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Nikki Haley Campaigns In NH With Five Days Until Primary; Qatar FM: Lifesaving Medicine Likely Reached Hostages In Gaza; Back-To-Back Storms Blamed For At Least 40 Deaths Across Nine States. Aired 11:30a- 12p ET

Aired January 18, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. This morning, Nikki Haley is back on the campaign trail in New Hampshire and slamming Donald Trump after the former president escalated his attacks against her. Haley telling supporters again this morning that it is time to move on from Trump. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do we want more of the same or do we want to go forward in a new direction? And more of the same as not just Joe Biden. More of the same is also Donald Trump.

When you think of more of the same, more of the same as the fact that over 70 percent of Americans don't want a Trump-Biden rematch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: All right. With us now is Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tia Mitchell. Plus, CNN political analyst and White House reporter for the Associated Press Seung Min Kim. Good to see you both, ladies.

Tia, let me start with you. We just heard one of the critiques there that Nikki Haley has made about Trump. But her critiques tend to be about the chaos that surrounds him or the turning of the page as a party or his age, and Biden's.

But some say she's still holding back, that these are not strong enough. So, what do you think we see tonight at this town hall? Does she take the gloves off as some have said she needed to long ago?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: So, I think Nikki Haley is walking a really fine line because she does want to show her appeal, how much she could possibly perform better than Donald Trump in the general election and be a more palatable Republican candidate than a lot of people think Donald Trump is in a general election. However, she also realizes the dynamics of a Republican primary. In most primary states are not like New Hampshire where she can depend on independence to help her surge in the polls. So, she's speaking quite frankly to two different audiences at the same time, which is why we see her kind of going only so far in her critique of President Trump. I think she has to possibly make a choice eventually if she's going to go harder or pull back completely. One will benefit one group. One will benefit the other.

SOLOMON: Seung Min, what do you make of this reporting that some voters in New Hampshire seem to be disappointed that Haley seems to be taking direct questions less from voters? Her camp denies that. But just your thoughts about this strategy.

That of course, comes as she is prone to have these viral moments when discussing or asked about race. I mean, is that perhaps the safest or smartest strategy for Nikki Haley?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I can tell you that obviously, Iowa voters and New Hampshire voters, they are very, very used to having this direct access to candidates. They are in their living rooms. They show up for town halls in every corner of the state.

So, of course, voters are going to demand a high level of access, be able to ask them questions on any given -- any given topic at basically any point of the day, especially this close out to the primary. But you're right that Nikki Haley has certainly had some unforced errors, or maybe, I -- over the last several weeks or perhaps moments where she was a little bit too careful and really kind of opened herself up to attacks from her critics and her opponents as well. Certainly, the slavery issue with the cause of the Civil War is the one that stands out the most in their minds.

But Nikki Haley and her campaign has always been incredibly careful, perhaps sometimes to a fault. This seems to be a part of that. But certainly, New Hampshire voters who are so again used to this up close and personal contact and communication with presidential candidates are certainly going to demand more.

[11:35:08]

SOLOMON: Yes, one person who perhaps is not thinking as much about New Hampshire voters is Ron DeSantis, who seems to have put the state in the rearview. We have some data that shows that he's run no ads there since mid-November. And now, he's turning his sights to South Carolina.

Of course, Nikki's helped -- her home state. So, let's play it forward to you. If DeSantis is able to outperform Haley on her turf in a few weeks, does this -- does this change things for him in a meaningful way?

MITCHELL: So, I think if DeSantis is able to outperform Nikki Haley in South Carolina, this was going to further prolong the scent -- the DeSantis and Nikki Haley battle for second place. Now, I think, as a result, this may help accelerate the perceived inevitability of President Trump. If he continues to win outright, quite frankly, while Haley and DeSantis keep trading second place, then he can say hey, why are we still focusing on who's second place? I'm the clear winner.

So, I think it would not be great for Nikki Haley for -- if Ron DeSantis is able to do well in South Carolina. I think if he doesn't do well, that's probably the end of his campaign.

SOLOMON: Well, we will soon see. Tia Mitchell, Seung Min Kim, good to see you both, ladies. Thank you.

And tonight, Nikki Haley makes her case directly to New Hampshire voters five days before they go to the polls. The "CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall" moderated by Jake Tapper airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you, Rahel. Back-to-back winter storm slamming parts of the United States killing at least 40 people. Ahead. When this deadly weather will finally warm up?

