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Interview With Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor; Russian Strike Lands Near President Zelenskyy; Nikki Haley Suspends Presidential Campaign. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 06, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:47]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It's on. After Super Tuesday, Joe Biden and Donald Trump have all but locked down their party's nominations, setting up a rematch of the race from four years ago. Who has the upper hand here? The election is just under eight months away.

And a strike by Russia in Odesa nearly hit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's convoy as he was traveling with Greece's prime minister. At least five people were killed, as the president's delegation felt the impact of the strike and saw a mushroom cloud of smoke, Zelenskyy calling on allies again for more air defense.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, there's vaccinated, and then there's what one 62-year-old man did, getting the COVID vaccine 217 times. That is way too many needles. We will tell you how it affected his health as we follow these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: An unprecedented election battle now in view. Presumptive presidential nominees Joe Biden and Donald Trump are set for a rematch, a current president against a former president who tried to overturn the last election, where they faced off.

The stage is set after Nikki Haley suspended her primary run this morning, clearing the way for Trump on the GOP side. She called on Trump to earn her support and that of her backers, but stopped short of endorsing him. And then, moments later, Trump did get a major endorsement from outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of his biggest Republican critics in Congress.

Just three years ago, McConnell blamed Trump for the events of January 6, but voted to acquit him in his second impeachment trial.

We have CNN's M.J. Lee, who is at the White House.

And, M.J., we're hearing two parallel messages from Biden today. He's continuing to lay into Trump, and he's also extending an olive branch to Haley voters.

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, even though the Biden campaign has been making that pivot to the general election for a number of weeks already, last night really did mark the official start of the general election for the campaign.

And one of the main reasons is that they believe that it is after Super Tuesday that many of the voters who have so far been really tuned out of the election will begin paying attention and come to the realization that Donald Trump is going to be the eventual Republican nominee.

Now, to that end, we have obviously seen President Biden continuing to ratchet up the criticism of Donald Trump. We saw some really stark language from his statement released last night, where he said that President -- former President Trump is driven by revenge and retribution, he wants to destroy democracy, take away people's fundamental freedoms.

And the other dynamic that is now going to be even more at play here is ways that the Biden campaign can try to broaden out their base and their coalition with an eye towards November. Now, even before this morning, when Nikki Haley dropped out, we saw Biden campaign officials talking about how they were keeping an eye on these Nikki Haley supporters to see if they can bring them along.

These are the voters that officials describe as sort of the gettable voters, the voters who are really turned off by Donald Trump. And we saw that outreach from President Biden himself in the statement that he released this morning, part of which I'm going to read.

He said: "Nikki Haley was willing to speak the truth about Trump, about the chaos that always follows him, about his inability to see right from wrong, about his cowering before Vladimir Putin."

He went on to say: "Donald Trump made it clear he doesn't want Nikki Haley supporters. And I want to be clear, there is a place for them in my campaign."

So, look, I think Biden campaign officials, in an election that they expect is going to be incredibly close,they fully understand that these are the kinds of voters that in the end could end up making all the difference between whether President Biden can have a second term or not.

KEILAR: And how do these political developments of the week factor in to what we're going to hear from President Biden during his State of the Union address?

LEE: Yes, this week ends up being just such a momentous week for President Biden, both for the campaign and for the White House, because you have Super Tuesday followed by the State of the Union address tomorrow evening just back to back.

[13:05:04]

I think the State of the Union address, it goes without saying, is always important for any president. But this is a really important one for President Biden, given that this is going to be the last setting, this kind of setting at least, where he gets to address the American people before he faces voters again come November. So we're going to see him sort of laying out his accomplishments of

the first three years and then sort of paint a picture of what his second term would look like. And I think much of what we have seen President Biden and his surrogates and others at the White House doing over the last -- course of the last few days was really leading up to the speech that we are going to see tomorrow evening, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, M.J. Lee live for us at the White House. Thank you -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Now let's get the view from the Trump camp.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us in West Palm Beach covering the Trump campaign.

Kristen, can't really describe Trump's message this morning after the news that Haley was leaving the campaign as celebratory, right?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, it's kind of being a sore winner.

I mean, during Haley's speech, she essentially stopped short of endorsing Trump, as we said, but then called on him to earn Republicans' votes, earn the Republicans who had supported her, who had chosen not to support Donald Trump, and bring them into the party.

While she was speaking, Donald Trump fired this off on TRUTH Social. He said: "Nikki Haley got trounced last night in record-setting fashion, despite the fact that Democrats, for reasons unknown, are allowed to vote in Vermont and various other Republican primaries. Much of her money came from radical left Democrats, as did many of her votes, almost 50 percent, according to the polls.

