this is cnn breaking news. >> hello, welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm amara walker. >> i'm john vause in los angeles. thank you for being with us. those breaking news from atlanta with cnn projecting karen handel will win the special election for georgia's sixth

consequential district. >> many considered the race the force major test for congressional republicans under donald trump. together both sides poured in an estimated $50 million into this campaign. the most expensive house race in u.s. history. >> we have the most expensive panel with us tonight. "l.a. times" political writer, caroline heldman. political commentator and trump supporter john phillips. >> cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein and kaylee hartung is in atlanta. caylee, a hard fought win for handel but a stinging loss for the democrats. take us through the numbers. >> reporter: well, things emptying out at handel's headquarters tonight. republicans saw this race in georgia's 6th district in the northern suburbs of atlanta as a must win and they were able to do it by a margin of just 13,000 votes in the end.

for karen handel to keep a seat that's been held by a republican for more than 50 years red, she now becomes the first woman elected by the state of georgia into congress. there was so much talk in the leadup to this race about it being a referendum on president trump and it became the most expensive race in the history of the house of representatives because so many folks from all around the country were sending their money to democratic candidate jon ossoff because they don't like what's going on in washington. they wanted this race to be able to make a statement. but the conservatives in this state galvanized behind karen handel. they didn't want their historically conservative district to become a trophy for democrats to carry into the 2018 midterm elections and wanted to defend their ground. a lot of jabs were taken over the course of this campaign. tonight, a tone of measured civility from both candidates. >> and we need to also lift up

this nation so that we can find a more civil way to deal with our disagreements. because in these united states of america, no one, no one should ever feel their life threatened over their political beliefs. >> the more than 12,000 of you who as darkness has crept across this country have provided a beacon of hope for people here in georgia, for people across the country, and for people around the world. >> a big win for republicans to celebrate tonight.

but that doesn't change the fact that democrats were able to take a district that has been held by a conservative for more than 40 years and have it come down to just 13,000 votes. >> a lot of lessons to be learned from this. kaylee hartung, thank you very much. okay. well, let's break down what all this means moving forward. a lot of money was spent on this race, a point not lost on the president who tweeted a short time ago, well, the special elections are over. and those that want to make america great again are 5-0. all the fake news, all the money spent equals naught. ron, to you, the democrats threw everything at this raisin including $26 million. yet, they could not win it. so what went wrong? >> it's a very disappointing night for the democrats and one i'm sure is going to prompt a lot of recriminations some of which have started whether ossoff was too centrist, too bland, too cautious.

to me the big lesson is that the laws of political gravity still apply. this was a district where the republican incumbent tom price to president trump tapped for the cabinet had never won less than 62% of the vote. when romney and john mccain won by 20 points each even though hillary clinton narrowed that to 1.5 points. what it says is what the republicans were able to do here was basically turn it from more of a referendum on trump to more of a partisan referendum and which party you waned in control of the house and kind of pull that string to pluck that string of nancy pelosi and democrats and hold a lot of right of center voters who normally vote republican ambivalent will trump. that is an important lesson going forward. on the other hand, democrats and now in all of these special elections have run significantly better than the party did in 2016. and if they get out of these deep red places like kansas, montana, south carolina, and the

suburbs of atlanta, into terrain that is more favorable for them like the suburbs of philadelphia or los angeles or the suburbs, much new jersey, and they can keep that kind of gain they still have a shot at the house in 2018. >> what is this is win mean for the republicans? this was a district that they were supposed to win and trump was tweeting a few minutes ago, as well, quoting fox news where it said this is a huge win for the trump administration. how big of a boost is it for the trump administration? >> i suspect there are a number of republican members of congress imperilled breathing easier tonight. you have to note that karen handel while she didn't reject trump, she wasn't a full throated endorser of trump. she sort of kept him at arm's length. a couple days ago, reporters asked her and she said i won't be an extension of the white house. she was a republican people knew there but wasn't identified with trump. in contrast, her democratic rival, they were able to point him as an outsider, funded by