Plus, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is growing by the day. Tens of thousands have been killed. Homes in ruins. We will speak to a doctor who treated patients at hospitals there, next.

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[11:41:33]

SIDNER: As millions of people are displaced in Gaza, the humanitarian crisis is just growing exponentially. And the United Nations is warning that the entire population of Gaza now faces the risk of famine. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke about the toll while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Here's what he said.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: What we're seeing every single day in Gaza is gut-wrenching. And the suffering we're seeing among innocent men, women, and children breaks my heart. The question is, what is to be done?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And that is a question that is on many people's minds. With me now is someone who has been treating people in Gaza, Dr. Seema Jelani. She's a pediatrician and Senior Technical Advisor for emergency health with the International Rescue Committee.

Thank you so much for being here. I do want to ask you. You know, having been on the ground, what are you seeing in hospitals?

DR. SEEMA JILANI, PEDIATRICIAN: I bore witness to a staggering failure of humanity as what I would call it. I -- in the first three hours of my work at the emergency room, I treated a 1-year-old boy with a bloody diaper and no right arm and no right leg. He was bleeding into his chest cavity.

He needed a chest tube. He needed to go to the operating room, something in a United States hospital. He would have gone straight to the OR.

The orthopedic surgeon bandaged him up and said we have so many other emergency pressing cases, which sets the stage and made me wonder what could be more pressing than a 1-year-old without an arm, a leg, and who is as fixating on his own blood? And it tells you the scope and severity and magnitude of the human suffering there.

SIDNER: How does one deal with that? I mean, you go in, you get to come out. But you have doctors there who are Palestinians that live and work in Gaza and cannot leave, who had been working since the beginning of all this. How are they?

JILANI: They are a monument of colossal bravery is all I can say. And I learned so much from them. They have been -- many of them have been forcibly evacuated not once, not twice, but three or four times.

They spend their evenings looking for safe shelter, food, and water. And then they show up to work with a stethoscope in hand and some scrubs and they get to work. Some of them pronounced colleagues dead overnight and continue to see patients even so.

Some are volunteers that have been displaced from other hospitals that I met. And are still coming in to see patients and to serve their communities.

SIDNER: It is quite incredible when you think of the toll that's taking on not just the population, but particularly on the doctor seeing this over and over. And there's nothing they can do but try to treat patients. And they can't treat everyone, as I understand it.

I do want to ask you about a specific incident that happened that the world is talking about and that's the attack on an ambulance that was going to a hospital as I understand it. Where were you -- were you there during that attack? Were you on the ground in Gaza?

JILANI: I would say, and this is a sad statement, you would have to be more specific when we're talking about attacks on healthcare in Gaza. So, I can't play that event. I do -- I can tell you there was a bullet that went through our Intensive Care Unit in al-Aqsa Hospital.

We were forced to leave. The route was deemed unsafe. And Israeli authorities dropped leaflets in surrounding areas indicating that the surrounding areas were now red evacuation areas, which rendered us unable to provide life-saving services to critically ill patients.

[11:45:06]

SIDNER: We are now hearing, and we just reported this as well, that the UN is saying that you know, Gaza and Gazans -- Palestinians are on the brink of a famine there in Gaza. Are you seeing evidence of that?

JILANI: I certainly saw children that were undernourished or malnourished. And they had been in the hospital for several days. So, it's a -- it's a challenge.

They also had lots of comorbidities. But I don't doubt that there were -- there are severe food shortages.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you this because we hear this back and forth all the time. Israel says look, we're sending more aid in. And then they say but Hamas takes some of the aid or you know absconds to some of the aid and it doesn't always all of it get to the population.

Have you seen or heard anything on that level in your capacity, which, obviously, you're in hospitals trying to treat people? So, it's not necessarily that you're hearing all this, but you may hear things as you're there, hearing anything about that.

JILANI: Myself and IRC would never -- were deigned to ever work in a facility that had any evidence to suggest that that would be the case. And I personally have not seen that.

SIDNER: OK. I also want to ask you about something that the Jerusalem Post and others have been reporting now that Prime Minister Netanyahu has said the operation in Gaza, we're talking about the war in the Gaza area, is going to potentially continue until 2025. That is a year from now.

