the judge in the second e.g. king -- e jean carroll trial is threatening to kick trump out of the courtroom. what trump said that triggered the warning and the response. the biden administration designates the houthis as a terrorist group following numerous attacks in the red sea. this comes as iran launched new missile strikes. what we are learning from a top iran in official. we will be joined by dr. to talk to us about the major inflection in this country when it comes to weight. what we are learning about shifting attitudes when it comes to bodies and health and

the obsession with new weight- loss drugs. we are following these developing stories and more coming in right here. >> thank you for joining us. we are tracking federal court developments in new york city. that is where the former president, donald trump is right now. he may not be there much longer because the judge threatened to kick him out. trump attended the second e. jean carroll civil defamation trial, this is the first he has attended and the plaintiff is on the stand. she testified that tom's defamatory comments led to a broad flood of threats and led to major damage. >> trump has been visibly reacting brought the testimony. first the dge utioned to

keep his voice down so the jury did not hear him. apparently short time ago the judge threatened to exclude trump. paula reid is tracking this in new york. walk us through this courtroom class. >> reporter: this is pretty contrived courtroom drama. this is whatcame for. we saw last week and this week trump attends legal proceedings where there are rules you cannot enter a federal courtroom and make a ruckus when someone is testifying, those rules apply to everyone. the judge gave trump one warning and said i want you to be mindful whatever you're saying during the testimony cannot be heard by the jury. it appears that his reactions have escalated. this is a pattern we are seeing him he does not have to be in court, he is voluntarily attending this damages trial, although he did not show up to a single moment to the trial that were

facts in this case. he has volunteered to be here. he was told standard rules to follow. he refuses to play by the rules and the judge has to admonish him as he did here. reminding him while he has a right to be present, that right can be forfeited if he is disruptive, -- i want to make sure i read this right, that can be forfeited. if he disregards the court orders, mr. trump, i hope i do not have to consider excluding it from the trial. that is with the judge told trump. that would happen to pretty much anyone who engages in this kind of disruptive behavior in federal court. last week they saw him with similar behavior. the judge would push back and they would engage with a contentious exchange because those are the headlines, that's the coverage he wants, he is being treated unfairly or to cause enough drama to blowout the headlines and distract the crooks from e. jean carroll's

testimony today. >> do you know what she was saying that elicited these strong reactions from the former president? >> reporter: shortly before this they were discussing how she thought after the spring when the jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation and awarded her $5 million she thought that is the end of it, he is going to stop because he has to pay aliens of dollars and a short time thereafter he was anticipating in a town hall and double down on his attacks. this exchange between trump and the judge happened outside of the presence of the jury, which is significant because they do not want the jury influenced by these exchanges. he has been, according to our colleagues in court, physically and verbally reacting too much of her testimony throughout the day. >> paula reid, please standby.

we want to get some legal analysis from a former federal prosecutor. your reaction to these exchanges between donald trump the former president and judge kaplan. >> i think my initial reaction is trump really wants to turn this trial into a circus. he wants the story to be the circus rather than focus on the facts of the law. he is on trial for sexually assaulting a woman in a dressing room. it is a very serious matter. his defamation regarding that, his repeated defamation even after a jury verdict. here we are talking about this in court. it's not a legal strategy, it is political pr strategy. >> we just got word that donald trump's attorney, before the jury began their afternoon proceedings, he made a motion for judge kaplan to recuse

himself from the civil defamation case citing a general hostility following this, i guess you would call it an episode in court and the judge denied that. what do you think? >> i think it is a frivolous motion. that is being made so that we repeat the fact that the motion was made. judges rule against defendants all the time. they rule against parties and lawsuits all the time. that does not mean that they should have to recuse themselves. this is a message, trump is trying to send a message that he is going to say every proceeding against him is unfair and is a circus and he is trying to turn it into one. he is going to try to attack the judge just like he did attack the judge in the new york civil fraud suit. of course tacking that judge personally and the staff personally, judge kaplan will not give him the leash that he

