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Nikki Haley Campaign Raises $24 Million; Trump Files Barrage of Appeals; Explosions in Iran; Imam Shot in New Jersey; Interview With Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX); Border Negotiations Set to Resume. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired January 03, 2024 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:00:18]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN HOST: Border negotiations are set to pick back up in Washington, as House Speaker Mike Johnson leads dozens of congressional Republicans to the southern border today for a firsthand look at the crisis.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Deadly twin explosions in Iran, more than 100 people killed, even more injured, well over 100 injured in two separate blasts. Iranian state media reports officials are treating this as a terror attack.

SOLOMON: And the president of Harvard is out, Claudine Gay stepping down, the protests now planned. And will more college leaders be next?

I'm Rahel Solomon, alongside John Berman today. Sara and Kate are both off. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: This morning, the White House is blasting House Speaker Mike Johnson just hours ahead of his visit to the southern border. The Biden administration claims he is holding up border funding and hamstringing security over what the White House calls extreme partisan demands.

Today, Speaker Johnson will lead a delegation of more than 60 Republicans to Eagle Pass, Texas, where he is expected to criticize the surge in migrants and demand policy change. This comes on the heels of his party formally opening impeachment proceedings against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. He did that earlier this morning.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is at the border this morning.

Ed, what will lawmakers see on this visit today?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're coming at an interesting time, because December was a record-breaking month in terms of illegal crossings here at the U.S. southern border.

And here in Eagle Pass, where these lawmakers will be in a few hours, that has really been one of the focal points of the U.S. southern border migration crisis. And what they're going to see is the heavy amount of infrastructure that has already put -- been put in place by state authorities and federal authorities.

And this has also become kind of that flash point between Republican leadership here in Texas and the federal government, Governor Greg Abbott and others here in Texas very critical of the Biden administration. And behind me, you see this is like one of the boat ramp launches where state DPS troopers go out onto the river.

They will see, these lawmakers will see miles of steel shipping containers, razor wire, all of the federal, state and local law enforcement agents that are out here trying to control the border, but despite all of that infrastructure that is in place, December another record-breaking month in terms of illegal border crossings, more than 225,000 illegal crossings. That's about 10,000 a day.

But at the same time, John, the situation has really changed dramatically just in the last week. The number of crossings have really dwindled. We have been here several days now and the number of crossings are very low, not anywhere close to what it was just the week before Christmas, where we were seeing thousands of people crossing here into Eagle Pass.

But that's kind of the situation that more than 50 Republican lawmakers will see here in just a few hours in Eagle Pass.

BERMAN: All right, Ed Lavandera in Texas for us.

Ed, keep us posted. Thank you.

SOLOMON: All right, let's continue the conversation.

I'm joined now by Congressman Marc Veasey, a Democrat from the border state of Texas, and a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, good to see you today. Thanks for being here.

REP. MARC VEASEY (D-TX): Good morning.

SOLOMON: I want to get to the congressional delegation at the border in just a moment, but just this news this morning about these impeachment proceedings moving forward against Secretary Mayorkas, Congressman, your reaction to that.

And how would you describe the job he's done so far?

VEASEY: I think Mayorkas is doing the best job that he can, to be quite frank.

I think that, if Republicans were serious, instead of trying to put together these impeachment sham hearings and what have you, that they would actually sit down with Democrats and come up with a comprehensive plan to really deal with immigration once and for all.

You take our state of Texas. We're a border state, of course. And this particular group of migrants that are coming, particularly from Central America, they have long filled many jobs in whether it's energy, whether it's construction, hospitality. And they're coming here, A, because they're trying to escape the

extreme poverty and violence in their own countries, and they're coming here, quite, frankly, to make contributions to this country. And so I would ask for Republicans to sit down with us and come up with something real, so we can stabilize these countries, because, until we stabilize these countries (AUDIO GAP) Republicans want to.

[11:05:04]

People would still keep coming if their countries are going to be destabilized. And, in some cases, these are failed states, like Haiti and almost Venezuela.

SOLOMON: And, Congressman, I lost a bit of your audio there, but as you talk about coming to the table and working with us, what would that look like and what are you willing to compromise on? What would that plan look like?

VEASEY: Well, I think, for me, the starting point, and I don't hear anyone talking about this, is we need something similar to what the Clinton administration did back in the '90s, and that is Plan Colombia, where that country was rife with so much violence because of the Cali and Medellin cartels.

