this is cnn breaking news. the most high-profile criminal target in the world, donald trump says he's now received a letter from the special counsel in anticipation of an indictment in the future and marks another time the president will make history of the wrong kind. i'm anderson cooper in new york. you're watching cnn's live coverage, donald trump in legal peril. >> i'm dana bash in washington. the justice department goes on record and informs donald trump he is a criminal target. the case this time is the sprawling investigation into january 6th. the special counsel has examined question after question whether the former president knew he lost the election. his pressure campaign on his vice president, mike pence, the fake elector scheme, chaotic oval office meeting we've seen in recent weeks witness after witness go and testify in front of a federal grand jury right here in washington. there's no reasonable argument mr. trump can make saying he doesn't know these people.

they are his people. his chief of staff, his vice president, his white house counsel, his son-in-law, and it goes on and on. we're going to start with kait katelyn polantz. what are you hearing? >> right now it is all hands on deck reacting to the situation where donald trump is announcing on social media that he received a target letter on sunday from the justice department telling him, signaling that an indictment is very near, he is likely to be indicted by the special counsel's office for the second time in a different case related to january 6th and that sweeping investigation nthat th someone has done under the justice department's per view looking at what happened after the 2020 election, all of the various aspects of that pressure campaign and the attempt for donald trump to hold on to power while he was president and outgoing from the white house. but this target letter, it is showing that grand jury not only has been focused on him, but is

willing to hear from him if he so chooses to go in and testify to them on his own behalf. if he wants to do that to try to convince them not indict him, it's a secret proceeding. right now we don't expect trump to go in and speak to the grand jury, but the justice department sending him this letter is one of the last things that would happen in a situation i can this where the justice department, the grand jury, has been looking at a possible charge. of course on the special counsel side, that's the justice department, and its appointee jack smith. jack smith is tight lipped. he was spotted today by cnn going to subway for lunch, picking up a sandwich, leaving and not saying a word. no comment from the special counsel's office on whether they plan to indict donald trump and when that is potentially going to happen it for the second time for a federal case. but we do know that grand jury is in today in washington over at the courthouse. they are very likely to return potentially on thursday that day that trump is indicted or he said he's invited to speak to

them and on the trump side of things, he's been meeting with advisors and they've been scrambling to figure out has anyone else received a target letter and how much of a significant amount of trouble could he be in with this case. dana. >> those are questions we don't know the answer to. thank you so much for that reporting, catelin. the panel is back with me. john, it's important, i think, because people are now drinking from a firehose of donald trump's legal issues, to separate this out from the others and this is about january 6th. this is about the run up to january 6th, his involvement in trying to undermine democracy. as we talked about before, there has been a very open question about whether or not the people around him were going to -- that the -- any indictment was going to be limited to the people around him or whether they actually felt that there were criminal charges to bring against the former president

himself from effectively undermining democracy, at least trying to undermine democracy. >> right. if, as anticipated, now that former president has received this target letter, we get an indictment as we did after he got the target letter in the classified documents case, we will see the case jack smith trying to make. you make a point this is about a sitting president of the united states trying to steal an election, trying to stay in power after he knew he lost. we will see the particulars, what criminal charges they can make from that, but this is about a conspiracy led by the president of the united states and now an active candidacy to get that job back to subvert the most fundamental principle of why we are all here, the american democracy. he lost. he asked for recounts. he sued. he lost. more than 70 court cases, half dozen states they appealed and recounted and recounted again. he lost. and then he tried to stay in power. i'll leave it to the smart lawyers and investigators about the criminality, what cases you can charge there. he did that in front over public eyes. had his people saying things in