had in the last trial, nonetheless trump is trying to make this a personal fight between him and the judge and turn this into a circus rather than take it seriously. >> i want you to expand on the idea that trump and his team could be pursuing this strategy for an appeals process, that they are for seeing into the future. is this the kind of thing that would ultimately benefit them in an appeals process? >> i don't think so. the transcript will not look very good for the former president, interrupting court proceedings, making statements out loud in front of the jury is not something that judges would ordinarily permit a defendant to do as paula noted a moment ago. i think the judge is making a good record. i doubt there is an appellate strategy, i do not see this as a legal strategy, i view this as a strategy that he was using

this as a platform to further his political campaign or fundraising strategy, i don't know. purely from a legal perspective, throwing rocks at the judge disrupting the courtroom, very unlikely to help him legally unless he is hoping to sway a particular juror. >> we have to leave the conversation there. thank you. back to the campaign trail. number president trump has been launching a series of social attacks against his republican rival nikki haley, comparing haley to hillary clinton and using a failure racist smear that he used against former president obama. >> let's bring in kristin holmes who is covering the trump campaign. trump really focusing his ire on haley, which he would not do if he was not feeling the heat. what can you tell us? >> reporter: it is very clear

for donald trump this is a two- person race. we have been reporting for several weeks that his team has been watching haley's poll numbers rise. very clear donald trump is feeling the heat. we heard him on the campaign trail last night going after haley saying that she was trying to bring in democrats and independents to infiltrate the republican primary, typically only republicans and independents can vote in the primary and the only people who switch party affiliation had to do so by october 6. there is no new recruitment going on to bring democrats into the party. the other thing are the social media post that you mentioned. i want to show you what he is doing. you can see in this post he goes after haley and he is using her birthday. this comes after he amplified a false narrative that she could not be president of the united states because when she was born her parents were not u.s. citizens. we will say as we have reported

she is the daughter of indian immigrants. she was born in south carolina and she is a u.s. citizen and therefore could be president. these attacks might seem familiar because they look almost identical to what he did with president barack obama. he would often emphasize barack obama's middle name which is hussein, he would also talk about the conspiracy theory that barack obama could not be president because he was not born in the united states. that seems to be an attack he used in the past and he is using it here again as they are seeing her creep up in the polls . >> it certainly does appear that way. thank you for that report. let's talk with jamaal simmons, former communications director for vice president kamala harris and also cnn political commentator sc cup. we have seen this before what the president is doing. >> more than just the obama narrative, we saw that in 2016

and we covered that. we remembered him eluding to marco rubio and ted cruz is ethnicity and questioning their candidacies. he also did it less memorably to ben carson. he brought up his religion, his seventh-day adventist religion. he went after carly fiorina's looks, anything he can use to scare his base into voting for him he did. he is doing the same thing with nikki. they love this. they want this to be a two- person race in new hampshire. they are thrilled he is taking her on this way. i spoke to the campaign earlier and they said they are doing this for one reason only and he is scared of her. >> if that is the case that her campaign sees this as kind of a backward complement by seeing her as a legitimate arrival in new hampshire, how should they respond x

>> it looks like we are having issues with jamaal's signal. we will get him unmuted. >> let's hope it is that simple. >> serious. >> you would think that three years later we would have this figured out. i hope she feels good right now because it will not feel good in a few weeks as donald trump continues to unleash what he does on his opponents. one is starts with a nickname. two he signals to his hordes of followers on social media that she is fair game. maybe they start to go after her and maybe they do things more, and she starts to feel unsafe. i think this is something that we all will have to wrestle with as we go through the campaign with donald trump. we know he does not feel any social pressures to operate by norms or customs that treat