all the san francisco cash. they tied him to nancy pelosi. i think the republican party ran a better campaign here. >> we are hearing from kellyanne conway, adviser to the president also on twitter. this is what she put out a few moments ago. thanks to everyone who breathlessly and proclaimed georgia as a referendum on the president of the united states. donald trump, you were right. #winning. caroline, if the democrats were hoping this election was a referendum on donald trump and a sign of what may be to come for the midterm elections, kind of a disaster? >> i would say it's not at all a disaster. they can tweet all they want. symbolically, the republican national committee right now is worried. the fact that tom price won by 20 percentage points the last time he ran in this district and it's now within two points, this is a canary in the coal mine. i'm glad they're doing everything they should do as partisans but at the end of the day this does signal there's going to be trouble in 2018.

when you consider that the republicans are set to lose about 30 seats just based on history whoever is in power in the white house typically lose about 30 house seats in off election years, the house could swing democratic. >> what is the lesson to be learned. >> there's a lot of dead canaries so far this year. >> we learned today the trump coalition held. we've been seeing these video clips can nonstop of these republican town halls that look like walmart on black friday. we've been told there's good-bye to be republican defections. and what happened? karen handel won by a wider margin than donald trump won the district. and what we've also seen is the obama coalition is a coalition that's built around one person barack obama. he used the coalition to win in 2008 and 2012. what happened in the midterms in 2010 and 2014 in these special elections this year, it's come part at the wheels. >> seema, it seeps the democrats

are struggling to find a way to beat trump. >> there's a lot of recriminations right now. we saw statemnts from move on and from the progressive democrats of america saying you weren't liberal enough. you can't just have an anti-trump message. you need a more aggressive agenda. as democrats figure out how to wage the battles in 2018, there will be a lot of debate do we go the sen crist path or more progressive path. >> one of the statements, i just want to read part of the statement from democracy for america came out almost the moment that it was official that be ossoff lost. keep in mind this left wing progressive group chipped in about $65,000 into ossoff's campaign. money not well spent i guess from their point of view. this is part of the statement. most candidates don't have the luxury of lighting millions of dollars on fire by spending $12 million on ads. defeating republicans in districts they have traditionally held requires doing something democratically

different than establishment democrats have done before, running on a bold progressive vision and investing heavily to expand the electorate. that's what it will take to take back the house. the same democratic playbook that has come up short cycle after cycle will not suffice. clearly that's the left wing bernie sanders side of the democratic party. not angry just about the loss but maybe seeing an opening to change the direction of the democratic party. >> that is clearly going to be the argument and the debate in the democratic party because ossoff could not have been kind of more centrist in many ways. i was on new day this morning after him. there was no edge to anything that he said. i would kind of caution here about two things. first, you know, historically, there just is not a clear relationship between the results in the special elections and in the midterm that follows. you remember the name paul hackett everybody 2005? he was the jon ossoff of his day. electrified democrats, ran a great race in the seat vacated

by rob portman that portman got 70% of the vote in 2004. he got within three. the republicans held him off and thought they had found the formula. in 2006, they lost the house and in 2010, the democrats held with mark critz in a special electioning in pennsylvania. the see the vacated by john murtha and thought they figured it out to hold the blue collar seats. when you got to the general in 2010, they got an ni layed. be cautious there. the other thing this does affect the future democratic debate is it's a reminder that the southern suburbs are different. this is a white collar well educated district and those are the kind of voters that generally donald trump is having trouble with. but you know what? in 2016, hillary clinton won only 28% of college educated whites in georgia, about half the level she did in new york and colorado. and california. this is a reminder that those voters are more conservative. what that means is that you can't count on sweeping those districts all the way across the

board. there are places in los angeles, philadelphia, denver, virginia that are more promising. democrats probably have to go beyond the white collar districts and go to the jim dean argument to find a way perhaps with economic populism to compete in some of the blue collar places where trump is his strongest. >> very fair points there, ron. when we talk about handel and how effective her messaging was, you were saying seemma, she didn't embrace trump even though she was happy to take his fund-raising efforts. what does this say about president trump's popularity when you see how she won with this message, as well saying look i'm not the rubber stamp for the administration? >> it's a special election. it's unique we can't tie it because she wasn't on capitol hill having to make votes on his legislation. 2018, you'll have candidates running for re-election, i think seven of them in california who they'll have a clear record in terms of his agenda. if he remains as unpopular now as he is in certain segments of the population, democrats will

