christine christine romans, thank you very much. >> i want you to watch this hilarious video from "inside the nba" last night. >> that was bad right there. that was bad! >> he was stuck in the tree. was that shaq? >> in fact, can we rerack? >> that was 7 foot tall shaq getting launched into a christmas tree. >> i think that has happened before. the shove sent him tumbling and leaving his feet sticking out. shaq joking that it was revenge. he was going to get his revenge. >> and now he jumped into the tree. >> why can't we do that on this show? >> you can.

>> all right. cnn "this morning" starts right now. here's my promise to you. i will walk with you, even as i work for you. because -- because here is what i've learned as a pastor. you can't lead the people unless you love the people. you can't love the people unless you know the people and you can't know the people unless you walk among the people. >> good morning, everyone. it is wednesday, december 7th. it is the morning after the election, the runoff. that was incumbent raphael warnock, closing out a bruising mid term cycle for republicans.

>> yeah. i'm kaitlan collins, live in atlanta. it may only be one more senate seat, the democrats will have a 51-49 edge and a buffer against moderates in their party who blocked key legislation over the past two years. >> walker becoming the latest trump backed and crucial candidate. walk are struck a pos tough tone in his speech last night. >> i'm not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight. that's what we got to do because this is much bigger than herschel walker. you talk about all the athletic

awards, business awards that i've won but the best thing i've ever done in my whole entire life is run for this senate seat right here. >> you can say democrats really defining history by actually gaining a seat in the senate during the mid term. mr. john berman live at the wall. >> i read that it's the first time since the 1930s a sitting presidential party has defended every senate seat in election. so history is -- defying history. you can see raphael warnock with a 95,000 vote edge, one month ago he led by 37,000. he expanded that growth. how? one thing we haven't talked about is the black vote. you had two african-american candidates here obviously. warnock was kdecisive in his victory. the areas with the darker colors

have the denser black population there. i'm going to circle them. you have this area right here, this area around augusta and this area right here. i put up the part i season map, you can see blue. they voted largely for the democratic candidate raphael warnock. this is where he ran up the margins. fulton county, the most populous county in georgia, 279,000 votes, he won by more than 200,000 votes in this krounty so mobilizing the black vote was key to that victory. one other thing we talked about is republican troubles in the suburbs, how they've been losing the suburbs in terms of the vote. mitt romney won this county by

12 points. is have reversible? we see a 19-point margin. plus 1 for the democrats. bad plus sign. plus 19 for the democrats. look at the gubernatorial race. brian kemp, who was re-elected as a republican governor, he only lost cobb county by four points. that's a huge difference from 19 points. he lost by some, what, 14,000 votes while in this senate runoff. walker lost by 53,000 votes. it's just a very big difference. republicans may not be able to win cobb county but they could lose by much smaller margins. the difference seems tock the candidate chase. i i it's easy to say republicans nominate better candidates. maybe. you remember pennsylvania.

woo do we don't have to think that long ago to mehmet oz who went on to lose that handily. if democrats aren't picking candidate who can appeal to a broader base, they're in trouble. >> we'll let john berman work on those plus signs. let's bring in jeff zeleny and eva mckent. we listened to a little bit of walker's concession speech earlier but something he said about the constitution stuck out to you. i want to play that moment. >> one of the things i want to tell all of you is you never stop dreaming. i don't want any of you to stop dreaming, i don't want any of you to stop believing in

america. i want you to believe in america and in the constitution and believe in our elected officials most of all and continue to pray for them because all the prayers you've given me, i felt those prayers. >> reporter: he said believe in the constitution. trump is under fire for what he said about terminating the constitution. >> he also said believe in our public officials, believe in the country. it was really striking to hear those words last night and it seemed to us it was off the cuff. he is not known for giving long speechers or having speech writers, i say. he was urging people to follow their dreams and believe in really institutions. there was no a whiff of election denialism. i thought it was pretty gracious for him tho do that after really