public that were not true. he brought people together, all the way up from before the election, that's the interesting part to me, i'm fascinated to see what special counsel brings forward. understandably you focus on january 6th because of the violence that day and played out again, an attempted coup before our eyes, but the case they are trying to make if you listen to the witnesses in the weeks after is that this all actually started before the election where they said if we lose we are going to say we won. and so it's really interesting to see how big of a case does jack smith want to bring. one last point, jack smith, remember when the classified documents target letter, when trump announced that, a lot of commentary, jack smith making a mistake, leaving this to donald trump and then they released the indictment and said wow. we read it and saw the documentation and the level of detail. jack smith going to subway today is a message to donald trump. donald trump trying to intimidate and bully people and scare you away. that was jack smith with no words and a $5 sub in his hand

saying i'm not going anywhere. >> the imagery was intentional and spoke volumes. >> you think about a leg up that jack smith has over prosecutors, one being you have the judge saying it's likely there was a crime that occurred between john eastman particularly and donald trump. you had a congressional members who were pursuing an indictment following the insurrection who gave a look at potential charges you might want to look at and handed over documents to them. you have people who realize it's one thing to have congress knocking at my door, i'm not really fearful of going to prison if congress, who has never been able to in recent times have a successful contempt that people have had in the past, now it's jack smith and the weight of the federal government knocking at my door. the list of people who have testified in front of the grand jury from giuliani, to mark meadows, kushner and beyond, tell a tale of what they knew when. the big question will be, going from here, how will this

compete, if at all, with the other pending cases? i have to tell you, most judges are going to look at a case in their own jurisdiction and worry, maybe about what anyone thinks. if jack smith is bringing case, we don't know where he might file the charges. there are a number of possibilities, washington, d.c., one, arizona, could be a possibility, of course, georgia could be a possibility. if you're talking about rico, that talks about the notion of using the interstate avenues and availability to do that. everything is fair game right now. >> what charges do you see? >> well, now, to be clear there are about 5,200 crimes in the united states and who knows what could be out there. something that's important to note along those lines, dana, is that as early as i think june 2020, the former president at least started making statements on the campaign trail about there's no way i could possibly lose this election.

there is fraud if i lost this election. there are going to be conversations going back to that point, if not before, a year -- almost close to a year, prior to january. a bunch of conspiracy, conspiracies to defraud the united states, conspiracy to obstruct, where there's a proceeding in congress and someone tries to get in the way of it and form an agreement. obstruction of an official proceeding, not just a congressional hearing. all these things where someone is working with other people to get in the way of actions of the government. they're all on the table and could happen. >> this target letter, according to donald trump, went out on sunday night. in today's "new york times" our colleague maggie haberman and her colleagues over there, wrote a story with clearly the help of people who support donald trump, they were on the record, about what he intends to do if he's president with the federal government, in particular, the executivbranch, and it sounded extremelauthoritarian. here's part of it. trump intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil

servants making it easier replace them if they are deemed obstacles to h agenda and plans to scour the agencies, state department and defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as a sick political class that hates our country. i want to talk about the substance of this with you in a second but the politics of what he's trying to do here. >> this is no surprise, if you, like me, covered the trump administration, knowing some of the individuals who were named in this piece, johnny mcentee, the head of his personnel in the white house, folks who left the trump orbit, gone too these outside advocacy groups. they've been advocating in this congress right now and planning for the next time around when they can execute plan that as the story states explicitly, relies on dismantling the federal government, and at the core of this, the part of this that trump is the most interested in and we know this

because he said so, is the part about the justice department. since the post nixon years, the justice department has been an enindependent entities, pursuing prosecutions without political fear or favor. that's supposed to be how it is. trump has said, these folks are coming up with a plan, they want to change that. this is a very important story because, i see it two ways -- one, it's a sign of yes, what trump and people around him want to do. i see it as something directed at ron desantis. desantis' argument has been i'm more organized, i'm more serious, i can get this dismantle the administrative state and get that done and trump didn't do it when he was president. i see this as an attempt to get right at that argument. >> i think you're right. one of his arguments has been that i can serve for eight years, that i don't -- you know, it will take that long to get it done and trump said we don't have eight years to do this.

