you can give them cow's milk. it is not ideal, only do it a brief period of time. and they are saying the toddler formula is safe for a few days for babies who are close to their first birthday. "new day" begins right now. good morning to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world, it is wednesday, may 18th. i'm john berman. brianna is off, our chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins is here. >> good morning. >> special live election coverage, the most closely watched race of primary night is still going back and forth this morning in my hand brand-new votes just in in the pennsylvania senate republican primary where right now only a razor thin margin separates the trump-backed tv dr. mehmet oz

and david mccormick. their positions on the leaderboard changing by the minute with thousands of votes still left to be counted. as of this moment this race would certainly trigger an automatic recount. in the governor's race in pennsylvania doug most reno has won the republican nomination. he has championed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. he is face josh shapiro the state's attorney general, shapiro is the first nonincumbent to run unopposed in a democratic gubernatorial primary since 1930. >> john fetterman easily won the democratic senate primary in pennsylvania, no drama there, though he might be the first candidate to do so from a hospital bed. he is out of surgery after suffering a stroke and receiving a pacemaker hours before the polls closed yesterday. we will hear from his wife in just a bit. north carolina congressman madison cawthorn has -- it's a

major rebuke of someone else once seen as a major person in the gop but salacious photos puts him on the outs of his own party. donald trump pleaded to give cawthorn a second chance. in idaho brad little beat back a challenge from his own lieutenant governor. in pennsylvania former hedge fund ceo david mccormick and mehmet oz are expressing confidence to their supporters about their chances though they were pretty careful in their language. >> we're going to win this campaign. >> we can see the path ahead, we can see victory ahead. >> when all the votes are tallied i am confident we will

win. we are making a ferocious charge, but when it's this close what else would you expect, everything about this campaign has been tight. >> all right. everything about this campaign has been tight. joining me now is cnn politics reporter and editor at large chris cillizza. let me remind people where per right now, 2,578 votes separate the two leading candidates, 94% reporting at this moment. we're getting new votes in. it's 6:03 a.m. and we just got a new batch of ballots in that i want to give you right now to give you a sense of just how close this race is right now. okay. this is chester county, overall you can see dave mccormick has a slight edge over oz. barnett is in third. david mccormick picked up 48 votes there, kathy barnette picked up 60 votes there and

mehmet oz picked up 35 votes. you look at this and say that's not many votes, but, look, mccormick closed the gap by ten votes and there's not that much separating the two candidates right now. >> i mean, i think two things, one, seems likely we're headed to a recount, anything under a half a percentage point difference between oz and mccormick in the overall total will trigger that. i think we're headed there. another thing, you would rather be ahead than behind, always. mehmet oz is ahead by 2,000 votes, you would rather be ahead by 2,000 votes. people say it's a tight margin. it is a tight margin. one thing to remember, though, dave mccormick would have to get 2001ish votes and mehmet oz would have to get zero. the other thing i do want to note when we look statewide in pennsylvania, national republicans are going to be pretty happy here. they will live with either of these two guys as the nominee --

sorry, i just touched mehmet oz -- they will live with either mehmet oz or dave mccormick as the nominee. kathy barnette, unvetted, no real fundraising ability, there were real concerns about that. can we jump to the governor's race. okay. yes, with he thought doug mastriano was going to win. the fact that lou barletta, mayor of hazleton, pennsylvania, represented that area in skongs as you see he did pretty well in the area that he used to represent, but we should not gloss over the fact that doug mastriano is the nominee here. this is a guy who was a leading election conspiracy theorist, aggressively sought to overturn the results in pennsylvania, one of the swingiest states in the country and, remember, a guy who if he is the governor appoints the secretary of state who counts -- oversees the counting of the votes. this is someone who is a fringe

