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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. president joe biden's in campaign mode to deliver a major speech to voters about protecting democracy one day for the third anniversary of the

u.s. capitol attack. and a new batch of jeffrey epstein documents unsealed with new information of the more than 300 pages just out. and the u.s. labor market closed out 2023 real strong. the december jobs report out this morning kicking butt and beating expectations once again. i'm sara sidner with john berman who is also kicking butt. kate is away, and this is cnn "news central." the primaries have not even begun, but you could make the case that today is the first day of the general election. president biden is going to deliver what his campaign is billing a major speech on democracy near valley forge near pennsylvania which is where george washington led the troops against the tyranny of the british and the purpose of the speech is to make clear the threat that president biden says donald trump poses to the

democracy and this is how the biden campaign wants to frame the election year. trump, himself, he is going to be in iowa a few days before the caucuses there. and priscilla alvarez in iowa, and we have kristen holmes as well. and what are you seeing? >> and he is going to set the stakes for the 2024 election, and protecting american democracy has been the centerpiece of the biden campaign and this is what the president is going to underscore today and calling back the january insurrection, and explaining why the president donald trump is posing a threat to democracy. this is an extension of the 2020 bid for white house where he talked about battling for the soul of the nation, but also going back to his re-election video last year where the first few videos and images were about the january 6th insurrection and calls for freedom and protection of american democracy and all of this the campaign official have

said are more urgent. in the statement the dep si campaign manager for the biden/harris campaign said that the president is going to make the case for democracy and americanism will call for the fight that are central that we are in today. and the start of the location of the speech is important, because it is the backdrop of the revolutionary war site of valley forge, and the president is going highlight george washington and how he willingly gave up power after two terms and making contrast to the former president donald trump and not wanting to give up the results, and also making reference to the january 6th insurrection anniversary tomorrow. it goes the show that the campaign is showing it as the key priority going into 2024. if the president's decision to jump start this 2024 election year with the remarks on january

6th in the threat to democracy and also laying the groundwork for releasing this ad in key battleground states on this key issue. >> it is interesting that the biden campaign is on now. and now, we go to kristen holmes who is there with the trump c campaign, and you there, kristen holmes? >> yes, in sioux city, iowa, and it is very cold. >> what can we expect with donald trump? >> we are expecting closing arguments and he has two events today. one in sioux city, iowa, and one tomorrow in madison. one, he is urging the voters not be complacent, and there a concern that among the trump supporters that there is a wide margin that people are not going to be motivated to caucus, and

that only exists if you caucus and don't talk to the caucusgoers. and another thing is that this is going to focus on the primary and into the general, and a big topic today is with him focusing on biden and asking the iowans, were you better off four years ago under my administration and particularly when it is coming to the economy and if the answer is yes, then skip the other stuff, and go back in and i will do for you again what i have already did. that is the messaging, and now we are going to wait to respond to biden's arguments if he is a threat to democracy, and in the past, he has tried to turn the tables on this argument saying that biden, himself, he is the threat to democracy and when it is coming to january 6th as we know, he has embraced january 6th rioters and said that he would pardon some of them as even issuing a government apology and unlikely to see any different reflection there.

>> and kristen, obviously, donald trump while he is on the campaign trail is still dealing with the spate of legal issues facing him including 14th amendment cases, and where are things standing there? >> well, that is right. we have two new filings there, and one in illinois and one in massachusetts, but the most important part about those filings to point out is that why this is so likely to eventually going to the supreme court is because all of the election systems are different, and there is a lot of questions being asked as to what exactly this means, and how exactly this can be done. for example in illinois, that filing went to the state board of election. in massachusetts, it went to the massachusetts ballot law commission, and as we know in maine, it was the secretary of state who made the decision and the courts in colorado, and all of this is really gearing up for the supreme court having to weigh in, and that is what trump's team is expecting. i will tell you that as i have said time and time again, the legal team believes that trump is going to be on the ballot in all 50 state, but i have heard

