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GOP Candidates Ramp up Events in New Hampshire; Haley Talks Racism in America; New Hampshire Ahead of Primary; Garland Agrees with Speedy Trial for Trump. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 19, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:47]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The final sprint to the make or break primary in New Hampshire. Nikki Haley, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis all campaigning there today. Their message to voters and their stepped-up attacks on each other.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A CNN exclusive. The push for a speedy trial. Why Attorney General Merrick Garland says the timing of Donald Trump's election subversion case is incredibly significant.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And a notorious case back in the spotlight after decades. The Innocence Project now working to clear Scott Peterson, the man found guilty 20 years ago of murdering his pregnant wife. Is there new evidence that could free the convicted killer?

I'm Sara Sidner, with our Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BOLDUAN: This morning Nikki Haley is continuing her campaign blitz through New Hampshire. And with that is also ramping up her attacks on Donald Trump. Haley projecting confidence when she met with voters this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When you look at Iowa, I mean, President Trump won a state of 3 million people with 56,000 votes. We had a very low turnout in Iowa. We're going to have a really good turnout in New Hampshire.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.

HALEY: We feel good about it. I think we're going to have a great day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are also headed back to New Hampshire. And even though Trump is trying to convince voters that the primary is already over, he is spending an increasing amount of time focused on Nikki Haley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She is not going to make it. She has no chance. She's got no way. MAGA is not going to be with her.

I know Nikki very well. She worked for me for a long time. She would not be able to handle that position. She would not be able to handle the onslaught.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Kylie Atwood is in Hampton, New Hampshire, where Haley just held an event.

Kylie, how are voters -- what are you hearing from voters now days out with this final pitch?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, I was just talking to voters here at this event. Her second of the day. Nikki Haley has six events across New Hampshire today. And they're saying that they really do think that she will do incredibly well here in New Hampshire.

Now, she has six events across the state today. Ron DeSantis is also in New Hampshire today. He has a few events. He really hasn't been competing aggressively in this state, though. He went right to South Carolina after Iowa. He spent some time in Florida. He hasn't even hit 10 percent in most polls. So, it is effectively a one-on-one competition here in New Hampshire between former President Trump and Nikki Haley. That's exactly what her campaign wanted it to be.

And when you look at their strategy, one of the thing that they're trying to do is reach out to independent voters here in New Hampshire. They make up almost 40 percent of the electorate. So, it could be key to her success here.

Of course, not all of those folks are going to vote for her, but it's a big bucket of voters in New Hampshire. And they are a group that she is targeted.

The other thing that Nikki Haley is doing is really stepping up her attacks against Trump a little bit more aggressively here in New Hampshire than she has been doing throughout the course of her campaign. She said to his allegation that she could never win the Republican nomination. Responded to that last night by saying, then why is he going after her with all of these million dollars in ads in New Hampshire?

And she's also trying to tie him in more directly with President Biden, saying, why would voters want two folks running for president who are in their 80s.

Listen to what she told CNN's Jake Tapper during that town hall last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do we really want to have two 80-year-olds running for president when we've got a country in disarray and a world on fire?

They are so distracted by their own investigations and by their own grievances.

We don't need people that are distracted. We need people who love America and realize, if your time is gone, move out of the way, and let a new generational leader come in and start to fix things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now, of course, the question is, how well does Nikki Haley think she can do here in New Hampshire, how well does she need to do here in New Hampshire? She said last night that she wants to do strong, that she wants to do better than she did in Iowa, where she was, obviously, third place, more than 30 points behind former President Trump.

[09:05:09]

Of course, her campaign is trying to get every voter that they can over the course of the next four days before that primary on Tuesday.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Six events today in New Hampshire. Definitely in the final sprint. Kylie Atwood there for all of them. It's great to see you, Kylie. Thank you.

Sara.

SIDNER: With us now, our CNN political commentators, attorney and former South Carolina state Representative Bakari Sellers, and former special assistance to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings.

Gentlemen, nice to see you again.

