>> just moments ago, donald trump returned to a new york courtroom in his civil fraud case, describing the trial as corrupt. insisting he did nothing wrong. now, the defense called an expert witness and things got testy. we've got details when we take you live outside the courthouse in moments. as u.s. aid to israel remains stalled on capitol hill. today marks two months in the israel hamas war. we'll be speaking to a spokesman for an update on the fighting. the presidents of harvard, mit and the university of pennsylvania facing streetny and calls to resign after their hill testimony on anti-semitism on their campuses. now, a house committee has launched an investigation into the three schools. we're following the major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to cnn news central. right now, former president donald trump is inside a new york courthouse watching the $250 million civil fraud trial that threatens his business empire. trump is expected to take the stand next week. today the defense called an expert witness to testify. a new york university accounting professor named eli bartoff. he's been pushing back hard at the new york attorney general's allegations. let's go live outside the courtroom. bryn, what did this expert witness talk about? explain this testy moment he had with one of the attorneys. >> reporter: boris, the former president wanting to be on the defense table and there was a tense moment before the lunch break. they're back from lunch. this testimony is continuing. but about that moment. this, again, witness is an ny accounting professor. and he essentially has been the defense's strongest witness to back up the defense's claim that the financial statements of condition were not fraudulently inflated to benefit the trumps and other co- defendants. at one points the state's attorney objected to the line of questioning saying it was out of the scope of his expertise and the witness, this professor, really snapped back. saying this to the state's attorney. shame of yourself talking to me like that. you make up allegations. i'm here to tell the truth. you ought to be ashamed of yourself. now, prior to that exchange, this witness, on the stand, has essentially said that those financial statements of conditions, he's looked at them and looked thoroughly through them and found no evidence of fraud. has found that there was no violating of standard accounting principles. again, the strongest witness for the defense's claim. keep in mind, the judge in this case has already ruled that the trumps and the other co- defendants are liable for fraud when it comes to inflating the values of their properties to get better loans. we'll continue to see how this line of questioning goes, and it'll be interesting, of course, to see when the state's attorney get their term to cross examine and ask the questions. you can imagine it'll be a robust line of questioning. we're not there just yet. this is the last full week of testimony. this is the second to final witness in this two-month long civil fraud trial. as you guys said, next week, the former president takes the stand as the final witness in his defense before the trial wraps up. >> bryn, thank you so much for that report. let's talk more about this with elliott williams. it is interesting. this expert testimony. and then it got testy as well. what did you think, though, of the substance of what he's saying on the stand? >> broadly speaking, he's correct. there is some subjectivity to the valuation of real estate. that's about as far as it goes. if you're estimating what real estate properties are going to be worth, some of these things were over valued by a pack tar of three. there's plenty of evidence of fraud on the part of the trump organization here. is he fundamentally correct? in his experience as the legal standard is education training and experience as an expert. is he fundamentally right? sure. that's as far as it goes. >> donald trump was outside the courtroom making the case that the judge was ignoring decisions made by an appellant court. doesn't sound like he was 100% accurate, would you say? >> he was not. i don't like to generalize, but this is a common practice by the president. he takes a legal issue, misstates it, plants it in people's heads and runs with it. that's what happened here. what that prior court said was claims against ivanka trump can't be brought in and claims prior to 2014 for transactions prior to to 2014. that doesn't mean the judge ruled that this whole case was nonsense. it just means the judge limited the kinds of evidence that could come in. he is sort of twisting the facts. prosecutors have to be careful but the president is plain wrong. >> he's playing a different game in the court of public opinion than the lawyers are playing. you have letitia james participating in that. it is confusing what he's saying. she said that her office has proven the former president committed a massive scale of fraud. she seems to recognize there's a need to point out the fraud is not in dispute. there's something else the judge is deciding. >> nothing involving donald trump follows the standard play book. what you're seeing is a prosecutor speaking out that they don't typically. again, this is not a typical defendant. now, a prior court. this court found there is fraud. what they're deciding on in the case is what the damages will be. what the trump organization will have to pay on account of the fraud. so, again, another person with her. she's sort of correct. they found fraud. now the extent needs to be worked out. >> so trump set to take the stand next week. we anticipate fireworks? >> i think so. you know, you never know, boris, what's going to happen when someone gets in the court. eric trump was not a bad witness for his case. the former president might not be a bad witness if he sticks to what his lawyers tell him and doesn't fight and answers truthfully and so on. we've seen the tweets. we've all seen the public statements. it's hard to know how he'll behavior on the stand. when you're a defendant at your own pearl, you go into that court and start acting the fool and causing trouble. if he does that, it could mean $250 million. >> there's a lot on the line for him. a lot of money. his identity as well. elliott, thank you. so here in just over a month, the selection process will begin in ernest for the republican presidential primary. the iowa caucuses are 39 days away. if you can believe that. candidates who are not named donald trump. there are some. they're running out of time to make an impact on voters. last night was one of the