people fairly. this is going to be a pretty big deal for haley. if she can withstand the donald trump torrent, she might be able to be a great candidate. >> to that point, that idea that you brought up, that she may even start to feel a little unsafe. you sort of said that as one of the consequences. that is an unfortunate thing, sd , that is where we are. we are also hearing today in court from e. jean carroll about how she felt unsafe after being targeted by donald trump. that is the reality of what it is to be in his rhetorical crosshairs. >> yes. whether you are in election worker, or a health worker, during co-but they were targeted by trump and his supporters. it can feel very unsafe. listen, it is unsafe and awful

for everyone. it is a bit darker for women. i used to talk to carly fiorina about this during the 2016 campaign, it is scary to be a woman in trump's crosshairs. that said, nikki haley is pretty tough, she will be the first to tell you that and i think she knew what she was getting into when she decided to take him on. that is why a lot of people decided not to. it is a lot to handle his incoming and the incoming from his supporters. i have been there and it is not fun. >> the timing is a tad bit ironic because haley is getting slammed by trump with these attacks hours after she claimed the united states has never been a racist country. >> yes. she is wrong about that. it is clear the united states was founded as a racist country.

there were the futile slave laws, 1820 there was the missouri compromise trying to balance slavery. we have seen this and then with jim crow. what has happened the last 70 years is we have been trying to dig out from that history and we have been trying to become the country that our founders promised. she talked about that, we've gotten better and she tried to circle back around. as a south carolina governor she knows what she is doing. she is in a party that refuses to accept the facts. for the rest of us who feel like we have to give our children the best fax in the most information so they are prepared. her perspective is to tell them fairytales. tell the kids fairytales and then they will not be prepared for the future when they have to wrestle with some of these big questions as the country becomes more diversified. >> what do you think, se ? >> i think saying that the country was never racist was

not good. it is not right. i don't think she can give a history lesson that jamaal gave every time she is asked this question, she is asked it a lot. to say that america is not a racist country, that is something joe biden has also said and she wants to center on that. jamaal is right, she is running in a republican primary. this is a party that wants to reject the idea of racism and systemic racism holy. she knows that. she also is very aware of the history of racism in this country and she is aware of it in her own state, she took the confederate flag down in her own state. she is aware of it, i think she should just skip the second part , the never part, we were never racist, part. >> se cupp and jamaal simmons, we appreciate your perspective. still ahead, a closer look at the 911 call that got an

ambulance for defense secretary lloyd austin. what it reveals about his hospital stay. and top iran and official says if the gaza conflict ends, so will other classes in the region. what he is saying about the red sea attacks. politics meet pro frame at a trump store in virginia. we will show you how one business owner is taking support for the former president to a whole new level.

new questions being raised after an aide who called 911 to send an avalanche to defense secretary lloyd austin's home asked emergency service be discreet. austin was admitted to walter reed on new year's day after complications from prostate cancer surgery. it was later discovered that president biden, the white house and members of congress were not told until several days later. what are these calls revealing? >> reporter: this shows that the efforts to keep this quiet. to keep this hidden from the public and other members of the administration began at the

very beginning of defense secretary lloyd austin's time at the hospital, in fact on his way. this call took place at 7:11 p.m. on new year's day when a aid called 911 to bring in amulets to transfer him to walter reed national military medical center. that is not the nearest hospital to his home in northern virginia. that is where the aid requested that he be taken as quietly as possible. here is part of the recording. >> can i ask that the ambulance not show up with lights and sirens? we are trying to remain subtle. >> i understand. you live in a residential neighborhood and they will turn them off. is he expressing chest pain? >> no. >> that he passout or does he feel like he will? >> no create >> you said he is awake, alert and oriented and not confused? >> correct.