candidate five years ago, ten years ago. this is not a serious candidate for governor five or ten years ago in the republican party, now he's more than half a million votes easily the nominee. >> winning big. >> that's a big story. >> i want to show you something interesting here. i wish i could reset this right now, you touched something that -- >> oh, dear. >> that caused a problem. in any case, you can look and see the counties doug mastriano won in the senate race -- the governor's race. he was backed by donald trump. if you go to the senate race here, mehmet oz is the trump backed candidate, he has not won all the same counties as doug mastriano. the trump endorsement didn't do quite as much. 94% reporting but there's still a number of counties that have 90% or less right now. these are the counties with 90% or less. there's thousands of votes. >> thousands. >> still out there. a lot might be mail-in ballots

which doug mccormick a guy who has tried to win donald trump's endorsements he said mail-in ballots are great, they're going to help me win. >> we are not talking about 20,000, 30,000 votes, i was not a math major in college we are talking about 2,000-ish votes. i want to go to north carolina to the north carolina senate race. we overlooked this a little bit, but the truth of the matter is ted budd is a third term congressman from north carolina. this is not someone who anybody had on their radar screen, everyone thought pat mccrory the former governor of the state was likely to be the nominee a year ago. what changed? donald trump. he endorsed ted budd. sort of out of the blue. we thought laura trump his daughter-in-law might run, he endorses ted budd the same day. give donald trump his due. mastriano a win, a trump candidate, ted budd a win. north carolina 11 if we have

that, you know, madison cawthorn loses despite the fact that donald trump comes out and endorses him. in i had toe a trump endorsed candidate winds up losing. so donald trump isn't a panacea, we saw that in nebraska. a mixed bag for trump, but trump is still the story here and i think it's true in the senate race in pennsylvania, definitely true in the governor's race in pennsylvania, true in the senate race in north carolina. donald trump remains the big talking point here, but very much a mixed bag for him. >> chris cillizza, great to have you this morning. >> i love it. i'm going to keep my hands away. >> we're going to go back to kaitlan. >> no wall over here, we should be good to go. to talk about all of this as this race is deadlocked when it comes to the republican nomination in pennsylvania is the former republican philadelphia city commissioner,

al schmidt. thank you so much for joining us this morning. i wonder just what your take is as we are seeing a race that is so close, too close to call as we are waiting on more ballots to come in when it comes to dave mccormick and mehmet oz in this senate primary. >> that's right, it's really just a handful of votes separating the two and in some counties it's interesting to see oz won the county in terms of election day voting but mccormick won the county in terms of mail-in ballot voting. most of the votes at this point from election day itself would have been counted, they would have already been in the system, there would not be some outstanding but it's really the mail-in ballots that have yet to be counted in a lot of counties. >> and what do you read into that? that dave mccormick has done better when it comes to the mail-in ballots. >> i think that bodes well for him. it's difficult to make any prediction because you don't know how voters vote until you open those ballots and count

them, but i think it's going to be extremely competitive and having run elections in philadelphia for more than ten years, i certainly can't remember an election of this level of importance that's this close at this point. >> al, you were attacked and threatened, physically threatened, for standing up for the integrity of the 2020 election in pennsylvania right now. your life was threatened. how does it feel to you this morning that the republican nominee, the party that you were a part of, has just nominated doug mastriano who worked so hard to undermine the election results in that state? >> i think it's important to recognize that mastriano is not sort of your garden variety 2020 election denier. in the pennsylvania state senate his approach to sort of pursuing

his own audit was so reckless that other republicans, other pro-trump republicans, removed him from his leadership position in the senate so he could not sort of launch his own -- his only thing that would make the cyber ninja audit seem professional by comparison. >> and that's a big question here, i think, that i wonder how republicans are feeling this morning because if he does win the governorship that is a very powerful position when it comes to elections and he picks -- he appoints the secretary of state who runs the elections, he has vowed to decertify the 2020 result and when trump endorsed him he did so late in the game but said he was doing so because of his fight to overturn the election results in 2020. >> is that secretary of state position, whether it's in pennsylvania or michigan or georgia or wherever is just so incredibly important right now. it used to be fairly obscure, but now it's front and center. if we have a secretary of state of pennsylvania who is unwilling