"At this point, I hope she stays in the race and fights it out until the end. I'd like to thank my family, friends, and the great Republican Party for helping me produce by far the most successful Super Tuesday in history, and would further like to invite all the Haley supporters to join the greatest movement in the history of our nation."

Then he says: "Biden is the enemy, he's destroying our country, and make America great again."

That is his invitation to the Haley supporters, saying essentially that they are Democrats and they are funded by radical lefties. He also sent a message earlier in the campaign cycle saying that anyone who donated to Haley would not be welcome to donate to him, which I find hard to believe, since they are looking for donors.

But then he says, you can come join my campaign as well. One thing to note here, M.J. says that the White House is very aware that they need every vote they can get. They need those Haley supporters. So is Donald Trump's campaign. They are very aware that this is going to be a tight election, that every single vote counts.

When I talk to their campaign, they have strategy after strategy of how to siphon off votes from specific voter blocs, particularly Democratic voting blocs. We talk about working-class voters. We talk about Black voters. That is something they are working towards. They need these Haley supporters.

They want these Haley supporters. Obviously though, this is not the messaging to get those Haley supporters or to earn those Republican voters. So how they come together with Donald Trump's messaging, that is going to be what we wait to see.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes live for us in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Thanks so much, Kristen.

Let's break this all down with CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger and CNN political director David Chalian.

Thanks both for being with us.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Thanks for having us.

SANCHEZ: Gloria, the question now becomes, where do those Haley voters go?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Those poor Haley voters out in the wilderness, where are they going to go?

It's not clear where they're going to go. You heard that Biden is saying, come to my side, the weather is great, and Trump sort of not doing that, although he does need the Haley voters. And we saw that last night because he needs to broaden his base. He needs more moderates.

He needs those people. And the exit polls showed very strongly in North Carolina, for example, that 81 percent of those Haley voters said that they weren't interested in Donald Trump. So he's got a lot of work to do to win them. And the question is whether he's willing to do that. He's never been known as somebody who's out there trying to increase his base of support.

But the people running his campaign know they have to do that.

CHALIAN: And we should just note, when we talk about these Haley voters, right, these are people who are participating in a Republican primary process. So a large swathe of them are going to put on their our R jersey in the fall and likely vote Republican, even with Donald Trump as the nominee.

As Gloria rightly points out, we see in all of these contests there's some swathe of the party that's resistant to Trump as the nominee. And understanding how big a slice that really is come November in the six states that matter is going to be the math equation that the Trump and the Biden campaigns need to do.

But I -- our polling director, Jen Agiesta, went through all the exit polls across all six states that we have data from in this primary season. And I just want to give you the composition of the Haley voters by party.

[13:10:00]

Across this whole primary season where we have exit polls, 48 percent of Haley voters were Republican, 41 percent were independent, and 11 percent were Democrats, whereas, Donald Trump, 73 percent of his voters were Republican.

So she definitely has a different makeup of voters, to what Gloria is saying, is a place for Donald Trump, if he's looking to build his coalition and bring some people back in the fold who drifted away from him in '18 and 'in 20. Her voters are an area to do that.

But a lot of them -- back in January, guys, we did a poll. Twenty percent of her voters in the poll that told us they were supporting her in our national poll said they voted for Biden in 2020. So some of these Haley voters are otherwise known as Biden voters from 2020.

KEILAR: Yes, exactly.

BORGER: And now they might become what's called double haters, people who don't like either candidate.

And the question is, what do these double haters do? Do they go to a third-party candidate? You have got RFK on lots of ballots now, and I think we need to pay attention to those on ballots who could take off slivers of the election, the uncommitteds we saw in Michigan and some in Minnesota.

That could be really important in the fall.

KEILAR: When you mentioned those Biden voters that went for Haley, because they're more inclined to go for Biden than they are for Trump, and we just heard M.J. reporting that the Biden campaign is looking to see if there's opportunity there. Are they looking for growth opportunity beyond the people that they already had in the past?

I mean, is there really a growth opportunity there?

CHALIAN: Well, without a doubt, they're looking for it because they need to make up some ground from where they have problems in other areas, even in their own base coalition with progressives, with younger voters, with voters of color, especially young men of color.

There are pieces that we see in the Biden coalition that are part of the base that aren't showing up. Now, I don't know that I would call these voters necessarily part of the base, but they were part of the Biden 2020 coalition. And so, yes, some of them may find it more natural to come back to Biden in a Biden/Trump rematch, but the Biden campaign is looking at this to see where can they get even a bigger chunk of these folks to come over as they make the full contrast campaign.

