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Trump and Haley Now in Two-Person Race for GOP Nomination; Trump at New York Court as Haley Campaigns in New Hampshire; Protesters Demanding Hostages' Release Disrupt Israel's Parliament. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 22, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JAMES THIBAULT, 18-YEAR-OLD VOTING FOR TRUMP: I like that he appointed three incredibly pro-life justices to the Supreme Court and I liked his immigration policy, the fact that he wants to secure our border. The fact that he started no new foreign wars. And the fact that he started a deal towards peace in the Middle East which no president had really done before, and now it's kind of falling apart under President Biden.

So, you know, his past track record brought me back to him. But ultimately I just want a candidate I know has a proven conservative track record which I don't believe Nikki Haley necessarily has that on a national scale.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: James, thank you.

THIBAULT: Of course.

HARLOW: Great to hear from you.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: The voters, they vote. We're going to be watching every moment of it.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Less than 24 hours before voters in New Hampshire are headed to the polls, and Donald Trump is headed back to a New York courtroom.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Nikki Haley about to kick off one of her final campaign events before the voting. We will see it live. Will she hit Trump on his day in court? And how will she react to the big Ron DeSantis dropout?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And who will go to the Super Bowl? The games that will decide that are now set. Nail-biting wins. And the Lions and the Chiefs to the conference championships. There are people here crying over the Bills. I just let you know. We'll look at all the highlights and the drama.

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

BOLDUAN: Donald Trump is making another courtroom campaign stop today. He is back in there, as his latest defamation trial continues, as his only Republican rival, Nikki Haley, is campaigning in New Hampshire. With less than 24 hours before polls open in the state, the race is a Trump-Haley match-up. A head-to-head, a face-to-face, all of the things, it's just the two of them now.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis abruptly bowed out of the race before the first votes were even cast there, and throwing his support behind Donald Trump. That means four former rivals have now endorsed Donald Trump.

Does any of that matter to New Hampshire voters?

CNN's Kristen Holmes is in Manchester, New Hampshire, for us.

It's beautiful there, Kristen. What are you hearing from team Trump about what happens now?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Let's talk about your question about whether or not these endorsements really matter. Does it matter for votes being cast? Likely not. Remember Donald Trump has always viewed New Hampshire as a two-person race. Even before Ron DeSantis dropped out, they viewed it as Trump versus Haley. And this doesn't really change this.

DeSantis didn't have a ground game. They didn't expect he's going to get a lot of votes. But what does change is those endorsements that you mentioned. That now gives Trump this opportunity to say it is time for the party to rally around me. Look at my rivals. Somebody who I attacked relentlessly for a year, now he's backing me as well.

Now the other thing to point out here is of course as you said Trump is in court today, again part of this campaign strategy, sucking all the oxygen out of the race a day before votes are cast in New Hampshire. And on the campaign trail he is talking about his legal issues. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And many presidents leave and there are things you can go after. And frankly to be honest, that's one of the reasons the Supreme Court is looking now at immunity. You have to have guaranteed immunity for a president. Otherwise a president is not going to be able to function.

Tomorrow, I go to that, I do the court thing, then I come back and I make a speech tomorrow night, and hopefully that should wrap it up because we are so far ahead, it's incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now the other thing to note is that he has been very fixated on these margins. His team still believes that he is going to win in New Hampshire. Now it's a question of how much is he going to win by. And I was told a few weeks ago that if he did well in Iowa and New Hampshire, as they were projecting and forecasting, that they would then start moving out to some of those battleground states, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia.

Something to watch very closely to see. It's all going to be banking on what actually happens tomorrow.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. It's great to see you, Kristen. Sara?

SIDNER: All right, thank you both.

Next hour, Nikki Haley will kick off another busy day of campaigning in New Hampshire, where the stakes couldn't be higher for her now. Her performance there may determine whether the Republican race for the White House continues past tomorrow night.

It's down to a two-person race after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ended his presidential campaign days after finishing a distant second in Iowa. The once promising candidate ending his campaign by telling supporters there was no clear path to victory and endorsing the man he spent a while battling.

CNN's Jessica Dean is following all of this for us.

Jessica, how does DeSantis' departure sort of impact this race? Because now, we really are in a two-person race here.

[09:05:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. And this is the race that Nikki Haley has said time and time again that she wanted, and she's going to get it tomorrow when we go in, when we finally see these votes being cast in New Hampshire down to this two-person race. The fact is, if you look at the polling, our polling that just recently came out of New Hampshire, Ron DeSantis was just polling in very low single digits.