be able to make a different case. that said, the midterms are what, 16, 17 months away. who knows what will happen between now and then. >> the battle in the party the nancy pelosi establishment wing of the party and the bernie sanders more progressive side of the party. who wins that battle? where is it heading? >> i would very much disagree with the left wing part of the democratic party that ossof needed to run somehow further to the left. this is a fundamentally republican district. he needed to run exactly that race. so this is where i think you see the party coming apart. you saw this during the primary with clinton and sanders. we're going to see a lot of battles coming up. the same battle happening in the republican party where you have the more tea party wing or trump wing of the party fighting against the establishment. at the end of the day, it weakens both parties. both are to figure out how to include that. they did during the 2016 presidential election because they took essentially bernie sanders' platform and put it as

the democratic platform. it was the most liberal platform we've ever seen. this was a good strategy, something republicans need to do. >> obviously the republicans are in a strong position, right, john? what does this mean for trump's agenda, the republicans agenda especially as the republicans are trying to get the health care reform bill through, done with by the end of the month? >> stop talking about russia, russia was not an issue in this campaign at all. not raised by the democrats, not raised by the republicans. i'd move forward with building the wall. move forward with tax reform. health care reform. i'd keep in mind that all politics is local. handel ran a race that was tailored to this district. jon ossoff is a guy who worked for al jazeera and doesn't live in the district. that was never a match. that was a match where someone who lives in san francisco like nancy pelosi would think okay, this guy fits the district. it's not someone that would ever get elected in that district. democrats continue to make that mistake over and over again. if you look at the map of what senate sees they have to defend

in the midterm elections they have to win in places like west virginia, north dakota, indiana, montana, if that's your message, with nancy pelosi and maxine waters is the face of your party, good luck. >> it was kind of striking how much nancy pelosi figured into this election from the republican side, as well. we'd like everyone to stay with us. we'll take a short break. a lot more coverage to get to, including a closer look at the tens of millions of dollars poured into this election campaign. we'll break down the. we'll tell you where it came from, how it was spent. when this bell rings... ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected.

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recapping the closely watched consequential race in georgia. cnn is projecting republican karen handel as the winner over democratic newcomer jon ossoff. >> she won with a tighter margin than tom price. but the district remains in the red column. just like it's been since the 1970s. the outcome could give comfort to republicans phasing midterm elections next year. >> handel didn't say much about trump during her campaign but that changed at her victory

rally. >> and a special thanks to the president of the united states of america. but let's not forget our equally great vice president mike pence. >> all right. back with us seem mehmet ta, a political writer for the los angeles times and strategist caroline held man. >> political commentator john phillips and cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein. everyone's talking about how much money was spent on this race coming from the fec. they're correct as of the end of last month. jon ossoff raised more than $23 million. karen handel almost $4.5 million.

for ossoff, the money poured in from california and new york. it was a very different story though for karen handel. she really didn't get a lot of money from anywhere else apart from georgia. she did however, manage to raise a lot of money from outside groups including one super pac. $6 million from a super pac, as well. ron, if money talks, the money here is saying, everyone thought this was a crucial race to win. >> yeah, well, it's also just a reminder how intense politics are and the feeling now. this became such a intensely fought race because there weren't a lot of other ways for people to kind of express their passion. look, you know, i think what you have, what you have in this race in the end is kind of a reversion to the norm. as john was saying before, it is a reminder that even republican voters, republican leaning voters were am bib lent about trump can be held by republicans i think by making this less about him and more about kind of