>> reporter: keep in mind from this point it would be three more days until president joe biden learned his secretary of defense was in the hospital. another day after that until the congressional oversight committee learned about the hospitalization and that's when the public learned. they still did not know what sent him to the hospital in the first place which was a diagnosis of prostate cancer that happen a month earlier in early december as well as surgery on december 22nd. one key question now, why is it the aid requested that the amulets be subtle? that is a question we will post a the pentagon and a briefing coming up. >> i look forward to seeing how they respond, or and lieberman. thank you. >> iran's foreign minister is saying if the conflict in gaza ends, other attacks in the region could into. this comes after the deadly missile strikes in syria, iraq and now pakistan. two children were killed and several others injured when iran

fired missiles and drones into pakistani territory. iran is is they were targeting terrorists. joining us now is military analyst and retired air force colonel cedric layton. thank you very much. as you listen to what this iran in official is saying what you think? >> i think the iranian official is putting out a scenario that does not match reality. i reunions have been doing activities, basically subtly over the last few years. they have been moving forward in a way that they are actually going to challenge the u.s. in as many places as they can. i do not think those challenges. even if the fighting in gaza stops. >> it is a false ultimatum. >> i think so. especially when they involve so many other countries like pakistan, iraq, syria and others. that is a danger sign for everyone. >> today the biden administration redesignated the houthi's, the iran backed

rebels in yemen as a global terrorist entity basically saying they are a terrorist group after what they have continued to do with the attacks on the red sea and shipping lanes. what does this change? >> what it changes is it really makes it easier for all of the different entities in the u.s. government, not just defense but treasury and commerce to put in sanctions, or trace the flow of financial transactions against any type of movement from the west from houthi hands or from other countries into houthi hands. this will have limited effect because they use a financial system that is quite different from the western financial system. they will be exempt from a lot of the sanctions because of how they do business. >> such a good point. the houthis are no surprise,

they are criticizing this and they do not like it and how mosses criticizing it as well and i am sure the u.s. does not care too much about that, they are pretty comfortable with the designation but should they be bracing for retaliation? >> these kind of criticisms are rich given the history of hamas and the houthi's and all the other groups in the area. having said that it is pretty clear that the houthis and hamas and their iranian cohorts will be doing certain things against u.s. interest in the region and we have to be careful that these kinds of things are going to not only potentially endanger u.s. service members, but they can also endanger commercial shipping and the red sea. >> huge economic ramifications to our service members. cedric, thank you. we are following more breaking news. a main judge told officials to wait for the u.s. supreme court

to rule on donald trump's eligibility for the 2024 pallet. marshall cohen is joining us. just as a background, last month the secretary of state in maine decided donald trump did not belong on the main presidential primary ballot. but she waited for this to go through the legal process and now a judge is saying the supreme court has to do its job before final decision is made. >> more waiting. the decision came in from a judge in maine. this was on appeal, as you mentioned, trump lost in the first round, the secretary of state said that he is not eligible to run because he engaged in the january 6th insurrection and our constitution bands insurrectionist from holding office. trump appeal that decision and the decision today from the main court was basically we need to take a deep breath and wait until the united states supreme court weighs in.

there is a separate case from colorado looking at a similar question. oral arguments are scheduled for february which means that decision might be soon. instead of saying yes or no in maine that it was right or wrong to take him off the ballot, the judge sent the case back to the secretary of state in order her to wait until the supreme court weighs in. take that ruling from the supreme court into consideration and take action based off of whatever the supreme court does. boris, this is one of many states where trump's eligibility is in question and we will have to watch and see how this gets sorted out as the voting is underway in some states. >> please standby. let's bring in tom, he challenged donald trump's eligibility for the maine ballot. thank you for being with us. your reaction to this news that

a judge in state court decided to wait until the supreme court weighs in. >> judge murphy is a very thoughtful justice and i am sure she went through all of this to try to understand best what she needed to do. i was trying to figure out what she could do she could follow state law and say according to state law the secretary of state did the right thing. her decision to send it back to the u.s. supreme court where it will be decided no matter what we do in maine is the right decision. >> what is your response to folks who are anticipating the supreme court will side with the former president? >> i think it will be interesting to see if they do or not. we talked about this before. i think justice thomas needs to recuse himself and i think it would be interesting to see what the three justices that he appointed do. are they beholding to him or will they do what is right. >> just for clarity you want supreme court justice, clarence thomas, to recuse himself from

