it's the federal election subversion case with judge tanya chutkan or here in new york with judge arthur he think ron, he frequently makes these types of arguments. look, rahel, this is not just a maine issue, not just a colorado issue, this is quickly becoming a real federal issue that the supreme court is going to take up, has to take up, unlike the presidential immunity question where i think they might not actually answer that question. this obviously is something that the supreme court is going to want to weigh in on. looming large, you know, behind -- in their minds obviously is the bush v. gore decision, they don't want to answer political questions but

they really have no choice at this point. they are going to decide one way or another with respect to all 50 states, whether or not trump can be on the ballot in all 50 states. it's not going to be a state by state issue. and, you know, i personally don't feel that they're going to answer this question we are all asking whether or not trump engaged in an insurrection for the purposes of the 14th amendment, that section 3 that we have all been talking b i think they are going to make the decision on procedural grounds whether or not that clause is self-executing and whether or not really it's the electorate or congress that is going to enforce this decision. i don't think it's going to be the courts. >> so to that point do you think that those were the most effective arguments made in that filing, less about whether he actually committed insurrection, more about sort of the technical aspects of who should be deciding who remains on the ballot? >> yeah, look, each state has its own, you know, different sort of issues with respect to election law and so this argument is different from the

colorado case, for example. there they made a very technical argument with respect to whether or not article 3 of the 14th amendment even applies to the presidency. so, you know -- but they all -- the underlying issue with all of them that i think the supreme court is going to ask is whether or not we want in this country the courts to step in and decide and make that determination. he hasn't been convicted of anything like insurrection, for example, the constitution doesn't require t but the question is do we want, you know, in terms of due process, is this the type of thing we want the court deciding. >> yeah, i take your point that they don't want to get into the politics of this, but i'm wondering do you think that we see a ruling where it sort of settles the matter at least legally? there's one ruling. or is there a world in which they send this back to the states? as one legal expert told me just yesterday, there is no perfect case for the u.s. supreme court, it's a constitutional issue, the

stakes are huge and, oh, by the way, there is tons of confusion. >> that's exactly right. there is no way that the supreme court is going to let chaos reign wherein he is on the ballot in some states, he is not on the others. you know, the primary is obviously coming up so both, you know, both the court and these lower courts have to decide quickly. i do think we will see the court act expeditiously. they can do it, we know that they can do it, the question is just how quickly they will do it. >> caroline polisi, good to see you. thank you. >> i think i heard a legal objection in the background there, the dog going i object. >> touché. breaking moments ago, a new endorsement for donald trump. tom emmer who is the number three house republican, the republican whip, he has now endorsed donald trump for president. this follows the house majority leader steve scalise endorsing him yesterday, the house speaker mike johnson has already endorsed trump, all republican house leadership has now endorsed donald trump for president. so the party apparatus really

rallying behind donald trump. this comes as there is some positive news for some of trump's opponents. nikki haley's campaign reported raising $24 million in the fourth quarter. that is more than double her third quarter haul. haley is in new hampshire today, ron desantis is in iowa, that's where cnn's steve contorno is live for us now. what do you expect to see today, steve? >> reporter: well, that money that nikki haley is getting, that's going to be a nice injection of cash into her campaign and giving her more firepower to go after ron desantis. she has spent since november 14th almost $30 million between her and her super pac attacking ron desantis on the airwaves and supporting her campaign in new hampshire and iowa. just to put that in perspective, desantis' campaign and his allied super pacs have been virtually dark in new hampshire since mid-november. they haven't been putting a lot of their effort and resources into iowa. they have spent a lot -- $13 million on advertising in iowa

and, again, chris christie has actually spent more money than desantis in new hampshire. that's where he is putting most of his effort. he is on the air with a new ad that is criticizing his opponents for not doing enough to directly take the case to donald trump. desantis last night at a town hall in iowa responded to that criticism. >> why do you protect trump? what are you scared of? we had a few questions like this basically. are you scared of trump, is that why you don't criticize him more. how do you address that? >> i take issue with that. i mean, i have rendered very sharp contrast between donald trump and myself with respect to policy. i don't like the way he gets involved in some of the pettiness that he does. that's just not how i roll. you know, you look higher. we set a good example. but we're tough when it comes to contrasting on issues, judgment, and results. >> reporter: desantis will be here at this community center in

