just into cnn, brand-new poll numbers that spell trouble for president biden's campaign in two key battleground states. plus, former president donald trump not testifying after all today in his civil fraud trial in new york. so what changed? and with time running out for aid to ukraine, a special guest will appear at the white house this week. ♪ good morning to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm kasie hunt. it's monday, december 11th, 5:00 a.m. here in washington where we have new cnn poll numbers this morning in two critical battleground states. the news is not great for president biden and his campaign. the numbers show donald trump leading in both georgia and michigan. in georgia a state biden carried by a very narrow margin in 2020. registered voters say they prefer trump over biden by 5%. in michigan where biden carried in 2020, polls show trump ten points up, up 10% in each polled in each state say they wouldn't support et cetera candidate. trump's margin over biden is significantly boosted in both states by people who say they did not vote in 2020. the less engaged voters favored trump by 26 points in georgia and 40 points in michigan. here to help break it all down, what it all means is cnn's isaac dever. isaac, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> these are refuse numberough the president, especially in michigan. >> the fundamental for biden in 2020 was that he be able to win back michigan, and pennsylvania which trump won in 2016. and michigan is actually where people would not want to see joe biden elected and where the biden campaign wants to see things. the biden campaign contends about polls like these that they have not really started to campaign and people have not voted in the election and going back ten points is a significant margin in a state for pretty much a must win for joe biden in michigan. and georgia is a state that they in the biden campaign are hoping can stay blue. of course, only a 12,000 vote win for him in 2020. and if that, goes back into the trump column, very good news for donald trump. >> so, isaac, one of the big problems here seeing here for the president is that a quarter of democratic voters in both states disapprove of the job that president biden is doing. you can see these numbers are pretty stark there. yes, obviously, he has significant approval from democrats, 75%, 77%, but that's 1 in 4 democrats who don't think he's doing a great job. this seems like a democratic base problem in some ways, no? >> well, look at this, people are clearly frustrate d with where the country is at this point. there are a lot of democrats who are thonot feeling so enthused joe biden or the prospect of the 2024 election at all. what joe biden has said throughout his career, he made a joke about this, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. that seems to be a big part of how he hopes to win what may be the last election of his life. you may have wished for another candidate, but by the time they get to voting by next fall, saying would you really want trump back in the white house? and making that a real push to get those voters who are saying they're disengaged. or saying they're drifting away to come back and be there for biden. >> i mean, this does really seem to be a battle around who they can convince to vote. i mean, i want to put up another interesting finding from this poll. which is that voters who say that they didn't vote in 2020 and say they're going to vote in this election, or could vote in this election, they are breaking toward trump. right now, according to this poll. does the biden campaign have any concerns that -- i mean, we have a history here of donald trump engaging people who historically didn't engage in politics at all. are they worried about that phenomenon playing out again in 2024? >> well, sure. donald trump has shown in the 2016 election and the 2020 election that he can turn out voters in a way that no one else can, including his own base. people did not show for republicans in the midterms in 2018 or 2022, the way they showed up for donald trump in 2016 or 2020. now, the issue that the biden campaign likes to talk about here is that people haven't really wrapped their minds around the idea that donald trump could be coming back as president. they haven't really thought through what that means and haven't remembered all of what happened over the course of his four years in office. they aim to remind people of that. and make people a really big part of what they do, of the campaign here starting in just a couple weeks from now. they feel like we'll get past the republican primaries, see who the nominee is, if indeed it is donald trump and start the focus reminding everybody on everything about the trump presidency. and whether that was things going on with immigration, things going on with national security. just the daily drama of donald trump in the white house. and try to make that much more present in people's mienlds, much mo minds, feeling that will turn them away from donald trump. >> isaac dovere, thank you for joining, particularly since the spread in michigan is wider than the spread in georgia. telling you how the country has changed. thanks for being here. still to come, israel's prime minister and his gamble with hamas. how it back fired for netanyahu. plus, death and damage for tennessee tornadoes. > and makingng b big plans . welcome back. a new report over the weekend highlighting efforts by israeli leader benjamin netanyahu, encouraging qatar to send billions of dollars into gaza, some of it in suitcases. "the new york times" reports the money was intended for humanitarian goals like fuel for a power plant and pay government salaries. the octave was to keep hamas strong enough to rule gaza but weak enough to be deterred from major terrorism against israel. but the plan turned out to be a major miscalculation. the "times" reports the payments were part of a string of decisions by military leaders, and intelligence officers and all based on a fundamentally failed assessment that hamas is neither capable of a large-scale attack. max foster joins me. max, good to see you this report is titled "buying quiet." the "times" is pulling together a lot of information that's out there and widely known. they put additional meat on the bone here, in terms of pulling it all together. but it basically argues that benjamin netanyahu had tolerated hamas for his own political ends. and that ultimately back fired. what is going on here? why was he doing this? and what do you see in how this miscalculation was made? >> well, it