this matter. why? >> clearly his wife has been involved in january 6th. to me that means he should step aside. sometimes it is not direct conflict of interest, sometimes the appearance of conflict of interest makes a big difference to the people in the country. >> i just want to point out to our viewers, we have spoken on the air about your effort to get removed from the ballot before. you were a republican, you previously supported donald trump, it was january 6th that you shared with me change your mind. i wonder what your reaction is to seeing the results in iowa were donald trump won by some 30 percentage appoints and appears to be well on his way to becoming the republican presidential nominee. >> almost 50% did not vote for him. what will they do when it comes time? some say they will vote for him and some say they won't. he did win by a lot, if you

look at the fact there were three other people in the race, if you add up their numbers it was a close race. >> tom reacting to the news that a judge in maine decided to pump the question of donald trump being on the primary ballot based on the 14th amendment to the supreme court. take you for your time and we hope to have you back again soon. stay with cnn new central.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the battle at the u.s. southern border between the biden administration and the state of texas is nearing a breaking point. today is the day the department

of homeland security is threatening to take action if state officials do not immediately reopen full access to u.s. border patrol agents by the end of the day. a 2 1/2 mile stretch of shelby park, the shelby park area is what we are talking about, in eagle pass, has been cordon off by a combination of texas national guardsmen, fencing and other equipment. >> a single border patrol team with the boat was allowed in earlier. our cameras capture this, that was about it. we want to take you like to eagle pass. what are you seeing now? have they granted full access to the feds? >> reporter: no is the short answer. the state of texas is doubling down. let me show you shelby park, this is the type of razor wire on the riverside and on the city side. if you look yawned this strand of razor wire there are several

layers of wire before it hits the actual rio grande which is beyond that last layer. i cannot underscore enough how extraordinary this is. this is the state of texas blocking a u.s. federal law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction and power to enforce federal immigration laws in this area that is blocked, that does not have access to it. i want to show you how critical some of these areas, it is a 2.5 mile area of the rio grande that texas has blocked. look at this video. this was shot on december 20. this was in the middle of a migrant surge. the area that you're looking at is an area used by federal authorities to manage the migrant flow. this is when thousands of migrants were arriving into the area every single day and the federal government was using this area to manage that to

figure out ways to get transportation for these migrants to send them to processing facilities. now come back alive to me. this area right here that texas has taken over. texas has not solved the immigration issue, that's not what i'm trying to show you. what i am showing you, if there is another surge, the federal government does not have access to some of the critical areas on the border so they can manage that flow. not only has texas not stopped illegal immigration i learned from a law enforcement source, what smugglers are doing is going be on the razor wire, further up river and west and they are pushing migrants to cross into the country illegally. there has been a lot of attentioher and her two children who drowned over the weekend. i want to share with you that i talked to the assistant fire chief and he was telling me that they see that type of

death all the time. it is not unique to this past weekend and it is really difficult on the personnel here who work in the city of eagle pass that have to respond to those emergencies on the river. they see both their razor wire and the toll on the humans who have to respond to those tragedies. >> thank you for bringing us that perspective. >> minutes from now, president biden is set to hold a critical meeting at the white house with congressional leaders. house speaker mike johnson is expect to o have a figight o ov border pololicies. we will hahave thehe l latest a as we cocome back.

