Lebanon and other major question have been heightened tensions. What role will the u. S. Play . Plus the Vice President ial candidates are back out on the trail after a debate that was midwest nice. Both campaigns kicking into high gear for the final 34 days hes of this race. Were going to assess what may have changed after Last Night and what comes next. Were also covering the Southeast Hundreds of thousands still without power food, and clean water, still hard to come by in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, as President Biden is on his way to see the devastation firsthand were falling only these majoR Developing stories and many more all coming in right here to Cnn News central is anxiously waiting to see how israel will respond to irans unprecedented Missile Attack as the israeli military intensifies its Ground War in lebanon across the region, violence is escalating with fierce clashes between Israel And Hezbollah forces. The idf says that it plans to send additional troops alread
the fbi has had only eight senate confirmed directors. those directors all have a few things in common. they are all white men. they all favor a clean cut look, and each and every one of them, every senate confirmed director since the dawn of the fbi has been a republican. that includes current fbi director, christopher wray, who was appointed by donald trump. and you would not get that impression, given the way the director wray s fellow republicans attacked him and his agency during a hearing today. on capitol hill. when the court says that the fbi misled, that is a nice way of saying they lied. how many individuals were either fbi, employees, or people that the fbi could make contact with, to be in the january 6th entry of the capital? i m going to make the assumption is there is more than one, more than five, more than ten. i will say that this notion that somehow the violence at the capitol on january 6th was part of some operation orchestrated by fbi sources into
friends. it is wednesday, december 27th, i m willie geist. joe and mika have the morning off. a lot to get to including israeli forces shifting military efforts to southern and central gaza with officials warning the war could take many more months. and hours from now, antony blinken and alejandro mayor kas are set to meet with mexican president obrador. plus donald trump continues to claim he should be immune from any prosecution surrounding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. we ll have the latest there. also ahead, bus drivers across the country increasingly under attack on the job. we ll dig into an alarming trend and what officials are doing about it. with us this morning, jonathan lemire, susan paige, and retired four star navy admiral james stavridis. good morning to you all. let s begin together with israel expanding the ground invasion in gaza. this as the united states continues to urge israel to protect civilian lives and shift to a more low intensity oper
oral arguments on january 9th. that might make the current march trial date for trump s trial untenable, putting his entire 2024 legal calendar in question. so voters may not have a ruling on whether donald trump plotted to overturn the 2020 election until after they cast their ballots in 2024. we should note, if trump wins a second term in the white house, he could and likely would purger himself and charges might not ever see the charges in trial. extra points for coming in on a holiday weekend, so we appreciate that. i guess, to some extent, that might be a bit of a doomsday scenario to say this case may not happen at all in 2024. but what do you think? what are the consequences of this supreme court decision we heard? is it just going to end up back in their laps in a couple months from now anyway? what do you think? the scenario you painted isn t necessarily a doomsday scenario. trump asked to go on bond for the whole circuit to hear. and then he ll have something like
happy holidays, everybody. you are live in the cnn newsroom. i m jim acosta in washington. we begin about breaking news. president biden revealing details about his long phone call with benjamin netanyahu. we re following everything at the white house. kevin, what did the president have to say? reporter: yeah, he was on the south lawn on his way to camp david, and he said that it was a long phone call with netanyahu that he had earlier today. he said he didn t call for a cease-fire and wanted the talks to remain private. i do think it s interesting, president biden of course is someone who believes very strongly that all of the advice, all of the recommendations that he can provide to the israelis is best delivered behind closed doors. he thinks that s the most effective way to sort of apply pressure on israel to to alter its war plans. certainly the backdrop to this phone call has been this parade of american officials who have been traveling to israel over the last se