>> reporter: well, i think what is going to be very interesting is whether the russians can now tie down the ukrainian forces given that they are now separate bid the natural barrier of the dnipro river. if they don't do that, it means that the ukrainians can move their forces to the east around bakhmut in particular. these famous small towns that have been pounded where the fighting has been intense. they could tip it ukraine's way if they get that way. >> thank you very much. and thanks to all of you for joining us. "ac-360" begins now. good eke. within the hour we may be able to project a winner for governor of arizona. we just got what appears to be the last major ballot from pima county. we are waiting to get a similar update from maricopa county which is phoenix.

arizona governors race between republican kari lake and democratic katie hobbs too close to call. perhaps not for long. new results also from house races across the country with control of the house still up in the air. so now is certainly not the time to look back at the 2022 midterms because they are still unfolding right in front of us right this minute now. tomorrow the former president will enter the 2024 presidential race through his announcement if he makes one tomorrow night. it is certainly going to be heard differently in the wake of what's happened in the midterms. kim law is in fooeksz tonight and john king is at the magic wall. we begin with you. what is the latest on the numbers? >> reporter: i just heard seconds ago, anderson, these numbers are going to be dropping at the bottom of the hour. so 30 more minutes before we know exactly what this release of votes from maricopa county, the most populous county in the state of arizona, what the voters have decided. what we can tell you is that it

is going to be critical. the information that we are getting at the bottom of the hour will essentially be all of the early ballots that were dropped on election day and it is going to be every single one except for the ballots that need to be cured. we are just talking about thousands that are out here versus tens of thousands that we will know at the bottom of this hour. and so this is the lake path. if she has any hope, it will really reside in those tens of thousands. she has to make up some ground. you were going over some of those pima numbers. they were not in her favor. pima is traditionally a blue county. what we saw is that hobbs is currently, after this release at 58.1%, this latest vote dump out of people thima at 58.1 and lak. and then i just want to have you turn to something else that we

got just minutes ago. kari lake has been very quiet. the campaign has been very quiet, not talking to reporters. this is a campaign that almost on a nightly basis has given us some indication of how they are feeling. but now we are hearing from kari lake on twitter. she had been tweeting about, you know, having her followers go and check on their ballots. minutes ago she tweeted, and here is the tweet, she wrote, shouldn't election officials be impartial? the guys running the election have made it their mission to defeat america first republicans unbelievable. she is tweeting -- she is, quote, tweeting a conspiracy theorist. there isn't a lot of basis in what she is saying. there are, you know, a lot of what she is saying about the pace of this is not warranted. there is nothing wrong with what maricopa county is doing compared to how they have counted their ballots in other years.

in other years that i have stood in very room watching the ballots come in. what we are starting to see is the muddying of the waters. one last thing, anderson, before i ptoss it back to you. security is the highest i have seen in all the nights since election night. there are 20 to 25 officers on the rooftops, on the ground, we have patrol cars ringing this entire building. there is a heightened security approach because of what's going to happen in 30 minutes. >> i got to tell you, the buzz in the room you are in, i assume there is got to be, i mean, every journalist who can fit in that room is there all waiting for the numbers s that what the buzz is? >> reporter: absolutely. i mean, this is -- this could be very, very telling. is it going to be enough for our statisticians to make a projection? we don't know. we have to know how many votes are left out there, what the numbers show. but it is what election officials say is basically everything they have except for what needs to be cured. so it is going to be a big number and it should be very

telling. >> and you said -- i am confused bit bottom of the hour. you are talking about the half hour? >> reporter: at the half hour. at the half hour. so in 26 minutes, about 26 minutes we should have some indication. and it's approximate. the election officials have been working around the clock. >> john, okay, maricopa county now saying 8:30 eastern time for their batch of votes. how many votes are coming in, do we know? >> let me walk through the new math we have. you you get conspiracy theories from kari lake when the math is not going her way and the math is not going kari lake's way. right now statewide 29,048 votes ahead for the olympic katie hobbs.

