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CNN International: New Hampshire Republican Primary Just a Day Away; Ron DeSantis Ends Presidential Campaign, Endorses Trump; Trump Eyes New Hampshire Win; Haley Now Last Major Challenger to Trump; One Day Until First Primary of 2024; Protesters Near Netanyahu's Home Demand Hostage Deal; Netanyahu Rejects Calls for Palestinian Sovereignty. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired January 22, 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]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is no a one fella and one lady left. It's going to be me.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.

DONAL TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Get your neighbors. Get everybody. You got to vote because we have to win by big margins. We have to let them know this is a movement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This the break for the last moment for the Republicans who are opposed to Trump. Because if he wins big here, realistically it's going to be very hard to stop him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers. Join us in the U.S. and all around the world. I'm Max Foster.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. It is Monday, January 22nd, and we're down to the wire in New Hampshire, with only one day left for the first U.S. Republican presidential primary of 2024.

And now, after a surprise announcement Sunday, just two major GOP candidates remain, former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: I want to say to Ron, he ran a great race. He's been a good governor, and we wish him well. Having said that, it's now one fella and one lady left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Well, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis shocked the political world on Sunday, when he withdrew, throwing his support behind Trump, despite promising repeatedly in recent days that he would stay in the race through South Carolina's primary, which is next month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DESANTIS: I am today suspending my campaign. I'm proud to have delivered on 100 percent of my promises, and I will not stop now. It's clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance. They watch his presidency get stymied by relentless resistance, and they see Democrats using lawfare this day to attack him.

While I've had disagreements with Donald Trump, such as on the coronavirus pandemic and his elevation of Anthony Fauci, Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honor that pledge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Despite the swipes DeSantis took at Haley in his announcement, she was gracious in her reaction to the news that he'd quit. But she'd hedged when CNN's Dana Bash asked her whether she'd send -- so sorry -- she'd support Trump if he's the eventual Republican nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Are you still going to support -- I mean, it's you and Donald Trump. So if it's not you -- I know you hope it will be, and you're working so that it is. But if it's not, if it's Donald Trump, will you support him as the nominee still?

HALEY: It's going to be me. And I know you all want to talk about it like it's still him. 70 percent of Americans don't want to see a Trump-Biden rematch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Haley hoping New Hampshire's moderate Republicans and independents will give her some leverage against Trump. But with a solid and undeniable polling lead, she really does have an uphill climb.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more now on the unexpected announcement from Ron DeSantis and its impact on the race.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Really in the span of just a couple days' time, he's collected the endorsements and support of several of his former rivals who were in this race. Obviously, DeSantis being the latest one, but Tim Scott, of course, the Vivek Ramaswamy. So there does just seem to be this, you know, growing groundswell of people surrounding the former president.

But look, there is still a race here. Voters are still making up their minds here in New Hampshire.

There's only been one contest. Iowa is the only state that's voted, and Donald Trump received about 50,000 votes. So look, the Nikki Haley campaign is aggressively campaigning across the state of New Hampshire.

You just have the feeling here that this is moving very quickly, and by the end of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, we could be off to the races here in terms of a rematch between Trump and Joe Biden. But let's see what the voters have to say. History shows that New Hampshire has many times delivered surprises here.

Certainly in the final days of the Iowa campaign, he was aggressively going after the former president. He was raising deep questions about his electability. He basically said he's going to lose the House and the Senate and the White House if he becomes the nominee.

But it's not surprising that he got behind him, because he did sign the pledge. And the pledge is, if you were going to be in this race, you had to pledge to support the nominee. Of course, everyone signed that pledge except Donald Trump himself.

[04:05:00]

But look, he and Nikki Haley have had this bitter feud going back and forth with one another. So I certainly didn't expect him to endorse him. But the best way to get sort of on the right side of Donald Trump is to join the Trump bandwagon. And that's exactly what DeSantis did.

He didn't have to do it tonight, but you might as well -- his advisers basically said, you might as well do it quickly and not have that question hanging over. Is he going to support him? Is he going to endorse him?

So, look, he has a -- he's 43 years old. He has a long future, should he want one, potentially. So I think that's why he decided to endorse tonight. There's no upside and not at least politically speaking, never mind the hypocrisy of what he's just said about the former president.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: And Donald Trump is taking the endorsement in stride. CNN's Alayna Treene has more on his reaction to the surprise announcement and how it might affect the New Hampshire primary.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, just hours after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed the former president, Trump came out on stage in Rochester, New Hampshire, and congratulated him for running what he called a great campaign.

