♪ ♪ ♪ border negotiations are set to pick back up in washington as house speaker mike johnson leads dozens of congressional republicans to the southern border today for a first hand look at the crisis. deadly twin explosions in iran. more than 100 people killed and even more injured, well over 100 injured in two separate blasts. iranian state media reports officials are treating this as a terror attack. >> and the president of harvard is out.

claudine gay stepping down. the protests now plan and will more college leaders be next? i'm rahel solomon alongside john berman today. sara and kate are both off. this is "cnn news central." ♪ ♪ ♪ this morning the white house is blasting house speaker mike johnson just hours ahead of his visit to the southern border. the biden administration claims he is holding up border funding and hamstringing security over what the white house calls extreme partisan demands. today speaker johnson will lead a delegation of more than 60 republicans to eagle pass, texas, where he is expected to criticize the surge in migrants and demand policy change. this comes on the heels of his party formally opening impeachment proceedings against alejandro mayorkas earlier this morning.

cnn's ed lavandera is at the border. what will lawmakers see today? >> well, they're coming at an interesting time because december was a record breaking month in terms of illegal crossings here at the u.s. southern border and here in eagle pass where these lawmakers will be in a few hours that has really been one of the focal points of the u.s. southern border migration crisis and what they're going to see is the heavy amount of infrastructure that has already been put in place by state authorities and federal authorities and this has also become kind of the flash point between republican leadership in texas and the federal government and the governor greg abbot and others here in texas critical of the biden administration and behind me, you see this is one of the boat ramp launches where the state dps troopers go out on to the river, these lawmakers will see miles of steel shipping containers and razor wire and all of the state, local law

enforcement agents that are here trying to control the border and despite the infrastructure that is in place, december, another record breaking month in terms of illegal border crossings and more than 225,000 illegal crossings and 10,000 a day and at the same time, john, the situation has changed dramatically in the last week and the number of crossings has dwindled and we've been here several days now and the number of crossings are very low and not anywhere close to what it was the week before christmas where we are seeing thousands of people crossing here into eagle pass and that's kind of the situation that more than 50 republican lawmakers will see here in just a few hours in eagle pass. >> ed lavandera in texas for us, keep us posted. thank you. let's continue the conversation and i am joined by a democrat from the border state of texas and a member of the house arms services committee. thanks for being here. >> good morning. >> i want to get to the congressional delegation at the

border just this morning and just this news this morning about the impeachment proceedings moving forward against secretary mayorkas. congressman, your reaction to that and how would you describe the job he's done so far? >> i think he is doing the best job that he can, to be quite frank. i think that if republicans were serious instead of trying to put together these impeachment sham hearings or what have you that you would have to sit down with democrats and come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with immigration once and for all. you take our state of texas, we're a border state, of course, and this particular group of migrants that are coming, particularly from central america, you know, they have long filled many jobs whether it's energy, whether it's construction, hospitality, and they're coming here a, because they're trying to escape the extreme poverty and violence in their own countries and they're coming here, quite frankly, to

make contributions to this country, and so i would ask for republicans to sit down with us and come up with something real so we can stabilize these countries because until we stabilize these countries -- [ no audio ] -- people will still keep coming if their countries will be destabilized and in some cases these are fail states like haiti and venezuela. >> congressman, i lost a bit of your audio there, but as you talk about coming to the table what are you willing to compromise on? what would that plan look like? >> i think, for me, the starting point and i don't hear anyone talking about this, is we need something similar to what the clinton administration did back in the '90s and that is plan colombia where that country was rife with so much violence because of the cali and medellin

cartels and the clinton administration came in and worked with colombia on diplomatic relations and military aid and other foreign aid solutions to help stabilize that country and now you have thousands and thousands of americans that actually visit columbia for vacation, and we have to stabilize these countries. if they don't do that, if that's not a part of the conversation then we're not going to do anything to fix this problem because -- and we see this around the world. we've seen the capsized vessels of people trying to leave africa to get over to italy, for instance, and other migration of people trying to leave parts of asia to go to europe. if you don't do something to address the extreme poverty and violence in those countries, it doesn't matter if we reform asylum. the problems at the border will continue to pile up. and so we need for democrats and republicans to put together a group of members, bipartisan to