now he knows how the federal government works and the people around him know. you mentioned johnny mcentee. we covered the trump administration the first term, he was the central person. a lot of what this story is is finishing unfinished business, what they tried to do, couldn't quite do, and this is a road map. once again, with donald trump, he often says things out loud. this is what he's campaigning on. that's why all of this matters. that's high this is a central part of this republican primary campaign, that's why the burden for all these rivals trying defeat him, who disagree with this, so we'll have to raise this or not. this is what voters are weighing. this isn't an academic exercise here. this is all happening in real time and he's applying for his old job back. >> put into perspective what he's talking about and how, frankly, it applies to what we're seeing potentially today? he is talking about if he becomes president again, he will take control of a lot of

agencies, the justice department is clearly one of them. >> yeah. so the contrast couldn't be more raw and relevant, right. what he is proposing with this theory or this plan, however you want to characterize it f he's re-elected, is very simply the elevation of the presidency above the law. for the first time in this country, we will have a president who cannot be held accountable, who does not respond to any sort of oversight, and who does so by populating the institutions of government with sick ka fins and people who are politically beholden to the president, rather than dedicated to the constitution and the rule of law. that should be terrifying to every american, despite what political side you find yourself on. this is not something that will simply provide donald trump with an enormous degree of protection from the crimes he's been accused of, but will apply to

every person who holds that position for the remainder of our republic. so this is unbelievably serious. it kind of slides under the radar with the news. >> one quick -- >> one quick point, touching off of that, we sometimes kind of beat around the bush about this stuff when it comes to trump. we don't have to in this case. trump has said explicitly with his own words a few weeks ago f he's elected president he will direct the justice department to go after his political enemies. president biden. he said that and this is the road map that you just described about how he is going to do that. >> we're going to get to you in the next segment. i got to go over to anderson in new york. >> thanks. the breaking news continues. just ahead, how trump world is reacting to the target letter against the former president. more of our special coverage right after this break.

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donald trump a target of another criminal investigation. we're following how the former president is dealing with his growing legal jeopardy. word of an urgent effort to figure out if anyone else has received a target letter? >> that's right. as soon as they got the target letter they started making calls to lawyers, allies, anyone involved in the january 6th investigation, who might have an answer as to who f anyone else, got a target letter. i am told as of now, they have not identified anyone else who got a target letter, but of course, they are still making the calls. the reason that they are doing this, it's going to give them some sort of insight into what the he would is against donald trump and what a trial or charges might look like against the former president. part of this is because some members of his team were surprised at the timing of the target letter. now they have long anticipated that he was going to be indicted several more times, but they were looking at a timeline for january 6th in terms of target letter and the movement there, being in the fall, not being right now. i had been talking to one lawyer

who thought things had cooled off in that investigation. a lot of calls going on right now trying to figure out exactly what this is going to look like, the timing on all of this, and we do expect to hear from former president donald trump tonight. he is on the campaign trail. a reminder he is, again, running for president. he will be in iowa doing a town hall. we'll be watching that very closely to see what he says about this. >> all right. appreciate it. joining me in new york, jamie gangel, van jones, elie honig, former governor duncan and elissa far griffin. elie, on the target letter, would they send them out to anybody who was going to get one at the same time? >> you should. yeah. it's good practice if you intend to indict a bunch of people together, you should notify them with a target letter all at once. one of the questions who else, if anyone else, has received these target letters. to be clear, doj does not have to send out target letters, but they often do. we know jack smith does because he did before the mar-a-lago indictments and once you get a target letter, you are a very likely -- >> the purpose of the target

letter is to inform the defendant about what's to happen and give them an opportunity to testify before the grand jury. >> or if the lawyers want to make any other pitch. as far as we know right now, donald trump is the only target letter we know of, and prosecutors have a lot of discretion in how they shape their indictments. who do you charge in which indictment and do you roll them one after another or all at once? it could that be they just want one big indictment to focus on trump, to mip mize the distractions and paperwork that will go with it and other people, perhaps, who will be referred to as co-conspirators or perhaps indicted separately or later. >> you're just joining us, what stands out to you today? >> looking at the politics of this, it's stunning that we're now talking about a potential third indictment, second federal of the former president who remains the republican frontrunner. i just -- as somebody who spoke out the day after january 6th and has continued to since, i can't imagine how different the political landscape would look right now if republicans stayed the course, after january 6th,

