business dealings. every single republican voted to authorize the inquiry even though the year-long investigation has failed to uncover wrongdoing by the president. many acknowledge they haven't found enough evidence to actually impeach biden. >> do you have proof that joe biden acted corruptly to help his son? >> an impeachment inquiry is not about proof. >> i don't know that you're going to see a high crime and misdemeanor. >> how close are you to support impeachment of the president? >> we're not there. >> gop leadership has made clear that formalizing the inquiry does not mean impeaching the president is inevitable. republicans argue the move was in response to stone walling by the biden administration when it comes to handing over documents. the president responding shortly after that vote saying, quote, instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt. that vote unfolded hours after the president's son hunter biden defied the republican investigator subpoena for closed-door testimony yesterday. gop leaders say the vote sends a message loud and clear to the white house. >> evidence uncovered has shown a very disturbing trend by the biden family. we've spent months in this investigation accumulating evidence. we have a simple question that i think a noteworthy majority of americans have, what did the bidens do to receive the tens of millions of dollars from our enemies around the world? >> and we begin this hour, the spokesperson for the white house counsel's office ian sams. appreciate you being here this morning. i want to start with what house judiciary committee chairman jim jordan said yesterday about the rationale for having the formalized vote saying, quote, he thinks it will help us get key individuals in to speak with us in a more timely fashion and get us documents that mr. comer has been after for a while. is that true? >> no. these guys have made up and moved the goal post every step of the way of this investigation. it's all baseless. they've been investigating the president all year long. for example, they've gotten 100,000 pages of documents. they've interviewed witnesses for 40 hours, and guess what, they've come up with not a single shred of evidence of any wrongdoing of any kind by president biden. yet they're storming ahead with this impeachment stunt anyway to please their far right base and play politics. and it really cheapens what is a historically grave constitutional remedy of last resort. they're using it almost like a -- you know, like a political attack ad. they're going to keep doing this over and over and over again because every time they float a claim about the president, a claim of wrongdoing it gets debunked and they get embarrassed, and what's really unfortunate is that the entire republican conference has now gone along with this stunt instead of taking action on real priorities on real issues that are facing the country and the world as we head into the end of the year, and these republicans are leaving town for a month without acting. >> to that point, the unanimous republican vote i think would have surprised people three or four weeks ago. one of the reasons or the primary reason that a lot of moderate republicans or republicans from biden won districts, particularly in places like new york, said they needed the tools, right? this was going to give them the ability to, as chairman jordan was saying, have people come in, do more of the investigation, which was in part driven by your own special counsel from the white house special counsel's office citing a trump era office of legal counsel opinion that said without a formal vote you could not have the compulsory process that comes with impeachment power sochlt i guesd the white house dare them to go down this path? there's a process you're supposed to follow in congressional oversight. these guys haven't followed it. they've blazed right through. we've offered over and over and over again throughout this congress to meet with them, to talk with them, to hear about any legitimate informational needs they may have, and time and time again they've ghosted us. they don't respond to questions that we have for them. they don't reach out to have meetings. so they've just blazed through this process, and there's a reason why. the reason why is that this is a preordained outcome. marjorie taylor greene who right now is probably the most powerful member of the house republican conference, introduced articles of impeachment on day one of joe biden's presidency, before he could even be the president, do anything, they've decided from the moment that he took office that they were going to impeach him, and this is a natural continuation of that process, and now what they've done is wasted millions and millions of taxpayer dollars on a fishing expedition trying to drum up an excuse for it. they've blazed through this process wrongly, and i don't think that that's a fair characterization, and i think as the facts come out people will see that. >> on the point you're making now, the question has been what underpins the process here? what underpins the allegations here? and speaker mike johnson in a usa today opinion piece laid out what he said were the accusations, they include from 2014 to 2019, biden family members and affiliates have more than $15 million from foreign entities. 22 examples of president biden speaking or meeting with hunter biden's foreign business associates, payments to president biden from hunter biden's business account, and interim report saying there's special treatment of hunter biden from the justice department. the credible fbi source giving information about alleged bribe to then vice president biden and the president and white house have lied multiple times about his involvement in his family's business schemes. do you dispute all of those outright? >> not only do i dispute those j jougt outright, just two days ago, republicans in congress were telling your colleagues in the media that there is no evidentiary basis for them to pursue impeachment. they've seen nothing. they don't see the grounds for it is what is a republican senator told "politico." they're just making up lies to attack the president in a relentless smear campaign that, frankly, has been going on for four straight years now. we went through an impeachment in the last administration over these same made up allegations, and republicans in the house are just rewinding the tape and running it again to try to score political points against the president instead of doing their actual jobs for the american people. you pointed out one