to certify the election results from the county, then that is a really terrible scenario to be in. and i've heard a lot of people say, you know, mastriano is so far out there he has no chance, but i've heard a lot of people say, including some of the same people, that about donald trump in 2016, a lot of people didn't take that seriously. i think it's very important that this race be taken seriously. >> just to put a fine point on it, had he been governor in 2020 what would have happened to the pennsylvania election results? >> so -- and we know from the investigation of the january 6th committee that there was this concerted effort to try to prevent our voters' votes from being counted. to send an alternate kind of counterfeit slate of electors to the capitol for certification or to try to prevent certification of our voters' votes. that was a very real thing and

it came -- it came dangerously close. with a secretary of state, if one is appointed by mastriano who i assume is going to reflect his view of elections, then it's a real departure for our commonwealth. it has a long history of electing very responsible, very moderate republicans and democrats, whether it was thornburg or ridge or spectre or you name it, this is something quite different. >> al, what's your advice to republicans this fall on how they should vote? >> well, i can't really give other republicans sort of political advice. i would just hope that they would pay attention to this and not just assess candidates by whether you agree with them on one issue or another, but most importantly to take a look at what their approach is to democracy and their approach is to elections and whether they

lose elections, that they accept defeat and they don't try to destabilize or delegitimize election results just because they don't like them. >> al schmidt, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you. we will have more on all of the take a ways from last night, including the evolution of democratic candidates and what it means for who can get elected in november. plus, we have what and who exactly is bringing a violent right wing conspiracy theory to the mainstream. a new warning that north korea is preparing a missile test as president biden gets ready to visit asia. this is cnn's special live coverage. ♪ with my hectic lifife, you'd think retirement would be thehe last thing on my mind. hey mom, can i go play video games? susure! ...after homework. thankfully, voya provides comprehensive solutions,

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it's election morning and the votes are still coming in. we just had new votes to tabulate from pennsylvania, the high stakes republican primary there in the senate race, mehmet oz the tv doctor who has the backing of donald trump, he is ahead but by a razor thin margin. just 2,500 votes. this is an automatic recount territory over former hedge fund ceo dave mccormick. kathy barnette back in third place now. joining us, former republican member of congress, joe walsh and cnn political analyst april ryan. joe, wow. this is close in pennsylvania right now if you look at those results. still thousands of votes left to be counted. is there a lesson here? >> i don't want to be a debbie downer and ruin all of the drama, john and kaitlan, but to me this is just an affirmation

of donald trump owns this party. whoever wins this primary is a big trump supporter. i think we get also breathless on, oh my gosh, did trump's endorsement matter. trump is endorsing a candidate who loves trump, the candidate trump doesn't endorse is a candidate who loves trump, that's still the same no matter who wins the race. it's going to be a trump worshipping candidate. >> that's a good point of who he actually endorses and whether or not -- it's not like the other person is disavowing trump or often divorced from his positions. i do think a trend we're seeing emerge from last night is that these republican candidates who embraced denying the election results or just not admitting that biden did win accurately and fairly, they seem to be the ones who are reaping the rewards in the races last night. i'm thinking of ted budd, doug mastriano, they are ones who have been pretty successful. >> yes, but i'm still looking at

north carolina and cawthorn. how about that. >> madison cawthorn, member of congress from north carolina had all kinds of scandals. >> you talk about drama, that was drama to the height. you know, donald trump supported him and what happened? the people of north carolina said no, we're not going to do this again. so i think that we are watching a moment where you still have a strong donald trump, even though his poll numbers have dropped significantly, people still stand on -- there are a lot of people, particularly pennsylvanians, republicans, looking at this race and standing on what he stood on that the election was wrongfully given to joe biden in their minds, but then you have someone like cawthorn who throws out the lies like donald trump did, just talks off the cuff, and he loses each with the backing. so we have to look at this moment as a moment where people are wanting change, they want things fixed. we have a pendulum that's going