with what they were saying. nikki haley condemning him at the rnc winter meeting, nearly every republican member saying we need to turn the page. he is pulling ahead of anyone despite these investigations going and i don't know that anyone can bank on the idea of him being in prison, keeping him from winning the nomination. >> geoff duncan, you wish they had stayed the course as well. >> absolutely. i think it would certainly have our party in a totally different position than it is today. january 6th is the headline on all of this target letters and indictments that are out there, but this is a process that led up to january 6th and i think that's what's going to continue to unpack. i think we're just missing an easy opportunity to beat the least popular president, sitting president, in maybe u.s. history in joe biden. we continue to miss it and miss it. i hope we course correct and get to a posiivot point to where fo wake up and say we're going to move forward.

>> jamie, you're hearing from republicans. >> we got statement from former appellate court judge michael l ludig who became well known for testifying for the january 6th committee, he played a critical role in advising former vice president mike pence he could not delay congress. let's just remember before i read this statement, he is one of the most conservative republicans out there, and he says, there is not an attorney general or special counsel of either party who would not bring charges against the former president for his efforts on january 6th to overturn the 2020 presidential election. he goes on, he, meaning trump, has dared, taunted, provoked and goaded doj to prosecute him for his offenses on and relating january 6th for 2 1/2 years. the former president has left jack sth no choice but to bring charges, less the former president make a mockery of the

constitution of the united states and the rule of law. i spoke to him a few minutes ago. he expects an indictment within days. he does not think trump is going go in front of the grand jury. >> and yet, so many republicans are not echoing that. so many republicans are standing by the former president. >> no question, as, you know, we just heard, whether they are scared of donald trump or whether they want his base to get elected, his numbers seem to be going up every time he gets indicted. >> we need more of that. that's what you would expect. if you honestly four years ago, five years ago, woke up, and it turned out there was somebody who clearly on national television was allowing an insurrection to happen, didn't do anything about it, and this person was now being charged by the department of justice, you would say, thank goodness. thank goodness rule of law applies to everyone. thank goodness somebody is listening to the facts here.

instead you hear this appalling silence and people coming out trying to excuse the inexcusable. we need more of that. >> look at how trump is talking about january 6th even. he's saying that trump made a mockery of the constitution with those efforts and what he did that day. trump still talks about january 6th all the time, when he's at these campaign trail stops, throughout, he essentially is reframing it. he calls the people who were there that day breaking into the capitol patriots. you have not seen the rest of the 2024 field come out. a high school student in new hampshire asked ron desantis about his thoughts on january 6th recently, and his first response was, i wasn't anywhere near washington that day. as chris christie said, was he alive that day? did he have a tv and watching? everyone saw what was happening. i do think it's a sign, trump hasn't veered away from talking about this. he's talking about pardoning the people convicted for crimes related to january 6th. >> didn't he make an album with -- >> he played their music at his

rallies. he's recast this as something entirely differently, and, so i mean, that also speaks to the fact that if he is going to get indicted on this. >> what happens next from a legal standpoint? how much time does he have to respond or does he need to respond at all? when do you think an indictment will come? >> according to donald trump he's been given four days from sunday which takes us to thursday. really, at any point after thursday, we could see an indictment. it's important to understand, it is real quick and easy for a federal prosecutors to finish the process of getting an indictment in the federal system. you are allowed to summarize. i think what will happen is a prosecutor will stand in front of the grand jury, here's a summary and reminder of the evidence you've heard, testimony you've heard, you can do that in an hour or so. you have to present the actual draft indictment. you have to say here are the x number of charges and here are whoever the defendants are, and here are the elements of law that you have to find by probable cause, lower standard than they have to prove at trial which, of course, is beyond a reasonable doubt, and that's.