51%. 49% for kari lake. that is 4329 votes if my math is correct. bigger lead for cobb than an hour ago. how did that happen? >> most was these votes in pima county. this came out in pima county. 13,937. 58% for the democratic. 10,07 votes, 40% for the republican. the republican is losing. as the votes come in, she needs to win or win huge in what's about to come. and pima is not the only results. we have a modest amount of votes in yuma county. it's red. in the modest new votes, katie hobbs had more. more bad math for kari lake. we also got new votes in the last hour from cochise county. you notice kari lake is leading in this county. in that last installment of votes, katie hobbs had more. again bad math for kari lake. and some more votes last hour in apache county in the northeastern county of the state. this is an overwhelmingly

democratic county and katie hobbs the democrat had more votes than kari lake. where does that leave yus now? we believe there are about 140,000 votes still out statewide. we're going to get most of those from maricopa county in just a few minutes. at the moment kari lake is getting 49.4% of the votes statewide. she would need somewhere in the ballpark of 58 to 60% of the remaining vote to catch up. now, again, you don't need to be a rocket scientist. she is getting 49% in all of the votes counted so far. most the votes have been counted so far. that's what she is getting. she would need way more than that in the remaining vote count. she knows that. the hill is getting steeper. it got steeper in the last hour, which is why you get these questions again. i will say this about the officials counting the votes, especially in maricopa county. they are the same officials who counted them two years ago. they were audited. donald trump went to court and

his allies even brought in the so-called cyber ninjas. what did they decide? they undercountered the votes, joe biden's votes. they know how to count votes. >> and nationwide recounts, audits, checking hand counting recounting ballots by hand have all shown there was no widespread voter fraud 2020. all these conspiracy theories are just that. conspiracy theories. >> people are raising legitimate questions if florida can count so fast, georgia counts so fast, why does it take so long in arizona and nevada? we are going to be asking this question about house races why so long in california. different states do it different ways. that is up to the states. if the voters in arizona don't like it, appeal to the governor or state legislature. but they count the votes and year after year election after election their counts are solid. you can complain about the pace if you want but you cannot complain about their math. it's been tested election after

election after election. they know how to count. >> john king, i know you will be standing by as well. we expect results in the next 20 or so minutes. david axlerod and scott jennings. david, you heard the numbers from john. more numbers are coming. how does it look to you in arizona for kari lake? >> well, look, i think she has been trailing throughout. the later numbers are not encouraging to her. i think that the handwriting is on the wall. we have to see, i mean strange things can happen, but right now it would be a very strange thing for a candidate who has been getting less than 50% of the vote to suddenly in the last tranche of ballots to get 60% of those. so, you know, i think there is, as john suggested, a reason that she is, you know, sending these

inflammatory tweets out. and i will say, look, all across this country election deniers have been defeated. the american people have sent a message on election denial in this election and there is no more flamboyant exponent of conspiracy theories about elections in this country, in this campaign than kari lake. and that's why there is so much interest around the country. i think this will be the final exclamation point on a message from the american people that this is not the way to go. and the fact that there are sheriffs police surrounding that building and people, security on roofs and so on, really speaks to how tragic these conspiracy theories are and how deleterious they are to our democracy. we shouldn't have to have that around polling counting centers in the united states of america. >> and scott, i mean, it is stunning to see how many of these election deniers across the countries and liars have

failed and kari lake, i mean, who may still win, but as john, you know, the numbers don't seem to be going that direction, i mean, she is sort of, you know, a fascinating case study in the power and limitations of lies. >> yeah, she's probably the most talented of the trump centric candidacies, maybe the most famous in the country. she has had this sort of communications aura around her that she was kind of trump next level in terms of being able to carry the message but she, if the numbers hold, is not going to win. blake masters was a trump centric candidate. he is not going to win. when i think about lessons learned from this election going into the next one, look at these states we have been talking about. arizona, pennsylvania, nevada. these are owl presidential swing states. and so if the trump centric candidates this year, the people running to relitigate 2020 and talking about election denier, if they came up short this year what would that mean if the

republican party nominated donald trump in 2024? do we think these people will rethink that position? i doubt it. she was probably, you know, from a tactical or technical perspective, the best of the all in on trump candidacies. there is a lesson to be learned. >> i mean, doug mastriano conceded defeat an election denier. is it too optimistic to think this is sort of the death knell of the popularity of these election lies? >> certainly there was such a rebuke of secretary of state candidates in particular, a coalition called the america first coalition. and they have been pretty soundly rejected by the voters. one thing is a lot of these republican candidates were emboldened by the primary process. so there was not some grand pivot to appeal to independent or persuadable voters like kari lake. she is all in on her message

