to meet with the mexican president. will a new plan emerge to stop the unprecedented number of illegal border crossings. plus a new survey shows voters associate donald trump with words like revenge and dictatorship. and the gop front runner seems to be bragging about it. it s time to say good-bye to 2023. we have a countdown of tbiggest political stories of the year. i m phil mattingly. let s go behind the headlines and inside politics. at this hour, secretary of state antony blinken and the secretary of homeland security are meeting with the mexican president about the crisis along the southern border. the goal, convince him to action to stop migrants before they reach u.s. territory. cnn s priscilla alvarez leads us off from the white house today. what does the administration hope to get out of this trip from a policy perspective? reporter: simply put, they want help to drive down the number of border crossings. that officials have been seeing creep up over the l
plus, the remarkable story of this 9-year-old and how she s using her own voice for the first time all thanks to a rare and complex surgery. we re following these stories and more all coming right here to cnn central. we begin on the southern/u.s. border where thousands of migrants right now are making a very long trek by foot to the u.s. the caravan is called quote, the exodus of poverty. homeland security. p encounters with migrants at the border is averaging 10,000 nor the month of december alean. and border patrol agents say they ve been 380,000. what s unfolding from eagle pass, texas. what do you know about this caravan and how are officials preparing? jessica, they departed on christmas eve and they have spent their christmas day walking towards the united states. make no mistake about it, it s going to create an even more complicated situation. what we see and hear at the border, and, behind me it s a holding area that was empty when we arrived here this morning a
millions over the holidays as a potential travel nightmare awaits. this is cnn news central. this morning, big news out of russia. opposition leader and chief putin critic alexei navalny has been found after simply disappearing for two weeks. now, the head of his anti-corruption foundation now says this morning that navalny is in a penal colony in the far reaches of northwestern siberia, thousands of miles from the jail where he was last known to be located. he was moved from the detention center near moscow where he was serving a 19-year sentence. cnn is following these developments. what is navalny s team saying about this move, how he is, whatever they ve been able to gather? reporter: look, we re getting more details about the situation that alexei navalny is now facing, as you mentioned, he has been moved according to his lawyer and colleagues to the new penal quality in northwestern siberia. there has been mounting concern around the conditions faced by navaln
national campaign, desantis is now laser focused on early nominating states such as iowa which is set to hold the gop primaries first caucuses january 15th. great to be back in the state of iowa. reporter: recent poll shows donald trump with a commanding lead in the state garnering 46% of the vote from likely caucus goers. desantis has 16%. stakes are high. we didn don t have the opportunity to fritter it away and we have to get the job done. reporter: desantis five stop bus tour sponsored by never back down, the super pac supporting him that has raised some $130 million since march and is focused on building on an infrastructure across a number of states to support the campaign. we don t feel like that we need jane doe at 123 main street in iowa to know everything that there is to know by tomorrow. you know, we have six months to help deliver that. reporter: and as his campaign resets, desantis is zeroing in on his message of electability
campaign resets on the way through, and is it the campaign or the candidate? well, look, it has worked in the past, right? john kerry s campaign faltering in 2004 and they were able to get that straightened out. john mccain s campaign in 2008, they were able to finally get their footing and win the nomination. but this is just a not analogous to that, and obviously, they were not running against donald trump a former president of the united states. fundamentally, the problem is just ron desantis. there is the yogi berra line, if nobody wants to come out to ball park, there is nothing you can do to stop them. likewise with ron desantis, there is nothing you can do to stop them. it is a likability problem, and you can t fire the candidate, and you fire the staff and try to do what you can.