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CNN International: DeSantis and Haley Attack Trump in CNN Town Halls; Trump Businesses Made Millions from Foreign Governments; 17- Year-Old Gunman Kills one, Wounds Five at Iowa School; South Korea Military: The North Fired 200+ Artillery Rounds; U.S. Working to Keep Israel-Hamas War from Spreading. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired January 05, 2024 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, happy Friday and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Max Foster. Happy Friday. Joining you live from London, just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON DESANTIS, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You're not going to have to worry about my conduct. I'll conduct myself in a way you can be proud of.

The Democrats want Trump to be the candidate. They are going to talk about all the legal stuff, January 6th. That will be what the election will be about.

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't need anyone who's getting in their feelings. No more drama, no more taking things personally. Now is the time we need to have a new generational leader.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are six victims, one of them who is deceased. That individual was a sixth-grade student at Perry Middle School.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole cafeteria went silent, and then more shots continued, and everything just went into chaos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. has tried to separate the war in Gaza from the rest of the region, but the fighting has burst through political borders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.

FOSTER: It is Friday in case you hadn't guessed. January 5th, 9 a.m. here in London, 3 a.m. in Iowa, where voters are less than two weeks away from the first in the nation caucuses.

NOBILO: The latest polling shows Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are the top choices of likely Republican caucus goers. On Thursday, DeSantis and Haley took questions from voters at CNN Town Halls, and each attacked the frontrunner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RON DESANTIS, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You'll see me on the debate stage next week here in Iowa on January 10th.

Donald Trump's not willing to show up on the debate stage. Has he come to communities and answered questions? Has he gone to all 99 counties? Heck, has he even gone to nine counties?

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I personally think President Trump was the right president at the right time. I agree with a lot of his policies. But the reality is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. And we all know that's true. Chaos follows him. And we can't have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won't survive it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, Trump, Haley and DeSantis are the only candidates who qualified for next week's CNN debate, the last face off before the caucus. But Trump opted out as he has on all the previous debates.

NOBILO: His son Eric was in Iowa Thursday representing his dad at a Team Trump Iowa MAGA event. Eric called his father and put the call on speaker so the audience could hear what the former president had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Always remember we got the farmers of Iowa $28 billion. That's a lot of money. I can't think about Joe Biden doing that. He wouldn't even think about it. I'm gonna be there Friday and Saturday, then I'm coming back the following week. And I'm gonna caucus probably in Des Moines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: As the election draws closer, Trump continues to argue in court that he has blanket immunity from criminal acts that he may have committed when president.

FOSTER: Our Kaitlan Collins asked DeSantis about that claim at the Town Hall. The Florida governor got in some criticism of the former president but avoided a direct response about the validity of the idea.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DESANTIS: If you're abiding by the Constitution, none of that is going to matter at that point. So, follow the law, follow the Constitution. This stuff gets into the weeds legally about what can happen to a president when they leave office based on conduct that may or may not have been official. It's not for me to adjudicate that. I can just tell you this, if you nominate me, I'll get elected, I'll serve, and we won't even be discussing these issues. We'll be discussing your issues.

You're not going to have to worry about my conduct. I'll conduct myself in a way you can be proud of. I'll conduct myself in a way you can tell your kids, you know, that's somebody that you should emulate. And we will have success as a result of that.

DESANTIS: The Democrats want Trump to be the candidate. They are going to talk about all the legal stuff, January 6th. That will be what the election will be about. You don't want it to be a referendum on Trump and the past. You want it to be a referendum on Biden's failures, on our positive vision for this country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, both DeSantis and Haley have said they'll pardon Trump for the felonies against him if they are elected president. During Thursday's Town Hall, one Iowa Republican asked Haley about why she would pardon a former president who would have been found guilty of a crime.

[04:05:00]

Haley touched on that and talked about the difficult situation going on at the U.S.-Mexico border.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HALEY: For me, it's not about guilt or innocence. It's about what's in the best interest for the country. And I don't think our country will move forward with an 80-year-old president sitting in jail that allows our country to continue to be divided. We have to move on past that.

And so, I honestly do believe, just like they did with Nixon, you've got to say what's in the best interest of the country. And I think pardoning Trump and moving on is in the best interest of our country if we're going to heal and if we're going to get back together and get out of the chaos.

Governor Abbott, if the president won't secure and give security to the people of Texas, a governor has a job to protect your citizens. So, he's bussing them, but where is he bussing them to? New York City is a sanctuary city, so you can't say, we're open, we're accepting of everybody. And then when they come to you, say, oh, I didn't mean it. Never mind.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: So, you think it's been effective, the bussing?

