high-profile case. i am no expert politically, i am not an expert on anything, frankly, but if they bring the insurrection charge, i think that the political fallout will be huge on that. i don't say that auto should guide whether they bring it or not, although it should be a factor considered in, but i don't think in any way, shape or form they fairly should be able to prove that brandon burke factors under the insurrection charge, encouraging violence, intending to cause violence, knowing it would likely produce violence, that sort of thing. if you parse his speech and surrounding factors tahat wouldn't be a fair charge. the wild card is the jury. >> he needs some lawyers who drink constitutional questions for breakfast. david and laura, thank you both very much. our coverage on cnn continues right now. >> i didn't know practically what a subpoena was and grand

jurors and all of this. now i am becoming an expert. i have no choice because we have to -- it's a disgrace. >> good morning, two, potentially three indictments will do that to you on some level. >> huge 24 hours. >> indeed. we have got new details about potential charges that donald trump could be facing in the alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election. according to the "wall street journal" they include witness tampering. trump announcing he expects to be arrested again. a m and for the first time charges have been brought against fake electors who falsely claimed that won the election. >> and a federal judge indicating she may push back trump's criminal trial for alle allegedly mishandling classified documents. this hour of cnn starts right now. as he noted. the legal storm around donald trump is intensifying. we are learning more about the criminal charges he could be

faced in the alleged scheme to overturn the election. he says he expects to arrested and indicted for the third time after receiva target letter from special counsel jack smith notifying him thate was the target in his january 6th probe. >> now "the wall street journal" reporting that the letter cites least three laws, including deprivation of rights, conspiracy to commit an offense against or defraud the united states and tampering with a witness. trump was defiant in a fox news town hall last night. he accused the justice department of being a political weapon. >> and they are in a rush because they want to interfere with the election. it's election interference. never been done like this in the history of our country and it's a disgrace. >> we have full team coverage on all of the big developments. we are starting with cnn anchor of "the source" kaitlan collins, justice reporter katelyn polantz. in terms of what we're learning in "the wall street journal" and others about what this target

letter entailed related to the specific statutes. >> yeah, so the target letter, we haven't seen it yet, but we would love to see it because whenever the justice department sends this to someone, a target letter does tend indicate exactly what the person may be charged with. the charges that the justice department has been investigating and is considering bringing against that person, and reporting from a number of different news outlets, including "the wall street journal" this morning, says there are three chs that the justice department has been looking at related to donald trump that he could be charged with, conspiracy to defraud the united states, that is a charge that basically means that the justice department has evidence that two people would have agreed to somehow carry forward something that they believe is illegal. trump and potentially another person, not necessarily another person would be larged there. but it means two people. another piece, witness tampering possible charge, that actually

may be obstructing congress because witness tampering, that charge, it means a couple different things depending how you put it on the books. the justice department has indicated they were looking at obstructing the congressional proceeding on january 6th as one of the things they were investigating in this investigation of top administration officials during the trump-era. we also know that they have used that charge against many different january 6th rioters and then the third piece that is out there is this deprivation of rights charge. a civil rights charge that would be fairly interesting to see how the justice department structures that and also just to see them try it in court. it's not the sort of thing you see very often. >> as our guests pointed out, this could not be the full scope of it even. so there is more to come on that. kaitlan collins -- >> hey, buddy. >> hi, guys. >> you know, the trump team, i wonder, how prepared were they for this target letter for a potential indictment in this

particular case? and what are they doing now? >> i don't think they thought it would happen this soon. i think they thought they had more time. i think it became clear they were seeking information about trump's mindset in and around that period, asking people if he acknowledged that he had lost, bringing in people like hope hicks. i think the signs were there that it was headed in this direction. but trump himself is quite boltered by this. he admitted that last night. sean hannity said how are you so unbothered by these legal proceedings, trump said he is bothered about it. and so i think we'll see what they decide to pursue once we see what the charges are. trump's team is the best indication of this because it's included on the target letter that they got on sunday night. i think trump is trying to control the political aspect of this. that is always what he does when he faces legal issues or impeachments on capitol hill, calling his allies on the hill,

