against them. and a secret service agent involved in protecting one of president biden's granddaughters opens fire in response to a car break-in. and the response. and senator tim scott drops out of the presidential race, and his staff didn't even know. who might be the next to go. i'm john berman with kate bolduan and fredricka whitfield is in for sara sidner. this is cnn "news central." happening right now, donald trump jr. has just gone into the courtroom in manhattan and soon he is going to be taking stand, again, to testify, and this time, it is going to be as the defense team's first witness. still at stake, the fate of the trump business empire as you remember the judge in this civil case has already found the family liable for fraud, and so what is donald trump jr. going to try to do to tip the trial in favor of he and his family, and these are the live pictures that you are looking at of donald trump jr. sitting and waiting for the proceedings to get under way. this is the first and only look inside of the courtroom aside from the courtroom sketches before this gets under way. we go check in with cnn's brynn gingras with the strategy that will be under way in earnest? >> yes, the defense, kate, they are going to try to prove that the trump organization did not try to have this conspiracy to defraud the banks and the insurers to get special rates and the properties by inflating the financial statement, and you remember that don jr. was on the stand as a state's witness two weeks ago and he distanced himself from being one of the top heads of the trump organization and preparing the financial statements. so when he takes stand for the defense today, we are expecting to hear some of the stam arguments, but the difference is that he is going to be questioned from his own lawyers. the state tried to keep him to yes/no answers and this time, he can explain a little bit more of the inner workings of preparing the financial statements, and the defense here trying the show that there were no victims here, and the banks didn't complain of being defrautded, and they did not complain of losing any money, and so that is going to be the first person to explain that into this courtroom. now, we are expecting this defense to last for about a month, and as we said, don jr. is the first to take the stand, and his testimony is expected to last all of today and can go into tomorrow, because there is cross-examination from attorney, and we are expecting a number of witnesses, and it is likely to see the former president back on the stand, and eric trump to come back on the stand to get the questions back on the stand, and expecting witnesses from the real estate industry and banks as well, and we saw a little bit of that when ivanka was testifying as to the defense wanting to paint this picture again of no victims when in fact, the banks were happy to do business with the trumps. so we will see how it lays out in the next month, but don jr. is about to take the stand in the courtroom behind me. >> thank you, s, brynn. we will be bringing you the updates as we get them. >> and now joining is elie honig, and while we are waiting for the real questions, what would you ask? >> if i am don jr., as the defense, i would say -- >> defense. >> yes, and of all of the loans that you took from the sophisticated loans that you took, how many would you pay back. it would be all. and on top of paying them back, how much did you pay the sophisticated back in interest, i don't know, several million, and the argument that you are trying to advance not only did they repay this bank, but they profited. legally does it matter? not for some of the counts here, but it does matter for others and it matters atmospherically of how serious this harm is. >> the no harm, no foul defense. and we are getting word that he is on the stand, and the questioning has begun, and we will see how close you are. so what are the strengths and the weaknesses of the state's case. and start with the strengths, elie? >> the strength is the absolute sheer size and scope of the discrepancy of the core of the case is that the trump organization vastly overvalued the assets and to get the loans. but one example, mare mar-a-lag saying it was worth $1 million, and they said it is $25 million and so while there is subjectivity to it, and the brand name, but not that type of gap, so that is the strongest part. >> so, that is on the paper case, but insofar as the testimony goes, what is the biggest case? >> the challenge of are they going to try to take on the estimates or justify the estimates, because largely, a game of pointing down lane. well, didn't put those statements together, my experts did, and that is only going so far if everyone is going to be putting them outside of the accounts count as the organization, and at a certain point, if they are all circularly blaming each other, it is not going to be a defense. so, we will see if they come up with a more coherent strategy on the defense. >> one of issues also seems to be lack of testimony of anyone saying, "donald trump told me to value it at x." donald trump told me to value the properties here. is that essential? >> well, that is to the michael cohen testimony, and he was a long term employee, and he never said, looked me the eye to say this, and this is the intent to me, and i need to be worth more. would you like to pin something directly on donald trump if you are the a.g.'s office, sure. but you don't have to here, because there are various defendant, and donald trump is a defendant in his own capacity, and so, too, is the trump organization, and the various llcs and the trump has ruled on one of the causes before the trial started, and the a.g.'s office has persistent fraud, and this is in the back pocket, and now they are fighting over the other counts and the damages amount. >> and we will get the update as things are moving along, and faced first few questions, and we will report what those first few questions are. elie honig, thank you. >> and reported this morning a secret agent on detail for president biden's granddaughter naomi has fired their guns against a crime in a neighborhood, and what are you learning? >> this is appearing to be a break-in, and there is no threat to protectee, and that is naomi biden, and they said that in the georgetown neighborhood of washington, d.c., they encountered three individuals breaking in a window of an unoccupied government vehicle, and in this encounter a federal agent discharged a service weapon, and it is believed that no one was struck. it goes on the say that vehicle which is a