of those things. they act like they get these smoking guns, and they create a ton of attention and energy and they act -- they send the siren emojis on twitter, and it turns out last week, for example, one of those payments that they're talking about was about a pickup truck. >> the car loan. >> these are the kinds of things that they're making up to attack the president. >> i want to ask while i have you, hunter biden had a very public moment yesterday outside the house saying he wanted to testify publicly . the white house said it was aware hunter biden was going to do that, did he agree with the strategy of doing that? >> well, look, i'm not going to get into others' conversations with his son, except to say hunter's a private person. he can make his own decisions about how to handle these sofrts of things. the president loves and is proud of him. he overcame a dark period in his life and has stood tall and is in recovery. something that's getting lost, hunter offered to testify publicly and transparently. he offered, and the house republicans rejected it, and it bets gets gets to the point of what they're doing, they'll never be satisfied. they'll continue attacking over and over again, no matter what the facts are. what's really scary is they're abusing such a grave constitutional process to do it. >> in the statement that hunter biden made yesterday he said let me state as clearly as i can, my father was not financially involved in my business. he was unequivocal about that, but that is an evolution of where the president had been during the campaign, where the white house had been at the start of the campaign. not involved financially in the business is very different than not talked about the business, was that an intentional point of clarity? >> i dispute the premise of that question. it's one of jim jordan's favorite little shiny objects is to try to take a semantic thing and make an argument that is somehow far afield from what they're focused on. we've been extremely clear over and over again for years and nothing has changed. the president was not in business with his son, period. they're trying to make up all sorts of allegations. >> ian, with respect, i'm not citing jim jordan here, i was in some of the white house press briefings where it was said the president did not talk to his son about business dealings. i think the statement has changed and been prmore precise. i'm not saying this is an impeachable offense or some grand indictment, but it is a fact that the president said one thing that ended up being doing not true. >> again, i dispute that that's true. that is not true. the truth is that he wasn't in business with his son. the republicans have for years been trying to make arguments -- >> i'm not saying he was in business with his son. >> over and over again those have been refuted. what they do is try to take semantic games and try to distract from the actual truth, which is that all of these things have been debunked, these allegations are false, and they're using their power in congress to launch this impeachment inquiry over false allegations that have no basis in reality. >> it is certainly center stage for house republicans as, as you noted, very critical negotiations about the president's national security sup supplemental ongoing, at least on the senate side. turning to a cnn exclusive, a u.s. intelligence assessment shows nearly half the bombs israel has dropped on gadsza sie the hamas attacks on october 7th are what are referred to as dumb bombs. they are imprecise and unguided. the assessment says those dumb bombs are likely contributing to the soaring civilian death toll. cnn's natasha bertrand is live at the pentagon with nmore on this reporting. we're hearing, hey thr, this ist of what happens in a war. what more have you learned? >> reporter: we're learning that the intelligence community assesses that of the 29,000 air to ground munitions that israel is estimated to have dropped on gaza over the last two plus months, roughly 40 to 45% of those munitions have actually been unguided dumb bombs and that is really significant because it could be contributing, as you said, to the soaring civilian death toll in the gaza strip because those dumb bombs are extremely imprecise, and they are known to miss their targets, unlike precision guided missiles, which of course can also miss their targets, but at least they are guided in a way that allows them to be a little bit more accurate. experts that we spoke to said this is really concerning because the israeli military does have access to precision guided munitions. the u.s. has provided the israelis with thousands of bomb kits that allow them to transform these dumb bombs in their unguided munitions into smart bombs that, again, allows them to be a little more precise. but look, the white house has really been struggling to answer questions about the discrepancy between what president biden has called an indiscriminate bombing campaign with the white house's claims that israel is doing everything that it can to protect civilians. something that experts said is directly undercut by the u.s. assessment that they are not using the most precise munitions in their arsenal. here's what national security council spokesperson john kirby said when pressed on this discrepancy yesterday. >> sometimes in war and again, i'm not speaking for the israelis, sometimes in war, your best plans, your best execution of those plans doesn't always go the way you want it to go. doesn't always go the way you expect it to go. >> so national security adviser jake sullivan, he is going to be in israel today and tomorrow, and he is going to be discussing with the israelis the fact that the u.s. expects them to be more precise and more surgical in their campaign in gaza because according to the hamas run gaza administrative health, 18,000 palestinian civilians, palestinians i should say, have been killed over the last two months of war. the use of these dumb bombs, which the u.s. has criticized other countries for using in war zones, really is not helping the case that the israelis are trying to make, that they are doing everything they can to protect civilians. >> really appreciate the reporting this morning, thank you. the federal judge in donald trump's election interference case now pressing the pause button. why she's stepping back. plus, abortion access will once again go bf efore the conservative leaning supreme court, the case the justices are set to decide on in the new year. you're looking at a beautiful december morning in new york city, and