and, therefore, thii think it turned out to be a pretty good bet for democrats who poured money into some of these races, to boost the deniers. >> that was controversial -- there were a lot of people said -- >> it was controversial. it seemed really unwise and probably would have been, as i said, if they -- if those candidates didn't just run with it, if they had turned and said, oh, yeah, let me tamp down some of this because now i am in the general election. they did not. and actually what's been surprising is to hear concession spoo speeches, hear that the phone calls are being made. that means that maybe some people have taken in that lesson and understood that just kind of going to the mat in the way a trump might have done is not going to yield the returns you want. >> david, do you think this is a death knell for these conspiracy theories? >> well, i don't think it will be the death knell for conspiracy theories but i think the republican party may grow a stronger spine in standing up to

it. actually, in arizona there was a spirited primary campaign and the governor and others got behind the different candidate who did not accept the conspiracy theories. she narrowly lost. i think the lesson here -- and she may well have won this election for republicans. so across the country the lesson should be let's dispatch with all of this and compete on a different battleground here because this election denier stuff that trump is so connected with is a loser for us. and practical people will make that decision, i think. >> yeah. >> could i add one more thing? it has the effect of suppressing your own vote. in arizona there is some watchers who say that the sheer volume of people who have dropped in their mail-in ballots because they didn't want to put it at a drop box where vigilantes may be nearby or they were concerned because their own candidate said, hey, watch out for this, you know, compared to the last election there are like

100,000 more almost, you know, votes that were turned in. so when we talk about vote dumps. they are not dumps. more people are bringing in their election to the office rather than using these drop boxes and i do wonder if over time republicans are going to have to adjust to the fact that voters actually like the convenience of these various voting options and you are actually expressing your own potential. >> and also don't like to be intimidated or lied to. next as we wait for the big and potentially decisive update from maricopa county could be able to project the winner in this race. we will talk to the republican lawmaker who took on the former president and election deniers. rusty bowers, what he is seeing. and what's ahead with republicans jockeying for leadership positions in deciding whether to tie themselves tai tighter to the president or cast him aside as he prepares to grab the spot late from them m tomorrow.

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we have more results right now from pima county. what does it show. >> reporter: it's a small drop, but significant in a race too early to call like the governors race right now for us. what we have in pima are about 7305 votes that just came in. katie hobbs, the democrat, at 4,200 votes, 4244 to be exact. kari lake 3,061. we have 1,200 net for hobbs, for the democrat. she is continuing to pad, continuing to add. but one other thing that i want to point out, anderson. you can see that this room behind me is empty. there is, you know, separate path you can see another camera.

this is very unusual for the six nights we have been here. you have almost always seen workers adjudicating. you have almost always seen the ballots going through the tabulating machines. it's been very busy. the workers have been here. the election workers have been here 14 to 18 hours every day americans just counting and diligently working. it has been exhausting as they stare at screens and they look at ballots and they have a bipartisan panel try to figure out what the voter was saying in that ballot. but tonight it is empty and what that message is, is that we are very near the end. and again what we are expecting in just about nine minutes or so about, about nine minutes or so, we are anticipating to know essentially everything that maricopa has to release. that will be all of the early

ballots that were dropped off on election day. this is where kari lake is putting her hopes. the campaign has told us again and again that it is these early ballots where she will win and we will find out, hopefully, in just a bit. >> i want to go back to john king at the magic wall to look at the impact of the new pima numbers. >> anderson, let me show you. we have a close race still. katie hobbs with a 30,231 vote lead, 51% to 49% if you round that up. in the last mauer, a little more t than an hour, katie hobbs add the 5512 votes to her lead. you may say in state like arizona she as 1.2 million total. it's not a lot of votes but the math is heading in the wrong direction. if you are trailing, you need to win the new installment of votes that come in. and kari lake tonight has lost in every single one of the new installments from pima, one from

yuma, one from cochise and one from apache county. it's going in the opposite direction for kari lake. does that mean it's impossible? no, it does not. there are 140,000 votes, even less now. the universe of available votes is getting closer to 100,000. above that. most of those are going to come from maricopa county in a matter of minutes and, anderson, again, let me go to maricopa county first, let me turn this off, go to maricopa county, you do the math here. she is getting 48% of the vote in maricopa county right now. she needs to get in the new votes and rest of the votes, she needs to be close to 60%. i will be generous and say 58%. she getting 48. she needs 10% above that. so the votes in a few minutes could well be kari lake's last best hope. >> all right. the republican governor candidate for is complaining. here is what kari lake said on fox about her opponent katie hobbs and the election itself.