the underlying partisanship and which party do you want in control. it is worth noting bob all, this was one poll on friday by one of the local pollsters that puts trump an probable rating in the district at 50%. karen handel ran about 2.5 points ahead of that. his approval rating in the district is about 11, 12, maybe 14 points better than it is nationally. so that means there are going to be places where the dynamic looks different. i would point to the main intervening event between now and the midterm election are going to be the governors elections in virginia and new jersey. this fall where donald trump's approval rating in both states in the most recent poll is under 40% and the republican gubernatorial candidates are polling in that range, as well. is he still a big shadow over this midterm election but what this says is that it's not collapsed on him in terrain that leans toward republicans. >> and seem marks when ron brownstein talks about reversions to the norm with this

election, does it mean that money is not always a good predictor who will win an election? a lot of times it's. >> in california, a couple years ago, we had a governor's race where somebody spent $180 million and lost. a candidate spent maybe a fifth of that money. money is always interesting and better to have more than less. i think the republicans did a good job of pointing to where jon ossoff's money was coming from from out of state. it reinforced the idea he is not one of us. republicans like to talk about san francisco and nancy pelosi. when he's getting six figures from san francisco, they used it message against him. >> caroline, how damaging was that for jon ossoff in the end? the money's great but it also turned into a political attack ad. >> absolutely. he was very painted as a carpetbagger. he did live right slightly outside the district so that his girlfriend could attend medical school closer to that location. it was easy to do that because

he really wasn't the kind of stock standard candidate which is why it was so important for him to run to the center to try to tale to that. i couldn't agree with ron more that the fundamentals matter. party matters. if it's not about trump, if both candidates ran away from trump and made it not about him, they were able to make it about party. this is a republican district. >> john, how much do attack ads matter though? it got pretty nasty especially that ad condemned by both democrats and republicans where ossoff was linked to last week's shooting at the republican congressional baseball practice. do you think this ad an actually helped karen handel or do you think most people didn't see it and it fell by the wayside? >> after the 2016 election, i don't think we're wilting flowers anymore. we're pretty much game for anything and what happened in this race was child's play compared to what happened in the 2016 election on the point of the money, i think a lot of donors from here in california would have been better off

investing money in the mummy with tom cruise than giving money to ossoff because they came up with nothing. in the midterm elections, democrats will be fighting in districts just as tough if not similar to this district where you have incumbent republican who's won in 2016, a presidential election by sometimes double digits and they're going to have to try to pick them off. i don't think that's going to happen. >> ron, quickly. >> john, your point about incumbents is right. there's an incumbent advantage. if you look at charlie cook, my colleague there, their voting index, there are 75 republican held districts more favorable to democrats than this one even though it has the characteristics of those white collar voters who have been cooler toward trump. this is a reminder the southern suburbs are different. hillary clinton only won 28% of college whites in georgia. michele nunn didn't do much better in 2014. this is a tough nut to crack for dras and points them toward the

reality they probably have to win in more blue collar places, as well. that's where you get back to the argument before, the argument about a more populace message. >> or all the districts in california they say they're going to target, newport beach, huntington beach, white collar districts where the incumbents won by double digits. that's a very tough pot. >> orange county went for a democrat for the first time since the great depression in the presidential race. orange county will be fascinating watch not just because i used to live there. there are four races that will be interesting there. on the point of money, you had one race right now and all an the donors focusing energies, volunteers focussing on one race. they won't have the luxury of doing that in 201. lastly, on that ad, the controversial ad you brought up, that was a small item by fox news. more reporters saw it than actual sfleertz a lot of people who were phoning into the georgia district 6 from out of

state from california, people weren't answering their phones, they had had enough. being flooded with calls. there was one of the channels in atlanta actually starred another news service to are up all of the ads. there were so many ads it was ridiculous. this is not exactly a blueprint moving forward to the midterm. >> it's not at all. but the fact that the democrats got so close and both sides were dumping money into this right over $50 million combined, that doesn't bode well for republicans. no, this was a very unusual race as you're pointing out. not the norm. but it signals there are going to be some big shifts in terms of donald trump and his coat tails or negative coat tails in 2018. the only reason that ossof got anywhere near this is because of donald trump because approval ratings are at 36 now with the latest poll, two-thirds of americans think somebody on his team had something to do with russia. two-thirds of america think he's not handling that well.

he's now under investigation. we can't disregard the fact that even though he didn't win, this does not look good for republicans in 2018. >> i can say as someone who lives in atlanta and having been inundated by all the ads, it was esh krugsatingly painful to ever watch television. the good thing is that's over. >> it's not worse than meg whitman though. i was in the middle of the desert and all i got was mariachi music and meg whitman ads. >> we'll take a short break and come back with more and focus more on the russia investigation and the implications of that. stay with us. sarah destroy.dent. but when it comes to mortgages, she's less confident. fortunately, there's rocket mortgage by quicken loans. apply simply. understand fully. mortgage confidently.