red vehicle fled the scene, and that there is a look-out for that vehicle and this is an incident that doing to be continued to be on the lookout for the d.c. police department. but again, no threat to the presid president's granddaughter, but it was a secret service agent who discharged weapon. >> thank you. and joining us is dan who is a supervisory secret service agent, and what do you think of? >> well, what is most important is that we don't know the entirety of the story, and we don't know what the situation was, and if the suspects were armed, and we don't know the situation that the secret service agents encountered. it is important that we don't jump to conclusions, but what is important is that the deadly force policy which every agency has their own is similar. an agent may not fire a weapon as a warning shot. so, if that agent saw that the individuals that were breaking into the vehicle pose d a threa or bodily harm in the area, he can fire a weapon, and firing a weapon as a federal agent constitutes a deadly force use against the suspect. so we have to make sure that we can get the entirety of the story, and the fact that he can fire the weapon at someone who is breaking into the vehicle, and again, we don't know the story or firearms in the vehicle that the secret service agents had on standby, and so we don't know the entirety of the story, but it is concerning that there was someone who is breaking in. we know that georgetown and washington, d.c., has a high crime rate and we know that a lot of cars are broken into, and carjackings, and that has to be taken into effect, and maybe the vehicle was not targeted or maybe it was, and again we need to get the entirety of the story. >> that is what i wanted to ask you, as this is coming out, because there is a lot of detail that is still yet to be known publicly, and what are like the biggest question this morning to try to help us to understand a little bit better of what happened and what led to these secret service agents opening fire. >> in my years during the fbi, there have been agents whose vehicle has been broken into, and they have fired the weapon in response to the vehicle being broken into, and that agent faced disciplinary action because the use of the deadly force was broken into, and attempting to flee is not authorized for deadly force. the agent firing weapon has to be able to articulate to the investigators that person was imminent danger to himself or other persons. now, if the people who are breaking into the vehicle turned to the secret service agent when they declared, hey, secret service, we are here, and as soon as they declared they were in the area, and if the suspects turned to point a weapon or if those agents turned to appear there was a weapon in use or possibly pointing at them, that could constitute as a deadly force use, because they are protecting themselves or the other individuals in the area. so once we get more information, then it is going to be able to articulate the use of deadly force by that agent. >> one level of detail that we have in these initial moments is that the secret service agent was assigned to joe biden's granddaughter security detail, and also we hear from the secret service in the statement that there was no threat to any of the secret services protectees in this incident, and that fact adds what to kind of the picture that you are seeing? >> well, i think that based on what we are hearing that it may have been a car break-in, and they were trying to steal a vehicle that may have been higher-end, and we don't know the description, but it could have been a suburban or nicer vehicle or break-n and the fact that the vehicle was not there at the time, the individuals breaking into the vehicle may have broken into the wrong vehicle at the wrong time, and if it had been the targeting of the president's granddaughter, they would have attacked it when she was in or near the vehicle, but the fact that they were breaking near the vehicle, i think it lends that it was just a vehicle break-in at that time. >> good to hear from you at this time. thank you. john? the recipe for more political payoffs which is what they are referring to as house speaker's new proposal. and now, tim scott is gone for the presidential race, and who else may be? and now s, patients are dyi in a palestinian hospital, and now, israel troops are carrying a rocket launcher right into the hospital. we are turning this video around and will bring it to you shorortly. all right. breaking overnight, senator tim scott has called it quits. at the south carolina senator has suspended his campaign and surprising even his own campaign staff who learned about it watching television. he has been struggling in the polls, and the super pac who has been supporting him has suspended their campaign ads. >> i am going to recommend that voters study each candidate and their candidacies and their past, a make thnd make their be decisions for the country and it is best for me not to weigh in on who to endorse. >> and he said he would not be a running mate, and after that, it was shermanesque refusal. and now, mike johnson is look at a two-part proposal to keep the government running past friday. his plan would fund some through january 19th, and the rest through february 2nd, but he is already facing opposition. this just into cnn the whip count is six gop no votes which is enough to sink that bill without any kind of democratic support, and that could put johnson in the same spot that got kevin mccarthy ousted from the speaker chair a few weeks ago. joining us is axios contributor margaret talov and all right, good to see you, and it is fate de compli, and what is going to happen? >> yes. all right. well, there are other steps that he could take, and other proposals to have a clean c.r. with things that do or do not deal with ukrainian or israeli funding. the challenge is to find something that his right flank can handle, but that also the senate, including the senate republicans and democrats can handle. the question up until now has been will mike johnson, the new house speaker get a honeymoon period that kevin mccarthy was not going to get, and will the house republicans aggree to go along with something that takes them into 2024, even if they don't really like it and to give him time to find the funding, and the immediate answer involving this morning may be no, at least not plan a. i think that it is that we at this exact moment are headed toward another shutdown, and you are starting to see president biden in the white house already begin messaging around this, and