basically going on offense and make sure that they are using the right message that he wants them to be saying on capitol hill going on offense against this. >> the letter arriving on sunday, which according to the former president is something that never happens, people don't send mail on sunday. i think he said that last night in iowa. him waiting to tuesday to publicly break the news of his potential indictment, what happened in those two days? >> there is some conspiracies over was he trying to upend the ron desantis interview yesterday. there are questions about that. we were told another outlet was to about report he had gotten this target letter. that's why he posted. he does have this art of making people kind of wait. he is the one often to break the news. he did it with the indictment when the documents case. he did it when the search warrant of mar-a-lago was executed. he was the first one to actually confirm that after a reporter in florida suspected it was happening. this is kind of his tactic here.

they were preparing for it to happen. they were ready with the lengthy statement. the other thing from the statement was a preview of his defense, which is saying a right to question the results of the election. we know he was doing much more than questioning the results. >> for sure. and the fact that he continues to say that is part. problem here. the target letter here in the case of trump is not a guarantee, not the full scope of what he could be facing. would it be surprising if other players in this maybe did not receive a target letter as well? >> yeah. that is a huge question right now that we have as reporters. are there other people that would get target letters that could get target letters here? whenever you look back at the timing of the previous indictment that the special counsel's office brought, they notified donald trump a few days before they notified his codefendant walt nauta that he, too, would be facing likely

charges in that case. they were, obviously, charged together a couple weeks after that. so there is a question there. but then there is also a part of this that is hanging out there that we haven't -- we don't -- still don't understand in the investigation is clearly continuing. donald trump's getting this target letter but we know of at least one person who is going to the grand jury, has an appointment tomorrow to testify, will russell, who was with trump both at the white house on his advance team and worked hwith hm afterwards, after he left the white house. there are others we heard about getting inquiries whether they are grand jury inquiries or inquiries for interview. kaitlan collins last night had another lawyer in this circle on tv and he was saying that one of his clients, bernie kerik, a man close to rudy giuliani working on the election fraud efforts, been getting inquiries from the special counsel's office, too, and that's not even scheduled yet. where this investigation still goes and how an indictment would

factor into that now that a target letter has been sent to the former president, there is really a lot of different ways this could play out. >> all right. thank you very much. and in terms of how we actually got here, well, cnn's senior legal analyst -- sorry. and former assistant u.s. attorney in the district of new york elie honig is here. >> we are getting a sense of what a potential donald trump indictment could look like. the new reporting is that the target letter listed three federal statutes. the crimes in the target letter could end up in the indictment but that's not necessarily going to happen. deprivation of civil rights. whose civil items? all of us to cast our pilots and have a full and free election. the second, conspiracy to commit an offense against the united states.

conspiracy is an important word because you have to have two or more agreeing to commit a conspiracy. that does not necessarily mean there will be a second person on the indictment with donald trump. we could see separate indictments. we could see an unindicted co-conspirator. that tells me jack smith is taking the world view on this. and finally, there is this statute that covers tampering with a witness. important to note, there is a very broad federal statute that covers witness tampering and object just of justice and congress. we don't know which prong of that statute doj is referring to. that gives us a sense, if there is an indictment, which seems likely now, could be in it. >> it felt like every day we have breaking news about who they have spoken to. who stands out in that list? >> the number one guy on the list is the former chief of staff mark meadows. i don't think there is any question. measures of the january 6th committee said he was the most important witness and he only

halfway cooperated with them. he started to cooperate and then stopped. there is no such thing ads halfway cooperation with doeng. he has spoken to doj. he was by donald trump's side throughout the lead-up to january 6th. i think his testimony is going to be crucial. part of the reason we know how important mark meadows was because almost exactly a year ago, cassidy hutchinson testified publicly in the january 6th committee. we know doj has spoken to her. we know that they have gotten into donald trump's inner circle, family members, closest white house aides, jared kushner, and talked to secret service agents. who is physically closer to the president, the former president, than the secret service? and doj has really not hesitated to go to the top rungs of power. they have spoken with mike pence, a crucial witness because he was the subject of a pressure campaign from donald trump. finally, we know they have spoken with some but not all of the lawyers.

