the 2024 gop field is expanding again today. former new jersey governor chris christie plans to announce his presidency today. mike pence filed his paperwork yesterday and is set to officially join tomorrow, setting up a showdown with his former boss. that will bring the number of republican challengers hoping to dethrone trump is at least eight. joining us is jeff duncan. one of the things, jeff, i ve been fascinated by is there are elements of this that feel a lot like 2016, where everybody is getting in, everybody thinks they have a lane and the former president is still 20, 30 points ahead of everybody else. what s your view right now of what a big field means or doesn t mean? as expected, the field s growing. and you ve got all these folks
catastrophe in the south. a reminder that that is daily life for all of the people living there. sam kyly, appreciate the reporting. to a cnn exclusive. sources say a flood at mar-a-lago is raising suspicions in the special counsel s probe of the former president and his handling of top secret documents. we re told a maintenance worker flooded a room where surveillance video was stored while he was draining the club s pool back in october. it happened roughly two months after the fbi executed a search warrant at mar-a-lago and found hundreds of classified records. cnn sources say it s unclear if the flooding was intentional or by mistake, but it was the same maintenance worker who was spotted on security footage moving boxes before that fbi search. surveillance video, obviously, has been a key part of evidence for investigators when it comes to possible obstruction. one of the big questions in this case is whether trump and his staff tried to hide documents from federal agents tr
approve $31 million towards construction of a controversial police and fire training facility dubbed cop city. even before the meeting, that ran 16 long hours, hundreds had signed up for public comment. most of them opposed to the plan. still more people were protesting outside. residents, conservationists and activists have fiercely pushed back against the proposed facility, with many protesters charged with domestic terrorism. one demonstrator was also killed during a clearing operation at the site. coming up, a flood at a pool of mar-a-lago raising suspicion among prosecutors in trump s classified documents case. we have cnn exclusive reporting force. love this song. why economists say that is. there is more to this story. that s ahead. so adding “and” student might feel daunting. national university is here to support all l your “ands.”
make the defense lawyers go through, you have to start with the guys on the case, go to the unit chief. jack smith is the principal here. i don t think they re likely to give trump s lawyers a meeting with the attorney general. that s unheard of. to have the actual ag. jack smith will have the crucial decision here. this is ending soon. i m trying to i m trying to get in front of this for our reporters who constantly get asked this by their bosses and don t have answers so go ahead and give us our answer. i m asking that exact question phrased with the exact same tone that you did of all of our reporters. based on my experience, yes, it has to be ending soon. i m not going to commit to when soon is, but these meetings with defense lawyers happen at the very end. they seem to be putting the finishing touches on whoever goes into the grand jury. they have to watch the calendar. i do think i ll commit to soon but i won t give you a number of days. that s ambiguous enough.
him, don t you have to go out on a little harder than any of these candidates has? well, you just touched on what may actually be the biggest challenge within the republican primary field to dethrone trump. that is, they almost have to confront him in ways that are not direct. the reason for that, in the reason that there s this trump nation about taking him on head on, is because they fear that if they do that, their voters will either recoil, or ignore their message, because for six, seven years, their voters have absorb the tax. against trump, emotionally for democrats, and largely, they are under to those attacks. these republicans you talk to them, they say, we have to make a case on electability against him. we have to get to his right. to stand there and say donald trump is a lying demagogue who would shred the constitution, it just doesn t work with their voters.