from allies of trump that he has shown some concern that if this is going to supreme court, the supreme court might actually rule against him to show that they are not pro donald trump. so it is an interesting new thought process that the former president has when it comes to these cases. >> kristen holmes for us in sioux city, iowa, and stay warm out there, and as president biden is delivering this speech on threats to democracy, a new poll for the washington post and university of maryland thinks that a quarter of americans believe that january 6th was orchestrated by the fbi and something that the fbi says is ridiculous. i want to bring in senior media reporter oliver darcy, and in the poll, the people who were saying this share some commonalities. >> yes, and the figures are alarming obviously among the general population, but looking at fox viewers and they believe this lie about the january 6th insurrection. and 39% of the fox news viewers believe that lie, and 44% of

trump voters believe that lie. i think that, john, what this is showing is the potency of propaganda and how it can so easily and quickly warp the public perception about something that we all watched with horror and dismay just three years ago, and it is not too long ago and this is recent history, and the public perception is going on fox news and who circulate lies on social media and talk radio, and those lies have not evaporated into the ether, and they have taken hold in the republican party and among the trump supporters, and it has warped the recent history. >> three years ago obviously tomorrow, oliver, and president biden when he is on the campaign trail is going to make it the center of the campaign. thank you, oliver darcy. and now, of course, he is going to wrap up that donald trump is a threat to the democracy in a major set of campaign speeches as he kicks off the campaign bid, and we have our chief political

correspondent dana bash joining me now, and these are big moments, but how important for president biden to do this and get it very right as this is coming up on the anniversary of the attack on the capitol? >> it is about the anniversary, but if you are talking to president biden's campaign advisers, they argue it is important for this entire election year. and look, he has been making a argument about the ballot about the attack since 2021 and did so aggressively before the midterms which a lot of people if you are looking at the polls then thought that it was a fool's errand that people were much more focused on the economy and turns out that voters were focused on both. i got off of the phone with the biden adviser who argued that when you are looking at the

persuadable voters, sara, and those who are still very much open to the idea of voting for joe biden for re-election, they are very concerned about the future of democracy in america which is why he is going to hit on that note very, very hard at his first official campaign speech of this election year. >> yeah, it is really interesting that you bring that up when it is coming to the larger voting bloc though is democracy high up on the list, because the economy is actually looking pretty good even though a lot of people can't quite feel it the way they want to, but it is looking up. >> it is looking up big time. that has been one of the things that i have asked, and you have asked as well every time i have a democrat on, how do you sort of bridge the disconnect between the numbers, and the new numbers this morning on the jobs, just adding to that trend of the economy looking better and how people feel.

it is something that democrats say they have to keep talking about and in fact, sara, i spoke to the former house speaker nancy pelosi who likes to kind of take the lead on the messaging, and when i asked her about democracy and january 6th which is obviously she is quite passionate about, she turned the answer to the economy. listen to what she said. >> what happened on january 6th was a manifestation of an assault on the personal freedoms that we have, because it was an assault of the capitol, the constitution of the united states, but it isn't all of his message. the message is about what we need to do as we go forward. and freedom gives us that opportunity. the kitchen table issues are the motivation and our mobilization to get the job done to win the election. >> i thought that answer was quite interesting and the question is, sara, whether we

will hear a lot more of that combining the messages from the president and the people in and around his campaign. >> i just wonder when you sleep, because you are just talking to people every hour right before the show, and two minutes here and at night, and you just never sleep, dana, and you text the me late at night. you are amazing and thank you for all of the reporting, dana bash, and you can watch her later on "inside politics" with dana bash. and you can take over for me and john. >> no way. >> and it is "inside politics" at noon. and new reporting right there at the end. >> and there is new information about the mass shooting in iowa and as that is coming in, there is a new report looking at how many lives might be saved if states enacted stricter gun laws. more documents are out connected to jeffrey epstein,

and other news connected to bill clinton and what was buried along with it. and also, beating expectations, and the economy that keeps on giving.