the lawyers are important. they have spoken with rudy giuliani, who was a driving force behind this effort. as far as we know, they have not spoken with sidney powell and john eastman. that may worry me, because typically you don't speak with somebody who is a target. they spoke with these three lawyers, pat sim u cipollone, pat philbin, eric herschmann. >> all whom testified to the january 6th committee. search states, the fake electors, walk us through. >> this was a coordinated nationwide strategy. they went for joe biden but they were close. as part of that pressure effort, they reached out to various state and local officials, most infamous low brad raffensperger, that's the audio recorded phone call, donald trump asking him find me some votes and in georgia, arizona, we learned that the former governor, doug ducey spoke with doj, former

speaker of the house and they spoke with officials in all seven states. we also know, remember the fake electors, the certificates that were put together in each state, people claim they were trump electors when trump didn't win, doj has spoken with some, we don't know who, but some electors as well. >> and michigan on a state level has brought charges -- >> against all 16 folks here. >> thank you. >> i feel like i got a semester in law school there from elie. back at the table here, cnn political commentators. van, the big question about this case i think from political perspective is how potent is it really, how understandable is what trump could be facing? >> it's under standable since everybody saw january 6th. we are getting to a case that people can understand. the porn star stuff, weird, more about his family. stealing documents and kind of

showing me your friends is wrong. somebody working in the white house, i would be in jail for doing that. all that stuff is kinda feels not that important to a normal person. but if you are going to disrespect democracy, attack the capitol, do horrible stuff that would actually, you know, most people's point of view result in a treason charge, that is real stuff. we are finally down to business. we are finally down to the stuff that's gonna have donald trump in the history books as probably the most dangerous president ever. i think it translates. whether it will affect voter behavior remains to be seen. of all the stuff we talked about, this is the indictment that's the most important if it comes. >> the republican response -- we talked about this all morning -- it's very predictable. it tracks the same exact response, especially amongst house republicans as we have seen repeatedly over the several indictments and more. does this and the january 6th element of it -- take us behind

the scenes for republicans. i heard from many republicans who hate the january 6th issue being elevated once again. >> house republicans even ones who were there on january 6th, they know what they saw. they may have had statements that condemned it at the time. they are in a position where so many of them are in districts, they will stick with donald trump no matter what. you hear a little bit more reality from the senate. it's just that the nature of the beast, john thune with a statement, mitch mcconnell has yet to weigh in, but i expect he is not going -- he just won't answer a question. >> he is not going to. >> i think what ultimately matters is the sentiment of the voters. republican politicians have made it easier for donald trump to dismiss the significance of what happened that kay. after the january 6th hearings people rejected extremism and election denialism. i think that could be a major factor in the general election, having january 6th front of

mind. >> it is not popular to have an insurrection on the capitol. is that a shocking thing to say? part of the problem in our politics right now is that this is viewed so differently on both sides of the aisle. republicans are in a completely different world on this and the trump campaign is notorious for only seeing in the five inches right in front of them. are they understanding that this -- the scope of problem here for the former president? >> i think alyssa laid it out well, you cannot win the general election if you are talking about january 6th and talking about claiming the election was stolen. that's something that georgia's governor just said to me the other day. if you are talking about the 2020 election being stolen, those claims, which he, himself, doesn't believe, you can't win georgia. if you can't win georgia, you can't go to the white house. >> what's the plan then? there is another part that comes after that in general election. >> trump has never seen eye to

eye with realty on what january 6th was. even that day he denied it and ignored pleas from top aides, including his own daughter, to call off the violence. he has never seen it the way that other people saw it and he has tapped into the republican base in the sense of -- you saw the republican voter -- i believe it was iowa confront mike pence saying you are the reason joe biden is in office and he said, i'm not. but that is the reality of republican base -- republican base voters and what they are confronting on the campaign trail. >> are you surprised fani willis -- charges by the michigan attorney general? >> i wonder if there is coordination. we see no proof of coordination. it makes sense for doj to go first. it will be subsumed within whatever jack smith is going to do. it will be duplicative of that and i think there are serious problems with the way she injected politics in her case. she ought to think about it before she brings that charge. >> thank you, guys, very much.

