Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Tonight, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Haley Participate in CNN Town Halls; Reports of Active Situation at High School in Perry, Iowa. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 04, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. 11 days and counting until Iowa, and we are now just hours away from back-to-back town halls with Governor Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. But are they vying for just second place?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump asking the Supreme Court to review the ruling that removed him from the ballot in Colorado. So, how quickly could that happen?

SIDNER: And Senate negotiators getting closer to a deal on the border but it is on a road potentially to nowhere. What the House GOP is insisting has to be included that Dems probably will not go for.

I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman. Kate is off. And this is CNN News Central.

All right, so Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis will be the back to back town halls in Iowa. As you know, there is something called the caucus that is about to happen there. But have both been making their last pitches to Iowa voters that they are the better alternative to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who is way ahead in the polls.

But with less than two weeks before the first in the nation Iowa caucuses, does the former president still pretty much loom large in the Hawkeye state?

CNN's Jeff Zeleny live in Des Moines for us inside the site of tonight's town hall, what do you know?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Sara. There's no question that former president Donald Trump looms large in this race. He'll be back campaigning in Iowa tomorrow. But in his absence, his rivals have been campaigning aggressively, particularly Florida governor Ron DeSantis has been crisscrossing this state for events yesterday alone.

But one thing that we are hearing from voters as they are making up their minds, and, yes, there are still undecided voters out there, a sense of frustration that Donald Trump is not playing by the same rules necessarily, not attending these town halls or the debates. Listen into what the Florida governor said last night in Sioux Center, Iowa.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I mean, first of all, he won't debate. I mean, like how am I -- I mean, like he's not willing to get on a stage. He's not willing to answer questions. He's in Mar-a-Lago. I mean, like, so, yes, show up and debate.

He's basically making a mockery of this whole process by not showing up and answering people's questions. He doesn't think he needs to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Look, they're clearly trying to make the case to those Iowa voters that Donald Trump is not necessarily putting in as many hours or answering the questions that voters have. Of course, he has spent quite a bit of time here in Iowa. He'll be back again tomorrow for a couple of events and events throughout the weekend.

But those are the trademark Trump big rallies. He's not meeting these voters one-on-one. He's not taking questions from voters.

The bigger question, does any of this actually matter? He has a commanding lead in this race. But, Sara, as you said, it is all about the race to be the Trump alternative. And Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are in a furious scramble for that second place race.

So, again, 11 days to go and undecided voters do exist out there. We ran into several of them yesterday who said they are still making up their minds between Haley and DeSantis, a lot of Trump supporters are already locked in. So, that's why these town hall events like tonight, where they'll be answering questions from Iowa voters in our debate next week, obviously so, so important. Sara?

SIDNER: Jeff Zeleny, we always love to see you. Thank you so much. And I'm sure we'll be checking in throughout the week.

BERMAN: All right. With me now, CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten. Harry, how did Iowa get to be such a big deal?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: How did Iowa get to be such a big deal? I always love this question because every so often we come around every four years like Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, why do we care about Iowa? Here's the reason we care about Iowa.

Take a look at these folks. These are folks who trailed in the national polls but won Iowa and the nomination. We got Jimmy Carter in 1976, who really put Iowa on the map.

BERMAN: Came out of nowhere.

ENTEN: Came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. He was a no name governor from Georgia, John Kerry in 2004. And of course, who could -- Barack Obama in 2008, who trailed Hillary Clinton by a wide margin nationally. But one Iowa used that catapult to the nomination. BERMAN: This helps explain how Iowa has become such a big deal in the nominating process. But I can't help but notice here, Harry, every person on this screen is a Democrat. We're talking about the Republican caucuses now.

ENTEN: We are talking about the Republican caucuses. So, take a look here. Big GOP frontrunners who lost the Iowa caucuses. These are folks who are polling at 40 percent or above nationally. Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H. W. Bush in 1988.

[10:05:01]

While I didn't cover either of those campaigns, in fact, I wasn't even alive for them, you do remember them. And you, of course, can recall that these folks then all of a sudden got scared and then New Hampshire became a real race afterwards.

BERMAN: Yes. In a way, on the Republican side, the story has been who hasn't won or who didn't win in Iowa, correct?