iowa in about an hour. he has gone all across the state leading up to our town hall tomorrow and will spend much of the weekend here as well. this is the state where he is putting most of his effort into. he needs a good showing here and he is doing all that he can to make sure he comes out of iowa caucuses with momentum going into new hampshire. >> ron desantis and nikki haley will both take questions directly from iowa voters back to back cnn town hall events, kaitlan collins and erin burnett moderate live at 8:00 eastern time. coming up, the house speaker and dozens of reaps are headed to the southern border to highlight the migrant crisis, that's as the white house points the finger at the gop for blocking president biden's immigration plan. coming up, we're live on the ground from texas. plus the president of harvard steps down after her capitol hill testimony on anti-semitism and accusations of plagiarism. the house republicans say that their investigation into her work is not over.

and new clues in that deadly plane collision on a tokyo runway. hear what air traffic control told the pilot just moments before it happened. we will be right back.

welcome back. today speaker mike johnson is trying to put the pressure on the biden administration as he leads a house delegation of more

than 60 republicans to the u.s./mexico border. their goal is to highlight the surge in migrant crossings, something that they blame on the biden administration. they're even formally opening impeachment proceedings against his secretary of homeland security. but the white house says they're seeing a dramatic drop in crossings in the first days of the new year. they partially credit this to their negotiations with mexico and the president says that there is still more to be done. >> give me the money i immediate to protect the border. >> now, currently negotiations for biden's proposed aid package with -- proposed aid package with funding for the border is tied with ukraine and israel. let's get to ed lavandera on the border and lauren fox who is in washington for us. lauren, stand by for just a moment. let me start with ed. ed, what will lawmakers see on their visit today? >> reporter: well, they're going to come here to eagle pass and this is a city that has been one

of the major focal points along the u.s. southern border during this mieg gra grags crisis. this is an area where just a few weeks ago was filled with thousands of migrants who had crossed in from mexico. eagle pass is also kind of interesting, it really kind of captures the rub that is the border situation, you know, this is an area that is filled with thousands of federal, state and local law enforcement officers, miles and miles of razor wire along the river. you can see in the background there steel containers that state authorities have put along the rio grande to block people from crossing, but despite all of that over the last several months tens of thousands of migrants have crossed through this very area so this is the dichotomy here that you see an area that has built up structure in border security and borer infrastructure, despite all of that people continue to cross.

those lawmakers coming with this republican group more than 50 of them expected, including the house speaker, will be meeting with state authorities who have also been very critical of the biden administration handling of the migration crisis along the u.s. southern border, but the biden administration, rahel, also hitting back at these republican house lawmakers saying that this visit comes -- obstructing and hamstringing the delicate negotiations that are ongoing between a bipartisan group of senators in washington and who have been meeting over the holiday break to try to come to some sort of deal and compromise on a border security bill. so all of this visit today playing as those negotiations in washington continue. >> speaking of those negotiations, ed, thank you, let me bring in lauren here. lauren, how does the now mayorkas impeachment push impact those talks and impact the negotiations? >> reporter: it's hard to imagine a world in which this doesn't further complicate those border discussions. despite the fact that republicans and democrats in the

senate have been working in good faith to try to find a path forward, a compromise that they could all live with, it's really hard to imagine that even if they got a deal, that it would now be easy to get through the house of representatives where the newly minted speaker, mike johnson, is now dealing with one of his committees who is moving forward with an impeachment proceeding against one of the men who has been in the room in those border talks in the united states senate, alejandro mayorkas, the dhs secretary. i think it does further complicate the ability to get any kind of compromise through the house of representatives and you also have this dynamic where for months, you know, house republicans have been calling on mayorkas to be impeached and i think it just makes it very hard to imagine some of those republicans being willing to vote for a border security compromise that is not the house-passed immigration bill that they moved forward with last year. so that's one dynamic. the other question, though, is