Let's talk about this situation between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. They're treating this really at this point in New Hampshire at least as a two-person race, ignoring Ron DeSantis. The big question here I think that everyone has is, can Nikki Haley actually pull out a win in New Hampshire and what does it mean? I'll start with you, Scott.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, the polling that's come out in New Hampshire over the last couple of days indicates Donald Trump has a lead. And if you look at the splits inside of the polling, he's just dominating among Republicans.

Now, among independents who can vote in this semi open primary, obviously there is some preference for Haley. That's what she's relying upon. And, of course, Donald Trump is attacking her for that, you know, relying on non-Republicans to try to tilt the primary. So, I think it's advantage Trump. But, obviously, Haley wanted this essentially a head-to-head race, and she's got it. And, you know, we'll see what she can do with it. I'm dubious. I think it's a long shot. But if -- there won't be any more fertile ground for her than this particular electorate right here. SIDNER: Yes, this is where she has really made a name for herself, at

least in New Hampshire.

I do want to talk about this. Racism is playing a real and present role in this battle, mostly because of Nikki Haley's two takes on race in this country. And then Donald Trump's racist rhetoric against her. I want you to listen to Nikki Haley first when asked by Jake Tapper whether or not this country was a racist country. Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When you look at, you know, the Declaration of Independence, it was that, you know, men are created equal, with unalienable rights, right?

I was a brown girl that grew up in a small, rural town. We had plenty of racism that we had to deal with. But my parents never said we lived in a racist country.

For every brown and black child out there, if you tell them they live or are born in a racist country, you're immediately telling them they don't have a chance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: I'm going to go to that way (ph). All right, so you see that. I want you to see what Donald Trump put out on his Truth Social. He did a couple of posts. And if we can pull that up, you see, "Governor Chris Sununu, the now failing governor of New Hampshire," which he's not, "where I am beating his endorsed candidate, Nimbra," which is supposed to be Nimarata, which is Nikki Haley's name, "by big numbers. It doesn't matter because Nimbra doesn't have what it takes."

So, you've got - you've got these - and, obviously, that's not her name. And he knows that.

When you look at this rhetoric, and you take it all in, what does it tell us about this race and about how these candidates see this country, Bakari?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first, let me address Nikki Haley. I think either there's intellectual dishonestly or cognitive dissidence. I grew up very close to Nikki. We sat beside each other, not at the same desk, but our desks were side-by-side. We're from the same county, Bamberg County, which is a majority black county. She went to a white flight school, which is Orangeburg Preparatory. It was one of those schools that was created after Brown v. The Board of Education. Her father taught at an historically black college and university, presumably because he couldn't get a job at another university. My mother used to shop at Exotica, where her mother had a women's clothing store. So, for her not to be able to comprehend the issues of race and for her to stumble through questions about the Declaration of Independence, you know, fundamentally at that time black folk were just deemed to be three-fifths of a human being. So, it wasn't necessarily written for me and you, Sara. And even further to the point, I mean, we're a relatively young

democracy. I mean, you know, without the 1964-'65 Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act, that allow black folk the opportunity to fully participate in democracy, we would not be here today. And so we're relatively young when it comes to everyone having that full faith and credit.

And so I think that she's trying to do something which is dishonest, which is play to a bunch of different sides of the Republican Party, and she's tripping over herself.

As for Donald Trump, look, Nikki's a little bit tougher than that. She's been through the rough and tumble nature of South Carolina politics. They posted pictures of her parents wearing turbans or her dad wearing turbans and they've talked about the fact that she grew up in a Sikh household.

[09:10:08]

I mean they called her every racist name. We had former state senators on podcasts calling her racist names in 2010. And look, she beat all the boys. She beat Gresham Barry (ph), Harry McMaster, and she beat Andre Bower. And so that's not going to work against her. But it comes to show that the Republican Party has an issue. And a lot of folk in this country. It's not just the Republican Party. A lot of folk in this country have a problem with the issue of race and just don't know how to handle it. And until we tackle it, handle it, be truthful and honest, we'll never make progress.

SIDNER: Scott, I'd like to get your take on this as well. What is Nikki Haley doing here? We know Donald Trump by now and what he does. But what is she trying to do? Because some of the things she says definitely resonates with the base that she believed, you know, this country was not founded on racist ideals but it was inherently racist at the very beginning. And there's still issues to this day. What's she doing?