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mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. it is 9:32 here on the west coast. you're watching "cnn newsroom" live from los angeles. i'm john vause. >> i'm am pla ra walker. >> following breaking news out of georgia. cnn projecting republican karen handel has won the special congressional election for the sixth district.

democrats hoped the young upstart jon ossoff could deal the white house its first election defeats since trump took office. >> handel came out on top by about 4%. the race took on a huge national profile as a potential bellwether for the 2018 mid terps. both sides poured tens of millions into what became the most expensive house race ever. >> a lot more on that in a moment. we'll now report on the u.s. senate investigators looking closer at potential financial ties between the trump team and russia including the president's own business dealings with russian interests. >> plus we have more reasons to doubt the president's hints of a possible white house taping system. cnn's jessica schneider has the story. >> reporter: tonight, white house spokesman sean spicer still won't say if tapes of the president's conversations with former fbi director james comey exist. but he continues to promise the president himself will answer the question. >> the president has said that he will make an announcement on this. i expect it this week.

and so when he's ready to make that announcement, we'll let you know. >> reporter: the house intelligence committee demanded any tapes by friday. and the senate intelligence committee is pledging to follow the money as part of its probe. committee members just got word they'll get access to data from the treasury department's financial crimes unit as part of their investigation into possible collusion or financial ties between the trump campaign and russia. >> i have long felt that the following the money questions are right at the heart of our work in terms of telling the american people what has happened our democratic institutions. >> michael flynn. >> reporter: meanwhile, michael flynn is facing more fire from congress. a pair of top house democrats now digging into whether he may have misled officials by omitting a trip to the middle east from his security can clearance form where he worked to secure an energy deal between russia and saudi arabia in the summer of 2015. house democrats are demanding documents from flynn about that trip and another one in october

2015 which i disclosed but left out significant details. sheldon whitehouse in an interview with wolf speculated flynn's silence so far means there could be a deal in the works. >> all the signals are suggesting that he's already cooperating with the fbi and may have been for some time. >> reporter: it's a possibility fired fbi director james comey alluded to during his testimony june 8th. >> would closing out the flynn investigation have impeded the overall russian investigation? >> no. unlikely except to the extent there's always a possibility if you have a criminal case against someone and you bring them and squeeze them and flip them and they give you information about something else. >> reporter: law enforcement sources have not indicate fundamental flynn is cooperating or not. house investigators don't know precisely when flynn traveled to the middle east but cite a discrepancy between this june 10th, 2015 testimony he gave to

the foreign affairs committee. >> i just came from a fairly extensive trip to the middle east and this was one of the big issues that came up. >> reporter: the fact he listed a start date on the financial disclosure form he submitted after he was fired at national security adviser. his attorney declined to comment. reuters is reporting the fbi is also looking at flynn's business partner by onkeyon in its inquiry whether payments from foreign clients to flynn's company were lawful. he played a central role in flynn's contract with the company controlled by a turkish had businessman that flynn initially failed to disclose. it's not clear if he's a target of a federal investigation or agents are trying to build a better understanding how flynn's company operated. >> what do you want out of bob mueller when you meet? >> i'm not going to go into it. >> reporter: robert mueller is expected to meet with senior members of the senate judiciary committee and others on the hill this week to make sure there are no conflicts between his investigation and their own