we are going to try to get some of you to stick with us for as long as possible. kaitlan, you are working too hard, my friend. we will follow up. tim parlatore coming up next. plus, details about that u.s. soldier who crossed into north korea. how his mother responded. cnn is live this morning near the dmz coming up. (vo) in one second, sara (woman) yes (vo) will get a job offer somewhere sunnier. reloting in weeks. (woman) weeks? (vo) yeah, weeks. (woman) gotta sell the house. (vo) don't worry, sell to opendoor,

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potential criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. a letter informing him as a target in that investigation. former attorney for trump, tim parlatore. i want to start with you alluded to this last night talking to katlyn. we have a better sense of the three statutes cited in target letter based on what the reporting has been on those. what's your read on the potential charges that may be brought? >> well, they are interesting because particularly that -- the deprivation of civil rights charge. that does seem to be something that they are going to try to apply in a novel fashion, which is not something you swrenlly want do in a politically charged case because it is susceptible to appellate attack. that would open up a significant amount of discovery, in my opinion, because if they are going to charge that as elie

mentioned a few minutes ago with the rights of the voters, they potentially open it up to where he can get discovery and look into just about everything, all of the claims of election fraud that they raised back then can all be relitigated here. so i kind you have wonder if that was not something i was expecting hem to get into that much depth on. i don't know if that one is something that they will actually include. you know, certainly conspiracy to defraud is something that we had looked at when i was on the team, and then that -- the obstruction or witness tampering or whatever section they are going to use, that's also consistent with what i kind of was looking at, at the time. >> from a planning -- and, obviously, you haven't been on the team for a bit p but the idea of deprivation of civil rights is not something, while you were there, had been considering or working through? >> no, because we were looking at from the perspective in an obstruction or fraud count,

where they would have to show the corrupt intent, that he knew there was no fraud, that he knew that the election results were accurate, and what were they going to have to do to proof prof that. but going a civil rights route i think gets them into a lot more granular detail of kind of reexamining every single little claim of potential fraud and really relitigating, you know, the results of the election, you know, within this trial. so that's a lot more extensive than i would have expected. >> you mentioned the things that you had been preparing for or talking with. when you see people like jared kushner, hope hicks, clearly questions having been asked about the former president's mindset, what does that tell you about the targets of these investings right now? >> well, this investigation always would hinge on the mental state of the defendants.

did they know that he had lost the election? did they believe that he had lost the election? and so talking to all the people around him to see what he said at the time certainly makes sense to me. but even there they are going to have to go with a timeline of did he initially say, as i think he spoke to -- at one time and say, i can't believe that i lost, but then after that was briefed by rudy giuliani and others and at that point said, wait a minute, there might be fraud here, and changed his mind, really kind of goes down to on january 5th did he believe at that point that he had lost the election or did he believe at that point that there was fraud. >> i mean -- >> so really zero in on that point of the timeline. >> right. and i understand that. and you said something to katlyn last night, caitriona balfe last night, about his intentions could be interpreted different ways. i mean, i guess my question on that issue specifically is like

listen to the call with brad raffensperger in georgia. let's just play it right now. >> sure. >> all i want to do is this. i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. >> and i get that you can try to stake that last clause and say that's proving -- he says you need to find me one more vote than i am currently losing by. i feel like that's a clear state of mind. >> if you cut it down to just that one sentence, i think that you could make that conclusion. if you broaden it out to the entire tape, another possible interpretation is he is talking about the scope of work. if he is saying in there, you know, we won by hundreds of thousands of votes. there are hundreds of thousands of illegal votes, given the timeline, brad, you don't have