ENTEN: Correct. So, you know, if we just generally sort of talk about Iowa caucuses, how predictive they are, the Iowa caucuses become the GOP nominee. In fact, it's only twice, right? It's Bob Dole, '96, it's George W. Bush in 2000.

If you look at the rest of these folks on this screen, there are a lot more who didn't, in fact, go on to become the nominee after winning the Iowa caucuses. And, of course, you might remember most recently, Ted Cruz won in 2016. Donald Trump didn't win Iowa. He didn't win, but he still went on to become the nominee.

So, more often than not, in fact, the Iowa winner, at least in the GOP side, doesn't, in fact, go on to be the nominee.

BERMAN: What does Donald Trump's position now in the polls in Iowa, if we look at historical precedent, what can we learn?

ENTEN: Yes. So, Donald Trump's lead, as Jeff was getting to, is huge. And it's not only huge, it's getting bigger.

So, take a look here. Donald Trump is at 43 percent in October. He's up to 51 percent now. He is up over 30 points ahead of the competition. There has not been an Iowa frontrunner who has been in such a strong position as Trump is at this point.

And if we look historically, even the folks who were anywhere close to Trump's position pulled at 45 percent or greater at this point in the Iowa caucuses, Walter Mondale, George W. Bush, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, all of them before Donald Trump, guys, they went on to win the nomination.

So, the fact is at this particular point, Donald Trump is in a very strong position. And it's a position that, historically speaking, has been one that has gone on to win the nomination. Guys?

BERMAN: Thank you for the history lesson, Harry Enten, and thank you for reminding everyone that I do in fact remember the 1980 Iowa caucuses, statement of fact.

With me now CNN Political Analyst in Washington Bureau Chief for the Boston Globe, the paper of record, Jackie Kucinich, also with us is Republican strategist and host of The Focus Group podcast, Sarah Longwell.

Sarah, let me start with you. We have these town halls tonight, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. What can slash must they do to give their campaigns the momentum they need?

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, neither of them are going to get the momentum they need to go on to be the winner, but they can try to get the momentum they need to come in, in second place. Because here's the thing, the stakes for Ron DeSantis are that if he comes in third in Iowa, his political career may be not totally over, but it isn't going to be in a deep freeze coma.

If Nikki Haley comes in second place, then it opens up what is the narrowest of paths to go into New Hampshire with some momentum. And that is a state that is tailor-made, maybe the only state really tailor-made for somebody other than Trump to potentially prevail or at least get really, really close to Trump.

And that would allow her to go into her home state of South Carolina with some wind at her back. However, South Carolina, not as friendly as you'd think to its previous governor and still much more of a Trump state.

I don't actually really see a path for either of them, but they are fighting right now for second place because Trump is so dominating this race and continues to dominate. In fact, I was doing a focus group with Iowa voters just this week, and I asked them if there was anything that would turn them off from Donald Trump, and one said, well, if he did something really extreme, like either died or murdered somebody. And that was the only thing that would make them not vote for him and one of these other candidates. Everyone in the group was more or less for Donald Trump. And they all certainly believed that Donald Trump would be the nominee coming out of Iowa.

BERMAN: You know, Jackie Kucinich, Sarah said something there that was interesting that you're starting to hear little whispers of in terms of Ron DeSantis, that, right now, yes, he's fighting for second place, but also maybe fighting for his political life for the future here.

There was that New York Times article that came out over the holidays that had quotes from campaign staffers talking about hospice care. You just want to keep the patient comfortable. How much does he need to be concerned about what happens to him even if he doesn't win the nomination?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, you don't want quotes like that, particularly if you're running for president and just a couple weeks before Iowa. But, certainly, John, I mean, Ron DeSantis has positioned himself, particularly coming into this race, as the next big thing when it comes to Republican politics. He wanted to be the leader of the party, the successor to Donald Trump, and it just hasn't worked out that way for him.

So, going forward, if you do lose, yes, we've seen other people run again for president later, however, it just -- it really -- he has staked so much on this, and particularly in Iowa, he's spent so much time and so much money and presented this monstrosity of a campaign apparatus going in.