work through this and stop trying to go for the big, fancy soundbites and what have you. that's not helping. i've been in congress for ten years and that's path that we've been on in the past ten years and look at where we are now. nothing has happened and so let's sit down and come up with a solution. >> congressman, your message to the biden administration which says that the federal government needs more funding to address this issue. >> absolutely we need more funding to address this issue we need for republicans again, to stop playing politics and let's pass a bill that will provide the agencies along the border more funding to deal with this. we need -- and then, again, of course, we need more courts. we need more immigration attorneys. we need more people to really be able to deal with this problem and again, let's get away from all of the headline-grabbing sound bites and work on some of

these issues that, quite frankly, people just aren't talking about enough. representative mark vessey, thank you for your time today. this afternoon on "the lead" republican house speaker mike johnson joins mike tapper for a live, sitdown interview on the immigration debate and the crisis at the border. this airs live today at 4:00 p.m. on cnn. >> ventriloquism there. breaking news this hour, a new jersey imam is in critical condition after being shot outside a newark mosque according to police. there is an investigation under way. brynn gingras just arrived here with the latest. >> yeah. this is breaking news and that is a lot of what we know. it happened at 6:00 a.m. at a mosque in newark, new jersey. we don't even know if this imam was targeted in this attack. obviously, it's still very concerning that it happened at this hour in front of a mosque. the victim being an imam, and that victim, we don't have his name quite yet, but he is in

critical condition at a nearby hospital here in new jersey. i do want to read a statement that we did get already from the new jersey chapter of cair. we are deeply concerned about this incident and pray for the speedy recovery of the imam and anyone with information should contact police. this is a scene ongoing in newark not too far from new york city and we'll keep you updateded. >> developing at this moment and brynn, keep us posted. new details on breaking news out of iran this morn. more than 100 people were killed and 140 others injured after two separate explosions struck near the grave of the late iranian commander qasem soleimani. the first explosion was caused by a suitcase bomb. cameras captured the moment when one of the blasts happened near very crowded streets. [ explosion ] [ screaming ]

>> you hear the fear there in those screams and according to iranian state media, officials there are describing this as a terror attack. cnn's chief national security analyst jim sciutto who has been to iran several times is with us. before we get to the events today, just remind us, qasem soleimani, who was he and why is his grave an important site? >> he was the leader of the military wing of iran's semi-military forces and responsible for a whole host of attacks over many years including, we should note, the u.s. military blamed him for attacks on u.s. service members, hundreds of them in iraq providing insurgent with armor piercing ieds. so not a friend to the united states by any means, and it was president donald trump who ordered a u.s. drone strike that killed him this on today's date, in fact, three years ago.

at the time, quite a bold move by the u.s. to strike him. iran promised retaliation, never quite saw the retaliation to the degree that some expected. so highly revered, highly powerful in iran, and the victim of a u.s. strike three years ago. so today, they are celebrating or marking the anniversary of his death, quite a lot of crowds there because he is revered in iran and now iranian authorities are calling this a terror attack. it's important to note that there was some speculation early on, could this, in light of israel's attack on a senior hamas leader yesterday be it all tied to israel based on officials i've spoken with, that is quite a leap to imagine israel carrying out a strike inside iran so we should make that note early on because, of course, speculation often gets beyond the story. in terms of terror groups and there are terror groups with enormous capabilities in iran

and neighboring iran. i've spoken to experts on the region who brought up the name of isis potentially and isis is not a friend of the -- that has carried out attacks in the region before and not a particular fan of the iranian regime and isis has been more active and capable since the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan and little more than two years ago, but again, it's early to assign responsibility here. all we know at this point is the blast took place and at least iranian officials are saying it has the hallmarks of a terror attack. >> a terror attack when iranian officials say that it can mean any number of that. i'm glad you pointed that out. >> there are domestic issues in iran and there could be groups within iran who would want to target that tomb and you brought up isis, a sunni extremist group and the shia nation. >> yeah. >> the government itself, who has been critical of the government in iran? and again, we don't know who did

this, but what types of groups might be thought of first? >> listen, there are other groups active there. the mek is a group that's been around for decades and this is one that iran takes particular focus on on a previous trip to iran, iranian authorities took me to the site of a terror attack that they blamed on the mek, and they've had some activity outside the country. it maintains the leadership, it claims the rightful leadership of iran as some of these exiled groups will, but again, we have no evidence at this point tying it to a group like that, but to your point, john, there are groups not just outside iran who might have an interest in attacking the iranian regime, but there are groups inside iran and kurdish groups as well and you have to run this through the filter of the iranian regime and they do not have a good track record for releasing accurate, public information.