JENNINGS: I think she's trying to communicate that today she believes the United States is a great country, that it is not a racist country, that we've come a tremendous distance on these issues. But while simultaneously glossing over the incredibly difficult periods that we have encountered from the time of our founding, through the Civil War, that, by the way, the period after the Civil War was one of the most perilous times for race in this country.

SIDNER: That's right.

JENNINGS: I mean the attempt to, you know, to reinstitute, you know, the horrors of the way African Americans were treated in this country, even after the Civil War had been completed, as Bakari mentioned, you know, up to the period of the civil rights movement. So, I actually think it's possible to do both. You can acknowledge the long road and the long journey we've been on, but also embrace, you know, the absolute greatness of the United States today and say, we are miles better than we were. But I think it's hard to do that if you are glossing over the periods that we lived through and that we're all well aware of from our - from our own history books. And so I don't - I don't know why this has become such a difficult thing.

Also, she's a Republican. And one of the reasons I'm a Republican is because I come from Kentucky, the land of Abraham Lincoln. And I am enormously proud of my party's history in trying to rescue the United States from its original sin. And I think if I were running for president as a Republican, I would lean on his values and legacy and his name every single day. So, that's what I - that's what I'd like to hear more out of is acknowledgment, leaning into the tradition of what it means at least to me to be a Republican, but also leaning into the greatness of the United States and her people. I agree with her, I don't think the United States is a racist country today, but certainly you can acknowledge we've been through extraordinarily difficult periods that were extremely violent and hurtful to large swaths of people throughout periods in this country's history.

SIDNER: Bakari Sellers, I know you have a different opinion on whether or not this country is racist today. We're going to leave it there. We know what it is.

Scott Jennings, thank you so much, to the both of you. This is always a hard conversation, and it needs to be had, and you do it brilliantly, the both of you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, what we want to do is talk about why Nikki Haley's prospects are different in New Hampshire than they were in Iowa. I'm joined by CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten. And, Harry, this has to do with where the voters are in New Hampshire and who they are.

First, let's talk about where they are. Let's look at the population of New Hampshire here. What are we looking at?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes, so, you know, what I think we're looking at over here is, take a look, where is most of this population located? It is located in a very concentrated span down here in the southeast portion of the state. Very little population to the northwest. In fact, in most of the state over there. And this, of course, if you were to --

BERMAN: You can just pull it up right here.

ENTEN: There we go.

BERMAN: You can see, right here, you can pull it up right there.

ENTEN: There we go. There we go. These are all suburbs of Boston. That's really a way to think about a lot of the population in the state of New Hampshire, where it's located. They are really suburbs of Boston and they behave like suburbs.

This, of course, is very different from what we see just generally speaking in the state of Iowa. If you look in Iowa, what do we see? We see a lot of the population is actually really spread out there, where you see, yes, there's some populated centers around Des Moines and Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, but it's a much more rural community in Iowa than it is in the state of New Hampshire where it's much more suburban.

BERMAN: Yes, New Hampshire, what you're looking at basically is one giant suburb. And I'll just reiterate here, I've said and I got in trouble with Kate for saying that much of New Hampshire is basically a Boston suburb. You draw a line here, it's all an hour commute to Boston. Everyone who lives from here down can commute easily back and forth to Massachusetts.

One other way of looking at this, Harry, which I think is somewhat revealing, is if you look at who voted and where they voted in 2016. The bigger the circle, the more was -- everyone is down here. Everyone is down - sorry, it's moving. Everyone is down in this part of the state there in the suburbs you were just talking about.

All right, let's talk about who the voters are now, Harry.

[09:15:02]

Let's go back to here and let's talk largely about education, OK.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: This is a much more educated population than in Iowa. Just to be clear here, the lighter the shade, the more college degrees.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. You know, one of the groups that Nikki Haley does really well with are those who have a college degree. And again - again in this particular case, what you see is the lighter shades are the ones where you, in fact, have more college educated voters. And again, look at this. What do we have in the southeast portion? A lot of folks with college degrees around Portsmouth, again in the Boston suburbs, Nashua leading into it, and then in the Connecticut River Valley, which is a place that I'm familiar with. That's where Hanover, New Hampshire, is. That's where Dartmouth College is. A lot of folks with college degrees in the state of New Hampshire. A much more college educated electorate than we saw in the state of Iowa.