This is somewhere he -- I mean, he absolutely has to come in second, like Sarah said, just to keep going forward and, frankly, to keep his reputation intact within the Republican Party.

[10:10:09]

BERMAN: You know, Sarah, you said you've been doing focus groups. This will be -- these town halls will have questions from Iowa voters. What are some of the questions that actually matter to Republican voters right now?

LONGWELL: Well, I just want to say quickly on Ron DeSantis. You know, when I was listening to these Iowa voters talk, one of the things that they said was that Ron DeSantis seemed like he had given up, that he seemed sort of depressed, like he was too far behind. It was actually really brutal for him.

But I do think that what the voters seem to care about, the two issues I hear the most about are the economy and immigration. And what's tough for these other candidates is on those two issues, Republican voters, especially these primary voters, they think that Trump did a good job on those two issues. They like that he, you know, boxes the establishment.

You know, Republican voters have changed a lot over the last decade. They both were changing and Donald Trump captured something, and then he accelerated that change. And I think one of the difficulties for both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis is that the voters view them as sort of establishment candidates. And so they're sort of distrustful of them in a way that when they look at Trump, they feel like they know what they're getting, they like his record.

And while, for me personally, I look at him and think, boy, this guy did a coup last time. He's an existential threat to democracy. When I listen to voters, they more or less think that Trump is a fait accompli. They say, yes, he did a good job last time and I'm ready to see him again.

BERMAN: We played sound, Jackie, of Ron DeSantis criticizing Donald Trump for not debating, which is a process issue. He is not criticizing Donald Trump for the core of the issues that Sarah was just bringing up there, January 6.

Chris Christie in New Hampshire is actually spending money. He is putting money into his campaign in New Hampshire with that type of message. Listen to this new ad from Chris Christie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRIS CHRISTIE, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have an admission to make. Eight years ago, when I decided to endorse Donald Trump for president, I did it because he was winning. And I did it because I felt I could make him a better candidate and a better president.

Well, I was wrong. I made a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It's pretty interesting to hear that kind of message. Whether or not you think Chris Christie has a chance there, you don't normally hear something like that from a political candidate.

KUCINICH: It's true, and he's been saying that in interviews, but the fact that he did decide to put it in an ad.

BERMAN: Jackie, I'm so sorry. Jackie, Sarah, Please stand by, if you will. We've been talking about Iowa.

We have breaking news out of Iowa. There are reports of a shooting at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa. That's about 20 miles or so northwest of Des Moines, about a 40-minute drive. These reports now coming from the Des Moines Register and the Associated Press.

CNN's Veronica Miracle watching all the developments for us here. Veronica, what are you learning, Veronica?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Still very few details confirmed, but what we can say is that right now the Des Moines Area Community College actually put out a statement saying it is aware of an active violence situation that occurred at Perry High School this morning. The statement saying that the Perry Center, of course, the nearby center is closed for classes.

What we know about this small community school district, it only serves about 1,800 students and it's about 25 miles northwest of Des Moines. Today was actually the first day back after the holiday break. We are still waiting to confirm details as we await more. Back to you.

BERMAN: All right. Veronica Miracle, again, we're watching this develop. This would have been the first day back at school for students in Perry, Iowa. Obviously, a great deal of focus on Iowa right now because of the caucuses, but this will turn, I think, that focus elsewhere, as we are seeing all this police activity in Perry about 20, 25 miles northwest of Des Moines.

We are getting new details in here. As we get more information and, again, we're waiting for some official words from the police there or the school officials, as we get official word, we'll bring that to you as soon as it comes in.

Again, reports of a shooting at a high school in Perry, Iowa. Our coverage continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:15:00]

SIDNER: Just as a lot of candidates are there for the town halls and the caucuses, breaking news out of Iowa. There are reports of a shooting at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa. That is coming from the Des Moines Register and Associated Press and the local reporters there on the ground. The Dallas County Sheriff's Office Facebook page is now reporting multiple law enforcement and medical staff are on site.

You can see the law enforcement there for yourselves right outside of Perry High School. That is a high number of officers there.

The site has been secured and the Dallas County Sheriff's Office and, by the way, that's Dallas County, not Dallas City in Texas. We'll release more information as it becomes available. But this is right now an active scene. You're seeing some of the video from a few minutes ago. CNN -- I think we're going to be hearing from a police officer, correct? Is that what you just told me?

