>> unlock the car. can you unlock the car? unlock it. >> break it, break it. >> pretty remarkable, new body camera footage showing police in a chicago suburb rescuing a family who was trapped inside their suv that somehow careened into a retention pond. and it was sinking as rescuers arrived. wls reports that two adults and a child were pulled out of the vehicle as you see there. the naperville police had to break open the windows in order to reach the family. they are all said to be okay. pretty shaken up, but all three later taken to the hospital. thank goodness for that rescue. all right. thank you for joining me today. i'm fredricka whitfield.

smerconish starts right now. is it over before it begins? i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. before a single primary vote has been cast, has donald trump already sewn up the gop nomination or is it still up for grabs? everybody has an opinion. but the data tells a pretty compelling story. peggy noonan writing that i refuse to see the story as over. voting begins now. after chris christie dropped out, nate kohn wrote the christie vote alone will probably not be enough, but haley has been steady gaining in the polls and historically there is a lot of precedent for urge is being candidates to keep gaining especially over a contest's final days. and new hampshire will be a wild card. independents can vote in the gop primary and according to data released yesterday, 43% of americans, look at that graph, 43% of americans consider

themselves to be independent. rs and ds are tied at 27. it tie as record for an independent showing making them the largest political bloc in the country. but then there is bret stevens who bluntly sums up the state of the race as follows -- barring a political miracle or act of god, it is overwhelming likely that donald trump will again be the republican party nominee for president. and speaking of acts of god, you can also throw into the mix unknowns like the dire iowa weather forecast for money's caucuses. this year shaping up to be the coldest ever with temperatures as low as 15 degrees below zero, worse with the windchill. this is likely to affect turnout where in some rural areas as few as ten people can make a big difference. but what does the historical data tell us? my next guest says it points to donald trump's nomination being pretty much a done deal.

as of december 15, trump led national polls with 61%. desantis and haley essentially tied for second at 12% and 11%. writing for the 538 website, g. elliott morris and my next guest compared it with the 308s in any presidential election dating back to 1980. he assembled a master list of where every nonincumbent candidate stood in mid-december before the election year and then how they ultimately faired. at that point in the race, every nonincumbent with at least 40% support in national polls has gone on to win their party's nomination. and trump is at 61%. in fact if you look at trump's advantage at this stage compared to the other nonincumbents seeking the nomination, his polling is within his party higher than any of them. gw bush, hillary clinton, al gore, george herbert walker

bush. the morris analysis gave trump more than nine in ten chance of being the nominee. what are the chances for somebody like desantis or haley? since 1980, there have been three nonincumbent candidates who like them were polling below 15% in december and did go on to win their party's nomination. michael dukakis, john mccain, bill clinton. but those races were wide open. in those december polls, no other candidate was above 25% whereas trump's current support is more than double that. which means there are fewer undecided voters to sway and even if a challenger does surprisingly well in iowa, there is an historical limit to how big of a bump they then receive. i want to know what you think. go to smerconish.com and answer the poll question. is the republican nomination already over? joining me now is g. elliott morris, data analytics.

he was a senior data journalist and u.s. correspondent for the economist. and he is the author of strength in numbers, how polls work and why we need them. we'll get to the data in a moment, but the intangible all of a sudden, the weather. going to be cold. to me that says whoever has the most passionate base is going to come out and provide victory for their candidate. your thought. >> yeah, look, it will be minus 20, minus 30 windchill in iowa. i do expect that that will have some impact on the race. we can expect in other words some level of polling error i would suspect. just because you already brought up the historical data. and i'll just cite there is usually five percentage point difference between how a candidate isle forring and the actual share of the vote that they get. so some precedent for sure price. you add on top of that the nasty weather, i expect as you say

t that the did witoday with the m enthusiastic voters will get even more. but donald trump has 51 percentage points to hale's 17. so not like she could bridge that gap unless something catastrophic is happening with the polling or the weather has a much more pleasurable impact than we think it will. 10, 20 points off, totally within the realm of possibility. >> if the polling data is accurate -- i said the other night in watching the debate between desantis and halgey, thy trained their guns exclusively on the other. if one decimated the other, it still doesn't give them enough. how many nonincumbents running for president has been in trump's position at this stage?