>> i don't believe that people of arizona would vote for her and that she would win. if that's what happens at the end of the day, how could you certify an action that is this botched? she would surt fy her own election where it was botched where the machines didn't work in more of a third of the polling centers? i don't know how we remedy this. but the people of arizona are furious. they are reaching out by the thousands saying i don't think my vote even was counted. >> and they would be wrong. kari lake saying that just moments ago. joining us is outgoing arizona house speaker rusty bowers who lost his seat after taking on the former president and election deniers in his state. what is your reaction to miss lake calling the arizona election botched before final results are even in? mr. bowers, can you hear me?

i think we are having trouble. rusty bowers, it's anderson cooper. can you hear me? we are going to take a break. we expect numbers from arizona, perhaps deciding numbers, in a moment. we'll be right back. lincoln'n's witnessed a good bit of history. eveven made some themselves. makes you wonder... what will they do for an encore? ♪ to tell you something? the clues are all around us... not that one... that's the o. at university of phoenix, you could earn your mter's degree in less than a yr for under $11k. learn more at phoenix.edu

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from arizona's big counties. you have been hearing from john king. the next numbers could decide the remaining numbers in that state, the race for governor with democratic katie hobbs leading the republican kari lake by 1.2 percentage points. b what are you expecting? what are you hearing? >> reporter: well, we are waiting for these, this vote release. what we are told by the county is that it will be essentially every vote they have tabulated that is an early vote that was dropped off on election day, that they have been able to count. they have been able to tabulate. the only votes that they will not be releasing that they have to go through are the ballots that need to be cured. that will take a little bit of time, make sure the signature goes back to a voter. so that's a small percentage. we're talking thousands versus the tens of thousands we are expecting shortly.

what we can tell you right now is that it's still too early to call. that's how close this race is. and so without that information it is simply too early to call. i am going to keep refreshing my page because what we are anticipating and i'm just getting a little bit of information and john king, we are now told by the county that the vote release that we will be getting will be 72,000 votes. 72,000 votes. so if you are following along and we're doing our math here, yesterday, we are going to look up how many votes we were told last night would be released. the 72,000 votes is what we are going to get. and then if we can do some loose math, we'll know exactly how many are out there. i believe the estimate was about 85 to 95 left to count. yes. 85 to 95,000 left to count. 72,000 released tonight. so, john, now you know

approximately how many ballots are left to cure. so it is basically everything. essentially, we will have the bulk of the results from maricopa county tonight. the largest county in arizona. and we will know very soon how close this race exactly is. let's talk about recount very, very briefly. recount laws change inside the state of arizona. used to be 0.1%. now it is 0.5%. so half a percentage point. that's the gap. if there is that gap, then there will be -- scott, how long, scott? oh, going to walk right by me. 15 minutes. 15 minutes we are told now. 15 minutes before we get these results. so just a little bit longer, anderson. be patient. 15 minutes and we will have the results of 72,000 votes from maricopa county. anderson. >> and these were all votes brought in early voting dropped

off at ballot boxes or at election centers on election day? in maricopa county? >> essentially. essentially. this is the bulk of them. this is what the kari lake campaign says is the path. now, what -- the kari lake campaign had run on is you have been talking about this investigation, misinformation. they had been putting out at famous campaign events i had been to at different rallies that for some reason the campaign was put outs messages that said if you vote on election day, those will somehow count more than early ballots. the logic there difficult to follow. but that is what the campaign did. so what happened here in maricopa county? there were a record amount of votes that were delivered on election day. the people who voted there as well as those mail-in ballots that were filled out at home and then dropped off at vote centers on election day. but if you turn in a ballot with a signature on the outside, that

needs to be signature verified. that's what takes time. that is the hard work of the election office here in maricopa county. and they were working around the clock to make sure that they could verify that. it is still a process that's underway. it simply takes time. there are few, few of the box three ballots, ones that had the issue with the printer. but really just we're talking about thousands versus the tens of thousands wide receiver expecting. 72,000 shortly. >> stand by. a related story. house republicans met behind closed doors this evening to air out concerns about who should lead them. kevin mccarthy in the house as well as mitch mcconnell in the senate are looking to hold on that their leadership roles with mccarthy the next possible speak. after republicans underwhelming performance it calls for change. the former president is weighing in on both races.