What do you think Gaza will look like? And what will happen to the hospitals in particular that are already collapsing if it goes on for another year?

JILANI: I want to ask our communities when we think -- when we decided it was OK for hospitals to be attacked. And we used to talk of the fall of cities and more fall of Mosul or Saigon. And now, we're talking about the fall of hospitals.

We're talking about the fall of Al-Shifa and al-Aqsa and imminently Nasser Hospital. Those should be -- those should be unequivocally safe and protected under international law. And we know that.

What the -- what Gaza would look like is an even worse apocalyptic scene than we have witnessed to date.

SIDNER: It is very, very stark in the terms that you put it, especially the story about that 1-year-old. No one will get that out of their heads. And I've been seeing the pictures. We all see them. It is devastating. And devastating for the families who have hostages there who have no idea if they'll ever, ever be able to leave.

Thank you, Seema Jelani, for the work that you've done for putting yourself in danger to try to take care of patients. And thank you for coming on today to explain it all.

JILANI: Thank you --

SIDNER: Appreciate it.

JILANI: Thank you.

SIDNER: All right. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We have new reporting on the federal review of the Uvalde school shooting response. We're standing by to hear from Attorney General Merrick Garland any minute.

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[11:52:08]

BERMAN: So, back-to-back brutal winter storms blamed for the deaths of at least 40 people across nine states. More than two dozen of those deaths were in Tennessee, seven in Oregon, several more in the northeast. Potentially life-threatening Stone Cold is hammering western New York right now. So, we sent CNN meteorologist Elisa Raffa live in Buffalo right now. In the middle of it all, you win the snow lottery.

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. We've got like four feet of it and counting. We have the snow that's already picking up again today. That snow band just keeps moving up and down back and forth, up and down Lake Erie. It was south of us this morning. It's back over Buffalo this morning.

And the snow had really picked up earlier. We could be looking at snowfall rates of two to three inches per hour as we go through the afternoon which the weather service says is lighter than it was yesterday. And we'll tack on another foot.

We already have storm totals of 30 inches or more for some of those suburbs around Buffalo like West Seneca. And if you look behind me, we're going to run out of places to put it. I mean there are mountains of this stuff everywhere all over the city as they're trying to plow it out of the way because we had another leak event last weekend.

The Buffalo fans are going to have to shovel out that stadium again before Sunday. As the Bills have another game, the hockey team postponed their game. And they have to try to play it tonight and another foot of snow.

So, I want to show you what the radar looks like. You can see the bands that are just continuing to pump out there over Lake Erie and Ontario with the hefty snowfall rates. And it's picking up that moisture over the lake and just dumping with all that cold air.

Looking at some of the snow depts, you can see where we've got the feet of snow up towards Watertown and Buffalo and it just, like I said, it just continues to come down. So, we're going to add to that map.

And then I want to show you the lakes because this is what is so important -- in what I find so fascinating about this event because we're in January these lakes should have much more ice on them. But we had a record-warm December for a lot of these cities and states around the Great Lakes. So, the ice didn't get enough coverage and 00 yes, now you have all this moisture and it's dumping all that snow. Ice coverage should be about 20 percent, and we're only at eight, John.

BERMAN: That's crazy. I mean that is a huge difference there. In the meantime, though, there is nothing like the lake-effect snow you're getting a taste of it right now. Good luck. Get a sled. Elisa Raffa, thank you very much.

SOLOMON: Just enjoy it while you're out there, you know.

BERMAN: Definitely.

SIDNER: You know, I like those Bano-style goggles you have. Girl, I'm going to call you to find out where I can get me a pair of those. I might need them later.

SOLOMON: They're stylish.

SIDNER: Potentially. Thank you so much for joining us. Happy to have you here, Rahel.

SOLOMON: Good to be with you, guys.

SIDNER: This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. Inside -- oh, you too, John.

BERMAN: Yes.

SIDNER: My bad.

BERMAN: Yes.

SIDNER: "INSIDE POLITICS" starts right now.

[11:55:06]

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DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. We start with breaking news. We're standing by for the attorney general of the United States to address a scathing new DOJ report on the failed response to the 2022 Uvalde School massacre. CNN obtained a copy of the report detailing what it calls "cascading failures from law enforcement."