it then the jury, grand jury, votes and then the indictment will be in the prosecutor's hands. important to know, it may be sealed for some short amount of time. meaning, the indictment may be voted on as an indictment and then it will be filed, docketed with the court, but we won't be able to see it for some amount of time. with the mar-a-lago case there was a day or so where we couldn't see it. >> trump told us. that's how we found out he was indicted, he told us. >> we'll go live to capitol hill with more reaction to the trump target letter. the troubles reach a boiling point. the special coverage continues in a moment. because there's nevn a reported ransomware attack on a chromebook.k. now they're focused onon learning knowing that their d data is secure. ( ♪ ) hi, i'm jason. i've lost 228 pounds on golo. so when my doctor told me i needed weight loss surgery, i knew i had to make a chang golo's helped me transitio to a healthier, sustainable lifestyle. i'm so surprised just how crazy my metabolism has fired up.

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with a thud, that's how the trump target letter is landing among house republicans aligned with the former president. let's go back to capitol hill and cnn's manu raju has moved outside talking to more members. what are you hearing? >> it's really a wide variety reaction. you're getting on one sense the quick rush to defense. that came from the speaker of the house to a number of rank and file members who will support donald trump no matter what, even if he is, in fact, indicted for a third time. something that would be unprecedented, having a former president to go under and face these kind of criminal charges. they're unflinching support among various elements of the house republican conference in

particular. there's silence from the senate republican leaders, like mitch mcconnell, yet to weigh in and his top deputies and some members in the rank and file who uneasy about donald trump being president and are uncertain what to make of it, as congressman tony gonzalez told me moments ago. >> it's all messy. it's all ugly. it's all the fact that we're throwing around indictments and all these things like they're candy. it's troublesome, but there's also this idea that politics is in everything now, so i don't know. it's a bad nightmare for everyone involved. hopefully it goes away some time soon. this place could use a shot of bipartisanship. >> reporter: so there's also a question about how house republicans plan to use the power of their majority to try to look into what jack smith, the special counsel, has been doing. house judiciary committee chairman jim jordan indicated he wants records and documents from jack smith to turn over so the

committee can look into how he has carried out this investigation, his scope of his probe that he has yet to get those documents. the justice department simply will not provide information as part of this ongoing criminal investigation. democrats contend this is a clear effort to play interference, try to help trump to use their power to try to muddy the waters in this investigation here, but at the moment, a variety of reactions. a lot of folks don't know what to make of it, but a lot of republicans rushing to donald trump's defense. >> you can hear the exasperation in congressman gonzalez's voice when you had him there on the steps. thank you for that reporting. let's get more reaction now from the democratic side, democratic congressman adam schiff, who was an impeachment manager for donald trump's first impeachment and served on the house january 6th select committee. thank you so much for joining me, sir. you were part of that committee which investigated the events surrounding january 6th. your committee referred donald trump to the doj, at least four criminal charges.

that happened at the end of your investigation, of course. you're familiar with the evidence here. what do you think the scope of the charges could be? >> well, it's very hard to say, and, you know, i should state also that getting a target letter doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be indicted, although that seems to have been the case with the mar-a-lago documents prosecution. here we found as the january 6th committee, that there was evidence the president was engaged in a conspiracy to defraud voters, essentially pushing this theory that the election was somehow rigged and we also found that there was evidence that he was inciting this attack on the capitol, and there are multiple charges that could come out of both of those actions. the conspiracy, the fake lector plot, as well the violence of january 6th, so my guess, and it's only an educated guess, is if the special counsel is bringing charges against the former president here, he is

picking the case that is clearest, where the law fits the facts most neatly, most subject to proof. he has been, i think, conservative in his judgements about prosecutions and i would expect that to continue here. >> your committee, the january 6th committee, began sending materials to the special counsel's office late last year. a source told cnn at the time that doj investigators would ultimately have all of the evidence that you and your committee obtained. so you know what the evidence looks like. so given that, what do you make of where we are right now? >> well, the key thing is, there were a lot of witnesses that came before our committee and refused to answer questions. they were also now brought before the grand jury and my guess is they were not as free to simply say to our committee. we lacked the time to go through the enforcement actions for the most part in court, but the grand jury has powers we don't. the justice department has an enforcement capability. we don't in congress.

