Cash and gold in exchange for political favors, the allegations against a sitting u. S. Senator are damning. Nearly 500,000 stuffed in envelopes, a mercedesbenz, even gold bars, the gifts allegedly given to senator bob menendez and his wife. New video of ukraine on the attack after more than a year at war. This team they confirm a successful hit on a russian ship. And more workers hit the picket lines in dozens more locations. This could impact you if your car needs to be repaired. Welcome to the lead. Im pamela brown in for jake tapper. We start with senator bob menendez accused in a sweeping indictment today charged with accepting bribes, pressuring a u. S. Official and spilling sensitive u. S. Information to benefit a foreign government. The indictment lays out how federal agents raided menendez home last summer finding a stash of gold bars, nearly 500,000 in cash stuffed inside envelopes and a gifted mercedes convertible. Menendez wife is also charged. According to the indictment s
that i ll stay in the race. then i asked him any chance you might drop out and run for the senate in texas? beto o rourke, no. and i said no chance? and he said no chance. i said okay. and then he said i m in this to win this. clearly that was a few days ago, on october 21st, david chalian, he s changed his mind. he clearly has changed his mind. and that is the right answer then. he had not come to the conclusion. he not looked at the numbers yet to determine he didn t have the resources to move forward in any way that would amount to a successful campaign. and i have no doubt that when he said that to you, he was still committed to this cause. but these are the hard decisions. these are in the we re in the final 93 days now before the iowa caucus . this is crunch time. and he may not have had a ton of support in the polls here, as gloria noted, and that contributed to the moment, he did have staff on the ground and he had some supporter network here throughout iowa so the questi
are leaning up against fund. al constraints lacking resources, throwing in the towel and starting to back whoever the party is going to pick as their nominee. at new york times siena poll on iowa, david chalian and let s put it up on the screen, he s nowhere to be seen. beto o rourke. elizabeth warren 17% and sanders 19% and buttigieg 18% and biden 17% and klobuchar and 4% and harris 3% and yang 3%. layla is getting more information. reporter: yes, she is. layla what are you learning about whether or not o rourke will continue his plan to speak here to the iowa democrats today? he s not in the race now. do we expect him here tonight. according to a source at the campaign, he will not be speaking here tonight. that said he does plan to speak at a pre-rally in which he ll be
in the campaign. it is in the best interest of this party as we seek to unify around a nominee and it is in the best interest of the country. he also said in the end he will of course work for and support any of the democratic parties to become the nominee. this is a significant development that he s decided to call it quits, david? without a doubt, wolf. and the word means there that you just read in the tweet, that is money. that is resources and that had dried up for beto o rourke which is astounding considering you just heard layla talking about the amount of money he raised last year against ted cruz and the anticipation and expectation so high when he got into the presidential race. again specifically around being able to raise money and that dried up for him. he had seen that over the summer into the fall and when you don t have money to make payroll, to get all of the field organizers out there, to get the tv ads up on the air, you have a really tough time going forward. and
major breaking news. beto o rourke the former texas congressman is dropping out of the democratic presidential contest. just making a statement right now that he is moving in a different direction. and as a result he also said he s not going to run for any other political office including his home state of texas. right now let s get david chalian s reaction to the major news. david, a surprise. he was not doing necessarily all that great in the polls but a surprise that all of a sudden he announces he s out of the contest? he is out of the contest. he wasn t making a ton of progress, i want to bring in my colleague leyla santiago that covered the campaign. just learning of the information. layla, why is beto o rourke done with the campaign? what is he saying. the staffers that got a heads up on this earlier today said they didn t have much in terms of when he would do this. but he is just tweete out about it saying that he will no longer