joined by manu raju. this meeting, house minority leader kevin mccarthy spoke with republicans at the meeting. what are you learning? >> yeah, he tried to appeal for unity. this is a party that came into the midterms last week expecting a big blowout victory. they thought they would have a mas massive house majority next year. now they are looking at potentially a handful of seats could make or break the difference in any bill on the floor and could make or break the difference for kevin mccarthy himself as he stries to secure the speaker ship. today they had a candidate forum. mccarthy appealed to the members and preached unity. he said they don't give out gavles, small, medium and large. we have the majority and we have the gavel. we still have the majority regardless of the size of the majority. he faced some sharp questions, including from some critics, but he is expected tomorrow to get the nomination from his conference to be the next

speaker of the house. that is the first step in the process because next january that's when he will need the 218 votes of the full house to be elected speaker and more than a handful of defections could be enough to complicate things at the moment critics are saying he doesn't have the votes yet. >> what about mitch mcconnell? the senate? >> he has the votes to become the next republican leader, the longest serving party leader in history. that doesn't mean that republicans are happy about the way things turned out. some want to slam on the brakes and prevent the wednesday leadership election from taking place. they are still planning to plow ahead. the question is whether mcdonnell would face a challenger. he could face a long shot challenge from rick scott, the florida republican senator who told me tonight he has not made a decision whether to challenge mcdonnell but mcconnell still has the votes even if he faces that challenge. >> what are members of congress saying about the former president b his possible run? >> they are not so pleased.

they are uneasy, anxious, rejecting it all together. very few which we spanned out across the house and the senate talking to dozens, more than a couple of dozens republicans and very few were willing to embrace the idea of a third trump presidential run. even some close allies. listen. >> i think that we're all better if there are more people in the race. be so i, you know, he is certainly not entitled to it. >> tomorrow trump is going to announcement do you want him to run? >> that's his decision. i think every member. we will have to wait to see what's in the field out there. >> do you think it's a good idea for him to run? >> i am for my brother, absolutely. i helped my brother run. >> reporter: that last comment from greg pence, the brother of former vice president mike pence, who is considering a run himself. but you are seeing many republicans hoping, other candidates emerge, hoping a big field emerges to potentially defeat donald trump's effort to

try to ascend to the republican nomination. they blame him for what happened last week for pushing lackluster candidates. a lot are weary about the controversies of the trump era and want to move on. the question is will the voters agree. >> i am sure there are some senators who are glad they didn't run into you to be asked that question. >> reporter: that tends to happen from time to time. >> sure does. don't take it personally. i am sure you don't. thanks so much. again, maricopa county vote totals coming shortly. we will take a short break. we'll be right back.

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. and we have new numbers coming in from arizona's maricopa county. i want to go back to phoenix. what are you hearing? what are the numbers? >> reporter: these are numbers that have just popped on the maricopa county website. the ballots that we have gotten, 72,000 approximately ballots that have been released. katie hobbs, john, if you are there, katie hobbs currently stands at 783,565. 783,565. that is a net gain of 30,825 votes. 30,825 votes. kari lake started at -- is now

at 744,753 votes. again, 744,753. that's a net gain of 40,575. 40,575 votes. so she gained just under 10,000 votes beyond hobbs. she did very well. she had 10,000 more than katie hobbs. but katie hobbs still is at 51% and kari lake is at 49%. i leave the math to the great john king. >> could you just repeat the votes that have just come in? >> the total that she is now san standing at in maricopa county, katie hobbs is at 783, 565.

a net gain of 30,825 votes. again, that's 30,825 votes. net gain. kari lake, the republican, currently stands at 744,753 votes. 744,753 votes. that is a net gain of 40,575 votes. again, 40,575 votes. so, you know -- >> kari lake is still 39,000 votes behind? >> she is, yes. >> 783,000 something to 7 44,00? >> they are separated by about two percentage points. >> this number you see next to me, this is the significant number. i am double-checking this. in this new batch of votes, katie hobbs got 43% of the new

votes. kari lake got 56%, 57% if you round up of this new batch. this is why this is interesting. she needs somewhere in the ballpark of 60% to stay in contention, 58 to 60%. this is below that but just below that. it is just below that. now the people on the decision desk have to do the math. there were 135,000 outstanding votes before maricopa county reported this. now they do the math, figure out the universe that's still out there. kari lake needed 60%. 58% to 60% our team thought. she gets 57% in this one installment. in the maricopa county numbers, katie hobbs is still ahead. i want to come out to the statewide numbers. katie hobbs is still ahead. 20,481 votes. that jumped up when we were talking a short time ago. why? kari lake came out on top of this latest installment in maricopa county. we talked earlier. pique two installments tonight