>> zero. donald trump is unique in his position in the republican primary right now historically. he is at 61% again in the national polls according to the 538 average. no nonincumbent candidate has ever done that well in the polls and done on to lose the election. closest today is hillary clinton in 2008. she was about high 30s in the polls and of course goes on to lose a very closely contested race to barack obama that year. so i guess the question you can ask yourself and your listeners, is nikki haley barack obama. >> well, if i'm nikki haley or ron desantis, i want to talk about bill clinton or john mccain. i mean, there have been individuals who have defied the

odds. but as your data points out in the december going into the election year, it was a wide open race and this has not been a wide open race. >> yeah, that's right. bill clinton in 1992 when he goes on to become the comeback kids after new hampshire, he doesn't have a donald trump looming over him at 50%, 60% in the national polls. he has a clear path to a surge because the candidate field is split. right now you have donald trump ahead of the two major candidates that are challenging him. and you have -- this time you have vivek ramaswamy i guess is somewhat of a factor taking votes away, taking delegates away more importantly from nikki haley or ron desantis in the early states. asa hutchison is also running i don't expect him to get very many votes or delegate, but just being careful. >> something else that i took away from your data, the december numbers, the december numbers historically have been

predictive of what happens in iowa. that is besis observation one. and observation two, even when there is an upset in iowa, the bounce is not what people might expect it to be headed in to new hampshire. your thoughts. >> that's right. we looked at the historical data for an article next week coming out after the iowa caucuses. because we wanted to know how much momentum does a candidate gain if they beat their polls or if they win iowa unexpectedly. we find that candidate who does about one percentage points better, i'll put this way, every one percentage point a candidate beats their polls by, they gain about a percentage point in the national polls. so if you do the math backwards, we think nikki haley needs to gain about 35 percentage points in the national polls to tie donald trump. that would suggest that she needs to beat her polls in iowa by about 35 percentage points as

well. needless to say that is a very tall task for her. i don't see the path forward for her with that level of a potential bounce needed to be ahead of donald trump. that is very unlikely scenario. but that is sort of the benchmark she needs to hit. she need as truly phenomenal performance in iowa. >> thank you for bringing us the data. appreciate it 3. >> thanks. and it should go without saying it is interesting to crunch the numbers, numbers are telling a very consistent and compelling story, but the only numbers that matter are the numbers monday night. so if you are in iowa, go vote. vote in new hampshire, vote everywhere. when it is your turn. remember go to my website where the poll question, it had to be this, right? is the republican nomination already over? hit me up on social media throughout the course of the program and i'll share some responses in realtime.

what do we have catherine? no, it starts monday with some increment weather. the republicans will turn out in large numbers to demonstrate they are not snowflakes. watch have iram's aswamy poll b results. sounds like you have a dog in the fight. to me, in the end it will come with a personal cost to leave the house, show up and caucus with your neighbors. trump's base is passionate. give them props for the passion they have exhibited on his behalf. what does it say also about a ground organization, i don't know that haley has the ground organization that she needs, but again, these questions will all be answered monday night. you can watch cnn and see it unfold. up ahead, the war on the border heated up between texas and the department of justice. following an order from governor greg abbott, the texas military

blocked federal border patrol agents from accessing 2 1/2 fif miles of the border. and plus students forced to study remotely so the building could be used to house migrants. only thing certain, the border will be a big 2024 issue. be sure to sign up for my free daily newsletter.