i would expect they have a lot more information and evidence than we were able to accumulate and we accumulated a lot. we accumulated certainly evidence, powerful evidence, that donald trump was told by his own top justice department officials that these fraud claims he was peddling were b.s. he was told this by his own attorney general and the top deputy attorney generals and this is powerful proof of knowledge and intent, that is, he knows this is fraudulent and yet he continues to push it. similarly, out on the mall on january 6th, he's told these people won't go through the metal detectors because they're armed, and his response, then take down the f'ing mags they're not here to hurt me. this has been a powerful evidence of the presence state of mind, his knowledge and complicity, and these are key things that the special counsel and the grand jury are considering. >> and you talked about the people who did come before your committee and pounded sand, didn't answer questions.

there were also, of course, a handful of witnesses close to the president who refused to come up at all, including mark meadows. the former president's chief of staff, your former colleague on capitol hill, of course. vice president mike pence, they declined to come there. they did go before the grand jury. what open questions did you have for them, kind of the top line questions, that you believed the special counsel was able to ask them and maybe get answers about? >> well, you know, in marks conversations directly with the president. for example, pat cipollone, white house counsel, would answer certain questions, but not go into conversations with the president. i would hope and expect that he was more forthcoming with a grand jury. he should have been more forthcoming with us. nevertheless, i would expect those direct conversations would add a lot of important value to prosecutors because they're the best window into donald trump's state of mind and one of the things prosecutors will have to prove is, you know, what did the

president know, what did he understand, how strong is the proof, that when he was lying to the american people, he understood he was lying to the american people. what conversations with special counsel able to elicit between the president and the vice president, mike pence, in terms of the pressure campaign on the vice president to ignore the law and constitution on january 6th. so those conversations, i think, are among the key evidence, much of which we did not obtain because witnesses were simply unwilling to provide it and we couldn't force them. >> i want you to listen to what the house speaker kevin mccarthy said in light of today's news. >> president trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing president biden for re-election, so what do they do now? weaponize government and go after their number one opponent. it's time and time again, i think the american public is tired of this. >> what's your response? >> well, you know, this is pathetic. for the speaker of the house of

representatives, to once again, because it's in his political interest, denigrate the entire system of justice, once again, provide cover for a corrupt former president, but this has been the pattern for kevin mccarthy. it's sadly been the pattern for so much of the republican leadership here. it's i think just another way they are tearing down our institutions to protect and advance this most flawed of former presidents. it's shameful, but for mccarthy, nothing particularly new. >> california democrat adam schiff, thank you so much for your time today. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> dana, just ahead, we'll get an update on another federal investigation hanging over the former president, the classified documents case. we'll have details on today's critical hearing in judge aileen cannon's courtroom. that's coming up. t bankers. convenientnt tools. boboom. one bank wiwith the power of both. chase. make more of what's yours.

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now to the other case being closely watched by jack smith, florida courtroom and two fights we expect in the mar-a-lago documents case. we just got a glimpse of donald trump's alleged co-conspirator walking into the court in the federal courthouse in south florida. evan perez has more for us. judge aileen cannon has a few big issues to settle. >> one of the big ones she signaled to the legal teams on both sides yesterday, is that she wants to talk about the trial date because as you know, the special counsel has indicated they're ready to go to trial in december. that's a pretty speedy timeline for this case. the trump team has maintained that they don't even want the judge to set a timeline yet because they have a lot of issues that they believe need to be litigated, including, of course, the very nature of these

documents, whether they're classified, and whether the special counsel even has the authority to bring these charges. of course that's something that could take months, it depends if it goes all the way to the supreme court, but we know, of course, that real reason, the main reason, why this hearing was called, was to discuss the classified documents that are at the center of this, anderson, the special counsel has requested a protective order which would place restrictions on how the evidence is being handled, including by the trump team and walt nauta's team, and so far, the trump team has declined to say what exactly they view as objectionable in there. they wouldn't specify exactly what objections are. these hearings usually don't last that long, but because we are talking about donald trump and, obviously, a historic case, it's unclear how long this will go. we know the hearing is set to start in the next few minutes. anderson? >> evan perez, thank you.