BORGER: Enthusiasm is a big problem for the Biden campaign. I think what they're worried about is people staying home on the couch if they're not enthusiastic about Joe Biden. The Trump voters are really enthusiastic about Donald Trump and have always been and remain so. The Biden voters are kind of, eh, OK, yes, maybe we will do it again. And they have to figure out a way not only to remake their coalition and add to it, but make sure that those people are motivated to get to the polls.

SANCHEZ: Not to undersell the great people of American Samoa, but across the map last night...

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: ... it didn't look like there was any clear glaring weakness in the folks that did come out in the contest for Biden.

CHALIAN: Well, except, as Gloria noted, in Minnesota, we did see that uncommitted get 19 percent of the vote. I don't know that that is an automatic glaring weakness for the fall.

But, clearly, after what we saw in Michigan last week, the administration's Israel policy, even as it is on the move, as you have seen over the last few weeks, is clearly still causing some Democratic primary voters to want to cast a protest vote. So, to me, that's -- that involves a piece of the coalition that they're going to need to make sure comes back.

Their bet, the Biden campaign's big bet here, remind the country every single day about the parade of horribles of Donald Trump, the threat he poses to the country, what he's promised to do against the grain of democratic norms in a second term, if you ever get there, and that that, they think, will bring the folks home.

KEILAR: And no doubt the Biden administration and Biden has a problem with voters because of his handling of the Israel-Gaza war.

The tricky thing is, when Minnesota -- people had already cast early ballots. So when we saw this very forceful language from Kamala Harris this week, it's not exactly -- the vote in Minnesota wasn't exactly a referendum, right, because some of the rhetorical changes, especially the most strident rhetorical changes we have seen, came after some people cast their votes.

So it's hard to really...

BORGER: It's hard to say, but they do have a lot of work to do, and they know that.

Just -- the Trump people have a lot of work to do, but the Biden people understand that they have got to get back to where they were, because they have lost a lot of ground from where they were, and they have a president who is unpopular, and exit polls and other polling show people believe he's too old. And so you start from that, and you have got to figure out a way to patch it all together again and remind people about Donald Trump.

[13:15:04] And I think that's going to be front and center, because it's going to be a choice. And Donald Trump is effectively running as an incumbent in many ways. And they have to remind people who he is. And I think you're going to see Joe Biden get much more aggressive about that.

CHALIAN: Already seeing that.

BORGER: Yes. Yes.

SANCHEZ: I -- actually, as you were speaking, Gloria, we did get confirmation of some breaking news into my ear.

Not likely to change the dynamic. I bet you know what it is, Dean...

CHALIAN: Dean Phillips.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Dean Phillips announcing that he is suspending his presidential campaign. Is he just like a trivia footnote in history? What impact did his campaign have on this race?

CHALIAN: Yes, and now persona non grata to his fellow Democrats in Minnesota especially.

Listen, he made no friends with this quixotic campaign against the incumbent Democratic president. He says, I have been trying to ring the bell for a year-and-a-half, saying Joe Biden is not our best foot forward as a party.

He ended up not being the vehicle, obviously, that could galvanize support among Democrats. Joe Biden seems to have the party pretty locked up, despite the concerns that we see. And so Dean Phillips now says he's going to exit the stage. Marianne Williamson, remember, she suspended and then unsuspended.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Yes.

CHALIAN: So, she's back in this campaign.

But we know what this contest is. It is a rematch. And it is an unthinkable one, that a former president is going to seek the Oval Office again, despite being -- dealing with 91 criminal charges and four indictments, and that the oldest man to hold the job in history, where that age does cause concern among voters, is going to go up against him.

This is going to be an epic rematch and one that I find it's hard to find voters who are eager for it.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Yes, I think there's a lot more double haters, as Gloria puts it, out there. BORGER: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Gloria, David, thank you so much to both of you.

And ahead this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL: a Russian strike landing near the convoy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It killed multiple people. What we are learning about the attack.

Plus, in an attempt to stave off the backlash, Alabama lawmakers are taking steps to protect IVF providers. But does it address the heart of this issue and does it come too late?

And not what the doctor ordered. Hear what happened to a man who deliberately got 217 COVID vaccinations.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:21:50]

SANCHEZ: We're following a developing story out of Ukraine, where President Zelenskyy says that a deadly strike hit close enough to his convoy that he could see it and hear it.

Zelenskyy was in the port city of Odesa with the prime minister of Greece at that time. Ukrainian officials say at least five people were killed, multiple others injured.

CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen has been following this story.

Fred, walk us through what you're learning about this strike.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it certainly seems as though it was a pretty close call, not just for Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, but also for the Greek prime minister, who was with him there as well.