And the Clinton administration came in and worked with Colombia on diplomatic relations, on military aid and other foreign aid solutions to help stabilize that country. And now you have thousands and thousands of Americans that actually visit Colombia for vacation.

And we have to stabilize those countries. If you don't do that, if that's not a part of the conversation, then we're not going to do anything to fix this problem, because you -- and we see this around the world. We have seen the capsized vessels of people trying to leave Africa to get over to Italy, for instance, and other migration of people trying to leave parts of Asia to go to Europe.

If you don't do something to address the extreme poverty and violence in those countries, it doesn't matter if we reform asylum. The problems at the border will continue to pile up. And so we need for Democrats and Republicans to put together a group of members, bipartisan, to really work through this and stop trying to go for the big, fancy sound bites and what have you.

That's not helping. I have been in Congress now for 10 years, and that's the path that we have been on the last 10 years, and look where we're at now. Nothing has happened. So let's actually sit down and come up with a real solution.

SOLOMON: Congressman, your message to the Biden administration, which says that the federal government needs more funding to address this issue?

VEASEY: Absolutely, we need more funding to address this issue, and we need for Republicans, again, to stop playing politics, and let's pass a bill that will provide the agencies along the border more funding to deal with this. We need -- and then, again, of course, we need more courts. We need

more immigration attorneys. We need more people to really be able to deal with this problem. And, again, let's get away from all of the headline-grabbing sound bites and let's work on some of these -- on some of these issues that, quite frankly, people just aren't talking about enough.

SOLOMON: Representative Marc Veasey, thank you for the time today.

And this afternoon on "THE LEAD," Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson joins Jake Tapper for a live sit-down interview on the immigration debate and the crisis at the border. This interview airs live today at 4:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN.

BERMAN: Thought we were going to do a ventriloquism there.

All right, breaking news this hour, a New Jersey imam is in critical condition after being shot outside a Newark mosque. That is according to police. There is an investigation under way.

CNN's Brynn Gingras just arrived here with the latest on this.

Brynn, what are you learning?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, this is breaking news.

And, basically, that is a lot of what we know that this happened 6:00 a.m. at a mosque in Newark, New Jersey. There's still a lot of questions here that police are trying to answer. We don't even know if this imam was actually targeted in this attack. So, obviously, it's still very concerning that it happened at this hour in front of a mosque, it -- the victim being an imam.

And that victim, we don't have his name quite yet. But he is in critical condition at a nearby hospital here in New Jersey.

I do want to read a statement that we did get already from the New Jersey Chapter of CAIR. And they said this: "We're deeply concerned about this incident and pray for the speedy recovery of the imam. Anyone with information about the shooting should immediately contact local police."

So, obviously, this is a scene that is ongoing there in Newark, not too far from where we are here in New York City. And, of course, we will keep you updated.

BERMAN: All right, obviously developing at this very moment.

Brynn, keep us posted.

GINGRAS: Right. Yes.

BERMAN: All right, we are getting new details on breaking news out of Iran this morning. More than 100 people were killed, 140 others injured after two

separate explosions struck near the grave of the late Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani. Iranian state media now reports that the first explosion was caused by a suitcase bomb. Cameras captured the moment one of the blasts happened near very crowded streets.

You can hear the fear there in those screams. And according to Iranian state media, officials there are describing this as a terror attack.

CNN's chief national security analyst, Jim Sciutto, who has been to Iran several times, is with us.

[11:10:01]

Now, Jim, but before we get to the events today, just remind us, Qasem Soleimani, who was he? Why is his grave an important site?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: He was the leader of really the military wing of Iran's semi-military forces and responsible for a whole host of attacks over many years, including, we should note, the U.S. military blamed him for attacks on U.S. service members, hundreds of them, in Iraq, providing Iraqi insurgents with armor-piercing IEDs, so not a friend to the United States, by any means.

And it was President Donald Trump who ordered a U.S. drone strike that killed him, this on today's date, in fact, three years ago, at the time, quite a bold move by the U.S. to strike him. Iran promised retaliation. Never quite saw the retaliation to the degree that some expected. So, highly revered, highly powerful in Iran and the victim of a U.S. strike three years ago.

So, today, they are celebrating or marking the anniversary of his death, quite a lot of crowds there because he is revered in Iran, and now Iranian authorities calling this a terror attack. It's important to note that there was some speculation early on, well, could this, in light of Israel's attack on a senior Hamas leader yesterday, be at all tied to Israel?