probes. >> back with us, "l.a. times" political writer see ma mehta and caroline heldman. >> john phillips and cnn's senior political analyst ron brownstein. ron, let's start with you again. a lot going on with the russian investigation. what do you see the significance of special counsel robert mueller's meeting with congressional leaders? one of the questions has been since he was appointed, how they would establish their lanes. so that nothing that the conscio congressional investigation does interferes with his investigation which is more quongsal. there is a logical division of responsibility in the sense that the intelligence committee is best suited to explore the underlying questions of russian interference in the election and the special counsel is best suited to deal all of the criminal questions over possible collusion and or obstruction of justice. so that makes sense. in practice it's sometimes

difficult to do this in the past when you think of other investigations. but i would assume that's what the principal matter on the agenda would be for them. >> and john, the investigations moving full steam ahead and mueller expanding his investigation not just to include possible collusion or russian meddling into the election but also if president trump obstructed justice. this has to be unnerving for the white house. how can they get their agenda accomplished? >> i don't think it should be. all indications are they are cooperating with the investigations. if you look at the georgia election we've been talking about so much tonight, it was not an issue in the campaign. voters in georgia didn't care. and the democratic nominee jon ossoff didn't bring it up. he wasn't campaigning on the subject. and it isn't because they didn't test it, because they didn't look into whether or not that would be an effective tool against the republican candidate. i'm sure they explored it and decided there wasn't anything there. >> you talk about you know,

obviously voters in georgia's sixth congressional district didn't care. there's a new poll that shows the president's approval rating at its lowest level ever, 36%. what's interesting is what's within the numbers. in particular, there is overwhelming disapproval of the way the president is dealing with the russian investigation among anything else. that has been the biggest drag on his support and his an approval. so you know, an weise say they may not care about the russia investigation in georgia but they care in other parts of the country. how do you explain the difference? >> it's residue. we know from 538's analysis that democrats are favored in general a generic candidate running for the house is favored at 7%. so i think that's where you see it. it's a general sentiment where you're not trusting the party in the white house and that actually has an effect on elections even though -- i think it probably had an effect on this election. again, 20 points is what tom price won by last an time.

there's no way he should have gotten this close. i don't think that it is republicans can say this doesn't matter. kind of like hillary clinton's e-mail scandal. early on didn't matter. now the president of the united states being investigated for potential obstruction of justice? this is not something that's going to go away overnight and not something that the republicans can run away from. they need to be concerned about 2018 because the moment at which the democrats take the house of representatives will be the moment at which they start impeachment proceedings which 43% of americans want at this moment in time. >> whack to the georgia special election, why didn't yawn ossoff bring up russia and you know, more aggressive when it came to anti-trump stance? >> donald trump is more popular in this district than he is in the country as a whole. i would like to see what those poll numbers on russia look like in this district. this is investigation obviously it's nowhere close to done. there's been a lot of smoke and allegations of contacts, of meetings, of potential financial

ties. we don't know where it's going yet. i think depending on what happens in these three plus investigations, we could be at a different place next year. everyone could be cleared or there are indictments. we don't know. i also think with some of the members of congress running in 2018, they have different ties with russia where it could be brought up in different way. dana rohrabacher is running in orange county. kevin mccarthy was caught joking he believes there are two politicians putin pays, dana rohrabacher and donald trump. he said it as a joke. his ties will be examined more cleesely than other people with ties to russia. >> while the russia is dragging down trump's poll numbers a majority of republicans don't see it as being a significant issue. >> our politics have become deeply tribal. and what is striking is how much of the trump coalition views any questioning of him as a questioning of them. you know, the idea that he is

their voice particularly a lot of blue collar nonurban older white voters who felt marginalized cultural and politically view him as their champion. to the extent he's being pushed they view it as an attempt to marginalize them. the numbers don't lie. that is not the majority of the country. i go back to my point from before. the polling that came out last friday, trump was at 50% in this district about where karen handel ran in the final numbers coming out now. she's down to under 52% if that is the case and the history of recent house elections is that somewhere around 85% of the people who abpros of the president vote for his candidate in the house, 85 people vote against, if that holds up, as you move into less republican leaning terrain than the four special elections so far, the environment will get more challenging and the place where that will probably play out first will be in these