He also said that DeSantis was being, quote, gracious for giving him his endorsement. Take a listen to how Donald Trump put it.

TRUMP: Before we begin, I'd like to take time to congratulate Ron DeSantis and, of course, a really terrific person who had gotten to know his wife, Casey, for having run a great campaign for president.

He did. He ran a really good campaign. I will tell you, it's not easy. They think it's easy doing this stuff, right? It's not easy.

But as you know, he left the campaign trail today at 3 p.m. And in so doing, he was very gracious and he endorsed me. So I appreciate it.

I appreciate that. And I also look forward to working with Ron and everybody else to defeat crooked Joe Biden.

TREENE: Well, what a difference just a few hours make. I mean, this is a complete 180 from the type of rhetoric we heard Donald Trump use just this weekend in Manchester, New Hampshire. On Saturday, Trump was criticizing Ron DeSantis. And this is also the first time I want to note that he's actually referred to the Florida governor by his real name instead of the nickname that he's given the Florida governor, which is Ron DeSanctimonious.

But look, I think one thing that we should be watching for is whether or not this endorsement from DeSantis changes anything in the minds of Donald Trump. Already, it appears it has, given the language we heard him use on Sunday. But, you know, over the past year now, Donald Trump has really viciously gone after Ron DeSantis, attacked him very heavily in the lead up to the Iowa caucuses.

And part of that was because the campaign was worried about DeSantis as a rival. But the other part was because it was personal. Donald Trump very much believes that DeSantis was being disloyal by running for president after Trump had endorsed him for Florida governor in 2017. And that's where a lot of those attacks stem from, according to my conversations with Donald Trump's advisers and his allies.

But I think the question now is, will his endorsement change the game? Will you see Ron DeSantis become a potential surrogate for the Trump campaign? I know, as well from our conversations with Trump's team, that as of now, there are no plans for DeSantis to show up on the trail with them. But again, that could change in the coming weeks.

Alayna Treene, CNN, Rochester, New Hampshire.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Some U.S. lawmakers think the race is already over. Montana Senator and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines reposted the DeSantis announcement, sharing his thoughts on the future of the Republican Party.

NOBILO: He says, quote, Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee. I'm encouraging every Republican to unite behind him, because it will take all of us to defeat Joe Biden, take back the Senate, and hold the House.

FOSTER: A new poll from CNN and the University of New Hampshire shows Donald Trump widening his lead over Nikki Haley.

When asked who they'd support in a two-candidate race, 54 percent of likely Republican voters chose Trump, 41 percent chose Haley. Not that low.

NOBILO: No, not very low. But we know this, that when the broader the polling becomes, the better Haley seems to do.

The poll was conducted days before DeSantis dropped out, reflecting the second choices of those who were backing him.

FOSTER: And Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex. She joins us now live from Colchester, England. Thank you so much for joining us. What does Nikki Haley have to gain from staying in this race? Because it seems almost impossible for her to actually get the nomination.

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Well, I think she thinks she can actually win. I don't see how there will be a path to victory for her.

But she might do well in New Hampshire. I mean, New Hampshire is the place where she has the best chance of doing well, because it has more affluent, more educated Republicans who are not particularly religious, and she doesn't do well at all with evangelicals.

[04:10:02]

And there's more libertarians, more moderates. There are more independents, and independents can actually vote in the primary there.

So I think that she thinks that if she can win big or just even pull out a win in New Hampshire, that can change the race, can change people's calculus. This has happened before in New Hampshire. And then she'll be going into South Carolina, where at the moment she is trailing Trump by some 30 points, but that is her home state.

And she may be able to use that momentum to convince the public that a more moderate candidate has a better chance of beating Joe Biden.

NOBILO: Natasha, it's easy, of course, for the former president, Donald Trump, to be gracious when Ron DeSantis is dropping out of the race and endorsing him. But do you detect any shift in language, rhetoric or strategy from Donald Trump?

LINDSTAEDT: Not really. He does this all the time when there is someone who was vying against him. He is incredibly brutal in his attacks. He really made it almost like a blood sport going after DeSantis, calling him DeSanctimonious and what other horrible names that he had for him.

He does that as a way to basically bully and overpower his opponents. And then as soon as they endorse him, he acts as if all is forgotten and he wants to bring them into his coalition. So this is a strategy that Trump has used.

He's essentially an incredibly negative campaigner who is a big bully. But he is willing to change his mind when he senses that there's loyalty that's come back to him.

FOSTER: I was interested to see in European media. Obviously, it is a headline, but it's not a big headline. You would have thought DeSantis pulling out would be as big news amongst allies as it is within America. Why do you think this campaign isn't particularly resonating in Europe?