what happens to additional aid for ukraine and israel? as you mentioned, these issues are all tied together now and our colleague phil mattingly pressed secretary mayorkas earlier on what it will mean if more funding for the u.s. southern border is not passed and what that means for the conditions at the southern border. here is what he said. >> we will not have the resources to perform our jobs as fully and completely as we could do so, and that would be a very sad state of affairs. >> whby when? do you have a date on that? >> we need additional resources. we need them now. we need technology to advance our fight against fentanyl. we need additional asylum officers to really accelerate the asylum adjudication process. >> reporter: and senate negotiators are back in washington, we expect that they are going to continue meeting today to try and make progress on this border security legislation that they have been trying to get an agreement on for the last several weeks.

again, though, it just makes it very hard to see even if they got a deal how it gets through the house at this point. ra rahel? >> ed lavandera, lauren fox, thank you both. with us is congressman gay vazquez. thank you so much for being with us, your republican colleagues have initiated impeachment proceedings against the secretary of homeland security oo alejandro mayorkas. >> first, i have to say representing 180 miles of the u.s./mexico border serving here as a border legislator for many years and having the privilege to represent my constituents in new mexico in congress i know the border very well and the issues are more complicated than the republicans make them out to be, in particular with the claims made against the secretary in this particular impeachment process. in fact, i would call the proposal unserious. it's not going to go anywhere. if anything, we need to be working in a bipartisan way,

including with the administration and with secretary mayorkas to solve this humanitarian crisis and this just sets back those conversations. >> yeah, what does -- what do these proceedings accomplish? where does this put the status of negotiations? >> well, look, what we've seen is that immigration is a hot political issue for republicans and we're going into an election year and they're going to want to make this a political issue. democrats like myself that represent border districts and in fact colleagues like tony gonzalez in texas who is leading part of that trip today, we know what is best for our communities in terms of the solution that is we need right here at the border. this supplemental package has to include emergency funding for customs and border protection but also for the support of the national organizations that are supporting the relocation of these asylum seekers. there's a crisis on the ground right now that many folks are facing, both on the local side but also those women and children who are coming here to our borders. we need to focus on what we can

get accomplished in this deal and not what we can get accomplished in a political commercial ten months from now. >> it's not just a political issue, though, right, it's a genuine issue. you just called it a crisis. you made a series of proposals as far back as november, even before that. i was reading through the proposals. i didn't see in there, and correct me if i'm wrong, any reform, any major changes you proposed to the asylum process. why not? >> well, because i think that we need some time to be able to look at what the best decisions are and what our values are as american people when it comes to immigration into this country and our asylum process. and there's a lot of other things we could be doing. the state department could be doing a much better job, for example, of combating human trafficking and smuggling and educating migrants as well as our communities in our southern state -- our southern neighbor in mexico and other places. we could also be doing what the administration is doing right now which is working with mexico, central american countries and others to help with the current crisis that we

are seeing, however, we cannot give up and give into republicans draconian anti-immigrant policies that reflect some very serious and deep changes to asylum policy that has long been held as a tradition of who we are as american people, tell folks give us your huddled, wary, poor, those are discussions that we can't make in a rush or in a haste. there are some things we can be doing on the ground now that will alleviate the situation at the border. >> the senate discussions as i understand it do include some talk about asylum reform if that's what the senate agreed to would you vote against it? >> we have yet to see what's coming out of the senate and that's been part of the frustrating part for us here especially as house democrats. speaking as a member of the congressional hispanic caucus we have raised this alarm. we held a press conference in front of the capitol a few weeks ago asking the administration to engage in productive dialogue with the hispanic members of the u.s. house. we haven't seen that and until we do i can't comment on what