governors races in november in new jersey and virginia. >> okay. good type for a break. thank you, panel. we'll be back in a moment with more on the story out of brussels. soldiers shooting dead a man suspected of carrying out a terrorist attack. details on what witnesses heard the man yell before setting off his explosives. >> outrage growing over the death of an american student who returned from north carolina in a coma. now the u.s. is weighing options for possible retaliation. stay with us. back in a few minutes. let's see, there are the wildcats 'til we die weekenders. the watch me let if fly. this i gotta try weekenders. then we've got the bendy... ... spendy weekenders. the tranquility awaits. hanging with our mates weekenders and the it's been quite a day... ...so glad we got away weekenders. whatever kind of weekender you are, there's a hilton for you. book your weekend break direct at hilton.com and join the weekenders.

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recapping our top story, republican karen handel is celebrating a win in georgia's sixth congressional district. cnn predicts handel the winner over jon ossoff. the win is by a smaller margin than usual. >> the newcomer appealed to voter who's wanted to send a message to president trump. the campaign drew national attention but relentless ads linking him to nancy pelosi appeared effective.

among other things in holding him back. >> and in other news that we are following, belgian soldiers shot and killed a man suspected of trying to bottom the brussels central station. no word on the identity of the suspect but authorities are treating this as a terrorist attack. no one was injured and witnesses say the suspect yelled lis lammist slogans before setting off one small explosion in an underground area of the crowded station. >> translator: when i walked down to the platform, there was a man screaming and screaming and screaming talking about jihadis and things like that. at some point he screamed allahu akbar and detonated the suitcase he was holding next to him. then people started to escape. >> officials have not confirmed if the suspect yelled allahu akbar or god is great. back to the u.s. where there is growing pressure on the trump administration to take action against north carolina after the death of an american student. otto warmbier died less than a week after returning home in a

coma. the 22-year-old was detained in north carolina for 17 months for so-called hostile acts against the country. president donald trump met with the ukrainian president tuesday and expressed his outrage over warm beer's death. he also appeared to point fingers at the obama administration. >> a total disgrace what happened to otto. that should never ever be allowed to happen and frankly, if he were brought home sooner, i think the result would have been a lot different. >> since taking office, mr. trump has tried to persuade china to put pressure on pyongyang over its nuclear program. he tweeted on tuesday while i greatly appreciate the efforts of president xi and china to help with north carolina it has not worked. at least i know china tried. wasn't exactly clear what he meant by the tweet. even members of his own administration seemed confused. a warning now, the police video you're about to watch in our next report is quite graphic. it's just been released and

shows the chilling moments leading up to the fatal shooting last year of philando castile. >> a jury found jeronimo yanez not guilty last week in the death. till now, only those involved directly in the case have seen the police dashcam video. >> the reason i pulled you over, your brake lights are out. you >> you're break lights are on. do you have license and insurance? i have to tell you i do have a firearm on me. >> don't reach for it. don't pull it out. oh,

[ bleep ] >> gosh, it really is very difficult to watch this incident ignited nationwide protest after the shootings were streamed live last year. more protests after giannis was found not guilty, he testified he thought philando castile was reach forge his gun. best if he leaves the force and says he will not be returning to active duty dwri. >> time to take a quick break and get back to breaking news republican karen handel scoring a win in georgia's special election. we'll check the numbers next. ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time

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karen handel with 52.7% and jon ossoff with 47.3%. >> republicans saying held that district by just 1.5%. >> you're watching cnn news room live from los angeles. >> stay with us, we're back with a lot more with breaking news right after this. the average family's new, but old, home: it stood up to 2 rookies, 3 terrible two's, and a one-coat wonder named "grams". it survived multiple personalities, 3 staycations, and 1 tiny announcement. behr. number one rated interior paint, exterior paint and stain. protecting and perfecting since 1947.

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this is cnn breaking news. >> hello everyone welcome to our viewers in the states around around the world. >> in los angeles it's just gone 10:00 thanks for being us. the most expensive race in house ri republican p u.s. history is done karen handel is the winner. >> the race was close in a district that has voted republican since the 1970s. >> joining us now our senior reporter for media and politics, and democratic strategist and commentator and radio host. >> and from atlanta