we have new reporting today

from that deadly shooting in perry, iowa. the shooter was believed to have posted on social media in the moments before the attack in high school that wounded five others including school's principal. in a study out for gun safety says that 300,000 lives could be saved if states adopted gun laws like california and new york which are among the strictest in the country. and omar jimenez is joining us. >> yes, the gun prevention nonprofit looked at the strength of gun law looking state by state, and came up with a score and ranking, and some of the top states, california, new york, illinois, and again, a composite of the strength in the gun laws, and matched up with the gun death rate, and what is interesting is that new york and california had some of the lowest gun death rates in country despite having some of the strictest gun laws, even

though they have two of the biggest cities in the country. and gun deaths include homicides, suicides and accidental killings as well. on the other side of the spectrum, arkansas scored the lowest by every town standards, because of the weak gun laws and the high gun rates. now, every town used essentially five foundational laws here to judge the strength in a state's gun laws or the policies. so those that you are seeing on the screen, the background checks, and procuring gun storage, and stand your ground l laws and the temporary screening to remove firearms laws, and those are the five foundational ones, and based on the basic implementation of the laws, they believed that nearly 300,000 lives could be saved over the next decade if every state put in place the gun laws that we have seen in some of the

top-ranked states. that is based on what they found in the state which lines up in this study with previous versions that they find that a state's strength in gun laws is dis districtly correlated with the lower gun death rates, and there are a number of states that have put in the gun violence prevention bills in the last years, and what this study is pushing for idea of is whether some of the gun violence prevention laws that recently passed will lower the state gun death rates in the coming years. >> well, obviously, we would like to see the rates going down no matter what. omar jimenez, thank you very much. >> of course. all right. this morning, we are learning how sex accuser jeffrey epstein found and recruited young girls. when asked by an attorney how many girls he had spoken to about being recruited, the attorney answered i would say approximately 30 to 33.

cnn's jean casarez is here with more details. jean, what kind of documents are being unsealed and what are they telling us beyond the names that are continuing to come out? >> right. many different documents, and the normal discovery in the course of a civil lawsuit, but you depositions unsealed and emails that are being unsealed and there is one email that was unsealed from 2011. virginia giuffre, who is the one who brought the suit against maxwell, defamation suit, and she had a close confidant, a friend, who was a reporter, and her name is sharon churcher who was helping her to get a interview and book deal and story out, and it appears that churcher wanted her to go to "va "vanity fair" to do an interview for her, and this is the email or response from virginia and quote saying that b. clinton walked into "vanity fair" and

threatened them not the write sex trafficking articles about his good friend jeffrey epstein, she had reservations. so we contacted the editor of "vanity fair" from 2000 through 2017, and he said categorically, it did not happen. we reached out to clinton's representative who did not want to comment on this latest accusation, and he did refer us back to wednesday when he said it is 20 years since president clinton has had any contact with epstein. >> there are a lot of names and although the names are linked to epstein, there are no charges and we should make it clear, but it is raising a lot of eyebrows about what more is going to come out in the documents, because as you said, with the deposition and emails you get a lot of information, and not all of it proven, but you can see it in a big way. >> it is an excellent way, because it is under oath, and it

is testimony they are giving and some of it is hearsay and it could not make its way into the court of law, but this is interesting aspect of the recruitm of the girls and he did say for a case involving epstein in 303 th3 that he went on to b asked if the victim brought other friends that she would be paid for the recruitment of the friends, and the answer he said was correct. and then he goes on the say, did you determine that massage was actually a code word for something else, and quote, when they went to perform a massage, it was for sexual gratification. and there is one unnamed accuser who says between '15 and '17 she was asked to go do massage and she said okay, and she had no idea, and once she got in there and the environment and the ring that was involved, she realized what it was all about, but it

was too late, she was there. >> a lot of power in that room, and fear for these girls, and it makes your stomach turn when you think about what they went through. jean casarez, you always do a great job. thank you. and the u.s. economy just gets stronger, and 216,000 jobs added to the labor job, and beating the expectations, and so when are growing to feel this? to duckduckgo on all your devie

