piece of stripe gum. the situation room with wolf blitzer starts right now. see you tomorrow. happening now, breaking news. closing arguments just wrapped up in donald trump s new york civil fraud trial. the former president taking his campaign to the courtroom, launching into a rambling speech before being cut off by the judge who urged trump s attorneys to control their client. plus, we re now in the final stretch before iowa decides with the first in the nation caucuses just four days away. nikki haley and ron desantis trying to capitalize on last night s heated cnn debate and close the gap with republican front-runner donald trump. a key haley supporter, new hampshire governor chris sununu joins me live this hour. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world, i m wolf blitzer and you re in the situation room. announcer: this is cnn breaking news. and let s get straight to the breaking news. donald trump s new york civil fraud trial comes to
because of that background knowledge and expertise. and given these international issues are really at the forefront more so than we ve seen in other presidential campaigns in the past, i think that s one of it reasons you see her surging in iowa, new hampshire, and it really has become that one-on-one race between her and donald trump. in our latest poll as you know, governor, the now former republican presidential candidate chris christie received 12% of the vote while nearly two-thirds of his voters say haley is their second choice. does christie s exit put haley in position to defeat trump and win your state of new hampshire? without a doubt. there s no question. now, you ve still got to go earn them, right? all those voters don t just come onboard. nikki had a better ground game in new hampshire here than anyone. she connects with people better. she does retail politics. trump doesn t try on the retail politics side. he comes in and takes off, doesn t answer any questions. she