so whoever they blamed this on early or what circumstances they are saying or behind this attack and the details of it, we should, of course, run that through our own filters with skepticism because they're not the most forthcoming or accurate or honest leadership when it comes to explaining their own moves or attacks like this one. >> and you certainly learned that over the years. jim sciutto, thank you so much for laying this out so clearly, and this attack on that site should be seen as an, attack o the regime. rahel? >> coming up for us, former president donald trump appealing the decision to keep him off the 2024 ballot in maine. is colorado next and how strong are his arguments? we'll discuss. also nikki haley's campaign is cashing in. does her huge new jump in donations means new cracks are now forming in trump's commanding lead in the polls? and embattled harvard president

claudine gay resigns weeks after the controversial hearing and new details about when she decided to step down. we'll be right back.

if donald trump's legal fights were at a carnival right

now they would be on the appeal-go-round. he asked an appeals court to re-hear his e munity claim in the e jean carroll case and soon as in the next few hours he's expected to appeal colorado's ballot ruling all of the way to the u.s. supreme court. cnn legal analyst elliott williams joins us now. in term of actual filings, what we see or see he's making in may, what jumped out to you there from trump's lawyers about why they say he should be on the ballot? >> what jumps out to me first is we use the term appeal-go-round. >> second-year law sool. . >> that is a law school term. what you saw are previews of arguments that will appear in a number of his appeals in these 14th amendment cases. that is that number one, this argument that the president is not an officer of the united states per the constitution or number two, that because the president takes a different oath from other government officials, therefore he is not subject to

the provisions in the 14th amendment around insurrection and so on. now they sort of stretch common sense when even saying them out loud. come on, the president is not an officer of the united states and it's still an important legal question based on the conversation that has to be sorted out and we saw that in the maine appeal and you saw it in the colorado appeal that you referenced there and a number of other ones of whether he ought to be on the ballot. >> and the process that they have a due process claim here. what does that mean? >> this idea that he was not treated fairly on account of the fact that it was the maine secretary of state who was an elected official and she is not the court. it is the maine secretary of state that issued a ruling to keep the president off of the ballot. i'm not sure if that's a winner either and it's for a big reason, maine allows its secretary of state to make decisions about who is entitled to be on the ballot. that's not a due process

question. that's simply -- that's just the way the country is set up. you might not like the decision that the individual came to and certainly you can appeal it as the former president is doing here, but the idea that the president didn't have an ample opportunity to bring his argument on account of who the secretary of state was, that's just not a great argument. >> it seems that there are two really giant, big issues here, and it seems that everyone is dancing around them and it may very well be that the nine supreme court justices dance around it, too, which is that number one, did donald trump engage in insurrection and number two, if you think that he engaged in insurrection is there a constitutional reason to keep him off the ballot? and it just seems that none of this will get to those central issues. >> and so, you know, look, i am not the person to decide whether donald trump is an insurrectionist. john berman is not. there are nine people in the united states who can make that determination and it's the united states supreme court. they won't actually rule on whether or not he is an

insurrectionist and they can give the guidelines as to who decides. is it a secretary of state, is it the state supreme court. is it a federal court or is it congress and that's an open question that is being teed up for the supreme court. i want to be clear, john and you as a student of government know this as well as everybody else, this is why you have the supreme court. this is literally why the framers crafted a body of individuals to decide these thorny questions of constitutional law and this is a thorny one and an open one, who decides, how do they decide, when do they decide, someone's got to fix it. >> the reason i was going to ask you is former attorney general bill barr who stipulates he does not want donald trump to be president says that he does not think there is a 14th amendment argument with the states to get him out and his argument is because trump hasn't been charged with insurrection. >> right. an argument is made does it need to be a criminal charge? was it impeachment enough on the grounds of insurrection enough to say someone is an

insurrectionist and you know what? in addition to john berman and elliott williams, bill barr, it's for the united states supreme court to issue some sword of guidance to lower courts, state attorneys general and whoever it might be to make that call. >> last point and i'll make clear is that the supreme court may go through this whole process and never actually weigh in on who is or isn't an insurrectionist, per se. there are way for them to decide this and make it go away without actually ruling on the key points there. elliott williams, always a pleasure to have you. >> thanks, john. take care. >> all right. still ahead for us, brand-you in numbe numbers of nikki haley's war chest behind trump. >> harvard president claudine gay stepping down weeks after the controversial congressional hearing. coming up, we will speak with a