to find them all, you know. just find the 11,000 and then you can decertify. have somebody else go find the other 100,000 afterwards to criminally prosecute them, but it certainly -- and to some of the witnesses i have spoken to, it certainly struck them as this is more of a scope of work within the shortened time period than a directive of, you know, you must find this many votes. >> can i ask you before you let you go, the trump legal operation as it currently stands, they are facing a lot right now and potentially a lot more depending where this target letter ends up taking things. are they situated to deal with this based on who is currently there? do they need to expand significantly? what is your sense since the departures since the mar-a-lago indictments? >> i know that the team when i was there was prepared to handle it. as to what the current makeup of the team is, i don't have any visibility into it.

>> all right. tim parlatore, appreciate your time, sir. thanks. and still with us is kaitlan, alley and van. allie, i want your reaction to what you just heard from tim parlatore. i was struck by what he said at the end. explaining away that audiotape m of his call of brad raffensperger. >> that's an interesting take. it's a 62-minute transcript. we heard that clip of i need you to find 11,000 votes countless times, but trump all over the map in that tape. there is another point where he says, all i want you to do is count the votes as they were cast. so there is going to be some wiggle room there. that tape is not a smoking gun. i don't believe anything is a smoking gun. you always have talented lawyers like time and others trying to pick it apart. the other thing that i think that he said is really interesting is as we have sort of talked about, it looks like donald trump is going to make some version of what we call an advice of counsel defense, meaning my lawyers, my advisors, they told me i had won.

some of them at least. they told me there had been massive fraud and i am entitled to pursue that. you are not entitled to do absolutely anything. you are not entitled to break the law in the course of pursuing that, but count on that being a main defense we hear. >> one of the key things that the special counsel teams to be getting at when it comes to january 6th is trump and those around them, were they being told it was illegal but did it anyway. they talked to jared kushner, hope hicks, looked at that. we will see what jack smith has. he had a lot in the indictments of the documents investigation than we knew previously wuchlt he will see if that is the same if we get charges on january 6th. >> there was so many complaints over the course of the first couple of years post-trump, post-january 6th of where is the justice department? where are the prosecutions? where is everything right now? and it seems like in the last couple of weeks boom, boom, boom, particularly the last couple of days on this issue.

how do you think that resonates in terms of people? >> look, i think that on our side of the aisle there is a two-tiered justice system and trump is benefiting from it. imagine if ilhan omar gave a speech and rallied 10,000 muslims to a joint session of congress? she would have been in jail in three minutes. imagine if barack obama got black lives matter to attack a joint session of congress. he would be in guantanamo right now. you talk about two different realities. the republicans say they are being too hard on our guy. what are you talking about? this was one of the most outrageous things to happen in the history of the country and we are just now getting to a target letter? we are at a target letter? we still don't have been a diemtd on the-in and all the bad stuff that happened before and after. so i think, yes, we are finally, finally getting, i think, as i

said before, to the tostuff tha was the most offensive to most americans. i think trump, he is making a certain bet. we keep saying, you know, this is not going to play in the general election, it's not going to play in a general election. you know, i don't know. because i am not seeing the numbers change very much with indictment after indictment. we'll see if this one makes a difference. but i think he might be playing a different game here. he might be thinking of himself as an anti-hero in the age of anti-heros. so i'm not sure. i think from my point of view, we are getting down to the real stuff. >> may not be a question of trump gaping. it might be a question of biden losing, you know, losing support on the other side of the equation. we will have to leave it there. thank you all so much for joining us this morning. next for us, a catastrophic flood in southwest kentucky. an update on that ahead. and will ripley is near the demilitarized zone where a u.s. soldier crossed over to north

korea and is now believed to be in custody will. will. >> reporter: phil, this is about as close as we are allowed to get. still less than five miles from the spot where this army private just walked over the middle school demarcation line. see those barricades, all the security? how did he do it and what other american made that trip before him? our financial planning tools and advice can help you prepare for today'y's longer retirement. hi mom. that's the value of ownership.