BERMAN: Yes, and just look - just look at all the -- basically the white and light pink there. And you go back to Iowa and there's really not much of the light - the white and light pink. They're vastly different in New Hampshire.

All right, we've talked, Harry, about this a little bit already, but I want to reiterate it, who the voters are there. And - this -- a lot of this has to do with voter registration. Talk to me about these voters in Iowa.

ENTEN: Yes, so, you know, essentially what you saw in the state of Iowa, when you have a caucus, right, when you have a caucus, you're really talking about die-hard Republicans. Yes, you can go to the caucus on the day of and change your registration, but in New Hampshire, what's number one, undeclared voters. They can vote in the Republican primary in the state of New Hampshire. That is what Nikki Haley is counting on. And if we look, historically speaking, what do we see? They make up a large portion of the electorate. We're projecting about 45 percent. That's generally in line with what we saw in 2012. The last time there was a Republican primary without a Democratic one, or at least a competitive one at that.

BERMAN: The bigger the percentage here in theory, the better for Nikki Haley. There are a lot of gettable independent and maybe more moderate voters here. Next hour Harry and I are going to be back and talk about the history, who -- what candidates who've run a little bit like Nikki Haley is running, how they've done in the past.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Great stuff. But you did still get me in trouble while I was sitting in New Hampshire calling New Hampshire a suburb of Massachusetts. That did get me in trouble. We will discuss this later.

Coming up for us, Attorney General Merrick Garland is calling for a speedy trial in Donald Trump's election subversion case. How he's defending the Justice Department against the criticism prosecutors should have brought the case sooner. It's a CNN exclusive.

Plus, House Republicans are calling on the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, to now come before them and testify about his secret hospital visit.

And why a group of attorneys is now taking on an infamous murder case, now fighting to exonerate Scott Peterson, the man convicted of killing his pregnant wife, Laci.

We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:21:56]

SIDNER: This morning a CNN exclusive. Senior justice correspondent Evan Perez one-on-one with Attorney General Merrick Garland. Evan pressing Garland about special counsel Jack Smith's call for a speedy trial of Donald Trump in the federal election subversion case with Americans now casting real votes in the 2024 election season.

Evan joins us now live.

Evan, this timing is incredibly important and significant right now that you're able to sit down with the attorney general. What did he tell you as he - as you peppered him with questions that a lot of Americans want to know the answer to.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara, look, these are the most extensive comments we've heard from the attorney general on this issue. And, you know, one of the things he did was he defended the independence of the special counsels, including Jack Smith, and the idea that this trial, that the special counsel is trying to push forward with in March possibly despite, of course, the collision course it is on with the political calendar.

Here's what he had to say when I asked him about that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: One of the trials of the former president, Donald Trump, is scheduled for March. You know, some of the polling recently shows that three quarters of Republicans believe that he's being targeted for political reasons. Does it concern you that this public perception exists and what can you do to try to change that?

MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Look, of course it concerns me.

The special prosecutor has said from the beginning that he thinks public interest requires a speedy trial, which I agree with.

PEREZ: You agree with that?

GARLAND: I do. And the matter is now in the hands of the trial judges to determine when the trials will take place.

PEREZ: The department has policies about steering clear of elections. Is there a date in your mind where it might be too late to bring these trials to fruition? Again, to stay out of the way of the elections as the department policies?

GARLAND: Well, I just say, you know, what I said, which is that the cases were brought last year. The prosecutor has urged speedy trials, with which I agree. And it's now in the hands of the judicial system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And, Sara, one of -- we also asked him about these incidents of swatting and these threats to public officials nationwide, the rise in the number of those threats. The attorney general said that obviously it's a very big concern for the Justice Department. They're doing an arrest almost one a week as a result of this. And he also said that these pose a threat to the fabric of our democracy, Sara.