suffering a humiliation in a respect by losing by 95,000 votes, almost three time as many as the november race. >> he did talk about having to file for an extra day of voting. he talked about what that meant. >> state officials said we couldn't vote on saturday. but we sued them and we won. [ cheers and applause ] >> each of us has value. and if we have value, we ought to have a voice. and the way to have a voice is to have a vote. >> reporter: clearly that extra day meant a lot to his campaign. >> if did, caitlin. i wonder if saturday voting is going to be one of the key

ingredients to that democratic success last night. i was on the ground during that day of saturday voting and it was just a hugely gaffe vannizing issue for the democratic base. yes, they won in a practical sense, you had these college students showing up in droves to vote for senator warn okay but it reignited the debate oaf voter access and you prgs that is a deep issue for voters. this put voting rights front and center once again and i think that was hugely helpful to the warnock campaign. >> and he took advantage of what that new new looked like. the walker campaign seemed more focused on getting people out voting yesterday. there was a lot of reflection of what he was luke as a candidate overall and he still got 1.7

million votes. i was struck by this quote, this is an adviser that ran against walker in the primary. he said that herschel was like a plane wreck. >> look at all the controversies just month after month. it's almost remarkable that he got as close as he did because of that. as we have heard and have talked about for months, senator mitch mcconnell talked about the quality of candidates. he simply was not as qualified as warnock. walker never really made the case for why he should be the u.s. senator from here in georgia but it was an historic race. we didn't even lean into the

history for much of it. he seldom talked about that. >> and as for walker, he still had his supporters. republicans are still trying to figure out what type of candidate they want to run but there was definitely a mood shift from the general election to the runoff. i will say this, though. i think that republicans i think you can't run i think a walker in georgia. senator warnock's campaign both relied on liberal voters as well as moderates and independents. i don't know if this sort of a walker kpd, this hugely dynamic figure could maybe perhaps work in another state but it just did not seem right for the state of georgia. >> absolutely not. jeff, haveva are thank you for r reporting on the ground this week. >> we want to play some of the sound in the interview you did

yesterday with this republican who struggled in his vote. >> reporter: was it difficult for you to vote for herschel walker? >> yes. i have to look at the ladies in my family and say i voted for walker. >> reporter: what did they think? >> he shook their heads but they respected my decision. >> joining us now, republican lieutenant governor of georgia, the state everyone is talking about this morning, jeff duncan, cnn chief political analyst gloria borger. that person made a difficult choice as a republican but ultimately was saying the republican vote is what's most

important to me. what did you do in terms of voting? >> i talked about this for a w week here. i knew what i was going to do when i got in line. i got my card and i walked out without voting for either one of them. >> what does that say about your party, many of them getting behind walker? so governor kemp, despite all of it getting hyped him? >> the race was 2.8 points. right now a huge part of that is because bonnie kemp did offer his brand. it's a huge set of light on the issue. 10.37 points is really the separation of victory. brian kemp won and what walker lost by, they should have run a parallel commonwealth pain. we got a lot of work in front of

us. >> john berman brought up the vote that he believes that the numbers show helped warnock and that is in largely populated urban areas african-american vote. the african-americans in georgia got behind this, despite what they say, suppressive tactics and all of these things, you cannot underscore how important that was to warn okay's win and would not have happened without that. >> the black community sport of the senator was critical. by the way, there was voter suppression. we saw a recent example of that by an attempt by public officials in georgia to cancel early voting on saturday and every court to consider the matter rejected it. that early vote is important. it's why the senator emphasized it and blackfolks in figure were inspired by the senator's candidacy. but it was a multiracial

coalition and as an african-american, i share the view of many african-american people when i was stumping myself, people were offended by herschel walker's candidacy. national republicans chose him because they thought his race would make him competitive with blackvoters. what we heard last night from black voters is they would in the be patronized. >> this may be the own thing that you two agree with. >> i don't think it was a national push for pum him. >> and picked. >> let get gloria in here. >> exit polling during the election showed over 90% of black voters supported warnock. when do you ever see numbers like that? to your point, yes, that's accurate.