does, in a way, if you look at all of this, lots of different reporting brought together in "the new york times." i mean, it almost is a peace plan by propping up hamas. they've been more focused on running gaza and governance, rather than fighting. and that's obviously where the intelligence was wrong, because of what happened on october 7th. so, the other, you know, the way of looking at this as well is by propping up hamas, you've also got a counterweight to the palestinian authority and that reduced pressure on netanyahu to negotiate a two-state solution. the idea of having a single palestinian state. so, there was strategy behind this, all of this, a lot of this has been dismissed, of course, by netanyahu. but the idea of propping up hamas, maintaining the pieace, doing it almost ages a nuisance was a miscalculation because they did have a fighting force and they put it into action. >> so basically the idea is that netanyahu opposed a two-state solution and could tell the world if a terrorist organization is running gaza, we cannot negotiate with them or have a two-state solution? is that the argument you're saying? or keeping them, that they couldn't be unified? >> i think it's two authorities. the palestinian authority in the west bank and you have hamas in gaza, and when you're talking about creating a single palestinian state, you're basically setting the two sides against each other, by strengthening hamas against the palestinian authority. which the wide world would see as a legitimate authority to oversee a single palestinian state. >> right. so, for netanyahu, i feel like you and i keep talking about this, but he still continues to say, we haven't can any of these hard conversations about mistakes made and the war is over. is time running out for him? >> i think it we've talked about it a lot, haven't we have he's going to have to face the music at some point. the report coming out from western media, we're getting a picture here that it was a miscalculation to take, to assume that hamas wasn't ready to attack israel. too focused on runaza. that was a miscalculation. and we've learned, haven't we, there was intelligence going to the authorities, not entirely clear whether or not netanyahu saw an exact plan, like the one that was carried out on october the 7th and that was pretty much ignored. you're right, they've got to take responsibility for a lot of this and i think the time will come to that. at the moment, a unified cabinets, and they are currently supporting him. >> as you said, never underestimate benjamin netanyahu. he's a survivor, if nothing else. max foster, see you tomorrow. pressure growing on harvard's president after her testimony on anti-semitism. how faculty is now responding. and major storms across the northeast. our weather man derek van dam will be here with the latest. i'm a little anxious, i'm a little excited. i'm gonna be emotional, she's gonna be emotional, but it's gonna be so worth it. i love that i can give back to one of our customers. i hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. oh my goodness. oh, you guys. i know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. you have made an impact. so have you. for you guys to be out here doing something like this, it restores a lot of faith in humanity. ♪ quick hits across america now. nearly 600 harvard faculty mechanics signed a petition urging officials to resist calls to remove the school's president claudine gay. she's one of the three school leaders who declined to testify that calling for genocide would violate a code of conduct before congress last week. elon musk has restored the x account, twitter account, conspiracy theorist of alex jones. twitter had spoken after he asked whether jones should be reinstated in a poll. jones was banned five years ago in no small part claiming that the newtown massacre was a hoax. people in tennessee are picking up the pieces after a reverse of dangerous tornadoes. leaving damage and power outages. more than 50 people were injured. the same system brought the powerful tornados to tennessee is now hitting here in the northeast. more than 40 million people remain under flood threats fto maine, and derek van dam, the devastation is offawful. >> just incredible to see. one of the tornadoes that struck madison, tennessee. there's the vortex of tornado. watch the explosion, actually a science going on here, the temperature and dew point raises with the explosion of fire, eliminating briefly the vortex of the torn, before we we start to see the tornado reform again. the circulation pattern is still there in the atmosphere. didn't go anywhere. the winds causing the damage. there was one tornado in clarkville, with winds clocked in at 150 miles per hour. just a powerful system causing 29 reports of tornadoes. 90,000 people still without power. and the storm system is not done yet, as kasie mentioned we have impacts across the entire eastern seaboard at the moment. this is heavy rain and snowfall for northern new england. as we see snow showers noted in and around the nation's capital. here's the flood watches, nearly 40 million people impacted by that, but check this out, flood warning for boston. turn around, don't drown. if you see a flooded roadway, not a smart idea to travel across it. there's the snowfall in upstate new york, vermont and new hampshire. a lot of wind associated with the system, especially cape cod and coastal areas of maine. we could see wind gusts 50 to 60 miles per hour, bringing more power outages through extreme northern new england. here's the system that will depart and left with a raw monday afternoon and evening. and clearing out. what a powerful storm, kasie, causing damage across tennessee to the east coast. >> and we've been reporting that 100 or so military families across the border in account account at ft. campbell lost their homes a handful of weeks before christmas. our hearts go out do them. derek van dam, thank you for that report. still ahead shhere, how som americans say they'll vote in 2024. not good news. for and alsoso donalald tru sayiying what he w will and d wt dodo today in n his civil l fra trtrial today.y. ♪ good morning. thanks for getting up early with us, i'm kasie hunt. it's 5:28 a.m. here in washington. also in atlanta and detroit, where we're getting tough new poll numbers for president biden this morning. new cnn surveys from two critical battleground states signal an uphill battle for the president. he's falling behind donald trump in hypothetical matchups in both georgia and michigan. in georgia, trump holds a five-point lead over