i'd vote for or what i wouldn't but we can't rush immigration policy. we haven't done anything serious on immigration since the 1980s. to do it under the auspices of a few republican senator negotiators and asking us to agree to that i think seems disingenuous. >> you mentioned tony gonzalez from texas hosting some 60 republicans at the border today. what do you think of what they are doing today and talk to me about congressman gonzales. do you think there are republicans from the border like you who do have genuine concerns about what's happening. >> absolutely and congressman gonzalez is a good present and i started the cauccus to deal wit issues like this and also others who represent border districts in arizona. there are ways we can come together. gonzalez and i have talked about technology at the border, for example, here in our port of entry we are scanning up to 80% of commercial cargo, installing

new inspection technology for noncommercial vehicles as well that have the opportunity to capture massive amounts of fentanyl that are coming into this country. those are two issues we can agree on. this funding pack ablng should include money for security. those are the things we can come together on. hr 2 what republicans are proposing and draconian anti-immigrant policies that democrats had no hand in crafting is a nonstarter for many of us. >> congressman gabe vasquez, we appreciate your time today. thank you so much. all right. we have some breaking news into cnn. twin blasts in iran. more than 100 people were killed, at least 140 others were injured. that's after two explosions struck near the grave of iranian military commander qassem soleimani. according to iran state media officials are describing the explosions as a, quote, terror attack. let's bring in cnn's nada bashir who joins us now. what more do we know here? >> reporter: look, rahel, this is a developing situation.

we are still getting more details from authorities and reports in iran. that death toll has sked i will risen over the last hour or so now state media citing officials on the ground in iran saying at least 103 people have been killed, 141 said to have been injured. some of them are said to be in a critical condition. of course, we are still waiting for more details around what caused the blast. according to state media, again, citing officials on the ground there were two explosions, one the first one just 700 meters away from the burial site of iranian commander qassem soleimani. the second was just about a kilometer away from the path and check points where pilgrims had been passing through. now, important to note that today marks four years since qassem soleimani was killed, he was killed by a u.s. strike on baghdad international airport, ordered by then president donald trump. of course, we haven't seen this kind of violence necessarily on the anniversary of qassem

soleimani's death but there has always been heightened concern around the potential for such violence. hundreds of pilgrims would have been gathering around or heading towards qassem soleimani's burial site to mark the four-year anniversary of his death and of course there is now a huge amount of concern as we continue to see that death toll rise. still unclear what the exact motive behind this reported attack may have been. state media reporting, again, citing officials that this is being characterized as a terrorist attack, but of course we are still waiting for more details around that. this does of course come at a time of heightened tensions in the region, particularly when it comes to iran and iran-backed groups across the middle east as the war between israel and hamas continues. we are expecting to hear later today from here in beirut the secretary general of the iranian backed group hezbollah here in lebanon, he was scheduled to

speak to mark the anniversary of qassem soleimani's death. we will be waiting to see what he has to say about this latest attack and of course keeping an eye on those developments as we continue to get more information on the situation in iran. >> certainly still a lot of questions to come. nada bashir live for us there. thank you. president biden's reelection campaign announces big plans for january 6th using the insurrection anniversary to kick off his campaign really in 2024. to duckduckgo on all your devie

duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. i think he's having a midlife crisis join the mi'm not.of people taking back their privacy you got us t-mobile home internet lite.

after a week of streaming they knocked us down... ...to dial up speeds. like from the 90s. great times. all i can do say is that my life is pre-- i like watching the puddles gather rain. -hey, your mom and i procreated to that song. oh, ew! i think you've said enough. why don't we just switch to xfinity like everyone else? then you would know what year it was. i know what year it is. developing this morning we're learning new details of how president biden plans to kick off the election year. a speech on saturday near valley forge in the battleground commonwealth of pennsylvania, valley forge is where george washington and the continental army spent a brutal winter as they sought to throw out the british in the revolution. saturday is also january 6th, the anniversary of the riot at the u.s. capitol after the 2020