and that leads to another point about stuffing candidates down people's throats and that's a question about donald trump, it's a question about candidates who were more celebrity than qualified and i think herschel walker fits into that category and voters we saw in this runoff and throughout this entire election season desighed they are going to look at candidates, look at their character, their qualifications and they were going to vote on the candidates. that's why we saw ticket splitting here. >> we saw the ticket splitting in the voter panel. >> we saw it all over the country. >> to your point, gloria, about the black vote, right, and voting on candidate quality, i think, you know, republicans and maybe you can say this just

donald trump who wanted to put hirshel walker in there but republicans still supported him. what is the lesson for the republicans? they underestimated how against herschel walker that many in georgia would be. many people that they spoke to said reproduct uf rates was on the balt last night. >> and it was a large issue. i think the lesson for vaebs get they've been defined now many years by donald trump and they have to figure out who -- what the party represents, pick your own candidates and get younger voters if you can. get minority voters if you can. but figure out what you stand for because right now i think given the result in georgia, people are probably scratching their head saying what is this

party? we're heading into a new congress, you're going to have republicans in charge of the house, democrats in charge of the senate. what do republicans want to do to define themselves beyond investigations? >> so let's let the lieutenant governor, the republican here. >> i want you to respond but let me just put this out. this is the former speaker of the house newt gingrich. he says conservatives' hostility to the biden administration on our term tends to blind us to just how effective biden has been on husband terms. we dislike biden so much, we heavily focus on his speaking ability, clear lapses of memory and other personal flaws. our adergs to had makes us doubt him and the democrats. >> they attacked biden for all

his superfluous issues that are shallow. we have to coalesce around the fact that we want to win the white house in 2024. we have to get behind a candidate someone who legitimately prepared to use empathy on the other side and i'm still looking for somebody who wants to step up. >> those are two word i don't hear a lot in pop tux, empathy and i mean, we've had years of grievance politics. >> yeah. >> and what we heard last night from both walk are and warnock were speeches that were not full of grievance.

and warnock's speech was i see you. that's what people want to hear. maybe they're done with grievance politics. but we'll have to see how that plays out. >> thank you. it good to see all of you. really appreciate it. >> coming up, capping off a rough first month of trump's 2024 campaign. how does he move forward from here? we're going to talk to maggie haberman. that's next. he's not getting the spotlight. >> trump's announcement was a complete dud. the all-electric 2023 chevy bolt euv.. 247 miles of range on a full charge. america's most affordable ev. evs for everyone, everywhere.

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voya. be confident to and through retirement. welcome back. let set the table. for former trump is only three weeks into his presidential cam ppaig. house democrats obtained six years of his federal tax returns. a day later an appeals court, the 11th circuit, denied him a special master review of those documents seized at his mar-a-lago home and that same day a federal judge ordered top white house lawyers to testify in a criminal grand jury investigation into the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

that brings us to this weekend when trump took an oath to defend the constitution. remember when he did that becoming president? this weekend he called to terminate the constitution and then this week a jury convicted his organization, the trump org on 17 counts, all counts of criminal tax fraud. >> let bring in political analyst and senior correspondent maggie haberman. good to see you this morning. i got to ask you about last ni night. it was another blow for a trump-backed candidate. this is another loss for him and a big obvious one. >> don, it's been a bad mid-term cycle for him. herschel walker is one of the people who he treated as almost a minuty donald trump, somebody who had a history of personal misconduct allegations,

specifically abuse. trump predicted to me when i interviewed him last year that none of this was going to matter for herb l walker. that obviously wasn't true. basically voters in the mid terms returned a vurd they don't want a lot of. is still the front-runner of the nomination. voters are actively turning away from him in his base but it's not an as you suspicious beginning to his campaign, that's for sure. >> some are saying his announcement was basically a dud considering he's the former president of the united states and the sort of stranglehold he has had on this party. listen, i think david urban said he still believes he's going to be the nominee but there are many republicans who are saying -- scott jennings said.