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great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. so, the u.s. economy is running on all cylinders and the job report released a short time ago shows 16,000 jobs added in december and beating expectations, and the unemployment rate is unchange and very, very low at 3.7%. joining me now is treasury secretary janet yellen and mad dam secretary, thank you for joining us. we keep saying beating expectations, and beating

expectations, and why are people continuing to underestimate the economy? >> well, there has been a lot of pessimism about the economy that's really proven unwarranted. a year ago most of the forecasters thought that we would fall into a recession. obviously, that has not happened. we have a good strong labor market. today's news as you mentioned showed that the unemployment rate remains low, and we added 216,000 jobs. and now, the pace of job creation over the last three months averaging 165, and that is down from a year ago when the economy was still recovering from the pandemic. it is something that's expected and desirable and consistent with an economy that has now

recovered and transitioned to stable and steady growth. so, the labor market continues to fire on all cylinders, and the reports this week are a low level of initial claims for unemployment insurance, job openings remaining at healthy levels. importantly, inflation has come way down over the last six mont mo months. the measure that the fed watches most is running right at their target of 2%, and the americans are beginning to feel that, and some surveys are suggesting that they are becoming more optimistic which is something that is really good to see. because price increases have slowed substantially, and some important prices have fallen noticeably, and the majority of the gas stations around the

cou country. a gallon of gas is now selling for under $3 a barrel, and used car prices have come down and more work to do on the inflation front, and some important prices, food prices and apartment rentals remain high, but we are really making progress. president biden's approach has been to do everything he can to spur that, spur that improvement, and keeping energy prices down, creating good jobs through an invest in america agenda. wages are increasing today. we saw average hourly earnings up 4.1%. so wage increases are running over price increases now. american workers are getting ahead, and progress of the

middle income families is very noticeable. >> we have the chart up and the screen so people can see that wage growth is outpacing inflation, and as you noted, some surveys are beginning to show that consumers are beginning to feel good about the economy, and this is from a real low point where they felt lousy about it in poll after poll after poll, and when do you believe that inflation is not going to be the story? >> we had a period of when the pandemic was the story, and a period when the prices rose a great deal in a short time. so, i think that we need to see a sustained period of low inflation with wages growing as you showed in the graph and more rapidly than the inflation for people to feel good about their future prospects. as you mentioned, we are

beginning to see this in surveys if it is maintained over the next year as i fully hope and expect it will be that americans will feel good. there's spending in ways that suggest that they are happy with the financial circumstances. we are seeing huge number of new businesses being formed and that investment in american businesses that suggest confidence in the future of the economy, and i think those are all good signs. and it is very rare to bring down inflation as much as we have without seeing a weakening in the job market, but we have 23 months in a row unemployment under 40%, and we have not seen that in 50 years. >> so the soft landing, did it happen? >> what we are seeing now, we can describe as a soft landing. my hope is that it will continue.

>> so, you did it. >> well, the american people did it, and the american people go to work every day and participate in the labor market and form new businesses, but president biden has tried to create incentives that give americans the tools they need to help this economy grow. we have three huge pieces of legislation investing in american infrastructure spurring private investment in semiconductors and in clean energy, and that is really sparking a growth, especially in manufacturing jobs in the united states. >> there is concern with what is happening in the middle east, and specifically in the red sea with some shipping companies now diverting traffic away from there, away from the suez and in having, you know, extending routes by some two weeks.

