authorised the armed forces to neutralise 22 gangs that are listed as terrorist organisations after masked gunmen stormed a tv studio during a live broadcast. a two month state of emergency is now in force. will grant sent this from the city of guayaquil. viewers in ecuador watched in disbelief as masked and armed gang members entered a state tv channel and held staff hostage all of it televised live. translation: they shot one of our cameramen in the leg. | broke the arm of another one. they were shooting bullets inside the studio. the police were called and came in minutes. the gang was soon arrested and the hostages released, but the tv station ambush was just part of the descent into chaos. panic as gunmen stormed guayaquil university, explosions around the country, schools and businesses shut down and widespread rioting inside ecuador s prisons. in response, president daniel noboa called a state of emergency and imposed a curfew. by decree, he designated 22 gangs, te
host begins right now. e msnb host begins right now. good evening. welcome to tonight special coverage. i m rachel maddow here at the msnbc mothership with my colleagues joy reid and lawrence o donnell and jen psaki and ari melber. i friends chris hayes and alex wagner and stephanie ruhle or are gonna be joining us later. it s going to be fun. we re less than a week out from the republican presidential caucuses in iowa. theast eye or a public can debate is underway tonight with oddly a sort of random selection of two of the remaining five republican presidential candidates. taking part in that debate. if you can, right now, name all five remaining republican presidential candidates at the top of your head without looking anything up, congratulations. and i ll say you need to get out more. two are debating tonight. nikki haley and ron desantis. also tonight, two miles away from that iowa debate, fox news conducted a live town hall with the front running republican candida
. happening now. there s majora breaking news out there for the republican presidential nomination. a source now tells cnn that chris christie is dropping out of the race. we are standing by to hear directly from him live this hour in new hampshire. we will bring that to you as soon as it begins and all this comes as the final republican debate before the iowa caucuses are now just a few hours away right here on cnn. nikki haley and ron desantis preparing to face off tonight as both candidates make their closing pitch to try to naur row t narrow the gap with donald trump. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. this is cnn breaking news. let s get straight to the breaking news and the race of the republican nomination. he s got details on the major developments that are unfolding. exactly, omar, what are we expected to hear directly from chris christie in the coming minutes? yeah, wol
where he ll finally experience consequences for some of his actions. next week, tuesday, marks the beginning of the second e. jean carroll defamation trial. news on that later on. but first things first, developments ahead of closing arguments. tomorrow in new york s $250 million civil fraud lawsuit. the judge revealed he would not allow donald trump to deliver part of those closing arguments himself as he had requested. the reasoning, neither trump nor his attorneys ever got back to the judge agreeing to preconditions. in truth, it is hard to imagine what trump wanted more, an opportunity to put himself at the center of proceedings to deliver his message in his own way, or an opportunity like this, to complain, whine about being silenced, despite the fact his own team failed to respond to the judge on time. remember, in both cases, e. jean carroll s defamation and new york s civil fraud, trump s guilt has already been determined. these decisions will only settle the punish.
bret: let s all have town hall. vivek is going to be on this show little bit later. beers and town hall. thanks, jesse. bret: good evening, welcome to des moines iowa, i m bret baier. five days away from the first in the nation iowa caucuses. tonight at 9:00 p.m., we will hold the third of this week s candidate town hall meetings right here and our guest tonight on this stage former president donald trump. we ll have more on that in just a moment. but, we are following two major stories at this hour. hunter biden makes a surprise appearance at the congressional hearing today up on capitol hill on whether he should be charged with contempt of congress. but we begin with a late afternoon surprise. this one in the 2024 campaign. republican presidential candidate chris christie is suspending his campaign and is dropping out of this race. christie making that announcement just minutes ago. you saw it live on the five. congressional correspondent aishah hasnie is here in de