back and forth on so many different issues from abortion with mastriano, he is definitely a pro lifer, he doesn't want abortion for any exception of incest or rape and he was also out there on january 6, but then you have people like cawthorn. i mean, this trump thing is not as solid, i think, as you want to believe. >> let's talk about pennsylvania, the democratic race there for senate. john fetterman, lieutenant governor, he had a stroke and he just had a pacemaker put in, his health issue aside, he is a different cat, joe. explain to me how john fetterman might be someone that some democrats want to see as the type of nominee they have and some might not. >> i'm not a democrat but he is exactly what democrats need, especially, john, i talk to a lot of people in the middle who don't like either party. one thing i hear over and over again is i want a democrat who will fight. i want a democrat who will tear his shirt off and get down into

the ring with trump and these other crazy republicans and fight. that's kind of the guy fetterman is. i think that democrats have a real problem with working class voters. he should be able to address that. >> and i wonder, april, what this says to you as someone who covers the white house, is it a test of biden's influence? or the way biden ran? because he ran as this centrist who could work with republicans, achieve bipartisanship, get things done. when you hear from people who voted for fetterman they didn't want that. they wanted someone ready to go toe to toe with republicans. >> if you are looking at both parties there is extremes on both sides. people don't want moderates, people don't want centrists they want what they want and it seems to be on the fringe now. but here is the problem for the democrats, they have to change the message. they have to see wins. i talked to the house majority whip, the most powerful black man in washington, d.c., james clyburn, this week, he said, there is a new message.

it's about the people. it's about the personal issues. they are taking politics personal again. in this moment of donald trump, in this moment of looking for wins for joe biden. >> if we can go back to madison cawthorn for a second because there is an aspect of this i think you would like to latch on to. he did have the backing of trump. >> he didn't fully endorse him but said he deserved a second chance. >> the other aspect is everyone else it seems in the republican party lined up against him. if you look at this does this show what can happen if republicans elected major republicans get together and say this guy is not right. if they wanted to do this for a different republican, a marjorie taylor greene, does this show that can be effective? >> i don't think so. i think cawthorn had such unique problems, the guy was about 15 years old, every week there was another scandal. kaitlan, he basically stopped going home and doing his job as congressman. he closed down his offices.

this was a unique case. and, again, i will push back against april a little bit. trump is going to win almost all of his endorsed candidates when this is all done. the focus shouldn't be on who trump endorsed because the candidates he doesn't endorse are -- and who win are trump worshipping candidates. >> he was the former most previous last president and he was at that time the head of the party and in some instances some would think he is still the head of the party. so why would you say it's not about who trump endorsed. >> because oftentimes the candidates he doesn't endorse are even trump yer than the ones he does endorse. >> kathy barnette. >> josh men dell back in ohio was trumpy. >> kathy barnette made the point when she was campaigning she said trump didn't create the base the base created trump. >> but are you surprised that she did not get the endorsement of donald trump? come on. >> what are you saying? >> i'm not surprised.

do you know why, he has had a problem with strong women whether it's in his party or not. going from omarosa who was in his party to people outside of the party, maxine waters, congresswoman frederica wilson, you have had problems, you are not minority, but he has had a problem with women -- >> trump is also an idiot and i don't think there's any science to these endorsements. >> exactly. >> joe walsh, april ryan, thank you. >> thank you. >> appreciate you being here. we're getting new details this morning about the attack in buffalo, the mass shooting there. new details about the shooter's alleged online activity from right before the attack began. we also have new details on what u.s. intelligence is revealing about a possible north korean missile test ahead of president biden's visit to neighboring south korea that's happening this week.

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new in morning, we're learning that the suspect in the racist attack in buffalo told an online chat room his plan 30 minutes before the shooting. one of his motivations according to his own words was this baseless quote so-called replacement theory, the same one that has inspired several other deadly incidents in recent years, including at the unite the right rally in charlottesville in 2017 where white nationalists chanted "voouz will not replace us." joining us is the executive director of integrity first for america who successfully sued the organizers of the unite the right rally win ago $25 million judgment. we should note. amy, thank you for joining us this morning. i just want to first get your reaction to this breaking news that this suspect had been talking about his plan 30 minutes beforehand in an online chat room. >> thanks so much for having me.