So the idea that him getting out and his supporters going to one person or another, really probably isn't going to have a huge impact in this race. Haley advisers think they'll kind of split evenly. It's possible, you know, DeSantis was really in the end running pretty far to the right, even sometimes to the right of Trump on issues like abortion. So it's possible that a lot of his voters go to Trump.

But as I said, Sara, there is just not -- he wasn't running in such big numbers that it will likely make a huge impact in this race. And it was really South Carolina that DeSantis and his team wanted to focus on. They wanted to go there, the original thought process being go there, try to beat Nikki Haley in her home state and get it to a two-person race with Trump. But that's simply just was not how things shook out in the end.

Nikki Haley is now contending with what's going to happen in New Hampshire. And then she will look to her home state of South Carolina. And we've seen the former president now bringing out all of these endorsements from her home state. Tim Scott, also the current governor, Henry McMaster. Here's what she said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And then they said, but what do you say about the fact that the governor of South Carolina came to New Hampshire to campaign against you? And I would say, you mean the guy that I beat when I ran for governor?

(CHEERS)

HALEY: Yes. That's what I thought.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: So, Sara, we see what happens tomorrow in New Hampshire. Of course Nevada comes next. But look, all eyes are going to go to South Carolina. It is Nikki Haley's home state and it's where Trump will hope probably to make this just a one-person race. Just him -- Sara.

SIDNER: Well, she got in a good dig there but the numbers aren't looking great.

Jessica Dean, thank you so much.

John has a look at those numbers now -- John.

BERMAN: Yes, and just to be clear, Nikki Haley has a campaign event that starts in just a few minutes. We will go there live to see how she kicks off this penultimate day of the New Hampshire campaign.

In the meantime, we have a brand-new CNN poll which shows you where the race stood. This is where it was with Ron DeSantis still in. You can see Donald Trump led Nikki Haley by 11 points. If you take who Ron DeSantis voters picked as their second choice, you can see here without Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump's lead actually grows. It was 11 points with Ron DeSantis, 13 points without Ron DeSantis.

Let's talk about where Nikki Haley is strong, though, and why she thinks she might have a chance there. It's among the undeclared voters in New Hampshire. Independents. They make up a huge percentage of people who will vote tomorrow. She has a big lead among them. You can see almost 30 points. Among voters with a college degree, she holds a significant lead, 12 points.

But here's the rub. In our poll, we tried to figure out who would be voting tomorrow. And undeclared voters make up a big chuck of the electorate but registered Republicans a bigger chunk, 47-53. College grads, only 33 percent, non-college grads, 68 percent. And in these groups that have the majority, Donald Trump is just cleaning up. Among registered Republicans, he's got a 40-point lead in our poll. Among voters with no college degree, he's got a lead of about 20 points. That's why he's got this lead over Nikki Haley heading into election day.

One thing to look for tomorrow. Look, Nikki Haley could still pull this out. But if Donald Trump does win, what's the margin? He's leading by 13 points head-to-head in our poll. That actually would put him up with some of the biggest margins in New Hampshire history. You can see in competitive primaries, Ronald Reagan, he was the only one by the way to get more than 50 percent. He won by 27 points. John McCain 18, Mitt Romney 16.

Donald Trump himself almost won by 20 in 2016. So this might be a little bit of a measurement of success here. Does Trump do better or worse in terms of the margin over Nikki Haley tomorrow? If he does manage to win, just one thing to look for -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Super fascinating. And any opportunity to use the word penultimate, John Berman will capitalize.

Joining us right now for more on this, Margaret Talev, senior contributor for Axios, and CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp.

OK. John has the numbers where things have been or have looked. Let's talk about where things are today. What are you hearing from the Haley campaign in terms of their thinking today and in the long term?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. So I just talked to the Haley campaign. They really like the setup in New Hampshire. They like the one-on-one. That's what they've been planning for. And they feel really good about it. They've also placed a $4 million ad buy starting Wednesday in South Carolina.

BOLDUAN: OK.

[09:10:04]

CUPP: So they're looking ahead, too. And they like the road ahead as well. And when DeSantis got out, they saw a spike in fundraising. So they are buoyed by some of the developments of the past few hours and days. They like going into New Hampshire. They like what this looks like for them.

BOLDUAN: You know, Margaret, one thing that we are definitely seeing is how Nikki Haley is leaning in quite a bit further and harder on questioning Donald Trump's ability based on his -- ability and capability based on his age. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: He claimed that Joe Biden was going to get us into World War II. I'm assuming he meant World War III. He said that he ran against President Obama. He never ran against President Obama. Don't be surprised if you have someone that's 80 in office, their mental stability is going to continue to decline.