just minutes from now there

is a high-stakes meeting at the white house to talk about government spending as the government nears a partial shutdown. the presidents face to face with congressional leaders as national but also global ramifications. >> since biden plans to express how much ukraine needs to fight the russian invasion. earlier today house republicans signaled resistance ahead. >> before we even talk about ukraine i will tell the president what i have told you and what we have told the american people, border, border, border. we have to take care of our own house we have to secure the border before we talk about anything else that is the message i had since day one and the message i will continue to have. >> we have melanie on capitol hill. what is going on? are they hashing this out? do they appear to be fighting to get to the end of the deadline? do you think they will come up

with something? >> reporter: in talking with republicans, it depends on who you ask whether it is a senate republican or house republican. there is a big split when it comes to how they are approaching these negotiations. over in the senate there are some bipartisan lawmakers trying to work out a deal and it is key to working on additional eight. republicans are insisting all of those issues be linked together. moments ago mitch mcconnell expressed optimism that they will be able to have a deal and could vote on a big package like that as soon as next week. over at the house are reported speaker mike johnson on a conference call said that the senate deal, the details he has seen thus far would be dead on arrival in the house and he is insistent on hr to which is a house border security bill. the meeting today will be a tough sales job for president

biden in trying to convince speaker mike johnson to go along with a border immigration compromise in order to unlock additional ukraine aid. we expect the president to make a case on why they need this in their fight against russia. this message has fallen on deaf ears at least when it comes to house republicans. biden and speaker johnson do not have much of a relationship. they did have a brief phone call and meeting since johnson has become speaker. this'll be the first time that johnson is on a setting and a stage like this where he is part of this big meeting with congressional leaders. we will see what comes out of it. as of right now the prospects for a border deal and ukraine aid and israel aid are looking really tough. >> thank you for that update. still ahead, america is in a weight-loss craze with new drugs helping people drop the pounds. what is the connection between weight and our overall health?

we will talk to our chief medical correspondent who will tell us what we need to know about the number on the scale.

this election is a choice between results or just rhetoric. californians deserve a senator who is going to deliver for them every day and not just talk a good game. adam schiff.

he held a dangerous president accountable. he also helped lower drug costs, bring good jobs back home, and build affordable housing. now he's running for the senate. our economy, our democracy, our planet. this is why we fight. i'm adam schiff, and i approve this message. more than 10 years ago, the american medical association decided to label obesity and disease, it has proven to be both medically and culturally complex, now that drugs like ozempic become popular. >> the podcast changing life, here to talk to us about it, so many people are focused on this one sanjay, the first episode

is about the relationship between body weight in our health, how should we be thinking about weight as it pertains to our health? and a decade ago, this reclassifying obesity itself and drawing a connection between weight and health is a complicated one, most people use body mass index, and increasingly how people will often qualify someone as being obese or not, i talked to a doctor at stanford, obesity medicine doctor, specifically what she looks for in terms of trying to draw the connection. >> you can't just judge the book by its cover and assume that someone who is larger is unhealthy and someone who is lien is health the, that the assumption that will make.

i call that practicing streetcorner medicine, we will going that today on the show. >> streetcorner medicine, i like that. >> we are going to see what's going on, somebody who is lien may be very unhealthy and 70 who is have your may be healthier. >> so there you go, right away looking at weight alone, even though obesity is considered a disease, weight is one factor. it may not be surprising that people who follow this but other things in terms of looking under the hood, to find out if someone is healthy, for men specifically, outweigh risk, blood pressure, triglycerides, good kind of cholesterol and blood sugar numbers, some rough numbers but they can be flexible, it gives you an idea of what these doctors look at to try to determine is someone unhealthy, do they qualify for medications and what does it mean going>>

so how would the doctor approach someone where weight is a factor and potential treatments? >> beyond the physiology, all of those blood values, also looking at the functional sort of vast, how was the person getting around, somebody can quite -- he quite heavy but get along quite well, and she would not classify them as of health. what is interesting, obesity, we think of it as one sort of thing, but they are starting to think of obesity subtype a, b and c, you find that people respond better to different interventions. there are people who respond to lifestyle changes in type a that don't respond at all in type b, medicine, type c, surgery, so we are getting to that level of granularity in terms of figuring this out. >> sanjay, chasing alive, the

podcast, on apple and spotify, stay tuned to cnn news central, a lot more coming up.