Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
CNN International: Trump Leads Republicans as Iowa Caucuses Near; Harvard's Governing Board to Decide President's Fate; Disagreement Over Draft COP28 Climate Agreement. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired December 12, 2023 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up to date with our top stories this hour.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to address a group of U.S. senators in the coming hours as he makes his plea for additional aid to help his country's war effort. Funding negotiations in Congress have stalled, with the Republicans and Democrats at odds over tying any further Ukraine aid to changes in U.S. border policy.
The U.S. Supreme Court, considering a petition from special counsel Jack Smith to rule on whether Donald Trump deserves immunity from criminal prosecution in his election subversion case. Trump has until December the 20th to file a response to the petition.
NOBILO: Donald Trump's lead just got even bigger among Republicans seeking the party's 2024 presidential nomination. A new Iowa poll, conducted by the Des Moines Register, NBC and Mediacom shows more than half of all Republican caucus goers plan to vote for Trump next month. The former presidents also gaining traction in battleground states against current President Biden. CNN's Jeff Zeleny breaks down the numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, Donald Trump holding a commanding and widening lead in Iowa, just five weeks before the state opens the 2024 Republican presidential contest.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, everybody.
ZELENY (voice-over): The former president crossing a new threshold, with 51 percent of Republicans now backing him, according to a new "Des Moines Register" poll. That's up from 43 percent in October.
The shrinking GOP field has boosted Trump, who now holds a 32-point lead. The race for second place is a showdown, with Ron DeSantis at 19 percent, followed by Nikki Haley at 16 percent. RON DESANTIS, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's his own worst enemy by not being able to control his mouth. And that has consequences for governance and us being able to get things done.
ZELENY (voice-over): On a weekend Iowa campaign swing, DeSantis and Haley sharpening their attacks on Trump's record.
NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We know that the economy was good under Donald Trump, right? But what we need to also remember was that we went $9 trillion in debt during that same time. And we are paying the price for that.
ZELENY (voice-over): Nearly half of likely Iowa caucus goers say their minds are made up. But among Trump supporters, 70 percent say they are firmly committed in their decision.
TRUMP: The first guy that ever got indicted whose poll numbers went up.
ZELENY (voice-over): The former president is increasingly turning his focus to President Joe Biden, as new CNN polls show fresh signs of warning for the White House. In Michigan and Georgia, two of the five states Biden turn from red to blue, the president is facing alarmingly low approval ratings, our poll showing fewer than four of ten improve of his performance in office.
TRUMP: I will save democracy. The threat is crooked Joe Biden. That's the threat.
ZELENY (voice-over): In Michigan, Trump leads Biden 50 to 40 percent in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, with 10 percent saying they wouldn't support either candidate.
That raises the question of a threat from a third-party contender. Asked specifically about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornell West in Michigan, Trump falls to 39 percent, and Biden to 31 percent.
And in Georgia, Trump has a 49 to 44 percent edge over Biden, the poll found, with 7 percent saying they would not back either.
The challenges for Biden are coming into sharper view.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Trump just talks the talk. We walk the walk. Frankly, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
[04:35:00]
ZELENY (voice-over): Among the many factors that could drive the race are Trump's numerous legal challenges, particularly the criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In Georgia and Michigan, nearly half of voters say that, if true, they should disqualify him from the presidency.
ZELENY: But long before it's clear if there will be a Trump-Biden rematch, the former president must navigate the Republican primary. Yes, he has a commanding lead in Iowa, but the voting does not began for five more weeks. For now, at least, the most competitive race is for second place, between Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: The Harvard Corporation, one of the governing bodies running the university, is expected to announce a decision on the fate of President Claudine Gay in the coming hours, according to a source. It comes after -- or amid a growing chorus of support for Gay from Harvard community, including the executive committee of Harvard's Alumni Association. Gay apologized after coming under fire for failing to denounce the threats of violence against Jewish students during a contentious congressional testimony last week. Jason Carroll is there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLAUDINE GAY, PRESIDENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: My name is Claudine Gay.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight more signs of support for Harvard University's president Claudine Gay, amid calls for Gay's removal after a Harvard board of directors meeting.
As of Monday, roughly 700 members of the school's faculty have signed a petition, which calls on university leaders to resist political pressures and outside forces trying to remove Gay.
Harvard legal scholar, Laurence Tribe, who previously slammed Gay for her testimony before Congress, signed the petition supporting her.
In an email to CNN on Monday, he wrote: Once external pressures, whether from ultra wealthy donors or from politicians pursuing their ideological agendas override the internal decision-making processes of universities, we are on the road to tyranny.
The Harvard Alumni Association said it unanimously and unequivocally supports president Claudine Gay.
Students, such as Tristan Dalvey says, Gay's testimony before Congress fell short, but he would like her to say.
TRISTAN DALVEY, HARVARD STUDENT: I feel like she does support the Jewish community here.
CARROLL (voice-over): Polina Kempinsky is Israeli and says she has not felt safe being Jewish on campus and the testimony last week from university leaders about anti-Semitism on campuses made things worse.