harvard student. to duckduckgo on all your devie

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new this morning, a symbolically important endorsement for donald trump. tom emmer who is the number three house republican, the republican whip, he endorsed donald trump. house majority leader steve scalise endorsed trump yesterday. the entire republican house leadership has now endorsed trump which says something. all right. there some good news for nikki haley on the campaign trail. she reported a fund-raising boost in the beginning of 2024. $24 million in the fourth quarter of last year this doubled her cash haul in the third quarter. cnn's ian mcend on the ground in new hampshire where nikki haley is today. what are voters there saying about this? >> well, john, they are raising a range of issues when they show up to her events. many of them telling me that

they think she's a strong general election candidate and other people asking her different questions and she was asked about monetary policy and the threat of china. one man told us that he's concerned about how divided we are in this country right now. we caught up with him afterwards. take a listen. >> there is such political divide on both sides, and she didn't answer the question in her whole talk which is how are we going to bring people together? obama brought him, trump split people. what does someone have to do to be the big reagan republican? >> so, john, i'm not sure if you heard him there, but he said that he was a little bit frustrated because she didn't answer his question directly when he asked about that she went into sort of a pre-canned long answer about the

confederate flag and how when she was governor of south carolina, she had the confederate flag removed from the front of the state house as an illustration of how she would bridge a divide and that is a critique that comes from many of her opponents when she's asked something she is sort of not concrete in her responses. nonetheless, though, there a lot of momentum for her here on the ground. governor sununu, a bit of an opening act for her, and he has boundless energy. so she will take part in three campaign stops today across the state, again, appealing to voters here in new hampshire telling them that if she were to defy expectation, win this republican nomination that she would be the best person to confront president biden in the fall, john. >> all right. eva mcend for us in kingston, new hampshire. keep us posted. thank you very much. all right. let's continue conversation now. with me now is cnn political analyst and white house reporter

for the associated press sung minh kim and sophia with axios. sophia, let me start with you. ic nikki haley with the $21 million haul and new people and donors. what does that signal to you? >> it means she has even more of a runway and she can do things like really focus her in-person time in new hampshire and continue to advertise in iowa as she has been, and so that gives her even more momentum, but also expectation with the voters as well as people across the state in iowa and new hampshire and nationally, and so, you know, it says she continues to be someone to watch, someone to make the case that she's the best alternative to former president trump. >> sung min, i'm not sure if you heard eva's report, voters were asking her about china monetary approximately see and real issues and does that suggest

that they're still shopping around and still open to changing their minds and he didn't like that she didn't answer her question directly. how much of an obstacle will that be if that's the impression voters seem to have? >> first of all, early-state voters are definitely shopping around and it's from the des moines register in iowa, and 46% of likely caucusgoers were not set on a candidate and i'm sure that number has gone down in a couple of weeks since and we still have time before the iowa and new hampshire contest. this is why you're seeing these big crowds show up at these events. they want to get to know the candidate more and they want to hear them out before they make the final choice later this month. now when it comes to what the voters said, i think that's kind of one of the weaknesses that her opponents have tried to latch on to that a lot of times she doesn't give a direct answer. for example, she doesn't give a direct answer over whether she

would make donald trump's, and he's been very careful and nikki haley has been disciplined on the campaign trail and voters can't feel that that comes at the expense of being candid and that is something that certainly these voters and it's something that they crave. >> what do you make of this news that tom emmer is throwing his support out of trump and that follows steve scalise yesterday. you have all of house gop leadership throwing their support behind trump. it says something. what does it say? >> he is absolutely in the lead. i think the expectation for him is very high. he needs to go into iowa. he's got all of the house republicans behind him as well as, you know, a couple of dozen senators. i mean, that is -- those are numbers that show that he is expected to win iowa by 20, 30 points and that if he falls short of those expectation then

that gives room for someone like nikki haley or ron desantis, depending on who comes second to say, look, trump underperformed and that gives me a space. >> sung min on the issue of immigration and he promised to be tough on deportations to increase funding and target cartels and gangs. is this a winning issue for trump? >> i think with the primary electorate it certainly could be. if you talk to primary voters you see that border security and immigration are always at the top of the issue list for republicans which is why you hear not only donald trump, but obviously the other candidates in the field and congressional republicans talk about the issue so much. they know this is something very critical for their voters, but you figure if you're looking ahead to the general election and even though president biden