this week the conflict at the southern border became a war between texas and the doj. in december there were more than 300,000 migrant encounters on the u.s. southern border or roughly the population of pittsburgh, pennsylvania. the texas military department enlisted the national guard to block u.s. border patrol from accessing 2 1/2 miles of the u.s./mexico border on the rio grand. the state had seized control of the area and put up fencing and razor wire under an emergency

declaration signed by governor abbott. abbott, who has shipped tens of thousands of migrants to democratically run cities, posted on x we are making clear texas will be a tough place to cross. in response the doj petitioned the u.s. supreme court writing tro texas's new answers demonstrate their ability to patrol or even surveil the border and be able to respond to emergencies and ask the to restore access to the border, it is charged with patrolling and migrants responsible for apprehending, inspecting and processing. and in new york city the overwhelming number of asylum see, needing to be housed led to one brooklyn high school switching students to remote learning on so their building could house migrants due to bad weather. so the fox news town hall

wedding w said this. >> we're taking them back to where they came from. we have no choice. >> under a new expansion of medical, all low income residents are eligible including 700,000 adults age 26 to 49 living in the state illegally. now back to texas. there was this written in a recent column in the houston chronicle, the texas gop's border crisis plan includes a session, surrender and students instead of solutions.asession, s instead of solutions. i wrois abbott is write about one thing, the entire nation must help with the migrants pending resolution of their asylum claims.

they can't accommodate so many families but the governor diminishes the good deed by turning desperate my grants in to political pauns. chris tomlinson is joining me now. he spent 20 years with the associated press, reporting there more than 30 countries in africa, middle east and europe. thank you for being here. customs and border patrol intercepted, i think that is the way i should say it, intercepted 2.4 million people along the southwest border in fiscal year 2023. thi then if they stopped 2.4 million, how many got through. >> well, border patrol says about 600,000. but there is a very good possibility it was many more than that. >> and that doesn't include asylum seekers. true? >> that is true. i mean, in the del rio region where we have most of the crossings in texas, 83% of the migrants are crossing at established border points and

asking for asylum. they are not trying to sneak into the country, they are trying to use our asylum system to stay here. >> so you've witnessed -- you personally witnessed mass migration all around the globe. what is the glocommon denominat you've seen and how does it apply at the texas border right now? >> when i was a foreign corespondent, i specialized in covering conflicts and hualien s humanitarian disasters. so i went to countries that were undergoing civil war or some sort of insurgency. and i witnessed hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives. you could literally hear the gunfire and artillery in the background as they are coming across the border seeking safety. and that is what the asylum laws were set up for. if you were suffering persecution, if you were fleeing for your life, international law and frankly every religion has a policy of asylum.

but that is very different than what we're seeing datoday. from the rio grande to the mediterranean, we are seeing people fleeing for economic reason, because of climate change, because of fear of crime and wanting a better life for their families. that is frankly not what asylum law was set up to cover. >> are they nevertheless claiming asylum and are they being aided in doing so by those who are providing them passage? >> oh, i mean, they don't even have to wait for the people providing them passage. you can go to the internet right now and look up the questions that border patrol is going to ask you when you show up at the border. the internet provides answers, the kinds of answers that will force the border patrol agent to grant you temporary parole until your asylum case can be heard by a court. certainly the people who were transporting the migrants, they

are also assisting in this process. but it is a very different thing from fleeing for your life. so there is a good number of migrants probably arriving here well rehearsed without probably a legitimate asylum claim. >> as part of your introduction, i summarized the dog j and stat of texas standoff. what is that all about? you are paying close attention. >> governor abbott has long been a state's rights advocate. you know, when he was attorney general, he used to come to -- he used to say i come to work every day just to sue the federal government over their laws and their overage. it is another one of his stunts to seize 2.5 miles of border. clearly border patrol has the authority and the legal requirement to patrol that section. so he is creating a

confrontation. he is doing it on a weekend. he's doing it ahead of the iowa caucus to draw attention to himself and the gop. you know, if you were an officer in the texas national guard right now, i'd have some serious questions about the legality of that order. >> chris, i deal with social media during the course of the program. let's see what has come in and i'll call you on maybe for assistance in responding. let me read it. from the world of twitter now x, biden created this disaster in his first day when he took away trump's border policies. this will cost him the election. i'm so glad kw framed that question. because i wanted to ask you, is it perception or reality that there is a difference between biden and trump, trump and biden? i know there was title 42. i know it went away because it was tied to the pandemic. but is it a perception or reality issue when you look at the policies of these two