hobbs on tomorrow, yuma county, cochise, apache county, hobbs on tomorrow. kari lake finally came out on top in the largest co-in the state in this one installment. is it enough? does it narrow the gap some? yes. but it's 20,481-vote lead. the challenge is trying to get an exact number on the universe still out there. kari lake has closed the gap with this installment. the question is, is that enough? this particular installment was a little shy. our team said she needs to be 58 to 60%. now the universe of votes shrinks, you rerun the math and we will know shortly. this is a comeback, if lu. she narrowed the gap. the question is, is it enough? remember in 2020 joe biden's lead shrunk and held at the end. is that happening again or do we have to wait for more votes? >> just it shows the map because

how far ahead is katie hobbs just in terms of sheer votes? >> 20,481 votes ahead. that was a bigger lead when we talked at the top of the hour. in the latest installment from maricopa county kari lake came out on top. that is what lake has been waiting for. throughout the day the results that have come in since the 7:00 hour in the east coast in yuma, twice in pima, once in cochise and once in apache, katie hobbs add today her lead with one, two, three, four are five installments. this one here, kari lake still trails overall in maricopa county. i know this can be confusing. kari lake still trails overall in maricopa county but in this latest installment of votes more votes than katie hobbs so she narrowed the gap some. again it's 20,481-vote lead and the universe of available votes to count is shrinking and shrinking quite considerably tonight. the question now is our decision desk is doing the math, are you

close enough to make a projection? do you want to wait for more votes? that is complicated math. improved news for kari lake. is it enough? >> i don't know if you know the answer, but how many votes are out there to be counted? it says what -- it says 97% of votes have been counted. >> estimated votes. they are almost done. she can come back in any time she is ready here. we woke up this morning with 140,000 votes still outstanding. when you looked at the yuma and the pima and cochise and apache votes, 130,000 votes. we got this universe out of maricopa county. you do the rough math on an envelope at home. then our team has to check with the counties and make sure that that number is right. we are at 140,000 to begin the day. we expect to be below 100,000 at the end of the night. we should be getting close. >> do you know? >> this is an estimate.

this is an estimate because there are provisional ballots and then they are going through the curing process. this is a moving target. but the latest number that we have from maricopa county is that there are an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 remaining ballots. john, i don't know if it's helpful to break down exactly what that is. but of the 5,000 to 15,000 remaining ballots, there are still 3,500 estimated election day ballots to be reported. 7,600 to cure. and there are a total of 7,885 provisional ballots. so that's where the moving target is. the provisional ballots. how much are they going to be able to get across the line to count as a vote, as an actual vote. what we are hearing now from the late -- we have a little reporting from inside the lake

campaign. a source we have been talking to for multiple days from the lake campaign is describing tonight. this release tonight as a massive disappointment. that's a quote. a massive disappointment. the election day drop-offs that we were relying on to be very republican leaning are just not breaking in our favor enough. the estimate from the source who is working within the lake campaign, the lake sphere, is that the lake team was anticipating receiving 66% of that batch. you have been hearing john talking about the math, what she needed in order to break in her favor. the math inside the campaign is that they were anticipating 66%. that's why you are hearing from at least we are hearing from our source within the campaign that this is a massive disappointment. anderson. >> we will continue to follow this in this hour and also in the next hour all through to

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moments ago, we got a new vote total from arizona's

biggest county. kari lake improved her vote total but still trails katie hobbs, depending on how many provisional ballots are counted. these votes total come as we look ahead to the former president's expected announcement that he's running again tomorrow. i want to play you what the former vice president said tonight about it. >> we do know that the former president could announce any day now that he's running for president yet again. given all that you witnessed in the capitol on that day, this is a pretty straightforward question, a yes or a no. do you believe that donald trump should ever be president again? >> david, i think that's up to the american people. but i think we'll have better choices in the future. the people of this country actually get along pretty well once you get out of politics. i think they want to see their national leaders start to