When you're 80, that's what happens. You're just not as sharp as you're used to be. There is a decline. And this is a situation where our country is very vulnerable right now. And we can't just have four years. We've got to have eight years of somebody that's on it all the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: What do you hear in that? What are voters getting and what do they think of that?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS: She has found a safe, comfortable way to make an argument against Trump in that context is what I hear. Those accusations are not the most objectionable or alarming aspects of Donald Trump's record, either during or after his presidency. And she's not comfortable calling him out still on racial issues, on January 6th. But there is a comfort level across the Republican Party as well as other voters in questioning people's fitness and age.

And so she needs to go after him but up until even this final day or two ahead of the New Hampshire contest, she has still allowed effectively every Republican rival, including Nikki Haley, except, you know, Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, have allowed a permission structure for going ahead and nominating Trump and voting for Trump if Republicans ultimately decide they want to do that.

So how much more will we see her ramp up her attacks? Or is it just really going to focus on his age and, you know, turning the page? We're going to see in the next day. But what I see in those comments is, knowing that she needs to attack Donald Trump, knowing that she needs to energize those undeclareds to turn out but having a line that she's not willing to go past.

BOLDUAN: What do you want to hear from her in less than 24 hours now? Do you want to see more of that? Even harsher if you could -- what would you like to see from Nikki Haley?

CUPP: Well, I mean, New Hampshire voters, I know them very well. I grew up in Massachusetts. I went to school right in the border. Lots of friends and family in New Hampshire. And they wait until the last minute. And they're actually very concerned about policy. And so the age thing, the sanity thing, the chaos thing, I think those are good umbrella messages. But they really care about policy.

And it's interesting, I was talking to a New Hampshire voter this morning. Old friend of mine. He's lived in the state forever and he's a state employee so he knows the state really well. I said, who's going to win today. And he said it's going to be Nikki. We are the soccer mom state. And it's been a while since I've heard that term. Remember?

BOLDUAN: Yes. Yes.

CUPP: You know, the soccer mom was the archetype of certain woman suburban voter, and it's been a while, two cycles, since that terms come up. I'm interested to see if that voter comes out for Nikki or if the soccer mom is now with Donald Trump.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

CUPP: That will be really interesting to see.

BOLDUAN: Where that shift, how far that shift has gone within the Republican Party in New Hampshire.

CUPP: Yes. From soccer moms, to security mom, to momma bear. You know. Are they back to soccer moms and are they with Nikki? We'll see.

BOLDUAN: That's really fascinating.

Margaret, real quick. What is the lesson learned from the Ron DeSantis campaign and the end of his campaign?

TALEV: I think it's the same lesson every other candidate has or is going to learn. You have to make both affirmative case for yourself and an aggressive case for why the person who you're trying to beat should not and cannot be re-elected. And if you're not willing -- if you don't believe that, how can you expect another voter to believe that?

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Margaret. S.E., thanks for coming.

CUPP: Sure.

BOLDUAN: Sara?

SIDNER: All right. We are also watching to see if Donald Trump testifies in his defamation trial after a week of sparring with the judge from the defense table. All while $10 million is at stake.

Also in Israel, the families of still missing hostages storm into the parliament demanding action. And it comes as the prime minister rejects Hamas' terms to release and the possibility of a two-state solution. We'll discuss that.

Also, an epic celebration in Detroit after a 30-year drought. The Lions, finally, heading to the NFC championship.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:19:14]

SIDNER: Polls opening in just a few hours in New Hampshire, but Donald Trump is in New York. He arrived at court just a few minutes ago. And we should find out very shortly if he will take the stand in the defamation damages trial that is against him. A jury already has found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Now a jury is deciding just how much he should have to pay.

Legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor with many other titles apparently, Elie Honig is here with us.

OK. So there is a possibility that Donald Trump testifies today. But what can he say in this case that is going to make a difference if anything?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So if Donald Trump testifies, and I'm skeptical he will.

SIDNER: Unlikely. HONIG: But if he does, it will be very quick. And here's why, Sara.

Important to remember as you said. This is not about whether Donald Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. That's already been decided.

[09:20:04]

This is not about whether Donald Trump defamed E. Jean Carroll. That's already been decided. This is only about the question of damages. And the judge here has already correctly set strict parameters. He said you can't come in here and contest those things that are already settled. You can't come in here and make a political speech. And so that leads to the question, what would Donald Trump actually know about how much E. Jean Carroll has been damaged? She testified about that. There's been testimony both ways. She was cross-examined about that.

SIDNER: Right.

HONIG: But Donald Trump, if he has anything to say, it's going to be very narrow and this judges is going to keep him on a very tight leash.

SIDNER: Speaking of which, you have actually been in front of this judge several times. What's he like? And what's a warning if there is bad blood in the courtroom?

HONIG: Yes.

SIDNER: Like is there a warning to Donald Trump and to others dealing with this judge?