moments. four of them debated. plenty of fireworks here. did anyone emerge? >> yeah. let's discuss with cnn senior political analyst and editor at the atlantic ron brownstein and alice stewart. ron, i think it's safe to say the main target on the stage was nikki haley. she's become the focus of many of the attacks. did you think any of the attacks actually landed? is her status as second place to donald trump any diminished by what you saw last night? >> yeah. i actually think it was a difficult night for nikki haley. she's had an impressive few months. but she's grown in the republican race so far primarily by consolidating the voters who are most resistant to trump. moderate voters. college educator voters. that's not enough to win. everybody understands that eventually she'll have to reach beyond the base into the coalition that is supporting trump, including more conservative voters, if she's really going to be able to challenge him. eventually. i thought it was a difficult night for her on both front. she didn't make a strong case against trump at all. hardly mentioned him until the closing statement. she didn't really have great answers to the tag team of desantis and ramaswamy who were arguing. her response was mostly bob dole in 1988, you're lying about my record rather than presenting a different view of where the parties should go. she has work to do. even if she gets to the one on one with trump where she seems to be on track better than desantis. if she couldn't handle desantis and ramaswamy, what's it look like with trump? >> there did seem to be some policy distinctions. there were disagreements where you could see these candidates fall into different categories here. specifically we saw that on the issue of transgender rights. let's watch a couple moments from that. >> nikki disagrees with me. she opposes the bill that we did to ban that. >> i did not. >> they had a bill to try and say men shouldn't go into girls' bathroom and she killed that bill and bragged she killed that bill. >> ten years ago when the bathroom situation came up, we had maybe a handful of kids that were dealing with an issue. i said we don't need to bring government into this but boys go into boys' bathrooms. girls go into girls' bathrooms and if anyone else has an issue, they use a private bathroom. i was against that. >> i signed it. you didn't. i stood up for little girls. you didn't do it. >> you also saw moments this idea of parental choice coming in and making a distinction between it. when you look at the moments, we should be clear, this is a fight that is aimed at iowa evangelical voters 39 days away from the caucuses. what did you think about this? >> i think that specific back and forth brianna was more about ron desantis flexing his muscles on the culture wars and what he's done in florida with regards to transgender youth as well as bathrooms and the issues. he was basically trying to say i've done more on this issue than anyone on this stage and holding her feet to the fire. she was able to push back on some of what he said. she wanted to make sure parents had the opportunity to have a voice in some soft these issues, which is important. she's also separated herself from this field on the abortion issue. all the candidates on these stages are very pro-life. she's had a distinction in past debates she talked about let's not demonize people on both sides and find a more nuanced approach and talk about the limits as opposed to abortion bans. she's separating herself from the field. she took some time after a push by christie making distinction with donald trump and he actually added to the debt to this country and look, with me and my candyass, they'll be no drama, no whining. she's doing it in a way that doesn't alienate his base and the support she needs desperately. no disputing the fact, she was attacked last night. that's because she has the momentum and a lot of the wind in her sails right now 40 days out from the iowa caucus. >> i think the distinction that alice is making is significant because three of the candidates on stage last night tried to present themselves as nontrump candidates. only one of them really came out as an anti-trump candidate. what did you make of chris christie's rhetoric? will that be successful given we haven't seen him gain any traction in polling? >> no. look, there's only a limited audience in the republican primary for that direct attack on trump. i thought christie was more suggestion sink and forceful in making the case he's fundamentally unfit and a threat to democracy than he had been in the earlier debates. he made arguments likely quoted going forward by democrats than by other republicans. obviously desantis and haley don't want to go down that road. they are criticizing trump, at best, kind of obliquely. father time is undefeated. there's too much chaos that attracts him. that's around him as haley said. rather they saying he produces chaos. they are focused primarily on which one of them will come out of iowa and new hampshire seen as the principle alternative to trump. in that sense, it makes a certain amount of logical consistency focusing mostly on each other. eventually, they're going to have to give a better argument than they've been willing to do so far about why some of that nearly 60% of national republican voters who want trump should switch to them. and each week that goes by, obviously the window narrows in their ability to do that. >> i want to look at a moment. this is a comment that ron desantis made. >> the commander in chief not only has a right, you have a responsibility to fight back against these people. >> does that mean shooting first? >> it means you're going to categorize them as foreign terrorist organizations and we will identify just like we would anywhere. when i was in iraq, the al qaeda wasn't wearing a uniform. anyone walking down the street, they had man dresses on. you didn't know someone had a bomb attached or not. >> alice, what's happening here? i tried to wonder what does he gain by mocking traditional garb? he's a guy with a lady shoe problem. why is he bringing attention to this? >> clearly he's trying to really mark his territory on securing the border and immigration and making the case that a lot of people coming into this country are coming through the southern border. and we need to do a better job of identifying them. >> that's not what he's doing. man dresses. why? >> clearly, i think it's inappropriate and he shouldn't be saying that. in his view, that's playing to the base. that's what the base resonates with. that's clearly the rhetoric we've