presidents? >> well, you know, the border policy has been subject to an immense amount of litigation. and so we've had judges giving -- federal judges giving orders in different directions. you know, we have to remember that barack obama deported more migrants than donald trump in his first four years in office. so the trump policy was not that great. up until title 42, the pandemic era policy was rescinded by court order, biden deported 500,000 migrants. so it is not as clean cut as kw would have us believe, but i do think he's right. if this crisis is allowed to perpetuate, it will hurt president biden's re-election opportunities and i think that that is what the gop wants. >> chris tomlinson, thank you for being here. appreciate your expertise. >> thank you, michael.

up ahead, this week in rele take yags for weeks of attacks on commercial ships in the red sea by annian backed rebels, u.s. and allies launched two days of military assault. will it make the region safer or lead to more escalation. and how about this? monitoring on public police communications used to be somewhat of an obscure hobby, but technology has made it easier to listen not only locally, but nationally. so where is the line between the right to listen in and invasion of privacy? plus don't forget, please vote on today's poll question, is the republican nomination already over.

overdoses, suicidal people, domestic violence, what does the public have a right to hear,

where is the line between public information and invasion of privacy when it comes to police scanners? for decades police departments have communicated through public radio to dispatch their officers. attracting a relatively small number of listeners. technology has made it much easier. in 2012 with the launch of broadcastify, the company currently offers feeds in different cities across the country for police, fire, marine and amateur radio communications. they make the feeds easy to access through its website and smartphone apps reaching 50,000 to 60,000 listeners on a typical evening. ultimately it offers transparency to what is going on in their own backyards, but is there a cost? major cities including denver, san francisco, new york, sioux falls are enkrcrypting their

emergency channels due to concerns about oversharing details about private civilians with a much wider audience. publicizing names and addresses it worries some in public safety. encrypting radio channels would mean only authorized emergency professionals could access the information about an urgent matter in real time. we found several examples, for example this, an elderly man in wisconsin in distress. >> 70-year-old male fell in the kitchen unable to get up. >> of course one could argue that police scanners have the public identified individuals that might be a danger to themselves or to others. >> violent possibly mental elderly black male subject. he is walking with a sick or pain in front of the store wearing all black. in but at what point does a radio channel infringe on the

fri state of someone's mental health? >> feels like committing suicide, having suicidal thoughts. her husband cheating on her. >> apart from the privacy considerations, might the widespread broadcasting of personal details cause hesitance in someone who needs help before dialing 911? joining me now is the founder, lindsey blanton, also founder of radio reference. thank you for being here. this used to be a niche hobby. on my street lived the fire chief, chief hall. wonderful guy. like they were the only ones that i remember as having a scanner. but now a lot of folks have access including through your website. what changed? >> well, obviously the internet and streaming changed the hobby that we grew up with almost 50 years ago listening into our local public safety agencies to

bring it online. just like all streaming services. so that is really what has changed in the hobby for those that listen to police scanners today. >> can we make it clear that there is already some level of information that is not accessible, not shared? a s.w.a.t. team. and by the way ernesto nardonia wrote a great piece about this. but explain what is off-limits. >> yes, most agencies encrypt highly sensitive operations such as s.w.a.t. or they will use alternate means of communications like cellphones. but for the general routine dispatch operations, most public safety agencies leave that in clear for the public to monitor because there is a benefit to the overall general public understanding the day to day operations of the public safety operations. >> and i'm one who believes that

as they say sunshine is a great disinfectant. i like the public being able to provide some oversight role relative to public servants. but will you speak to some of the privacy concerns and considerations that i laid out in introducing this segment? >> yeah, sure. it is definitely a concern. most agencies though do not broadcast names and addresses and specific personal information over unencrypted airways. they will typically take that to channels that broadcastify does not allow. so it would be a lattimore difficlattimore -- lot more difficult for the general public to hear that information. >> what level of concern do you have about this trend toward encryption? do you think that it has gone too far? i rattled off some of the larger areas that are already headed in this direction. >> you know, public safety agencies have had encryption technology available to them for