election. with us now is quinton folks the biden/harris deputy campaign manager. thank you for being with us. why valley forge for saturday in are you expecting a cold winter? >> we are expecting a very good win ter come next november, but, look, we chose valley forge, george washington as you just said unionized the colonies there and brought them all together and then he became president and set the precedent for, you know, peaceful transition of power, something that donald trump and republicans refused to do, just as late as yesterday. you know, we believe that they pose an existential threat to democracy and over the last four years that threat to democracy has only grown and our campaign wants to communicate that message to voters that, you know, donald trump is telling us every day who he's going to be if he's reelected president, a dictator on day one, ripping health caraway from millions of people. these are threats to democracy and we feel that the american people deserve to hear these things from us and it's a more responsibility of this campaign to paint that picture for the

american people. >> so in your release in the announcement of this campaign, which is valley forge and also ultimately south carolina as well, you said every single day donald trump tells us point-blank if he wins a second term he will do everything he can to dismantle american democracy, strip americans of their hard fought and fundamental freedoms. we should take him at his word. we should take him at his word. the reason i was highlighting those words, because it sounded like something we heard way back in 2016 from hillary clinton. listen. >> mexican immigrants, rapists and criminals, saying john mccain was not a war hero. being reluctant to denounce the ku klux klan and david duke and the list goes on. so for me i think you have to take him at his word at how he's behaved and what he has said. >> so if taking him at his word didn't work for hillary clinton in 2016, why will it work for the biden reelection campaign this year? >> well, first of all, secretary

clinton was right, we should have taken donald trump at his word, but the difference here is that donald trump has now had four years to prove exactly what he would do. so maybe you're right, maybe we should take him at his words and his actions because when he was president he did all the things that he said he would do and so that's the major difference that we have now heading into 2024 is that american voters have seen what donald trump would do. american voters know what it feels like to wake up every day and be afraid what their president is going to tweet, if he's going to start a world war because he can't control his temper. these are the things that are at stake and voters know that now. they've seen donald trump, which is exactly why the most people turned out ever before to send joe biden and kamala harris to the white house in 2020. >> so you're saying two things. you're saying americans know this, at the same time you're saying you're going to remind them of it. donald trump hadn't really gone away over the last several years since he was beaten in the last election. why is it that americans need to be reminded? don't they know these things already? >> because unfortunately donald

trump continues to remain a part of our political system, but, look, americans aren't waking up every day thinking about this, americans are waking up every day and thinking about how they're going to put food on the table, thinking about all the things they need to do, how they're going to take care of their kids and the school they will send their kids to. donald trump when he was president did everything he could to make those things harder. these aren't an either or. we have to communicate to american voters about what we're doing to make their lives easier but also remind them because joe biden and kamala harris have gotten to work and done a lot of things they promised to do in 2024 to the american people, but we have to remind them that those things can be taken away by somebody who has already done it before. we just came out of a hole. joe biden and kamala harris got to work bringing this country back from the brink of destruction donald trump left to them. they got to work this this country bringing back jobs, 14 million, this he got to work investing in our schools, got to work, you know, equalizing the playing field for minorities in this country and donald trump poses a threat to all of that. these aren't just, you know,

threats to the grand scheme. i know these sound like big things, freedom and democracy, but unfortunately that's where they are. it's across the board. it's from foreign policy to domestic policy, donald trump and the republicans pose a threat to all those things. yes, we do have to remind voters and we will remind voters of just that. >> how do you know donald trump is going to be the nominee? >> look, we don't, but at the end of the day all the republicans pose a threat to freedom and democracy. just the other day nikki haley refused to say that slavery was the cause of civil war. ron desantis said that african americans got workforce skills from slavery. this is who is on the republican side right now. >> do you not see a difference between nikki haley and donald trump? >> no, we don't see a difference. the republicans running against donald trump in the primary have had several times on the debate stage where he was not there to point out exactly who donald trump is and where they stand against him and what we saw is them baffling over themselves, whether as to raise their hand when they say do you believe