the president. in michigan trump ahead by a full ten points among registered voters. voters in the game have issues with sharpness. and some says bidenomics are working. let's bring in michelle price to talk about this, a national political reporter for the associated press. michelle, good morning. wonderful to have you on the show. these numbers are, you know, going to raise some eyebrows, i think, especially among the biden campaign. particularly, that spread in michigan. it's very interesting to me that georgia right now is looking tighter than michigan. we traditionally think of michigan as a blue state, georgia as a red one. obviously, it's become a swing state in recent years. and michigan as well has swung back and forth. it went for trump in 2016. and biden in 2020. what do you see in the numbers? >> i mean, you hit the nail right there on the head there. georgia was a state that was expected to be a much tighter state for democrats. for joe biden in 2024. and these numbers in michigan would be an alarm bell for him because it's a state where he did have a bigger margin. what's interesting to me in these poll numbers, too, there's a good chunk of voters who are interested in supporting donald trump that said they didn't vote in 2020. these are people coming into the process. people for some reason sat out in 2020 that are now seeing reason to get engaged. now, whether they're dissatisfied with joe biden or because they're seeing something compelling in donald trump's message. we're not really sure. democrats have quietly, may be a little louder there's concerns about the way joe biden has started his campaign. he's only had one or two rallies. he's mostly fundraising right now. this may be a sign that he needs to get out and get to those places like michigan. >> and michigan is where we saw the early flags for trump back in 2016 where there were a lot of people who believed he couldn't win at all. voters are telling us in the polls that president biden's stamina is a big concern for them, sharpness and stamina, i should say. you can see there that voters have 69%, 66% of voters have concerns about the sharpness and stamina of joe biden. it's much less for donald trump. this is a bit of stand-in for age, but i think it underscores there's only three years' difference between them. how should voters grapple with this? >> there's been issues around how loose they let the president be on stage. there were concerns about tripping. we heard -- you know, they haven't even committed to doing debates. there are people close who say we've been in the room with him, he's very sharp. he has his moments but with donald trump, he doesn't ever say joe biden is too old. he attacks him on a sharpness level. he's eager to attack the president. for biden's campaign, what they need to do is convey he can go toe to toe with donald trump and target any issue on the debate stage. >> one issue that's polled well, we tested a hypothetical -- i'm sorry, this is not a cnn poll. it's a "wall street journal" poll out over the weekend. they tested nikki haley and president biden. and the results are pretty -- well, you can see, haley is above 50% which is a significant place to be in such a closely divided electorate. now, i will say, caveat, a lot of voters don't know as much about nikki haley as any opposing campaign would make sure they learn over a hard fought presidential race. i'm sure that will bring that number a little more down to early. but it does seem to make the case for the haley people, in terms of her electability and what she would do against the president. what's your takeaway from this? >> yeah, this is not the first poll we've found this. this is something that the haley campaigning has been pointing out for weeks, maybe months now, actually everyone in the field, more crowded than it is now, she polls the best against joe biden. there's a potential for historymaking presidency that could excite people and add to the numbers. it's the reason why some of the donors are excited about her because they're looking at her as the general election and see her as the most electable. >> michelle, the other thread we've been polling on over the last week or so is the former president donald trump's authoritarian bent, i suppose, you might describe it as. because there was a piece in the "times," "the new york times" over the weekend from peter baker, longtime white house reporter and analysis writer who wrote about this over the weekend. and donald trump clearly read it and saw it, because he was out attacking peter baker. and yet, he was essentially repeating, reiterating, the claims that he would be a dictator on day one. take a listen to what donald trump had to say. >> baker today in "the new york times," he said that i want to be a dictator. i didn't say that. i said i want to be a dictator for one day. but "the new york times" said -- and you know why i wanted to be a dictator because i want a wall, right. i want a wall and i want to drill, drill, drill. >> so, there you go. he's repeating that, although he's insisting still, just one day. what's your takeaway? >> yeah, i mean, this is a thing that the trump campaign is clearly concerned about, the fears that this will turn off independent voters and general election, this could be a problem for him, because, generally, americans find a dictator, authoritarian a scary prospect. and the former president taming it down saying i will only be a dictator on day one is not doing much to shoot that down. some of his supporters act like this is a tongue in cheek thing, kind of a joke. that's been something for years with rhetoric that there's been a tongue in cheek attitude for some of his supporters. for the biden campaign, you're stitching that into the ad, saying, listen, this is another guy not reeling out being a tick ta dictator. >> michelle price, appreciate you being here. donald trump over the weekend saying he will not testify in his civil fraud trial in new york. this comes after days of him vowing tovow ing to take the stand. he posted this, i already testified and have nothing else to say. other than that, it's a complete witch hunt, that will do nothing to keep criminals out of new york. let's bring former prosecutor andrew checksky. >> in a stage like this, you have to look at what has come into evidence, he was called by the prosecution where he was examined for a better part of the day, and had the opportunity to testify on his side as well. it didn't go all that well with the judge reminding him it was a campaign trial. rather, a trial regarding his businesses. but he did