POLINA KEMPINSKY, HARVARD STUDENT: I was really expecting a clear statement of we're against anti-Semitism.
CARROLL (voice-over): The presidents from Harvard, M.I.T., and the University of Pennsylvania all came under intense scrutiny after their congressional testimony where they failed to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews as it related to university policies against bullying and harassment.
REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): So, the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard code of conduct, correct?
GAY: Again, it depends on the context.
CARROLL: Gay later apologized for her responses, telling the Harvard Crimson, words matter.
University of Pennsylvania's president was forced to voluntarily resign Saturday.
The next day, New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, the House Republican who conducted a lot of the questioning at the hearing and is a Harvard alum, tweeted: One down, two to go.
The congresswoman has come under scrutiny in the past for campaign ads that some in her party say echo the great replacement theory, a belief that Black Americans and Jews want to replace White Americans.
Until recently, Rabbi David Wolpe was part of Harvard's Anti-Semitism Advisory Group, created in the wake of October 7th. He was chosen by Gay. He says, Gay's testimony was the final straw. He resigned last week.
RABBI DAVID WOLPE, VISITING SCHOLAR, HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL: I had wanted, from any of the presidents, a certain urgency and anger, and indignation.
CARROLL: But instead, you got what?
WOLPE: Instead, we got legalisms and equivocations.
CARROLL: Should Gay resign?
WOLPE: Not for me to say, really. I don't take a position on --
CARROLL: Why not?
WOLPE: Because I'm a rabbi who's been at Harvard for two months.
CARROLL (voice-over): Jason Carroll, CNN, Boston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Just a day after Elon Musk restored the X account of right- wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the platform is now actively promoting his account and encouraging users to follow him. His profile had more than one and a half million followers as of Monday. The account for his Infowars website has also been restored.
FOSTER: Jones has made headlines for spreading false conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, and last year a jury decided he should pay nearly a billion dollars in damages to the victims families for defamation.
[04:40:00]
According to X, Jones account will still be subject to his policies and the platform will not try to make money off them through advertising.
The State Supreme Court in Texas has reversed the ruling that granted a woman the right to an emergency abortion. The woman is Kate Cox. Her attorneys announced Monday that she left the state to get an abortion. Cox has said her fetus had a fatal diagnosis and that her health was at risk if she continued the pregnancy to term.
NOBILO: The ruling sided with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. It reversed a lower court's ruling that would have had allowed Cox to obtain an abortion under the state's medical emergency exception. Texas, as you probably know, has a near total ban on abortions.
Next, a proposed agreement that has climate activists up in arms. We look at why there's outrage and disappointment on the final scheduled day of the COP28 climate talks.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: To Dubai, where the final day of the COP28 climate talks heading into overtime. In the past hour of the summit's director- general defended a hugely controversial draft deal to tackle the climate crisis, calling it a starting point for further discussion.
NOBILO: The proposed deal crucially dropped calls for a phase out of fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia and Iraq, both major oil producing countries, oppose any reference to a fossil fuel phase out. The deadline this summits president has set to finalize an agreement, 11:00 a.m. local today, has now passed and the discussions are ongoing.
FOSTER: Eleni Giokos in Dubai for us with the very latest, I mean the huge disappointment for climate campaigners. But this is what you get, isn't it, when you need unanimity amongst the members?
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. And you need 198 countries to find consensus on the wording. And frankly, we've been talking about this wording since the start of COP28 Summit here in Dubai.
[04:45:00]
Importantly phase out versus phase down. I think many people knew that the reality would be a phase down of fossil fuels and not a complete phase out, because of the realistic approach that people are taking. They're saying that energy security trumps anything to do with energy transition. This has been one of the big debates and of course a huge sticking point. And it seems that it's going to remain so.
We have passed now the initial deadline on the communique. We're hours in and the expectation is it will hopefully come later on this afternoon. But one person that has been following these discussions very closely and also last night spoke about the disappointment with regards to this draft communique that we saw.
We've got Fernanda Carvalho, climate and energy policy head at WWF. Great to have you with us. Look, this was always going to be, you know, a big ambition, right? The phasing out of fossil fuels. How are you feeling today knowing that it's probably not going to make it in the draft in the final communique?
FERNANDA CARVALHO, GLOBAL POLICY LEAD, CLIMATE AND ENERGY, WWF: It's disappointing that because we saw this discussion coming up very strongly and some countries clearly asking for that. And that didn't make it into the text. The last version of the text that we are working with, but we are still hopeful that in this last hours of discussion, we can get a more ambitious outcome. Phasing out fossil fuels is what's going to really determine the success or not of this call.
GIOKOS: So, you're still feeling optimistic that we could see a complete phase out of fossil fuels.
CARVALHO: Well, I would say, you know, cautious optimism because I think that if the agreement was That we would Stick with the language Yesterday -- of yesterday, we wouldn't be continued discussions. And I think that there are very strong voices in these discussions such as the small island states and the Association of small island -- of the island countries. They're all saying this is a death sentence for them. So, they won't accept any weak outcome. There are some forces in play against the forces that they don't want to see an outcome on phasing out fossil fuels.