Based on officials I have spoken with, that is quite a leap to imagine Israel carrying out a strike inside Iran. So we should make that note early on, because, of course, speculation often gets beyond the story. In terms of terror groups, there are terror groups with enormous capabilities in Iran and neighboring Iran.

I have spoken to experts on the region who brought up the name of ISIS potentially, ISIS not a friend of the -- has carried out attacks in the region before, not a particular fan of the Iranian regime. And ISIS has been more active and more capable since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan a little more than two years ago.

But, again, it's early to assign responsibility here. All we know at this point is the blast took place and at least Iranian officials are saying it has the hallmarks of a terror attack.

BERMAN: And, again, a terror attack, when Iranian officials say that, it can mean any number of things. And I'm glad you pointed out...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BERMAN: There are domestic issues within Iran. There could be groups within Iran who would want to target, for some reason, that tomb today. And you brought up ISIS, of course, a Sunni extremist group, Iran a Shia nation there.

SCIUTTO: Right.

BERMAN: The government itself, who has been critical of the government in Iran? And, again, we don't know who did this, but what types of groups might be thought of first?

SCIUTTO: Listen, there are other groups active there. The MEK is a group that's been around for decades. And this is one that Iran takes particular focus on.

On a previous trip to Iran, Iranian authorities took me to the site of a terror attack that they blamed on the MEK. And it has some activity outside the country. It maintains a leadership. It claims the rightful leadership of Iran, as some of these exiled groups will.

But, again, we have no evidence at this point tying it to a group like that. But to your point, John, there are groups not just outside Iran who might have an interest in attacking the Iranian regime, but there are groups inside Iran, Kurdish groups as well. And then, again, we also have to run this through the filter of the Iranian regime.

They do not have a good track record for releasing accurate public information. So, whoever they blamed this on earlier, what circumstances they are saying or behind this attack or the details of it, we should, of course, that run that through our own filters with some skepticism, because they're not the most forthcoming or accurate or honest leadership when it comes to explaining their own moves or attacks like this one.

BERMAN: And you have certainly learned that over the years.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BERMAN: Jim Sciutto, thank you so much for laying this out so clearly.

This attack clearly on that site, though, should be seen as attack on the regime because Qasem Soleimani is so closely associated with the Iranian regime. Our thanks to Jim -- Rahel.

SOLOMON: All right, John, coming up for us: former President Donald Trump appealing the decision to keep him off the 2024 primary ballot in Maine. Is Colorado next? And how strong are his arguments? We will discuss.

Also, Nikki Haley's campaign is cashing in. So does her huge new jump in donations mean new cracks are now forming in Trump's commanding lead in the polls? And embattled Harvard President Claudine Gay resigns weeks after that

controversial House committee hearing -- coming up, new details about when she decided to step down.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:18:38]

BERMAN: If Donald Trump's legal fights were at a carnival right now, they would be on the appeal go-round.

He appealed Maine's ballot ruling last night. He asked an appeals court to rehear his immunity claim in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. He filed new claims in his fight for immunity in his federal election case. And soon, as in the next few hours, he's expected to appeal Colorado's ballot ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams joins us now.

In terms of actual filings, what we see or see most clearly is the arguments he's making in Maine. What jump out to you there from Trump's lawyers about why they say he should be on the ballot?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: OK, what jumps out to me first is the use of the term appeal go-round. I like that.

BERMAN: Second-year law school.

WILLIAMS: That is a law school term.

These are -- what you saw, John, are previews of arguments that are going to appear in a number of his appeals in these 14th Amendment cases. That is that, number one, this argument that the president is not an officer of the United States, per the Constitution, or, number two, that because the president takes a different oath from other government officials, therefore, he is not subject to the provisions in the 14th Amendment around insurrection and so on.

Now look, they sort of stretch common sense when even saying them out loud. Come on. The president is not an officer of the United States? But it's still an important legal question, based on the language of the Constitution that has to be sorted out.

[11:20:02]

And we saw that in the Maine appeal. You will see it in the Colorado appeal that you referenced there and any number of these other ones around this question of whether he ought to be on the ballot.

BERMAN: And, also, the process. They're arguing about the process and that they have a due process claim here. What does that mean?

WILLIAMS: Well, this idea that he was not treated fairly on account of the fact that it was the Maine secretary of state, who is an elected official. She is not a court. It is the Maine secretary of state that issued a ruling keeping the president off of the ballot.

I don't really know if that's much of a winner either. And it's for a big reason. Maine, like many states across the country, allows its secretary of states -- secretary of state to make decisions about who is entitled to be on the ballot. That's not a due process question. That's simply -- that's just the way the country is set up.