faces challenges that are political any substantive challenges when it comes to the border, they already are reminding voters of the hard line policies that donald trump pushed hard in his administration. they say that as a country that voters do not want that and they're eager to make that contrast if and when they are the two general candidates. sophia, voters are shopping around and the nine-term representative from iowa who has a history of racist rhetoric, he endorsed vivek ramaswamy for president in his home state and when pressed about his endorsement here's what ramaswamy said. actually we don't have it. in the past when he was asked about this issue of race, he has sort of -- he has sort of implied that the issue of whit supremacy, this premise of white supremacy is a farce, i believe, is his word. let me ask sophia, how many

iowans are still listening to steve king and thoughts about this endorsement? >> look, steve cain is a former member of congress from iowa. there is certainly a handful of iowans who recognize his name and know who he is, but the endorsement shows you the sort of people that vivek ramaswamy is trying to appeal to. he is really swinging to the right, right of ron desantis and definitely to the right of nikki hai haley to appeal from the maga base and so what he is trying to strip off is coming from trump to the extent that he can get them. so an endorsement like steve king which is someone that he's campaigned with in iowa for several months now, you know, that endorsement, that shows us that, you know, vivek ramaswamy is doing everything he can to stay in the race and really,

frankly, to make news. >> seung min kim, sophia cai, thank you both. ron desantis and vivek ramaswamy take questions in back-to-back town halls moderated by kaitlan collins and erin burnett live tomorrow night starting at 9:00 p.m. on cnn. former harvard president claudine gay stepped down after the handling of anti-semitism and allegations of plagiarism. protests. jimmy kimmel and aaron rodgers why one is threatening the other with possible legal action. this is about possible defamation and libel.

new fallout this morning after harvard president claudine gay resigned after six months on the job. this follows controversy over her response to questions about anti-semitism on campus and an

ongoing plagiarism scandal. reverend al sharpton announced he and the national action network plan to picket outside of millionaire bill ackman's office tomorrow in protest of what they call the relentless campaign against gay. ackman was a harvard alum and a vocal critic of hers. harvard student and member of harvard hill, charlie, thanks so much for being with us. what do you think the tipping point here was? what do you think it was looking at this that finally caused claudine gay to resign? >> yeah. thank you for having me on, john. i think that eventually the plagiarism accusations probably, the dam break at some point and it was just too much reputational damage to the institution and for its students for her to stay on, but i think it's also important, as she said in her letter that now that she is gone for the focus to return to the actual university rather than any one individual and hopefully we can go back to what precipitated all of this which is an epidemic of anti-semitism

at harvard. >> what does it matter? what does a college president matter to a college students? there are plenty of dlej students who probably couldn't even name who the university president was. >> yeah. i mean, it's been pretty fascinating to see how much focus there's been on hfsharvar president. just the other day, one of the leaders in lebanon was assassinated and this is higher than that. claudine gay maneans different things to different people. on the one hand they're saying she was never qualified and she never should have been president in the first place because, you know, she's never written a book and things like that. really personal attacks on her and on the other side you have people saying these are racially motivated attacks on harvard's first black president and it's a conversation not just about the role of presidency, but so many of these sort of culture war and

social issues that have really, i think, been heating up on our campus both this year and in past years, as well. >> why do you think? why do you think the rest of the country is so fascinated by it? why should the country care who harvard's president is? >> i think clearly harvard has symbolism. in many ways it represents higher education, and i think what we've seen at harvard in the last few months is disappointing. there is a solid contingent in our school that is pretty, i think, obsessed with israel, really obsessed with demonizing the jewish state, and i think in parallel you have this crisis where the president of harvard didn't seem as though it should have been there, it seems to some as if she was elected from a dei perspective rather than her actual qualifications and in many ways it's a microcosm of

what america is debating right now. issues around the war in israel, racial justice and all of that, but again, you know, for a lot of students it certainly is emotional and i think that claudine gay was sort of an inspiration to a lot of people who saw her as the first black president of america's oldest university. >> what do you want to see as qualities in the next president of the university? by the way, i'm sure -- you may be long gone by the time they name the next president? >> yeah, you know -- i mean, it's true. hopefully, you know, harvard will kind of slow down. claudine gay's selection was the fastest in 70 years and hopefully the university will take time to think about what it wants want just out of the next president and the administration in the next few years. i hope there will be a return to hopefully stepping away from making political statements and wading into such charged issues and also re-centering the issue