SIDNER: Yes, the swatting incidents are terrifying, and people have been killed in them for no reason.

It was really good to get some insight there, and to really hear from him and answer those questions that you posed to him. Good for the American public and good for you. Thank you so much, Evan Perez. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And joining us now to talk more about Evan's interview and what we heard from the attorney general is CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, formerly a deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of justice.

[09:25:07]

Elliot, what do you think of the attorney general's comments there? What do you hear in what he's - in how he's - how he's speaking? ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely. He's not saying anything that's that remarkable. And I think it's in this world of the former president's testing the limits of the legal system, there are basic rules. And defendants are entitled to speedy trials. It's not that the former president is being extended some special treatment or being treated differently or that the attorney general is going out on a limb here. He's stating what the Constitution says. And it's in the interest both of the defendant and the public that the defendant be given a speedy trial. It benefits all of us. And so it is a very important rule, and, you know, the president should get a speedy trial, full stop.

BOLDUAN: When he says the public interest requires a speedy trial, that is his way of nodding to, there's an election hanging over all of this, right? But what if the defendant doesn't want a speedy trial, which seems to be Donald Trump's position?

WILLIAMS: Sure. Now, you know, I would push back a little bit on the notion that the speedy trial question is just about the election because, and the special counsel has put this in some of their filing, the public has an interest in insuring that justice is served. Whether that is the acquittal of an individual who's not guilty, or whether that's deterring similar people, similar positioned people, I guess, future presidents, from committing the same type of crimes. It's not just about the defendant. It is a public and speedy trial that's the language in the Constitution.

And so -- certainly the defendant has every right to slow things down and insure that his case is argued fairly and zealously, but we, as the public, also have an interest in seeing that justice is served, whatever that may mean.

BOLDUAN: I want to ask you about Donald Trump's kind of social media commentary about on all of this, which is that the president, now he's saying that the president - that presidents should have full immunity from prosecution. And part of it in his - on of his postings says that "even events that cross the line must fall under total immunity." I mean, coming from a place of, you know, he never makes legal arguments, he's always making a political argument, does this impact the appellate judges who are currently considering this question in his case?

WILLIAMS: No, I really don't think so. Now, it could certainly have an impact on trial judges if we got to a point where there was a jury because the statements by the defendant could have an impact on, number one, who can be selected for the jury, and, number two, whether the jury, once they've been picked, has been tainted if they've heard statements like this. But it doesn't really have an impact on appeal.

Now, with respect to the former president's behavior generally, there's a lit bit of a pattern that you see from him, which is taking a statement that is itself at its core legally true. Yes, it is true, presidents are entitled to some measure of immunity. We've seen that since the 1970s with former President Richard Nixon. But it's not absolute. No one - no sensible attorney, no sensible judge in America believes that it's absolute. But the former president can make a statement like, I'm entitled to immunity, and there are people who will believe it because it - it sort of smacks of common sense even though it's simply not legally accurate to extend it that far.

BOLDUAN: Let me ask you really quickly, because Trump's legal team has just also filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, setting out their argument for why the state of Colorado can't or shouldn't remove him from the state's ballot. And their argument is that the efforts, the way they write is, "promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado's lead."

Are they right? Are they wrong? Is this a concern, this question that the Supreme Court justices are considering?

WILLIAMS: Well, it depends what he means by bedlam. If that's a wink, nod about violence or unrest in the country. God, I hope not.

Now, more importantly, why the Supreme Court exists is to minimize conflict in the law. And it is an entirely fair point to say that if the Supreme Court does not weigh in, you could end up having a patchwork of laws about who's eligible for the ballot, who's eligible to run for president, who's an insurrectionist or not that could vary state by state. So, once again, to accept there's a kernel of truth in there, we have an interest in seeing that the laws across the country are all consistent.

BOLDUAN: A lot going on. Great to have you, Elliot. Thank you.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, new reaction from the families of those killed in Uvalde now that they've seen the scathing federal report on the police response.

And the number of threats against lawmakers increasing. More than 8,000 threats in one single year.

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