look, the fact that the buffalo shooter was out there planning his violence online, promoting it online, is not a surprise because that's exactly how these extremists have operated. in fact, the very same site that the buffalo shooter used to log his plans and invite the public to view them is discord, which is the same site that the charlottesville organizers used to plan their violence for months in advance down to every last detail. so what we're seeing nearly five years after unite the right is that what happened in charlottesville was not an accident or isolated incident but a preview of the extremism that followed down to the fools and tactics that they used. >> amy, look at this and say this shooter acted alone but you say it's wrong to look at this as an isolated matter. why? >> there is a cycle of violence in which each attack is used to inspire the next. we call the shooters lone wolves

but they meet and connect and inspire each other to action on line. you see that through the planning of the violence through social media, the ways in which this shooter's diatribe reflected so many prior die tribes of the extremists, the connections between attacks in which charlottesville seemingly inspired pittsburgh which seemingly inspired christchurch, po poway, el paso. i think that's concerning when the conspiracies that fuel the shooters are seeping into the mainstream of our politics and society in a way that normalizes this extremism that felt fringe just five years ago. >> what do you think should happen forward? people feel so exhausted seeing this time and time again in situations like this there were warning signs, there were concerns, there was this mental health evaluation that happened last year. he had written so many things online laying out what he

planned to do and yet he still was able to carry it out. he was still able to be successful in his goals of gunning down ten people, targeting them because of their race. >> there's so much that we can be doing and the fact that we're still having this conversation years after charlottesville, years after el paso and pittsburgh and after yet another white supremacist attack is a sign that we have not done nearly enough. we first of all need a clear unequivocal acknowledgment that what we are talking about is a broader far right extremist effort to undercut our democracy and make our communities less safe. none of us are safe. this was an attack that targeted black people, the shooter also talked about his anti-semitism. so many forms of hate are bound up in this white supremacy and no community is safe until we take this on clearly. we can't keep using the same failed solutions over the last few decades that clearly got us to this moment. instead we need to be thinking about how we build resiliency in

our society, that includes measures like education, includes digital and media literacy, includes giving people like educators, caregivers, apartments, the tools to spot and identify and confront extremism, includes dealing with the crisis of law enforcement's -- rather white supremacists infiltration of law enforcement, the ways in which they exploit the veteran community. there is so much that can be done on the federal, state and local level that will keep communities safer and get at the root cause of this crisis as opposed to continuing to try to put band-aids on it each time there is an attack without dealing with the systemic problems. >> major questions about what this will look like going forward. thank you for joining us. >> thanks so much for having me. meanwhile, cnn is touring what remains of a battleground in eastern ukraine where ukrainian forces say that russian forces have suffered a devastating loss. plus, high drama in pennsylvania, more votes coming

in from this razor thin margin in the republican senate race there. mehmet oz ahead by 2,600 votes but that margin has actually shrunk over the last 90 minutes. stay with us, our special live coverage continues. at drives yo? what do you want to leave behind? what do you want to give back? what do you want to be remembered f for? that's your why. it's your purpose, and we will work with you every step of the way to achieve it. at pnc private banank, we'll help you take care of the how. so tell us - what's your why? ♪

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it is the scene of one of russia's worst defeats in ukraine, it was a failed river crossing right about here in the donbas region that turned into a graveyard for russian tanks. cnn's sam kiley got to see the aftermath and joined us live from kramatorsk this morning. sam? >> reporter: john, this remains an active front line area, essentially the front line now is, again, the donetsk river,

but it was this russian attempt to punch through which was such a disaster, a battlefield disaster for the russians. they have been trying to punch through at various locations along this very long front line that extends all the way to kharkiv in order to capture the city where i am here in kramatorsk. but this was the aftermath of the latest battle and the russian disaster. the first signs of a russian disaster, a russian tank being salvaged by ukrainian troops. a few days ago this was the scene on the edge of these woods, russian pontoon bridges under ferocious ukrainian artillery attack. the ukrainian commander with us cast an eye to the sky looking for russian drones. this is no place for complacency. ukraine and nato have claimed that russia suffered badly here. they estimate 70 to 80 vehicles destroyed and a whole russian battle ground of 1,000 men mauled. so we are at the edge now of the