of anti-semitism on our campus. you know, harvard, a lot of jews simply don't feel safe to be at harvard right now. early applications to harvard were down. students from my school were asking me who were considering applying, is it safe for me to be a jew at harvard, and i do think that's a pretty alarming question for people to be asking in 2023 about america's best university. so my hope is that the next president will really make clear that they're not going to stand for anti-semitism and that harvard once again will be a place that's safe to be a jew. >> charlie covit, we appreciate your time. thank you very much. >> thank you. up next for us, bad blood between jimmy kimmel and aaron rodgers. why the late-night host is threatening legal action over some inflammatory comments from the nfl quarterback. we'll be right back. 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. soon a federal judge is expected to release the names of dozens of jeffrey epstein's alleged victims and associates. now jim must kimmel is threatening a lawsuit against aaron rodgers assuming that

kimmel's name might be in those documents. this is what rodgers said on a radio show. >> there's a lot of people including jimmy kimmel that are really hoping -- >> jeez. >> we played it so you could see what was said. he responded for the record, i have not met, visited or had any contact with epstein, nor will you find my name in any list other than the phoney nonsense that wackos like yourself can't seem to distinguish from reality. your wrreckless words put famil in danger. keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court. now clearly, cnn, no one hz any reporting that kimmel is linked to the epstein case. there was some bad blood between aaron rodgers and kimmel because of jokes kimmel made criticizing rodgers for pushing conspiracy

theories. here is legal analyst joey jackson. the reason ied you on to talk about this was the issue of defamation. what aaron rodgers said has no basis and no evidence to support it. when does something like that become defamation? >> yeah, important question to be answered for sure. what happens is remember what defamation is. it's a false statement that is injurious to someone's reputation and as a result of that can cause the person great reputational damage. when you talk about defamation as it relates to public figures, as both jimmy kimmel and aaron rodgers are, you had to show actual malice. what does that mean? you have to show knowledge that you made the statement knowing it was false or just reckless disregard as to whether it was false or true. so it's a very heightened standard. at the end of the day, i don't think it's ripe for defamation. no one would want to be talked about in the same sentence of

epstein. when you talk about defamation, one defense is absolute truth. in the event it's true, it maybe a terrible thing, but it's not defamatory. the list hasn't been published yet. we'll see not the to subject at all that anybody's name, whether it be kimmel, would be on that list at all. it's not right yet to the extept when the list is published everyone will get to see who on it and who is not. >> when jimmy kimmel says his name is not on that list, does it become a legal issue that he said it without any basis whatsoever? >> so here's the issue with that. remember that defamation is to injury your reputation. you shouldn't be saying anything that is injurious to anyone, whether they be public figures or anything else. the problem with defamation in that regard is as follows. let's just say he's not on the

list. jimmy kimmel is not on the list. he would never be on such a list. then the world would know that this is just a bad blood argument. you can't argue that it's injurious to restyour reputatio because you're cleared to show you're not on it. i don't see any reputational damage there. as you mention ed at the outset there's no love lost between them. kimmel has made jokes about aaron rodgers that he not appreciated, including about his hair. so they have gone back and forth. i think the public may just take that as this and not anything in terms of mean spirited or to rise to the level. you can argue it's mean spirtd, but to rise to the level of defamation is another story. >> jimmy kimmel said if you continue this, basically, i will see you in court. so if aaron rodgers were to say anything else, how would that contribute to possible legal jeopardy or civil liability?

>> sure. it would depend upon what is said at the end of the day. you have to look at everything in context. the context of this is that jimmy kimmel when he makes his statements, it's not to suggest they can't injury someone, but particular ly when you have a platform like him. so aaron rodgers has a tremendous platform. you have to be careful about what you say. so to the extnt that there is no such list, that includes jimmy kimmel the and aaron rod would continue to propagate that, it could rise to the level that it's now a lie. it's just a false staumt that is injurious to your reputation. you keep repeating something, guess what n this world, people get to believe it's true. now you may have a cause of action. i think it's a feud between two people who probably have had enough of each other. >> joey jackson, we appreciate it. thank you very much.

>> for the record, i could never have enough of you. always good to work with you. >> keep making you sit next to me. i know it's a sacrifice. >> it has been a pleasure. thank you for joining us. this is "cnn news central." "inside politics" is up next.

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