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sell your car to carvana today. five things is brought to you by carvana. we'll drive you happy. ♪ here are five things you need to know. former president says that he expects to be indicted and arrested again. trump announced special counsel jack smith notified him that he is a target of a criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. and for the first time suspects have been charged in the 2020 fake electors scheme. michigan's attorney general announcing felony charges against 16 alleged fake electors accused of signing certificates that falsely claimed trump won the 2020 election there. catastrophic flooding in

southwestern kentucky resulting in several water rescues. heavy rain and thunderstorms are expected to continue this morning. officials in the region warning that residents need to stay off the roads. and over 70 million people are under heat alerts from florida to california. miami has seen 38 consecutive days where the heat index has been in the triple digits. in phoenix, it is set a new record after the 19th straight day of temperatures exceeding 110 degrees. and it has been 27 years since roper tupac shakur was killed. now police in las vegas have executed a search warrant in connection with his murder. that's five things that you need to know this morning. don't forget to download the five things podcast every morning. cnn.com/fivethings. also find it anywhere you get your podcasts. i want to do an entire show on tupac. so fascinated. so many questions. this was also fascinating. now we have new details about the u.s. soldier believed to be in north korean custody.

private travis king is a who enlisted in january 2021. defense secretary lloyd austin said he willfully and without author authorization crossed the demilitarized zone while on a tour of the area. two officials tell cnn he spent 50 days in a detention facility in south korea after facing disciplinary action for assault. he was about to be separated from the army, was escorted to the airport to fly back to the u.s. and never boarded the plane. cnn international correspondent will ripley from the unification bridge near the dmz. will, what are you seeing right now? what more do we know? >> reporter: yeah, we actually just made that drive from airport. takes about 90 minutes to get here. this is as close as we are allowed to get to the joint security area where this took place. this is the unification bridge and you can see spike strips on the ground, barricades. basically, they don't want people coming here unless they have authorization. we are not allowed to shoot this

side. but there are tour groups allowed. they get special clearance. we have video of this place because, well, recently former president trump was there. this is the spot where president trump walked across the military demarcation line with kim jong-un officially becoming the first sitting american president on north korean soil. even though we haven't seen security video to see what travis king, the army private, actually -- nhow he closed, he probably took a similar path to the former president. >> what do we know about travis king? and what happens next to him now that he is in north korea and this is a country that the united states does not have diplomatic relations with? >> reporter: well, this is the tricky thing. after 47 days in south korean custody, knowing that he was going to face disciplinary action in texas and be separated from the army, he decided it to go and make that crossing into north korea. what he may not have realized,

one, there is extreme fear inside north korea about westerners or foreigners because of covid-19. the vast majority of the population is unevacuated. there is a good chance he might be kwarn needed and could be for quite some time before questioning begins. and when he is questioned, likely the one -- they want to know about his military background. previously, half a dozen u.s. servicemen had defected into north korea, all but one stayed there until they died. but these were different times when the united states had a higher value to the north koreans in terms of getting somebody from the military living in there. in this case, you know, mr. king wasn't in the army very long. he doesn't have a lot of intel he would be able to share with them aside from where he was stationed and doing as a private. so once the north koreans assess that they couldn't gain a lot of military intelligence from him and perhaps not much propaganda value either because they haven't really used americans for propaganda in a number of years, the last time in the -- the sons of a u.s. defector, a

military defector that they put in a propaganda video to dmiens the united states. but we don't know think of this right now. he it's speculative because the north koreans haven't mentioned the fact that mr. king is in their custody. and so -- and there is no official communication between the united states and north korea. so really until we hear something from the u.s. or north korea, we don't know where he is and how long he going to be there. >> i am not sure what the plan would have been going into north korea. sounds like it may not be going to what this individual was trying to do. thank you very much. and cnn's jake tapper sitting down with florida governor ron desantis for an exclusive interview. what he had to say about the trajectory of his own campaign and the strategy that he has going forward. jake joins us with that interview next. (mom) the moment i loved our subaru outback most....