And, now, you might not like the decision that the individual came to. And, certainly, you can appeal it, as the president, former president is doing here. But the idea that the president didn't have an ample opportunity to bring his argument on account of who the secretary of state was, that's just not a great argument.

BERMAN: It seems that there are two really giant, big issues here. And it seems that everyone is dancing around them. And it may very well be that the nine Supreme Court justices dance around it too, which is, number one, did Donald Trump engage in insurrection, and, number two, if you think that he engaged in insurrection, is there a constitutional reason to keep him off the ballot?

WILLIAMS: Right.

BERMAN: And it just seems that none of this will get to those central issues.

WILLIAMS: Well, and so, look, I am not the person to decide whether Donald Trump is an insurrectionist. John Berman is not. There are nine people in the United States who can make that determination. And it's the United States Supreme Court.

They won't actually rule on whether he's an insurrectionist, but can actually give the guidelines as to who decides. Is it a secretary of state? Is it a state Supreme Court? Is it a federal court? Or is it Congress? And that's an open question that really is being teed up for the Supreme Court.

And I want to be clear, John. And you, as a student of government, know this better -- as well as anybody else. This is why we have a Supreme Court. This is literally why the framers crafted a body of individuals to decide these thorny questions of constitutional law. And this is a thorny one and it's an open one.

Who decides? How do they decide? When do they decide?

BERMAN: Right.

WILLIAMS: Someone's got to fix it.

BERMAN: There's a reason I was asking it, is former Attorney General Bill Barr, who stipulates that he very much does not want Donald Trump to be president, says that he does not think there is a 14th Amendment argument with the states to get him out.

And his argument is because Trump hasn't been charged with insurrection. WILLIAMS: Right. Well, an argument is made that, well, does it need

to be a criminal charge? Was an impeachment enough -- on the grounds of insurrection enough to say that someone's an insurrectionist?

But you know what? In addition to John Berman and Elliot Williams, you know whose another person whose opinion simply does not matter as to who's an insurrectionist? Bill Barr. And it, again, is for the United States Supreme Court to issue some sort of guidance to lower courts, state attorneys general, state secretaries, whoever it might be, to make that call.

BERMAN: Just last point, and I will make clear, is that the Supreme Court may go through this whole process and never actually weigh in on who is or isn't an insurrectionist, per se. There are ways for them to decide this and make it go away without actually ruling on the key points there.

Elliot Williams, always a pleasure to have you. Thank you very much.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, John. Take care.

SOLOMON: All right, still ahead for us: Brand-new numbers this morning show Nikki Haley's campaign war chest surging, just as the House Republican leadership solidifies behind Trump.

Plus, fresh reaction this morning to embattled Harvard President Claudine Gay stepping down weeks after the controversial congressional hearing. Coming up, we're going to speak with a Harvard student.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:27:54]

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, a symbolically important endorsement for Donald Trump.

Tom Emmer, who is the number three House Republican, the Republican whip, he endorsed Donald Trump. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise endorsed Trump yesterday. The entire Republican House leadership has now endorsed Trump, which says something.

All right, there is some good news for Nikki Haley on the campaign trail. She just reported a fund-raising boost at the beginning of 2024, $24 million in the fourth quarter of last year. That doubled her cash haul in the third quarter.

CNN's Eva McKend on the ground in New Hampshire for us, where Nikki Haley is today.

What are voters there saying about this?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, they are raising a range of issues when they show up to her events, many of them telling me that they think that she's a strong general election candidate. Other people asking her different questions. She was asked about

monetary policy last night. She was asked about the threat of China. One man told us that he's really concerned about how divided we are in this country right now. We caught up with him afterwards. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN DICKINSON, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: We have such political divide on both sides. And she didn't answer the question in her whole talk, which is, how are we going to bring people together? Because Obama split people. Trump split people.

We've got these divides. And so what does somebody have to do to be that big tent Reagan Republican? Because that's what we're missing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: So, John, I'm not sure if you heard him there, but he said that he was a little bit frustrated because she didn't answer his question directly.

When he asked about that, she went into sort of a pre-canned long answer about the Confederate Flag and how, when she was governor of South Carolina, she had the Confederate Flag removed from the front of the statehouse as an illustration of how she would bridge the divide.

But that actually is a critique that comes from many of her opponents, that, when she's asked something, she sort of is not concrete in her responses. Nonetheless, though, there is a lot of momentum for her here on the ground.