BERMAN: We have sound from police.

SIDNER: We have a sound from a police officer who is on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- guarantee of that, but we're going to do our best to get you something at 10:00. If everybody can just kind of be patient as soon as Sergeant Dinkle (ph) and I can get any information or somebody else over here, we'll get that to you, okay? Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Obviously, but that was about an hour ago. So, we're expecting to hear from them very, very shortly. At this point in time, we do not know about injuries. We do not know exactly what happened just yet. But there has been a reported shooting on the first day of school.

Let's get to CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Charles Ramsey. Never mind all your accolades as an officer and a chief. Thank you so much for being here, Charles.

Charles, when you hear, first of all, there's a huge police presence outside of a school, secondly, that there has been a shooting, this is the first day of high school back there in Perry, Iowa, what are your thoughts?

[10:20:10]

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, obviously, I mean, it's not the way to start the New Year, that's for sure. And it's -- again, it's very troubling. You know, you get that sick feeling whenever you hear that sort of thing that you've got children that, you know, the safest place they should have is actually a school setting. But the reality in today's world is that's no longer the case. So, hopefully, we don't have any serious injuries in this particular case, but you see a massive police presence. The police certainly are not denying that some shooting took place. The question is, to what extent are the injuries and how many people are affected?

So, I guess we'll find out as soon as they're able to give us more information. But, again, it's always very troubling when you see something like this.

BERMAN: What we do know is we've been told that law enforcement will hold a news conference at 11:00 Eastern Time, 10:00 Central. That's about 40 minutes from now. So, we could learn more details in less than an hour from the Perry High School.

Also, as part of the information on the Facebook page of the county, they say the high school is secured, Chief. What do you read into that, again, as we still see this enormous police presence there and we hear that there was a shooting?

RAMSEY: If the school is considered to be secured, that means either that person who's responsible for the shooting is either in custody or deceased, one of the other, because they gave no information that the community at large was at risk because the individual fled the location. So, that statement alone tells me that you either have a person alive in custody or dead on the scene.

BERMAN: Again, as I just noted, the police department there will have a news conference at 11:00 Eastern Time, and less than an hour, we will get much more information. But as we were just discussing there, they do say the high school is secure, which means it isn't an active situation. That's all we know right now.

SIDNER: And that's the one bit of good news here. There's a lot of things we don't know. We don't know if there are injuries. We don't even know if it was inside the school, outside the school. We do know there's a huge police presence still there. And as John just mentioned, we're going to hear a lot more details coming up at 11:00.

But I do want to ask you about when you look at this scene and you know that this is the first day of school, about this potential shooter and what their thought process might have been, knowing that this is the first day of school. It's like somebody potentially waited to do whatever damage they wanted to do at the school.

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, it's difficult to say because, you know, and you don't want to speculate too much on something like this. We don't know if this is a student, if this is an outsider, if it's a member of staff that's involved in this at all. So, until we get more information, it's going to be very, very difficult.

But, clearly, if there wasn't fact of shooting in the school, certainly no reason to believe there wasn't some incident that took place in the school, they waited until the first day because that's when people would be present at the scene.

So, this looks like it might have been just targeted, not random, that someone intended to do this on the first day of school. But, again, that's just speculation. We really don't have very much information at all right now.

BERMAN: Walk us through, Chief, what should or does happen after law enforcement gets first reports of a shooting at a school like this.

RAMSEY: Well, with the current active shooter training, officers are trained to immediately enter the school to try to minimize the number of people that are seriously injured as a result of the shooting, locate the shooter, neutralize the threat. And so that's how they're trained now. That happened after Columbine, where the procedures for police changed dramatically. You no longer wait for SWAT teams to arrive. You have to take immediate action.

In the meantime, other responding officers will be securing the scene. They will make sure they establish a perimeter. They will evacuate individuals from the school. You always have to be careful to make sure that the shooter is not among those leaving the school, but they will get the kids and the faculty to safety as soon as they can.

Someone will be setting up a reunification center someplace, so parents, once they hear this, obviously, you'll have parents flooding the area. They'll give them a location where they can go and reunite with their children.