that donald trump won the january -- or won the 2020 election? they refused to raise their hand. do you believe that donald trump was right on abortion, refused to raise their hand. they're showing us who they are. we should believe them, too. >> there is a number of court cases facing donald trump, legal issues facing him potentially in the next year, but there could be delays here. in fact, any or all of these cases could be delayed until after the election. in your mind what happens if they are delayed? >> nothing. it doesn't change what this campaign is doing. this campaign is focused on making sure that we deliver our message to the american people about exactly what i'm here to talk to you about today which are freedom and democracy, what's at stake, also what joe biden and kamala harris are doing. the judicial system will play out, there's nothing our campaign can do about that, but our campaign can make sure we are in a position to continue to deliver the message we want to deliver about what joe biden and kamala harris have done on the economy, bringing the economy back from the brink of destruction and the threats that the republican party, including donald trump, pose to their daily lives. >> deputy campaign manager for

the biden/harris reelection campaign, please come back on "cnn news central." >> thank you, john, good to be with you. protests are planned now that harvard university president claudine gay resigned. what now for harvard's community? we will speak for one of the prprofessors w who had supupporr coming u up next. this morni

rescue efforts are under way after the earthquake that hit japan earlier this week. satellite images from before and after show the true damage there. 70 people have been rescued in the last day. at least 73 people were killed. roads are still blocked in and around the peninsula on japan's west coast which was the epicenter and an airport there is still shut down. thousands of households are still without power. a pretrial hearing about to start for chicago area landlord accused of killing a 6-year-old boy. authorities say joseph suba

stabbed the boy 26 times in october because he was muslim. the child's mother also suffered more than a dozen stab wounds in the attack. she told police he confronted her about the israel-hamas war days before the attack. so the value of the social media platform x which we all know is twitter continues to drop. investment company fidelity estimates the shares of x are now worth 71.5% less than when elon musk bought it in 2022. they slightly increased the value next summer when musk got a new ceo but fidif fidelity st cutting its values once again. today a number of flights are canceled in and out of tokyo's haneda airport following a deadly coalition. video captured the moment a japan airlines plane crashed into an earthquake relief aircraft tuesday and burst into flames. everyone on board the commercial flight got off safely but five

of the six people aboard the smaller coast guard aircraft were killed. now newly released audio reveals air traffic control cleared the plane to land and pilots on board confirmed landing logistics moments before impact. let's bring in cnn's will ripley who joins us from tokyo. that feels like a pretty big development there. what else are we learning? >> reporter: yes, this investigation, rahel, now focusing on those four crucial minutes from 5:43 p.m. local time to 5:47 local time when that japan airlines jet basically landed and struck the coast guard plane that was on the runway right in the path of this giant a-350-090 as it was landing on runway c at japan's haneda airport. the question is if the japan airliner was told it's okay to land the coast guard plane was told to hold point, in other words, stay in the place right before takeoff, just sit there and wait, where was the mix-up? did the coast guard plane actually go to the wrong spot or

did the air traffic control tower not know where they were? listen to both of those recordings back to back. >> reporter: now, that recording confirmed by the official transcript released by the japanese transport ministry in tokyo today, they also revealed that they have found the cockpit voice recorder of the smaller coast guard plane but they're still searching for the black box of that airbus. in fact, the airbus has sent a team of investigators to assist with the technical operations of locating that cockpit voice recorder and getting that information processed because another key question is going to be why did none of the three pilots in the cockpit of that japan airlines jet not see that there was a smaller plane in their flight path on the runway when the weather conditions were clear and aboard the landing

before that collision took place? we all know in the seconds that followed as the plane was slowly becoming actually very quickly becoming engulfed in flames and there was black smoke billowing through the cabin the nine flight attendants in the back performed a pretty here observing effort of getting people off even though passengers say some of the exit doors were not operational. as this video reveals there was also no functioning communication system inside the aircraft, they had to use megaphones and shout to get those hundreds of passengers every single person on the plane off safely. take a look. we don't have that video but you saw it yesterday in our coverage, it was a pretty incredible thing, rahel, to see those flight attendants basically shouting to people, getting them all off in a matter of seconds. of course, at least five coast guard crew members died in this accident and there are a lot of questions, key questions being asked right now about how this