the lutent governor of georgia now saying i don't think he's going to be the nominee. his announcement was a dud. >> his kickoff speech was pretty muted and for somebody who once upon a time used this line about jeb bush, i dare stay low energy, because he was reading off the teleprompter and not talking about things he wants to talk about, which is still the 2020 election. that's not what most republicans are focused on. i think two things can be true at once. dave is correct that trump remains the front-runner of the nomination until voters show they're seeking an alternative and it's not just donors but trump is more vulnerable than he has been in a very long time. we'll see how that plays out. >> dig into that a little bit maggie. i said until voters show. do you mean only in a republican primary or are you looking for things before that from voters? >> i mean in polling, poppy,

until we get -- we're not going to see anything in terms of voters for a year. we're not going to know what happens in caucuses or primaries. we don't actually know what the calendars are going to look like but we're not going to know where voters' choices are for a while. we do know these early polls before other candidates in a primary race are not that meaningful. until we see whether when he actually is out on the campaign trail, which i assume will happen at some point early next year, whether ron desantis does run, mike pence, does he run, mike pom peo does he run. >> we just had bragg who won that case against trump on all 17 counts of tax fraud. does it mean criminal charges, hush money investigation, what does it do? what do you think happens now to the trump organization?

>> i don't think this is good for the trump organization. i think it raised questions among other things probably about what new business they're going to be able to attract, although to be fair it's not as if partners they might have been engaging with that there was this whiff of corruption around him. i think it's going to make things very hard. how long do they stay a new york company? do they try to relocate to florida? this was the company that was the launchpad for donald trump. it helped him establish himself as a business man and create this high around himself that was not not always reality. this is a huge, huge blow, even though he's not charged personally here. >> maggie haberman, thank you very much. appreciate it. coming up, the family of a fallen officer snubbing top

republicans at a ceremony held to honor law enforcement who defended the capitol on january 6th. we're going to ask those family members why they did it. that's ahead. >> georgia eaves runoff election setting a pandemic record in terms of who came out to vote and daily bults cast suns the pandemic started. kaitlan will be jound by georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger is next. >> you got me for six more years. >> six more years! and save on everything. only at kay. the face of millions of germs zapped in seconds. the face of clean. the face of whoa. some are of intensity, others, joy. all are of - ahhhh. listerine. feel the whoa! if you still have symptoms of moderate

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good morning. i'm kaitlan collins. just to be clear, the voting figure doesn't include those who cast their ballots during the days of recall voting. senator warnock said he thinks

works still needs to be done to stop what he called the suppression of voters. >> just because people endured long lines that wrapped around buildings, some blocks long, just because they endured the rain and the cold and all kinds of tricks in order to vote doesn't mean that voter suppression does not exist. it simply means that you, the people, have decided that your voices will not be silenced. >> joining us this morning is georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger. furst i'd like you to respond to what senator warnock told his supporters last night. >> there's no truth to voter suppression. yesterday we had 1.6 million vo up who showed out to vote. that's the largest turnout we've

ever had for a mid-term election. yesterday the average wait time was about two minutes. the longest wait times were 12 to 14 minutes. we had a few county, one precinct with 30 minutes, things like that. people were moving through even though we had 1.6 million people show up. it was easy to vote. we can't stop the iran. -- rain. >> and what does the recount look like? >> we'll do a sample size to get at least a 90% risk limit audit and we did a 95% back in the fall race just to make sure the machines accurately recorded all those votes. it's something everyone is doing in the states. they're giving voters confidence in the process. >> we've seen many recounts happen before. when it comes to early voting and the impact that had on this

race, is it time for republicans to do more to embrace early voting here in georgia? >> i know when i'm on the ballot, i make sure my team, we're working hard on the ballot process, early voting and then also election day. it's all three areas. we want people to vote. and in georgia as secretary of state, i make sure it's easy to vote. we have photo i.d. for absentee voting. you can accurately identify who the voters are. >> if herschel walker had done more than that, do you think he would have fared better last night? >> honestly as republicans, if we want to do soul searching, we have to win back the suburbs. we're really strong in the rural area, farming communities, hard working people like that but people work hard in the suburbs, too. we immediate to win back. >>. we need to continue working on that. >> what changed there? >> i don't know.