HONIG: Yes, this is Judge Louis Kaplan. He's been on the bench for 30- plus years, and boy, does he control his courtroom. He does not allow any dramatics, any chaos. What will happen -- and Judge Kaplan has already sort of given us a taste of this. He will warn anybody who's out of line. He's already done this last week with Donald Trump. And if necessary he'll shut him down. And if absolutely necessary, he will have a person removed from the courtroom.

Judge Kaplan is very different. We've been watching Judge Engoron in the state case, who I think has allowed and permitted, maybe reluctantly but quite a bit of theatrics. Judge Kaplan is no Judge Engoron. Judge Kaplan is not going to allow this to even get off the ground. It's going to be an interesting clash between the two of them. I mean, Donald Trump has a big ego. Judge Kaplan does not allow big egos to prevail in his courtroom. So I think the judge is going to prevail on this.

SIDNER: The judge is very by the book, very by the court rules.

HONIG: Yes.

SIDNER: And if you violate them, you're out basically.

HONIG: Yes. SIDNER: All right, I want to move on to another case because a lot of

us are looking at this and talking about this. The Georgia case. And the controversy that is surrounding now the District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia. Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor that she hired to manage this case, is a personal injury attorney. Why is he on this case? And what's your take on the controversy that is now surrounded this case, which is such a huge case and which Donald Trump's lawyers are starting to really attack her and her decisions, and talking about -- they're accusing her of corruption basically?

HONIG: Yes, there's a lot of drama around this case. To me what matters legally, it boils down to really the money and a potential conflict of interest. Now Mr. Wade, as you said, his primary area of practice was personal injury law. Not in my view qualified to handle a major complicated, racketeering case. Nonetheless, he's been hired along with two other lawyers from the outside to come in and help the D.A.

Nothing wrong with that. But if you look at the amount of money they've been paid and they've billed, Mr. Wade has billed $650,000 plus. The others have billed $70,000 and $90,000. So there's a question of, is he working nine times as much as the other folks?

The other big problem, though, is there's clearly a relationship of some nature. We don't know exactly. Between the D.A. and Mr. Wade. And some of that money is being used on travel that the D.A. is accompanying him on. So some of the money that the DA's office is paying out to Mr. Wade is now being used for personal purposes for the D.A. So there's a real potential conflict of interest.

They're really important to keep in mind. We have a hearing in that case set for February 15th. So we'll get more information then. But at a minimum, it looks terrible and it raises legitimate questions about the D.A.

SIDNER: Two things, does it raise ethical questions, not criminal questions? And will this have any impact on the case? In other words is there a possibility this could have the case thrown out or have it moved or there's something that could happen with the actual election subversion case?

HONIG: So the questions here as for the D.A. are I believe ethical, and conflict of interest, I don't believe there's evidence of a crime that's happened. Also really important to understand this, none of this will cause the criminal charges against Donald Trump and the other defendants to be dismissed. Because these allegations don't have to do with the charges against Donald Trump, trying to steal the 2020 election. And they don't have to do with his constitutional right.

Sometimes a prosecutor may do something that keeps evidence away from a defendant that he's entitled to, for example. That's not this. What I think could happen is you could see either forced recusals or voluntary recusals of either Mr. Wade or the D.A. herself. We'll see if either of them thinks it's appropriate to do that on their own and if not we'll see if the judge compels her.

SIDNER: This is big for Donald Trump's team just for the public, right?

HONIG: Yes.

SIDNER: This is more of a PR thing for them as well. We will be watching this. I know you will be to.

HONIG: You know it.

SIDNER: And we'll have you back of course.

HONIG: Thanks, Sara.

SIDNER: Elle Honig, thank you so much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responding now after families of hostages held in Gaza forced their way into a parliament meeting. They are demanding action. Netanyahu's latest plan now to get more hostages released.

And the Biden campaign on the 51st anniversary of Roe versus Wade is kicking off re-election push with Kamala Harris hitting the trail.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:29:14]

BOLDUAN: New this morning, protesters forcing their way into the Israeli parliament. Families of hostages still being held in Gaza by Hamas, disrupting the proceedings in this meeting to demand action. Over the weekend, families of hostages also showed up at the prime minister's home to deliver their message that they want their loved ones back and they want more action to do it from the Israeli government.

Just as Netanyahu says that he is not rejecting outright the latest conditions set by Hamas to secure the release of the hostages, terms that would include an end of the war and withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.

Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv tracking all of this for us.

Jeremy, Netanyahu's office says that the prime minister has told the families he has an initiative to win release of the hostages. What are you hearing about this?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Israeli prime minister is saying very little about what that initiative actually is.

[09:30:00]