GIOKOS: In your mind, because you've been having a lot of these discussions, why is there complete fear of making that commitment of completely phasing out of fossil fuels according to a specific timeline? What is that scenario that is causing so much concern?
CARVALHO: I think there's two things there. I think first of all, there is the economic factor. Of course there are -- we are in a country in which the economy is fossil fuel based and this is the reality for this area. And that implies a lot of money and a lot of transformation and really a societal change. And I think people need to understand what fossil fuel phase out is about.
We are not saying, you know, tomorrow no fossil fuels available. No one can use that. We are saying you have 27 years to transition to avoid the impacts that we are seeing everywhere in the world, floods, heat, cold, etcetera. I think it hits every corner of the world this year. So, and fossil fuels is the main cause of the climate change that we are seeing now. 80 percent of emissions are from fossil fuels. So, there is no way that we are going to keep the temperature to 1.5 global warming if we don't tackle fossil fuels. And it's phasing out, it's not just reducing. This signal is already out there since the last COP, from the G20, and it's not doing it. So we need stronger wording.
GIOKOS: There, there's been another big, big thing of criticism. And point of criticism is that the conversations that are being had and the action that is, you know, going to be taken does not match the emergency that we're experiencing right now.
CARVALHO: That's true.
GIOKOS: And that is one of the big concerns. And while people will say listen, you know, the environmentalists can scream and shout all they want, but we have to be pragmatic and realistic about the realities of what phasing out will completely do.
CARVALHO: Yes, I think we have seen this before and it's the reality for a long time that this process is very, very good at discussing what we should do in the near future or in the short term future. But we need action now. The fact that we've been delaying action and implementation is making things really, really worse.
But things change. They take more time than we are able to afford. One example is the renewable energy, the affordability and the availability of renewable sources. 20 years ago, who would talk about renewable energy? For developing countries it was a no go. And nowadays it's rapidly scaling up and it's affordable.
GIOKOS: Fernanda, great to have you with us. Thank you so much.
Look, we've been having these discussions. We know what we're facing from a climate perspective. But we also know realistically, Max, that it's not that easy to just turn off the taps. What is the right mechanism? What is the funding that needs to be committed to? And importantly and again, we're going to be waiting for the final communique, that wording.
But you know, I spoke to another delegate earlier and they said it's not, it doesn't matter what the communique actually says.
[04:50:00]
It's what about what people actually do and the act communicate that wording. But you know, I spoke to another delegate earlier and they said it's not -- it doesn't matter what the communique actually says. It's what about -- what people actually do. And the action. And frankly, we haven't seen enough action over the last few years, even while we're in the thick of things with the climate emergency.
FOSTER: Yes, OK, Eleni, thank you so much. We'll be back with you as soon as we get that communique.
Now a rare double header, a lot of suspense in this week's Monday Night Football. Two games decided in the final moments, with big implications for the NFL playoffs that is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOBILO: Fans were treated to a rare double header and two nail biters in the NFL's Monday Night Football.
[04:55:00]
The Tennessee Titans pulled off a 28 to 27 upset over the heavily favored Miami Dolphins, in Miami. The Titans hadn't won on the road all season, and the Dolphins needed a win to remain tied for the top playoff seed in the AFC. But they gave up 15 unanswered points in the final minutes of the game. Lost the ability to talk out of sheer excitement for them.
And in the NFC, the New York Giants enjoyed their third straight win. This time over the Green Bay Packers after a last second field goal gave them a 24-22 victory. Both teams still have a shot at the playoffs.
FOSTER: Sometimes look like you were talking to acrobatics with those images.
The LaLiga match between Granada -- Granada and Atletico -- Athletic Bilbao resumed on Monday with a moment of silence for the fan who died in the stands before a medical emergency involving a Granada fan halted the playing 17 minutes into the game on Sunday. Granada Sporting director says the fans suffered a cardiac arrest. Both clubs expressed their condolences to his family. Monday's match ended in a draw 1-1.
NOBILO: Now to some stories in the spotlight for you this hour.
The Golden Globe Awards have released the list of nominees for next month's ceremony.
FOSTER: Golden Globe?
NOBILO: Do I do that, in a Qui accent as well? I don't know what's happening. I'm regressing.
The award show has added a new category celebrating films that topped the box office but might not otherwise be nominated during the awards season.
FOSTER: Is giving franchises like "Mission Impossible" and "John Wick" a new opportunity for recognition. A notable addition is Taylor Swift's the Eras Tour, which earned nearly $250 million worldwide and made her a billionaire, apparently.
NOBILO: That's why she's "Time" person of the year.
FOSTER: I think she should be.
NOBILO: Yes.
FOSTER: Cultural icon.
NOBILO: Good time, I agree.
FOSTER: Thanks for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster.
NOBILO: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. "EARLY START" is up for you next right here on CNN.
[05:00:00]