HALEY: I think it's been hugely effective because all of a sudden, the rest of the country is feeling what Texans have had to deal with for so long. And I went to the border and truly what they deal with is unimaginable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: World on fire, chaos. Haley's really presenting the dichotomy there that she can bring and restore order compared to Donald Trump, isn't she?

FOSTER: Yes. I mean, I say like, I mean, that line about a president serving from prison is quite a clever way of not showing a lack of support but showing the impracticalities of voting for him.

NOBILO: Quite so. Which candidate performed better in Thursday's Town Halls? CNN's political analyst weigh in on whether Haley or DeSantis made the bigger impression with eye of the voters ahead of the caucuses.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I came into the night thinking that she had the momentum, which is why I was thinking that Ron DeSantis was going to potentially go after her and sort of try to reel that in. But his failure to acknowledge her really in any meaningful way makes me wonder now.

You do talk to people in Iowa. They do say that Haley momentum out there is as real in the metro areas in Iowa as it seems to be in New Hampshire. There's still some question about what she's going to be able to do in the rural areas.

But if you didn't know anything, if you had not had any history on this race and you just watch this tonight, I believe most Republicans would come away from tonight saying, man, Ron DeSantis seems like he is straight out of central casting for what Republicans say they want their government leaders to do. Aggressive, no apologies, take action, keep your promises, go there on every topic.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: To see him go after Trump on and trying to convince Republican caucus goers in Iowa that he is not to be trusted to deliver, that you cannot trust Donald Trump. He is -- it is a potentially powerful argument, but it's one that needs a lot more than 11 days to break through with the Republican electorate at this point.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, another possible setback for Trump's road to reclaim the White House is that voters' groups in Illinois and Massachusetts have filed motions to remove him from the 2024 election ballots in their states. They cite his role in the January 6th attack of the insurrectionist ban in the U.S. Constitution's 14th amendment. It's unclear how or when these new challenges will be adjudicated, though.

NOBILO: And they come as the U.S. Supreme Court is widely expected to review a state court ruling in Colorado. A decision in that case could settle his eligibility for the entire nation. FOSTER: A new report from U.S. House Democrats says foreign governments spent millions of dollars at Donald Trump's businesses and properties whilst he was in office.

NOBILO: Trump didn't step away from his business holdings before assuming the presidency, meaning he could still profit with little transparency. Here's CNN's Melanie Zanona on this story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Well, there are new questions about whether Donald Trump was influenced by foreign countries or foreign entities during his time as president. That is because House Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released a new report showing that Trump's businesses received a lot more money from foreign countries than was previously known.

In fact, the Chinese government alone spent more than 5.5 million dollars at Trump properties during just two years of his presidency, which is more significantly more than any other country.

And in fact, this is also probably just a tiny fraction of the overall payments that Trump businesses receive from foreign governments, because these records and this report only covers two years of Trump's presidency and only accounts for a handful of his businesses.

So, the question really is whether Trump was influenced in his policymaking because of that money. One example cited in this report was that Trump declined to issue sanctions on a Chinese bank, despite the fact that the DOJ had accused the Chinese bank of conspiring with North Korea to evade sanctions.

[04:10:03]

And that bank was one of the largest tenants at Trump Tower. Now, a lot of these lease agreements were made before Trump became president, so it is complicated and not necessarily a cut-and-dry issue here.

And meanwhile, the Trump Organization has denied any wrongdoing in response to this report.

But it's notable because this report from House Democrats is coming as House Republicans are pursuing an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his son's foreign business deals.

Republicans, though, have yet to definitively prove that Biden either personally profited or made policy decisions because of those foreign business deals. But no doubt Democrats are going to try to use this report to draw a contrast between Biden and Trump ahead of a potential impeachment and ahead of the 2024 election.

Melanie Zanona of CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: A community in Iowa is grieving after a 17-year-old shot and killed another student and wounded five people at a school early on Thursday.

FOSTER: People gathered for a candlelit vigil on Thursday night, holding a moment of silence, joining in prayer, and consoling each other with hugs.

NOBILO: It happened at Perry High School near Des Moines. Authorities say classes had not yet begun when the shooting took place.

FOSTER: Less than a week into 2024, and we've already seen the second shooting at a U.S. school. This is also one of at least five mass shootings in the country so far this year. Veronica Miracle has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just a devastating start to this new year for this small community in Iowa. The community now mourning the loss of a sixth grader. Five other people were injured, four students and one faculty member, one of them critically injured, though all of them are expected to survive.

This shooting happened before school was in session. So, students from all different grades were gathered for a breakfast club when the first shots rang out. Within seven minutes of the initial call, an officer arrived on scene and found people running from campus. We spoke with several students from this high school, one of whom was inside the cafeteria. Take a listen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE STUDENT: At first, like the whole, like a cafeteria went silent and then like more shots like continued and everything just went into chaos. I just saw like the principal start running and like all my friends and I just got out of there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE STUDENT: When I was on my way to go to school, my friends had sent more texts that there were gunshots and everybody was running and crying out the school.