what concerns do you have for the supply chain and the idea that it might increase prices? >> this is something that we are watching very closely, and yesterday, the united states and other countries joined together to issue a statement saying that the disruption of shipping and the red sea is really a concern and unacceptable, but we have actually ample supplies of oil, and we are not seeing any effect at all. energy prices have been quite stable. and it is true that shipping costs have gone up somewhat which affects the shipping between asia and europe, but we are not really seeing any meaningful effect in the united states. but this is an international challenge. we need to work together with other countries to address. >> i am going to let you go,

treasury secretary, and you have sat in jerome powell's office to make the decisions that he about to make, and the jobs report out today, and how do you think that is going to impact his decision of when to cut the interest rates? >> so, i won't comment on what the fed should do or is likely to do. i think that the path of the labor market and the economy and the labor market have made a set of good decisions, and we will get more inflation data if it is staying down is good for the fed, and something they will take into account in their future rate decisions. >> i am also sure they appreciate you not commenting much further than that. treasury secretary janet yellen, thank you very much. >> thank you. i asked john berman, delivered.

you did good, john. all right. oscar pistorius, the double amputee and convicted murder is out of prison and why he was freed after killing his girlfriend and what her family is saying about that. plus a study finds that two popular weight loss drugs could boost t your m mental healalth well. . we will l explain comiming up.

after almost nine years behind bars, olympian oscar pistorius is out of prison. a parole board granted his petition after he served half of the 13-year sentence for shooting and killing his girlfriend reeva steenkamp on valentine's day in 2013. the murder of course sent shock waves across the world. pistorius said that he thought that steenkamp was an intruder after he shot her four times through a locked bathroom door.

he is not a free man and under parole under 2024. david mackenzie is with us from south africa, and so i am curious about the conditions of the parole, and what they are, and what the family is saying now who has gone through untold amounts of horror. >> well, sara, this man was really a global icon, if you can cast your mind back to a decade ago, a paralympian who went over his major disabilities to compete in the able-bodied disabilities after it crashed down on valentine's day in the early morning of the hours when he shot four times through the bathroom door and killing his then girlfriend reeva steenkamp, and he is going to have to attend gender-based violence programs, and he is going to

have to do therapy for anger management, and he has to be home at certain hours, and he cannot drink alcohol, and other substances. and he is prohibited from speaking to the media, and for the family, it is a moment of great sorrow, and they say that the pain is very present and raw. >> is this normal in south africa that you serve half of the sentence or is there a different parole system there compared to here? >> it is normal here in south africa when you serve half of the sentence, which in this case was 15 years ash and you are eligible for parole. and many people feel that he should have spent more time in prison, but this case, garnered a lot of attention here in south africa, and also around the world on gender-based violence, and violence against women

released a statement saying that there can be no justice knowing that your loved one will never come back, and knowing that your loved one will never come back, and we are the ones who are serving a life sentence. sara, she never believed the story that oscar pistorius told that it was an intruder. she believed that he killed her daughter >> david, you do such great reporting around the world, thank you for bringing us this story. and now, a popular weight loss drug is taken under investigation, and the mental health worries put under the microscope.

this is just coming into the newsroom, abortion could be on the floor this year. supporters are announcing they have enough petition signatures

to bring a state constitution amendment protecting right to an abortion to a vote in 2024. if it makes it to the ballot, it would require at least 60% of voters to pass and would effectively undo florida's current 15-week abortion ban. the proposed language would have to be approved by the court, and it is being challenged by the florida attorney general. the wildly popular ozempic and wegovy is being taken by millions of americans and now, the national institute of health is shedding like on possible suicide thoughts associated. what is in this study, meg? >> it is a massive review of people taking the medicines in the real world. this is from the case study and national institute of drug abuse looked at a huge database of the