heard from donald trump. he feels that's a good in road to securing that language. i don't think it's appropriate. i think it's wrong. that's clearly what he's doing is trying to play to the base. >> it just seems like a strange way to get to his point. thank you, guys, so much. >> thank you so much. so, we just heard from several people declared they're running for president. later today, we may be hearing from one yet to declare. potentially as a third party candidate. today at 5:00 p.m. former republican congressman liz cheney joins jake tapper for a one on one interview. be sure to tune on with that. it's on the lead with jake tapper at 5:00 p.m. earlier today, president biden spoke to benjamin netanyahu. we'll speak to a spokesperson to get details on their conversation and request from the united states that israel do more to protect civilians in gaza. plus, calls for resignations and emergency board of trustees meeting. and now a house investigation. inside growing backlash over comments by ivy league leaders at a hearing on anti-semitism. cnn has learned president biden spoke to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu today. the attacks left 1200 people dead. defense forces say they breeched defense lines, including in the southern gaza city of khan younis. the wounded are overwhelming that facility, which is critically short on medication, space and supplies. the hamas run palestinian health ministry says 17,000 people have been killed in gaza. another 46,000 wounded since october 7th. we want to bring in a spokesperson for the israeli government. thank you so much for being with us this afternoon. i want to start with the call between the two lead res today. u.s. officials have repeatedly called for israel to do more to protect civilians in gaza and allow more aid. do you know if that was part of the conversation between the president and prime minister? >> boris, thank you very much for having me on and happy hanukkah to everyone celebrating. that call, i'm sure they discussed the ongoing movement in the war. i'm sure they discussed the situation in gaza, the humanitarian crisis that hamas has brought upon their people by invading israel's borders on october 7th. raping, burning whole families alive. dismembering limbs of children and leaving them to bleed. we know who hamas are. we're doing our best to free gaza from hamas and minimizing civilian casualties. i believe we stand shoulder to shoulder with the american administration on that. and we thank them for their continued support. >> i want to get your read on reports that the idf shelled a town in southern lebanon. it's very close to the border with israel. i'm sure you know it's a violation of international humanitarian law to fire phosphorous near civilians. the idf previously denied similar reports. can you confirm whether the idf targeted them with phosphorous? >> boris, this is something that comes up over and over again. not just in this war but in crisis before. and the idf consistently says we do not use white phosphorous. there's a lot of psychological warfare out there and misinformation going around. the idf is very targeted, surgical army. we're going after the terrorists in gaza. our focus is gaza. we hope to deter with the help of the american administration to deter hezbollah. we returned fire to the place of fire. and also, unfortunately we lost one of our civilians to a missile. missiles continue to rain down on israel. as the war goes on, missiles are raining down on israel. just the other day i had to run for shelter myself in tel-aviv. >> i want to be precise. the idf says it uses white phosphorous in certain circumstances. i'm wondering if you can confirm that white phosphorous was used in the most recent attack on the town near the border with lebanon. >> i can tell you categorically from the beginning of the war the idf has not used and will not use white phosphorous. i can't speak to ongoing operation activities. i am not a spokesman for the idf. >> sure. we are hearing claims inside gaza, there was a mosque that was destroyed. also that a hospital was damaged by shelling. do you know if the mosque and hospital were idf targets? is there evidence that the government has been provided that hamas is operating in those locations? >> boris, we know that this is hamas' plan is to attack our civilians from deep within and underneath their civilians to ensure maximum civilian casualties on both sides. we heard a report today of despite the fact that israel has asked gaza to move to the southwest to specific safer zones, we're hearing reports of hamas shooting from the safer zones at our troops. we found weapon cachets and launching sight this is boycott centers, in mosques, in schools. so, it doesn't, it's not a shock to me that hamas would be shooting from those types of places. which should be off limits, according to international law. international humanitarian law is not front and center for hamas. a brutal terror organization that is still, i remind your viewers, still holding 137 israeli men, women, children and a baby hostage. deep, dark in underground tunnels deep underneath gaza. >> a quick final question on the hostages. there was recently recorded leaked audio from a meeting between people that had been held hostage and prime minister netanyahu. one of them claimed hostages were shelled by the idf during their time in gaza. are you concerned that idf operations may be putting hostages in gaza at risk? >> firstly, especially on a day like today, on hanukkah, on the first night of hanukkah, i reach out and hug every one of those families. we as israelis stand together with those families, and we have two missions in this war. one is to destroy hamas. and the other is to bring home every one of those hostages. we know that obviously like all israelis, there are different opinions on everything. but one thing that we're united on is that those hostages need to be released immediately. unconditionally. it is a crime against humanity. we call on hamas to release them today. so they can celebrate hanukkah with their families. >> thank you so much for sharing your perspective with us. we hope you have a happy and safe hanukkah. >> thank you, boris. >> brianna. despite the urgent plea for congress to resolve the battle over funding ukraine, republican senators blocked a multibillion dollar ukraine aid package from advancing. the deal would also send funding to israel. the sticking point is the tug of war over border security. cnn chief congressional correspondent is on capital hill. manu, it seems like time is running out to help