Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Maine Judge Defers Decision On Trump Ballot Question Until Supreme Court Rules; DHS Threatens "Appropriate Action" Over Blocked Border Access; Biden To Meet With Lawmakers As Gov't Shutdown Days Away; Exploring The Link Between Weight And Health. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired January 17, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

MICHAEL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Take that ruling from the Supreme Court into consideration and take action based off of whatever the Supreme Court does.

But this, Boris, is one of many states where Trump's eligibility is in question. And we will have to watch and see how this gets sorted out as the voting is underway in some states.

(CROSSTALK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: All right, Marshall Cohen, please standby.

Let's bring in Tom Saviello. He challenged Donald Trump's eligibility for the Maine ballot.

Tom, thank you for being with us.

Your reaction to this news that a judge in state court decided to wait until the Supreme Court weighs in.

TOM SAVIELLO, CHALLENGED DONALD TRUMP'S ELIGIBILITY FOR THE MAINE BALLOT: Judge Murphy is a very thoughtful justice and I am sure she went through all of this to try to understand best what she needed to do.

I was trying to figure out what she could do. She could follow state law and say, hey, according to state law the secretary of state did the right thing.

But I think ultimately her decision to send it back to the U.S. Supreme Court where it will be decided no matter what we do in Maine is the right decision.

SANCHEZ: What is your response to folks who are anticipating the Supreme Court will side with the former president?

SAVIELLO: I think it will be interesting to see if they do or not. We talked about this before. I think Justice Thomas needs to recuse himself.

And I think it would be interesting to see what the three justices that he appointed do. Are they beholding to him or will they do what a right analysis of the case that's in front of him?

SANCHEZ: Just for clarity, Tom, you want Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from this matter. Why?

SAVIELLO: Clearly, his wife has been involved in January 6th. To me, that means he should step aside.

Sometimes it is not direct conflict of interest or on the financial side. Sometimes the appearance of conflict of interest makes a big difference to the people in the country.

SANCHEZ: Tom, I just want to point out to our viewers, you and I have spoken on the air about your effort to get removed from the ballot before.

You were a Republican, you previously supported Donald Trump. It was January 6th that you shared with me that changed your mind.

I wonder what your reaction is to seeing the results in Iowa were Donald Trump won by some 30 percentage points and appears to be well on his way to becoming the Republican presidential nominee.

SAVIELLO: Everybody seems to forget, almost 50 percent did not vote for him. What will they do when it comes time? Some say they will vote for him and some say they won't.

So, yes, he did win by a lot, if you look at the fact there were three other people in the race. But if you add up their numbers up, it was a pretty close race in Iowa.

SANCHEZ: Tom Saviello reacting to the news that a judge in Maine decided to pump the question of Donald Trump being on the primary ballot in that state based on the 14th Amendment to the Supreme Court.

Tom, thank you so much for your time. And we hope to have you back again soon.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We're back in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:22]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The battle at the U.S. southern border between the Biden administration and the state of Texas is nearing a breaking point.

Today is the day the Department of Homeland Security is threatening to take appropriate action if state officials do not immediately reopen full access to U.S. Border Patrol agents by the end of the day.

A 2.5 mile stretch of Shelby Park, the Shelby Park area -- that's what we are talking about -- in Eagle Pass has been cordoned off by a combination of Texas National Guardsmen, fencing and other equipment.

SANCHEZ: A single Border Patrol team with a boat was allowed in earlier today. Our cameras captured this. But that was about it.

We want to take you live to Eagle Pass with CNN's Rosa Flores.

Rosa, what are you seeing now? Have they granted full access to the feds?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, that is the short answer. The state of Texas is really doubling down on this.

Let me show you around Shelby Park. This is the type of razor wire on the riverside and on the city side. If you look beyond this strand of razor wire, there are several layers of wire before it hits the actual Rio Grande, which is beyond that last layer.

But I cannot underscore enough how extraordinary this is. This is the state of Texas blocking a U.S. federal law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction and power to enforce federal immigration laws in this area that is blocked, that does not have access to it.

I want to show you how critical some of these areas are. So this is a 2.5-mile area of the Rio Grande that Texas has blocked off.

I want you to look at this video. This was shot on December 20th. This was in the middle of a migrant surge. The area that you're looking at is an area used by federal authorities to manage the migrant flow.

This is when thousands of migrants were arriving into the Eagle Pass area every single day and the federal government was using this area to manage that, to figure out ways to get transportation for these migrants to send them to processing facilities.

Well, now I want you to come back live to me. This area right here that Texas has taken over. Texas has not solved the immigration issues. That's not what I'm trying to show you.

What I am showing you is, if there is another surge, the federal government does not have access to some of the critical areas on the border so they can manage that flow.

[14:40:00]

Not only has Texas not stopped illegal immigration. I learned from a law enforcement source, what smugglers are doing is going be on the razor wire, further up river and west from this area. And that's where they are pushing migrants to cross into the country illegally.

Now there has been a lot of attention on the mother and her two children who drowned over the weekend. I want to share with you that I talked to the assistant fire chief and he was telling me that they see that type of death all the time.

It is not unique to this past weekend and it is really difficult on the personnel here who work in the city of Eagle Pass that have to respond to those emergencies on the river.

They see both their razor wire and also the toll on the humans who have to respond to those tragedies.

SANCHEZ: Thank you so much for bringing us that perspective.

Still ahead, just minutes from now, President Biden is set to hold a critical meeting at the White House with congressional leaders. House Speaker Mike Johnson is said to expect to have a fight over the border policies. We will get you the latest as soon as we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:45:30]

SANCHEZ: Just minutes from now, there is a high-stakes meeting at the White House to talk about government spending as the government nears a partial shutdown this Friday night.