electronic medical records and compared the people taking ozempic or wegovy with type i i diabetes and looked at the suicidal ideation for both, and they found in the study, significantly lower risk for these two drugs compared with other medicines for the same diseases. and for wegovy which is used for weight loss, they found 73% lower risk of the people having suicidal thoughts in the first six months of people taking the medicine, and for ozempic, the lower risk was 64%. so this is a real world study of people using these drugs, and these folks wanted to get a sense of is there really something here, and signal, and what they have found that they are not seeing one. >> so the fda and the european regulators how and why are they looking at this? >> yeah, so, the european probe started first which prompted the

researcherings to do this big study. because there were 150 reports of the people taking the drug name for these or similar medicines who had suicidal thoughts, and so you the look into the case reports like that, and similarly in the united states. the fda had case reports of them in the database, and just this week, they were looking into 44 cases this week, and looking into a link, but so far they have not established one, but the reviews are ongoing. >> based on the nih study, is it is possible that it means that ozempic and wegovy may actually help mental health? >> we are seeing the medicines tested for more and more thing, and the way they work is not just in the gut to slow down the digestion, and that, but they have effects in the brain. is there is a question here if they could help with something like depression, and there is at least one clinical trial going on the assess it now, and the

researchers say that the study is not enough to approve it, and not to be used off label, but something to study in the future. >> meg tirrell, very important, and so many people are using these medications, thank you so much. all right. 15 years ago, chesley sullenberger executed one of the most miraculous landings in u.s. history. when he landed flight 1549 in the middle of the hudson. this sunday, the whole story with anderson keeper looking at the harrowing details of when that pilot save sod mad so many, and the interviews with the crews and the passengers and how their lives have been changed forever. here is a preview. >> in the 208 seconds of the time that we had from the time the bird hit us to the time that we landed, i knew that i had to take at least a few seconds of that time to make an

announcement in the cabin to tell the flight attendants and the passengers that we were going to make an emergency landing, and i said, this is the captain, brace for impact. i could hear the flight attendants in the front shouting commands to the passengers, brace, brace, heads down. >> i sent my husband steve a text message that said, my flight is crashing, period. as i typed it, my seat matt said, put that up. you are out of time. that is a sentence that hit me like a ton of bricks. i was like, really, god? at 37. i'm out of time. i'm not going to be the mother of the bride. i'm not going to see my youngest son hit his first home run. i'm not a perfect mother, but i am their mother.

and -- and to think that i wouldn't finish raising them was pretty hard. >> that is some powerful reporting there, and everybody remembers sully's role in all of this, and it is an incredible day and be sure to tune into a whole new episode of "the whole story" with anderson cooper, and one whole hour at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific right here on cnn. you know the cliche of the dog ate my homework. >> i have used it and it did not work. >> well, that is nothing what one couple and one dog went through, and went through is maybe a poor choice of words. cecile, the dog ate $4,000 in cash. >> oh, no. the couple had withdrawn the funds to pay workers who built a fence for them, but cecile's expensive taste got the best of him 30 minutes later, and

thankfully the bank was understanding, and accepting the bills back, and i wonder if they knew what -- >> that is again a bad choice of words there. >> and it meant that the two had some dirty work to do, and laundering bits of money from cecile's doo-doo, and yeah, sorry, y'all. it is your dog and you have to do it, and i mean i have been there and not with $4,000. >> and i mean, $24.50 and how much when you did it? >> it is usually, but don't have a dog any more, but they swallow things, and you to make sure that it gets through the system. >> $4,000 of cash. >> i don't have $4,000 of cash, but vi $4 if you need it, but look at cecile, and he is so cute, and cecile can do no wrong, but i am not blaming cecile for this. no, no. >> it is not his fault, but he likes the taste. >> of money.

don't we all. >> happening now. >> this is a hard segue. >> the supreme court, and best segue ever, and the supreme court, and we could hear any minute if they are taking up the case of donald trump beieing bannnned from ststate ballotots

all right. standing by for news from the supreme court, and they are meeting right now and we could hear very shortly about whether they will take up the issue of donald trump being banned from the state ballots. >> at any moment