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donald trump isn't the only one making headlines. florida governor ron desantis is also. he sat down with an interview with jake tapper, reacting to donald trump potentially facing a third indictment and defending his campaign you can which critics argued is lagging. take a listen. >> this issue gets into the state of the race because some of your supporters are disappointed that your campaign has yet to catch fire tway they want in terms of polling. one pollster, one sympathetic to you, i was asking her about your campaign. she thought the issue was he bumped up at the beginning because republican voters saw you as a more electable

conservative like trump. trump without the baggage. but then they say as you go further and further to right on some divisive social issues that could alienate moderates, republican voters see you as less and less electable. what do you say to tanalysis? >> the proof is in the pudding. i took a one point state and we won by 20 percentage woipoints. our bread and butter were people like suburban moms, we are leading a movement for parents 'rights, have the parents involved in education, school choice, get the indoctrination out of schools. there is bread and without butter issues. inflation. more economic opportunity. florida's economy is number one of all 50 states. we worked hard to make that happen. crime. you see crime in all these different communities that is now even going into suburbs and some areas. so i think there are -- i don't think that's the reason. i think the reason is, is i was getting a lot of media attention at the time coming off the victory. i had to do my job as governor

with my legislative session and we had a great live session, did a lot of things things that appeal to huge majorities of the population. i think that analysis is wrong. but i had to do that. so i was basically taking fire really non-stop since then because a lot of people view me as a threat. i think the left views me as a threat because they think i will beat biden and deliver on this stuff and people that have their allegiances in the republican side have gone after me. the reality is, this is a state by state process. i am not running a a campaign to try to juice, you know, whatever we are in the national polls. whatever we did in the cnn compared whatever. it's final. i am definitely doing better -- >> state by state. >> state by state. >> joining us is cnn anchor and chief washington correspondent jake tapper. his new book is available now. definitely check that out. jake, when it comes to this interview yesterday, this is a big deal. this was a significant shift it

seemed like from at host the media strategy of the desantis campaign in part because of what you were talking about in your questions. they needed to reset. there is trouble in the campaign. did you get the sense they are in the midst of a reset when you spoke to the governor? >> i don't know that his stepping outside of the conservative media bubble to sit down and talk to me is a sign that they feel like they need to change strategies and appeal to a broader audience than just hard-core republicans watching, you know, fox or news max. i don't know that. but the timing suggests that that is true. obviously, we at cnn have been pushing to get an interview with governor desantis as we have been pushing to get an interview with all the major candidates for months if not years. but on its face it seems to suggest he needs to -- that his campaign recognizes he needs to at least expand the audience of people he is talking to. there are iowa caucus voters who watch cnn, who watch "the lead." republicans. it's not just die-hard trump

supporters who watch fox or newsmax. so i think you have a point there. beyond that, i mean, he is not where he would like to be in the polls right now, although he is in second place. he certainly in a better position than anyone else not named donald trump. so there has to be f you are running the campaign, the desantis campaign, a reassessing of priorities. we should note in all of these discussions about the state of his campaign, one of the most important points is his super pac is sitting on an absolute pile of money. so the pro-desantis super pac has time to blanket the airwaves in iowa, in south carolina, in possibly new mexico to get his message out and we still have to january 15 before any votes are cast. >> one of the biggest things in his way is going to be donald trump. it so happened before you sat down with him, trump announced that he was likely to be

indicted. here is what ron desantis had to say about that. >> jack smith has prosecuted democrats, too. he prosecuted senator menendez, senator john edwards. are you saying that if he finds evidence of criminality he should not charge donald trump anyway? what i'm saying, when you are going after somebody on the other side of the political spectrum, if you are stretching statutes to try to criminalize political disagreements, that is wrong. now, look, this is all speculation. but i think we have gone down the road in this country of trying to criminalize differences in politics rather than saying, okay, you don't like don't like somebody, then defeat them in the election rather than trying to use the justice system. we don't know what's going to happen, but i can tell you with the bragg one that was stretching criminal law. the evidence of criminality was very weak and even if that existed, other people would not