well over 40 years. there has been a trend do that, but broadcastify has also seen a trend of some of the largest cities who have gone to encryption actually make the live audio available to the general public through broadcastify. cities like chicago and baltimore who just recently encrypted their day to day communications, they provide delayed audio feed because they see the benefit of the community hearing the day to day operations of their agencies. >> when i read the story about this subject and started to think about it, i guess the greatest concern that i had is that it might cause hesitancy on the part of somebody who needs help because maybe it is an embarrassing predicament or maybe they worry it will be perceived as embass rasing. maybe mental health, domestic. but you don't want somebody not to dial 911 who is in distress. your thoughts? >> it is no different than the media publicizing an event or,

you know, covering a story about somebody. we're providing a service to the general public to keep them aware, keep them up-to-date on what is going on in their local communities. you know, at times during major events, hundreds of thousands of people will tune into want to know what is going on. so there is a public good to the general public knowing what the public agencies are doing on a day to day basis. and those agencies, they know that the general public is listening and they are cognizant of that. >> lindsay blanton, thank you so much for being here. appreciate it. >> thank you, michael. still to come, this week in retaliation for repeated attacks on commercial ships in the red sea, president biden ordered a coalition bombardment of the houthis, an iranian backed secrsect in yemen. are we one step closer to an all

out war? and please remember to vote, is the republican nomination already over? and you can sign up for the free daily newsletter. you will see the story on secretary austin.

>> will the war in the middle east escalate following the military strikes on houthi controlled areas of yemen? thursday and then again friday, coalition forces struck targets across more than two dozen locations of the houthi sect killing five and wounding six. president biden said he ordered them in direct response to unprecedented houthi attacks against international maritime

vessels in the red sea. yemen sits toning to the red sea, a crucial shipping corridor and yemen is where houthis have been fighting a civil war. for weeks the houthis have been launching drones and missiles at commercial vessels claiming it is in solidarity with the palestinian people. the aim is inflicting economic pain to increase pressure to israel to cease its military offensive in gaza post october 7. the coalition strikes were condemned by several leaders across the middle east. the president has now called the houthis a terrorist group but said yesterday that it is irrelevant whether they will be formally designated as such. biden delisted them in february of 2021 and will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce. joining me now is retired air force lieutenant who was the air force's first chief of

intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, currently the do dean of the mitchell aerospace st study. so the butch cassidy and sun dance kid question. who are these guys? >> houthis are an iranian backed shia political and military organization, and they have been fighting a civil war in yemen since 2014 against coalition that has been backed by saudi arabia. they currently control much of northern yemen in the capital sanaa. in 2021 as you mentioned, president biden announced the end of u.s. support for the saudi offensive in yemen and revoked the terrorist designation. in 2023, significant event, saudi and iran restored relations. and that raised the hope for perhaps a permanent settlement of the yemeni civil war.

but quite frankly the houthis see themselves as parts of the axis of resistance against israel and the u.s. along with hamas and hezbollah. so in a nut shell, that is who they are. >> would they act without the approval of iran, can we say whatever it is they are doing is with the permission of the iranian government? >> that is an interesting question. really no one knows the exact answer except the iranians and leaders of the houthis. however, all of the significant weaponry that the houthis are provided comes from iran. so you can be sure that there is collaboration between the two. a matter of fact, tactical level intelligence to the houthis on the location of shipping in the red sea comes from an iranian

ship that is located in the region. so there is collaboration, but the iranians are also interested in not getting directly involved in the conflict. so, you know, it is an interesting question. clearly there is collaboration but we cadon't know to what degree. >> i think we all want to know whether this is the start of something larger or a oneoff. >> again interesting question. how far, what i would tell you is that the current coalition is committed to containing the houthi aggression. as a matter of fact your audience might not be aware, but there actually was u.n. security council resolution passed this past wednesday that demanded that the houthis immediately cease their attacks and implicitly condemn their weapon