reflect that same -- that same compassion. >> perspective from john kasich, former republican governor of ohio, also served in the house. he's the author of "it's up to us." also van jones, cnn political commentator, former special adviser to president obama. what is your assertion there may be better choices for republicans in 2024. >> i don't know why he didn't just say no. why didn't he say no? i don't think he should be president. i can't figure that out. it's disappointing he doesn't say no. frankly, he should have said no from the beginning because, you know, donald trump has divided our country. and we see what his influence was in this last election. can't blame it just on him. we had a lot of republicans that really didn't have a message in terms of what they wanted to do. they spent their time just attacking joe biden. and, look, if you don't have an agenda and you can't get people excited, you're going to have a

problem. the good news is, anderson, out of that election, a lot of people who were extreme, they lost. and that's a positive. maybe we're getting back to some sense of normalcy in this country. >> van, i mean, it is interesting. one assumes if mike pence is running for president that he doesn't think donald trump should be president. but he's trying to be a decisive strong leader, it's -- i mean, is he just afraid of upsetting the former president? is he afraid of poking the bear or something? >> you know, i don't think so. you know, pence has got a different personality type. he tends to be a little bit more understated than all things. he's been very far right wing. he's never been a barn burner. i think honestly, this time tomorrow, you're going to see something that's pretty rare. you're going to see just a complete pi riranha attack on donald trump. if he announces tomorrow, the people who were worshipping at

his feet just a few weeks ago are going to be, i think, much more forceful than you heard from vice president pence today. pence saying it's a bad idea. and before the whole party i think was frozen by fear. i think the fear has broken up. i think you're going to hear a lot more criticism of donald trump tomorrow -- >> who do you think is going to be doing this? >> a lot of these elected officials who i think are emboldened. people frankly want more in the governor's wing of the party who have been a lot more muted. i think they're going to be less muted tomorrow. >> governor kasich, do you think that's true? >> look, here's the situation. donald trump controls a lot of the party apparatus. he's a county -- the state chairman. and, you know, they kind of have something at stake too. their state chairman today, they want to be state chairman tomorrow. they're sort of connected to trump. so, when the party apparatus is still clinging to somebody, it's pretty tough to break it. are we going to have people come out and be forceful? we've had some formal members say things.

frankly, i don't really understand why many of them don't say, no, we don't want them. i don't know what they're afraid of. anderson, it just seems to me that pence was asked this question. i agree with van, he's an understated guy. when somebody asks you after what happened on january 6th and after everything you observed and you're asked do you think donald trump should be president, and you say it's up to the american people, that's a dodge. he should have said no. that's what i would have said. i'm not him and he's not me. >> do you think someone like florida governor ron desantis, who had a strong showing this election cycle, compared to the former president could be one of those better choices? >> well, i think desantis is going to be a candidate. it appears a strong candidate. he's raised lots of money. he's probably going to raise lots of money. and i think he's going to end up running. but, you know, running for president ain't easy. you know, you've got to go to iowa. you've got to go to those fish fries. you've got go to new hampshire. and you've just got to get with the folks and you've fiat to connect with them and they've got to look you in the eye and

you've got to look them in the eye. it's a long way. desantis is going to get in this race. there will be more. pence will probably get in this race as well. frankly and ironically, the bigger the field is the better chance perhaps donald trump has to be able to pull this off. but he is not going to be president of the united states, van and anderson. i think if he's the nominee and he runs, he is not going to be president. people are not going to vote for him again. maybe that will be in his calculation, as he moves forward. but i don't believe it. i've been saying all along he was fading. he is fading. he could be the nominee, but he isn't going to win. >> van, it's interesting. history, candidates thought he's going to be a national candidate, but somebody who's never run for national office before. we have no idea of what sort of campaigner he is. >> yeah, look, right now i think he's the great hope for people who want to see the republican party move forward. he's sort of trumpism without trump, so that makes him an

interesting figure. the reality is people say he isn't as warm as you have to be in places like iowa to get the nomination. what i will say is that republicans just don't like party leaders who screw up midterm elections. i remember newt gingrich, the great titan and somebody who really reshaped the republican party, he was a dominant speaker. he screwed up in the 1998 midterms by getting fewer folks elected than he promised, and he was gone. i think something about this republican party, if you're the party leader and you don't have a great midterm performance, people start moving away. and i think you might actually see that happening now. i just think trump is weaker than he's ever been before, and i think tomorrow, you would expect people to rally for trump. i think you're going to see something quite different tomorrow. you're not going to see people rushing to the party. people standing back and criticizing. >> van jones, governor john kasich, i appreciate it, thank you. a programming note, cnn is going to host a town hall with