have been charged under those circumstances. that's the problem. >> what's striking to me, jake, about that answer is that he hasn't gotten it down to the 15 or 20-second elevator pitch. he's still working through it. >> yeah, i mean, it's interesting. i mean, obviously the news about this latest potential indictment came literally minutes before he and i sat down. so he probably hadn't even had time to read donald trump's truth social posting on it. but that said, i mean, he is attempt ago complicated nuanced argument, which is he had that little life boat of this is all speculative leaving him an out for whatever evidence comes down, but, you know, both donald trump and all of his competitors are in many ways fearful of the republican base or at least mindful of the republican base and where they are might matter to many of them more than the principle of, well, if there's evidence of criminality people should be charged. i mean, i asked him twice if jack smith finds evidence of

criminality, should donald trump be charged, and the impression you get is, no, i don't think so. he said i hope donald trump is not charged, that would be bad for the country. which is an interesting position to take given the fact that if you read donald trump -- i'm sorry, if you read ron desantis' memoire there is a lot in there, he is a lawyer and former navy jag -- there is a lot in there about rule of law. >> it was notable to me that he did not want to directly address trump's conduct as it relates to january 6th, and that's not going to be something that he can continue to ignore for much longer. but, jake, thank you for being here. everyone, just be sure to watch "the lead" with jake tapper at 4:00 p.m. eastern time later today. >> he is an okay guy. >> yeah. >> that jake tapper. >> i think he's still here. but it's okay, we're going to talk about him. >> a great interview. you should watch it if you haven't already. also israeli president

herzog will be addressing congress in just hours. house republicans holding a controversial public hearing with two irs whistleblowers at the center of the hunter biden investigation. that's coming up. hey little bear bear. ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm gonna love you forever ♪ ♪ ♪ c'mon, bear. ♪ ♪ ♪ you don't...you don't have to worry... ♪ ♪ be by your side... i'll be there... ♪ ♪ with my arms wrapped around... ♪ how white do you think your teeth really are? let's try the tissue test. ooof, still yellow. whitening toothpaste can only do so much. there's tootaste white, and there's crest 3d itestrips white. so much whiter! est. lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lacto.

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just hours from now the president of israel a major u.s. ally is set to address a joint session of congress and some progressive lawmakers say they plan to skip the speech in a controversial boycott. >> lauren fox is live on capitol hill this morning. lauren, how many democrats now are expected to participate in this boycott of the speech? >> reporter: yeah, abby, it's just a handful of progressive democrats including representative -- this comes on

the heels of a tough week. when herzog addresses congress later this morning he will do so after there was a lot of back and forth between republicans and democrats ultimately culminating last night in a vote on the house floor of a resolution showing support for israel. ultimately all but nine democrats supported that resolution but it came after the leader of the house progressive caucus pramila jayapal said over the weekend that israel was a racist state. she later walked those comments back. she voted for the resolution but republicans were trying to show and drive a wedge between the democratic party yesterday with that resolution ultimately like i said it passed overwhelmingly with just a handful of democrats voting against it, abby. >> lauren fox for us on capitol hill. thank you so much. i think we should do this again

tomorrow. >> i will be here. will you? >> we will see if there's going to be 900 major news developments in the 24 hours. >> it's always a busy news day when i'm here with you. >> appreciate you, buddy. "cnn news central" starts right after this break. >> have a great day. hey all, so i just downloadeded the experian app because i wanted to c check my fico® score, but it does so much more. this thing shows you your fico® score, you can get your credi card recommendations, and it shows you ys to save money. do so much me than get your fico® score. living with diabetes? glucerna proteinmart has your number with 30 grams of protein. scientifically designed with carbsteady to help you manage your blood sugar. and more protein to keep you moving with diabetes. glucerna live every moment this is american infrastructure.

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