MIRACLE: This community is small. The entire school district has only about 1,800 students. So, everyone knows everyone, including a woman we spoke with at a vigil who says that she knows the victim. She heard about a child missing in her neighborhood, went knocking on the door of that family and learned that their child was the one who was killed. She says this individual was the sweetest kid and was one that you would want your kids to be friends with.

The shooter was a 17-year-old high school student who died from a self-inflicted gunshot injury. Police say they found a pump action shotgun and a handgun on him. They also say they found an improvised explosive device somewhere on campus that they were able to render it safe.

In terms of a motive, police are still investigating. The grieving process here has just begun.

Veronica Miracle, CNN, Perry, Iowa.

(END VIDEOTAPE) FOSTER: There were, believe it or not, 656 mass shootings in the U.S. last year. That's according to the Gun Violence Archive. The agency defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot or killed in a single event.

NOBILO: Winter storm watches have been issued in the U.S. ahead of this weekend's East Coast storm, which could impact nearly 20 million people from the western north of Carolina up to southern Maine.

FOSTER: Forecasters expect some areas to get five to ten inches of snow beginning Saturday lasting through Sunday and an ice storm could also develop over the Appalachians.

Now residents of a South Korean island were urged to take shelter after a new provocation from North Korea. We're live in Seoul with the details.

NOBILO: Plus, the top U.S. diplomat on a Middle East mission again. How Antony Blinken is working to keep the war in Gaza from spreading throughout the region.

FOSTER: And convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius is no longer behind bars in South Africa. Ahead, the latest on the former Paralympic track star who killed his girlfriend more than a decade ago.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: The South Korean military has begun its own maritime shooting exercises in response to what it calls provocations from North Korea.

NOBILO: South Korea says the North fired hundreds of artillery rounds into a buffer zone off the West Coast, nearly two -- near two South Korean islands, in an area referred to as a no hostile act zone. Residents on Yeonpyeong Island were told to head to shelters. More than 2,100 people live there.

FOSTER: Marc Stewart covering all of this live from Seoul. How do you read this, Marc?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is just a reflection of this ongoing tension between the North and the South.

A few more specifics to pass along. As far as the artillery that was fired by the North toward the South, we are talking about 200 rounds. Not clear if these were shells or something larger like rockets.

No injuries have been reported. No damage has been reported. And then as you heard, South Korea responded, firing back into the sea.

None of this artillery that was fired from the North actually landed in the South. It was in a zone between the two nations in the waters of the Yellow Sea. So just some perspective there.

Nonetheless, this has been a very tense time, and it's a point that was addressed just a few hours ago here in Seoul from a spokesperson by the South Korean military. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COL. LEE SUNG-JUN, SOUTH KOREA'S JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF (through translator): We sternly warn North Korea that they are fully responsible for this escalation of the crisis, and we strongly urge them to stop it.

Our military is tracking and monitoring the related situation in close cooperation with the U.S. and South Korea and will implement measures in response to North Korea's provocations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:20:03]

STEWART: When we talk about this military relationship between the North and the South, it's very much tit for tat. In fact, earlier this week, we saw South Korea conducting some military exercises on both land and by sea that perhaps triggered North Korea to begin shooting this artillery today.

Also, in recent days, strong statements from North Korea saying that it does not have any interest in reunifying the two Koreas. In fact, describing the relationship between these two nations as hostile -- Max and Bianca.

FOSTER: OK, Marc in Seoul, thank you.

NOBILO: The U.S. says Russia is working with Iran and North Korea to restock its ballistic missile arsenal.

FOSTER: Yet the news comes as Moscow has been ramping up its strikes on Ukraine. Washington believes Russia is moving ahead with talks to acquire Iranian close-range ballistic missiles.

Whilst the White House says Moscow has already received ballistic missiles from North Korea and is putting them to use in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Our information indicates that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea recently provided Russia with ballistic missile launchers and several ballistic missiles. On the 30th of December 2023, Russian forces launched at least one of these North Korean ballistic missiles into Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Well, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Turkey today. It's the first stop on his eight-nation visit to the Middle East where he's hoping to keep the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.

NOBILO: It comes as ISIS is claiming responsibility for twin explosions in Iran on Wednesday that killed 84 people. Meanwhile, in Iraq, a militia source says a top commander for a pro- Iranian group was killed in a strike in Baghdad. One American tells CNN that the group has U.S. blood on its hands and that was an American official.