area where the russian armor was caught after it had crossed the pontoon river. you can see down here there's a destroyed bank, next to it an armored personnel carrier and if we look down the road here we've got another armored personnel carrier and another and another. the ukrainians were able, they say, due to their superior reconnaissance and intelligence to work out where the russians were going to cross and then bring in devastating levels of artillery. and this is the result. this is only the edge of it. russia has now shifted its attacks elsewhere, at least for now. when you see this, how do you feel? >> super. >> translator: great. i understand that our artillery is working and our troops are working, too, because there was both artillery and ground fighting. the units in cooperation with other troops were pushing the enemy across the river on foot. >> reporter: shattered russian

armor is scattered along this path through the woodland. on the ground, we can't move forward, the track is mined. a real disaster for the russians but something that the ukrainians are saying here that means that the pressure is off this particular front for now and that they believe that the russians are focusing more of their efforts elsewhere. ukrainian soldiers pick over the debris of this victory but the chilling truth is that many of their comrades have ended up like this. while this is a success in the grinding war for ukraine, russia remains an immediate threat. they've asked us to get out of here with their military commander because the -- they're worried that our cars are going to attract attention and therefore a districting coming -- this is still an extremely active area. and one as it was for the russians that's a considerable relief to leave. kaitlan, john, they mentioned there that the pressure would be

brought to bear by russia elsewhere and sure enough on that day, yesterday morning, an important local regional marketing hub and administrative hub came under attack with a factory that was hit, several people were killed in a missile strike. there was a ferocious tank battle on the edge because the russians are trying to thrust in from the east. overnight here in kramatorsk a little bit to the southeast there were also attacks by long range russian missiles, again, indicating that they are not necessarily given up on that northern thrust, but they are trying again to try to find a weakness in the ukrainian lines and punch through to here to kramatorsk. >> sam kiley with incredible access to a scene that i don't think many people could have imagined a few months ago. sam, thank you very much. so a deadlock this morning in pennsylvania, the key republican primary for the

senate seat there that could decide control of the u.s. senate. votes are still coming in. this morning the lead keeps changing. stay with us. ♪ it's a lovely d♪ ♪ so whatever you've got to do ♪ ♪ you've got a lovely day to do it in, that's true ♪ [ chuckling ] ♪ and i hope whatever you've gotot to do ♪ ♪ is something that... . ♪ [ music stops ] [ beeping ] cars built with safety in mind, even for those guys. the volkswagen atlas with standard front assist. ♪ ♪ before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn... claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her ca and eat it too. nexium 24hr ops acid before it starts forll-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours wiout heartburn? when traders tell us how to make thinkorswim® even better, we listen.

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welcome back. this is cnn's special live election coverage. still counting votes this morning in pennsylvania in this very close senate primary there for the republican nomination for senate, just 2,600 votes, not even, separate tv dr. mehmet oz with dave mccormick. 94% reporting. there are still thousands of votes left to count in this state. let me give you a sense of what that means. i want to show you some of the counties that have 10% or more about still to count here. hang on.

yeah, 76%, but you can see some of these counties still have a lot of votes to go. you can look in there at dauphin county, mccormick with a slight edge, 76% reporting. a lot more votes there, so mccormick could edge even closer. you look at this county right here, again, not a giant county, blair county, but that's a county where oz has a slight lead, just around 75% reporting there, so as more votes are counted oz could pick up some votes. let me show you a few other counties we're watching closely. you talk about philadelphia, a heavily democratic area but republicans still vote there. you can see oz has a fairly large lead in this county and there are 93% reporting in that county right now. so oz could pad his lead there. this election has been changing all night long in this state. the results going back and forth. mccormick had a lead until about midnight, oz jumped ahead in the

wee hours of the morning but now it is getting ever closer, we watching it throughout the morning, kaitlan. >> watching it incredibly closer. we will check back in and see what happens. we will talk about a scathing new report from a federal government watchdog that is unequivocally calling out both the biden and trump administrations when it comes to how and why the afghan security forces collapsed. barbara starr is live at the pentagon with details. they say there is basically a red light blinking on what was going to happen in afghanistan. >> it is a damning 70-page report, kaitlan, from the special inspector general that says basically the trump and the biden administration were essentially the driving force behind the collapse of afghan security forces and then the collapse of the afghan government, opening the door for the taliban to take over last summer at lightning speed as we all watched and saw. $90 billion of u.s. government funds spent trying to create a fighting force and a government that would work in afghanistan