i guess bit by bit in the last several years we haven't focused on it and it's the ground game. there's a lot of really good consultants that know what to do. i think they need a seat at the table. >> the duration of this runoff was closer to nine weeks, now it's four weeks. what does the future runoff elections in georgia -- do there need to be conversations about changing those and eliminating them, do you think? >> we wasn't to a four-week voting. we used to have only four-week runoffs for federal and state. for federal runoffs, they said you need to have four weeks. if we keep the runoff as it is is make sure that the counties have additional precincts open so we keep those lines short. also people want to look at can you have an instant runoff

system or go back to a plurality with with years gone by. i think the general assembly will look at several difference options, what's the best path forward. >> something that president biden is pushing for is changing the way democrats have their presidential process part of that is he wants to move georgia up earlier. is that something you would accept? >> i like the idea that georgia is moving up in the rankings. we continue to grow in pop lags and that increases our importance and significance. we need buy-in from both sides of the aisle and both political parties. we can't do anything unilaterally. whatever we do is going to be based on what is in state law. that's really working with the general assembly. you're going to have to talk to both sides of the aisle and both political parties. >> so as a stands now you would

not change the day -- >> i don't have the authority to change that. if you're going to have something like that, i think that then both parties at the national level are going to have to talk to each other and work that three the johnson asem ble. >> you were one of the first witnesses to testify into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. do you now believe a law was broken in that infamous hour-long phone call you had with form are president trump? >> i always like to tell people i'm an engineer and i like to stick into facts and details and i'll let the lawyer decide on things like that. i just get people the information. here's the conversation we had. in fact, anyone can listen to it. it still probably out there on the web. you have an hour and ten minutes listen to it. you can decide what was said and not said. >> due expect indictments in that case potentially in. >> they don't tell us what they're going to do. it's a secret grand jury.

so when it happens, i'll probably be finding out just the same time you do. >> secretary raffensperger, thank you for your time this morning. >> thank you. >> we are learning of a major discovery. the power substations in north carolina that were attacked over the weekend. stand by for the latest on that. ...years faster than our initial projections. when you see things differently, you can be the difference. capella university sees education differently our flexpath learning format lets you earn your bachelor's degree at your pace.

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and the number is 360 million. that's our number this morning. the yankees re-signing aaron judge to a nine had much year denine-year deal. harry, what's the deal? >> 40 million. >> how can he survive on that? >> maybe i'm going to hit his house with a tin can and try to get some money from him. 40 million a year. it's no surprise i do not like the new york yankees. aaron judge is an amazing ball player. i can admire him for his wonderful play on the field hitting 62 home runs this past year, breaking an american league record that stood for over 60 years. this is not good news for me but it just shows that aaron judge took a chance. he could have signed a longer contract going into last year,

he decided i'm going to play out my contract year and hit 62 home runs and now he has been rewarded. >> $360 million. hey, look, i ain't mad at him. more power to him. >> the owners make a lot of money. the players should make a lot of money, too. he carried the yankees on his back last season. >> teachers should make $360 million, too. and there's that. >> coming up in an interview you will want to see, we are really glad we're going to be joined by the family of fallen officers brian sicknik. we'll talk to them about that and their beloved son and brother ahead. gena® hydro boost lightweight. clininically proven. 48-hour hydration. for that healthy s skin glow. neutrogena®. for people with h skin. ♪ nobody cacan tell ya ♪

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morning. the family of brian sitnick refusing to shake hands with mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy at a ceremony honoring law enforcement officers at the capital. joining us now are his family members who loved him so very much. you saw them in the video, his mother gladys and brothers ken and greg. good morning. >> good morning. >> we'll get to that and what happened. mother to mother, tell everyone about brian. >> brian was very, very quiet. he had a sense of humor that i didn't know about until -- there's two officers that are liaisons between the capital

police and us. they take us down there and bring us home. the story they tell about him was amazing. he was a very quiet kid. never wanted to join anything. i put him in t-ball, ten minutes. he just didn't want to join anything. then he joined the international guard. he found his way and he was doing what was right for the country. >> what did it mean for him to do that? >> he was just -- he just felt this -- he was defending the constitution, which should be done. >> mom, i'm so glad you're here. glad all of you are here. i want to talk to you about why you did what you did. when asked yesterday about why you didn't shake the hands of mccarthy and mcconnell, you said they're two faced. you said you're tired of them saying how wonderful the capital police is and turn around and go down to mar-a-lago and kiss his