It was interesting, because the Greek prime minister said afterwards that they had toured the port of Odesa, which, of course, is that big port in the south of Ukraine, where a lot of that Ukrainian grain still gets exported from, that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had told him about the importance of the port and also shown him some of the damage of recent strikes that had taken place over the course since the Russians had been bombing that place as this war has been going on.

And then, as they were about to get into their cars, that then the explosion was heard. You mentioned that Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he could not only hear the explosion, but even see the missile, showing how close all of this is.

The -- a source familiar with the situation tells us that the explosion apparently happened about 500 meters away from the Greek prime minister. So, that is extremely close. The Ukrainians are saying they believe it could have been a pretty big missile that the Russians used. So that certainly shows that these two leaders appear to have been in pretty grave danger as all of this was going on.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, came out later and said that there were killed and wounded, the Ukrainians now saying that five people were killed. They haven't given exact numbers yet on the number of wounded.

However, the Russians have now come out, and they have said that, yes, indeed, they conducted a missile strike on the port area of Odesa. They said that they hit a warehouse containing unmanned sea drones. Of course, all of this comes only a day after the Ukrainians say that they sank a Russian warship using such drones, so unclear whether or not this is some sort of retaliation for that.

But it certainly appears as though it was a pretty dangerous situation for Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but also for the Greek prime minister, of course, Greece a very important NATO ally as well, Boris.

SANCHEZ: All right, Fred Pleitgen, thanks so much for the update.

KEILAR: All right, let's talk about this now with the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor. He is also the vice president for Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Ambassador, I wonder what you're thinking here. We're learning they were getting into their cars, according to the Greek prime minister, as they -- in the port area of Odesa, as this strike happened. Is there any possibility that this was a targeted attempt to take out Zelenskyy on Russia's part?

WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Well, Brianna, we don't know, of course.

We don't know what's in the Russian thinking. We don't know what the target was. It is extremely dangerous to be anywhere in Ukraine, as this demonstrates. And this -- as Fred just reported, this was a large missile. These can go very accurately.

[13:25:06]

So, if they wanted to get that close to the convoy of President Zelenskyy and the Greek prime minister, they can do that. You asked the right question, whether it was intentionally focused and intentionally targeted on these two leaders. That, we don't know.

But what the main message is, is that the Russians are indiscriminately focused on causing damage to civilians, to military, even to leaders, if they knew what was in the target area.

SANCHEZ: Ambassador, in that context of the message being sent, I'm curious what you make of the Russian Ministry of Defense coming out, acknowledging the strike in Odesa and then claiming that it hit a facility with unmanned boats that Ukraine was planning to use in combat.

Is it possible to know if that was actually the case? Is there any reason to trust the Kremlin when it comes to this? TAYLOR: Boris, no reason to trust the Kremlin on anything they say.

It is true that the Ukrainians have used unmanned drones, sea drones, naval drones, to sink Russian ships. And they have been very successful, the Ukrainians, at sinking the Russian Black Sea fleet ships as recently as yesterday. So there is a concern.

I'm sure the Russians are very concerned about this capability that the Ukrainians have. As you have pointed out -- Fred mentioned it as well -- that this has allowed, this -- these drones and these attacks on the Russian navy, this has allowed the Ukrainians to export grain, an important component of their development, of their ability to keep fighting, to keep their government going.

So, yes, the Russians undoubtedly want to go after these capabilities if they can target those.

KEILAR: Yes, obviously, there's a lot of questions we still need to figure out here. Had Zelenskyy just left the area, for instance, that had been struck? And maybe that will tell us more and answer some of these questions.

Following this strike, Ambassador, Zelenskyy highlighted -- he used this moment of focus on him to call for more air defense in the wake of this strike, obviously a call to allies. What does Ukraine need?

TAYLOR: Brianna, clearly, Zelenskyy is exactly right. Ukraine needs air defense, and we see it right now.

But we also saw it around Avdiivka. The Ukrainians need air defense to be able to hold off the Russians. They need artillery shells. They need artillery ammunition to be able to hold off the Russians as they just throw manpower waves after manpower waves against these small little towns in the eastern part of the country.

So, yes. And this is up to our Congress. This is up to the House of Representatives to make this decision to approve the bill that the Senate passed 17 to 29, so bipartisan support in the Senate. That's what needs to happen in the House in order to get both the air defense and the artillery shells to the Ukrainians.

KEILAR: I know you're bullish on that. So we will see if Congress makes good on your hopes about what will happen here.

Ambassador Bill Taylor, thank you.

TAYLOR: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: It's being presented as a fix, but is it? Legal experts say Republican bills aimed at protecting IVF providers in Alabama fall short. We're going to talk to an Alabama lawmaker.

SANCHEZ: And an outbreak of parrot fever is spreading among people, and at least five have died.

What it is and how you get it -- when we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)