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live coverage, donald trump today received criminal target letter, that's what he said, and our sources are confirming that. my panel is here with me. i want to talk about what this means politically. jeff zeleny you have been on the campaign trail a lot. you've talked to not only the candidates and their campaigns but the voters who are going to determine whether or not donald trump is the nominee. what's your sense of this? >> this is a republican party divided and it's not going to become less so over the next few months. six months from now, the first voters will begin weighing in iowa and then onto new hampshire. there is a clear hunger and

appetite among half of the republican party, likely more, for a new page, new direction. a new poll out this morning from new hampshire showed that donald trump has 37% support. that meep means he consolidated and is holding his base. that's it. he's basically the incumbent in the race, that's not a good number for the incumbent. however no one has managed to overtake him yet so we have to be patient and let it play out over the summer months. someone that has to make the argument to show the republican voters they're the alternative. we know he's campaigning on the indictments, on the investigation. this is part of his strategy. we we're seeing it in real time. >> it's hard to beat a front runner if you look back at history. when you have a far away front runner like this, it's hard to beat them because donald trump has proven he can raise money

and he uses bad news to somehow generate good news politically. but the number is important, 37%. ron desantis at 23%. everyone else in single digits in new hampshire. that means more than six in ten republicans do not want donald trump so he can be beat. but 2016 teaches us if there are 6, 8, 10 other candidates on the balance, 37% is enough to be the candidate. the iowa caucuses two first, 188 days, but when you hear from the speaker, the chairman of the house judiciary committee. they're not waivering. they know the history. you step away from donald trump he will bulldoze you. >> we're seeing the field completely big and that means that anti-trump or i'm not voting for trump vote has been spliced up. again. >> here's the thing about

wanting to run for president is generally speaking you think you're the only person who can do it. that's why all of these people, whenever they see trump have a potential weakness, they say, i'm the one. and if enough of those people do that, then all of a sudden you have 10 or 12 or 15 people in the race. that's what's happening in the republican party right now. consolidation is the only thing that will allow someone, other than trump, to be the nominee of this party. and the question of consolidation is question of timing. when it happens matters. in the republican party it's a winner take all primary system. that means you cannot wait until super tuesday to consolidate. you have to do it early enough to give the voters enough tio coalesce around someone so trump doesn't start to be a snowball falling downhill. so far we've seen no evidence of that happening. but we've seen the opposite,

more and more people getting in. >> i know this is a 2015 thing to say, but it does bear -- it's important to say this outloud, which is it's amazing that a guy can be indicted twice, get a target letter and everyone is going, this is going to help him. >> that's the fatigue that helps him and hurts had ill. but there is trump fatigue out there, no doubt about that. >> it's also -- if there is consolidation, you are seeing a theme of weaponization of the government. he presents himself as the poster child for that particular theory. you have rfk jr. going to speak on the hill someone trying to run as a democrat talking about this notion. so if you coalesce around the message that the government is being weaponized and standing with twice indicted, twice impeached candidate he's the reason he has this momentum.

important business for joe biden, he welcomed if prime minister of israel to the white house. it comes at a time of turbulence as the president questioned proposed reforms in israel. and members of the democratic party are facing questions on the way they criticized the israeli government today biden confirmed that america's commitment to israel will stay firm. thank you for watching cnn coverage. more after the break.

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this is cnn breaking news. welcome to cnn special breaking news coverage as we follow developments in special counsel probes of donald trump. i'm anderson cooper in