well, move down to washington a little bit, and you understand there are major legal issues ahead. a federal judge hitting the brakes on donald trump's 2020 election interference case. judge tanya chutkan has paused all procedural deadlines while appeals play out. special counsel jack smith has asked the supreme court to decide whether trump has any immunity from criminal prosecution for alleged crimes he committed while in office. chutkan's order would allow the appeals process to run its course which could delay the march 2024 trial days. joining us to explain a lots of legal issues and a lot of important ones at that, cnn senior legal analyst elie honig. walk us through what we heard from judge chutkan. >> these are really big developments in the trump trial. the one we're focused on is the federal doj jack smith indictment of donald trump relating to 2020 election interference. donald trump has made the argument he has criminal immunity, cannot be prosecuted because he alleged what he did was within his scope of the federal judge as president. the district judge tanya chutkan rejected that. ordinarily what would happen next is donald trump would appeal up to the court of appeals and then maybe up to the u.s. supreme court. however, what jack smith has done here is ask to do a shortcut, basically he says i want to skip the court of appeals, u.s. supreme court, i want you to take the case directly. it's something they don't do often, but they do from time to time. a couple major things happened yesterday. first of all, the court of appeals issued a ruling saying if we get the case, if we don't get skipped, we're going to mega expedite this thing. judge chutkan said while all of this is playing out, i'm going on pause. she's actually legally required to do that. doj and donald trump agreed that she had to do that, and she said, yes, you're right. she has to stop everything she's doing while this case is playing out through the appeals. >> so then the question becomes how does that impact, a trial that was set to begin in march. the trump campaign for its part saying this is a big win for the former president. how does that actually play out? >> the calendar is so important here. let's take a quick look, stoed december 14th. this trial is scheduled to start 81 days from today on march 4th. here's the problem, it's going to take -- even if this gets mega expedites, even if the supreme court moves it as fast as possible, that's going to give us a ruling from the supreme court probably sometime in february. now, let's say they keep the case on track, let's say they reject the immunity argument, you can't just resume the case in the middle of february and then go to trial three weeks later because there's so many things that would be happening right now. discovery, pretrial motions. so in all likelihood, assuming we get a ruling late january into february, this march 4th date is just not going to hold. it is going to have to move back. >> the supreme court decided they're going to take up a case related to a january 6th rioter and his presence in the capitol. why does that connect to president trump? >> this is a guy nobody's really heard of named joseph fisher. one of the january 6th rioters. he was charged and convicted for obstruction of an official proceeding. the theory was he was trying to delay congress from counting the electoral votes. dozens were charged this way. he challenged this, he said the obstruction law does not apply to trying to interfere with congress. what happened on january 6th, even who's brought this case has lost. the courts have said, no, it does apply. the big development yesterday is the supreme court says we're going to take a look. we want this case. now, here's the problem for donald trump for the -- well, good for donald trump, problem for jack smith. two of the four charges against donald trump are that exact statute. so if the supreme court says obstruction does not apply to january 6th, these two charges are out of the case against donald trump. so where does jack smith go from here? he has three options. none of them are great. trial then hope. >> hope is the real legal -- that's a legal option? >> that is a legal option. yes, exactly. exactly. hope, not a strategy. i don't think he's going to do this one. he can just try the case and then hope the supreme court comes out the right way. but if he tries it and then gets a conviction and then the supreme court overturns it, he could lose the whole case. second of all, he could just drop those two charges, proceed on the other two. that would be seen as a big win for donald trump that would potentially gut his case. and then finally, he can wait. he can say let's see what the supreme court rules, and then we'll hold the trial burks th but that's going to take months. it wouldn't surprise me to see jack smith say hey, supreme court, we need you to expedite this so we can try your case. >> there's a lot going on. we appreciate it. >> sure is. family members whose loved ones were and are still being held by hamas met with president biden at the white house. up nenxt we'll learn more about that meeting and where things stand this morning. you may recall her 4-year-old great niece was released two weeks ago. she joins us with more on yesterday's meeting. you're probably not easily persuaded to switch mobile providers for your business. but what if we told you it's possible that comcast business mobile can save you up to 75% a year on your wireless bill versus the big three carriers? did we peak your interest? you can get two unlimited lines for just $30 each a month. there are no term contracts or line activation fees. and you can bring your own device. oh, and all on the most reliable 5g mobile network nationwide. wireless that works for you. it's not just possible, it's happening. u.s. national security adviser jake sullivan is set to meet with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his war cabinet today. the white house says sullivan will hold what it's calling extremely serious conversations about israel's war effort. this as the u.s. pressures israel for a more surgical campaign against hamas in gaza. and all of this coming just a day after president biden hosted relatives of the eight americans held hostage by hamas for their f first in-person meeting. >> it was a terrific, terrific meeting and conversation. we felt that -- and we felt before and were only reinforced in seeing and believing that we could have no better friend in washington or in the white house than president biden himself and his administration. >> joi