if you are a regular american at home wondering if there is shutdowns and why this keeps happening, at this moment, we are in a situation where it is on track to be happening again. >> and what is the messaging from the white house? the white house being able to understand score, this is the republican's mess, and this is why you want me to be the next president? >> well, it is right now the white house's messaging is political, because president biden is running for re-election, and he is facing head winds of how americans are perceiving the economy and how americans feel vis-a-vis, has he fallen short of expectations for him, and what he is trying to do is to make this not a referendum on him, and make it a comparison of joe biden versus donald trump or joe biden versus what is going to happen if the republicans controlled all levers of government. so if he can use this to try to show chaos, dysfunction, inability to govern, he is going to try to use it politically to his advantage, and also, he will try to do that because generally the party that effectively causes the shutdown gets blame, and he doesn't want to get blamed for it, and so he is playing a little bit of defense and mostly offense, and the white house is preparing for basically another shutdown and preparing to argue that messaging exactly. >> so speaker johnson is in an uphill battle, because he does not have the experience to corral, cajole or even make deals to get some support, and so it seems that he is in a position to really is to rely on some democratic leadership support, or a republican leadership support in the senate to potentially influence him, but those things are also leading to demise of the former speaker. you know, what is this speaker to do? >> it is a real problem, because exactly to your point, this is not primarily an issue of inexperience, but having less experience does make it harder to figure out what to do, and it is also meaning that the relationships and the levers that you can pull are less formed, and the biggest challenge is not the experience of the house speaker. the biggest challenge is the very thin house majority of republicans in the insistence of a core bloc of them to sort of message the spending cuts on the social side that they want to do. and it is whether you are john boehner or paul ryan or more recently kevin mccarthy or now you are johnson, that is what are the things in the white house the democrats want. they don't want deep cuts or ukraine funding drying up, and this is a simple move to israel or a border-related funding. so these are the dynamic, and it is going to make it, if you can't have, unanimity and unanimity inside of your own party, it is going to make it almost impossible to the opposing party and say, can you save me? can you save me now? nothing. because the minute that you save me, we are in a political war. >> margaret talev, thank you. we will leave it there. kate? the hospital in gaza is in the middle of a standoff between israel and hamas. and the latest in the situation there as one doctor warns whoever needs surgery dies. plus, the long shot from one democrat trying to take on president biden. a cnn exclusive look at why he is saying he is doing it, and how far he says hehe will gogo. we wilill be rightht back. all right. this morning a diplomatic and military standoff at one of gaza's busiest hospitals. we are talking about the al shifa hospital. i will show you writ. ri -- i will show you where it is right here on the map. they are describing that this hospital has emerged as a symbol of the other side's inhumanity. in other words, each side is saying other one is using this hospital for ill gains. what are we talking about here? well, gaza health officials are saying that people are dying inside of this hospital, because fuel and supplies are can't get in, and there are people dying. reuters has released video of babies inside of this hospital right now, and these were the babies born that needed to be taken out of the incubators and put down on this bed relike thi and put next to warm water. and israel has said that they have delivered fuel, the idf has delivered fuel to the hospital. you can see the picture right here released by the idf with fuel delivered to the hospital, and israel says that the hamas would not let the fuel get inside where it is needed. the health officials say it was not enough fuel and not safe enough to go get it, and one other thing, and israel is saying it consistently for years that hamas is using the hospitals and patients as human shields, and they have a massive tunnel operation terrorist tunnel system underneath the hospital. and the idf just released another terrorist with a rocket grenade launcher at the entrance of this hospital, and this hospital here where israel is showing how the hamas is using these hospitals as shields. oren liebermann is in jerusalem at the midst of the standoff of the patients, and let's be clear, orem, they are caught in the middle. >> john, very much so. you have what is happening on the streets outside of the al shifa hospital, and where there is a heavy presence engaging with the gun fights by the idf, and heavily densely populated area, and inside of the al shifa, and this is what we have seen, lthe rapid collapse of wht is left of the health center. the other hospital this weekend went down, and in al shifa, the central units, and essential units have been shutdown. and the neonatal health care intensive unit went down with the incubators going offline, and they are now trying to keep the babies warm with hot water next to foil, and this is a hint of the conditions inside of the hospital, and trying to treat 650 patients with thousands taking shelter inside. we have seen the images, and the doctors and the officials are describing how difficult it is without fuel, and water and electricity and they have 350 liters of fuel, and the world health organization describing the condition there. >> the babies are not on life support anymore. it has stopped. the lungs are immature, and they don't breathe normally like a normal baby does. so there is so little time and so much need. we want to make it clear to the world that hospitals are supposed to be safe havens, but they have been transformed in gaza as places of despair. >> reporter: the delivery of fuel to the hospitals have been interfered by hamas. they said, no, it was to be delivered by the red cross, and they were too afraid to come get the fuel. and that amount of fuel is only enough to keep it running for half an hour. >> and this is amid another round of air strike