happened, where was the mistake made, was it human error, was it just a miscommunication, was the pilot of the coast guard aircraft lost, is that how he ended up in the middle of the runway or was he following orders and just the wrong orders? those are questions that japanese investigators intend to have fully answered so that they can do what they can to prevent anything like this from happening again on an airport in tokyo n japan or anywhere in the world. a lot of crucial lessons learned from this, rahel. >> absolutely. we can see in the video it's dark but as you say the weather appeared relatively clear. still so many questions remain. will ripley, thank you. so protests now planned at harvard university after its president resigns. we have the new fallout ahead. to duckduckgo on all your devie

duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi

and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. this morning new calls for protests after claudine gay resigned as harvard university president. reverend al sharpton announced that he and the national action network plan to picket outside of hedge fund billionaire bill akman's office tomorrow in protest of the relentless campaign against gay. akman, a harvard alumni has been a vocal critic in the months

following her controversial congressional testimony. others like elise stefanik celebrated her departure. the harvard graduate hinted online that a house probe could mean trouble for other universities. i am joineded by cornell william brooks and is a professor and former ceo of the naacp. cornell, thanks for being here. >> it's good to be here with you. good morning. >> just your reaction to her resignation? >> well, as a citizen of this country, i'm distressed and dismayed by the departure and resignation of the first black and second woman president of harvard university particularly in the wake of this unrelenting campaign, racially motivated, gender motivated to oust her. bear in mind, she came into office around the time after the

hamas attack in israel and a rise in anti-semitism and a concern with students and others about the safety and well-being of students on campus, and in the wake of legitimate concerns about anti-semitism she finds herself the subject of these unrelenting attacks. so we start with the conversation about how to protect jewish students and we end up in a conversation about assault on programs that benefit black and brown people, dei, affirmative action in the ousting of the first black president of harvard. very distressing. very disturbing and not particularly -- not constructive a and destructive and divisive of the country. >> what do you think should have happened? did the review, harvard's review

of her academic work go far much? >> well, let's note this. whether or not the review went far enough does not allow us to duck the question of why the review began in the first place. so in other words, when three presidents go to capitol hill and they testify, it is the black president, the black woman president, the president of harvard whose entire academic career is put under a microscope. her credentials, her qualifications and her skills and abilities are called into question and not merely her position on apologies and strategies to address the problem and her legitimacy as a professional, as a leader, as a black woman. that's problematic. supporters would point to gil

and say that was not a racial component. what is your response to that? >> there very much is a racial component because they were not subject to the same kind of assessment, the same kind of criticism. they were not categorically dismissed as diversity hires. they were not categorically dismissed as essentially affirmative action babies with their well-being and their credentials, their skills and abilities and qualifications called into question. when the president of stanford stepped down in the wake of falsified data in terms of his research, his skillses and abilities were not called into question categorically meaning his gender, his race. let's note, the harvard corporation as well as president gay both noted in their e-mails, their misses about her departure, rachel anemis is

another word for saying racial hate. when we look at e-mailses that he's been subject to, when we look at the way he's been characterized this is not about plagiarism. it's really about an attack on higher education and an attack on diversity, equity and inclusion and her critics spend more time talking about affirmative action than the legitimate concern about anti-semitism and they talk about her qualifications as opposed to talking about how do we improve higher education. this is about distraction and diverse as opposed to paying attention to that which is most important. >> cornell william brooks. this is an important conversation, i wish we could continue it, but we are running out of time. thank you. >> love to. thank you. we are following breaking news out of iran where more than 100 people were killed in two explosions.

officials there are calling this a terror attack. obviously, this comes amid extremely heightened tensions in the region. this is potentially dangerous and fraught. stay w with us.