over 20 years, but it never worked. the report says that the u.s. tried to create a security force essentially in the mirror image of u.s. forces and this was never going to happen. it was never going to work and that afghan president ashraf ghani at the end had little idea of what was going on in his own country, in his own military. did he not understand how much they relied on the u.s. the pentagon says they accept the findings of the report, but that a lot of this had to do with the lack of will, they say, of afghan forces to fight. kaitlan? >> and does raise so many questions about what they learned from this going forward. barbara, i want to ask you about something else. the president is leaving to go to south korea tomorrow, i'm traveling with him, but this comes as u.s. officials are anticipating that there is going to be another missile test from north korea in the coming days. >> kaitlan, as you travel to the region all eyes in washington indeed on the korean peninsula. look, the u.s. intelligence

community is now seeing indicators that north korea may be in the final stages of preparing for a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, of course, a missile that could theoretically hit the united states if it ever all worked. they see these preparations under way at a test tithe near pyongyang we are told near the capital and they have been watching this very carefully because they believe kim jong-un wants to continue with his missile test program. they have seen a number of tests in recent months, u.s. intelligence has stepped up its surveillance through satellites and other means of the peninsula to try and keep track of what north korea may be up to, as biden travels to the region. the question is of course does kim want to use that as an opportunity to send the world a message about his weapons program, and would it stop at the test of an icbm? they are also watching very

carefully that underground nuclear test site in north korea, the north koreans have been working on that site now for the last several months. they could also be ready in the coming weeks, we are told, to have another underground nuclear test, the first since 2017. but make no mistake, the final preps, if it all comes to pass, would be for an icbm test potentially we are told, potentially while the president is in the region. kaitlan? >> it would be extraordinary to watch. we should note this comes, last time i checked with white house officials, they had still not gotten any response to their outrage to north korean officials. we will be watching to see what happens when president biden leaves tomorrow. barbara, thank you. >> sure. meanwhile, the nba says it is now joining the effort to free wnba star brittney griner who has been in russian detention since she was arrested in february. and just moments ago more votes released in the closely

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the nba says it is working behind the scenes to try to free wnba star brittaney griner froma russian prison. andy scholes with the latest in this morning's "bleacher report." >> reporter: good morning, john. nba commissioner adam silver said the league didn't want to speak publicly about griner's case early on after listening to experts in and out of the government n an interview with espn silver said they've been working side-by-side with the wnba to try to help free greener

>> the wnba and its brother league the nba we have a huge responsibility to brittney griner, as one of our players. we have been in touch with the white house, the state department, hostage negotiators, at every level of government and also through the private sector as well. our number one priority is her health and safety and making sure that she gets out of russia. >> reporter: griner was arrested on drug charges at a moscow airport in february and has been in a russian jail ever since. earlier this month the state department declared her wrongfully detained. the eastern conference finals tipping off last night with game one between the heat and the celtics. boston missing two key players, marcus smart, al horford put in the health and safety protocol. a team of two halves. jayson tatum great first half but the heat coming out on a mission in the second half. jamie butler leading miami on a 22-2 run. butler scoring 41 points without

making one three-pointer. miami would win 118-107. game two tomorrow night in miami. the western conference finals starts tonight with steph curry and the warriors hosting the mavs. you can watch that at 9:00 eastern on our sister channel tnt. "new day" continues right now. good morning to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world, it is wednesday, may 18th. i'm john berman in washington, brianna is off this morning, chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins is here. >> for a very busy morning with we have basically not slept so we can tell you everything that happened overnight. >> such a busy morning with votes still coming in in this cliffhanger of a republican senate primary in pennsylvania. this is the most closely watched race of the night and now it's the most closely watched race of the morning. you can see the razor-thin margin here separating trump backed t