The president's face-to-face with congressional leaders has not only national but also global ramifications.

KEILAR: Since President Biden also plans to stress how urgently Ukraine needs billions more in U.S. aid to fight the Russian invasion. But earlier today, House Republicans signaled resistance ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Before we even talk about Ukraine, I will tell the president what I have told you and what we have told the American people, border, border, border.

We have to take care of our own house. We have to secure our own border before we talk about anything else. And that is the message I have had since day one. It's the message I will continue to have. And I think that's the message the American people want us to deliver.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We have CNN's Melanie Zanona on Capitol Hill.

What is going on? Are they hashing this out? Do they appear to be fighting to get to the end of the deadline? Do you think they will come up with something?

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: In talking with Republicans, it depends on who you ask whether it is a Senate Republican or House Republican. There is a big split when it comes to how they are approaching these negotiations.

Over in the Senate, there are some bipartisan group of lawmakers trying to work out a deal on the southern border. That is key to unlocking that additional aid for both Israel and Ukraine. So Republicans are insisting all of those issues be linked together.

Moments ago, Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, expressed optimism that they will be able to have a deal and potentially could vote on a big package like that as soon as next week. Over at the House, I reported just recently Speaker Mike Johnson, on a

conference call, said that the Senate deal, the details he has seen thus far would be dead on arrival in the house.

And that he is insistent on H.R.-2, which is a House GOP border security bill and it would be the starting point for any negotiations.

So the meeting at the White House today will be a tough sales job for President Biden in trying to convince Speaker Mike Johnson to go along with a border immigration compromise in order to unlock additional Ukraine aid. We expect the president to make a forcible case for why additional resources are needed to aid Ukraine in their fight against Russia.

But that's a message that, up until this point, has fallen on deaf ears at least when it comes to House Republicans.

Biden and Speaker Johnson do not have much of a relationship. They did have a brief phone call and brief meeting since Johnson has become speaker.

This'll be the first time that Johnson is on a setting and a stage like this where he is part of this big meeting with congressional leaders. So we will see what comes out of it, if anything.

As of right now, the prospects for a border deal and therefore Ukraine and Israel aid looking really tough at the moment -- guys?

SANCHEZ: Melanie Zanona, thank you so much for that update.

And still ahead, America is in a weight-loss craze with new drugs helping people drop the pounds. But what is the connection between weight and our overall health? We have CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, here to tell us what we need to know about the number on the scale.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:53:03]

SANCHEZ: More than 10 years ago, the American Medical Association decided to label obesity a disease. But is a disease that's proven to be both medically and culturally complex, especially now that drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have become more popular.

KEILAR: This is exactly why Dr. Sanjay Gupta's podcast "Chasing Life," is taking on the subject for its new season.

And he's with us now to talk about it.

Sanjay, so many people are focused on this. They have so many questions about this.

The first episode on now is about the relationship between body weight in our health. How should we be thinking about weight as it pertains to our health? DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is really

interesting. As you mentioned, about a decade ago, they started classifying obesity as a disease in and of itself but still drawing the connection between weight and health is a complicated one.

Most people use body mass index, but we found out that that some 200 years old and was originally designed for Belgian soldier. It has increasingly less relevance into today's day and world.

Still, that's how people will often qualify someone as being obese or not.

I talked to Doctor Fatima Cody Stanford, who is an obesity medicine doctor, specifically about what she looks for in terms of trying to draw this connection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. FATIMA CODY STANFORD, OBESITY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN & SCIENTIST, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: You can't just judge the book by its cover and assume that someone who is larger is unhealthy and someone who is lean is healthy, right? That is the assumption that they will make.

I call that practicing streetcorner medicine. We are going to coin that today on the show, Sanjay.

I want to look beneath this --

GUPTA: Streetcorner medicine, I like that.

CODY: surface of the individual to see what's going on because somebody who is lean may be very unhealthy and someone who is heavier may be healthier.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So there you go, right away this idea of looking at weight alone, even though obesity is considered a disease, weight alone is just one factor.

[14:55:00]

So here are a few other things. And this are not going to be that surprising to people who follow this. But other things we should look for in terms of looking under the hood, to find out if someone is healthy or not.

This is for men specifically, weight circumference, blood pressure, triglycerides, the good kind of cholesterol, and blood sugar numbers.

And those are some rough numbers. Again, they can be a little flexible. But it gives you an idea of what these obesity medicine doctors will look at to try to determine is someone unhealthy, do they qualify for medications and what this means for them going forward.

SANCHEZ: So how would Doctor Stanford approach someone where thinks their weight impacting their health? How then do they go about figuring out treatments potentially?

GUPTA: So a couple of things. Beyond the physiology, which we just talked about and all of those blood values, but also looking at the functional sort of aspect, how well is the person getting around. Somebody can be quite heavy but getting along quite well. And that physiology, she would not classify them as unhealthy.

What is interesting, Boris, is obesity, we think of it as one sort of thing, but they are starting to think of subtypes, obesity subtype A, subtype B, subtype C.

Because you find that different people respond better to different interventions. There are people who respond really well to lifestyle changes in type A, don't work at all for people in type B, who may be better candidates for medications. Or even Type C, potentially for surgery.

So we are getting to that level of granularity in terms of figuring this out.

SANCHEZ: Really interesting, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Look forward to listening to it on the podcast, "Chasing Life. It's on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

Thanks as always, Dr. Gupta.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. A lot more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)