LINDSTAEDT: I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that many Europeans see Trump as the presumptive nominee that he's going to win.

There isn't much competition going to be coming from either DeSantis or from Haley. And I think in Europe, as well as in the U.S., there isn't very high levels of enthusiasm for the Trump-Biden matchup that is just a repeat of 2020. And it's very, very frightening for Europeans to see a Trump victory again. He wasn't very popular with most European allies. So I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we're just assuming that Trump is going to win.

NOBILO: Campaigns frequently take on a life of their own and the issues that the electorate might anticipate being key turn out not to be.

From a global perspective, we have the war in the Middle East, Ukraine, Russia, and potentially this more fragile sense of Western hegemony. What is shaping up to be the most important issue, do you think, in this presidential campaign?

LINDSTAEDT: Well, there's actually several issues. I think from the Democrat side, it by far is the fight for democracy, that Trump is a huge threat for U.S. democracy and he must be stopped at all costs and concerns about other things such as women's reproductive rights and health care and so forth.

I think for the Republicans, there are two issues. It is the economy and it is immigration. And Trump is doing well on both of those issues for Republican and moderate independent voters.

And he seems to convey an image of being better at running the economy by 20 points compared to Biden, even though there's little evidence that the president can really control the economy.

All of the things that are going on in the world right now, the war in Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza, things escalating in the Gulf, in the Middle East, with Yemen and Iran, none of this is playing well for Biden. He's sort of in a rock and a hard place that he can't appease more progressive people, he can't appease more conservative people.

And it's not something that Trump would be able to handle any better. In fact, it could be complete chaos. But these foreign policy issues are affecting Biden at the margins, particularly with, for example, younger voters.

70 percent of younger voters disapprove of Biden's handling of the war in Gaza. So while we have these big meaty issues that are really important, you also have the foreign policy issues that could affect Biden negatively thus far.

NOBILO: Natasha Lindstaedt, we always love speaking to you. Thanks so much for coming on.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

NOBILO: Protesters gathered near the Israeli prime minister's home to demand a hostage deal. We'll have his response in a live report just ahead.

FOSTER: Plus, Ukraine strikes a Russian oil facility.

[04:15:00]

What this could mean for Russian troops just ahead.

NOBILO: And in the UK, Storm Isha continues to batter the English coast. We'll show you how the storm's heavy winds are causing chaos for airline passengers across Europe.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Pressure mounting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strike a deal with Hamas to free the remaining hostages in Gaza. Families and friends of the hostages held a rally near Mr. Netanyahu's home in Jerusalem on Sunday, again calling for their release.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON POLIN, SON HELD HOSTAGE IN GAZA: After 107 days, we are demanding that they fix the failure from the 7th, and that can only start with returning all of the hostages alive. Bringing home 136 hostages in bags can never be considered any part of a victory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: This comes as a report in the Wall Street Journal says that the U.S., Egypt and Qatar want Israel to join a new phase of talks with Hamas that would start with releasing hostages and lead to Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza.

[04:20:00]

Netanyahu says he's working on it around the clock, but is also outright rejecting Hamas's demands.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): I categorically reject the conditions of capitulation to the Hamas monsters. In exchange for the release of our hostages, Hamas demands an end to the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of all murderers and rapists from Nakba, and the continuation of Hamas in power. If we accept this, our soldiers have fallen in vain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: The Palestine Red Crescent Society says it received a total of 185 aid trucks in Gaza on Sunday. Israeli officials are offering different numbers, saying that 260 humanitarian aid trucks entered the enclave, which would make it the highest number of trucks in a single day since October 7th.

FOSTER: Meanwhile, the death toll continues to climb. According to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza, more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in the enclave since the war began.

NOBILO: CNN's Clare Sebastian joins us. Clare, what do we know about the remaining hostages and about the potential of these new talks with more regional players involved?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's more than 100 hostages left, more than 130 actually left in Gaza, and obviously the humanitarian situation in the enclave, the fact that Israel has admitted several weeks ago to the fact that three of them were killed in a mistaken operation there, you know, it ramps up the pressure. They are clearly not in a safe position.

In terms of the talks, look, on the face of it, Netanyahu appears to be toughening, if anything, his stance, saying that he rejects outright the Hamas demands, which he says would be an end of the war, full withdrawal of Israeli troops, and the release of more Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Not a surprise, he's never been on board with any of those things.

But privately, of course, we have this report from the Wall Street Journal citing diplomats who are familiar with the talks, people briefed on the talks, saying that at least Israel is engaging now with a framework. We're not close to a deal. Obviously, we've had a lot of things leaked out of these talks before, and it's not in any way ever guaranteed that we're close to a deal.