supply to iran. approved by a vote of 11-0 with four abstentions, russia, china, algeria and mozambique. but i believe the community of free nations are committed to ceasing these attacks against international shipping in the red sea region and it can be limited to that particular area. >> final question. a radio caller of mine yesterday on sirius xm asked what is the u.s. national security interest, what should i have said to that person? >> well, first u.s. national security interest is defense against direct attacks against u.s. nernpersonnel and forces ie region. second, it is to support our commitment to freedom of navigation and freedom of the commons in order to allow the

commerce to prosper not just around the word but particularly the united states. because the implications of the restrictions in shipping is having a significant impact already and could in fact undermine the trend in inflation going down to reversing it to going up. so those are seare secondary is. the most important are to protect american citizens and forces in the region. >> let's me read a social media reaction aloud. jd says it is about time targeted strikes focused on eliminating the houthis ability to attack shipping lanes is a no-brarn. is brainer. is it a no-brainer? >> i certainly believe so. i suggest with respect to the houthis, we may find out that

deterrence is not possible by coercion alone. but that this coalition that has been formed may need to completely destroy the houthis' means of power and projection. that is within our capacity to be able to do so. the houthis are a rebel group inside yemen. if we cannot eliminate their ability to project power, we've got some serious thinking do in terms of increasing our capabilities. but the other point that i'd add, and i appreciate the opportunity, this should also be a wake-up call that the united states defense strategy needs to be based on having the capability and capacity to fight more than one regional contingency at a time. today we've got less than half the combat air forces that we had over 30 years ago when fighting the first gulf war. and the threats facing the united states and our allies are

much greater today. so we need to -- >> a lot to process. the houthis, hezbollah, hamas, the hhh threat. thank you, general. appreciate your expertise. >> have a great day. still to come, your best and worst social media comments and don't forget to vote on today's poll question, is the republican nomination already over? if you subscribe to the newsletter when you are there, you will get exclusive editorial cartoons from the legends. how about this from rob rogers this week.

all right. there's the results so far of today's poll question. wow. 26,000 and change. is the republican nomination already over. 52/48. 52% agreeing with my guest in saying, yeah. the voting hasn't bekbun, but it's pretty much a done deal. here is some of the social media reaction coming in during the course of the program. the 43% self labeling independent means the electorate is more sick of politics as usual than it was in 2016 when trump was nominated and later rejection. thomas, let me say this you know who is elated to see 43, which is a record high for independents as gallop has been doing this, tieing with a previous high. i got to believe the people that no labels are thrilled to see this. joe lieberman -- there it is. 43% -- i'm one of them. 43% self identify as independent as compared to 27% who say, no, i'm an r or i'm a d.

i mean, if you take no labels as face value and joe lieberman was a radio guest of mine this week. they're saying they're going to make a decision in march. they want to know if the american people are looking for something else. well, by the metrics the american people are looking for something else. what else came in during the course of the program today. we have this. michael, you are auditioning to be trump's vp. you talk him up so much. ri, i didn't talk up trump at all. i analyzed the data. everybody has an opinion as to what's about to unfold monday in iowa and the 23rd in new hampshire. and the reality is, none of us know. so let's just review. i began the program today by giving you desperate opinions as to whether it's over. and then there was an analysis, a data-driven analysis i thought was worthwhile. so we brought the guest on to crunch the numbers. you might not like the result of what the numbers say. but the numbers suggest that it would be unprecedented.

it would be historic if trump were to lose the nomination given his standing as of december in the polling that showed him at 61% nationally as a choice of republicans. we've never -- in all of those who have run for office for the presidency, 1980 forward, '80 through the present, republicans, democrats, independents, no one has ever been at that level. no one has ever been at that level. so if he were to lose it that would truly be historic. does that mean i'm cheering for that outcome. it does not. it just means i'm giving you the information. do with it as you see fit. see ya.

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