So, you've got a lot of things going on right now. But the most important thing is to neutralize the shooter if, in fact, this is an active shooter situation. Nothing is more important than that right now. And then to render aid to anyone who may be injured as a result of the shooting.

SIDNER: We are also just learning that the school has canceled classes for the rest of the day, which is the normal course of events that we see time and time again, unfortunately, in this country when it comes to shootings at schools, the trauma for the students no matter if they were injured or killed or not, is enormous.

[10:25:13]

There's a whole psychological trauma that is going on here.

This is a small town. This is a town of about 7,800 people. It's about 40 minutes or so drive live from Des Moines, Iowa, the big city. And when you have something happen in a smaller place, and I know you're from a large city yourself, but it does have a very wide-reaching impact, doesn't it, not just on the students, the staff and the families, but also on law enforcement.

RAMSEY: Well, it does. I mean, everyone knows everyone else. And some of those officers responding may very well have children that attend that high school. So, a small town like that, no doubt, this is something that has a huge impact. It has an impact on any community, large or small. But in a small community, there's more likely to have people directly impacted by this shooting than you would in a real big city, perhaps. And one other thing about school, in addition to canceling classes, you have to remember this is now a crime scene if, in fact, a shooting took place. So, that scene has to be secured and that school would be shut down until the officers at the scene, the crime scene operators, release the scene.

BERMAN: Chief, stand by, if you will, for just a minute. CNN Producer Aaron Pellish is in Perry, Iowa, right now. Aaron is actually operating the camera that is providing this live shot for us right now. So, we're going to hear Aaron's voice. I'm going to ask him some questions while he continues to film this.

Aaron, why don't you describe to me the scene there, what you are seeing?

AARON PELLISH, CNN PRODUCER (voice over): Yes. Hey, John, this is a very calm scene here in Perry, a very orderly evacuation of what appears to be some staff. By the time I arrived on the scene, it seemed to be secure, as we've reported, lots of law enforcement personnel. I was driving on my way up here to cover a Vivek Ramasamy event in Perry, Iowa. As a matter of fact, that event is still going on, as we expect. And he tweeted earlier today, prayers for the community.

But as I was driving up, we saw law enforcement personnel, emergency medical personnel eating fast. Multiple dozens, dozens of cars from west Des Moines, Polk County, state troopers, Green County, Dallas County, all these nearby counties responding to Polk, Iowa -- to Perry, Iowa, excuse me. You'll see Urbandale Police as I pan my shot over responding to the (INAUDIBLE). That's a nearby suburb of Des Moines as well.

This town about, as Sara mentioned, just a minute ago, a very small town. And so the amount of law enforcement personnel obviously responding to the scene is being pulled in from other places. This is about 45 minutes from Des Moines. And the scale here of law enforcement is pretty significant.

But in terms of the atmosphere, it seems to be pretty stable, pretty calm at the moment, and they seem to have a good handle on things. John?

BERMAN: Aaron, any medical personnel that you're seeing, any signs of victims, helicopters and the like?

PELLISH: No helicopters, no ambulances or EMT personnel on the scene that I have seen at the site once I've gotten here. But on my way to the scene, I saw a couple of ambulances driving the other way, one from Dallas County, one from Green County, ambulances driving, obviously having been in the area in the high school, I should say, driving away from the scene. So, we have seen some of that.

But as of now, from what I can see, and you can see my shot here, so you're seeing what I'm seeing, we are not seeing any medical personnel, but we have seen some response to the scene, obviously. SIDNER: And we were just talking with Charles Ramsey about the fact that when law enforcement says that everything is -- what was the word --

BERMAN: Secure.

SIDNER: -- secure, that the likelihood is that the shooter or shooters have been taken into custody or have been neutralized, have been killed. So, we will be trying to get more information, and we're going to get that in the next 30 minutes now. At around 11:00, there's going to be a press conference.

I am just curious. I see the police sort of walking very calmly, which usually gives you the sense that things are not heightened. It looks like that is officers from all over the place.

[10:30:00]

They are heavily, heavily armed. Can you give us some sense of what you're seeing on police, what they have and just the numbers that are out there?