But this is potentially, they say, a new approach that would involve a sort of phased release of hostages, but something more sustained in terms of a ceasefire. So that is what they're working on. The broker country is clearly heavily involved in trying to restart this, and apparently Israel is engaged with that.

So that's slightly at odds with the sort of tough stance that we're seeing from Netanyahu on the surface, but it does potentially present a chink of light here.

FOSTER: A tough stance on the two-state solution as well, because after that call with President Biden, Netanyahu's sticking with his belief that there shouldn't be one.

SEBASTIAN: Yes, well, he's saying, look, I will not compromise this from a tweet, on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan.

And then he follows up with that and says, and this is contrary to a Palestinian state. So this is, you know, putting Israel in an increasingly isolated position internationally. We've got the UN coming out on Sunday, the UN Secretary General saying this is unacceptable.

Today we have an EU foreign policy meeting involving EU foreign ministers, the Israeli foreign minister and Palestinian and also some Arab countries. This is what the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said about this on his way in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEP BORRELL, EU FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF: Which are the other solutions they have in mind? To make all the Palestinians leave? To kill off them? Twenty-five thousand already in Gaza. Seventy percent are women and children. Certainly, the way you're trying to destroy Hamas is not the way they are doing, because they are seething the hate for generations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So I think the question now, because the U.S. is trying to thread the needle still. We hear from Biden that, you know, after his conversation with Netanyahu, he thinks they could possibly still be convinced he's looking at potentially the option of a demilitarized Palestinian state. And then we have the nuance in what Netanyahu said about full security control.

So potentially there might be something there. But Israel, I think, is now under pressure to really articulate what their alternative view is for what's going to happen with the security situation in Gaza after this.

NOBILO: Just a very quick follow. It's interesting that Netanyahu is being so publicly vehement in his rejection of Hamas's demands, whereas you say perhaps behind the scenes there's more going on. When one of the main criticisms that he's facing in terms of his political leadership is that how he's conducted this offensive vis-a-vis the security of the hostages.

So why can't he give a bit more publicly about entertaining these discussions?

SEBASTIAN: So I think the discussions are very sensitive and I think giving anything publicly in terms of concessions to Hamas is difficult. But I think this is mounting the pressure on him domestically as well. He was under pressure before the war.

Increasingly now you're seeing accusations in Israeli media and beyond that he's putting his own political survival ahead of the interests of the country. Now whether or not standing up to America and being seen to stand up to America is part of that, that would in itself be risky, but it could be.

[04:25:00]

NOBILO: Clare Sebastian, thank you so much.

FOSTER: Turning to the conflict in Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from a small village in the Kharkiv region as Russian forces ramp up pressure in several locations along the front line.

NOBILO: But Ukraine is also striking back, hitting areas within Russia and potentially trying to disrupt Moscow's military operations. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The Ukrainians once again demonstrating their long-distance strike capability, in this case claiming to have hit an oil depot near the town of St. Petersburg.

Now this depot is about 100 miles west of St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland and the Ukrainians are saying that it's a very important one for the Russians because there they make an array of products including jet fuel and the Ukrainians say that some of those products are used by the Russian military. In other words, the Ukrainians say they consider this to be a legitimate target.

Now if the drone was indeed flown from Ukrainian territory, it would have flown hundreds of miles across Russia to then reach that area. That area of Russia that it would have flown over also has a lot of very capable air defenses, so certainly a big feat by the Ukrainians if indeed they flew that drone out of Ukrainian-held territory.

And also all this comes only days after the Russians also said that they had taken down a Ukrainian drone in an area around where the strike has now happened. Now all this is going on while the war continues to be in full swing.

The Russian-held area of Donetsk saying that many people were killed in Ukrainian shelling on Sunday. The Ukrainians are also saying that they are trying to defend against Russian pushes that are happening along the east and southeast of the front line. The Russians are saying that they managed to take a village from the Ukrainians in the Kharkiv area as the Russian military continues to push.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, in eastern Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: The UN Secretary-General is condemning those deadly attacks on Russian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region.

FOSTER: Antonio Guterres says attacks on civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law. And it's, quote, unacceptable and must stop immediately.

A Russian-appointed official says at least 28 civilians were killed across the region. Still to come, as Ron DeSantis drops out of the White House race,

President Biden's campaign is preparing for a possible rematch with his rival, Donald Trump. The details on that just ahead.

NOBILO: And a health scare for yet another member of the British royal family. What the Duchess of York is facing when we return.