ring and come back and sit with -- it just hurts, you said. you told me earlier in the break that you were looking for -- you guys were trying to figure out what to say. you said maybe a better way to say something is not to say anything at all. >> that's what we were -- we were talking about saying something. then we said, no, the best way is to just ignore them. we had no idea it was going to blow up like this. we really didn't. i'm glad it did because i think it made them think about what they do. just sitting in the senators' officers and looking at the pictures of their families behind them and thinking, what do they do when they go home? what do they say to their children and grandchildren when they go home? what kind of country is this going to be? >> it took courage to do that. was it tough to do? >> honestly after what we've

been through over the last two years, no. i don't hold respect for people who have no integrity. this is not a partisan issue. it's an integrity issue. they took an oath to uphold the constitution. when somebody challenges it like trump, they do nothing. their silence is deafening. or worse they perpetrate the same policies and lies that caused the insurrection to happen. >> i think it was an abc interview recently with mitch mcconnell and he just -- he was asked four or five times in a row specifically will you support donald trump? he refused -- everything was wishy washy. he refused to say i don't support him. well, you know, this or that, but never i'm against tribalism.

i'm against you're on my team or your on this team. when somebody is going to be the most powerful person in the world and says we'll push the constitution aside or i'm going to rip it up, how do you support -- how do you even say -- that's a no brainer. it's a no, i'm not going to support them. >> let's take a moment to listen -- mccarthy went to mar-a-lago to sort of kiss the ring. mcconnell has not. he has been critical of trump, but you're right he hasn't answer the question when pushed. he also ahasn't talked to trump. let's listen to what mcconnell said when he was asked about this moment. here it was. >> i would respond by saying today we gave the gold medal to the heros of january 6th. we admire and respect them. they laid their lives on the

line. that's why we gave a gold medal today to the heros of january 6th. >> do you have a message for him this morning, or either of them this morning? >> i just don't know how they can stand there and talk to the press, talk to the cameras and say what they do knowing what they've done in the past. do they think people don't pay attention? apparently a lot don't pay attention, but -- i don't know if they lost children in a insurrection like this, i wonder what they would do. >> the people who were there fighting also received awards. michael fanone received an award. he said he was heckled by members of his own police department who called him derogatory terms and he said it's tough for him to deal with. what do you think of that, members of his own department? >> i had no idea that happened

until on the way home from d.c. yesterday. i had no idea. i think it's awful. i mean, he put his life on the line. he didn't have to do that. >> he almost met the same fate as brian. >> he almost died. he wasn't asked to go to the capital. he put on his uniform and went. >> you brought up the constitution. it was this weekend that the former president, donald trump, called to terminate. >> you mentioned the constitution as well. >> because brian can't be here to say what he went to work for every day, which was to defend it with everything he had, what do you think he would say? >> i mean -- >> about this moment in america. >> he would have been appalled. you know, it's -- we have 200 plus year history of -- we have bad moments, of course, through history. we've gotten through many of them, but now we seem to be going through more.

how do you go through that? every election looks like it's going to be challenged. what's the reason for it? i understand if there's an election that might be close. do a recount. two years later after every contested election was looked at and they found little to no fraud or abuse of the system, yet everything perpetrates. that's not our system. >> honestly, i don't know if i can speak for brian. his opinion was different before he died. he was a staunch supporter, but, you know, to have -- to incite americans to attack other americans, it's mind boggling. >> talking to these police officers, people don't realize how bad it was in the capital and what these people left in

their -- what they did to the capital, they're still cleaning it up. >> we're so glad you all can be here. i can't imagine what you're dealing with. i know you said it's day to day. >> talking about the constitution and mcconnell, they took the same oath to defend the constitution. they're not doing that. >> there's no loss like the loss of a child. i'm so sorry for all of you, but very grateful for you to come and remind people what a remarkable man he was. >> yeah, he was different. >> thank you so much for being here. >> thank you for having us. >> our thanks to all of you for watching. we'll see you back here tomorrow morning. "cnn newsroom" is now. ♪ good wednesday morning to