The U.S. is fighting back against pro-Iranian proxies in the region. A militia source says a top commander and his assistant were killed in a strike in Baghdad. CNN's Oren Liebermann has more now from the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A U.S. strike in Iraq, the second in little more than a week, killing the commander of a pro-Iran militia, Harakat al-Nujaba.

One U.S. official saying the target, known as Abu Takwa, had U.S. blood on his hands.

MAJ. PATRICK WRITER, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Abu Takwa was actively involved in planning and carrying out attacks against American personnel.

LIEBERMANN (voice-over): The attack comes amid fears of an escalation in the Middle East, far beyond the borders of the Gaza Strip, where the war between Israel and Hamas is nearing the three-month mark.

The U.S. has tried to separate the war in Gaza from the rest of the region, but the fighting has burst through political borders. An Israeli strike in Beirut killed Saleh al-Arouri, one of Hamas' top leaders. Lebanese officials warning the attack threatens to spark a wider conflict in a region already on edge.

U.S. forces have come under attack approximately 118 times in Iraq and Syria since mid-October. Hezbollah in Lebanon has launched repeated missile and drone strikes on Israel, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. And the Houthis in Yemen have fired on international shipping lanes in the Red Sea, with calls growing for a U.S. response.

KIRBY: We don't telegraph our punches one way or another, but we take these attacks very, very seriously, the impact that they're having on international commerce and free shipping, and we're going to keep doing what we need to do to protect their interests.

LIEBERMANN (voice-over): The common thread here is Iran, which backs these groups. With U.S. Navy forces in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and in the Red Sea to protect international shipping lanes, the U.S. has tried to send a message of deterrence, carrying out strikes in Iraq and Syria.

But the attacks across the region have persisted, the Pentagon once again laying out an open-ended threat of force.

MAJ. PATRICK RYDER, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We maintain the inherent right of self-defense, and we'll continue to take necessary actions to protect our personnel. LIEBERMANN (voice-over): But in a region where one conflict is already

raging, U.S. officials are grappling with how to respond to widespread attacks by Iranian proxies without sparking a broader war in the Middle East.

Oren Liebermann, CNN, at the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: CNN's Paula Hancocks is following developments from Abu Dhabi, and she joins us now live. Paula, what channels are in place to de- escalate and de-conflict these tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the aftermath of attacks at the moment?

PAUL HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bianca, I think that the very fact that the U.S. Secretary of State is on his way to the region at this point is one of those channels. The fact that it's the fourth visit that he will carry out in this region since October 7th, since Hamas carried out those attacks in Israel.

So, he will be going to eight different countries.

[04:25:00]

And that really shows you the wide extent of the concerns at this point, how many countries are involved or potentially able to try and de-escalate the situation as well.

Now, when it comes to the state actors we have been looking at, it doesn't appear that there is appetite for a wider conflict, certainly from the U.S. point of view. They have been at pains to try and make sure that that doesn't happen.

But it does, of course, depend on the proxies, Iran proxies, the Iran- backed militia groups, which the U.S. has been engaged against just yesterday, carrying out a retaliatory strike against one of those groups. That is the concern. And when it comes to back channels and channels of communication there, it is far trickier.

Now, we know from what we've heard about Blinken's trip here, Secretary Blinken in the region, is that he will also be trying to make sure that messages are passed on effectively. So, even if he goes and speaks to the Lebanese government, for example, there is a hope that that message will be passed on to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group that is currently carrying out border violence with Israel on that Israeli-Lebanese border.

So, although the state actors do not appear to have the appetite for this conflict to extend further, it is the proxies that the concern is with at this point.

And just the sheer number of countries that the Secretary of State will be visiting shows the extent of the concern. Any one of these issues in the past would have been a point of concern, skirmishes across the Israeli-Lebanese border, Houthi rebels trying to target commercial shipping in the Red Sea, for example. But the fact you have layer upon layer of these areas of conflict,

there is greater concern that there could be a miscalculation or there could be an event which pushes one side further into this conflict and puts pressure to have a greater reaction than they have so far -- Max, Bianca.

NOBILO: Paula Hancocks for us in Abu Dhabi. Thank you very much.

FOSTER: Israel has unveiled plans for the next phase of its war in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Minister says forces in northern Israel will focus on raids, special operations, and the destruction of Hamas tunnel networks.

NOBILO: Israel's military objective of the new phase is to, quote, erode the remaining terror hotspots in the area. Israel says its goals in southern Gaza will be to continue to pursue Hamas leaders and to bring home the more than 100 hostages still being held captive.

FOSTER: The outline comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the defense minister met in Tel Aviv with a special envoy of U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the war.

Now just ahead, the latest developments on the newly unsealed documents involving late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his victims.

NOBILO: And Paralympic track star and convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius is out of prison. We're live in South Africa with what led to his release.